I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder as we attempted to leave the fiery hell in front of us. Running as fast as I could I jumped and swerved out of the way of falling buildings. The smoke caused me to be momentarily blinded, the closer I got to buildings, so I tried my best to stay away from them. Not only that, I didn’t want any embers flying off of buildings and onto us, potentially setting our clothing on fire.

The solid ground became clay ground, which made it harder to run away; however, I still pushed every being in my body to get through the clay as quickly as I could. When we got to the rock wall I placed her down behind me and told her to climb and that I would be right behind her.

“But I don’t want to go. My mother is back there.”

“Honey, you have to go. There’s no other option.”

“Yes there is, I can wait here for my mother.”

I bent down to the girl and said, “Your mother’s not coming. She’s dead.”

“NO!!!” The girl yelled as she burst into tears.

Wanting to get the girl to safety I hoisted the girl up on the rock wall and yelled, “Climb!! Or I’ll leave you there.” The girl didn’t move so I placed my foot onto the rock and began climbing to the top myself.

Once I got to the top I looked down and noticed that the girl still wasn’t moving. However, unlike when I first hoisted her onto the rock, the girl was now frozen with fear; fear of never seeing her mother again. Taking pity on the girl I made my way down to her and said, “Here, get on my back. I’ll help you over.”

With a worried look in her eyes the girl cautiously linked her arms around my legs and clung her legs around my waist. In my ear I could hear her heavy breathing and I could feel her body shaking against my back. As much as I wanted to comfort her, and make her feel safe, I had to focus on climbing the rock and not falling; for both our sakes.

Once were both safely on the ground I lowered her to the ground. The girl refused to let go of me once she was firmly on the ground. I loosed her grip on me as I lowered down to talk to her. Unlike when I first saw her, I could now make out small details on her face and arms underneath a light layer of ash that covered her entire body. I raised my hand up to her face to wipe off some of the ash, but she flinched and wouldn’t let me touch her. “Okay I won’t touch your face. Can I see your arm?” Being a little weary she stretched her arm out, just far enough away from her body that her elbow didn’t touch her body. Even though it wasn’t much I could see something under the ash. I gently took my hands and while holding her arm with one hand I gently brushed off the ash off the lower part of her arm.

When her arm was clear I noticed an unusual pattern on it. I carefully lifted her arm closer and saw that the pattern wasn’t like anything I had seen before. At first it just looked like she had dark spots covering her arm, but upon closer examination I noticed that the so called spots had spots within them. Each individual spot had a center that looked like crust from a fire and the outer part hand imprinted rings that grew bigger the closer to the edge it got.

In fear of what this meant I took a giant step back and looked at the girl. Every piece of skin that was visible had these spots all over it.

Seeing the fear in my eyes the girl took a step forward and while tilting her head to the side she sweetly said, “What’s wrong?”

I took another step backwards, while not taking my eyes off of the girl. Nonetheless, whenever I took a step backwards she took a step towards me. I finally stopped, to see what she had to say, but when I did her eyes glowed bright yellow and she kept coming towards me.

I turned away from the girl and began to run away, because I didn’t know what she was and I didn’t want to stick around to find out. The solid ground made it much easier to run; however, when I looked behind me to see if the girl was following me I tripped and fell on a small rock. With quick reflexes I was able to land on my hands and knees. They scrapped on the ground as I hit the pebbles below me. Not knowing where the girl was I quickly got onto my feet to keep running. But as I got up there she was. Standing in front of me.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

She tilted her head to the side again and sweetly said, “Where are you going?” As she took a step towards me she said, “I thought you were taking me some place safe.”

I clenched my fists and said, “There’s nowhere safe when there’s monsters like you running around.”

“I’m no monster. I’m just a little girl who lost her mother in a fire.”

“No you’re not, you’re a monster!! You were probably one of the things that started that fire.” As I stood there she slowly she slowly walked around me.

“Okay you caught me. I’m the one who started that fire back in the village. But you have to admit I had you going for a while there. Thinking I was a sweet, innocent child that needed protection from the big bad world.”

“It’s because of things like you that make me want to protect those innocents.”

“Oh common, you have to admit I’m not all bad.”

“YOU KILLED A VILLAGE FULL OF PEOPLE; INCLUDING YOUR OWN MOTHER!!”

“Pfff way to look at the negative side of things.”

In shock I slightly shook my head back and forth and said, “What other side is there?!”

“The side that doesn’t make me look like a bad person. But a hero.”

“If that was your goal than you failed at it. Big time.”

Being able to see her face now I could see a proud smile on her face as she said, “I like to think of it as I saved those people from a lifetime of suffering. They were going to die anyways, so I just sped up the process.”

“That’s so not that same thing. Dying naturally and being murdered are two completely different things!!”

With a pout on her face she said, “Now that’s just mean.”

In shock again I said, “Really, murdering people is fine but comparing murder to natural death that’s the line?!”

“What? I like creating destruction. I don’t like waiting for it to happen.”

I clenched my fists tighter and said, “You’re sick you know that?”

“I like to think of myself as a type of genius.”

I couldn’t take this back and forth anymore, so I lifted my right fist and swung around ready to punch the girl as hard as I could. But she swiped her hand sideways sending me flying to the side and hitting the ground.

Before I could realize what had happened she walked up to me and said, “That was rude. We were having a perfectly nice talk and then you go and do something like that.” She stood next to me and said, “I thought you were better than that.” She waved her hand again and sent me flying backwards before I could think of a response.

I attempted to get up but before I could sit up I was thrown back further and further back until I crashed into the trunk of a thick tree. My head snapped backwards, and I could hear my back crack under the pressure that was put on it. Unable to catch myself I fell on my face and I felt my nose snap. Not only was my nose now broken but my face was covered in bruises and dirt.

In agony I couldn’t speak a single word. All I could do was watch the girl come at me and I wasn’t able to do anything about it. My eyes began to fill up with tears as I prayed that she wouldn’t harm me anymore. I closed my eyes as tight as I could, not wanting to see what would happen next. Just then I felt my body burn, as if I was in the middle of a hell flame, and I screamed out in misery.

When I opened my eyes I was back in the house that was falling apart, and I was next to the cardboard boxes where Sam was taken.