Chapter Three
Sarah
Standing at the edge of a remote beach shore, Sarah felt the cool sea breeze ruffle her long golden hair. The crashing waves whispered their way up to the edge of Sarah’s black leather boots. The beautiful young woman with sapphire eyes, stands completely dumbfounded, physically looking down at a crazed coffee toned little girl with a rock on her head. The little one stood proud and tall with her arms flared out to each side and a huge smile on her face, looking as if she were about to give somebody an inviting hug.
Sarah stood in complete bewilderment, uncertain of what to make of the strange situation she found herself in. She was having a hard time remembering the moments just before she assumed her attackers knocked her on the head. In one moment she was surrounded, with no feasible way to escape, and in the other, nothing. And now she found herself surrounded by the unconscious bodies of her attackers, and what she could only assume was a delusional kidnapped child proclaiming to be some sort of deity.
Nëmi skips her way towards Sarah, the large blue coat she wore, trailing behind the little girl like a celestial cape. “You know Miss Sarah, you have really pretty eyes. You must really be special huh.” The little girl's ethereal voice was soothing to the ear, and even alleviated a pounding headache Sarah had brewing in her head and clouding her memory.
“Wait , how do you know my name?” Sarah asked.
“Oh, I found it on this thingy muh-bob.” Nëmi sticks her hand in the coat she wore, grabbing a hold of the golden gun within the inner pocket and presents it to Sarah.
“Jesus kid…” Sarah says under her breath as she walks up holding her hand out as to suggest to Nëmi to give the weapon over. Nëmi, able to take a hint, complies. “You’re lucky you didn’t hurt yourself with this.” Sarah says in a concerned tone.
“What do you mean?” Nëmi asks with a confused look on her face as Sarah inspects the pistol with a keen eye.
“What I mean is that it's not a toy for some kid to be playing around with. Then again…” Sarah again takes a look at her surroundings, seeing all the bodies on the floor.
Sarah didn’t want to believe it, but based on what she saw, she could only conclude that Nëmi somehow managed to get a few lucky shots in and somehow caused the mess around the two. But as Sarah ejected the magazine she noted that it was still full. Completely bewildered, Sarah begins to look back towards Nëmi's direction, only to be met with Nëmi’s literal glowing eyes.
“Run…”
Sarah suddenly felt an instinctual urge to run away from this seemingly innocent little girl. Nëmi stood completely still, a little too still, with her eyes wide open and a smile on her face. Although seemingly innocent, accompanied by her neutral, expressionless eyes, the little girl’s smile seemed to carry a sense of malice within it.
Sarah could immediately tell that this was no ordinary girl. Nëmi’s silver hair could be easily explained by being dyed but the way it subtly gave a pearlescent hue of blue and purple, like a pearl shining in the sunlight, was something else to say the least. The rock on her head was strange, but not really something Sarah would put off as unusual for what she could only assume was a twelve-year-old to do. But there was something about the little one's eyes, that Sarah could not shake off and shook her to her core. Despite that, Sarah chalked up her feelings to recently escaping a near death experience. After all, the simple rags Nëmi wore underneath Sarah’s coat, suggested that she was the one who needed help the most. Sarah wouldn’t feel right if she just left this girl in the middle of nowhere due to her own misguided feelings.
“Hey kid, what are you doing all the way out here by yourself?”
“I dunno.” Nëmi simply shrugged her shoulders. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t even know where I am. I just picked a random spot to land in and found you all here.” Nëmi said as she turned around, facing all the men she had taken out earlier.
“Okay kid listen,” Sarah said, resting her hand on Nëmi’s shoulder, attempting to give the little one a sense of comfort.. “We need to get you some help. Are you hurt? Did these guys do anything to you?”
“No, I’m fine.” Nëmi said nonchalantly, shaking her head and turning to face Sarah. Nëmi smiled with her eyes closed at Sarah. This time however, Nëmi’s smile was genuine and had a childlike innocence behind it. “Thank you for asking though, you really are a nice person aren't you Miss Sarah.”
Sarah is taken aback by Nëmi’s words for a second, before chuckling at those very same words.
“I guess it just depends on who you ask, kiddo.” Sarah holsters her gun in a brown leather pouch she had strapped to her upper right thigh. She reaches her hand into her pant pocket, pulling out her phone to check the time. Almost immediately however, Nëmi swipes Sarah's phone straight out of her hands before Sarah could even react.
“Woah! What is this!? Is it magic!?” Nëmi exclaimed with a sense of childlike wonder as she dug her nose into the illuminated screen.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
“What? You can’t seriously tell me you don’t know what a phone is.”
“A phone?” Nëmi was in complete awe at the glowing piece of glass she held in her hand when it then turned off and the screen faded to black. “Eh!” Nëmi panics. Thinking that she had just broken the device, she holds the phone behind her back, hiding it from Sarah.
“What are you doing kid? I’m going to need that back” Sarah says, sticking her hand out. But Nëmi ignores Sarah, looking away towards the endless expanse of water beside them and begins to whistle. Sarah grunts, as Nëmi’s little act begins to annoy her. “Seriously kid, that’s not yours, give it back!” Sarah demands as she begins to reach around the little girl who surprisingly displayed monstrous strength.
At first, Sarah tried nudging the little girl over to get to her phone. But She ended up pushing Nëmi with all her might but the mysterious little girl would not budge. “Christ! What the hell are you made of? Pure titanium!?” Sarah exclaimed as she let herself fall back onto the soft sands of the beach.
Nëmi begins to glance over to Sarah, repeatedly making eye contact and then quickly looking away.
“I’m… sorry…” Nëmi softly said as she looked straight down at her feet in shame.
“What’s the matter kid? Shit, did I hurt you? I should have known better than to push that hard.” Sarah said with remorse.
Nëmi shakes her head “no it’s not that. You see, I…” Nëmi then holds the phone out. “I broke it.”
Sarah looks at the sleeping phone, now understanding Nëmi’s hesitation in returning her phone. Sarah’s sighs, softening her voice to reassure Nëmi that she did nothing wrong.
“You really don’t know what a phone is, do you?” Sarah said as she grabbed the phone off of Nëmi’s open palm. “You didn’t break anything. It does that if you don’t use it. Look.” Sarah walks around Nëmi, squatting down and getting shoulder to shoulder with the little girl to show her how the phone works. At the press of a button, Sarah turns on the phone again, unlocking at the sight of Sarah’s face.
“Whoah!” Nëmi’s child-like curiosity amazes her at the simplest of things. Sarah couldn't help but admire the child-like innocence Nëmi displayed, allowing Sarah to loosen up and relax around the little girl.
“Shit, no signal.” Sarah begrudgingly said, standing back up and biting the tip of her thumb.
Sarah begins to focus, but then notices the fixation Nëmi still had on the phone Sarah held in her hand. In order to get a clear idea of her situation, Sarah decided to hand over her phone to Nëmi in order to let the little one ease whatever stress she may have had. “Here kid go ham.” Sarah said as she sat back down on the beach shore with her legs crossed.
“Yay!” Nëmi joyfully took the phone off Sarah’s hand, and began swiping and tapping away at the screen at random.
Sarah began to enter a state of deep thought, drowning out the world around her, trying to rationalise the situation she was in. In this deep state of meditation, Sarah attempted to plan her next move, but Sarah couldn't make heads or tails of the situation. This little girl only made the fog in her head feel like a thick cloud of uncertainty. Not only did she not remember seeing this child before she lost consciousness, but the fact that the very same girl was acting so calmly about the whole situation, threw Sarah for a loop.
Unbeknownst to Sarah, Nëmi could hear the sound of clothes slowly and subtly dragging across the soft sands of the beach they were on. Sarah, unable to hear what Nëmi could, due to the crashing waves that washed their way just beneath Sarah. Completely lost in her own world Sarah stares up at Nëmi who continues opening and closing random apps with the same eerie smile she had earlier.
“RUN!!!”
Sarah’s subconscious kept nagging at her, every ounce of will told her to leave this child behind for her own sake. But Sarah kept shaking these thoughts as irrational due to an adrenaline high or some other reason she couldn’t explain. But the aura around the girl truly was something out of this world. Sarah could not get a read of the little one to save her life. It was as if this mystery child had a mixture of ambient tranquillity, and terrifying uncertainty.
“Hey kid, what exactly happened here?” Sarah was at a dead end in her own mind, the only reasonable way to get a clearer picture of anything was by getting an outside perspective.
“Hm? What do you mean? Are you talking about your friends over there?” Nëmi spoke up while her attention seemed to be glued to Sarah’s phone.
“They’re not my friends, but yeah, what happened to them? How’d they end up knocked out on the floor?” Sarah was truly doubtful Nëmi would give any reasonable explanation, but decided it didn’t hurt to ask anyway.
“Yeah, I didn't think so, they were being pretty mean to you after I bonked you on the head.” Nëmi then lifted her head, glancing at Sarah who was sitting next to her just to say. “Sorry about that by the way.” Then seemingly returning her attention back to the phone “But I think I scared them after showing them who I was and I had to take them out.”
Nëmi did this to properly apologise to Sarah, but also to get a better understanding of what was going on behind her. Nëmi could immediately tell one of the men she had taken out earlier had now woken up and was trying to sneakily crawl his way over to the two. However, seeing it as no immediate threat, Nëmi decided to see how things would play out. What were the man's intentions and how would Sarah react? This was a life Nëmi had been longing for. A life where things were out of her control and people acted on their own free will. The excitement filled Nëmi to no end causing her eerie smile to only grow larger.
Sarah however had no idea what was going on in the little one’s head. She only saw Nëmi’s creepy smile span from ear to ear. But before Sarah could even think of saying anything else she heard the subtle grunts of a man behind her. Sarah quickly turns over, only to see a man who had crawled his way to one of the many rifles on the floor.
“HEY KID WATCH IT!” Sarah instinctively stands up and puts herself in between the child and the threat in front of her. Sarah unholsters her weapon and begins to aim it towards the man who already had Nëmi locked on his sights. Unfortunately, the split second decision Sarah made in putting herself in front of Nëmi like a shield, gave the nameless goon just enough time to gain the upper hand.
Sarah’s heart pounced, beginning to regret moving without thinking first, and her eyes widened wider than they ever had before. She stared straight down the barrel of a fully loaded rifle and directly at death's door. Sarah’s life flashes before her eyes, finally remembering seeing the strange little girl she was protecting, directly above her staring deep into her celestial silver eyes. Sarah’s memories come flooding back to here when the deafening sound of a single gunshot rings through the air.