Soft crackles of the flames radiated warmth in the lax evening. Despite this, anyone witnessing the event would find the sight chilling. Deadwood was swallowed by the towering flames. Yet, no one in the crowd was panicking. For it was not their home that was being burnt.

The flames rose and licked her feet, leaving scorching marks of black on her skin. Tied helpless with thick rope, it felt like dark chains were holding her waist. Her head spun as her neck lulled around limply under the thick smoke. Illusions from the mind’s eye made the tightened chains feel like the embrace of the devil. Perhaps they had been right.

Her arms flared in pain and her legs were charred. One of her arms ached from struggling continuously, stretching and unwinding the rope to no avail. The other arm ached from the flames brought upon the very people who had trusted her, the flames in their eyes burned almost as much as the ones that were burning her face.

But what had hurt the most, was the stray thought that passed her. ‘Where is she…?’ Under all of the screams and tears forced out by the flames through her throat, she was afraid of something more. Is her daughter not here? Did that mean they’d gotten her? Or had she escaped? Is she among the crowd?

Had she seen her mother in such a sorry state?

It became too much. The air itself was drowning under all of the jeers and pelted rocks being thrown around. It felt like sticking your head into a beehive, full of echoing sentiments of hostility that would slowly kill your mind if you weren’t already dead by a thousand stings.

Her clothes withered to the abyss and her soul had already left her body. She had given up even before the rancid smell of a burnt corpse began to seep through the air. Bringing gloom to all but the people present.

“The witch is gone! She’ll no longer harm us!” “Right, right. To the fire she goes!”

Words full of hate overlapped one another in a disgustingly harmonic fashion. The crowds roughly bumped into one another in their frenzied state, the brutal show doubled as a welcoming reassurance for them. None had reacted to the coppery smell. Some of the adults even brought their children as a means to show them what ‘justice’ looks like.

‘This isn’t right…’ One child in particular, despaired at the sight. She could not put into words the feeling of slowly watching your mother, your most loved one, die. She could feel her eyes sting as she held back hot tears, feeling as if the fire somehow reached her face and burned her eyes.

The girl could feel something beginning to rise out of her throat, and it wasn’t words. Only barely did she cover her mouth in time, resisting the urge to puke all out on the floor. She lifted her arm and swiped the tears off her face, dampening her light sleeves. Holding her arm to her face, she tried desperately to quiet her sobs.

Like flickering flames, on and off, she couldn’t decide what she was feeling. Unending hate towards everyone around her? The crushing grief of sudden loss? If her emotions were a pool of water under the sun, swirling inwards. Then it felt as if fresh charcoal was dumped into the liquid.

‘Please, quiet down…’ She whimpered, the jeers and insults were too much. Carelessly thrown around with a person that only did good for them and received nothing in return but this.

Her hands shook, not in fear as it had moments prior to the gruesome death, but in horror of the cruelty in this world. She strained her neck to keep her head down, afraid to peek.

–

She ran with no signs of stopping. With every step, her legs wobbled and her bones felt close to breaking. The soles of her feet were sore, ready to fall off at any second. Tears piled on her cheeks and ran down her chin, forming tiny puddles on the grassy ground. Her heart was racing and her chest ached in pain. Like rumbling clouds, her sobs bubbled in her chest. Ready to burst and bare the world her grief.

She took notice of an alley, between two stone-walled buildings. A church and an orphanage. Oddly enough, only one of the two was painted with vibrant colors. But she ignored that in favor of the chance to hide.

Wasting no time, she quickly entered before she fell to her knees.

For what felt like an hour, she sat there. She had tucked herself to the corner of the dark alley, blending into the shadows. From afar, she seemed much smaller curled up. She was still exhausted from the exertion she put her body through.

She had to wonder. Why did she decide to hide? Was it to hide from the people that hunted for her? Or was it to hide the pain and grief that would prone people to use her in her weakened state? She only knew that she had to hide.

The dark alleyway felt cold. Wind seemed to blow an iceless gale throughout the alley. Every puff of breath felt like they would have made tiny clouds, but they didn’t. The clothing she wore did little to warm her, almost as if they weren’t even there. Her fingers felt numb and her cheeks burned, but it wasn’t cold.

It was calming in a way. Comfort in the form of nature’s indifference, different from the warmth of familiarity. ‘This likely isn’t natural though.’ She thought.

Suddenly, the thick clothes that hugged her frame felt tighter than it was moments ago. Almost to the point of suffocating her. It was uncomfortable, like multiple bonfires were being lit around her. The pleasant cold that captured her mind moments before had completely vanished.

She couldn’t understand what was happening. And though by now she realized it was an illusion, she was helpless to stop it.

Helpless against the changing climate in her own head. The layer of sweat that wrapped around her body became hot then cold rapidly and made her head spin. She felt as though she didn’t belong in her own skin. The confusing mix of emotions that filled her to the brim warped into something else entirely.

Had she been in a better mood– a writer’s mood– she would have said that it was as if her soul was leaving her body.

–

Like a dying fire, the crushing feeling in her chest faded. Despite this, every twitch of movement felt light, unnaturally so. It made her worry that she would trip and fall when she decided to stand up. The strange feeling wasn’t something she noticed until it suddenly felt like she could move again. As if the metal bindings that existed only in her head disappeared.

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With a soft groan, she stood up. Her earlier worries were for naught when she took steps– albeit shakily– forward.

She felt a swell of pride for standing up, the pleasant feeling filled up the hole that had appeared in her heart. But the feeling quickly faded the next few steps. She felt like a child learning how to walk again. Except, she somehow expected her mother to hold her hand, even when she knew that she was gone.

‘Stupid.’ She thought.

Like a statue made of stone, she froze completely still. She couldn’t take any more steps forward as her spirit was snuffed by the feeling of uncertainty. ‘Where do I even want to go?’ She thought. The previous steps forward felt pointless as it did aimless. She had been going forwards with little thought.

‘Where can I even go?’

The question hit her like a boar hitting a fence. Forget about her dreams of writing and learning, she didn’t even know step one of survival. A well of frustration pooled in her head as thoughts ran through her head with panic. ‘Those men, are they still out to get me?!’

Like a child, looking to see if they’ll get caught stealing cookies, she snapped her head side to side rapidly. Only, the situation is less ideal. She scanned the area to find it empty, like deadwaters at night.

She held her hands together, forcing herself to calm down. ‘It wouldn’t do to panic like this.’ Even as she thought this, she had trouble keeping herself from bolting out the streets right there and then. Taking deep breaths, she eventually came to a point of rational thought.

She gathered her thoughts as best as she could and organized what resources she had in her head. It was unlikely that they would get her now when they could’ve earlier. She thought for a few moments, before she hesitated. Was she wasting time? Without an adult to guide her, she felt as if she could make a terrible mistake at any moment.

‘I’ll likely die on the first misstep…’

A soft flap brought her attention. A stray piece of parchment flew in the air, lightly grazing the ground once in a while before taking off once more. Slowly, she brought one of her hands to her other palm. As she was listing things down in her head, she vaguely wrote them down on her palm with her finger, her face deep in concentration.

Even if she feels uncertainty with every step, she still needs to move forward. She recalled the stories she’s read with inspiring protagonists. Remembering how they got out of every terrible situation they were put in, she based her next steps off of them. Some were more radical than the others but it was a start.

After finding herself confident with her memory, she began thinking of how she would gain the things she needed. It was roughly an hour when her thought process was interrupted, though to her, it only felt like minutes. She felt stuck over a particular item that was tricky to come across, her eyes were unfocused but slowly drifted upwards in her thinking.

The girl was met with pure darkness. The vantablack was lit only by the moonlight.

Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘How long was I out here?!’ She practically yelled in her mind. Sighing, she wondered if she had enough time to break through this step of her plan. ‘I’ve been out here long enough to bring the night in.’ The girl felt mild irritation at losing track of time.

She stretched from her seat on the floor, having sat down just minutes after her hour-long brainstorming began.

Hopping to her feet, she felt a jolt run up her legs. Instantly, she was hit with nausea and stumbled to keep herself upright. Her head spun despite staying still. She had to wait for it to pass before she could move again. The lightness that haunted her limbs returned full force and then some. Gently, she brushed off the dust that may have stuck onto her skirt.

The girl was wearing a white dress shirt. On top of it, she had a dark blue overdress with sleeves that reached a little short of her shirt’s cuffs. The dress reached just below her knees and matched the color of her pants. Over the bottom sleeves of her pants, she had dark boots, made of mostly cloth rather than leather. Her short brown hair reached her nape and curled slightly inward to her face, subtly pointing towards her eyes. They were light red, like pale roses.

She could hear her stomach growling. Looking towards the alleyway’s opening with a faraway look, she realized she could no longer stay here much longer. Night was far more dangerous than its counterpart and she couldn’t think straight with an empty stomach anyway.

How she pushed off her hunger for an hour was a mystery.

Before she left however, she looked around what had been her safespace for the past hour. The walls were plain, almost identical to one another. Though one of the two was painted with vibrant colors, they both seemed bland under the moonlight.

What caught her eye were the marks on both walls. The church’s wall had what seemed like names she didn’t recognize. There were three in number. Her eyes drifted downwards to see sharp pebbles. There were only two, which led her to wonder where the last one went.

Shaking her thoughts off, she turned to the orphanage's walls. Unlike the church’s, it was painted gray. Something about that didn’t sit very well with her, filling her with an uneasy feeling. Opting to place her focus on something else, she noticed what seemed like crude drawings. It looked like something, but she couldn’t figure out what.

In the end, she decided to head home. All the way, she held paranoia that someone would recognize her. Shifting her eyes between the poorly-lit houses and structures in the night.

–

The girl reached her house without any issues. The path to her house was dead quiet with no one around. She couldn’t tell if that was worse than shifting through a crowded path. Nonetheless, She decided not to question it.

Now, standing still after closing her door, she feels incredibly tired. Her weight felt too much for her feet and her eyelids were heavy.

Despite this, she knew in the back of her mind that wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. With that thought in mind, she stalked to the kitchen like a corpse trying to find sustenance. After grabbing some bread, she bit into it and pulled out a wooden chair from under her table with her free hand. She was in her room, finding more comfort than in the kitchen.

The girl sat down, finally observing the taste of her bread. It was hard and its texture was rough, it was tasteless but she didn’t mind it as much as she would’ve in any other day. Simply too tired to care. Her eyes shifted lazily to the left side of her table.

Said wooden table was tucked in the corner of her room, right next to the open window behind her. Across the open window sat her bed, in the other corner next to her table’s own corner.

With little hesitation, she reached to the darkness and pulled out something thin. In her hands, she held a quill. After that, she reached into the darkness once more. This time, to her right. Once she had both quill and parchment, she began writing.

Deciding to spend her time destressing using her favorite activity, she wrote tales about magic and heroes. Sometimes, they ended in tragedy. In other times, it was simply short stories of everyday life of the common folk that she happened to find interesting.

The girl didn't let herself be fooled however. She knew that wasn’t making great use of her time. She should be sleeping, perhaps, but she also knew that she wouldn’t be able to. ‘I would fight to live.’ She vowed, but she felt like she had done enough.

‘For today at least.’

The girl was in a state of weariness and stress, both clashing and leaving her exhausted either way. It took several tales and hours later that she felt her eyelids close by themselves. On her face, she held not a smile. But she did not frown neither.