In a forgotten world, full of legends and wonders, war wasn’t a reality anymore. Every civilization learned from its mistake after one of the worst genocides happened 100 years before, in a fight to extinguish what they called the “Demon race”, evil beings in a human body, wielders of tremendous powers, just one of them was capable of killing over 100 soldiers and a global alliance was needed to stop them.
But all of this, it’s just another story forgotten by the common people, while the kings won’t forget that and even if the alliance doesn’t exist anymore, they will do everything in their power to stop that evil race again in case they reappear…but they forget something. They are just humans, far more limited than those who wield power and the scary events happening at the time were proof of that.
Sightings of human-like monsters with one arm completely black with red stripes across it, going around kingdoms and killing innocent people. Identifying them was difficult, they could disappear in thin air and even if someone had the luck to see them without being noticed, they couldn’t tell their appearance because their body was covered by a brown cloak, apart from that one arm. Some hopeful people would say that it was still a good place to start and some temporary laws to forbid cloaks or other clothes capable of hiding the entire body would have been enough to capture the mysterious group that was doing that. The kings from every country heard those citizens and applied those new laws, and for those first days, they seemed to work. The death count was close to zero and those monsters weren’t sighted anymore…until one day, one appeared in the middle of a plaza full of people. The “Monster” was quickly noticed by a citizen and alerted the guards, who shortly after evacuated the area and surrounded it, they were equipped with spears and heavy iron armour.
One of them shouted, “Show your left arm now!”.
The monster, without complaining, did as they ordered and showed its left arm and it was as described, black with red stripes across it, plus the fingertips were pointy.
With fear, some of the guards started mumbling
“So the rumours were real.”
“These monsters really exist…”
“We should kill it now-”
The same guard as before shouted “SILENCE!” and the other guards quickly shut their mouths.
“Now.” The guard said while pointing the spear at the monster “Show us your face.”
The top of the cloak covering the head of the monster slowly disappeared into thin air revealing the monster’s appearance. A woman with short white hair and purple eyes, but the face was hollow, it didn’t seem like she had eaten for quite some time, otherwise, she would have seemed a beautiful woman in her thirties.
The guards seemed shocked, not for the appearance itself but for the fact she seemed too human for a monster.
“State your name and why you and your group are going around the world killing innocent people.” the guard ordered but the girl didn’t obey this time.
“...I’ll ask again. State your name and why you and your group are killing innocent people.” the guard said again and this time the woman spoke.
“Death shall come upon you, traitors.”
Without the time to react, the guards were crashed from above by an unknown force, their blood raptured out like an explosion, staining around and on the woman’s cloak and face. People from a distance saw the scene and started running away in panic…shortly after, the same thing happened to them.
On that day, over a thousand people died in that city, the few people that saw that managed to survive denounced her to the authorities and soon, a bounty on her head was placed. Because they didn’t know her name, she was temporarily called “The Witch”.
———
Days passed and more people were dying, the only change was the way the victims were killed. Some were impaled, others decapitated or split in half, others eviscerated probably while still alive and others drained of their blood through numerous cuts on their bodies.
Fear was spreading all over the world and the global alliance was reformed. One day, all the heads of the different countries reunited as a council in the war room’s castle of the Ankvaian Kingdom, the world’s strongest country, to find a solution to this madness.
With all the 10 “Big Shots” around a circular table, the meeting continued for hours and they were far from finding a solution, all the ideas being full of weak points and doubts, with the tension being strong in the room and hope slowly fading away…when suddenly, the doors were destroyed and one of the guards flew on the table and broke it because of the heavy gold armour.
All their attention was directed to the door and a woman was calmly entering the room. White hair, purple eyes, hollow face. It was her, The Witch.
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The room was silent, fear was palpable and all the eyes were on her.
“So…that zombie is the witch? Are you kidding with me?” The silence was broken by a king of the second most powerful Kingdom, he was fat, short and with a gaze that showed how full of himself was.
“It could be my fucking grandma.” he continued to say.
“Shut up! You are risking your life!” another king whispered to me.
“I’m not risking my life! Look!” the short king walked towards the witch and stood at her left side. “She’s just a harmless granny!” he said and started laughing.
“RUN AWAY!” one of the other big shots screamed at him.
“Why sh-” Before the short king could finish his sentence the woman stood in front of him, took the man for his neck with the right hand and immediately after the other hand, the black one, went into his stomach. While he was screaming, the woman pulled out his stomach, wrapped it around his neck tightly and used some kind of magic to make it hard as a rock and impossible to remove. The king tried everything to remove it and even implored the woman with a rough voice and pitiful face, while slowly dying and falling on his knees. But the woman looked at him coldly for the entire time and once he died, she turned around, sat on the short king’s chair and said
“From today, I’ll be in charge. Whoever is contrary to this, please stand up.”
Of the nine kings remaining, just 2 stood up. The woman disappeared and appeared behind one of the two kings, touched him with her left arm on the shoulder and repeated the same thing with the other one, then sat again. Shortly after, the two kings started ageing truly fast and in a matter of seconds, they were a bunch of skeletons that fell on the ground.
The Witch started speaking “Now, I’ll start explaining your sins. The first one: your ancestors killed innocent people you still call today “Devils” and it seems like you are trying to do everything to hide this whole historical event from the masses. Anything to say?”
No one spoke, scared there could be consequences.
“...ok. Second sin: Your ancestors killed and then denied the existence of the Emperor and its people, who once was loved by m- I mean by the Gods and-”
One of the kings, a truly religious one, couldn’t keep his anger and stood up while shouting “The gods loved that demon?! And who are you to say that?! Some kind of messenger?!”
The Witch looked at him and said calmly “I’m a Wanderer. My race wields the powers to control time and space, the Gods created us to keep the balance between Zonnikies, the people you call demons, and you humans. Now tell me, why do you think I’m here? Finish what I was going to say.”
The religious man started pondering out loud “...because our ancestors killed them and we rubbed salt on the wound by trying to forget the events and now…the Gods hate us…” As someone who has always been a strong believer in the Trinity, saying those words was more than heartbreaking, it was like the whole world fell on him.
The Witch remained silent and shortly after the religious king’s body was crushed against the ground by an unknown force.
She resumed speaking “There are other minor sins, but I won’t waste my breath on them. From now on, this council will be important to decide the humans’ fate and you’ll work for me and the Gods as a way to repent. This closes the first reunion of the Council, see you next month.”
After that, the woman disappeared and the remaining kings looked at the corpses, slowly realizing they were powerless and always will be.
———
Years passed, and while the situation with humans seemed good, meanwhile the relations between Zonnikies and Gods were worsening because of some individual called “Samriel” who wanted the complete freedom of the Zonnikies from the Gods' control and rules, being too restricted, always looking at every single movement and favouriting the humans too much. For these reasons, a bloody war against the Gods started.
Many Wanderers joined the Zonnikies’ side for the same reasons since their rules were even more restricted and even The Witch joined but with a different objective, which was killing Samriel. Everyone knew he was the one who planned everything in the past, he was the one who told the Emperor’s past and caused a rebellion in his homeland but no one wanted to do anything because he was the second closest person to the Gods and they always had faith in him. Thanks to that connection, he discovered the Wanderer’s existence, which otherwise would have been completely unknown because of their strict rules¹. The Witch decided to wait for the right moment to kill him.
The war continued for hundreds of years and because of this alliance between Zonnikies and Wanderers, the Gods lost and almost all of them fell into a deep slumber, while one of them disappeared without a trace.
After that, Zonnikies took place as the heads of the different countries on earth and formed a new Council, that still exists in the present. There was finally some peace…the perfect time for the Witch to strike, or at least that’s what she thought the night before her death. Someone ambushed her and she died in a quick but violent fight. Her last thought was about the Emperor, the person she truly loved, whose death destroyed her so much that she stopped caring about the Gods and cursed at them for not saving their “loved” child, they responded by accelerating her ageing process which quickly caused her the loss of appetite, but that didn’t matter to her. She wanted just one thing, revenge and continued to act on her own with that one objective in mind until she met her end.
She was on the ground and as she was taking her last breaths, visible because of the cold air of that night, she touched her right arm which was full of scars just like her back, symbols of the punishments she had to tolerate for disobeying their rules so many times, meanwhile, she could her father’s words
“Why?! Why you must be like this?! Why can’t you act like a normal Wanderer?! Your love for that person will destroy our family!!” his words were followed by the crack of a whip and remembering that sound made the woman’s body close in a fetal position.
‘Family’ that word was so unfamiliar to her. ‘Wanderers never treat each other as family and they will never be². My true family was…” while her eyes were closing, she put her hand on her belly and that was her last movement.