My life had become far from what I had been raised with. I found that I no longer required food and water must be absorbed with great caution. Absorbing it prevented wind erosion and damage to the runic network that now defined my existence. But too much water could cause an entirely different form of erosion and damage. The true curse was my ignorance. Neither my father nor the man in the cloak informed me of those who now hunted me.

I had been told I was a walking taboo but I had seen no mirror nor had I stared into a lake on a calm day. Unaware of the face I wore, I traveled into town to seek companionship and potential shelter beyond the tattered remains of childhood lost. While only a short distance down the road, I was still a child in my own mind. My new form knew nothing of fatigue, much to my relief at the time, so the distance wore only on my impatient mind. As I crossed into the outer edges of the town, I looked into the eyes of the confused townsfolk and smiled. I approached them to explain only to have them retreat to their homes.

This repulsion should have been my first hint at what was to come, but I hadn’t the slightest understanding of why anyone would seek harm on a little girl looking for a home. Fearlessly and foolishly, I pushed forward into the heart of town. Surely someone would be willing to take me into their home. As I traveled further and further in, I began to find less and less people. Each one I saw ran away in what seemed like a growing terror. Panic slowly began to grip my mind, and would have gripped my chest if I still had organs. I began to shout, looking for anyone who would talk to me. I went up to one of the doors and started to pound on it, my heart breaking as I asked to be let in. If I was capable of crying, I would have been drowning in my own tears. Eventually, in my outrage, I broke one of the doors off its hinges. I was surprised at my own strength, but more I was hurt by the look of fear gripping the family whose home I had just broken into.

As I walked closer, they pulled away from me as far as they could until the father stepped forward and shouted, “Abomination! Leave my family alone!” His face distorted from fear alone to disgust and anger. I tried to ask him why he was afraid of me but I couldn’t form the words. As I looked along the walls, my eyes eventually rested on a well polished sword. As distant as it was from me, I could see a monster from my nightmares. Sunken holes where eyes should be, a tangled bramble of thorny branches like a rose bush not yet in bloom the mouth was a rough crevice lined with jagged stones. As I approached the blade, I began to realize the terrifying visage was my own.

The man, fearing I was arming myself, took the blade from the wall, pointing it at me with menace. Understanding his fear, I felt a desperation to reassure him. To tell him that I’m just a lost little girl. As he tried to bring the blade down on me, the last hope to put their minds at ease vanished. I raised my arms to defend myself and a spire of stone rose between us, piercing the man through his forearms and lifting him from the ground. As the spire pierced the roof it brought my attacker with it, his sword clattering to the rooftop as his debris battered face passed into unconsciousness.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Horrified and afraid at what had just happened, I ran from the house and went right back up the trail to my home. The time passed much faster in my desperate flight. When I got home I ran to the cellar and jumped into the ruined remains of my bed, pulling the tattered blanket over myself. Again my inability to cry did not stop the tears in my heart. I do not know how much time passed after that, and at the time I didn’t care. It was only as the sound of armored boots began to find its way to the cellar that I felt my fear rise. Metal boots meant soldiers. I didn’t know if I could be killed but I didn’t intend to test that, even as a child.

Grabbing my father’s scattered books from the cellar and sprinting for the doors out of the basement, I ran. I ran as fast and as hard as my tireless legs would carry me. As I did, I eventually collided with a young warrior in pitch black armor, an odd spiral etched into his armor. As I collided with it, I felt my body begin to dissolve somewhat, and the first thing I could compare to pain scorched its way through my body. As I fell to the ground from the shock, the young warrior drew a blade as dark as his armor bearing the same odd spiral.

He looked at me coldly at first, but as I squirmed on the ground from the wound his armor and inflicted, I saw a hint of guilt on his face. He knelt down next to me and remove his gauntlet, holding out his hand. I backed away, sure it was a trap. He seemed to understand and spoke softly, “You didn’t ask for this. You hardly understand it.” He sighed, closing his eyes in what I now assume was asking forgiveness from a higher power. He put his gauntlet back on, the cold expression returning to his eyes. Fetching his shield that was as black and cold as his armor. He begun to swing his blade at me, my instinct to defend myself raising yet another spire of stone, but one that disintegrated as it made contact with his armor. His blade came just shy of hitting me and I sometimes wonder if that was intentional. He took another swing and I tried again to stop him, and this time his blade cleaved through the stone, still just barely missing me. Quickly running out of space to run, I stared in panic as his blade came towards me for a third time. Knowing I could do nothing and having nowhere to run, I cried in panic, fearing it had made contact when the ground beneath me seemed to simply vanish.

When I opened my eyes, I understood what had happened. I was in the very ground itself, which held no more substance than water to me. Even my vision seemed unhindered by the soil that now surrounded me. The man spoke again, as if hoping I was still here, “Run, little one. Become one with the land. A Paladin does not slay the innocent, but we cannot ignore what you have become. So run. Hide. Pray we never cross paths again, and may your find happiness within your life.” Before I could try to reach back out, a few other Paladins had arrived to his side. He reassured them that he was fine but that I had escaped. They told him that he had done well for his first mission. They informed him of my story, of my father’s research after my passing. All of them seemed mournful of my situation. The few that spoke of killing me did so as if it was some kind of mercy. An abomination I never should have experienced. Remembering my own face as it currently was, I felt truly alone. I was a monster. Some part of me thought about going back up there. Of letting them end it. But I was too young and scared to do so. In time I’ve come to accept their existence to be as cursed as my own. Driven to fight things that a normal life would never cross.