Thanks for reading the first chapter of "Little Red Bandit Slayer"! This is my first work and I will be releasing chapters as consistently as possible (the first 8 1/2 are going up ASAP since they exist elsewhere). Excited to go on this journey with you, reader!2: Deserted I looked at myself in total disbelief, I mean, I¡¯d never heard of something like sudden gender change happening! My surprise was met by a faint, dying voice. ¡°Sergeant, are you still there?¡± RAIF¡¯s dim voice let out with a static background. ¡°Yes, RAIF, I¡¯m here.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t see, Sergeant... I¡¯m not ready to go out of service. I mean to say, I don¡¯t want to die, sir.¡± ¡°I know, RAIF. I know,¡± I tried to soothe the AI, ¡°but so is the way of life, we are all born and we all die. The best we can hope for is that someone will be with us at the end, RAIF.¡± ¡°Are y-y-y-y-you going to stay with me, sir?¡± RAIF spoke with a slow monotone, interrupted by glitchiness. ¡°Of course I will, RAIF. You¡¯re my friend, after all. We¡¯ve been through hell together, I¡¯ve never had a better computer than you. You¡¯ve served me well, RAIF.¡± My voice cracked as I said that last line, RAIF had been my onboard computer for a long time, it was hard to finally be saying goodbye. It was like I was losing my dearest friend. ¡°Thank you...¡± RAIF¡¯s voice decrescendoed until it could be heard no longer, the last sounds of his speakers echoing off the thin metal walls for a few seconds before they stopped, permanently. I couldn¡¯t linger long on my friend¡¯s demise, I had to get on to the next task. First things first, these clothes no longer fit my current body, so I¡¯d have to edit them a bit. I searched my belt for my combat knife, quickly locating it and grabbing it out. I took to shortening the pant legs first and adding a few new holes in my belt to tighten it more if I needed to. Next, I shortened my sleeves so they had a better fit on my arms. I left the length of the shirt as is for now since it wasn¡¯t really affecting anything. I didn¡¯t have any thread, needles, or time, so I couldn¡¯t re-hem the clothing. I had decided that getting moving as soon as possible was the best idea, those scavengers would probably be returning any time now, in droves. I grabbed the rifle, which now felt heavier in my arms. I must be getting weaker, I thought to myself in surprise at the new weightiness of the weapon. I made sure my belt was still stocked with everything I needed and tightened it by two notches before moving out. I only had a few more things to do while I was here on the ship, including packing a small pack with some food and water. I tied my hair up with a strip of material that had once been part of my shirt in order to keep it out of my face. I was now ready to head out into the barren landscape ahead. *** The sands weren¡¯t as unforgiving as the deserts of Earth, the temperature was rather moderate for the landscape being the way it was. That happened to be a really good thing because it meant my water supply wouldn¡¯t run out for a good while longer. Regardless of temperature, however, traveling on sand was still just as difficult as it normally would be. My now smaller legs were having trouble keeping up with what my typical pace would be, causing me to have to rest more often than usual. Eventually, I reached the point where I had located the mushrooms earlier. That must be what did this to me, I thought as I looked at them while sitting on another nearby rock. I wasn¡¯t going to take my rage out on a bunch of mushrooms though, that¡¯d be silly. I did take a couple more though, in case I¡¯d be able to find a cure to my new condition later. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Now that this quick break was over, it was time to get back to the long hike through the desert. I slung the small pack over my shoulder and picked up the rifle once again. It somehow felt even more heavy than it did before, but I was probably just suffering from fatigue. Each step was followed by a huff of air, my lungs were starting to burn from this walk. Nevertheless, I kept on going, adjusting my pace as I went. Then I tripped on something, falling and getting myself a face-full of sand. I looked back to see what I had tripped on but there was nothing but sand. As I was standing up I realized that my sleeves once again were longer than my arms, the same was true for my pant legs in regards to my legs. Obviously, I was continuing to get smaller for some reason. I did my belt up one slot tighter once again and went to grab my rifle off the ground. As I picked it up I realized that I wouldn¡¯t be able to carry it much farther like this. Because of this fact, I had to make a tough decision to toss the rifle out. I removed the ammunition storage from the rifle and used it to charge my sidearm¡¯s storage. There was still enough for two or three more sidearm charges left in the rifle¡¯s ammunition storage, so I put it into my sack and dropped the rifle to the sand. I expended a little energy to cover the rifle up in sand, hoping that might stop someone from finding it later, not that it¡¯d be of much use to the locals without ammo. After this rough burial of yet another friend, I continued on my path ahead. I had been going south this whole time, hoping to stumble across some kind of coast or oasis. I kept track of my direction using my electronic compass, which had around a quarter battery life left at this point. Now would be a good time to see if my classic compass worked on this planet, or how much I¡¯d need to adjust it. I pulled out the silver compass that had a boar etched into it, a gift from my late father. After frowning at it for a moment, I compared it to the electronic compass. This showed it to be only off by a bit, it¡¯d have to be good enough for whenever the electronic one failed. At this point I had gone around 19 kilometers away from my now unusable Firestorm, I¡¯d also tracked this using my handy electronic compass up to this point. I¡¯d gone through a couple bottles of water and ate two nutrition bars, using about a third of the measly supply I¡¯d brought with me. While continuing to walk, I noticed that I was continuing to get smaller, making it more difficult to move around. The ¡°swelling¡±, as I¡¯d referred to it earlier, of my chest had gone down to nothing at this point and I guess I was around a measly 130 cm. I did end up cutting the bottom of my shirt in order to move better, along with cutting where I¡¯d previously cut once again. This freed me up to keep going, but my little legs weren¡¯t gonna make it much further. To top all of that off, the sun was about to start setting, so I¡¯d need to find a good, safe place to sleep. Luckily, just the place was in my sight. It was a little odd, but a lone tent sat out in the middle of a small area with a little water and grass. It could almost classify as an oasis, but it seemed a bit too small for me to call it that. The area was still a distance away, but I was confident I¡¯d still make it before sunset. The final stretch to the tent was long and tiring, clearly the tent belonged to someone as well, so anxiety was creeping up my petite spine. Tightening my belt once more, I creeped up on the tent. There was still enough daylight to see what I was doing, but an eerie feeling of being watched crept up on me. Regardless of this, I couldn¡¯t spot anyone, so I entered the tent with my sidearm drawn. The inside of the tent was rather clean, there was a cot in the far corner and the rest of the room was covered with neatly stacked boxes. It smelled like someone had been there rather recently, but I still didn¡¯t spot anyone. Perhaps the desert had swallowed them up. I searched through as many boxes as I could, some were empty and others had jars of what looked to be clean water in them, along with jars containing some very dead lizards. One box was filled to the brim with scrap items, somehow it felt sad to peer into that box¡¯s contents though, so I closed it promptly after opening it. I climbed up on the cot and stood on my tip toes to access one of the boxes. I opened it and looked inside, there were some scrap items in there along with what looked to be some kind of vegetable that I¡¯d never seen before. As I focused on the contents of the box, I felt the feeling of being watched again. I tried to look up, but I was too late. I was grabbed from behind and a large hand was put over my mouth. My sidearm fell to the floor, out of my arm¡¯s reach... 3: Grace of the Giant Most people long for embrace, they want to be held tight and kept safe, but at this moment, embrace was the last thing I wanted. Whatever had grabbed me from behind had a grip tighter than a boa constrictor, I couldn¡¯t shake free no matter what I tried. My little legs kicking, and my upper body struggling, made no difference to whatever had caught me by surprise. Typically, I¡¯d escape such a situation with ease, my opponent would fall to their knees and plead as I ripped their life away from them with one gentle squeeze of my trigger. This time, however, I was a little smaller, incapable of fighting back against whatever beast had taken hold of me. I tried to yell and scare it off, but my whole face had been covered by its hairy paw, or whatever appendage it was holding me down with. It certainly felt hairy, but no matter what it was, its strength had to be incredible! A voice grunted out something from behind me, I couldn¡¯t make out what it was so it must have been the beast¡¯s roar. It was truly a guttural noise, deep and booming. Yet for some reason, the bass that emanated from behind was soothing? Again, the thunderous voice let out a slow sound, it was almost like it was speaking words. This time, I decided to fall for the soothing tone of this particular siren¡¯s call. Removing the tenseness from my limbs, I nearly slumped back into my captor. At this show of faith, the dim moonlight returned to my eyes and I was tossed into a corner, falling on my bum. As my eyes adjusted back to having some light, they fell upon a moonlit figure. Standing high above me was a man, well-built and hairy. He was dressed in some strange outfit that was a mix of lightweight cloth and scrap-metal plating. He was tall and muscular, a true man¡¯s man. On his belt he carried many items, some were concealed, while others were revealed by the pale lighting. To contrast everything else I¡¯d seen, his bearded face was friendly and calm, equipped with a pair of specs with cracking lenses. He smiled warmly and slowly began to speak, letting out that soothing, yet absurdly deep voice that I had heard previously. He spoke slowly and held his hand out in front of him, trying for some kind of peaceful gesture. After taking in the sight of the man who stood before me, my eyes found a new target to look at. On the other side of the room, sitting on the sand sprinkled floor, was my firearm. The faint blue glow that it gave off had attracted my eyes to that spot. My sight drifted from the sidearm to the man, and back again. After a few repeats of this, the man, too, looked in the direction of the sidearm. I would have used this opportunity to attack him, but the way I was manhandled previously had scared the fight out of me. The only mode I had left was ¡°freeze¡±. The muscular frame in front of me moved slightly to the left to conceal the weapon from my sight. He crouched down further and held out both hands, saying a few more lines. I must¡¯ve looked visibly confused (as I was), because it then seemed to click in his eyes that I did not understand his speech. The man pointed at himself and said something gibberishy, but I got the point that he was introducing himself. He repeated what sounded like, ¡°Yaeleth¡±, over and over until I said it myself. My small, squirrel-like voice completely wrecked my brain as it came out, scaring me into stuttering. I had not been talking the entire trip, seeing as I had had no one to communicate with, so I was definitely not used to whatever had just escaped my lips. I repeated his name to him while pointing in his general direction, my miniature arm extending out with the sleeve drooping over it, I must¡¯ve shrunk again. He seemed visibly pleased to hear his presumed name come out of my mouth, but he seemed to want something more. He once again said his name while touching his chest and then reached out toward me. I guessed he was asking for a name in response. I opened my mouth to give him an answer, but my name escaped me. Perhaps I was losing my memory a bit, but it could have also been since I¡¯d been called by my rank since I was ten. Either way, I couldn¡¯t give him an answer for now, so I shook my head, not knowing whether that would translate on this planet or not.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. My gesture seemed to do the trick, as he stopped inquiring in that same line of questioning, but he moved to something a lot scarier next. He slowly backed up, keeping me in his sight the whole time. I dared not move an inch as he reached down behind him and picked up my weapon. My eyes went wide with fear, there was no way he knew how dangerous that thing was, and if he did, what did he plan to do with it? As the glowing object was pulled up toward his chest, he finally shifted his gaze from me, to it. I still couldn¡¯t move, both from shock, and from the fact that at the first noise on this silent night, he¡¯d notice my movement. He slowly twirled the sidearm in his two hands, inspecting every detail with great care and caution. I was starting to think that he at least vaguely knew what he was holding. After giving the weapon a few more turns, he seemed satisfied with his inspection. He found the highest box he could on his tower in the corner and set the weapon inside of it carefully before turning to another box. Before he lifted the lid of this box, he pulled a knife out of one of the many sheaths on his belt. My heart beat faster at this motion, he hadn¡¯t shown signs of aggression yet, but maybe he just wanted to tear me apart piece by piece, like those bandits had to RAIF. Shortly after pulling the knife, he set it on the ground next to him, opening up the box he had previously decided on. His large hands, wrapped in the aforementioned cloth, reached down into the box, rifling through a bit before deciding. His hands lifted out of the box, I winced at whatever torture device he had presumably just grabbed, but instead he held what looked to be a bundle of thread and a sewing needle. Huh? I thought, What¡¯s he gonna do, sew my eyes and mouth shut? Now that idea truly terrified me, not much I would be able to do against his superior might. He turned and casually strode over to me, now carrying thread and needle in one hand and his knife in the other. He then promptly got down on one knee, not more than a half meter away from me and reached out toward me after setting his things down. The motion of his hand toward me seemed insanely slow, but perhaps that was the liquid fear running through my veins at the moment. I tried to move back from his grasp, but my legs wouldn¡¯t move so I couldn¡¯t scoot further into the corner. Eventually, his hands contacted my underarms. I felt very demeaned as he picked me up like one picks up a toddler and set me on my feet. Even down on his knee, the man was still quite a bit taller than me. Speaking of knees, mine were shaking rapidly, obviously a natural response after that set of events. I remained silent and looked into the man¡¯s eyes, trying to discern their color in the slowly encroaching darkness, but the effort was futile. I winced and closed my eyes as he approached my arm with his knife. He was going to cut my hand off for sure. No, he¡¯d go finger by finger to make it more painful. My thoughts had no good to them when it came to this stranger, but reality played out differently. I heard the noise of cloth ripping, no, cloth being sliced away. I felt the end of the sleeve on my left arm fall away, but my body felt no pain. Suddenly, the now familiar low voice started humming. I slowly let my eyes open as the man now started to sing slowly and quietly, the notes calmed the tension of the room. I looked down and my knees were no longer shaking, instead they held my little body still and supported me well. The song the man was singing sounded like some kind of lull-a-bye, but I guess that wasn¡¯t important, because whatever it was it was serving its purpose. The man slowly and carefully cut around my arms and legs, making sure to only contact material and not flesh. After he finished cutting he looked at me in my eyes and smiled wide before continuing his song. He then pulled a lone box over and put his hand out flat with two of his fingers on top, signaling a sitting motion. I compliantly sat down on the box and waited for the man to continue what he was doing. Before I knew it he had added a new hem to all of my clothing. The sleeves on my shirt had been cut so short that they now acted as straps to hold the rest of the shirt over me like a dress. He had re-hemmed the bottoms of my pant legs as well, but they still didn¡¯t fit me around the waist, there¡¯d be no fixing that. He did help me get my belt through all the loops multiple times though, even adding yet another extra hole. After he had completed all this, I realized how tired I was. I yawned and rubbed my eyes and before I knew it, he had picked me up in a princess-carry and carried me to his cot. I was so drowsy that I couldn''t have cared less about the absolute embarrassment of that, luckily. He laid me down on the cot and covered me over with the thin blanket that had been laid on top. He then went over and closed the tent flap shut, making it so only the slightest light could enter in. I heard him sit down and shift one of the box towers next to the cot before I drifted off to sleep. What a crazy day... the final thought of the day entered before everything faded to black. 4: A New Scar I yawned and stretched as I sat up from the cot I had slept in the previous night. The generous stranger who had lent me it was nowhere to be seen, but there were traces that he¡¯d been here recently. I slowly got out of the cot, my legs dangled over the side before I dismounted it, landing on the floor flawlessly. My new height was evident as I stood next to the towers of boxes, they were more like skyscrapers to me. To my knowledge I was the around the same size as I had been when I''d went to sleep the previous night. Luckily, my shrinking problem didn''t seem to be worsening, hopefully I''d return to normal naturally. I walked over to the entrance and peeked my head out the flap, the man was squatting near the water pool, washing his clothing. He noticed my stare and looked back, when he saw my eyes meet his, he smiled and waved before dropping what he was doing and turning toward me. He walked up the sandy hill to the tent as I backed into it. We didn¡¯t stay in the tent for long though as he grabbed my sidearm and grabbed my hand. He led me by my hand to the rear of the tent and faced a dune in the opposing direction. He released my hand and put himself in a firing stance, he¡¯d obviously handled some kind of firearm in the past. Pointing the weapon at the bottom of the dune ahead, he squeezed the trigger. The weapon glowed a vibrant blue as it whirred up to power. Once it had been readied to full force, a short beam of blue light zoomed into the sand, turning it to glass instantly and making a distinct sound. He looked at the sidearm and then looked back at me, trying to put together why a little girl would have such a dangerous weapon. Cautiously, he put his hand on the outer casing of the barrel, imagining it would be hot. However, the weapon was the same temperature as it had been, they use a compact power-cooling design after all. The man¡¯s face lit up like a kid on Christmas, receiving the toy they¡¯d waited for patiently the whole year. Unexpectedly, he turned to me and crouched down to my level. Practicing good firearm safety, he put the weapon into my hands. He then got behind me and put his hands over mine, helping me to get into a firing position. Obviously, I knew how to handle my own weapons, but the help was appreciated in getting my small hands to cooperate. He helped me aim and squeeze the trigger, our aim was true and hit just above his previous shot, the shockwave shattering the glass beneath it. With this, the man seemed satisfied and led me by my hand back to the tent. For some reason, I didn¡¯t feel demeaned by any of this, and I didn¡¯t have the excuse of being tired this time. I was starting to get worried that those mushrooms messed with my mental state a bit too. He didn¡¯t take the weapon back from me and instead seemed to command me to stay at the tent while he left. Of course, I wouldn¡¯t be following those directions, since I could use the language-barrier as a ''get out of jail free'' card. Instead, I followed behind him at a short distance. He moved slowly and went up the sand dunes to the side of the tent. I made sure to hide behind anything I could, using my new body as an advantage to achieve this, keeping myself from discovery. At some point along our travel, I saw another one of those red and yellow lizards, like I had before eating those mushrooms. In the time I spent gawking at the lizard, the man had disappeared from my sight. I looked around to see if I could find him, but I didn¡¯t see anyone. Then I was grabbed from behind, my mouth covered and my body brought close to my captor. I immediately recognized this grip, though, it was the same one that had held me last night. Suddenly, I was thrown to the ground and stripped of my firearm. The man put the firearm into an empty holster on his belt before picking me up off the ground. After ensuring that no injuries were had, he set me down and I think he began to scold me. No matter what it was, it made a pit in my stomach. For some reason I felt really embarrassed, like I had disappointed my commanding officer, or worse yet, my father. As the man continued his lecture in an unknown dialect to me, my eyes began to feel wet. Some kind of foreign liquid streamed from my eyes and down my cheeks. I thought it was raining for a moment until I realized that the event was localized to just my face. I was crying? For some reason, I felt the need to bawl my eyes out at the harsh words that I didn¡¯t know for sure I was receiving.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. At this, the man¡¯s tone became a lot gentler, and he helped me wipe the tears off my face before saying something that sounded apologetic. This calmed my emotions and I felt a lot better. For some reason I craved this man¡¯s good graces. The man patted me on my head before grabbing my hand and leading me with him. After going for a short while, he stopped suddenly and pulled me behind a boulder. He was looking off down the side of a nearby dune for some reason. Moving my head so I could see around his muscular frame, I saw what he was staring at immediately. A mass of blue light was floating just above the ground, only tens of meters away. Sand was flying up from the ground into the mass, forming itself around it. After a few moments of this, the sand had begun to take a shape, some kind of four legged animal. Finally, the sand took its finished form, it looked like a massive boar, made completely from the dunes surrounding it. Its eyes glowed with the same color as the light previously had. The boar smacked its hoof into the sandy ground beneath it, kicking up a bunch of it into the air. The boar, now feeling comfortable with its body, began to sniff audibly. In a split second, the boar stopped sniffing and threw its head in our direction. It readied itself and began charging us. Yaeleth pulled my firearm out of his holster and got into position. Not used to the delay between trigger squeeze and discharge, he wasn¡¯t able to get a shot off before being shoved into the boulder that was now positioned behind him. There wasn¡¯t much I¡¯d be able to do in this situation without a weapon of my own, heck I¡¯d never even seen a boar made out of freaking sand before. In that moment of distress, I decided the best option would be to run like hell. My little legs lurched forward and I attempted an Olympian sprint, but speed was not on my side. As soon as the boar set its glowing eyes on me, it had begun its charge. Desperately, I tried to think of a solution to this newfound problem, but not much came to mind. I looked around and finally, I stumbled upon my answer. The boar clearly had a physical form, as it demonstrated when it tossed that hunk of man into a rock twice his size. My plan, then, was this, I¡¯d simply run to the nearest boulder and climb it as fast as possible. Then, as the boar continued its mad charge, it would crash into the rock and, if all things went well, disperse into a cloud of sand. Not having any better ideas, I went with it. The nearest boulder was still a long way away for my little legs, but I had no choice. Running with all my might, I reached the rock and began my ascent, paying no mind to the beast approaching at a rapid rate. I could tell that I wasn¡¯t climbing fast enough though, looking back I saw the boar was about to hit me. There was no time left, it was time to submit to my fate. Warm liquid ran down my legs as the boar was mere centimeters away. I closed my eyes and readied myself for the wall of pain that was about to hit me. Instead, I heard the sound of a plasma-based weapon discharging and I felt heat radiating from the air around me. I opened my eyes to see a clear object. A perfect sculpture of a boar, made from glass, with eyes glowing blue and a core of pure blue light. It was frozen in place, and as I stared at it, cracks began to form. The masterpiece then shattered, forming a pile of broken glass. The mass of light, however, still hovered in the same place, calling out to me. Yaeleth limped toward me, gripping his abdomen, he crossed the same short path that I had run just seconds prior. I saw him look toward me and smile in my peripheral vision as I stared upon the glorious light in front of me. I dared not touch it, however, I knew who the kill belonged to. As the man made it to the light, he lifted his shirt up, revealing a gash caused by the enemy he had just defeated. My eyes widened, seeing that injury reminded me that I would be in agony right now if it weren¡¯t for the protector in front of me. He reached out his hand toward the light and then performed an action, seeming to beckon the light to himself. To my surprise, the light obliged his request and traveled into the wound on his stomach. The wound closed itself up rather quickly and all that remained as evidence was a scar. Even just what I could see of his stomach revealed many scars, I¡¯d say there was more scar tissue than healthy skin. Before I knew it was happening, my hand reached out and touched the location where his wound had just been. My eyes did not deceive me, there was, in fact, no wound there anymore. All of the sudden, the man¡¯s hand appeared on top of mine, assuring me that he was just fine. I looked up and as my eyes met his he moved his hand to pat me on the head. For some reason, my eyes once again filled with tears. This foreign feeling was becoming all too common for my liking, but then again, these tears were filled with overwhelming joy. Not only was I glad that he had saved my life, but that his own was spared as well. I quickly wrapped my arms around his legs. He was shocked for a second, but he soon returned the gesture and hugged me back. At that moment I knew that I¡¯d be safe as long as I was with him, and that this desert wouldn¡¯t take my life anytime soon. I¡¯d only just met this man, but he felt like a stronghold that I¡¯d never had, and a comfort for my built up traumas... 5: Fading Ghosts of the Past My peaceful sleep that night was interrupted by the somber notes of the piano at a funeral service. I stood by a man, tall and handsome, but clearly trying to hold himself together in front of his two children. Him and I both wore black suits, while the younger girl with us wore a black dress and a matching bow in her hair. She held the man¡¯s hand while we stared on at the coffin in front of us. My head was barely high enough to peek into the long box, inside was a beautiful woman. Her features were not visible to me, veiled by a faceless face, but nonetheless, she was stunning. The way her hands were positioned over her chest, holding a rose, seemed sad for some reason. Contrary to the rest of us, she was dressed in a garnet hue, substituting for the blood that no longer ran through her veins. As I looked up at the man I was there with, a solitary tear fell off his cheekbone, landing somewhere in the grass beneath. Suddenly, the girl and I were pulled away from the coffin and over to the side. I watched over my shoulder as a few men closed the box, hiding her from sight, and began to lower it into the ground below. When the box hit the bottom, a small cloud of dust pushed itself up, out of the hole. At this, the men began to cover over the coffin with the dirt piled up around the hole. The man covered both mine and the girl''s eyes, pulling us ever further away from the recently deceased woman. Thunder cracked, and the dark clouds above began to pour out their sorrow. The drops were cold, chilling me to my core. The man¡¯s gaze was filled with disbelief, staring into the distance as the warmth left his skin. He winced every time a shovel could be heard, dumping more dirt onto the coffin with a loud thump. A gust of strong wind blew violently. I now found myself inside of a small room, the man and the girl there with me. The floor was littered with toys and blankets, the once vibrant colors seemed faded and dull. The man was sitting on a chair in the corner, he was bent over, hands holding his head. His eyes were wide as he reached his bottle on the end table and took another swig of beer. The ground around him was covered in bottles, I didn¡¯t spend time counting them, but they were enough to make a heavyweight severely drunk. The girl frowned, dropping her doll on the ground and walking over to the man in the corner. She seemed to ask some kind of question, tilting her head to the side and pulling on his sleeve. The man stood up. Looking at the young girl, he raised his hand up high. She looked on him with terror as his hand began to fly down toward her. My legs shoved me forward, getting in between the man and the girl. My face stung as his hand collided with it, sending me into the wall adjacent to me. He was usually a kind man, he¡¯d never drank before then, instead choosing to pour out his sorrows into his work. However, this sorrow was one so deep that it penetrated the lowest parts of his soul, turning it black as night for just a moment. A moment too long... He seemed aggravated that I had stolen his wrath and began to ready another slap for the girl. I stood as fast as I could and sent my fist as hard as possible into his gut. The man staggered back into his chair and spewed green-ish liquid out of his mouth, running down his white button-up. My fist ached after the impact, but the resulting adrenaline covered it up in a hurry. The man switched his attention to me, attempting to throw a drunken punch in my direction. I easily evaded him in his inebriated state and readied myself for a counter-attack. The girl was bawling behind me, pulling on my arm to get me to stop. Her eyes were full of pain and confusion. I lowered my fist and looked at her face, the tears falling down it nonstop, forming a puddle on the ground.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. A hard fist collides with the side of my head, throwing me to the ground. I smacked into the hardwood floor with a thud, my whole body ached and writhed at the impact. I felt his foot push its way into my gut multiple times over, making blood spray out from between my gritted teeth. The girl tried to step in and shove the man away from me, but he simply swatted her aside. As the girl fell to the ground, her head met with the corner of the end table. No scream emanated from the girl, instead a pool of thick red liquid began to form with her head at the source. The man turned back to finish me off, but at that moment, he had realized what he was doing. He looked at me in horror, his eyes bulged as he saw the damage he had done. He moved his attention to where my hand was trying to reach, seeing his daughter sprawled out on the floor, on top of a river of blood. He quickly fell to his knees and called out for his daughter, but she gave no answer. He stood and backed up, gaping at the two bodies on the floor. His lifeless daughter was still, and made no noise. He stopped for a moment, writing something down on a paper and setting his "lucky" compass on it. Quickly, he turned and ran out the door, leaving it wide open and letting in the cold winter breeze. I crawled over to the girl¡¯s body, hoping to no end that she would be alive when I got there. I slipped through the puddle of crimson on the ground as I inched closer to her. Arriving, I moved her long, jet black hair away from her face. In the same way as the woman earlier, she no longer had any features. Simply a blank canvas of skin showed in front of my eyes. I called out to her and no response was heard. As I lifted my hand away from her face, I turned my palm toward my own. My skin was painted red with the blood of the girl. My hand shook uncontrollably, dripping the red fluid into the river below, Plop, Plop, Plop. My eyes darted to the standing mirror situated in the corner. My own face hid from me, featureless skin covered in blood was all that remained to be seen. My eyes began to fade to black. Sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer and closer to the once happy one-room home. As the paramedics rushed in, only one line could be heard. This line echoed through my brain at a loud volume. Slowly, it quieted until it could be heard no longer. ¡°She¡¯s dead.¡± *** I felt my eyelids flutter open, revealing nothing but a dimly lit tent. I stared up at the tapered ceiling, my head and heart both pounding. My face was wet from the tears flowing down it, dampening the pillow beneath my head. I reached underneath the pillow and pulled out a silver object, it shimmered slightly in the moonlight that slipped through the cracks in the tent. Running my finger over it, I felt the shape of a boar, carved into its surface. I gripped the compass tightly with my small hands, trying to crush it to no avail. The cruel stand-in for an apology that the compass represented made me light aflame with anger. I ran through my dream in my head, trying to remember the names and faces of the people in it. The more I thought through it, however, the more I forgot. Ultimately, I couldn¡¯t even remember why I had been crying, or where the hated object in my hand had even originated from. Yet, even without memory of what I had dreamt, the tears continued to flow, and my anger continued to burn. I sat up and turned, preparing myself to throw the object in my hand into the ground next to the cot. As I looked downward, I caught the glint of faded moonlight in the eye of a man who sat on the ground. I couldn¡¯t make out much more than his shape, but the selfless stranger who had saved my life was sat down on the ground next to the cot. His eyes were open, but he slept all the while. My anger was calmed and my heart eased as I looked on, trying to see the face of the man. My tears slipped away and I felt the safety of his company while gazing upon him. I¡¯d been saved by that man more than once at that point. I was grateful that he¡¯d spent so much effort on protecting me, a stranger. As I laid my head back on the pillow, once again feeling its dampness, something felt missing. The more I tried to think about my past, the more it escaped me. I didn¡¯t want to lose myself, to lose my past, I desperately tried to hold on to it. The questions shoved through my brain. Why am I here? What am I doing? W-who am I? Pondering these questions proved fruitless. I could not remember my name, my objective, anything about myself. It was as if there was nothing before the desert for me. Yet, I was left with the reminders of a past life that I couldn¡¯t recall, the pain of memories that no longer belonged to me. Drifting back to sleep, a name crossed my mind. Its significance was unknown to me, but it was charged with sorrow and dread. As fast as it came, it went, the final memory that I had to hold on to, gone... The tears returned to my small face, my heart burned as I cried myself back to peaceful rest. 6: Identity I felt a delicate pressure push into my back repeatedly. A deep voice that I recognized followed it, urging me awake. In my sleepy state, I playfully swatted his hand away while groaning. Then the unexpected happened. He started tickling me... I hadn¡¯t ever been ticklish before, my days in the¨C The thought slipped my mind. Before I could recall where I¡¯d had the ticklishness trained out of me, the location left me. I could almost see some kind of green outfit? But that was it, nothing else, even that seemed foggy for some reason. But nevermind, it didn¡¯t matter if I was ticklish before or not, because right now I was super ticklish. The gentle giant behind me tickled with all his might, and I couldn¡¯t help but giggle wildly as I sat up. I mean, me, giggle? Even though I actively thought it to be strange, it actually struck me as completely normal for some reason. Weird. I giggled and squealed as the man continued to tickle me, hitting his big hands playfully. ¡°Stop it!¡± A very girly voice squeaked out of my mouth. Well, my girly voice, that is. I¡¯d avoided using it the whole time because of the language barrier, but it''d slipped out just now. To my surprise, the man did stop his tickle attack. I think it was mostly out of the shock that I had spoken, but nevertheless his plan to get me out of bed had succeeded. He backed up from the cot and motioned for me to come to him. I obeyed as I let my legs dangle over the side before dropping down onto them. Planting my feet solidly down on the ground before moving, I looked up at his smiling face. I ran over to him excitedly and waited for him to make a move, he obviously wanted me up for some reason. He turned and grabbed a glass of clear liquid from the box behind him, raising it up in front of me. I¡¯d seen him pouring that into the wooden cups we¡¯d been drinking from over the past couple days. In other words, it was just clean water in a jar. I wondered what he was doing for a moment before he began to speak. He pointed at the jar and said some word I didn¡¯t understand. He kept repeating it in a similar manner to when he had told me his name earlier. Oh, I get it. He¡¯s teaching me some of his language, it must mean water. I repeated the word back to him whenever he¡¯d point at the jar, seeming to get the point across that I now understood that word. As soon as that was established, he moved to the next thing. Making an eating motion, he said the word for ¡°food¡±. This continued on for a while, repeating the same steps for multiple other words. ¡°Sand¡±, ¡°home¡±, ¡°sky¡±, ¡°sun¡±, ¡°day¡±, ¡°night¡±, and ¡°bed¡± were among them. With just these few words in my arsenal, I¡¯d be able to get across quite a few needs and desires. It was quite useful. The last word he taught me was the word for, ¡°what?¡± That seemed to be something of a feat in his eyes as he looked very proud of himself when I used the word to ask for yet another word. This continued for the rest of the day. Learning the language wasn¡¯t the only task my little self was burdened with today though, I also had to learn the chores. Fair enough, I was freeloading in this guy¡¯s tent and stealing his bed every night. The least I could do was a few chores, how hard could they really be anyway? *** Hard. They were very hard. I had no idea what to do with myself when it came to washing clothes or gardening. I felt like I knew how to do those things, but it wasn¡¯t as easy as I had vaguely remembered it to be. Something like pushing a couple of buttons, not dunking each garment in water and scrubbing out any dirt myself. That was just washing the clothes, and I only washed my own clothes! Afterward, he had put the clothes on his little clothesline as well. I mean, I for sure couldn¡¯t reach it! For clarity¡¯s sake, Yaeleth gave me a big red jacket to wear while I waited for my clothes to dry. It hung over me, covering all the important bits, just barely not dragging on the ground. I didn¡¯t get a break from my tireless work while my clothes were drying though, I had to help tend to the garden. Yaeleth helped me to fill a metal pail with water and carry it up to the little plot of dirt he had made. That thing was so heavy. Without Yaeleth keeping me from falling, I would¡¯ve dumped the whole thing on the ground, wasting it. Of course, he did help me, which didn¡¯t make the task easy, but did make it possible. After getting the pail up to the little vegetable garden, I set it down as Yaeleth gave me a congratulatory grin. It was like a proud dad looking at his daughter after she¡¯d won first prize in some little kids'' talent show or something. After setting it down, I got a good long look at the cute little patch of vegetables that Yaeleth had been growing. I had glanced at it previously, but I¡¯d never really gotten time to truly inspect it before. The plants sprouted up in an unfamiliar way, splitting and reaching for both the sun and the shade, opposite directions from each other. A pale pink flower had yet to bloom completely on the shady side, whereas the sunny side was bare, revealing nothing but a green stalk.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. I pointed to the plant and asked Yaeleth, ¡°what?¡± I got ¡°Androva¡± as a response to that. Yaeleth then pointed at the two different sprouts and said, ¡°Gurren¡±, and ¡°Potato¡±. I recognized that last name and wondered if it was the same as the earthy round roots that I¡¯d had in... where was that again? The name escaped me. Yaeleth dumped different amounts of water on each plant, making sure I was paying close attention. I was sure that he¡¯d have me doing this whenever I was capable. Assuming that I was here for the long run, that is. It was looking more like it¡¯d be that way by the minute; somehow, I didn¡¯t hate the idea. After these few chores, we went back into the tent. Searching through a few boxes and not finding what he was looking for, Yaeleth turned to me and said some train of words mashed together. I did recognize the word, ¡°food¡± in the midst of the sentence though, so I could guess what he¡¯d been looking for. Yaeleth grabbed what looked to be some kind of primitive trap. I¡¯d read that hunters in the pre-3000¡¯s had used similar traps to catch rabbits and other small animals. Not that I''d remembered why or when I¡¯d read such a thing, the knowledge was just kind of there, in my head. Mental dilemma aside, a physical dilemma was upon us. I¡¯d pieced together that we had no food at all. I could¡¯ve sworn we still had a few of those strange vegetables I¡¯d seen in the boxes, but I guess maybe those weren¡¯t food? Regardless, we were now out on a hunting trip of sorts, I followed as Yaeleth set his traps on various boulders, using a variety of things as bait. I mean, Yaeleth used all kinds of things. On some traps he used dirt, others some kind of stinky thing he¡¯d pulled out of a jar, and others yet mushrooms. Vibrantly colored ones. Not only did he set the mushrooms in some of his traps, but he would snack on a few now and then, offering some to me as well. The mushrooms were identical to the ones that had put me in this predicament. At least, I thought so. I couldn¡¯t quite remember anything from before parting with my ship. The Firebird. No, that wasn¡¯t right. What was it? Firefly? Firestring? Firesloth? None of those sounded right to me. It took me a while of hard thinking, but I couldn¡¯t come up with a single name that sounded familiar. Either way, Yaeleth seemed very smart about this desert. He clearly had a bunch of experience with it, there was no way he¡¯d willingly ingest poison. With that thought comforting me, I indulged a bit in the ¡®shrooms as well. They were so full of flavor and were honestly pretty filling. I didn¡¯t think much of the mushrooms after that, I didn¡¯t really experience any adverse effects, so obviously I must¡¯ve been mistaken. We continued placing traps for a good long while. Yaeleth took this opportunity to teach me the word for, ¡°tomorrow¡±. After doing this, he seemed to explain that we¡¯d, ¡°take tomorrow¡±. I assumed that meant we¡¯d be collecting these traps up the next day, so it was time to head back now. My little legs ached from all the work they¡¯d been putting in. I felt like obliging them in a much needed rest, but Yaeleth¡¯s pace didn¡¯t seem to be slowing much. I caught up to the big man and tugged on his pant leg. As he turned to look at me, I breathed heavily and sat down on the sandy ground. He seemed to understand my motion and repeated the action before saying another word. I could only assume that it meant, ¡°tired¡±, but as the words got more intellectual, it became more of a guessing game. He got down on one knee, facing away from me, and put his hands out backwards. He then said, ¡°Up!¡± I gladly accepted his offer to become my loyal steed for the remaining way back to the tent, I certainly didn¡¯t want to walk all that way again. He didn¡¯t let me slip off the whole way back to the tent, keeping me in the ¡°piggyback ride¡± position the entire time. It was better than a princess carry, I suppose. Was it really though? The thought intruded. As I silently agreed with my second thought, I was set down on the ground lightly. My ride being finished must¡¯ve meant that we¡¯d arrived back at the tent. The sun was still a few hours away from setting completely, but it had begun its descent. Yaeleth grabbed me by my hand and led me back into the tent, where he told me to stay as he went outside. At this time of day, I wouldn¡¯t follow him against his order as he was probably changing into night clothes. For whatever reason, I was highly averted to being in the same room with him as he changed, even though I¡¯d done it so many times before with my unit from the, uh, that one place. My unit... huh, I completely spaced their names, trying to remember their faces. All I could remember was the foggy image of a cold, tiled room, the sound of spraying water filling it. I couldn¡¯t remember the name of this place either, it was starting to get annoying to continue being confronted by memories that didn¡¯t seem real. I wanted the vague visions to stop, but at the same time, I found some piece of myself was stuck in them. Somewhere in th¨C Yaeleth interrupted my thought as he came in through the flap of the tent, dressed in his sleeping garb. His night time clothes were not very dissimilar to his daytime clothes. They simply lacked the metal plating that armored his typical clothing. For some reason, Yaeleth had that look on his face again. The look when he has some kind of idea he¡¯s super excited about. As Yaeleth asked me to sit down on the ground, he seemed like he was going to teach me another word. Not very exciting at all. My head already kind of ached from all the words I¡¯d learned in one day, but the full-time immersion was helping to solidify them in my brain. These words would be different though. Yaeleth grabbed a stick and began to draw pictures in the sand. First was a stick man, and next to the stick man was another one that had long hair. I saw where he was going with this as he drew a miniature version of each underneath them. He started pointing to each one, teaching me the words, ¡°Man¡±, ¡°Woman¡±, ¡°Boy¡±, and ¡°Girl¡±. All pretty elementary words, but not very useful to me at the moment. He then connected the hands of the man and woman drawings, proceeding to surround all four drawings with a circle. Now, he went to each of the drawings and said another word. It took me a second to register why he was giving me a different word for each now, but the circle gave me the clue I needed. It was a family. I got the words, ¡°Father¡±, ¡°Mother¡±, ¡°Son¡±, and ¡°Daughter¡± along with the word for the whole group, ¡°Family¡±. The word, ¡°Family¡±, struck some chord with me, but I wasn¡¯t sure why. Yaeleth restarted his drawings and then tested my memory of the words. I flawlessly recounted them until it came to, ¡°Father¡±. Instead of pointing to the stick man, as Yaeleth did, I pointed to him and said the word, ¡°Father¡±. For some reason, it felt right to call him ¡°Father¡±. I mean ¡°Yaeleth¡± was a hard thing to say anyway, so maybe my brain told me to call him ¡°Father¡± for the sake of ease? No. There was some other root cause. It didn¡¯t just feel right to call him ¡°Father¡±, it was right. I didn¡¯t know why, but this man was my father in my eyes, one-hundred percent, dead-to-rights, my father. At this notion, Yaeleth was a bit taken aback. He wasn¡¯t expecting me to call him that, instead he was expecting to potentially learn where my family was. I guess in some way, he found out. Yaeleth took a second to think about what he was going to do next. The yearning in my eyes took him by force and made him do the unexpected. He pointed to me and said, ¡°Daughter¡±. My face must have lit up with glee, it was so euphoric to be called his daughter. To be affirmed as that. But there was one more thing I wanted desperately. I had been here with no name this whole time, I wanted¨C no I needed a name from my father. My eyes must¡¯ve done their job once again and pleaded well enough, because my father then looked me dead in the eye and said one word, a name. ¡°Kaelynn.¡± 7: Karathuum The night before had been completely restless for me, and I didn¡¯t know whether Yae¨C Dad had slept well last night either. The excitement of the final word spoken the day prior had kept me from getting even a wink of my precious beauty sleep. But I didn¡¯t really care, all I cared about was that my dad had accepted me as his daughter, his daughter Kaelynn. Dad ¡°woke¡± me up from my pretend sleep when the sun had risen. When I turned over and looked at Dad he returned me a smile and greeted me with, ¡°Morning, Kaelynn.¡± The euphony of hearing my new name brought a big smile to my face as I sat up and rubbed my dry eyes. ¡°Morning Dad,¡± my accent in my father¡¯s native language was evident as I spoke, ¡°What are we doing today?¡± I¡¯d worked on recalling as much vocabulary as I could overnight, and what I had worked great for functionality. Then again, it certainly wasn¡¯t perfect. Dad¡¯s runthrough of the day to come had me stumped on some parts. There was a word that stood out to me mostly that I thought meant ¡°moon¡±, but after shooting a confused look over to Dad, he gave a demonstration showing that he was talking about ¡°traps¡±. Right. Now was the time we¡¯d set for picking up the traps from yesterday, the task must¡¯ve slipped my mind in my overwhelming euphoria. After showing that I now understood his point, he gave me a pat on the head before handing me my clothes that he¡¯d pulled from the line outside. He then left the room as I put on the clothes. While dressing myself, my body became apparent to me once again. I gave myself a second to think it over and I¡¯d say I was the size of maybe a seven, no maybe even six, year old girl. In other words, I¡¯d really shrunk quite a bit. I wondered whether I¡¯d grow back to normal size quickly or if I¡¯d be stuck this way for a while. It didn¡¯t really matter to me either way, as long as I got to stay with my dad as long as possible. I walked out of the tent and saw my dad squatting down near the ground while packing his bag. I¡¯d wondered what he¡¯d packed the day prior, but I hadn¡¯t questioned what all he packed on this kind of trip. I mean, what could you really need to take on such a short day-trip? Food and water? What else is in that bag? My dad zipped up his pack and I assume he asked if I was ready, making me forget my query. I nodded my head and that seemed to be the right answer as he began to walk the same way we had the day previous. I quickly ran to catch up to the massive man that I now called my father. We then proceeded to begin walking the near-straight line through the desert expanse. *** By the third or fourth trap, I wasn¡¯t really paying much attention, we¡¯d caught one lizard. The lizard was pretty small compared to the ones I¡¯d seen prior to it, but maybe those ones had just been big? I¡¯m not sure what I had been expecting, but it wasn¡¯t just that measly morsel. Dad¡¯s expression hadn¡¯t changed though, so I guessed that he was confident the catch would increase. I looked on at him as he field-wrapped the fileted lizard, feeling super lucky that I had a capable person like him to keep me alive in this place. I began to walk toward him while I thought. This place was a lot different than the place I¡¯d grown up in, or at least I thought so. Where even had I grown up? It felt like my memories were on the other side of a locked door, I could only peek through the cracks and see little bits and pieces. As I made another step, I thought I felt my heart drop. In reality, my whole body had begun to fall. I snapped out of my attempt to recollect a past life and realized what was happening. The sand underneath my feet had fallen away and I dropped into a large cavern. The spot where I had landed was illuminated by the ray of light from above, but the rest of the cavity was enshrouded in darkness. I couldn¡¯t exactly tell how big the area was, but I could tell that it extended past the distance I could see into the darkness. Luckily, I had noticed I was falling before I¡¯d landed, otherwise I wouldn¡¯t have been able to avoid breaking at least one leg. My previous training had taught me how to fall properly, I think. I decided to stop bothering trying to remember anything for the time being, seeing as it got me to where I¡¯m at now. While I was looking upward, I saw my dad¡¯s head appear, blocking some of the sunlight from entering in. A look of calm fear was clearly present on his face, this situation had to be no good. He signaled with his hands for me to stay silent, putting a finger over his mouth in the classic fashion. I obediently obliged him, not like I had much to say that couldn¡¯t be inferred regardless. After seeing me repeat the motion to him, he disappeared from view. If I was actually a little kid, that would¡¯ve sent me straight into panic mode, but I knew that I could trust my dad not to leave me.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. While I waited for him to return, I again tried to look into the darkness. My eyes were now further adjusted and I could make out what looked to be rows of neatly carved indents, perfectly rectangular, carved into the sandstone walls. The tunnel, as it were, continued out of sight still, but the walls could be made out on either side. I could hear a slow, faint sound. It almost sounded like a rock hitting another rock in a perfect rhythm. The noise was coming from somewhere down the hall, it clearly did not originate from the immediate area surrounding myself. The hairs on the back of my neck began to stand and my spine received a painful chill. The total silence, interrupted by the faint tap, gave off an eerie vibe. Like I wasn¡¯t meant to be there, almost like flesh and blood would turn to rock and iron just by lingering too long. Suddenly, the light above me became dimmer, almost causing me to jump out of my skin in fright. Luckily, I held in my shriek as I looked upward. My dad dropped a rope down into the hole slowly, so as to not make a noise. As the rope reached the end of its travel, I tried to reach for it, but I was nowhere near. I shook my head as an indicator of that. Dad gave a slight frown as he reeled the rope back up to himself. He disappeared for a few more moments before returning in front of the hole. This time, he slithered his way down ever further into the hole, face first. I thought he was completely crazy until I realized that he had tied the rope around his feet. Then I knew he was crazy. He tried to ease his way down, but eventually the weight of his body made him slip, sending him down the hole quickly. The rope made a semi-large twang noise when it tensed to hold my dad¡¯s weight. Immediately, the knocking down the hall stopped. My dad¡¯s eyes widened as he yelled to me, ¡°Jump!¡± I jumped up and grabbed his hands, proceeding to climb him as fast as I could, eventually reaching the top with the help of Dad¡¯s hands. As soon as I finished getting up he bent himself upward, reaching the rope which he¡¯d tied onto his legs. If his flexibility wasn¡¯t impressive enough, he climbed the rope in record time, inspired by some unknown fear. Dad began to untie his feet and pointed at the boulder which he¡¯d tied the rope to. Understanding the point, I ran with urgency over to the knot on the boulder. I somehow coordinated my hands to get the rope mostly untied before Dad finished the job for me. He quickly coiled his rope, shoved it into his pack, and picked me up, running further down toward the next trap. A low bellow of anguish roared from the direction of the hole as we fled; Dad let out a sigh of relief. *** Dad had run the entire distance to the next trap, not stopping or slowing at all. When we¡¯d gotten to the trap, he set me down and hurled before grinning like he¡¯d cheated death. He turned to me and picked me up in a giant bear hug, squeezing all of the air out of my lungs. The stress all caught up to me and my eyes began to water. Before I knew it, I was bawling like a little girl whose pet hamster had just died. Well, I guess I was the little girl part, so I had an excuse to react the way I was, however much my brain rejected that my reaction was possible. But, I didn¡¯t really care, I just wanted to let it all out and cry on my dad¡¯s shoulders, and that I did. After having a good cry, I pointed toward where we¡¯d come from and simply asked, ¡°what?¡± Dad looked out over the horizon before saying one word, ¡°Karathuum.¡± After this he went into more detail, I understood some of it, but needed some explanation of other parts. The best way I could translate what I heard was that something existed down there that somehow turns people into, ¡°rock people¡±? I wasn¡¯t quite sure what being a ¡°rock person¡± entailed, but it didn¡¯t sound like a favorable fate. The thing that does this turning people into ¡°rock people¡± was none other than Karathuum. From what I¡¯d gathered, Karathuum was some kind of wizard that was killed, but his spirit returned by taking over a statue of some sort. I mean, that was my conjecture anyway, after learning countless new words over the course of my dad¡¯s storytelling, that is. Regardless, this ¡°Karathuum¡± was no-good and it hit me that I¡¯d probably have died if I¡¯d screamed when I fell. Or at least, been stone-i-fied. Yet again I¡¯d been saved by my newfound father, he was already a lot preferable to my old one. For some reason the thought of even having a father previous to Yaeleth made me sick to my stomach. He was probably a really bad dad, seeing how my body reacted to the thought of him. Yet, of all the clouded memories I had picked through, his was the clearest. Still cloudy, but clearer nonetheless. When I¡¯d try to picture his face, I¡¯d become both sick to the point of needing to stop, and red with anger. I decided it would be better for me if I never thought of him ever again, Yaeleth was my real dad after all. *** We finally made it home as the sun was beginning to set. We¡¯d taken a longer route back to avoid the newly formed entrance to Karathuum¡¯s domain. The catch in the remaining traps was surprisingly good, especially the final one since it had a massive sand lizard inside it. Dad started a fire almost as soon as we got back. The fire pit he¡¯d made contained a metal pole on either side, holding up a metal grate over the top of the fire. He set some of the lizard filets on top of the grate, waiting for them to cook. I wasn¡¯t sure what the grate was going to do exactly, but I trusted that Dad knew what he was doing. As the meat cooked, its aroma filling the otherwise stale desert air, Dad tended to the wounds that I had sustained during my fall. Like I said, I didn¡¯t break anything, but I had sustained a few small gashes. I certainly wasn¡¯t adverse to having Dad dote on me either, I quite enjoyed it. In between picking sand and rocks out of my cuts, Dad turned the meat over, revealing a beautiful pattern that the grate had cooked onto the filets. My mouth watered. After I had been fixed up and dinner had cooked, we ate. Oh. My. Word. That had to have been the best meat I¡¯d eaten in my life up till that point. It was absolutely amazing. After eating that wonderful meal, we got ready for bed. Dad had been sleeping on the floor the whole time I¡¯d been around, and I was starting to feel bad. I mean, of course I didn¡¯t want to sleep on the floor, but that didn¡¯t mean he should have to! I insisted that he slept in the cot too that night, that way he got better sleep and I got free cuddles! Wait, what am I saying? Ah, screw it! I really do... love cuddles... X1: The Tale of Karathuum Soren Boarspear was not very highly praised in his community, that is, the magic-using community. He was covered up by magic-users much greater than himself, the kind of magic-users that could generate tornadoes of fire, or cause the harvest to double. Those magic-users would always overshadow the poor fellow, but it wasn¡¯t only them. The town that Soren had been appointed to, Buzzard¡¯s Call, also was not very fond of the man. He mostly kept to himself and his experiments, making sure of the townsfolk¡¯s wellbeing and safety was a secondary task to him. His magics came first. If there was one thing Soren was an expert of, it was crafting new spells, ones that no one had ever heard of! Typically they were somewhat pointless, but nevertheless, he could make thousands. One day, Soren stumbled on a particularly interesting spell while experimenting with rocks. When he used this spell, he expected it to give the rock levitation, but was surprised when it did something much more exciting. The rock on which he¡¯d cast his spell wiggled around on his desk, attempting to remove itself from it. The rock moved on its own, it behaved like a creature capable of making its own decisions. Soren immediately wrote this spell down on his list of useful spells, a very short list. ¡°This must be tested with something of greater structure!¡± Soren shouted in his echoey workshop. *** The following days, Soren called for multiple sculptors to come into his workshop, presenting their finest sculptures of small animals, most were made of stone, but some other materials were presented as well. Soren went through multiple experiments, first discovering that his spell only worked on stone, not other things. Later, he discovered that if the stone shared a structure similar to that of an animal, it would behave similarly to said animal in its movements. ¡°Highly intriguing,¡± he mumbled to himself, ¡°I suppose I should figure out how to control the animated stone before bringing larger creatures to life.¡± And that, he did. After months of study and experimentation, Soren had created a pack of stone wolves, a leopard-bull, a one-horned bison, and a giant bee, which all followed his commands. However, even with all that, the creatures were still simply rocks. They did not eat, nor sleep, but that wasn¡¯t the issue. They were not truly alive without one thing. Mana. ¡°But how do I go about giving them such a thing? It¡¯s not like I can just give them mana without any way to store it. Ah, but that¡¯s just it. A storage system. I need to give them mana gems! It¡¯s so simple!¡± Mana gems were a priceless resource, Soren only carried two, but he knew where some more were stored. Stolen novel; please report. *** The camouflaged wolf returned from its task. It had stolen three more mana gems from the town reserve. Now Soren was equipped with five total, enough to bring around half of his creations to life. As a reward for completing the mission, the wolf became the first to receive a gem, but it didn¡¯t quite turn out right. As the mana-filled gem was infused with the wolf, a radiant glow erupted from its eyes. The glow continued to grow and a loud hum began. The wolf clawed at its face, taking off chunks. Finally, the wolf exploded into hundreds of pieces of charred stone. Soren was able to hide before the blast, but both the wolf and the mana gem were completely destroyed. Soren tried most of the remaining mana gems on every creature he hadn''t tried. Some had higher tolerance than others, but all of them ended in the same way. Soren would¡¯ve been beside himself if he cared much for his lifeless creations. Instead, he was ignited with a desire to find the right mate to the mana gem. Problem was, he only had one gem remaining, so he¡¯d have to choose wisely. Over another set of months, Soren had perfected a new model. Based on a human structure, his new creature was ready to receive animation, and afterward, life. ¡°Animated stone¡± was no longer enough to describe it; Soren decided on calling it a ¡°golem¡±. A crashing sound met with Soren¡¯s workshop door. The villagers had come to kill Soren and retrieve their mana gems. Soon after the first noise, the door flew down to the ground, kicking up a cloud of stone-dust. Soren¡¯s remaining wolves immediately came to his defense, ripping into the intruders. The villagers'' swords couldn¡¯t do anything to the wolves, but their greathammers were a different story. Before all three of Soren¡¯s wolves were smashed to bits, Soren raised the humanoid golem to animation. Next, he filled the mana gem with his own magic. Before he could merge the two, however, he was met with a sharp steel object piercing through his spine and internal organs. Soren¡¯s mana-rich blood spilt all over the golem in front of him as he fell to the ground. His vision went black. *** He opened his eyes and looked down toward his feet in front of him. On the ground lay a body, his body. He raised his hand toward his face, revealing a stone palm that had been created with delicate care. He noticed movement in his peripheral vision. The greathammer-wielding villagers were creeping ever closer to him, he would be smashed to bits if he didn¡¯t act now. He grabbed the glowing mana gem next to him and opened his jaw, shoving the gem down his small semblance of a throat cavity. It burned. An orange glow shot out from his eyes, then dimming into a faded white. As the white color took hold, the burning pain that he felt also became lessened. He felt the surge of mana flow through him, but there was one other thing that came to him, a brand new spell. He grabbed a swordsman by the wrist, doing away with the incantation, he sent his mana into the man¡¯s arm. Quickly, the man¡¯s flesh was turned to stone, leaving him frozen in place. The lack of motion didn¡¯t last long, however, as he was soon turned into animated stone, stone that obeyed Soren. The swordsman turned toward his former allies, but stayed close to Soren, guarding him. One of the greathammer-wielders, Soren believed it was the swordsman¡¯s brother, dropped his weapon and ran to the man. He called out the man¡¯s name, but the only answer he received was a sword to his gut, it was twisted for extra internal damage. As the body hit the floor, the other men looked in fear as Soren reached down and touched the body, turning it to stone and animating it. Most of the men were turned to Soren¡¯s side that fateful night, but the ones who lived to tell the tale gave Soren a new name. They called him ¡°Karathuum¡±, the name was comprised of two words. ¡°Karak¡±, meaning ¡°stone¡±, and ¡°Inthuum¡±, a type of beast that duplicates by feeding on the flesh of humans. Karathuum attempted to rule the surface, an army of animated stone behind him. After taking multiple settlements, Karathuum was subdued by the Grand Sorcerer, Roansphere. Roansphere sealed Karathuum, and what remained of his army, in the catacombs. Even thousands of years later, in a world where magic is hardly practiced, Karathuum''s story told as a fairy tale. Yet, in the dark of the catacombs, he still lurks, awaiting his revenge... 8: Blast from the Past A few days after falling into Karathuum¡¯s Catacomb and realizing that both me and my father needed to sleep in beds, Dad made himself a new bed out of materials we¡¯d scavenged. There were oddly a lot of buildings to find materials in, most places seemed to be reminiscent of 18th century architecture that I¡¯d read about previously. Again, no clue why I knew that, the actual memory of reading that didn¡¯t exist, just the information existed as a result of it. Days were passing by a lot quicker now that we had established some kind of routine. Trapping always happened on the same two days, along with some less frequent chores. The day-to-day always had the same set of a few chores, like watering the garden for example. Washing clothes always happened at the same-ish interval, the same could be said for scavenging. Scavenging had become one of my favorite chores, exploring some abandoned buildings with my Dad was tons of fun. All the places we¡¯d scavenged so far had been what seemed to be public buildings though, no private homes as of yet. Whenever we¡¯d enter the buildings, we¡¯d be real quiet for a minute. Dad said it¡¯s because there can be monsters down there. What kind of monsters, I wasn¡¯t sure. I assumed he was referring to creatures similar to the sand boar that he¡¯d saved me from the other day. After a few weeks of this routine, something out of the ordinary happened. Just as we had prepared for bed, a loud explosion followed quickly by the crack of thunder rang off in the distance. I nearly jumped out of my skin at the volume of it, it had to have been really close. It came from the direction of a cluster of old buildings nearby, so it could¡¯ve been anything. Either way, Dad said that we would check it out the following day. I also convinced him to sing me that song again, he said it was called ¡°Silmi Liorad¡±, but he didn¡¯t explain the meaning of the title very well. *** The following morning, we awoke early. We packed quickly and made sure that we had protection and sustenance. The strange occurrence the night previous had been weighing on both of our minds, practically begging for us to check it out. And that, we would. We arrived at the cluster of buildings a few hours before midday, giving us plenty of time to look for what had caused the sound. It was pretty obvious what direction we needed to go in from here out, the smell of burnt chemicals gave it away. After following our noses for a short while, we arrived at a building that I had never been in before. It was just what I¡¯d been hoping for, a private home. The only problem was that the scent was pretty overwhelming. Dad had brought some face cloths for whatever reason, maybe he encountered stuff like this a lot? Either way, the face cloths helped a ton, letting my nose take a break while we searched around the home. I made sure to stay close to Dad while we walked through the house, I didn¡¯t want to end up getting jumped by some ¡°monster¡± while we were there. After all, I¡¯d had my fair share of near-death experiences during the near month that I¡¯d been with Dad. After looking around for a while and scavenging a few somewhat interesting things, we stumbled on what looked to be a kid¡¯s room. It was a little girl¡¯s room, to be exact. The room had a pale pink wallpaper with white flowers, I guess that was pretty consistent with what I was used to, stuffed toys were sparsely scattered around the room. In the corner was an empty bedframe and a dresser. I hoped this girl was my size, because I desperately needed a few changes of clothes. I¡¯d been wearing the same one and half outfits for the last month, definitely needed a bit of a change of pace. Pants would be great. Dad said that I could take whatever clothes I wanted, but only a few pairs. I guess he didn¡¯t want the laundry workload to increase by too much. To my slight dismay, there were no pants in any of the drawers, the closet didn¡¯t have any pants either. I wasn¡¯t too unhappy though, since I¡¯d gotten used to the open feel of flowy clothing. After all, I¡¯d been wearing what was basically a dress this whole time, so I wasn¡¯t very adverse to the idea. To the contrary, I was kind of excited. I took the fancier pink floral dress from the closest. Well, I suppose I should say that Dad grabbed it for me at my request, I couldn¡¯t really reach it. Along with that dress, I also picked out two more dresses that were more plain. A solid color dark red one and a diagonally striped blue and white one. One other thing stood out, a red hooded cloak of some sort. It wouldn''t fit me well for another good bit, but I couldn''t resist taking it. That met my limit for the amount I could take. I¡¯d just have to cycle between the lot. After swiping a few other necessary pieces of clothing, you can guess what that means, we were prepared to continue our search of the premises. But before we left the room, my gaze met with that of a stuffed toy of some kind of bunny-unicorn combination. In other words, a bunny with a horn. Dad and I walked out of the room, but he went back in for a second after, telling me to wait in the hallway. He was soon back, and we continued our search. At this point, our noses were of no aid to us in locating whatever had happened. The smell was so strong throughout the entire building that you couldn¡¯t really tell where it was stronger or where it was weaker. Even without our sense of smell, however, it was only a matter of time before we stumbled upon the scene. In the middle of what looked to have been a dining room, there were burn marks everywhere. A circle of the hardwood flooring had been burnt away, revealing the stone foundation underneath. Similarly, the ceiling had been burnt through, showing us the presence of an attic. The table was split in half, presumably by whatever had caused the other holes, and throughout the wood were these weird streaks of burnt material. I remembered something at that moment. Information once again.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°Werewolf...¡± I said in my native language, whispering. ¡°What did you say?¡± My dad replied in his own native tongue. I hesitated to explain my thought process at the moment. I mean how do I explain WRWLF explosives to someone who has probably never even seen an ion grenade before. Have I even seen one? Agh, it doesn¡¯t matter. I¡¯d have to keep my explanation simple. I was still learning the language after all. ¡°Werewolf is a weapon that makes lightning and fire. This looks like werewolf.¡± I really boiled it down to the basics. I had no idea how to explain all the chemical reactions involved in WRWLF explosives in my dad¡¯s language. The chemicals in the grenade combine and cause an immense amount of static electricity, forming what is basically lightning. The fire comes as a side effect, being ignited by the lightning and consuming the byproducts of the chemical reaction. Dad looked at me with a face full of both confusion and concern. He was confused due to the fact that I knew that, and also concerned that that kind of thing existed. Dad had come to find out that I was not a very imaginative kid. By that, I mean to say that when I said things, it was always serious. That fact only added to the thought of this kind of weapon being out there. ¡°What is it for?¡± Dad asked me while cocking his head slightly. ¡°Werewolf is for breaking defense and killing but with no pain.¡± The sentence somehow came out half-coherent. At least, I think it was pretty understandable seeing as I had only been learning to speak for a little bit. The truth of WRWLF explosives was not far off from that. The white lightning provides for armor penetration while killing more ethically than being obliterated by a more typical weapon. The fire, which originated as an unintended side-effect, actually turns out to work great at burning a hole into enemy encampments. The fire puts itself out pretty naturally after it runs out of the chemical fuel. That being said, WRWLF wouldn¡¯t exist out here. There¡¯s only one place that those grenades could¡¯ve come from. My ship. ¡°How do you know about this?¡± Dad¡¯s question pierced my ears. I was expecting this question, which is why I thought I might refrain in the first place, but there was no getting around it and still dealing with the problem. I decided that I would answer to the best of my ability. ¡°I... don¡¯t know... how I know...¡± I spoke very truthfully, the best of my ability to answer turned out to be a non-answer, ¡°I just... know it.¡± A moment of silence fell upon the room, followed by another statement by me. ¡°Dad, will you help me find out why I know?¡± I asked him against my better judgement. I¡¯d rather just not know, it pained me every time I¡¯d try to think about it. I¡¯d been ignoring the origin of the information I had as much as I could. My memory went far enough back to know that I wasn¡¯t who I used to be anymore. I remember from when I woke up on that ship that I was shocked to no longer be a man, but I didn¡¯t remember ever being a man. I wanted nothing to do with that past life, yet I just kept having foggy flashes of it. I needed to at least try to know. ¡°Of course I will Kaelynn... You¡¯re my daughter.¡± My eyes became teary once again, I¡¯d been getting used to by now. I wanted to tell Dad that I loved him but I couldn¡¯t muster the strength to let it out between the sobbing. Dad crouched down and brought my head into his shoulder. I cried there for a while, embracing my father to the best of my ability. I wished I could hug him forever. But his next question wouldn¡¯t allow for that. ¡°Kaelynn, can you take me to where you came from?¡± Dad asked slowly in his calming bass. ¡°Mhm,¡± I sniffled after letting out the quiet affirmation. *** The building hadn¡¯t been a far shot from the ship. They weren¡¯t directly in any of the cardinal directions from it, but they were pretty much a halfway point from it to home. The path would appear like a diagonal from point A to B and B to C respectively. Before we had made it all the way to the ship, it could be seen in the distance. Panels had been torn off the sides and the ones that remained had collected rust already. The slightly-rich oxygen combined with some other gas in the atmosphere must¡¯ve prematurely rusted the metal. The door could be seen clearly, it still remained partially open, allowing a small field of vision into the cabin. As we arrived at the ship, we went straight in. Light streamed in from the places where everything had been removed, obviously the place had been re-looted recently. The floor of the cabin was covered in all kinds of debris, but one objective was clear first. The weapons rack. I walked over to the place where the rack had been, hollow thuds followed every footstep from both me and my father behind me. The ship¡¯s interior was so familiar, yet foreign at the same time. Regardless of that, I located the rack. The weapons rack laid on the floor in front of me, completely empty. It had two indentations where the metal had been crumpled on either side of the rotating compartment. It was as if a singular person had come and ripped the rack out of the wall with their bare hands. That shouldn¡¯t have been possible, but there was a lot of impossible stuff happening recently. The only clue that the weapons rack had given me as to what had happened to the weapons was that an abnormally strong man, or creature I suppose, had stolen them. I considered if my Dad had done it, but not even he was that strong. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a blinking light. A small recording box laid on the ground nearby the rack. The blinking light indicated that a message had been recorded on it, and that it could be played back. I went over to the box and ordered the box to relay its message. A few seconds of silence, followed by some heavy footsteps, preceded a voice. ¡°Who am I?¡± The robotic voice spoke out to seemingly no-one, but he was met with a reply. ¡°You are RAIF,¡± an identical voice spoke, its audio was at a slightly different volume, indicating that it originated from a different place than the first, ¡°you have one objective.¡± ¡°What is my objective?¡± The first voice questioned. ¡°This individual must be protected at all costs,¡± The second voice commanded the first, presumably showing an image of whoever it was talking about, ¡°download the information located in the ¡®important¡¯ folder on my drive.¡± A few minutes of silence followed the command before the first voice spoke up again. ¡°Finished. Thank you for your data.¡± No response. ¡°I am Wraith, she is my objective.¡± The robotic voice repeated this line several times before stopping abruptly. Footsteps could be heard, growing louder as if the heavy object was approaching. Suddenly, the footsteps stopped, then the recording ended. The name sounded familiar for some reason, I felt some really strong emotion all of the sudden. I could not discern between joy, sadness, or fear. One thing was clear, whoever had the weapons, he was called ¡°Wraith¡±, and Wraith was very powerful. I wouldn¡¯t want to come across him. 9: Humiliation The voice message had given me some really strong chills. Like someone had come back from the dead and they were out to get me. Regardless of this, there was no trace of Wraith, and the ship might have had other clues for me to remember things. Dad seemed deep in thought over the message, after I had explained it to him, anyway. However, I decided to leave him be a bit and continue on looking for other memories. Most of the place was wrecked, but every scrap seemed just as familiar as the next. No memory triggered at all, not even one of those stupid foggy glimpses that I¡¯d come to hate. Just when I had wanted one, of course none had come to me. There was one thing I noticed though. I reeked. Today¡¯s scavenging trip had gone longer than usual and I had been sweating a decent amount. Besides, I¡¯d been wearing these clothes since the last wash day, the next one would be tomorrow, but I just couldn¡¯t wait. Besides, I kind of wanted to try on some of the new clothes I¡¯d gotten. Before we headed back home, I asked Dad if he¡¯d step out for a second so I could change into something else. He obliged and sat outside, waiting. I had decided on going with the pink floral dress, it looked like the comfiest one of the bunch. I had had a preconceived notion that dresses were hard to get on for some reason, but this one was a lot easier to just slip on than I expected. Either way, I was no longer wearing the stinky makeshift dress that I¡¯d been wearing nearly the whole time. Not saying that it didn¡¯t have a charm to it, but its charm certainly wasn¡¯t very evident when it stank to high heaven. When I stepped to the edge of the door, Dad lifted me up and out of the cabin. ¡°That looks very pretty on you, good choice Kaelynn.¡± Dad complimented my attire. I don¡¯t think I, or any of my clothing, had ever been referred to as ¡°pretty¡± before, but it made me really happy to hear it for some reason. Probably because Dad said it. ¡°Thanks Dad,¡± I hugged his leg tightly, ¡°now let¡¯s get going before it gets too dark.¡± And with that, we set out toward home. The sun was getting pretty low, it¡¯d been a long day and being out here at night didn¡¯t seem preferable. I held Dad¡¯s hand for a bit, but let go after realizing that I still had some energy to burn. I decided on running around a bit and hiding to jump out at Dad, I know, childish right? After hiding and jumping out a few times, it had gotten pretty dark. The light was just of the cloud-hidden moon, so I figured I¡¯d just hide one more time. As I settled behind a rock, I felt the sand shift underneath me. I was grabbed from behind, once again... dang, I must be really unaware... However, the grasp that held me this time was not the familiar embrace I¡¯d gotten used to. Instead, rough, yet hairless hands grabbed my face aggressively. A tight and hostile grip wrapped around my waist, pulling on me to keep me from squirming. I tried to wrestle my way out, but I was unsuccessful in this tiny form. My line of sight tilted from straight forward to straight up as I felt myself fall back on top of the attacker¡¯s torso. Suddenly, I felt the weight of sand piling up over me, my attacker still gripping me tightly. I closed my eyes as a wave of sand assaulted my face, the weight now covered my whole body as I became buried in sand. A silence persisted for just a few seconds before I could hear my Dad¡¯s muffled voice calling out for me. I tried to call back to him, but my voice was so stifled that I couldn¡¯t even hear it. Then another noise stood out from the background of my Dad¡¯s shouting. The noise of crude engines roaring throughout the open desert. Bandits. Once the engine sound had become so clear and unchanging that it was obvious they had arrived, I heard the voice of someone. ¡°Stop, Eindresil! We will kill your follower if you attack!¡± The commanding voice shouted out. I wasn¡¯t sure who ¡°Eindresil¡± was, but that question was soon answered as my Dad¡¯s voice replied. ¡°I have no follower, Rider of Koujax! You have ten seconds before I slaughter all of your men!¡± ¡°Heron! Show yourself!¡± I felt the sand beneath me begin to shift once again as my attacker and I rose from the sand. I squinted open my eyes, trying not to get sand in them as my attacker and I shifted into the sightline of my father and the group of bandit riders. ¡°If you find no value in this female,¡± the commanding man let out with a sneer, ¡°then we will take it and be on our way, Eindresil.¡± My Dad looked at me with a sad expression and then to my attacker with a terrifying rage, causing him to take a stagger backward. As my father¡¯s gaze shifted back to the commanding man, he grimaced. ¡°What do you want from me, Rider?¡± ¡°Nothing from you, Eindresil. We want you,¡± a short pause ensued before the commanding man spoke again, ¡°there is no greater trophy, after all.¡± Dad looked between me and the commanding man a few times, eventually submitting to be taken with the promise of no harm to me. Tears began streaming down my face because of the stress of the moment. I was pushed onto the ground and my hands and feet were bound before I was set on the back of a four-wheeler type vehicle. My Dad was approached with caution by the bandits as they clasped thick metal cuffs onto his wrists. He was guided to a separate four-wheeler. As he sat on the back, the vehicle¡¯s rear end sagged almost into the dune below. The bandits set their heaviest man as a counterweight to drive that vehicle, lifting the rear slightly higher from the dune. The vehicle that held my dad was the second in the formation, behind only what I assumed to be the leader of the group. He was the one who was doing all the talking previously. I cried the whole way to our destination. If only I wasn¡¯t such a weakling...You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. *** The camp had been visible well before we had arrived. A few plumes of black smoke arose from inside the massive stone walls. It was less of a camp and more of a fortified ¡°luxury¡± prison. ¡°Luxury¡± for the actual inhabitants, that is, not the ones who were there against their will. We stopped at a large front gate, it soon opened, sending the door upward as the four-wheelers began to be able to comfortably fit underneath. They unloaded us from the vehicles, we seemed to be their only cargo. They must¡¯ve been planning this for a little while, it wasn¡¯t just spur of the moment. For some reason, they thought my Dad was this ¡°Eindresil¡± guy who was worth a lot in the currency that is honor, if Bandits had any. And to his credit, he probably was "Eindresil". We were led into what looked to be some kind of reception room, there were three visible doors after we had entered. Two of them were closed and locked with padlocks, the other was wide-open, but looked to be more heavily armored than the other two. I could see some lockboxes inside the room, but they probably had more stuff hidden from sight, it looked to be quite the large room. ¡°Welcome to Fort Koujax, Eindresil. We will now begin our full-body search on you and your follower, our new inhabitants.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t touch my daughter, Rider. You must know I could break these cuffs if I wanted.¡± My dad slowly, yet menacingly, told the commanding man. ¡°Your daughter?¡± The man laughed as my father¡¯s face lost a bit of color. ¡°What a grand surprise! But don¡¯t you worry, Eindresil, I thought you were more aware of our culture than this. We men do not touch those who aren¡¯t... ripe. We wouldn¡¯t want to incur the wrath of the goddess Ankorah. Her search will be performed by one of her kind.¡± The commanding man walked over to my father, feigning courage, and reached out to touch one of his armor plates. He smirked. ¡°Take the female to another room. Let us tear Eindresil¡¯s famous armor piece by piece.¡± A cheer erupted from the men in the room as I was dragged to the door on the left. As the door shut in my face, I could hear laughter and thuds on the other side of the door. The thought of them beating my father because he was too selfless to just let me be taken brought the recently faded tears back to my eyes. I pounded on the door as I sobbed and fell to my knees. A door opened behind me and then quickly shut, I paid it no mind. A set of hurried footsteps came up behind me, I ignored them. A woman¡¯s voice met my ears, I tuned it out. A hand grabbed my shoulder, I pulled away from it. I was ripped to my feet and a palm slapped my face, I awoke from my trance. An old hag stood in front of me, her ugly mole and scrunched up skin giving her away. She looked angry at me and began screeching something at me, I couldn¡¯t quite tell what the shrill witch was spouting. I became despondent as she lifted my dress skirt up over my face and began patting around, looking for contraband. ¡°You¡¯d better not be hiding anything, girl. I¡¯ll hit you again,¡± The hag screeched at me, ¡°too bad, nothing here.¡± She let my dress back down and sneered. ¡°Give me my dad!¡± I shouted at her, ignoring the obvious consequences. ¡°Why, aren¡¯t you just a demanding little princess? I¡¯ll clean you of that attitude!¡± She raised her hand to slap me again, but before it could be used, she was caught by her wrist. A guard had somehow gotten in without either of us hearing and had seen what the witch was about to do. ¡°I¡¯ll kill you if you hit it again, hag,¡± the guard spoke with true sharpness in his voice, ¡°this is the daughter of Eindresil, it is not to be harmed.¡± The witch¡¯s face went very pale at the guard¡¯s words. ¡°Ei¨CEi¨CEindresil?¡± She stuttered through her corroded dental structure. Obviously my dad was a big deal in these parts, I just wished the witch would hit me again. In other news, it felt mildly degrading to be referred to as ¡°it¡± by the guard, but I didn¡¯t have enough left in me to care. The witch fainted. *** The guard had led me to another room without saying a word and set me down in a chair, doing up straps on my arms and legs. He put on gloves and grabbed a pen that made some noise and had a tube on it. I realized that he was holding a tattoo pen only after it started to dig into the skin on my neck. I couldn¡¯t tell what he was doing with it, but it took a while and a lot of pain before he finished. It had kind of felt like he was writing letters? But it didn¡¯t matter now. He unstrapped me and began to lead me somewhere else once again. He was silent until I spoke up and asked him a question. ¡°Is my dad ok?¡± My question caused him to chuckle for a moment. ¡°He¡¯ll be fine as long as he is who he is rumored to be.¡± I didn¡¯t quite know what that meant, but the guard¡¯s tone indicated truth. He actually seemed to be trying to comfort me a bit, but maybe that was prejudice or just me adding context that wasn¡¯t there. Either way, we now entered a courtyard of sorts. Four large stone walls connected to each other to create a big rectangular area. The area was separated in the middle by a large fence with rusty barbed wire atop. I could see the shapes of men laboring on the opposite side, along with hearing some shouts of guards. On my side of the fence, I saw a few middle-aged and old women working in a garden and there were some buildings in clear sight; it was still night but the now uncovered moonlight was enough to make out this much. We walked toward one such building. The guard opened the door and rang a little desk bell. Soon after, a young woman, probably in her early twenties, came to the entranceway. The guard greeted her while playfully hiding me behind his back for a moment. ¡°Ryn, I have another delivery for you,¡± he said with a smile as he pulled me out from behind his back, ¡°this one is special, read the tag on its neck.¡± The woman gave out an audible gasp before speaking. ¡°And what of him?¡± She inquired. ¡°He is being processed at the moment, gives me time to try to win you over.¡± ¡°You know that I am not mine to give, Atolis.¡± ¡°Of course, but love is not limited to¨C¡± he cut off mid sentence, ¡°I have to go, there is someone in the parlor. I leave you with this gift.¡± He softly pushed me into the room before dashing off in the direction we¡¯d come from. As the door closed behind me, I found myself in a dimly lit room with the young woman. I looked at her blankly for a moment, waiting for her to make the first move. ¡°Hello! My name is Ryn, but you can call me ¡®big sister¡¯ if you want to,¡± she said cheerfully and plastered a smile on her face, ¡°what¡¯s your name?¡± ¡°Kaelynn...¡± I replied. There was no way in hell I¡¯d call her ¡°big sister¡±, but I would try to get some info out of her, ¡°do you know what¡¯s gonna happen to my dad, Ryn?¡± She looked at me solemnly for a moment before deciding to just completely avoid my question, she must¡¯ve taken me for a toddler or something! She countered with her own question, surprisingly on topic to my train of thought. ¡°How old are you, Kaelynn? Four? Five?¡± Damn. I was a little short, but I¡¯d figured that this body was at least six years old! ¡°Six,¡± I answered with some indignation, ¡°now answer my question.¡± She sighed. ¡°He¡¯ll be ok, they are just going to process him.¡± ¡°And what does that mean? Be completely honest.¡± I tried to phrase my demands as adult as possible, that way she¡¯d get the point. ¡°Well,¡± she sighed deeper, ¡°he will be beaten to the brink of death, branded by the Koujax symbol, and then made to do labor, as the rest of the men.¡± Reality sunk in a bit deeper. They were gonna do what to my dad?! 10: Problem Child Ryn had questioned me a bit more, asking unimportant questions like, ¡°what do you like to do for fun?¡± I refused to answer any of her questions and she eventually gave up. She then informed me that it was time for bed and I didn¡¯t want to go at first. But then, a plan formed in my head. I agreed to go to bed and we walked over to a door on the other side of the room before stopping for a moment. Ryn told me to wait while she grabbed something from another room to the right. She came back holding a night gown and began to take my dress off. Yeah, no, not happening lady. I insisted that I could dress myself, and she looked at me skeptically before reluctantly handing me the night gown and began to stand there waiting. Just as reluctantly, I turned around and took off my dress before putting on the night gown. It wasn¡¯t very comfortable, but it wasn¡¯t the worst material I¡¯d worn. After I turned back around, she gave me light applause and grabbed my hand. I rolled my eyes. She led me into the room past the door. On the right side of the room there were two bunk beds, on the left was a small play area and what looked to be a changing table. It was a nursery of some sort, and it was inhabited by two girls, both of which taking up a bottom bunk. This made my plan a little more difficult. You see, I had planned on sneaking off to the other side of the camp and trying to find my dad so that we could escape. Being on a top bunk just made it that much more difficult to get out of there unnoticed. It wouldn¡¯t be impossible though, and after that it¡¯d be pretty smooth sailing. I guessed that in this small body I could probably fit underneath the barbed fence that separated the two sides. After that, I wasn¡¯t sure what was there, but it¡¯d be pretty easy to hide as a small individual during the night time. This might''ve been my only chance to catch our captors by surprise and escape. I was sure that Dad would be able to smash through the door to get out, the door that probably had all of our stuff in it would be harder though. A problem to think about when we got to it. After deciding that my plan could still work, I found myself being helped into a top bunk above one of the girls. Ryn put her hand up to stroke my hair, but I dodged and turned around to face the wall. ¡°Goodnight,¡± I said plainly and waited. ¡°Goodnight,¡± she eventually returned with a slight sadness in her voice before leaving the room and shutting the door quietly. I waited for a few minutes before executing my plan, I wanted to decrease my chances of getting caught as much as possible. After my waiting period I began to slowly downclimb the pole on one of the corners of the bed, as no ladder was present. Luckily, I was a good climber, not good enough to outclimb a charging sand boar, but certainly good enough to climb down a pole quietly. Once I had lowered myself to the ground without incident, I walked over to the door and slowly turned the handle before cracking it open and sliding through. The once dimly lit room was no longer lit at all, I relied on my memory to find the front door. After finding that door, I repeated the process of quietly going through it, making sure to shut it as silently as I could behind me. A small creak sound came from the door hinges, but not loud enough to wake even a light sleeper up. After successfully leaving the building, I hid behind anything I could as I found my way to the fence. The women¡¯s side of camp had become still at this time in the night, all of its residents were likely sleeping. As I had previously thought, I fit underneath the fence. It took a little more effort than I had originally thought it would, but it was doable. Now for the unknown. I snuck my way around the men¡¯s side of camp, avoiding night laborers and guards alike. As I rounded one particular corner, I saw two guards chatting with each other coming my direction. I was luckily not seen as the cover of the night had hidden me. That call was close enough for me to slow down my progression a bit, I didn¡¯t have all the time in the world, but I knew where my dad was at least. The shouts and laughter gave it away. Eventually, I found my way into a stone hallway. On the other side of the hall was a metal gate, going into a courtyard of some sort. No, it was an arena. I neared the closed gate and crouched down as I watched what was going on. My dad was tied up to a post and was surrounded by many guards. Each guard was taking turns hitting my dad with whatever blunt object they had. Clubs, planks, rocks, bottles, and battering rams alike were pelting my dad as hard as they could. One club broke down the middle as it contacted my dad¡¯s abdominal muscle. Shattered glass, pieces of wood, and pebbles surrounded my dad¡¯s feet. My dad just hung there and took it.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. It wasn¡¯t like he wasn¡¯t feeling any of the weapons that met his skin, just that he was withholding from attacking back. His upper body was covered in bruises and small cuts. He didn¡¯t move, just looking down upon his attackers with a blank expression. Not letting any of them have the satisfaction of making Eindresil yell out in pain. Suddenly, everyone stopped moving or making noise. A man walked out from the gate on the other side. His build was similar to my dad¡¯s, but slightly less defined and disciplined. Two men marched beside him, one to his right and the other to his left. Both men carried a shield and pike, and they were equipped with light plate armor that was completely black. They wore full head helmets, completely black except for a white mark over the facemask portion resembling a rock formation in the shape of a man. The man in the middle had the same mark branded on the center of his chest. He wore a smile as he looked upon my father. The men surrounding my father moved to the sides and kneeled in front of the branded man as he walked up to my dad. He said something, but I couldn¡¯t make it out over the distance. After my dad responded, the man¡¯s smile turned to a scowl. The man cracked his neck and knuckles before sending a strong punch into my dad¡¯s gut. The shockwave made a cloud of dust fly up behind my dad and the pole he was on fell backward. My dad made no yelp of pain during or after the contact, but he did smirk for a second. A hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. ¡°Would you look at that? A little runt, spying around in the wrong section,¡± a man spoke from above me as he moved my head out of the way to read my neck, ¡°hah! Come to watch daddy get torn up, eh?¡± ¡°You couldn¡¯t even scratch him if you tried,¡± I said as I spit at the man. Turns out that spitting on someone makes them a little mad. He tossed me over his shoulder and began walking over to the door to the main reception. I beat on his back with my fists, but they obviously weren¡¯t doing any damage. I began to hit his neck instead as we entered the women¡¯s section. That made him visibly angrier, but he just kept walking. As we made it to the building where I¡¯d escaped from, he threw open the door and rang the bell aggressively, smashing his fist onto into multiple times and denting it a bit. Ryn came running around the corner, coming from the side room. As soon as she was in sight, the man threw me at Ryn, knocking her down as we both lay on the floor groaning. ¡°Get up, caretaker!¡± Immediately, Ryn rose to her feet and bowed down to the man. ¡°Why is it that I found this little rat over at the arena? Hmm?¡± The man practically yelled at Ryn, ¡°You can¡¯t keep track of one little child? This action will not go unpunished.¡± The man waltzed over to the still bowing young woman and grabbed her by the throat, holding her up in front of him. She whimpered as the man held her in one hand and struck her in the stomach with the other. After he was satisfied, he threw her to the ground and kicked her once, for good measure. He then turned his attention to me. ¡°You¡¯re lucky, runt," he said, pointing at me, "if you were ripe I¡¯d have done worse to you,¡± he smirked and licked his lips before turning and leaving the room, not bothering to close the door on his way out. I rushed over to Ryn, who was curled up on the ground and coughing up a little blood. As I tried to put my hands on her, she pushed me out of the way. I couldn¡¯t blame her, this was all my fault. She clawed her way back to a standing position, using the desk next to her to support her as she breathed heavily. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry,¡± the only words I could say escaped my mouth as tears ran down my undamaged face. I wanted to kill the guy who just attacked her, but I was too weak, I was always too weak. It was my fault that she was hurt, that beating was intended for me. If only I was stronger, if only I could¡¯ve hit him harder. But it was futile. I was futile. I sobbed as I looked at the mess of blood on the otherwise clean stone floor. Then I heard a voice. ¡°It¡¯s ok,¡± Ryn said as she wrapped her arms around me, ¡°you just wanted your daddy, I¡¯m not mad.¡± Those words made me feel even worse. I had caused her to be beaten, and now she was comforting me. Streams of tears continued to fall as I tried to return the embrace a little. This went on for a few minutes, with Ryn saying, ¡°It¡¯s ok,¡± every now and then. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a glaring face peeking out through the crack of the door to the nursery. By the time Ryn had decided it was time to lead me back to bed, the door had been closed. We entered the room once again and the two girls were both in the same places they had been. Ryn helped me back into the top bunk I¡¯d been in and this time I was going to stay in it. She smiled weakly and kissed my forehead before turning around and leaving the room, shutting the door behind her. During the time I lied in the bed, I thought through what I could do to change myself. I was the worst. There was a pit in my stomach thinking about what I¡¯d done to Ryn. I kept getting everyone else in trouble and getting away scot free. From now on, I¡¯d do whatever Ryn said, risking another punishment was an absolute no-go. The display I¡¯d seen of my dad¡¯s power had proven to me that he¡¯d make it through alright for the time being, so I just had to do my best to behave. Who knows, they might hurt my dad too next time I oppose them. I decided that I¡¯d be the best kid I could be, I wouldn¡¯t cause trouble, I wouldn¡¯t disobey, I¡¯d just do everything the way I was told. It was the best I could do after all, being as weak as I was. I needed to get stronger with any moment that I could spare. I wanted to protect those that I loved. Most of all though, I wanted to be able to get out of here with my dad. This was going to be a lot of work... 11: Im Not A Toddler! I woke up to being carried out of bed, just below my midsection I felt wet for some reason. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± I asked while looking at Ryn, who was carrying me. ¡°You had a little accident in the nighttime, so I¡¯m going to change you now,¡± Ryn replied with a baby-talk voice, ¡°don¡¯t cause trouble, ok?¡± There was no chance that that could¡¯ve happened, that being the case, there was evidence regardless. I would¡¯ve vehemently denied it if there wasn¡¯t the evidence of wetness. Disgusting. Either way though, there was no way I¡¯d be submitting to even more little girl treatment, I had to get out of this situation. ¡°You don¡¯t have to do that!¡± I blurted out, ¡°You can put me down now!¡± Ryn looked at me with a scrunched up frown, ¡°Well we can¡¯t have you wetting big girl clothes all the time, now can we?¡± ¡°It was a one time thing,¡± I said as quickly as I could, ¡°I won¡¯t do it again!¡± Ryn set me down on my feet and crouched down to look me in the eye, ¡°You promise?¡± ¡°I promise,¡± I said with conviction. I couldn¡¯t believe this was even a situation that was happening, I never would¡¯ve imagined it. ¡°Ok,¡± Ryn said, ¡°I believe you, but until you go two days without an accident, you have to stay in the playpen during the day.¡± Ryn motioned to the play area I¡¯d seen before. I wasn¡¯t sure why she called it a playpen though, since there were no visible fences. I was about to argue with her decision before remembering what I had decided the night previous, I was going to be on my best behavior. ¡°Ok,¡± I said reluctantly, it would only be two days after all. ¡°Great,¡± Ryn said before motioning the other girls in the room to come to her, ¡°this is Kaelynn, girls.¡± The girls greeted me with a, ¡°Hi, Kaelynn,¡± and a curtsy of some sort. The much smaller one of the girls almost toppled during her curtsy. ¡°Kaelynn, this is Ophree, she is nine years old,¡± Ryn motioned to the older girl, who seemed to be upset or something, ¡°and this is Myrie, she is four years old,¡± Ryn motioned to the much smaller girl. ¡°Kaelynn is six years old and loves her daddy the most out of everyone else.¡± I blushed a little at that last comment. I mean, it wasn¡¯t necessarily false, but it also was super embarrassing to hear out loud. Anyway, it was good to know a little about the other kids here, I hoped I would get along with them pretty well. Ophree, the one who was ¡°older¡± than me, seemed like she might be tough to get along with, but I hadn¡¯t done anything to make her upset yet, so it wouldn¡¯t be impossible. The younger one, Myrie, on the other hand, seemed like she¡¯d be easy to get along with, she seemed more joyful and it was never that hard to get along with a kid as long as you bent to their whims. After we changed into day clothes, Ryn corralled me and Myrie into the play area. She then opened a panel on the wall and began to pull a fence out, it traveled on a track around the edges of the area. Now, it was a playpen. The fence locked onto another wall and clicked into place. After that, Ryn and Ophree left the room to go work. As the door closed to the room, I found myself alone with Myrie in the playpen. She seemed very excited. ¡°Uh, hi...¡± my tiny voice squeaked out at the practically jumping little girl. ¡°Hi!¡± she shouted, ¡°Can I call you ¡®sissy¡¯?¡± ¡°N¨C¡± I couldn¡¯t even manage to get out one syllable before I was interrupted. ¡°What¡¯s your favorite game, sissy? Mine¡¯s ¡®Princess and Maid¡¯!¡± ¡°Uh, I don¡¯t really ha¨C¡± ¡°Can we play ¡®Princess and Maid¡¯?¡± she looked at me with pleading eyes, ¡°Pretty please?¡± I hesitated for a second, ¡®bend to their every whim¡¯, I sighed, ¡°Ok. How does it work?¡± Myrie went on to explain the game, it was a little like ¡®House¡¯, but instead of everyone being a member of a household, one was a princess and the other was her maid. I¡¯d bet you couldn¡¯t guess who was the maid, that¡¯s right it was me. I basically just did whatever she wanted me to do the whole time, brushing her hair, pretending to wash her face (we didn¡¯t have any water other than drinking water), pretending to clean, etc. It was a little strange to me to play a game like this, since I didn¡¯t remember ever even playing ¡®House¡¯ before, but it was a pretty easy concept to get a hold of. I even ended up having some fun and giggling along with Myrie before I remembered what was happening to my dad. I wondered if Myrie knew anything about the camp that I didn¡¯t. I asked Myrie a few questions, but most of them were met with a, ¡°Dunno, brush my hair,¡± or a, ¡°Not sure, go dust the shelves.¡± In the end, all I learned was that you weren¡¯t allowed to go work until you were six around here, so Myrie had never been to many places in the camp. I asked her if she ever went outside and she said, ¡°Mhm, when the big scary guy talks every week.¡± I guessed I¡¯d see what she meant about that soon enough.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Eventually, Ryn and Ophree came back to the play/bedroom and Ryn said it was time for bed. Ryn put the playpen back into the wall, she then took me by the hand and told Ophree to watch Myrie. I wasn¡¯t sure where Ryn and I were going, but eventually she led me into a small room with a weird seat in it. The seat had a hole in the middle and I wasn¡¯t sure exactly where it led to. The arrangement seemed somewhat familiar, but I couldn¡¯t quite place it till Ryn told me something I would basically translate as, ¡°Go potty.¡± I told Ryn to turn around, but she said that she needed to make sure I went. Like I was just going to pretend or something... We went to bed after I was finished. One more day of the playpen awaited me. *** As I woke up the next morning, I felt intense deja vu. I was again being carried out of my bed, and again I felt wet just below my midsection. This time I was even more shocked, I mean, I literally went right before bed. Something wasn¡¯t right here. ¡°Ok, Kaelynn, this is the second time,¡± Ryn looked at me as she carried me over to the corner, ¡°no more big girl clothes till you stop wetting the bed, understand?¡± There was no avoiding it this time, but I was so confused how this had happened. I¡¯d never wet the bed when I was with my dad, why would I start now? I still couldn¡¯t argue with the events that were transpiring though, the evidence pointed towards me having wet the bed and there was no evidence supporting a different theory. I submitted as Ryn set me on the changing table and put a cloth diaper on me, secured with pins and all. I was so humiliated that I couldn¡¯t say anything, my cheeks went red and I couldn¡¯t help but start crying a little. Ryn didn¡¯t let me wear my floral dress because she didn¡¯t want me to soil it, she didn¡¯t even let me dress myself. She picked out a yellow one-piece thing that kind of looked like a fuzzy swimsuit. It had no legs on it, but it didn¡¯t hang over me, it was secured with a button around my crotch area. It had long sleeves, my little hands came out the ends of them. Lastly, she put a little white skirt on me to cover my lower body down to just past my knees. The whole ensemble screamed ¡®toddler¡¯ to anyone who saw it. I felt so ashamed. After that whole ordeal, the day went about the same as the day before. I didn¡¯t put as much effort into ¡®Princess and Maid¡¯ as I was thinking about how much I missed my dad. We got through about half of the day before I couldn¡¯t really hold my bladder much longer. I had been distracted from it because of a mix of the game and my thoughts, but it had now become intense enough to overcome both of those. Myrie called out for ¡®big sissy¡¯ to come because I needed to go, I was kind of dreading asking so I appreciated Myrie¡¯s help there. Instead of Ryn, Ophree came through the door and helped me out of the pen. She grabbed my hand and started taking me through the halls as I held my bladder. We rounded a corner that I didn¡¯t remember taking the day previous, but I wrote it off as my misremembering, I hadn¡¯t been paying much attention. I complained to Ophree that I really needed to go, then she began to speak. ¡°Hmph, stupid bedwetter,¡± Ophree let out her huff of disgust at me, ¡°I¡¯ll make sure you never get out of the playpen.¡± Things started to click in my head a bit, I wasn¡¯t exactly sure what she meant by that, but maybe she was making me have accidents somehow? Ophree stopped and grinned at me demeaningly, ¡°I won¡¯t let you take my big sis time, bedwetter.¡± After that last line, it was pretty much confirmed to me that she had a hand in all of this, then we continued walking down the halls. For some reason, it seemed like she was jealously guarding her time with Ryn, like I was going to steal it or something. Either way, if this brat had been sabotaging me, she¡¯d feel my revenge soon. Eventually, Ophree led me into a dark room and closed the door, making it pitch black. ¡°Stay put, bedwetter, I¡¯m going to get the candle and lighter,¡± Ophree said as I heard her footsteps proceed away from me. I waited for a few moments before calling out, ¡°Hurry up, I really need to go!¡± Something furry brushed past my leg. I wasn¡¯t really afraid of the dark, but I was afraid of rats, so I hoped beyond hope that that wasn¡¯t a rat. A chill ran up my spine as my other leg was brushed by something furry. I let out a little yelp before calling out again, ¡°Ophree?¡± I heard a loud whisper directly into my left ear, ¡°Boo!¡± I was grabbed around my waist from behind and squeezed into my captor. This time instead of a little yelp, it was a loud one as the liquid I¡¯d been holding in was scared out of me and into the absorbent cloth that I was wearing. My knees buckled and I fell to the ground as my captor released me. Tears started flowing from my eyes as the door opened and shed some light in. ¡°Why would you do that?¡± I asked Ophree. ¡°I told you. You¡¯re never going to leave the playpen. Big sis is mine,¡± the girl practically cackled as she finished talking. Then she called out for Ryn. I doubted Ryn would take my side of the story here, but I thought I might as well try. Ryn rushed around to the room and looked in at me on the ground. ¡°She ran off and hid in here all of the sudden. By the time I caught up and opened the door, she was like this. She must¡¯ve gotten scared from the dark,¡± Ophree spouted out her somewhat well-conceived story. Ryn scrunched up her lip and put her hands on her hips as she looked at me, ¡°What am I going to do with you?¡± ¡°She¡¯s lying! I was following her like I was supposed to and she trapped me in here with her,¡± I tried to tell my side as quick and understandable as I could, ¡°then she jumped out at me to make me scared.¡± Ophree let out a shocked gasp before speaking, ¡°How awful that you would say such a thing,¡± she turned to look up at Ryn with puppy dog eyes, ¡°you know I¡¯d never lie to you, right? On the other hand, Kaelynn has only caused trouble since she¡¯s been here.¡± Ryn looked at Ophree and then back at me a few times before walking over to me and crouching down, ¡°It¡¯s bad to lie, Kaelynn, say sorry to Ophree.¡± ¡°B¨Cbut I¡¯m not lying! She is!¡± my voice cracked as I yelled out my defense. ¡°Ok. If you won¡¯t say sorry, you¡¯re not going to be allowed to come work until you are seven,¡± Ryn laid out her ultimatum. I let go of my dignity and pride as I apologized with the most sincerity I could to my antagonizer. There was no way I could accept the punishment of nearly never being let out for almost a whole year. After Ryn was satisfied, she picked me up and began carrying me to the changing table again as I cried. Ophree suggested a pacifier and Ryn thought it was a good idea, so I ended up even more humiliated. This place sucked. I hated Ophree, somehow I¡¯d get her back even worse. 12: Vengeance, or Grace? I stayed awake that night for as long as I could, in fact, I didn¡¯t sleep at all. I knew that Ophree had to have been doing her shenanigans at the early hours, it was the only time she could do it without getting caught. After what felt like hours of waiting patiently, the moment of truth arrived. Ophree attempted to sneak around the room, but her motions were obvious, anybody could¡¯ve caught her if they were paying attention. She lit a small candle and carried it over to the far end of the room. Grabbing a cup, she filled it with water, it wasn¡¯t the clean drinking water, but rather the leftover water from washing. After filling the cup, she slowly walked back over toward the bunk bed that we shared. She climbed onto her bunk and used the extra height to reach her hand over and attempt to pour the cup¡¯s contents. Not this time. I grabbed the cup and turned it over, it spilt all over the floor and somehow mostly avoided that brat, Ophree. Luckily, she wasn¡¯t expecting my sneak attack, she fell backward onto the ground and screamed. The memory with the girl laying in a puddle of her blood flashed back into my mind as Ophree contacted the ground. My heart pounded and my eyes bulged as I looked at the ground beneath me. The memory and Ophree phased in and out of each other. One second, the near-unharmed Ophree, the next second, the blood covered girl with no face. I slapped myself in the face and forced myself to calm down. Slowly but surely, my heart rate decreased, and the memory faded back into the filing cabinets of my brain. Ryn burst through the door with a candle in her hand. ¡°Are you girls ok!? What happened!?¡± she frantically yelled out as she looked around the room. Eventually, her eyes fell on Ophree, who was in the process of standing up. ¡°Little Baby Kae Kae poured water all over me, Big Sis! You should punish her right away!¡± Ophree yelled out as she pointed up at me. I had planned for this. At this point, I knew Ophree had been doing something with water, but I hadn¡¯t been sure what. Luckily, the whole thing with the cup was perfect for me. I mean, I was up in the bed and didn¡¯t have access to candles. Ophree, on the other hand, had the perfect opportunity to fill the cup and do something petty, as she had been doing the whole time. There was no way I could be blamed for this one. ¡°Is that true, Kaelynn?¡± Ryn tapped her foot on the ground while looking at me. ¡°Of course not! It¡¯s like I¡¯ve been saying, she¡¯s out to get me,¡± I pointed back at Ophree, ¡°I couldn¡¯t have even gotten the water, I don¡¯t have candles to see what I¡¯m doing! She was going to pour it on me and call me a bedwetter again!¡± Ryn was about to respond to me, but she held her tongue for a second and thought through the facts that I¡¯d laid out. Ophree looked nervous as time went on without Ryn saying anything. ¡°Ophree, sweetie,¡± Ryn spoke, ¡°you wouldn¡¯t lie to Big Sis, would you?¡± Ophree shook her head side-to-side. ¡°Did you fill that cup with water?¡± I saw something click in Ophree¡¯s head before she responded. It gave me a bad feeling. ¡°Yes, Big Sis, I filled the cup, but it¡¯s not like she¡¯s saying,¡± Ophree paused for a second before looking at me again, ¡°Baby Kae asked me to bring her some water, since she was thirsty. I g¨Cguess she just really huh¨Chuh¨Chates me or something,¡± Ophree put on a pouty face, ¡°c¨Ccause she decided to dump it on me a¨Cand try to call me a l¨Cl¨Cliar,¡± Ophree faked sobbing rather impressively. If I didn¡¯t hate her, I¡¯d give her an Oscar. What¡¯s an Oscar? Ah, it doesn¡¯t matter... Ryn went up to Ophree and pulled her in close, ¡°It¡¯s ok sweetie,¡± Ryn petted Ophree¡¯s hair, ¡°I¡¯m sorry she hurt your feelings,¡± Ryn looked up at me and shook her head with disappointment. It wasn¡¯t over. I wouldn¡¯t accept defeat that easily. ¡°Ryn,¡± I said without a shake in my voice as I stared her in her eyes, ¡°if that water was to drink, how come it¡¯s dirty water? I mean, it¡¯s easy to see that the water is a bit cloudy and has gunk in it.¡± Ryn inspected the water closer and realized that I was right, ¡°Why is the water dirty, Ophree?¡± ¡°Huh? I¨C uh¨C¡± Ophree stuttered, completely dropping the sobbing act on accident, ¡°well, you see, I guess maybe I couldn¡¯t see very well which was the right place to get it?¡± ¡°But you have a candle, and we never put the fresh water jug directly on the ground. You know that, Ophree,¡± Ryn looked into Ophree¡¯s eyes as she spoke, ¡°are you lying to me?¡± Ophree looked confused and then frustrated, ¡°It¡¯s all that stupid bedwetter¡¯s fault! If she just never came, you wouldn¡¯t have been hurt by those men,¡± Ophree cried out, ¡°and¨C and I would always get to be your favorite! Just because her dad is famous doesn¡¯t mean you should care about her! All she¡¯s done is cause trouble and behave like a toddler! I should have all the attention! ME!¡± The room went silent for a couple of minutes. ¡°Oh, Ophree,¡± Ryn spoke slowly and softly, ¡°I¡¯ll never stop being your Big Sis, I¡¯ll always love you just as much as I love your sisters. The thing is, sweetheart, that you have to learn to share with your little sisters. Do you love me, Ophree?¡± ¡°Yes! Of course I love you, it¡¯s tha¨C¡± ¡°Ah, ah, ah, don¡¯t say something nasty,¡± Ryn condescended for a moment before returning to her other cadence, ¡°being a good big sister is about sharing, Ophree. Don¡¯t you want to be a good big sister?¡± ¡°Well, yes, but¨C¡± ¡°No buts!¡± ¡°Kaelynn is not my sister.¡±Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°Well, if Kaelynn isn''t your sister, neither am I,¡± Ryn spoke sternly, ¡°because Kaelynn is my adorable little sister, just like you and Myrie, so that means that she is your little sister too! Ok?¡± The look on Ophree¡¯s face showed the cogs turning in her head as she tried to battle Ryn¡¯s argument, ultimately losing, ¡°Ok...¡± ¡°Good!¡± Ryn grabbed Ophree by the hand, ¡°Now we need to say sorry to Kaelynn for what we did, ok?¡± ¡°Bu¨C¡± Ophree tried to deny, but she was met by a stern look from Ryn, ¡°fine.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll go first,¡± Ryn said, ¡°Kaelynn, I¡¯m sorry I didn¡¯t believe you when you told me before. I truly feel horrible for treating you the way I have. Will you forgive me?¡± ¡°I suppose that will suffice,¡± is what I wanted to say, but held in. Instead, I opted for, ¡°I forgive you.¡± ¡°Ok, Ophree. Your turn,¡± Ryn looked at Ophree expectantly. ¡°I¨C I¡¯m s¨C¡± Ophree paused, ¡°Do I have to apologize?¡± ¡°Yes, and if you don¡¯t, I¡¯ll put you through what you put Kaelynn through.¡± Ophree went pale for a moment before looking back at me, ¡°I¡¯m sorry Kaelynn.¡± ¡°Will you forgive her, Kaelynn?¡± Ryn asked. It was hard enough to forgive Ryn, but forgive this brat? I bundled up all the strength I had and spoke, ¡°Fine. I forgive you, Ophree,¡± I decided to have some grace on the kid for some reason. I am just too kind. ¡°I promise I¡¯ll be a better big sister, Kaelynn!¡± Ophree¡¯s face lit up with a grin. She really was just a child, a devil child, but a child nonetheless. ¡°Now can I have my clothes back?¡± I asked. ¡°Now wait just a second, Kaelynn,¡± Ryn said, ¡°there¡¯s no mistaking your real accident yesterday, even if you were scared into it! If you go today and tomorrow without one, I¡¯ll let you have them back. That was the original deal. Got it?¡± I couldn¡¯t believe my ears. I wished I could rescind my forgiveness. Instead, I caved for just two more days of torture. I guess I could have a good time playing with Myrie, but every second wasted, my dad was receiving more pain. Not that a six year-old girl could stop any of that. Ugh. I wanted to get older as soon as possible. *** Princess and Maid was highly entertaining that day. Myrie insisted that I be the Princess that day, and eventually I caved. She fawned over me all day long, even when I wasn¡¯t asking for it. I couldn¡¯t even sit down or stand up without her, ¡°assistance¡±. My hair was always brushed and it had all kinds of girly clips in it, along with more bows than I could¡¯ve imagined the place had. I will say, Myrie¡¯s sense of style was somewhat lacking, but it was still fun to participate nonetheless. When I was the Maid again the next day, I¡¯d make sure to really pamper Myrie as much as I could. I liked her a lot more than Ophree, for obvious reasons, but I was hoping that Ophree would get over her childishness. When we¡¯d finished playing for the day, Ryn and Ophree came back into the main room. Or I suppose I should say we stopped playing because they were back in the room. It hadn¡¯t felt like a whole day had passed yet, but I guessed that it had by the fact that the pair was re-entering. The first thing Ryn did was step over the fence and check me for wetness, I would¡¯ve rolled my eyes if I didn¡¯t know that I¡¯d be told on. Obviously, I came back clean as Ryn began to speak. ¡°Good job on making it half the day, Kaelynn!¡± she spoke with seemingly real glee as she put up her hand for a high-five, she didn¡¯t move until I obliged her, ¡°Ok, girls, we have some gifts for you!¡± ¡°Whaddya get us, whaddya get us!?¡± Myrie jumped for joy as she waited for the surprise to be revealed. I, on the other hand, was a bit worried about what kind of ¡°gift¡± this was. It had better not be monikered diapers or something, I thought. That was out of the realm of possibility though, since only I was wearing a diaper... Ryn had been hiding one hand behind her back the whole time and Ophree had both of hers behind her back as well, obviously hiding the surprise. ¡°Ophree, give Kaelynn hers first, ok?¡± Ryn spoke. Ophree nodded her head once and walked over to me, she pulled a stuffed animal from behind her back and handed it to me. ¡°I¡¯m sorry for what I did. I know it was wrong.¡± I knew something was wrong as I started shaking uncontrollably while staring at the stuffed animal being offered to me. It wasn¡¯t like I hated Ophree so much that I wouldn¡¯t accept the gift, but my brain refused to let me move. I thought that I felt my held in fluids release again, but I couldn¡¯t care less at the moment. Fear paralyzed my legs and my eyes went wide before everything went dark. *** I stood in the small one-room home once more. The girl¡¯s dead body no longer lay on the floor next to me as I held a note and a compass in my hands. Just the stain of her blood on the floor left a reminder. Surprisingly, I could read most of the note, though some parts were fogged over. I¡¯m not stable anymore. ******¡¯s loss was too much for me, and now **** as well. Take care of her if she lives. Don¡¯t hold it against me, son. If you will, take my lucky compass, may it guide you swiftly.
I was going to just put spam in order to fill the ''500 character'' requirement that Royal Road has, but I felt that would be disrespectful to all the individuals who run this site. So instead, an exclusive message to my Royal Road readers. God can work wonders, and He has. He heals the blind, deaf, lame, paralyzed, demon-possessed, and those with any other ailment. Death is unavoidable. Everyone faces death. At some point or another, we have to accept that. So, reader, I encourage you to think about what will come after death? Will it be blackness, a complete absence of consciousness, a conscious eternal torment, a temporary torment and then a stay in paradise, Valhalla, reincarnation, a meeting with a group of little ''g'' gods? Just think about it. I mean, who can really know for sure either way? No one.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I believe in a God, no, the God. God does not lose His own. I believe that I am His, and I will hold on to that belief come any trial, dysphoria included. God could instantly take that away from me if He so willed. But He hasn''t. Why? Because He has a perfect plan for me, and for you. That''s what I believe. What do you believe?