CHAPTER – 7

GIRL FROM NOWHERE

 

The quietude after death is most peaceful and loneliness so profound the word itself loses its meaning. What comes next is a journey to the afterlife or an ascend to the upper realm only the souls of the dead can know?

 

But in this present moment the living continues to live on.

 

Caige was only a child and this was the first life she had taken. She did not plan to, but she was left with no choice either. The innocent radiance she possessed was inevitably polluted by those in power in this world.

 

There was no hero there to save her? And she was only a normal human child who had taken the first flight from her cage.

 

Looking at the corpse of the leader of bandits, for a fraction of a moment Caige imagined her own body in his place.

 

⸺Her neck half cut and bleeding continuously. Lying silently on a growing pool of blood. She feels cold and then she suddenly stops feeling anything.

 

Should she have died then, while she was still pure and innocent?

 

She pants and her lungs stop breathing until she takes a deep breath and comes back to reality.

 

“I am still alive. I need to get out of here.”

 

And those simple words held such strong magic that Caige became calm again and able to think of ways to get out of this bottomless pit.

 

It was not just a fanciful wish ‘⸺I do not want to die.’

 

But a much stronger will existed inside of her. ‘⸺I want to live.’

 

Caige looks around herself with attentive eyes marking anything that could have helped her to get out of the pit.

 

While others would have only found loose mud around them. With Caige’s athleticism and small body, it was completely hopeless to get out.

 

Caige decided to do what would have been beyond anyone’s imagination or would have never even humanly considered it for someone of her age.

 

Caige started dragging the dead man around. She searched his belongings and picked up anything she felt the use for.

 

She removed the boots and a long leather belt from him.

 

Luckily, the leather boots had good holds with spikes most probably to do steep climbs. Caige swung the belt around and after a few attempts of throwing it up, she was able to get it attached to a long hanging branch.

 

Whether it would have been able to handle her weight or not was a completely different question. But Caige still decided to give it a try than doing nothing.

 

She tied the other end around her waist and checked the hold by pulling the belt a few times.

 

With the knife, Caige had dug small holes in the wall to make footholds. She was quick in thought and also in efficiently implementing them at the same time.

 

With a little push and doing her best she pulled her body up to finally reach the branch, and grabbing onto it she stood there. After properly ascertaining that it could hold her weight she decided to continue with the climb.

 

What came next for Caige was to dig a few more grip holes in the wall and by climbing them she would reach the top in no time.

 

“Ahhh…” Taking a deep sigh Caige looks around with confident eyes this time. “I did it. Now all I need to do is get to Shae and Dia. I am not giving up on them.” Caige after celebrating a brief moment of triumph in her mind was on the search again.

 

Though the footprints had been washed away in the heavy rain Shae must have entered the forest to escape the bandits.

 

Caige wanted to find them before the bandits could and help them out. This way she could have redeemed herself for her mistake of offending them and being so selfish.

 

Splash. Splash…Splash.

 

Running crazy through the forest, Caige did not stop moving her legs or to even catch a breath. She was set on finding her companions and continuing the relationship with them hoping they could become friends and stay that way together.

 

Maybe they could find a new home in a nearby village and work together on farms until they had collected enough money to run their own shop. None of them had a home to return to, so they could live together as a new family and make a happy home.

 

Caige was not only considering future prospects but was truly living in them. The warmth of that dream only made her feel getting closer and closer to them.

 

Her face lit up as she comes to a small water canal which might mean she was getting close to a settlement. Because of the rain, the canal was flooded so Caige could not cross it for now and decided to follow along the bank.

 

If Shae would end up going somewhere it would be here.

 

“I am going to find myself a new happy life. I will care for them with all I have got. We can be a new family.” Caige mused herself with ideas and games she always wanted to play with friends since her childhood.

 

Quickening her pace, only a minute later to suddenly encounter a pack of monsters on the other side of the canal.

 

Caige’s grip on the bloodied knife in her hands tightened.

 

Even though Caige had never seen them before, she could tell from their description which matched from the books she read. A gang of Fenris Claw monsters was hording on the other side of the bank.

 

Caige was scared that they will smell her and jump to the other side leaving her with nowhere to run. She was already out of breath  to outrun them in a chase.

 

But then one of the wolf monsters turned to her side and with a disdainful look turned back.

 

“But. W-why?” Caige whispered to herself.

 

Strands of saliva branching between the monster’s yellowed teeth, they open their mouths wide and bite into a person’s flesh.

 

Caige do not scream. She was suddenly expressionless as if the whole world came falling on her.

 

The dreams she had built around the new people she had come close to, were now gone forever away from her life. A place she still did not intend to go to.

 

So, Caige watches apathetically as the monsters tear into the flesh of a human. And another corpse was being prepared.

 

The first monster goes for the thighs, the second for the shoulders, the third for the face.

 

But before that could have been ripped off, Caige definitely recognized them.

 

“Shae… Dia…No…no….no.” Caige wanted to scream, she wanted to cry and break her heart.

 

But the blade in her hand refused her to become soft.

 

The pack glance at Caige again with disinterest and was back to licking the bones of their hunt tonight.

 

Crunch, munch, slurp ⸺the wolves sloppily dig into their meal.

 

⸺Was she not even worth hunting down by monsters? Caige couldn’t even tell what to do next now.

 

With another of her dream burned to the ground… with another family lost before it could become whole.

 

But then Caige turns her eyes to the sky and asks, “Why…” And implicitly add to that, “Why not me?”

 

The sky unreasonably pitch-black sky vouch safes no answer but the clouds rumbled. A continuous thunder then lit the sky purple, striking again and again, deafening Caige’s ears.

 

And then a voice speaks from deep inside of her.

 

She felt bitterly cold with the heavy downpour and the strong winds that howled continuously kept pushing her back.

 

The will to continue from there on, to live a happy life all of that was gone in an instant.

 

Still, the voice that came out of her mouth was not a speech of despair but instead... laughter.

 

“HAHHAA—AHAAAA….”

 

Caige kept on running… running until she knew she couldn’t walk anymore.

 

Until she had gotten far away to someplace that was not here…

 

Shae’s and Dia’s life came to a ludicrous end despite how desperately hard they tried. But Caige still survived against all odds. Did that make her better of the two?

 

Even after their deaths, the wolf monsters continued to devour her greedily. The thought might have made Caige give her own life as well.

 

But seeing their death with her own eyes. She refused to die and chose to fight till the last breath she had left in her.

 

She had spent these few days trying to gain something that she had lost. Fighting against a force that was continuously at work to dispose of her. And despite losing everything again she would be able to see the light of another day.

 

And this made Caige feel such an atrociously high sense of accomplishment and joy she continued laughing the entire time she moved her legs with all the little energy left in her.

 

Even if she cried there would be no one to wipe her tears.

 

So, she laughed and ran.

 

That day she might have finally learned the meaning of life and yet remained ignorant of this wide world.

 

She knew only a narrow slice of it, and with the little life span she was going to live, she would still only be able to cover that little slice.

 

In another thought, Caige was also happy for Dia and Shae that they were finally able to escape their life of endless suffering.

 

Would all of this have not come to pass, if she had not left her mansion and gotten murdered? Would Shae and Dia still get to live? None of that thought mattered anymore in the end. That possibility was erased the moment Caige had decided to fight against this world and her own fate while being chained to it at the same time.

 

***

 

Caige had finally reached the outskirts of a small town. Unfortunately for her the gates of it were closed. And outside was a huge settlement of migrants gathering here for different reasons. Their own towns burned by bandits, outspread of an epidemic, farms destroyed by monsters, disasters, or a tyrant rule by the nobility.

 

Each one of them had come in search of finding peaceful lives here and yet this place was not a shelter, nor a rich land. It was just a nowhere place far-far away from wherever each of them came from.

 

Caige had put on a long heavy coat she got from the bandit’s corpse and held the knife in her hands tightly hidden inside the coat.

 

Caige knew that passing through such an unruly settlement where people were hungry and suspicious of each other. She could be easily mugged, kidnapped again, or taken advantage of being a girl and then killed.

 

A long line of these migrants was always ready at the gates to get inside the village.

 

Caige decided to stand in that line too. She cuts her own hair with the knife and hides the remaining with the hood of the coat so that no one could know or recognize her in case the bandits reappeared.

 

It was still raining heavily. With very less visibility and no food, she counted the meagre number of coins in the coat pocket.

 

Looking at the guards on the town gates they were up to no good. Secretly they were charging money on their own accord and then only letting people in. And those who could not pay the bribe were kept out.

 

Though the sum which Caige had on her was not substantial she still thought to give it a try or at least beg them to let her in.

 

And if the guards try to take advantage of her for being just a child she still had the knife in her hand, except that she did not know whether she possessed the strength to swing it or not.

 

Caige was afraid she might not survive the next day without clean water, food, or fresh clothes to keep her warm.

 

Then suddenly a small group of people and families tried to force their way in, only the squabble to be settled by the guards after they plunged their swords in each of their bellies and cut through.

 

“All of you will pay us knights for our protection, or meet this blade given to us by our master.” One of the guards smiles as a feeling of despair starts to well up in the place.

 

Caige immediately started thinking to leave the line and search the forest for food despite the mortal danger of monsters attacking her.

 

This line was no different than the death game she played on the boat, only the difficulty model of this one was set too high for her to clear.

 

But then her vision blurred with the sped-up rain, she did not really had seen much around or tried to get to know the people.

 

Only to notice just now that the man standing in front of her had a huge body, burly muscles, long wet hairs falling back and an unruly beard. He suddenly stepped out of the line and the people saw at him with an unfaithful glance.

 

They were all scared, and so would not do something unreasonable like that.

 

“Get in the line, you big oaf.” One of the guards shouted. At the same time, he unsheathed his sword and started walking forward.

 

“Do you have a death wish, let me grant it to you then.” the guard continues threatening him with a smug face.

 

Even with threats the man continuously looked down without following orders and in moments as if Caige could witness the rain slow down around her precisely at that moment.

 

The man’s hand slowly moves to his backside and down his long robe to grab a medium sized weapon sword tucked on his waist horizontally.

 

Five soldiers came through ready with their own knightly swords, the feeling of power and superiority gushing in their veins. Without possessing any skill, they simply swung their swords at him.

 

But the look and demeanor of the man were more than enough to exude an unnerving pressure around him. He quickly bent down avoiding a horizontal slash and then unsheathing his own weapon from the back he sliced the first man’s guts.

 

“What did you do? Let’s kill him all of you.” One of the soldiers spoke angrily but looked terrified at the same time. He never had the idea that they could be butchered in the same manner.

 

The guards were not fighting for survival, but the man was. The guards had no training to kill, but it was clear from the savage look on the man’s face when he thrust his sword into another guard’s throat, that he had spent years of training to kill his enemies.

 

Before a third sword could reach his chest, the man grabs his hand and with the hilt of the sword, he hammers it against his chest plate. With continuous multiple punches from this unfamiliar man, the guard’s ribcage could be heard cracking along with his armor crushed altogether. And for the final blow, a sword thrust exactly where his heart was.

 

People who were afraid till now started cheering for the man. Some looked with hopeful faces at him while Caige could only stare.

 

The crowd gathered from all around and people started running amok. They overpowered the other two guards with numbers as they had found courage. Whether it came from watching the man’s bravery or was revenge on the guards, it worked in their favor and moved as it gained momentum.

 

They unleashed all their anger and it exploded in an instant.

 

The front gate was breached and everyone rushed into the town for shelter.

 

Caige looked for the man again finding a small glimpse of him standing in the middle of three corpses. His face and clothes were slowly washed by the rain from the blood that freshly marked them.

 

Caige directed her eyes towards the people breaking the main gate and breaching the walls, she realized that standing and watching would gain her nothing. New guards might come to re-enforce the gate.

 

Keeping the knife in her pocket, which she was now somehow able to let go of, she runs together with the mob and finally enters the town.

 

And when for a brief moment she looked back, that man had already disappeared.

 

***

 

You see this is not just a story where everyone is surrounded by people filled with hope, gets to sow seeds, break bread, making music and living in peace forever.

 

This is not a story where people chose to rely on their friends or family but only on themselves even until their final moments.

 

This is not a story where crying or laughing it away can simply solve a problem.

 

And this can never be a story where everyone gets to live happily together.

 

It is not something remarkable and yet this is not just a story of one girl kidnapped from her family that was trying to get her killed. Or about her friends that died meaninglessly after betraying their savior.

 

Or about how she reached a backwater no-name town. Or, how one day a man washed away on its shores would one day come to rule this place.

 

No one knew his actual name, not because he didn’t have one, but when he came to this town he changed it and shaped it according to his will and his own face became the face of the town.

 

Loved by its people for all the deeds he had done no matter how violent or corrupt and then one last time a villain feared by everyone.

 

The Dalton Brothers’.

 

***