Starlight- Chapter 1: Twisted Arrival

            When I think about it, I don’t see how I could have gone fifteen years without seeing it. But then again, I guess it couldn’t be helped. I grew up ignorant of the world, and as a result of isolation, truly believed I was normal.
         I was always quiet, well-mannered, and did whatever I was told without complaining. I was short and skinny, and my brown hair bobbing an inch above my shoulders only made me look smaller, like some kind of strange, deformed faerie. I had the same vibrant green eyes as my mother, which I was reminded of often by the adults in town. They would always tell me I was a mirror image of her when she first came to the village with my father, from somewhere far away. I only asked once where that “somewhere” was, but my mother just told me it didn’t matter, “this was our home now, we’re happy here.”
         My mother, Maria, my father, Kel, and me, Claire Emmalyn Mysida, were the only living members of my family left, as far as I knew. We made a happy home of a little clay, thatched roof house on Walter’s Street near the marketplace of a town with no name and no contact with the outside world. In fact, my parents and I were the only people around who couldn’t trace their lineage back to the years of inbreeding our friends were so proud of. Everyone was clustered together around the only lake in the monstrous Waynigo Plain, a 3.5 million square mile ocean of razor sharp grass, and the occasional shrub, that swallowed up travelers as if it were alive. Except for my parents, of course.
         Nothing really ever changed for any of us. Our lives were an endless circle of routines that never altered in any significant way. I often wondered why my mom and dad left wherever it was they came from for meaningless lives in the middle of nowhere, but it wasn’t like me to ask questions. My parents were smart people; they must have had a good reason. It didn’t matter what it was. We were happy, and peaceful, until a fire came and burned us apart.
          They charged into our small town out of thin air, and in droves that would fill a locust with envy, burning anything and killing anyone they came across. They even tore down houses as they marched relentlessly forward. I remember seeing their flag-blood red and bearing the image of a woman with no left arm holding a black sword-billowing in the growing flames. We had no idea who they were.
         I stood transfixed, staring at the horror unfolding before my eyes, until someone roughly grabbed my arm and spun me around.
         My mother was behind me; her familiar face set in determination, but still streaked with fearful tears.
         “Go hide! Somewhere safe! Anyplace you can find!” She hurriedly glanced around, “The basement! GO!!”
         She turned me towards the steps, but as I started to go, she pulled me deep into her arms and whispered through my hair, “Claire I love you so much! You’ll be okay, I know you will!”
         I squeezed her as hard as I could and cried, “I love you too Mom!” burying my face in her shoulder and not wanting to ever let go. But she stepped back and pushed me away, shaking. I spun and ran down the stairs two at a time into the dark, dank mess of our basement. We only used the place as a giant maze of storage space, so it was filled with mice and mold and useless things. I went through both of the main rooms, searching frantically for a hiding place while trying to ignore the piercing terror in the pit of my stomach.
         When I heard crashes and screams from outside, I fell to the floor, clutching my knees and rocking back and forth like a chair on the cold stone. It wasn’t the cold or the dark or the fear for my own life that made me double over. She never said she would be okay. Mother said I would be fine, but she never said anything about her safety, or Daddy’s. What did that mean? What if something happened to them? Did I even tell her I loved her? I couldn’t remember.
         I somehow managed to force myself to silently crawl across the dusty ground to the nearest door.
         “Just a little way, just a little way…” I repeated to myself over and over to keep me going. Halfway there I heard a huge crash from upstairs that finally made me jump to my feet and sprint through the room, slamming the door shut with my heart pounding in my throat.
         I climbed over mountains of pots and baskets, all filled with old trinkets from my past, feeling more and more exposed by the second. Every muffled sound I heard made my muscles want to freeze under my skin. Eventually, I uncovered an old fireplace, with a narrow chimney. I didn’t have time to wonder if I would fit or not, I shoot up like an arrow as far as I could until the tapering walls trapped me. It was still so close to the ground.
         Suddenly, I heard boxes clay shattering in the next room, and the sound of clinking armor smothered all of my other senses. They were coming.
         I couldn’t tell if I wasn’t breathing or if my breath was so fast my brain couldn’t comprehend it; my mind raced, but was empty of all thought. I wanted to scramble up higher, but the narrow passage blocked me. When the door banged open and objects started shattering on the floor, I was trapped.
         My eyes almost bulged out of my head as I saw two armored feet step into view at the base of the fireplace, followed by the rest of their owner’s body as he knelt down and peered up into my hiding spot, straight at me, sword drawn and dripping blood. I couldn’t look away from the shadowed face below me, but I kept the scream on the tip of my ash coated tongue from escaping my lips.
         “Why does et have to be so damn dark down here,” he grumbled, his voice seeming to come from nowhere. I helplessly watched as he carefully positioned himself under me, and pointed his stained blade upwards. As he thrust his arm forward I knew I was going to die. It hurtled closer, closer. My shoulders were stuck between the sides of my deathtrap, there was no escape. The only thought that entered my head was a strangled, “You promised I’d be okay.”
         At the last moment, my eyes snapped shut, overflowing with tears, expecting a brutal death. But it stopped. I heard the sound of metal against brick and reluctantly peeked below me. I had gone up beyond the knight’s reach. I was safe. I had to struggle to keep myself from sobbing right there and giving away my presence. I couldn’t believe I was still alive.
         Of course, the knight was still there, and now, I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold on until my arms gave out. They were shaking with fatigue and the exhaustion of fear already. I mentally begged the knight and any others with him to leave quickly. I had never been very strong. There was no way I would last.
         “Please go, please go, please go, oh please go!” my mind pleaded. My arms were on fire, and my legs weren’t fairing much better. I could still hear metal footsteps nearby, moving painstakingly slow. It sounded like he was meticulously tapping every inch of the clay walls. Didn’t this man have anything better to do than wander around my basement?
             I had been hanging there for what felt like an hour when, to my utmost despair, I sat and listened as two more sets of feet clomped into my range of hearing. I was a goner for sure. It was a miracle I had lasted at all. I only wished I knew what had happened to Dad or Mother. It was all over for me, they were going to be heartbroken. I was almost ready to simply let go and be done with it, but the small part of my mind that wasn’t completely resigned to my fate as a cadaver realized the knights were speaking.
         “We’ve taken care of the mess upstaers, but Clearan’s hurt, bad. You feneshed down here? We need to leave as soon as posseble.”
         “E’m feneshed, and Eh ded’nt fend anytheng. We can leave.”
         “Good. Let’s get out of here then.”
As their steps faded away and disappeared, my whole body gave one last shudder and fell to the ground in a heap.

←†→

         The first thing I noticed when I woke up was pain. Pounding, teeth-grinding, limb-wrenching pain hacking at every inch of my body, like hammers and pins. I couldn’t move even if I had any reason to. I didn’t notice the stars shining brilliantly through gaping holes in the basement ceiling, or that nothing laying on the floor around me was in less than three pieces, or even the sobs and wails coming from outside that I shouldn’t have been able to hear from inside my house. I only saw that I was tired, I was sore, and somehow, I was alive.
         I sat on the ground, a useless lump, until a wooden board above me fell down and smacked me in the head. As if I didn’t have a migraine already.
         Shoving the stupid thing away, I used the wall to support me as I lurched to my feet. My muscles put up such a protest I had to try three times before I could stand all the way up. Even then, I wasn’t about to try walking. I just stood there, catching my breath, until my legs stopped shaking and my arms didn’t feel like jelly. It took awhile.
         As I was tentatively taking my first steps, I clearly heard someone call my name from nearby. At first I thought it was Mother, looking for me, but after I heard it again I could tell the voice was too high to be hers. Who was it? The voice kept shouting somewhere high above me, summoning me. I thoughtlessly trudged forward, searching for the source. I stumbled over burnt furniture that I could’ve sworn used to be upstairs. Part of me wondered where all the doors I had gone through earlier had run off to.
          When I reached the stairs, I had to crane my head to see to the top. They seemed to stretch on for an eternity. I wanted to find that voice, I could still hear it moving in front of me, but there was no way I was going to make it up those steps. Stumped on what to do, I sat and rested my head on the ground. Surely the voice, whatever it was, could wait for me to take a nap first.