@Rachelkddr group
here's my story for class so far:
Chapter one
It was an accident. I swear. No one was supposed to die.
It was the twenty-first of Lanorr. I woke up before the sun rose and got ready for work as per usual. When I stepped outside the crisp air slapped me in the face as a good morning. What a wonderful way to begin my week. I pulled my shirt tighter to my skin and jogged to the locksmiths where I had worked for about ten years. Since I was six, I think. My parents picked up and left one day, leaving me behind, never to be seen again. I try to tell myself its because they were ambushed coming back, but in reality, I think it was because I wore them out. Always screaming, always crying, always wandering off, terrorizing everyone in the village by throwing rocks at their houses, I was a handful and a half back then. My friends will tell you I still am but that’s not the point. So, since I had no parents, and no one wanted me, I only had one option left. The locksmith, Alber, was a friend of my father’s and had some pity on me, taking me in after it was clear they weren't ever coming back to Larksnest, my village. He put me to work even at the age of six, having me put away small things and keep track of orders. One good thing that came from that is that I’m literate now which is unusual for people my age. Anyway, back to how I accidentally killed someone.
When I went to work that morning there was a woman, Linn, I believe her name was, waiting outside for Alber to show up.
“Good morning, miss.” She frowned at me.
“I need to speak to Alber,” she snapped back at me. I raised my eyebrows. That was rude. I noticed she was holding a broken lock in her hand and thought I could help her if it was that simple.
I recovered my smile and said, “He won't get here for another hour but believe I can help you. What seems to be the problem?”
She scoffed. “You can't help me; I need to talk to Alber. Immediately.”
I walked up to the door and pulled out my key, fitting it into the lock. “Mam, I've worked with Alber for ten years. If it's just a broken lock I can help. If it’s something extremely complicated, then you can wait for Alber. Would you like me to look at it?”
“I told you, stupid girl! I need to talk to ALBER!” I opened the door and stepped inside trying to keep my temper. It was people like this that made me wish Alber gave me the authority to refuse customers just because I didn’t like them, but that’s not how Alber wanted to run his business. Ever kind and soft even though he was six foot four and could pummel you. That was Alber.
“Okay,” I said, “He’ll be here in an hour. Wait for him to get here, or come back another time, but I’m going to attend to business now.” Her frown deepened as she thought about what she wanted to do. I turned into the workshop and started to heat up the ovens.
As I was taking the molds out of the back room, I heard her declare, “I’m waiting.” I set them down on a table and walked back out to her. I put on my best customer service smile and showed her where she could sit in the tiny reception area.
A little while passed and a man came in asking for a generic lock for his pantry (apparently the kids had been getting in,) and a woman came in about a key she wanted to be duplicated. Linn sat in the corner the entire time, occasionally grumbling something to herself.
Alber finally came in and I went to the back to look for a rather specific mold someone was asking for. After a minute of searching, I heard Linn screaming at someone again from the front of the workshop. I walked out to see if I could help to calm her down but when I turned the corner, I saw Alber with his back to her, looking down at a paper, and Linn with a stone mold in hand, swinging for his head.
“Alber!” I cried out a warning, but too late, he wouldn’t duck in time.
I felt a cold rushing in my body. I doubled over, my head pounding, sweating profusely. It felt like something was inside of me. I lost control of my limbs. I stood, but not because I told myself to. I just did. When I looked up Linn was still mid-swing, Alber was beginning to turn around. Either time was standing still, or my mind was working double time, but I could see everything. And then I felt it leave me. It extracted itself so quickly and with such a force that I was thrown to the ground again, about to vomit all over myself. I sat there for what felt to me like days, panting, shaking, wondering what had just taken control of my body. My vision was blurred and when it came into focus the first thing I saw was Alber. He was putting all his weight against the wall, but his skull was intact as far as I could tell. He was staring disturbed at something on the ground. My eyes followed his to the floor and I saw why he was so abhorred. There was a body, maimed and twitching. Crimson blood enclosed the floor around her like an aura, the copper stench rising into my nose, making my eyes water. I killed Linn. Or whatever was in me killed Linn.
……
I’m going to freeze before I get the chance to hang. That was my first thought when I got to my cell. When the guards took me there, I was checked for weapons, given some prison clothes, plus I had to give my name to a guard who wrote it down and stuck it on a bar of my cell door. It read, ‘Allison Lone, murder’ in very bad handwriting. Lone. That was what they called people who didn’t have families anymore. That was what they call me. They bound my wrists and ankles together and threw me into my cell. I didn’t have a cellmate, probably because they thought I would kill them, but it didn’t matter to me just as long as I was alone. I didn’t want to have to explain to anyone why I was there, that I had killed someone. Then again, it said right on the door.
They had blindfolded me when they took me to my cell, most likely to prevent escape, but I knew the way out. Left, left, right, left, right, right, left, right. I think. I figured if I got lost, I could just hop into an empty cell and no one would be the wiser but for that to work, I need to get out of my own cell.
I sat up and took in my surroundings. The floor and walls were made of stone, the bars on the door were rusty, and there was a hole, just small enough to look straight out of my cell, about five feet up in the wall. There was no place to go to the bathroom. There was a pile of hay in the corner, soiled and moldy, that was supposed to act as my bed, and a filthy rag next to it that I think was a blanket. I wrinkled my nose, the smell made me want to vomit. I’m not going anywhere near those, I thought. I’m pretty sure everyone says that when they first see it, but the truth is you’re in jail. There is no other option. You sleep on the stone or you sleep in the hay.
I went over to my little peephole and looked through. There was no light coming from it which meant I was in the middle of the jail. It also meant the only time I would see light would be when any guards came by. I put my eye to the hole and let myself adjust to the even darker black in the next cell over. My hair stood on end but not because I was cold. There was a body. Male or female I couldn’t tell but whatever they were they didn’t move. They were covered in bruises from head to toe, skin pussing and swollen. Dozens of rips in their skin suggested that they had been whipped with a metal tip and beaten with rods. There was a rat sitting on top of the body, sniffing around, trying to tell if they were alive, I think. If they were breathing it was dangerously shallow because I couldn’t see any motion in the cell other than the rat. There was vomit in the cell too, but it was old and crusty by then. The guards clearly didn’t care. It wasn’t their problem.
I felt my breath quicken. That could be me in there. I took my eye way from the hole and placed my hand against the wall to keep from falling over. I focused on my breathing trying to ignore the rising panic in my chest. I wondered what they had done to be put in that position. If it was petty theft or if they reserved that level of torture for people like me before they were hung. I slid to the floor and put my face in my hands. I wanted to forget what I had just seen. Nothing warranted that treatment of a living being, mass genocide or leaving your horse untied outside of a tavern, it was discussing.
The first night I attempted to sleep I almost went insane. There was something dripping right outside of my cell and I thought sleeping on the stone would have been better than sleeping on the hay. It was not. Rats squeaked constantly and I swear there was one right next to my head all night. For the most part, the people were quiet, I think most of them had given up hope there could be an escape or that they could regain their health, but there was the occasional crying or scream of a prisoner. Once, there was a roar, from a large animal it sounded like, and I assumed it was another form of jail security getting dinner. I hoped maybe it was the person in the cell next to me that was getting eaten so I wouldn’t have to be next to a corpse all day tomorrow.
When I woke up in the morning, I was stiff, and everything hurt. I spent the remainder of the day standing and pacing in my cell. I was scheduled to be hung the day after and I hadn’t been fed since getting there. I had only one idea as to how I was going to escape but the fear of it was overwhelming. I had never talked to a Wielder or a magician before so I didn’t know what it felt like when they used their power, but I guessed it felt like what happened to me in the locksmith’s the other day. I was terrified. Wielders were persecuted in Helonea and children were told stories of Wielders kidnapping innocent little creatures when they misbehaved. I, along with every other child, was taught that magic was something to fear and keep secret from the world. I didn’t want to be like this. I just wanted to go home. But I couldn’t do that if I was hung for murder. I didn’t know if I could call on my power, or if so, how, but I knew that it was my only chance of survival. I was also told stories of Wielders making a mistake when they tried to use their power and accidentally killing themselves. Those were the things that kept me up at night when I was little. Now it was the hopeless feeling I had steadily growing inside me.
……
I couldn’t breathe. It felt like something was pushing on my chest and smothering my face. Either I died at the gallows tomorrow, or I used my newfound power. I could die either way but if I used my power then I could die on my own terms. It sounded better than having my spinal cord snapped so I told myself that I would try to rest, and then when my strength was restored as best it could be, I would attempt to break my chains and open the door tomorrow.
Well, tomorrow came and I had no rest. I heard a shifting in the cell directly across from me. I had thought up to that point that it was empty, so I decided to investigate.
I peered out of my own cell and into the other one but couldn’t see anything. “Hello?” I called. No answer. I assumed it was a rat that made the noise and turned around.
“I haven’t heard a young voice for years.” A withered voice remarked. I whipped back around. I heard another shuffle and through the darkness, I saw a figure form. They had a small frame and their back was hunched over, so it was hard to determine her height. “No one likes talking to the old hag.”
“I will,” I said back. “My name is Allison. Who are you?”
“My name has been forgotten with my role in history. Even the guards have all but forgotten me.” We sat in silence for a minute. I didn’t know what else to say. “But I used to be considered one of the wisest people in my city. I helped many and stopped terror in my day.”
“Then why are you here?”
“My people grew out of favor in the kingdom. King Gavin’s father did not like the amount of power we possessed.”
“You’re a Wielder?”
“She knows her lore! Yes, I am a Wielder. But enough about my story, there’s nothing but sadness in it and this dungeon needs no more of that. Why are you here?”
I laughed softly to myself. “Well… I accentually killed someone. From my village. They were threatening my friend.”
“How?”
I didn’t actually know. How could I describe it? “I’m not sure. But I think with magic.”
She shifted again. “What did it feel like? When you used the magic?”
“I felt a cold rush to my head, and it felt like there was something awake inside me. Ancient and… I don’t know.”
“Vast? Like you could explore it forever and still not find answers?”
“Yes. Exactly like that,” I said warily, “Am I…”
“A Wielder. Yes. You tapped into the life inside of you and used it to protect your loved ones. A worthy use but an unsavory end. What happened? How was your friend threatened?”
“The woman was yelling at him and when I turned the corner, she had a stone mold in her hand, about to smash his skull in.”
“What was she yelling?”
“I don’t know,” I said exasperatedly.
She jumped up and grabbed the bars of her cell. “Yes, you do! What did she say?”
“Why are you so concerned? It was just about a broken lock!”
“Your friend might still be in danger,” her voice turned grave, “Now think. What was she so angry about?”
I began panicking, “I heard something about it not supposed to be able to break, she lost a lot, she said it was all his fault…”
“Someone might come to finish him off. If that woman was so angry then why wouldn’t her family be too? Plus, now they have a death to avenge.”
Chapter two
It started in my head. Then it crept down my neck and slipped into my fingertips. The freezing cold overtook my entire body before I could subdue the swell. I fell to the floor, the world running and one-fourth the speed it normally did, and I hit the stone with all my weight. Then I felt the other thing inside of me wake up from its dormancy. My entire body went numb. I opened my eyes to see my hand fling towards the cell door, a blinding light shooting out of it. I looked past my hand and saw the face of an old woman in the cell across from me. Her face was illuminated and I saw a small smile brake across her face before reality sped up again. There was a deafening SNAP and the door flew off its hinges, slamming into the door of the old woman across from me. I stood there for a second, hand extended, eyes wide, tears streaming down my face. She provoked me. She made my anxiety rise and my magic brake to the surface. She wanted me to snap. My mind rushed back to the present and I realized that there was no way the guards didn’t hear that. I popped my head out into the walkway. No one was here yet. I ran over to the woman’s cell and bent down so our eyes were level.
“Why?” I asked one simple question.
She looked into my eyes for a millisecond. “If I allowed you to end up like me I would never forgive myself. Now run!” She stuck out her hand and pushed me away. “Get out of here before my efforts were for nothing.”
I turned left and sprinted a few feet before looking around the corner. No one was there but I could hear them coming. I dashed down the walkway and turned left again. I rehearsed the way out in my head: Left, left, right, left, right, right, left, right. I turned another corner. Five more turns and I was back in the weapons check room. The pounding of the guard’s feet was almost on top of me now. Do I really want to be back in the weapons check room? That seems like the worst place to be going. I stopped dead. I knew how to get in but not out. Shouting came from down the hall. I whipped around, desperately looking for a hiding place. Behind me, there were two wooden doors with large iron blots on the outside. Lucky for me someone forgot to lock them. I opened the door and slipped inside, firmly shutting it behind me. There was a lantern in this room set on the floor. I turned toward the center of the room and my eyes began to adjust to the light. That’s when I realized the doors were unlocked because there was someone in there with me. A small boy, no more than twelve, was standing with his back against the wall, staring at me, eyes wide in terror. I stared back. I began running through some options in my head when I realized there was a large bucket of raw meat sitting barely inside the circle of light. The boy was feeding something.
“You’re the one they’re looking for?” His voice quivered and his legs started shaking.
I nodded and took a step into the room. “Are you going to scream?” I asked him.
He shook his head and said, “I’m more afraid of aggravating that,” he pointed towards the darkness, “than I am of you.”
I looked over to where he pointed. The darkness growled and I heard a shifting. There was a glint of light coming from something in the corner of the room. “And what would that be?”
“A dragon,” He whispered. The growling intensified and more scales began to catch the light as the dragon moved toward us. The clinking of chains stopped the motion and I swore I heard a small whimper. It was hurt.