I wrote this over a year ago & had no real use for it. I only just found it again on my computer so I thought I'd post it here. It's really messy writing, I know. It was sort of an idea that emerged from a sleepless night. I never got round to finishing it, obviously.
I didn’t know how long I’d been walking. Time seemed to evade me with every step I took. It may have been days. Weeks. Months. I did not know, or care to find out; not that I could. All I knew was that I was walking. I didn’t have much either, just the clothes on my back. And my father’s sword. He’d given it to me just days before the “strangers” ambushed our home, and I had never parted with it. The strangers murdered my family, although murdered seems like such a tame word compared with how they left them.
My mother, who was hiding in the kitchen, had told me to run to my father’s workshop, and hide in the underground cellar that was there. My mother knew she wouldn’t make it; she had already sprained her ankle from running down stairs to fetch me as soon as she had seen the strange men in cloaks advance over the hills. As for my father though, it had already been too late for him; strung up by his hands and burnt to death, swinging from the tree in our front yard. I still have nightmares, even today.
Being only young at the time, I had left my mother there and ran for my life. Ran away to my father’s workshop where he had made his sword. Ran like my life depended on it. Because my life did depend on it. I had lifted the trapdoor that led down to the cellar and I hid there for what seemed like forever. I had fallen asleep numerous times, and waited. Waited for so long. I remembered what my father had taught me. He had taught me how to fight, how to use a sword, how to kill an enemy. My mother had thought it inappropriate for him to be teaching his young daughter how to fight, but he knew I was strong, and we often practiced out of my mother’s sight. He was a blacksmith, my father. The best in our small town of Shadowspare; the only blacksmith in our small town of Shadowspare. He knew well how to use what he made, and so he taught me.
When I had finally emerged from that cellar, I witnessed my home had been destroyed, along with my parents. I didn’t know how my mother had been killed, but thought it better to have not known. I could smell the smoke; I could see the ash drift through the air in the pale light of morning. I didn’t search the debris for anything valuable. I had nothing left. I could do nothing but walk. And so I left my town of Shadowspare in search of answers. Who had these cloaked men been? Why had they destroyed all that was dear to me? My Mother? My Father? My home and childhood memories? I had nothing at all left, except for the clothes on my back, and my father’s sword.
