e i g h t

I feel myself freeze in fear and recollections of the humans terrorizing the Castle flood my mind. I feel Allys clench my hand, yank me away from the noise and my legs finally respond haphazardly to chase her into the darkness away from the glowing tree bark and grass. She ducks behind a thick group of dead bushes and I instinctively follow her. I find my eyes looking up where we ran from, just in time, to see a couple of humans approach the dead tree.

If Allys was not leading me away, I would have surely tripped over my own two feet in the rush to get away from the noise. I watch the humans inspect the tree with confused looks on their faces as my heart thumps loudly in my chest.

"Did you hear somethin' from over 'ere?"

"Yeah. Is this tree glowin'? I thought I saw someone over 'ere,"

"If it was someone, they must not've gotten far,"

"Yeah. Let's search around 'ere. This glowin' tree is freakin' me out,"

I feel myself tense up when they begin slowly looking around in our direction. They are really tall. But when you compare them to Abby, they are short. We are not as tall as we will get yet so humans are still taller than us. One of them is holding a long weapon that glimmers from the glow of our touch on the tree. The rest of them are darkened by the dark of the night. The other one is holding a shorter weapon, but it is curved, not straight.

They each slowly take a step forward, crunching the dead grass beneath their feet. The crunching noise echoes in my head and I tense up every step they take towards us. I suck in my breath as they approach the bushes. They don't look like they are not going to come any closer as they look around one more time while standing right in front of the bushes.

"I can't see a damned thing out 'ere,"

"Shit. They must 'ave gotten away by now. It is dead silent,"

"Maybe they're hidin' right in front of your face, you idiot. Ya ever think about that, shithead?"

"Yeah? Maybe your talkin' will draw them back to hit ya right in your ass! Ever think about that? Fucker!"

"Humph, let's just check this area quickly before headin' back then,"

I feel my stomach drop as that one motions in our direction right in front of them. I feel Allys squeeze my hand as my other hand squeezes the bow. The closer human leans down, like he is looking around the bush Allys is sitting behind and gets dangerously close. I feel Allys lean into me, like she is trying to get away from the human.

But she makes a small crackle sound from the dead grass beneath us.

The human's face snaps towards us and pauses for a moment, "Did ya 'ear that?"

"Yup. What is it? Check it out, stupid!"

I feel everything tense up as I raise up my bow and release my hand from Allys's grip. She reaches to grasp my waist instead as I try to aim the bow right at the human's chest. My hands are shaking which is making the bow jitter.

If I miss, he may find her. I have to kill him. Do it, Alexis.

The human leans closer. He raises his other hand and reaches into the bush further. Allys is now shivering violently against me.

Do it, Alexis!

I keep the bow trained on the human and slowly pull the arrow back in the string. It makes a slight noise, interesting the human further and he steadily reaches further.

DO IT!

Without any further hesitation, I release the arrow, it whizzes away and thunks into the human. I have no time to see if I hit him fatally or not. He reaches up and grasps the glowing arrow while howling out in what sounds like pain.

I must have hit him properly. But wait, the bow stopped glowing when the humans were searching for us. Did my fear activate it or something?

I see the glowing arrow against the dark figure of the human as he struggles to pull it out. The faint glow reveals dark liquid oozing and dripping down the human's figure. Then I hear sounds of the liquid hitting the dead grass with a splat sound beneath us as the other human looks as though he is frantically looking around for where the arrow came from.

"Holy shit, I've gotta get out of 'ere,"

As he turns to run away, the other human hits the ground with a sickening thud. Soft sounds hum around us from him as we scamper away, while I trip on myself. Hacking and gurgling sounds rise up from the dying human as I grasp Allys's hand tightly.

When I look down to look at our bows, they are faintly glowing like before. Did we somehow deactivate their glow so we would not be found?

I catch a glimpse of movement and find the direction the other human is fleeing to. Maybe we should go in that direction?

After searching ahead of where he is running, I find the village I saw before in the distance. The one that looks devastated and destroyed with holes visible in the sides of the building shapes.

I faintly hear Allys weeping and I swiftly stop to wrap her into my embrace for a moment. She tightly grips me and buries her face away in my shoulder. This is when I realize she is violently shivering.

Maybe I should say I'm sorry for hesitating so long. "I—I'm s—"

"Thank you, Alexis,"

Or maybe that is not important. What is important is she is safe now. "Glad I actually hit him. I was so afraid I would miss,"

"But you didn't. And you saved me,"

I wait a moment before speaking again and a small smile appears on my lips. I saved my sister and we are okay. At least for now. I cannot say the same for Abby.

"I saw which way the other human ran off in. It was towards the village we saw before. I think we should go that way,"

I feel her nod against my shoulder, "Let's go. Abby must be that way,"

She pulls away from me with a half-smile on her face and half dried tears on her cheeks, lit up with the faint glow from our bows. Everywhere around us is enclosed in shadow except for the small random spots where we touched prior. She grips her bow in one hand and takes my free hand in the other as I lead her off in the direction the human ran in just moments ago.

We keep running as fast as we can while being as quiet as possible towards the village on the horizon. I wonder how far away it is. I hope we do not have more encounters with the humans like that one. If there were more than two of them then I am sure we would have been goners. I am surprised those humans acted that way. It must have been because they could not see. That must be the only reason we got lucky. If they could have seen me then I surely would not have been able to hit him.

I was afraid I would not be able to hit him and I had a clear shot. I am a fuckup. That is the only explanation. Because of that I could have lost my sister.

Before another thought enters my mind, the ground changes from dead grass to dirt and the deserted village slowly rises up into view. Allys and I stop in our tracks. The village is faintly lit up with candles and lanterns. If we just run straight in there, we will be spotted for sure if there are any humans still here.

"Alexis..."

I hear Allys softly pant and when I turn my head to see what she sees, my stomach roils and I get the urge to be sick.

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I do not have a good feeling about this. A deserted village during a war? What do you think they see?

Feel free to leave a vote and comment if you want to see more!

See you in the next part!

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