Flash Fiction Friday (31)

Dottie over at Tink's Place have come up with the idea for a Monday Morning Flash Fiction challenge. Each Monday a new picture prompt will be posted and if you choose to participate you post your story on Friday - 350 words, give or take.

I have to thank Blodeuedd at Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell for introducing me to this fun meme. I don't know if I'll be able to keep up with every week, but I'll give it a try from time to time.

The Image This Week:

By Melissa

I will not look over my shoulder to the horror's I'm leaving.

The dark clouds swept in with speed unseen to our simple living, as the large dark shadows, in the sky, came we then knew it was dark magic.  They swooped from the scary sky on folded wings, extending them to their full stretch to snatch my town friends from the spot they stood or ran, reminding me of the hawks in the meadow diving to the ground for their meal.  Only, my friends rain down in splashes of red and severed parts.  Then the kings' men came.  We thought they were here to help us, but turned out they where here to aid the beasts attacking.

The screams of my fellow town's people, horrifying.

I will not look back over my shoulder to see the city I left behind.

I was one of the lucky, to make it to shelter.  My father took me to the basement of our tavern to hide, which worked... for a while.  We could hear the wood splintering and shattering at the beasts attacks.  Even the stone crumbling over top of us.  But then the fires came, whether from the beasts jaws or the foot soldiers torches, I don't know.  Growing hotter as the fires snaked our way, my father put me in a barrel of water with a hollow tube to breathe with, telling me to stay there no matter what.

The screams that followed where gurgled by the water in my ears, but heart breaking and terrifying the same.

I finally emerged, my lips sore, chapped from the water exposure, my throat aching from gulping water in my panic from the screams.  My eyes burned from lack of sleep, for what felt like days in the water, waiting for the heat to dissipate.  The sight was terrifying, one I will revisit to those who destroyed this young girls life, killing these people for no reason in such a horrid way.  I crawled through the rubble, making as little noise as a mouse would.  The army was gone, but the beasts still circle above, guarding, watching.

The screams from the sky sent chills down my spine, a scream of triumph from the dragons overhead.

I found discarded armor, though a little big it must have belonged to a young soldier who didn't make it.  Good.  I'll need it for what I have planned for the future.  I'll grow into it.  A few thieves, friends of Father's, talked of the water and sewage tunnels under the city.  I heard them talk of an entrance; I use the tunnels to get away, to find safe shelter to rest, to prepare.

I was the only lucky one, to walk away.

Mary died in that barrel with her father beside her, the light in her eyes burned out with the fires.  Now Shard is born, with gloom and darkness visible in her eyes as it runs through her veins.

Shard has nothing left to loss; she has nothing to start with.  No history to speak of as she doesn't look back.