Prologue

Searing pain shoots through my arm and all I can think of is my family. I cry out and the zombies moan in ecstasy at my pain, which they feed off of. One shouts, “Cut off a finger!” And the rest chant in agreement. I guess I’m losing a finger… the lead torturer turns thoughtful.

“Okay, but what of the child?” He asks, gesturing to the baby in my arms. His arm, hanging by a thread of muscle can barely move, what with the dead skin and maggots. I cradle her closer, her childish protests nothing to me.

“No! Please! Anything but Lacy! Please…” I whimper. I realize I have just made a fatal mistake. They now know that Lacy is my weakness.

“Torture it!” Shouts the same voice as before.

“Shut up!” I shriek . “Can’t you animals think of anything else to eat?!”

“No… Ma’am.” Mr. Thoughtful-Man says with a smile. I think he’s the clan leader also. Too bad he’ll have to die! NOT, I think, In fact, I think I hear Rory now! It’s my turn to smile and I do so devilishly.

A shot rings through the air and someone in the crowd drops to the ground. I grab my battle axe from a stunned guard and chop his head off. That’s the only way to kill a monster like them. Of course, you can wound them, just not fatally so. I get my child to safety, running through a sea of undead, and set her down. My hand reaches down of its own accord and tousles her hair. I shove a binky from my pocket in her mouth and scream as something sharp rips into my back.

My scream breaks through the air and I crumble to the ground. My blood seeps from my wound and I sob with all the strength I have, though I know I should save it for my daughter, I also know I’m as good as dead with a murderer of many staring down at me. I look for Lacy, but she has disappeared. I weep harder for my lost daughter and the world dissolves into darkness.

CH1 (this is a child's POV but she'll grow up soon)

Fire burns the skin. Must remember that. My small brain processes only so much. My small body can handle less than that. My Mommy is lost in the woods. Well, I guess most would consider me as being the lost one, but I am three, so I get my way. Mommy was with the scary people and I was with her. She scuffled my hair and put an icky, dirty binky in my mouth so I ran off to find the river to wash the dirty thing and my mouth. I hear people yelling, and moans, and screams and finally, it stops. I sigh in relief.

“Finally.” I mutter. That is my new favorite word, I think. I sit down to figure out what to do but after a few seconds squirm and decide I’m hungry.

My small feet wade through the water, cool and clear. My chubby legs fly out from under me and I slip on the rocks when the not-so-gentle current sweeps me away with a WHOOSH! and a SPLASH! It’s such a thrill like when Mr. Rory picks me up and swings me in circles until mommy yells at him to stop “for the love of Terr!”

Terr is our maker. He made us and our technological advances were gifted upon us by Him.

I see a school of teensy weensy fish glide by I grab two handfuls with my chubby fingers wrapped tightly around them ad I try to shift my weight over towards the edge of the creek and hit my head on the rocks lining the bottom. Tears fill my eyes and I snivel for a second before wiping the blurriness out of my eyes and continuing to transfer all my weight to my left side.

My head is bleeding when I get out but at least I’m alive. And the fish are here, too! I set the fish down and plop down next to them, gasping with my mouth wide open a lot like them. I poke one with a stick and it wiggles. A girlish giggle escaped my mouth and I poke it some more. Tears stream down my face and blur my vision until I feel my stick go through the fish’s body. I have no idea why I’m crying, though and it scares me. I wipe my tears to find the fish impaled on it. He/she hangs limply and for the first time, I feel sad and scared, but I’m not a baby. I hop up and find twigs and rocks littering the forest floor. I hear one last scream and follow it to see Mommy. I hide in the bushes and watch as she dies. My Mommy… she left me. She’s gone…

I find that I went too deep and can only hear a whisper of the stream I ‘swam’ in. The fishes were precisely where I left them because they died of oxygen starvation.

I build the twigs into a hut-type shape, a triangle, and put rocks around it, but save two on the side. I scratch the rocks I set aside together. Sparks play in the air and land on the twigs. The fire finally starts to burn. I sit and stare at it hoping it would envelope me in its warmth. I huddle into it and lay down, curled up into a ball.


I wake up to the snapping of a twig and sit up quickly.

“Mommy?” I whisper to myself as I hide. I know it’s wishful thinking, but I’m three! A cute little boy about my age with silky raven hair walks swiftly to my campsite. I sigh, upset now. He seems to hear me because his ears perk. His emerald eyes search the darkness around him but he sees nothing so goes to the fire and picks out my fish. I cry out in alarm and hop out of the bushes.

“Hey! I almost drownded to get those fish!” Tears threaten to escape my large gray eyes as the boy turns around with his knife wielded. He looks deadly serious until he sees me.

“Who are you?” He looks at me, suspicious.

“I could say the same to you!” I exclaim, frustrated. “I work hard to get fishies and some guy comes and tries to steal them?! Nuh-uh! I don’t think so!” I say, quoting my Mommy who takes nothing from a man.

“Yeah, well you shouldn’t pop out of nowhere and start a fire unless you want more than four-year-olds stealing your fish! And I meant your name and please give it... and your business here.” He sounds grown up, but I think it’s all an act, a façade.

“Ah-hah! So you admit it! You were stealing my fish! And my name is L-- Lorabelle. My business is nothing of your concern. Pleased to meet you, Mister…?” I say, sticking my hand out in front of me.

“Kasey Kelly.” He says, shaking my hand.

My mommy was the queen, and my name is Lacy, but I simply cannot tell that to this stranger! I watched Mommy die. Daddy has been dead since forever. I sniff and he looks at me with question in his eyes.

“Are you lost? Do you need help?” His eyes soften at my tears. I shake my head side to side, fast, until I get light-headed and plop on the ground. “Where’s your mom?”

“Gone.”

“Gone where?”

“To live with Terr.”

“Huh? She’s dead?”

“Yes.” I reply, simply. He tries to sit next to me but as soon as he does, I stand up. “I need to go.”

“Go where?”

“Anywhere but here. It’s not you… just the presence of you. I watched my mommy die… that’s not something you can just skip by, la-da-da-da-da fashion.”

“What?! When?! Who?!” He stands quickly and I take half a step back. He steps forward to stay with me, his eyes looking into mine.

“Right before I slept.” I murmur.

“Where was the sun?” He asks and I point to the horizon where the sun made a disappearing act earlier while I was asleep.

“I must alert my tribe! Come with me or die.” I do not wish to die.

In those moments we were talking about my mother, I felt something in me cry out. I matured then. I take life more seriously as an orphan, nothing for granted, not food or friends. I race to Kasey’s retreating figure and squirm my way into his hand and his life.

CH2 (12 years later)

(This chapter is short, sorry >.

CH3

When I wake up, I’m human and in a cell on a wood bed and straw mattress. There is a servant’s dress lying on a chair in front of a simple wood desk, a simple but pretty piece, brown, for the color of the earth and green, for the beautiful plants sprouting from it. I take it off the chair and notice for the first time that I was naked. The clothes I was wearing must have torn when I changed. When I changed into that thing. I never want that to happen again, but it’s my only way out.

I leave my dress, untouched and start to think of the monster. I visualize my body, then my bones shrinking then expanding to twice that of the bones that they used to be. I feel the transformation, less painful than before, but still very hard to do without screaming or biting your lip until it bleeds, which adds to the pain. The pain soon recedes, though, and I have transformed completely. I look at the full bodied mirror as if it was a thing I do often, transform into a monster, that is. I suck in my monster stomach and turn to the side. I transform back to my human body, and am once again in the nude.

I do this many more times, but each time the pain shrinks until the changing is almost pleasant. Soon, I just put my dress on because I’ve worn myself out.

A beautiful man comes, a guard, and removes me from my cage and leads me through many corridors and by the time we finally get to the front door, twelve men have joined us, all equipped with spears and bows.

“What’s going on?” I question, figuring maybe if I’m friendly he’ll let me go, but he continues on in stony silence. Must be like Roger. All work and no play makes Tony—I’ll call him Tony for his s-Tony silence—I giggle, and he looks at me out of the corner of his eye.—maybe he’s not so boring after all… I wink and he just continues on, paying great attention to the air in front of his face. Or maybe he is.

We step outside and the wind greets us with a gentle embrace, carrying the scent of mud and pigs and dirty peasants whom I love dearly. We travel into the forest until we come to a cave with a cage guarding what I would assume is the only entrance or exit.

My heart races as I’m shoved into the cave with the same beasts that murdered my mother. I can smell the decay. Wait, how can I smell that?! I look back at the man who roughly shoved me in here with these beasts, I plead with him with my eyes. He only closes the fence again and shakes his head, cruel black eyes on his beautiful face watching me as my stormy gray ones try to catch him in their gaze. I try to make him feel bad… it’s the least he could do. I choke back a sob. My eyes roll back into my head as I have a flash back. Mother screaming, her eyes flutter closed and a man who just stabbed her standing above her. Then, I couldn’t get a good look at his face, but I would give anything to hurt him so he lies, just as helpless as mother, looking at his murderer.

I wake up to find two zombies standing above me.

“What were you thinking girl?” One says.

“Yessss, it was decedant!” The other one hisses, licking his disgusting dried lips. I think these were the result of zombie testing, these things, they have defects. Some people believe these things used to be human. I snarl and they step back. One had their arms are chopped off… odd.

“Come with me if you want to live!” The first one jokes in a bad Terminator accent.

“Touch me if you want to die right here, right now.” He takes half a step away from me. These boys, if you can call them that, are my age of fifteen years. I study them and they study me back with a spark of interest hidden in their eyes.

“We didn’t ask for this any more than you asked to be a girl, or a human instead of a sea urchin. I’m Caspian,” says the first zombie, the one with arms. He doesn’t look like one of them… He has chocolate brown hair to match his eyes and tan skin. His friend, however, has green skin, the color of the substance that the stable boy threw up after eating a whole pie as a dare last week. The only human part of him is his beautiful baby blue eyes he was graced with as a gift from Torr for this ghastly existence.

“You don’t look like a--- OOMPH!” He, Caspian, launches himself at me and covers my lips with his. He pushes me to the ground and lies on top of me, breathing very heavily through his nose. I struggle at first, but I soon give up and lay there, quite still. I have figured out that he means only to quiet me.

His lips finally let go of mine when no-arms over there clears his throat, but instead covers my mouth with his hand. He leans down as if to kiss my neck and my skin tingles in anticipation, but his lips stop at my ear.

“I am indeed human, but if you want to live, you’ll keep that a secret, for I have claimed to have found an antidote for rotting.” I gasp in surprise.

“Is there really such a thing?” But his hand is still tight over my mouth, so it sounded more like, “Mmhmh, mmhm! Mhmn?”

“What? Oh, sorry, promise not to scream?” I shrug. He sighs, “Good enough.” His hand is removed from my mouth and I scream at the top of my lungs.

“Somebody help me!!! I’VE BEEN CAPTURED BY ZOMBIESSSS!!!!” He covers my mouth again, and we hear a shout. Caspian’s face lights up for a moment and he stands up, quick, pulling me up behind him, but he controls his emotions and tells his buddy to go. If they all run, then they’ll lead them back to the clan.

The clan? Uh-oh! That sounds like a lot! I start shaking, not from the cold, but at the thought that, if Caspian hadn’t found me, I’d be in a heap of trouble. He wraps his arms around me because he has got warmth radiating from his body. He is like an open flame!

“Good job. Now we’re going to be rescued!” He says, and mumbles, “Even though you went against my direct order to…” He trails off when he realizes I could hear him.

“Well, well, well, what have we here?” I freeze at the sound of Kasey’s voice. He always used to say that to me when we would meet up on a new day. Tears come to my eyes and I lie on the ground and curl up into a ball. “Lacy! What are you doing?” He peers at me through one of the cracks between my arms.

“DON’T LOOK AT ME!! I’M A MONSTER!!” I shout. He backs off, the picture of defensiveness, with his palms out in front of him.

“No one has ever, ever said that!” He retorts.

“Yeah, well they thought it! That guy whose throat I ripped out thought it! I COULD HEAR HIS THOUGHTS! Have I ever told you about my visions? Have you ever wondered why I could tell where the enemy troops were? Have you ever… Have you ever seen my real hair?” In our time, red hair was the sign of the devil. I have always worn a wig to cover my fiery red hair. I have no idea why I’m opening up when my life is at stake.

“What? You’re a blond; of course I’ve seen your hair! I can see it right now!” I look at him for a moment, as if weighing my options, then sigh. I slowly raise my hand to my head and take my blond wig off. I shake my hair loose of the ribbons I have used to tie it up for as long as I can remember, and shut my eyes.

I can still see them, for I have the sight, but they do not know I can see them. In my mind’s eye, I look at Caspian. He looks unconcerned, as if me being a spawn of the devil is not a problem. Kasey, however, the man I wanted to marry, the boy I grew up with, the boy that I love, is backing away. Caspian grabs his collar and shakes his head.

I open up my mind and read his thoughts. ‘OH. MY. TORR. I cannot believe it! I thought I had finally found a girl, a normal one, because all the scullery maids want to do is talk about their feelings. She… Her… I wanted her… From the moment I saw her at four years old, I was ready to do anything to get her… Even pretend to be her friend. She would have been mine, but then she had to go and ruin everything by turning into a beast .An ugly one at that. Who cares about her anymore? Not me, she can go die and go back to her father, Lucifer. I just need to get rid of her…’

I close my mind. Is he really going to try to kill me? I start weeping. I cry until I feel Caspian wrap his arms around me. I mastered my shifting in the cell I was put in, so I grow one claw and walk up to Kasey.

“Tell me, lover boy, what do you think of me now?” I whisper, claws behind my back.

“I think you are beautiful, no matter what form you take.” He is lying through his teeth and any blind, deaf man could tell. I try to kiss him and he recoils.

“Are you sure about that, or do you want to rethink your answer?” I say, flexing my paw behind my back.

“No!” He whispers, then more loudly, “You are a MONSTER! Go back to your father, Devil child!”

I pull out my hand and put my claw to his neck, forcing his head back, and whisper into his ear.

“Thank you for being truthful for once.” And scrape my claw gently against one of the veins in his neck. He tries to inch away, but I force him to the ground and straddle him. My animal instincts kick in, but I resist the urge to kill him. I go back to watching the blood flow through his veins and prick one, making a small hole. Sweat forms small beads on his forehead as I lean down to lap up the blood dripping from the small cut I made. I was just testing the waters.

The pain that I caused him when I pricked him with my razor sharp claw was nothing compared to when I stuck it back in and made the hole larger. He screams in pain and breathes faster, making His heart beat faster, and in turn, the blood flow at a quicker pace. I suck on the cut, loving the warmth that engrosses me when I do so. It was even better than being in his arms.

The whole time this was going on, Caspian sits there with a blank look on his face. He seems bored, so I tune in to his brain waves. ‘Great, another clean up duty. This girl sure knows how to make a mess! But she is worth it! Wait… Stephanie! Get out of my head!’ I decide to insert a thought into his mind.

‘Who is Stephanie?’ I ask.

‘Why, you, of course’.

‘But, I am Lorabelle!’ I continue sucking on Kasey’s wound. His heart beats slower, now. Soon it will stop altogether.

‘We all know that’s an alias! You were Stephanie before’.

‘NO! I was Lacey Youdplea before.’

‘That was an alias, too, one your mother thought up.’ By now, Kasey is dead and I throw his useless body to the ground and growl. I shift and run away.

CH4

Running through the forest, dancing around that putrid aroma, clearing my thoughts, this is what I do when I’m confused or upset. But, alas, i can’t do this because Caspian has caught up to me.

“What do you want?” I ask, annoyed.

“Only your time,” He replies.

“You have,” I pretend to look at my watch… that I conveniently forgot on my bedside table, “60 seconds.”

“Okay--” I interrupt him.

“Starting 60 seconds ago.” And turn away, as if to leave. All of this is a practiced attitude that I use to get people to ‘spit it out’.

“You are a princess!” He yells at my retreating back.

“NO DIP, SHERLOCK!” I allow the wind to assault his ears with the sound of my voice.

“But not just a human one.” I whirl on him.

“What are you talking about? I am a human princess…” The human part is a lie… I actually am a monster, I guess. I frown. “Or… I rule over humans, at least.”

“No, you don’t rule over humans.” He sniffs the air. “Can you not smell that pungent aroma? That is how we are alerted of our own kind.” So he can smell me? EWW! Wait, ‘our’ kind? I think, does that mean that he, too, is a monster? I look everywhere but at him, afraid of what will happen if our eyes meet.

A butterfly flutters by my head and a paw replaces my hand as I playfully swat at it, giggling like a school girl. He stands by, watching. I look at him and he smiles. Not a smirk or a laughing-at-you smile, just a smile of someone who is genuinely happy. I stand up and give him a friendly bear hug.

“Caspian,” I whisper. He shouldn’t have been able to hear me, but his heart rate speeds up, and that’s my indicator that he had.

“We must go home, to our pack, the main pack.”

“Must we? Can’t we just stay here, in this place? I love it here!” I twirl, my arms spread, and laugh at the sky. He just shakes his head and shifts.

His animal is nothing like what I shifted into. He looks like a wolf, whereas I was a real monster of the legends. I stood on my hind legs with razor sharp teeth and fur like a flame dancing in the wind. I just look at him, now a beautiful creature, with wide eyes.

“I looked nothing like that.” I whisper, “You are gorgeous! I looked like a monster.” His soothing voice echoes between my ears.

“No, you are powerful and majestic, Princess Stephanie."

“Nah!” I say sarcastically. “But,” I continue, “You have to say that so you don’t get beheaded. And don’t call me ‘Stephanie’” I spit out my birth name as if it was an unappetizing dish.

“My princess,” says Caspian, “You may behead me all you want, you may get the devil to do your bidding but I have been hired for my honesty.” I start walking and he rushes to catch up. “Transform. You will get a lovely surprise.” I sigh.

“Oh, all right, if you insist. Now turn around.” I make a loop in the air with my pointer finger. He gives me a confused look, but turns anyway. “I feel… naked.” I blush, “You know, when I transform.”

I start the transformation and it is nothing like it was before… My bones make popping noises, much like when I crack my fingers. The feeling I get when I transform is like nothing you could imagine. My human body dissolves and it’s like being without a shape, just air. It’s the best thing you can imagine, having no body. It’s also the scariest. Being without shape is like having nothing to anchor you to earth, like at any given moment, you could just… float away. I am the breeze flowing gently through the leaves, gently picking them up, teasing them lightly, and then floating away. I am the water, rushing, hurrying, hustling toward my destination, but my destination is a surprise, even to me. I am nature itself.

And then it’s over. My knowledge and freedom is ripped away from me and the impact of forming a body and hitting the ground knocks the breath out of me. I raise my snout tentatively and look around at the long wild grass as it dances with the breeze.

(This story is a work in progress but PLEASE comment because I work hard.)THANKS <3!!

Chapter 5

“Wow…” I whisper. “That’s me?”

“Yes, princess,” He says back and I realize I just talked in wolf form.

“How did I do that?” I question breathlessly, completely hypnotized by my wolf’s appearance.

“What do you mean,” He asks, “It’s you, of course, your wolf evolved in the few times you used her…” I have a hard time comprehending his words, but soon, it sinks in, it was me. For those of you reading my story, you may understand, my wolf has a sort of ethereal beauty, and it couldn’t have been me, but, it was!

The men who took me! I should ask Caspian who they were. I voice my question in wolf-talk.

“They were part of a rogue pack. Their situation is particularly special because normally rouge wolves are ones who leave the pack to fend for themselves, practically suicide.” At this, his eyes turn into deep, sad pools of blue. “In addition to being a rogue pack, they are completely lawless to both the human and wolf laws. What’s more, they absolutely hate the royal family, and in turn, you.” He turns vicious and possessive. “That is why they took you, and threw you away to fend for yourself in a homicidal setting.” I turn away and pace for a few minutes before turning human and sitting on a nearby large rock.

A chill goes through me. I am going to die, I think. “Well, is there going to be a war?” I turn my face toward Caspian who also turned back to human from wolf.

“Yes,” Is his simple reply. I continue to look at him, trying to pry information from him with my eyes, but it doesn’t work. He looks away guiltily. He is withholding important information! When he looks back, his face is wiped of all emotion once again.

“Is…” I say in a small voice, speaking through fears. “Is it going on now?”

“Yes,” He says again in his annoyingly calm voice and sighs, sadness breaking through his recently applied passive façade. “Yes, it is.”

“Oh, it must be awful!” I address the elephant in the room, “Do you know anyone in it, or has anyone you know been in it?” His demeanor changes dramatically as he turns proud.

“My parents both served in the war.” He stands up and walks away, leaving me alone in the woods. I get up to follow him, but his abruptness threw me and I ended up getting more lost by straying from the flattened-grass path. I sit down and think about his words, also fuming due to his actions. I then realized that I was callous in my casually bringing up the subject. His parents, whom he spoke about in a past tense, must have died defending me. Wow... Taking in the information has left my head spinning and I stand up to go find shelter for the night. He expects me to go to a "magical castle" and he abandons me in the woods! What a jerk...

Impressum

Texte: Me, Sarah
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 24.03.2012

Alle Rechte vorbehalten

Widmung:
To my friends and family <3 you guys!!