Heir to the Golden Lightning

Chapter 6

Fire burns hastily with the fury of the cursory breeze. There were wailings where the earth was littered with corpses. Men had been slaughtered, and women, those alive, were running for shelter right into the arms of their enemies. The children had suddenly become adults, and they must survive, even as they couldn't defend themselves.

There were decapitated heads everywhere I walked. Ahead, there were children whose lives were about to be taken away from them - they were lined up on rolls, their destiny bonded with a single-long rope. I stood with the confusion of a person who found herself in a strange and unfamiliar environment, where everything demanded a person's sense, but nothing was making actual sense.

The night was busy still – knights tailed each other in a fierce fight, matching strength and magic, and dragons flew their lords here and there, destroying all that stood before them with breaths of fire. But I stood still, wondering what was happening and why I must watch the scene till it makes sense.

But just then, a dragon landed five steps away from me and turned to face me. We stood staring at each other – it was young and hale, but without a lord. After minutes of staring, it bowed swiftly towards me and took off – the breeze from the flap of his wings blew me off.

*

The room where I found myself next was an eyeful of darkness and almost nonexistent. I had wide eyes open, but stared like a blind man who sees nothing more than shades. So I couldn't move a limb, and my heart began to pound so loud to deafen the silence that slides through the shades of the darkness.

"Please... save my baby."

I heard the faint voice that belonged to a woman, before I heard heavy thuds of footsteps on the floor approaching something.

"Please..." the faint voice sobbed.

"Please. I just gave birth to her. Please save my Claire..."

My heart skipped. "Mother!" My voice echoed back to me. I felt agitated, frustrated, and eager to see something, but my sight seemed to be in a deep oath with darkness.

"Please," I pleaded, sobbing and hoping anyone could hear me.

"Please... save my Claire," the woman pleaded again. "She's just an infant."

"More of the reason why she should die," a husky-emotionless voice said. The strong voice sketched a man far up from the ground and heavy on his stand, cladded in strong and heavy armor with a blood-stained sword in his right hand. His face was bathed with his enemy's blood and his eyes were red in their socket like those of a creature ready to devour prey. I knew he would kill the woman pleading for her child to be saved, and he would kill the child as well.

"Please..." the woman's voice became shaky and frightful, obviously because the knight was drawing closer to her. "Please..."

The footsteps thud forward, step after step, not halting for the pleading of the woman. My heart beats along with fear and aches in my chest. Then the footsteps fainted, for a second, two, three, and a loud cry filled the space of the darkness – blood splashed over my face.

"Mother!"

__________

I woke up struck to life – the ray of the sun that passed in through the drawn curtain of the window ahead was blinding, and I squinted. My arms moved to stretch my body, but immediately, I became worried about the woman in my dream.

What really happened to her and the child?

The story my father told earlier recalled itself in my memory, and I tried to liken it to my dream, but my head hurts too much to accommodate those thoughts. I felt rage towards the dragon kingdom, and the man who had refused to heed the plead of the woman to save her child – she was an infant, who for whatever reason shouldn't die for the sin she was born into.