Author Games: Town of Mayhem

Dormant Mayhem | Elissa "Elsa" Ackley

ARSONIST: ELISSA "ELSA" ACKLEY

The chilly breeze ruffled past her light blonde hair, face tickling as it did so, and she awoke to another sun. Choosing to reach out at the pile of fabric her legs brushed past, her fingers reached out to pull the thin cotton sheet around her, though the blanket seemed a little small as she did so. Despite her mind being hazy from slumber, it was clear that something was amiss.

She grew to consciousness in unfamiliarity.

Certainly, the cottage had some similarities, but that just about ended at the woodenness of everything. There was one thing, however, that happened to clue her into the place she was at. Beside her bed, an easel stood, its presence comforting as a canvas of greens and reds and blues and yellows grinned back at her.

Elissa didn't have to take a closer look to know that there were fairies cleverly painted into the flower petals.

Memories of this quaint little house remained in her, though few and blurry as time wore them out, she hadn't been here since she was five years old. But wait, she was alone. Either she'd gone completely insane, or her mother had gone somewhere. Somewhere she knew to be out of town.

It was cold, but her thoughts condensed into the one conclusion she wished she didn't have to make.

It can't be.

Tumbling out of the bed, she straightened her paint-stained hair. She was eighteen now. She didn't need Mrs Newman to accompany her anywhere.

Like clockwork, her legs brought her down the single cobblestone path before her childhood home. Thirteen years hadn't done much to these details. Surges of nausea washed over her, and this time, it wasn't the sight of the dreaded elevated stone platform that caused it, instead it was the circle of townspeople concealing what she knew to be the centre of the town that made her want to simultaneously run towards it, and the hell away from it.

Elsa was short, however, which meant the shoulders of others blocked her immediate view. But if anything, there was already a fire, one that was greater than the bonfire she'd once watched Ean roast meat over. From several feet away, there was a child's scream, and she looked over just long enough to catch a young girl, donned in a baby blue dress, being carried away from the scene, her fingers clawing wildly at the air before her.

She had to suppress a similar feeling that was about to claw its way out her tightened throat. The girl was so young, she couldn't have been more than five or six. What horrified her, though, was the fact that she knew the child had possibly seen the worst thing a five-year-old could, that she knew what the child had seen.

For that child had been her.

What was a blur of faces and colours and bodies around her stayed a blur, but at long last, she knew what they were saying.

"Lynch! Lynch! Lynch! Lynch!"

By the time she could turn her attention to the centre, there were now three poles and not one. Nothing was left of the previous victim, the one she knew was her mother. Those had seemingly disappeared into thin air. In her place now though, were three newer victims, and the flames had yet to have been lit. The only faces she could make out were those of the bound, and how she wished they could have been far less familiar.

Elissa found herself pushing her way through the crowd—not that they cared, anyway, as long as they got a view—and was face to face with the trio.

Easton, Eustace Ean.

And when the flames started, all she could do was run towards them.

She didn't know who she was saving until she found pear green eyes staring back at her. "Elsa, please don't. Leave me here and save Ean I'll be fine," she pleaded, voice gentle but firm. Selfless as always, putting others before herself. Her hands stung as she tugged at the ropes that bound her friend to flames and death.

"Easton, I can't. I nearly killed you, and I can't watch you die because of me again." She had to shout over the chanting.

Lynch! Lynch! Lynch! Lynch!

"You can't save all four of us, Elissa. Just look at your dress, you're burning with us." Another rough tug at the rope, she wasn't sure of Easton's words herself.

"And I wouldn't rather have it any other way."

She swore that the person tied to the pole had been the woman who held herself with pride, most notably when she'd saved a life or two. But all that was left of her then was a wooden log, and she fell back in shock.

The lapse cost her a moment, but the burning of her dress jolted her back to her senses. Every second she lost was a second of their lives gone. Neither one of the two men glanced at her as they struggled with the ropes themselves.

Eustace was closer, and she did the same thing as she did with Easton.

"Elissa," he uttered a single word, and no words had held as much pain as she found in his tone. "Let me die. I'm not deserving of this."

"Eustace, no. I can't lose you of all people." Selfish, as usual. It was no wonder that she'd admired Easton. Yet, she'd gone against her pleas, and gone to Stace instead of Ean.

Had she looked at him then, the desperation in his eyes would've shattered her heart even further. "I couldn't save you when I most needed to. I can't have you save me, it just doesn't work that way."

She gritted her teeth, "You saved Easton, that's as close as it gets. I've lost far too much just because I couldn't save them. I lost my mother, I lost my sanity, and I lost...myself. If you hadn't gone in there and brought out Easton, I'd never have forgiven myself. Don't you dare say you aren't deserving of anything, because if anyone deserves to die, it's never you. It's me."

The slightly mismatched eyes she saw were illuminated by the fire, the same ones she opened her own icy blue ones to when she opened her eyes again.