Fairytale by Sarah (good summer reads TXT) 📕

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.

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.

(This chapter is short, sorry >.

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