In Life and Death

Nothing in this story has connections with real-life people. I am not from Great Britain so I´m really sorry for the spelling errors. This is a high fantasy story. I just registred so I don´t know how things work around here but I´m going to post the whole story here, chapter after chapter. Any kind of feedback and criticism is very welcome. I hope you enjoy!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1

It was a beautiful day. The grass was glistening in dew and the sun was playfully crowning the heads of the daisies. I heard a lonely mockingbird wasting away it´s precious time playing melodies. It was a beautiful day. Full of joy and happiness. I watched the toddlers running uphill to the great meadows and the main village. But I liked it here. Isolated and alone. I´d say alone in the darkness but the sun was bright as hell. In my mind was were it was dark. A heavy black veil had covered my clear thinking. It pressured me every single second and here, Downhill, I finally felt safe. Safe for both my and the others. I was too numb to feel anything, although my senses weren´t as dull as you might´ve expected – my sight was clearer than ever and I could even hear a butterfly flapping it´s wings. I could end up hurting someone being among the others.

I walked up to the edge of the cliff that marked the end of the village. I folded my dress, sat down and crossed my legs. Were had it all gone wrong? The warm soil was so inviting and I gently laid down my head and started humming a quiet melody.

Tears are dropping

Eyes are flooding

Flowers are blooming

Birds are singing

I am mourning

Others are joying

I was surprised myself too that I remembered that old lullaby grandma sang me when grandpa passed away. But this was different. Grandpa was ill, he had been for years. He left in peace, knowing it would happen, he said his farewells and just went to „a better place“ as they tend to say. I don´t believe that. He´s was just gone and never going to come back, never ought to feel anything more. He died not moved away to a better cottage. He knew it and I knew it – it was the end.

Suddenly I felt the ground wet and realized I had bursted into tears. My mum just died, that seemed the natural thing to do. But crying was the worst I could do. I wanted to shout, tear apart this whole pathetic place, scream on top of my lungs. And then it came to me.

I could just end it. As simple as that. I pointed my eyes to the bottom of the gorge and thought about it. I really had nothing left to lose. My muscles were already twitching for the jump but then came the cold feet. And I knew. I couldn´t have done it. Even if I wanted to. And I still was not sure if I even did want to. So I stood there, a gentle summer breeze lushing my bare feet. I suddenly had a feeling this would all soon change.

There were some things I needed to do. It was an urgent matter to find money. Lots of it. Granny had some pennies hidden away from me but that was all, at least what I knew of. I painfully tried to leave the cliff behind me, put one feet in front of the other just as if I had forgotten how to walk properly. I had to go all the way uphill to work my way back to the cottage. I didn´t have that much strength. I had sat there for hours, passive, blank-sighted, my throat was dry and stomach hurt. I fell on my knees and started crawling towards the passage. There was a way through the mountains that I tended to use. It was slippery and rocky but there was a bigger chase I would make it alive to the village than going over the mountains.

Cold Teeth, that´s what they called the mountains. You could see the range from every household of the village. It rarely happened that the sun blushed the mountain´s cheeks but today was one of these rare days. The usually cold and navyblue peaks had turned into a pleasant violet colour. They were the highest in the river-area. The peaks towered over my head stabbing the soft white cloudpillows.

The passage was just in front of me. I started something that vaguely resembled running but my foot got stuck in a minehole and I fell headlong . The last thing I remembered was warm blood streaming down my face.

It was a beautiful day. The grass was glistening in dew and the sun was playfully crowning the heads of the daisies. I silently heard a lonely mockingbird wasting away it´s precious time playing melodies. It was a beautiful day.

Chapter 2

When I finally opened my eyes I couldn´t see a thing. I was blinded by the harsh artificial lightning of what I believed to be the Curing Centre. I guess somebody had brought me there from the cave. I gently touched my forehead and discovered the wound was gone. There I layed, propped up on a thousand of pillows, clueless of what had just happened. I remembered tripping but who could´ve it possibly been, I mean, the one who found me.

The people of the village never went all the way downhill because there was literally nothing there. Besides the loneliness and yourself amidst the cruel mischiefs of nature at it´s best. I used to come to that cliff every single day just to stand there on the edge of world, let the wind blow away all the pain and memories of the normal every-day life. But lately it changed. Ever since my mum´s death I have practically been living there and I have never ever seen anyone else even near that place.

I remember figuring something out before passing out. Finding a purpose, something to fight for. It´s just that I couldn´t remember.

Well, if this really was the Curing Centre, there would´ve been nurses there. But I seemed to be completely alone.

"Nurse!" I tried shouting out loud but all that came from my dry mouth was a quiet "squeak". I saw a window, that´s what I thought at least. Yes, definitely a window, I realized as my eyes finally fully opened. And bright sunlight, green meadows. This had to be it. The Curing Centre, I mean. It was the only place so sterile and clean here, uphill in the village. I tried screaming again.

There was this ridiculous idea forming in my mind. I roughly oushed it back for the first say ten times, but when I had completely lost my voice I tried to give it a go.

I felt better already but I wasn´t sure how to unattach myself from these endless-seeming machines, so I grabbed a really heavy item that I couldn´t identify in that condition and state of mind from the chest of drawers. I gathered all the strength I had and tossed it all the way to the window. I heard glass shattering. Then there was a minute of silence and then the alarms broke off. I made a victorious gesture - at least there was a chance someone would come to me. I mean, they had to locate the source of the alarm somehow, didn´t they?

After what seemed hours of reckless struggle, I heard the door opening. A girl just a little older than my walked in. Her hair was black as ebony and her skin was chocolate brown. She smiled at me in confusion.

"Did you do this, darling?" she said pointing to the broken window.

I nodded shamefully, "I did, where am I, if you don´t mind?"

"At the Curing Centre, were else. Somebody had brought you to the door and left you there, poor thing. Sorry, the coyotes came over again, we weren´t in the building before."

"Is it this late already? Is it Siege Day? I mean, last I checked it was..." I muttered in disbelief.

"Stop, stop, you´re hurting yourself," she calmly said waving her hands up and down to show me I should just settle down, "no, it is not the Siege Day. Although you have seemed to lost your track of time..."

"But I didn´t sleep for days, didn´t I?"

"No darling, you came here a couple of hours ago."

I looked away from the nurse and pointed my eyes at the broken window, "Sorry"

She shrugged smiling and left, closing the door. I made out a small figure emerging from the bright sunlight. The person seemed to limp one foot and have a tiny hunch. I was scared for a millisecond until I realized it was Grandma, getting me out of this mess. But why was she limping? Did the coyote clan get her? I didn´t believe that for a moment. She was smart enough not to poke her nose in other cases not concerning her. And the coyotes were definitely not her problem. We lived far from the river, this was just not possible with the odds and timing.

I couldn´t lose her too, that was the only thing I knew for sure.

Chapter 3

She came knocking, „Honey, are you awake?“

„Yes, Grandma, come in!“ I shouted.

She stepped inside leaping and growling. „You know, a coyote got me today,“ she said, „it´s not that bad though“ she added seeing my both puzzled and worried face. „See, the thing is, the soldiers can´t keep them in peace anymore. We know it´s Siege Day, we´re prepared and still somehow end up injured. We lost quite a lot people today. Never happened before. “ I just sat there my moth wide open and eyes bulgiing out of the skull. „Grandma, are you serious? This is bad, this is very very bad.“

„I know, darling,“ she said sighing in fear, „I know.“

„Let´s get you out of here.“ She started unplugging the machines yapping about the weather at the same time.“ It is raining“ she said and took the pillows away, „the mushrooms are growing“ she added and gave me her hand. I could just not believe how careless and seemingly calm she was.

She didn´t seem to worry about it all. It happened today, for god´s sake, she has to feel something. And it was then, when I know I was losing her.

„Is everything alright, Grandma? “ I asked taking first steps towards the door.

„Yes, honey, why shouldn´t it be?“ Okay then, I thought, let´s play it her way.

„No, it´s great, you just seemed a bit distant, you know. Hey, the rain stopped!“ She nodded and gave me a wide and sencere-looking smile. I closed the door after us and we stepped into the hot sun. From far a way I thought I could make out a rainbow. I´d always liked them. When I was little, my mum used to tell me about the rainbow-land, where everything was so colourful, you couldn´t even look at it. She always had a tendency to speak about animals as if they were humans, so there were a really loving red dog, a yellow always-worried crow... And then the pain struck me. The pain of losing her. She had been violently taken from me. This was not fair. „THIS IS NOT FAIR!“ I heard myself crying out loud. Grandma patted my shoulder and whispered into my ear, „I know, darling, I know. “ This was her way of calming me down. Well, at least she tried. She hadn´t given up yet, although she had also lost everything.

Grandma had picked a rocky path for us to walk back to the cottage and I was barefoot. I didn´t want to trouble her anymore so I said nothing and just tried to endure the pain and swallow the tears. I heard it again, the mockingbird. It´d always had an affect on me, it´s song. I always sort of plugged out from the world and started staring a point in distance. I was carried away on the wings of the mockingbird. I felt the air around me, the adrenaline rushing through my veins. I was flying with it. I wasn´t that old yet to know the secret of Air but I was close to it. I knew it, I felt it.

A knife-sharp rock cut into my foot. I grunted with pain but said nothing. She looked at my all worried and asking. I replied with head shake. Grandma planted her hand in my palm wet of swet.

„It´s okay honey, we´re almost there.“

I could see the cottage now. Our cottage. It looked a bit hashed and tired but inside it was alway warm and cozy. That´s what I´d always loved about it. Although I had moved in only after my mum passed away, it had always felt as home. Growing up I made wooden statuettes here with Grandpa, went fishing with the boy next-door, skimmed stones across the river water with my uncle. It was all gone now. It was just my and grams. Some had moved away, grandpa died of a long-term disease, my uncle became a Soldier.

It was just us.