The dragon Sword

They were chasing us. Right behind our every step. Flames consumed everything, people were screaming, and the sky wore a thick layer of smoke that made it nearly impossible to breathe. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

But the people didn’t lose hope. They ran. We all ran. It was horrific. I can still see the terrified faces of those clinging desperately to their loved ones, hoping to save them. The entire village echoed with cries and screams. Horses roared as the men hunted us down. We never learned who attacked us that night. 

My mother grabbed my hand, her grip unyielding. My older sister was gasping for breath as she helped me climb the hill. Everyone was running toward it. Some falling, some being trampled under the panic of the crowd. It was a moment of pure horror. I wasn’t crying like the other children. I was scared, but I was watching everything. We ran.

Mother held both me and my sister as we pushed forward, people bumping into one another in desperation. The orange smoke rising from our burning village could be seen for miles. Even amid the chaos, I could hear my own footsteps, but it felt as though my ears registered nothing except the relentless screams. The hoofbeats of the horses thundered closer as we entered the forbidden forest, a place my people feared. They used to say that those who stepped inside were never seen again. But that night, we had no other choice. We were surrounded.

I clung to my mother’s hand as we fled. People scattered like seeds cast in terror. “Zoey, stay close,” my mother whispered, tightening her hold on me. We kept running, but the horsemen split up, trying to encircle us slowly. In the chaos, we were pressed together, then shoved apart, and suddenly I lost her hand.

I fell. But it wasn’t the forest floor that caught me. It wasn’t leaves. It was blood. I looked up to see a lifeless body. My scream tore through the night as someone grabbed me and lifted me from the ground.

Mother was gone. My sister was gone. I was running with a stranger, but not for long. People were being slaughtered all around me. I didn’t look back. That was the moment I understood true horror, and I finally cried. I kept running until I reached a riverbank. The screams and chaos faded behind me, replaced by the soft murmur of the water. I collapsed there, overwhelmed, and drifted into unconsciousness.

When I woke, my body felt numb. I wrapped my arms around myself and cried. My heart was still shaking, still convinced it could hear the screams. I sobbed until I had no breath left. That night, I lost my family. I was covered in blood. It was a night I can never forget. That night still lives in me.

Even after eleven years, it feels like yesterday. I am no longer that little girl. I am a warrior. I don’t run anymore. I fight. That night awakened something in me. A thirst for revenge, for peace, for the happiness that was stolen from me.

It has been four years since I began tracking those monsters, listening, watching their every move, waiting for the perfect moment to reclaim what was taken. Years have passed. I have trained relentlessly, learning to wield a sword, to aim, to fire, to build a new self from the ashes of my old life. 

I am no longer Zoey.

I have become something I cannot fully explain. The person I am now has a burning heart, still aching for the mother and sister who are lost, perhaps dead. But revenge always comes. Brutal or merciful, it always comes.

I am the girl who carries the dragon sword.