A small child, with soft short brown hair, opened her two different-colored eyes. She was still sleepy because it was the middle of the night, but her nose wrinkled from the smell of smoke. Smoke?
The girl reached to the other side and rolled around, but found an empty part of the bed. "Luna?" She sat up and got out of bed.
When she opened the door, an intense wave of heat made her flinch. The sight of the fire around made her wide awake.
She ran down the stairs, shouting for her parents, but no one answered. She froze, sensing she stepped on something wet and looked down, seeing a trail of blood.
After a few seconds, she started to move again and followed the blood, walking with slow steps that became faster and faster until she was running.
She stopped when she reached the gruesome scene.
Her parents' bodies were lying on the ground, and pools of blood surrounded them.
She dropped to her knees, shook them, trembling while calling out "Dad, Mom! Wake up, please!!". She was holding her tears in.
She put her hands near their noses, shivering when she couldn't feel the flow of air. "No, no, no..." she mumbled while stumbling backwards, desperately trying not to believe what she already knew. Then, she remembered. Luna!
She stumbled forward, to the kitchen, praying in her heart that she's still... that she's not...
She opened the door, and froze completely.
What wouldn't she do so the scene before her would be all just a lie, a nightmare created by the most sinister demons- so a petite girl in her pink pajamas wouldn't be standing and looking up, confused, at the man who was holding in his hand the handle of a knife that followed to the tip which could be seen protruding from the lower back of the girl, staining the cute pajamas with a blood-red, growing blemish.
"Luna!!!!" A scream which sounded so uncontrollable and beastly, so desperate and tear-strained, as if someone's whole world had shattered, came out of her throat.
Hearing the scream, the girl slowly turned around, starting to whisper "Ash-"
The man yanked the knife out of the girl's body and looked at Ashly, the quiet light of the moon revealing the hideous expression on his twisted face, of madness and mortifying, perverted pleasure, revealed in the grin and the glint in his eyes.
Luna gasped, her legs wobbled and she collapsed to the floor.
Ashly ran forward, clasping Luna's shoulder and calling her name desperately.
Luna tried to reach out to Ash, but before she did, her hand went limp and her eyes closed, the last emotions seen in them being disbelief and unwillingness.
Ashly called out again, but Luna didn't respond. She stayed staring for a while, and then bowed her head down, hiding her expression and trembling.
"Oh, how touching, what a saaad moment for you two little girls. How very lovely, your pathetic existence and that marvelous expression of grief you must have... I bet that expression would be sooo delicious..." The man said, dramatically gesturing with his hands and expressions- covering his cheeks, putting a hand on his heart and ending his little monologue with the last words trailing to a disgusting, high whisper, afterwards breaking into a bout of mad laughter.
Maybe if he hadn't laughed so much, he would've seen how she clenched the sharp shard in her right fist hard enough to make it bleed when she got up.
She started walking slowly towards him, still not looking up, while he continued talking, without even looking at her.
"Don't you know, in this world you are just too powerless, too weak...
Your little friend died, and you couldn't do anything to save her! All you could do was watch!"
He kept laughing, doing nothing when she approached, until she was right in front of him.
Suddenly, she looked up, her face morphed by the fury and hatred she felt, reflecting the endless darkness in her mind, and lunged forward, screaming and stabbing him over and over again.
As the shard sank into his soft flesh over and over and the blood splattered on her face, she could only get consumed more and more in her feelings.
All she could think about was the images of her parents' lifeless bodies, the way Luna turned around and looked at her- the way she fell, the way she closed her eyes. It was replaying in the back of her mind, an unending loop of agony.
He was unprepared, caught by surprise from the attack, but still, even as he stumbled back, the expression of shock he had for the little time she stabbed him in had been replaced with the same expression of twistedly delighted madness he had before.
"Oh, even better than I thought! What an absolutely euphoric expression.... I'm glad this is the last face... I could... see...".
With those words, he stumbled backwards and fell on the ground.
Ashly didn't care, and she started to move forward, intending to jump on him and continue.
"Don't!"
The abrupt sound made her stop in shock.
She turned around, slowly, as though she held her self from jumping backwards, only a tiny part of her daring to be hopeful, although she knew her imagination wouldn't play tricks as cruel as that on her.
The familiar smiling face seemed like a blissful dream come true.
"Luna!" she ran forward, taking her to her arms and dialing the landline phone, that somehow still worked, to call for an ambulance. She hung up the phone after talking to the operator and got back to Luna, trying to put pressure on her wound to stop the bleeding.
"Ash, I need to tell you something- " Luna started to say, but Ashly cut her off, afraid of what she was about to say.
"No, stop talking! You'll be fine, I'm sure someone will get here soon, just hang on!"
"Please, listen to what I will say" Luna ignored her words, continuing to speak with a strained voice and a soft smile on her face.
"Ash, please...
Please don't forget that just like there are bad people there are many who are good- not only your family and your friends, who'll always love you and care about you... like the grandma at the end of the street that lives alone and always gives us oranges and smiles at us, or Will from school, who's always nice to everyone, or Miss Sarah that's strict but really likes all of us."
"Ash, please don't forget how much we liked seeing the irises bloom, and how beautiful the river is, how much fun we had when we ran and stood in the rain.
Don't forget that you're not alone, and you never have to be alone. And that bad things happen, but we live and many happy things happen."
"Ash, don't you know? I love how you practically live off excitement- every time you look the most alive when your eyes shine when you get excited, and it's like you're sparkling- I love that adventurous flame that always burns in you. It doesn't matter if you think about how awesome it would be to fly, get passionate over a book's plot, or think of magic or how cool planets are- I always admire that about you."
"Ash, you know as well- you know that you'll lose all of you and become just a bitter shell that always lives like a hollow ghost if you won't move on and get lost in your pain and hatred.
Ash, I want you to stay bright, always shining with your spirit! Don't let this bring you down, move on and stay stronger."
"Ash, I know that I can't make it. I can't accompany you on your future journeys, but I will always be with you and you will always have me in your heart..." she stopped, took a deep breath, and smiled even brighter, though Ashly had finally, for the first time in that night, burst into silent streams of tears when Luna said the truth that Ashly didn't want to admit, that Luna would die.
"Ash, I love you. Thank you for being my friend" At this point Luna's voice quivered slightly and she couldn't stop a few tears, but she still laughed through them.
"I love you too, Luna. Thank you for being my friend, and talking with me and listening to me and hugging me and smiling to me every day. I will always love you too, Luna, you have always been and will always be my friend and my angel" Ashly managed to say through her tears.
She hugged her, and then watched as her friend closed her eyes once again, but she knew this time she would really never have the chance to talk to her again.
She kissed her forehead, and if anyone had watched that moment, they would be overwhelmed by the heartbreaking expression on the girl's face.
The sizzling sound of flames and cracks of wood snapping got Ashly out of her trance and reminded her that she needed to go out.
Just as she stood up, a wooden beam above her fell and hit her head.
She hit the ground, and the sharp pain on the back of her head made her lose consciousness, her attempts of struggle futile.
Then, she was back on the cold floor, still fading, drifting between consciousness and losing awareness, though still feeling the devastating pain, and tried to hang on, to open her eyes back to that dark little room.
At last, she managed to do so. The waves of pain were only harder to bear as she was fully conscious, worse than before.
She screamed in sheer agony, the recurring cycle of increasing pain continuing to torture her, but this time her will didn't weaken and her determination didn't diminish.
Every time she breathed, every thought she had, focused on the missing piece of the puzzle she had just completed.
The puzzle to the truth of everything that made her herself, every part that made the complete her, that completed her reasons and determination, that fueled her feelings and kept her hopeful and strong, that enabled her to stick to every little dream she had and live the way she wanted, ignore the pain in order to have a future, in order to get up one day and make her own path in life.
Because after she had remembered what happened that fateful night 5 years ago, she decided.
She decided that even if it'll take months or years, she'll wait and in the end, she'll live. She'll breath, and dream, and shine, going on adventures after adventures, following every dream she has- from the smallest to the biggest, reaching every place she yearns for!!
She'll live!!!
With that tungsten-hard ([A/N: Nerd pfft :D]) determination she had and the image of Luna's smile firmly etched to her mind, she weathered the countless cycles of pain.
And then, after so much time, out of the blue, it stopped. The agonizing currents of pain stopped, leaving her almost astonishingly empty.
The last tear, containing countless emotions, silently streamed down her cheek.
© 2021 Scarlet Embers