It had only been a year since she was brought there and kept in a dungeon. Six months of training; of being peed on, kicked in the stomach, starved, and exposed to the deviance of humankind. Six months of working.
She was brought back to the present again. The sharp pine needles continued to rip into her, reopening wounds that would clot almost instantaneously. Wincing, she felt the weight of her body. Her joints cracked and her ankles swelled, but she just sobbed and ran faster. Waving her hands in front of her so she wouldn't run into anything, she finally saw a dim light a few yards away. She hoped it would be a field illuminated by the moon. Maybe a village was on the other side of that wall of tall trees. Relieved, she mustered up the rest of her energy, and sprinted towards the end. The hounds were almost at her ankles, and the men were not far behind.
"Help!" She cried as she reached the end. "Please!" Eyes blurry with hot tears obscured her vision. The images in front of her were distorted and dancing eerily. The trees bended and the dim light swirled. Her hands reached out as if hoping someone would take hold and save her. She couldn't see the ground ahead, and her footing became uncertain, so she couldn't see she ran straight into the edge of a very steep hill. A few more steps and her stomach dropped, her heart stopped for a second, and she tumbled down.
Bones fractured and loudly broke. Deep cuts, and slashes, adorned her malnourished body. She cried out like the wounded creature she was, her eyes bolted shut, making her nose scrunch up. A loud crack resounded in her ears as she finally reached to bottom. She landed on her back with a groan. Huffing and puffing, she tried to move, but only a soft whimper escaped her lips at her efforts. For one split second, there was an excruciating, unbearable, blazing pain coming from her left shin, and then it was gone. Her lower body felt like blocks of iron. Even crawling seem an impossible task. Like a doll a child discards and forgets, she was strewn oon the ground, bent in inhuman angles.
She sobbed in anguish and resentment, painfully pounding her bony fists on the ground. Snot ran down onto her lips, and tears left trails as they washed the blood and mud from her face, exposing the soft luminescence of her skin. She wailed and wailed, her throat hurt from her guttural weeping. Her heart hurt.
Weakly feeling down her body, she encountered a strange sensation. She looked down at her shin and saw what appeared to be part of a tree branch sticking out right under her knee. It ripped through her muscle and skin, leaving the tissues dangling. She grabbed it and pulled, only to be met with a blinding pain. Her vision flashed white, and the remaining blood drained from her face.
"AAAAAHHHH!!!" She shrieked. The ground vibrated and the snow melted in a perfect circle. Close to losing consciousness, she grunted and propped herself up on her fractured elbows. Every joint was swollen, but she didn't care. It was painful. A normal child could never endure this. The little girl gulped and paid more attention to the branch. She wept out. What she realized ended up being the final nail in her coffin. Like a fawn caught in a bear trap, she could no longer escape her hunters. It was her bone that was jutting out.
"She's down there!" One of the goons yelled. "It looks like she can't move!"
Antony's face came into view above her. "Fuck." He looked down, both his hands on his head. "Fuck! This bitch is damaged good… maybe the boss will be lenient on us. He bit his nails and his eyes looked wild. "We could only sell her for half the price now… FUCK!" he threw his beefy hands in the air in exasperation and turned his back to her.
The child laid flat and stared into the sky. The stars twinkled back at her. Tears and blood seeped into the ground. "Please," she whispered, "Help me…"
The wind picked up around her, swirling a small tornado of snow, blood, and something mystical. The smell of iron penetrated the air, and the temperature became warm and humid like a summer night. A soft blue glow circled her on the ground, illuminating her haggard face. She turned her head to the side to see what the source was, her eyelids half-closed.
Mushrooms.
She landed right in the middle of a rare mushroom circle.