The next chapter mentions and suggestions of acts of violence and abuse. Read with discretion.
Seeing everything falling apart so quickly, Anne had to make a decision. The house had no other door than the one that pointed toward the group of goblins that continued to advance toward them while setting fire to the other houses, so that was not an option. Without time to answer any of the doubts her daughter had, Anne took her by the hand and dragged her to her room.
Alice saw the seriousness on her mother's face. The only sounds she heard were the crackling of the fire and screams. Being the obedient child she was, Alice followed her mother without saying a single word. Although she did not understand what was happening, it was painfully obvious that it could only be something bad.
Anne dragged Alice to the window that looked out onto the back alley of her house and opened it, being very careful not to make any noise. She helped her daughter out the window, afraid of attracting the attention of the beasts ravaging her town, she didn't even consider taking anything with them before escaping, she just didn't have the time.
Because of the house's location, there wasn't really anywhere to run to, almost all the houses around it had already been set on fire or wouldn't be long before. Once outside, she motioned for Alice to keep quiet and dragged her daughter around the back of the house that faced the open field, which was obviously a bad idea.
Without many options, they could only try to make it through the town, avoiding the goblins until they reached the forest. Where Anna could hide with her daughter. Although the forest wasn't very big, they knew it well enough that mother and daughter could hide and watch from the side when the goblins left the town or were hidden by dawn.
Anna knew how challenging it would be to get to the forest unseen, but that was the only card she had left to play. Hiding in another house was nothing more than hoping that fate would rather kill them with the flames, and trying to cross the open field was even worse than painting a target on her back, so Ana made her decision.
Afraid that Alice's good heart might put the girl in danger, Ana warned her. "Alice, whatever you do, don't take your eyes off me, no matter what you hear, don't turn away from me, do you understand?" Alice could only nod obediently.
Mother and daughter began to make their way deeper into the burning village. There Ana saw something worse than hell, the little children, who she looked after during the day for the parents to hunt, being beaten to death by the vicious creatures. At least they were embraced by death, though violent and uneasy, it was a better end compared to the girls pleading as they were abused and crushed or torn apart in the process, her heart dying a little for each of them. Overwhelmed by her helplessness, she could do nothing but cling to her daughter and continue on her way.
Alice's upbringing, mixed with fear, forced her to not take her eyes off her mother's back. Alice was not paralyzed by fear, but she preferred to trust her mother rather than worry or be present in what seemed like a catastrophe. The screams of pain and pleas still reached her ears, no matter how hard she tried to focus on her mother and just let herself be carried away by her. The feeling of helplessness was inevitable.
Tears had long since begun to fall. Alice felt moisture run down her cheeks, but there was no time to dry them. There was also no time to stop to find out what was causing her so much pain. For once she let her curiosity slip away. For the first time in her life, Alice felt deeply dirty, due to fear and her own survival instincts, she did not even try to do anything. With each scream she ignored some of the sparkle in her eyes faded.
At first glance, it seemed that fate was truly kind to Ana and Alice. Almost miraculously, they had managed to cross half the town without being seen. But fate is capricious. It was no one's fault, but there was nothing they could do either. As they both crossed an alley, fate turned cruel. Just as they turned a corner, they found themselves face to face with a goblin, and there was nowhere to run or hide.
Ana felt her heart skip a beat, but that was just the beginning of the chain of unfortunate events that fate was about to put in front of them. With a heart-rending screech in their ears, the goblin used to call out to his close companions, as he advanced, waving his club at them.
It's hard to tell if it was a moment of desperation or a moment of sudden bravery, but Ana grabbed a nearby piece of wood and smashed it in the goblin's face, knocking him to the ground, unable to react when he was attacked by what he considered helpless prey. With no time to think about anything, Ana quickly took her daughter's hand and trotted off towards the forest, skirting the goblins attracted by the shriek.
Believing they had gotten through the most threatening moment before they could breathe a sigh of relief at the edge of the forest, fate was cruel for the second time.
She barely managed to notice with the corner of her eye the shadow approaching directly towards them, she was barely able to react to get her daughter out of the way, Ana was hit in the head by a goblin. Due to the position of the blow and the force of the impact, Ana fell on top of her daughter, making it difficult for her to move, but at the same time preventing the goblin from accessing Alice's body.
It was here that Alice broke the silence "Mother!" she said in desperation as a few drops of something warm and wet touched her face. The purest desperation filled her heart little by little as if the drops of blood were turning into the misery that filled her.
In her desperation, Alice prayed for a miracle, she wished with all her fervor that the gods would send her a miracle… This was supposed to be the part of the story where a powerful hero must save everyone.
Why was all this happening? How was she supposed to save her mother now? No? Why was no one coming? But nothing happened. Nothing but desperation and disappointment filled the girl's heart.
At the height of desperation, Alice remembered the date and an idea came to her mind. An absolute nonsense that was completely unsuitable for her current situation, but it shone like a beacon of hope deep in her mind. Remembering the conversation with her mother before the disaster. Regarding the question, How would you like your first spell to be when awakening your Nexus, thus gaining your connection to the Akash and your grimoire? Alice answered, in a whisper saying "I wish for a spell that would allow me to summon a fairy tale being" The whisper turned into a sob "something powerful enough to save us right now."
In that moment that it took for the goblins to completely surround Alice before attacking; the exact hour, minute, and second was fulfilled. Alice could notice how time stopped, as hope returned to her. Besides a small disturbance in the Akash in the air, which would barely be noticeable to an ordinary human, a magician could have noticed how the dense lines of concentrated Akash, also known as life currents, that surrounded Palo Verde make their way around Alice, surrounding her with their warmth, making her feel that everything would be okay.
The young girl felt something inside her change, lights encompassing all the colors of nature dancing and mixing, becoming part of something that was being released from whatever force was keeping it dormant. Deep within her being, where the spirit is, a small spark previously dormant gave birth to a core full of energy and potential. As if the barrier that kept her energy within her was broken, the Nexus formed and connected Alice to the Akash.
A sudden burst of light blinded the goblins, and the energy emanating from Alice forced them to back away, watching in fear as the multi-colored lights entered the girl, transformed and exited her chest intertwining and forming an initially amorphous object. Inside Alice, her Nexus ignited with a fiery light absorbing and burning all the Akash at her disposal and channeling that first page into the grimoire. As the glow inside her formed the sigils that wrote her first spell, silver lines slowly emerged from her.
These lines that seemed to point nowhere, began to converge in front of her, enclosing the glow that had exploded from within her. Slowly surrounding it and suppressing it in a cube of light, hardening and materializing in reality. The cube of light took on a dark blue hue, like the night, and the lines retained their silver glow, but took the shape of branches and merged with the cube.
In a snap, the glow and light detached themselves from the young woman, finishing off what looked like a book. Alice's grimoire seemed as if nature could be summed up in a single image, culminating in the creation of her first spell and the birth of the first magician, in a long time, in the town of Palo Verde.
Almost as if in a trance, Alice simply reached out her hand and opened the book, revealing its first page. A white page with a faint silver hue lay before her, filled with golden runes, symbols, and drawings that Alice didn't understand, but she didn't need to be able to read them, because she could use them as easily as breathing.
Obeying the girl's deep and firm wishes, this time the Akash in a huge radius around her bent to her will, pouring like a waterfall into her Nexus and then being deposited on that first page of the grimoire. Instinctively activating her Nexus to channel the Akash of nature, Alice didn't need any help to cast her original spell.
Then time stopped, the silver runes in the spell seemed to reach a saturation point where they couldn't store any more energy, and from one moment to the next, without any kind of warning, the page of the grimoire now filled with a silver glow disappeared. If it weren't for how the world around her had stopped, Alice would have been terrified to see the page that held her last hope disappear.
In what felt like a second to the world around her, the page returned to the grimoire and time began to flow again. The young woman caught her grimoire in her hands as she came out of the trance, but it seemed like nothing had changed.
Suddenly her senses were stunned by a wave of heat and the smell of sulfur, stronger and more concentrated than the heat already unleashed around her. A crack appeared on the open grimoire in her hands as if someone had smashed a mirror to reveal that there was something hidden behind it. Alice's desire and desperation had bent space itself. The young woman then realized the sulfur scent and heat came from this crack.
Then, the sound of chains clashing slowly approached from the crack. The clicking and grinding grew closer and louder. When the fissure finally burst, crystals of a shattered reality shot out in all directions and Alice found herself staring straight into nothingness. An endless darkness that was interrupted by a pair of hands gripping the edges of the fissure. The young girl could make out the 5 fingers and the slightly humanoid shape, but some parts didn't fit.
Before she could reason out of the darkness, forcing her way out and expanding, to reach this plane, the hands stretched the fissure and a cluster of almost electric flashes blinded her for a second.
Soon, something or someone emerged. Alice regained her vision and saw a black quill fall and work with the pages. Looking up, the image of a pair of enormous wings spread out in front of her protectively filled her heart with relief and joy, she had done it, she had summoned an angel.