Chapter 10 (Demon Hunter VI)

Mira's ears were ringing like a bell that was being rung in a church, and her body felt heavy. As she raised her head, she was shocked by the gruesome scene that was before her.

There was blood splattered everywhere, torn body parts littering every corner, and the heavy metallic smell of blood that made Mira's stomach clench, making her feel even more nauseous.

Looking at her body, she realized that she was covered in blood; thankfully, the rain helped wash it away. Mira had never seen so much blood in her entire life, and before she knew it, she had vomited her guts out.

She managed to pick herself up when there was nothing left for her to vomit; she couldn't stay here any longer; she had to leave, but where? The rain fell harder on her; it felt as if it were cleansing the land as if it was a witness to the evil that happened below.

She leaned her back on a tree, bringing her feet closer to her body. She looked at her feet, which were still held captive between the traps. She took a couple of deep breaths, mentally preparing herself for the upcoming pain.

Slowly, she brought her hands closer to her feet, but the moment her hands touched her feet, she hissed out in pain, tears welling up in her eyes as her heart became so heavy for her that she found it hard to breathe.

Her leg was already swollen and had already turned purple. She knew that if the trap stayed there any longer, her leg might be cut off.

But she couldn't do it. She didn't have the heart to do it; she knew that if she didn't remove the trap that was holding her leg, which was cutting through her flesh and that had broken her bones, she would lose her entire foot.

But the pain was unbearable—so unbearable that she couldn't cry anymore. The rain fell harder on her, drenching her from head to toe. The weather was very cold; no, it was freezing. Mira had never thought that one day her life would turn out this way. She had wished to see the outside world, but not this way.

She closed her eyes, embracing the darkness before her. Maybe once she closed her eyes and opened them once again, she would realize that everything was just a terrible nightmare.

Her eyes were closed for a while but for some strange reason she opened them and immediately she regretted it ; in front of her was the second man crawling towards her; his body was completely disfigured; one of his hands had been severed; the hair on his head and skin had been burned, leaving behind an unrecognizable mess of turned tissues; but his eyes... his eyes held malice and vengeance in them.

"I would kill you," he said.

Even his voice sounded all cracked up as if his windpipe had been crushed. Wasn't he supposed to be dead? How did he survive the explosion? All these questions and more ran through Mira's mind. Mira was terrified; her body shook uncontrollably with fear; the person before her looked nothing less than a zombie.

Mira instantly stood up on her feet but fell back down. Her head was spinning and her legs were weak; the trap didn't give much help either, but seeing the man coming towards her like the walking dead was enough motivation for her not to give up and run.

She managed to stand up, but she couldn't run. All she could do was limp. She took a couple of steps away from him, but her legs could not carry her body anymore.

She fell back to the ground with a thud; her body had long passed its limit. She knew that if she waited for someone to come to her rescue, she would end up joining her parents; she couldn't let their sacrifice go to waste, so she would fight with all the strength she had left.

She didn't want to die, at least not now; she still had a lot to do. She kept on moving away from him and praying to the heavens for a miracle to happen.

He kept on coming closer and closer to Mira, and despite the gap that Mira gave between herself and him, he was still able to cover the gap using one hand. Mira dragged her leg through the mud, trying her best to get away from the monster that was hot on her tail.

He grabbed Mira's ankle tightly, causing her to fall face-first to the ground. Mira lifted her head to look behind her, her eyes widening in horror as he moved closer to her.

Mira kicked him with her free leg, but he grabbed her injured leg and twisted it in a wired angle, drowning blood from the open wound.

"Ahhhh,"

Mira screamed, but the man before her didn't even flinch; he wasn't moved by her cry or plea. Mira kept on kicking him, hoping that she could shake him off, but she couldn't. Her face was covered in mud and she was also helpless. Mira cried until her voice became raspy, her eyes were red and swollen, and her hair was a total mess. She looked scared and pitiful, but the man in front of her didn't seem to care; in fact, he seemed to enjoy the pain Mira was in and how helpless she was.

He finally stopped with the torture, but his eyes made it very clear that he wasn't quite finished yet with Mira. He moved upward, covering the little space between him and Mira. It didn't take long for him to trap Mira under him, which made Mira's hope of survival lessen with every passing minute.

With only one hand supporting him, his face was very close to Mira's, and she could feel his hot breath on her cold and frozen face. His gaze held Mira's gaze for such a long time that it even felt like eternity.

"Pl-please," 

Mira said with trembling lips, but instead of sympathy, a slow, creepy, but evil smile formed on his burnt and exposed lips.

"Now you die,"

He said, lifting his body away from Mira. He took out a dagger from his pocket, and lifted it as high as he could, before bringing it down on Mira's chest.

Mira closed her eyes, waiting for the pain that would decide her faith to wash over her.

She couldn't believe that she was going to die. She couldn't believe the things that had happened in a span of 24 hours. She couldn't believe that she would be living so soon. She couldn't believe that she would not be able to explore, but the only bright side was that she would finally see her parents again.

As she waited for the impact, tears streamed from the corners of her eyes.

Mira felt a warm hand cup her cheeks ever so gently, then a gentle kiss was then placed on her forehead.

"I love you and will always protect you, my princess, until we meet again, bye." The voice was more of a whisper carried by the wind.

Mira instantly opened her tired eyes to see the person behind that familiar voice,

But she saw no one; even the man who was about to kill her was no more. She wasn't dead yet, but to her surprise, there was no sign of anyone around.

That voice sounded all too familiar to her; it sounded like her dad's voice, and the feeling, the torch, and the kiss on her forehead were just as comforting and suitable as her dad's.

And the emotion behind that voice calling her princess was exactly like...No, he was no longer alive; it was just her mind playing tricks on her.

Mira slumped back on the floor, exhausted. The rain had finally stopped, but it was the start of a storm in her life.

She felt like she was underwater; her head was spinning, and her eyelids were heavy. She could hear voices but couldn't make anything out of them.

She heard footsteps coming towards her, the splashing of water, and the little tremble of the ground. That was all she could comprehend.

Was she saved, or had her agony only just begun? she wondered before succumbing to the darkness.

*************

Mira's long lashes fluttered open, revealing her beautiful blue eyes. She stared at the ceiling blackly for a long time before she snapped out of her trance. She looked at the clock on the wall to find that it was 2:37.

She quickly sat up from her bed but held her head with both hands as a wave of dizziness washed over her. The memories of her dream suddenly came rushing back at her like a fast-forward move.

She was back in her room, and her friends were sleeping soundly in their beds. They sounded exhausted due to the heavy breathing.

Mira's eyebrows locked together, and a frown settled on her forehead as she went into deep thought.

That dream felt so real to Mira—the emotions that were attached to it, the physical torture, everything—that it felt more like déjà vu, but it was not the truth; that wasn't how her parents died. Her parents had died in a fatal car accident that took their lives on the spot and also left her in a coma for a whole year.

She was brought into the orphanage when she was 11 years old by an unknown person. She opened her eyes one day and found herself at the orphanage; she had no relatives or family friends that she could recall, but the warden told her that it was a family friend of hers who had paid for her hospital bills and brought her here, with the promise that he would adopt her when she was a little older. With that, Mira was desperately waiting for the mysterious person to come and adopt her, but years went by and there was no sign of the mysterious person.

But that's not the issue at hand right now. The issue is: why did this dream feel so real, but her reality feel so fake?

And again, she had never seen those monsters in reality until three years ago, but how come her dream says otherwise?

She closed her eyes, trying her best to find something else, but she couldn't. She tried again and again but found nothing. Her mind began to race once more, but she was determined to find out what had happened to her or at least find out what had happened to her during the time her parents died and possibly also during the 12 months she had lost of her life.

But it's possible that what she had just witnessed was just her imagination making up stories; she was tired after all. She then realized that she had never really thought about what had happened during the lost 12 months of her life or anything concerning her past. What did this mean?

Mira was sweating profusely as her mind thought of different scenarios. The dream she just had left a strange feeling behind and she didn't know why. Who were those people who rescued her from that place, and was that one year truly lost, or had the memory been erased because that was how she felt?

She closed her eyes once again, trying even harder to remember something, anything, she just needed clarity, she continued to the extent that the vein on her forehead popped out, but still, nothing changed. She was sweating like crazy, and her head was spinning uncontrollably. She fell back on her bed exhausted; her breath became heavy and unsteady, like a person who just ran a marathon and lost.

Minutes passed, and Mira was unable to fall asleep. Despite how exhausted she was mentally and physically, she just couldn't fall asleep, and strangely, her heart was still racing fast in her chest.

Mira then opened her eyes, feeling defeated. She looked at her friends, who were sleeping soundly on their beds. She also realized that she was on her bed alone, but strangely, she didn't feel scared.

Mira stood up, heading towards the bathroom to take a bath. She felt sticky all over due to all her sweating, but as soon as her hand touched the doorknob, she suddenly felt dizzy. She fell to her knees, clutching her head with both hands with her eyes closed, as the events of the previous day came flooding back to her.

She stayed like that for a long time, processing everything. Her eyes finally opened; she kept looking at the tiles, and before she knew it, tears began falling from her eyes.

She couldn't believe that she had killed someone. What was happening to her for Christ's sake? She quickly touched her stomach, which had been repeatedly stabbed by those men, but felt nothing; there was no pain.

She sat down on the floor, raising her top to check for any scar or wound, but found nothing.

She stood up, walking towards her bed with small steps, holding her breath. She hoped that the memory she just saw was also a dream; she prayed within herself that it was so. The only way to confirm it was to see the dagger that was given to her, which she prays that she doesn't.

She stood beside her bedside, hoping that the voice in her head that kept telling her to embrace the truth and move on was wrong.

She threw the sheet away, and immediately her legs gave out. She let out a sigh of relief, seeing nothing on her bed.

The ground was cold, but she enjoyed it; it made her racing heart calm a little, but she knew that this was no victory.

Mira stayed like that, looking at nothing in particular, and she realized that someone must have left the touch light on throughout the night.

"This must be Summer's handwork." Mira just shook her head at Summer's forgetfulness.

She bent down to get it, but she froze when she realized it wasn't a touch light, but rather the dagger.

She picked it up carefully by the handle; she didn't want to get burned by it, but the light was so beautiful that she didn't know when she touched the blade. She quickly redrew her hand when she felt it burn her but that couldn't change the beauty of the dagger, the light was just like the sweet smell of nectar that drives a bee crazy.

She kept on looking at the dagger, lost in its beauty. She realized that the dagger was not made of any metal, but it looked like it was made of stone and a very strange one at that. She wasn't very sure, but one thing was sure, and that was that this dagger was the exact type the man in her dream had.

Mira just sat down on the floor, connecting all the dots—from her dream to the event that happens in school, she connected everything.

"So everything that happened in my dream did happen in reality, so it was the hunters that killed my parents, not vampires. Now I wonder what other things, that had happened in my dreams that were real,"

Her eyes never left the dagger. She once again touched the blade of the dagger, but this time she didn't let go. Instead, she held it tightly. It burned her skin, but it felt just right.

She picked up a cloth from the floor and wrapped the danger in it; she then raised her bed and kept the dagger away from anyone; she would tell her friends about it by tomorrow and confront the boy with the silver hair if she found him.

But, once again, the news of what happened would have reached the king by tomorrow, or perhaps it had already reached his ears if the high counsel, and she would be killed or..... worse.

Mira was scared of what life held for her; there was nothing she could do now but hope that everything turned out better.