The scent of death was suffocating.
The girl huddled behind the rolls of fabric, a hand clasped over Abhipadma’s mouth to stifle his cries, although she herself was close to screaming. The smell of charred flesh wrangled itself up her nose and the metallic stench of blood stained the air as the army outside razed through bodies as if they were made out of paper.
It was only a matter of time before they would meet the same fate.
“Sister, I-” Abhipadma managed to whisper under her palm, before he was cut off by a loud crash against the closed door. The girl pulled in her brother closer as the furniture she had barricaded against the entrance was pushed back bit by bit by something hulking ramming into the door over and over again, until finally-
“See, there’s no-one else here,” a defiant voice cut through the noise of the massacre outside as the door was torn open. The girl had to bite her lower lip to stop herself from crying out as her mother gestured wildly around the room to the giant soldier looming over her.
“Really,” the soldier said, her lavender eyes sweeping over the space, agonisingly slow. The girl was grateful for the shadows cloaking the room, not only for the cover they provided, but for the fact they were the only thing pinning her soul to her body as she tried not to jump out of her skin in fear. “Your husband was quite insistent that I not come in here — so much so, he was willing to die for it.”
With her back turned, the girl couldn’t see her mother’s face, but the way she jolted at the soldier’s words said it all.
“We…just have a lot of valuable fabrics in here,” her mother said with a shuddering breath. “He was being stupid.”
“Clearly,” the soldier scoffed. The thin streaks of moonlight seeping through the small window cast a clear view of the stark, white hair lying in a long braid over her shoulder — evidence of who exactly was responsible for the attack on the girl’s village. “Although his actions weren’t completely idiotic-”
There was a quick swipe of the soldier’s sword. The girl watched as her mother fell to the floor, her body in one place but her head in another.
“-death was inevitable, anyway.”
It was only when the heavy footfalls of the soldier had disappeared completely did the girl allow herself to weep at the sight of the dismembered corpse. Her mother’s eyes stared back at her, wide and terrified.
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