The Kingdom Walls

PROLOGUE

Gasp.

Breathe.

Gasp.

One more breath.

Harsh pants fill her ears like angry waves in a storm beating on a cliff face. The guttural sounds of them pierces through her dying awareness like merciless jolts of electricity futilely trying to revive her for one more second... One more breath...

She painstakingly raises her eyes to the sky at the angle from where she was lying. Delicate tendrils of silky, hair-like slivers of white cottony clouds frolic across the vast blue. So beautiful. So far away. So safe.

Cirrus clouds, she thinks. As soon as the fact pops into her head, she coughs out a short bloody laugh that quickly turns into a painful gasp that makes her body gush more blood onto the ground. I'm in my death rattle and I'm identifying cloud types, go figure.

The pain escalates into excruciating intensity. She wants to scream, but can only gurgle a whimper. The panting restarts, the sound getting wetter and sloppier. The harsh breaths still attack her ears, relentless in their torture to keep her alive, and she can't tell which one's hers and which one belongs to the monster somewhere off to her side, currently busy ripping out the flesh of her hero who failed miserably in trying to save them and paid with his life. His screams have stopped. They didn't last long. At least there is that.

Please just take me now... Let it stop...

As if in mockery to her plight, the bright blue sky stares back at her in all its tranquil glory. Pathetic, it seemed to admonish her. The trees rustle in the soft wind, blowing the scent of wild grass and flowers emphasizing the stark irony between the beauty of the meadow and the gory scene on where she lies. Although the small animals have probably gone into hiding and smartly chose to remain quiet during the blood bath, one lone hawk stares down at her from his lofty perch atop a tall tree as if to reproach her for staining the field red with her blood.

Blame that monster, not me, you stupid bird. He was the one who decided to maul us

US...

Oh no... Mom...

Frantically her eyes search the area as far as they could reach which wasn't much scope, with her lying prone face down on the ground. But she sees her as she painfully raises her head, turning it to the right, letting her cheek drop to the ground-a simple movement sapping the last of her strength. Her mom was lying not two feet away from her, watching her weakly, tears mingling with the blood on her face.

"Mom..." she sobs.

"Oh, honey you're ok..." her mom weakly breathes out, then catched herself at the absurdity of her statement. Clearly her daughter was not.

"In a manner of speaking." A frail attempt at a joke in a futile effort to cease her mom's worries.

Her mom's face scrunched up. "I thought you were-Oh honey, your back..." She let out one choked sob, trying desperately to get up to go to her, but she lets out a weak gasp, "Oh god it hurts..".

"Mom stop, stop!" She runs her eyes up her mom's body as far as they would go, which was hard. Although their heads were parallel with each other, their bodies were facing opposite directions, so she had to strain her eyes up to see her injuries. And what she saw made her want to scream. She tried to mask her expression, but not fast enough. Her mom saw it.

Her mom's expression softened as she tried to give her a weak smile. It made her heart break even more. She knew that expression very well. Once a year she sees it on her mom's face when she catches her crying silently in the early mornings of every 15th day of June. It was a smile to cover up a kind of pain that doesn't heal or go away. She never told her what her tears were for no matter how hard she pushed. She even refused to talk to her mom for two straight weeks because of it, but to no avail.