EMPRESS

The Tragic Past: LILLY

L I L L Y

Eleven years prior -

The thunderous crackling of burning wood sounded loudly in young Lilly's ears as her heart beat rapidly within her chest cage, fluttering like a humming birds wings in the hot Azarian summers.

She stood frozen in terror at the people running and rushing before her, a stone settling in the pit of her stomach. She watched her neighbours house collapse in a heap of smoke in a raging inferno that many other homes had fallen victim to. Hers included.

"Ahhh!"

One particular scream sliced through the flurry of others like a sharpened arrow which pierced through her heart painfully. It was her eldest sister, Amoura.

Lilly's eyes immediately found her sisters medium frame in the frenzy of bodies around her. Her dirty blonde hair was half burnt off, colouring it black and tear streaks ran down her dirtied face. What scared the young girl the most was Amoura's eyes. They were a reflection of everyone else eyes that she had gotten brief glances at. Terror. Pure, raw, terror.

That was the last expression her sister would ever make, as a uniform clad man appeared behind her frame. His bloodied long sword  raised high above her for a suspended moment before it came down between Amoura's shoulder and neck, slicing her ear off in the process. It cut right through her shoulder, all the way down to just below her heart.

She was dead within seconds.

Her death was swift. At least, compared to the others who were sooner slaughtered who died lower, more painful deaths. Lilly's parents were part of the unfit whom had fallen by many wounds bleeding out. But at the very least they were side by side, her loving parents, for a few numbing minutes as their flame flickered and inevitably was smothered.

Lilly saw their bodies as she approached the wrecked frame of Amoura, their corpses hidden amongst the other victims.

She could not even cry.

A numbness, like the frost of a late-autumn morning creeped into her heart and seized it, squeezing it like a serpent - only, it wasn't a snake that caused the pain but the lack of air that vacated her lungs. She had been winded by her losses.

"Lilly! Run!" The middle child, brother Kaiil, shouted to her from across the modest village square. He too was fleeing another armed soldier clad with a bow and arrows.

Her lips whispered his name like a gentle breeze as she drew in a much need breath. Her heart beginning to beat anew rhythm of despair as the soldier pulled back an arrow, the dark metal gleaming maliciously in the midday. She watched the scene unfold as if it was slowed down immensely, one second seeming to last a thousand.

And then it stopped as the sound of air slicing and the dual impacts of the arrow flying through the back of her brothers head, and through his eye. The one soon after was his body slamming into the debris of burnt remnants of the village.

Finally, as if her self preserving instincts had not existed, her small, bare feet slapped against the ground.

"Lilly! Run!"

Her lungs burned like the back of her eyes and especially her heart, the pain not sparing her muscles as she ran and ran until she could no longer feel her body, hear the screams, or smell the fire of her life burning down behind her.