CATHERA
I just woke from my drowsiness. The light coming from the window of my room became weaker and made me stare at it. I realized that the orange horizon was already gone. I wonder why even though I am 20 I still sleep like I'm 9. Also, I wonder why I am a lady who has already reached 20 but still has no man offering my hand and wanting to marry me. Everyone my age has a child or simply just a husband.
Look at Kingston's wife, Shayne, who once had twenty suitors before finally choosing Kingston as she withdrew from her family just to be with him. If Kingston and Tygron are friends, then so are Shayne and I.
I stood up from lying and sat on the bedside slowly waking up my sleeping body. I stood and went downstairs as soon as I felt my feet were wide awake. It is already nightfall and I haven't prepared for dinner yet.
"The nightscape shone by the moon-"-I was singing the song mom used to when making me sleep-"...The night sky shone by the stars"
Setting up the fire, boiling the water, and placing all the jars containing everything I need on the table, I am occupied making our favourite dinner, The Silverheart Hot Porridge. Being one of our mother's specialities, it will be the first dish on her menu I have been trying to cook to perfection for a while. Why am I terrible at cooking? It's been four years yet I still can't reach how she does it.
Someone knocked at the door making me stop singing, I turned around to the door in a second and looked back at the pot.
"Come in," I yelled and there it was, Tygron, home from work. "I'm home!" He shouted scanning the place, searching for me.
"What is smelling good?" He said, sniffing the aroma of the porridge wafting around the house. "Mother's dish," I replied, flattered by the compliment to my cooking.
"Why couldn't it be your dish?" He said, approaching me in the kitchen.
"It is far from being the best of it, yet," I muttered.
"Why don't we just consider it yours, then." He said, shaking his head and grinning at the food.
"So, do you mind telling me what happened out there?" I asked while mixing the porridge.
"I am set out on my first ever postal, in a search and rescue... tonight." I turned around to look at him. Tonight?
"With Kingston," he added.
I returned my gaze to the bubbling porridge I was mixing. With that word, it makes me feel comfortable because of how reliable Kingston is, his friend.
That man does not deserve the hate he gets because of his skin colour. I hate this country.
"You should have dinner before you leave." I plainly said.
"You sound bare. I am of marriageable age, why do you still think that I'd die just because of going outside in the middle of the night?" He asked jokingly. I looked at him.
Where's your wife? At Sergei's unpicked nose?
That statement made me feel very conscious of myself. Am I overstepping on his personal life with what I just said?
"All right, all right. You can have this night as much as you want." I said, shrugging off the topic.
TYGRON
Cathera had no idea that I wouldn't be with Kingston. I'll be going with Sergei, with whom she didn't have an agreement. If I tell her about Sergei, she would babble.
It was nearly midnight. I could tell by the position of the moon draped with night clouds in the sky.
We were assigned to the Southwestern Woods. Walking with our oil lamps, the moon slowly unveiled under the cold, low clouds.
"Hey, Gorn," Sergei called me as I approached him. He was resting his back on a tree.
"What?" I asked as I walked towards him.
"You said we'd talk about it later?" He continued.
"About what?" I just said while walking, looking away to the dark aisles of the woods. Half of me was saying not to listen to him.
"Remember what I said about the new beer house?" he mutters.
"Yeah." I lied, not listening to him. What makes him think booze's the greatest thing in the world?
"As the new owner's my friend. He invited me to drink there because I helped them get papers from the kingdom's office." he continued.
"And your point asking?" I said, staring at him.
"Are you in?" He awkwardly asked.
"Ugh! Oh, come on!" I groaned, pacing away, walking faster than him.
He followed my pace. "Hey, please just once." He stood beside me with his eyes up as he lowered his head, making him think he was pitiful. The truth is, he looked annoying.
"Why should I come with you, by the way?"
"Come on..." He defended and stopped his face from looking punchable. "It's just... I don't wanna go alone."
"No, I'm not going." I declined.
"Come on! Not that big of a deal. No one's gonna die if you come." He reasoned.
"Still not going." I continued to decline.
"Just come. I'll treat you right after." He said. I just shook my head. Right after, he began bumping his shoulder on mine, grinding it and annoying me.
"Get off, please!" I said, moving away from him and walking in another direction.
Still, he followed me, grinding his shoulder and mine until...
"Okay! Okay! I'm going." I said with my hands up. He stopped annoying me.
"Yay! That's great." He became cheerful. Still, it was somehow annoying.
We bumped into something. We stood in front of a structure of some sort.
"Wha..." Sergei said, looking at what was in front of us two. I also looked at it.
"What the hell happened here?" I asked, observing the destroyed structure.
In front of us was an old bungalow of straws, burnt and looked like it got into a fire recently. Smoke was coming out of it.
"Hey guys, we found something!" Sergei called, gesturing over the others, and they came to us.
"What the hell?" People remarked as they saw the burnt shack.
"Well, what do we do now?" I asked them.
"Call the investigation?"
CATHERA
" Maammmmaaaaaaa!" I could hear a little girl screaming, yelling for her mother's caress. The burning smell filled my nose. Everything was on fire. Wood crackled as it burned while the wind blew, taking the snow along with it, and tried to extinguish it but was unable. Everything looked fuzzy and blurry. Was that the voice of my younger self?
"Cathera" Then, suddenly, a little boy was calling me. The voices and sounds were unclear and echoing like in a dream.
I could see and hear that the little girl was crying. Fire surrounded her as it surrounded me. I was confused about what was happening.
All of a sudden, in the distance, a silhouette of some entity appeared. It certainly was a creature of some sort. It stared at me, scaring me as I slowly stepped away. It growled as its eyes glowed and flashed, staring at me.
Then, there was a knock, a soft one. The knocks were followed by louder consecutive ones. The knocks became louder and louder each time. And suddenly...
It was just a little dream. The knocks were the ones that woke me up.
It must be midnight already. And I went downstairs lighting a candle on a tea plate and taking it with me as I went.
"Tygron, I didn't expect you back so early," I said when I was approaching the door.
I just opened it halfway just to peek at who was it. It was a man in a dark brown leather coat but it wasn't my brother. It wasn't Tygron.
It was a man with a scruffy moustache, a lightly wrinkled face, and a moderate build. There's this High Hunter badge on his right chest like the one I saw on Kingston before. Why would he be here?
"Oh, yes can I help you?" it was all I could say. Why would someone like him be here?
"Cathera Silverheart is it?" He asked.
"Uhm, Yes. What would be our business here?" I replied plainly, smiling forcibly.
"The name's Serato Verdini. Currently, I was informed that something that was around this area has alarmed hunters like me and I was sent to go" He mumbled. "May I have a check inside?" He said trying to peek inside the door.
"Uhm, I don't sense something terrible about the place but feel free to get in for you to see and check if something is in here" I felt a pinch of fear inside the time he said such words. I opened the door wide so he could see inside the house.
"Come inside"
He stepped in and looked everywhere the house and I closed the door. He reviewed the ceiling and the floor, the kitchen, and the room corridor.
"You can check the rooms if you want," I said gesturing my hand to point upstairs and went there. I opened Tygron's room and we walked inside it. He spectated around the area. "Okay, can I now see the other room?"
"Absolutely. Here, this way" I said lending my hand to the corridor and walking away from him while he was following.
I opened the door to my room. "Did you find anything?" I asked while looking at each corner of my ceiling to check if something was in there. The poor-looking Tudor house with hay roofing and only white panels for walls and dark oak wood for the skeleton of the house.
"I see you haven't yet noticed what I came here for or you're just pretending," He said. "What would I know?" I answered and I heard a cackling sound while facing back to him.
To my surprise, he was pointing a single-barreled gun at my face and he closed the door of my room thinking someone might see him. The time I realized he was pointing a gun I was shocked and my heart went racing beats. I'm getting scared. Why is he pointing the gun at me?
"Wha... what is happening?" I told him stuttering. "You already know" My heart is racing faster. What would I already know?
I felt my heartbeat was killing me. He kept forcing the gun on me and stepping toward me until I got myself sitting on the bed looking up to him.
"Wha... Wha... What is happening? Y-You're scaring me. Why are you pointing a pistol at my face" I kept repeating. My heart beats so fast. I can't think of anything but my life.
"P-Please put the gun down" My body and voice were getting shaky. It feels like I'm about to pass out.
"Why do you have to keep pretending, you wicked woman!?" He said forcing the gun steadily on my forehead.
I continue to hear the slow cackling of the gun as he puts and moves his finger around the gun's trigger and it gets to rattle my blood.
I could see the dark hole of the gun facing me with its rusty edges making me more rattled and shaky. My arms are shaking.
My legs are shaking. My whole body is shaking. It feels like all my body can do is shake and fear. My hands get too numb from moving the gun away from me or opening my palm to him to beg for my life. I felt helpless.
"Admit it!" He shouted. What would I want to admit?
"Admit you're a witch"
"I...A... a witch? I plead not guilty to such an accusation. I bewitched no one" I said scaredly.
"I'll count to three. Speak!" What would I want to speak?
"One!!!"
"Two!!!"
"Three!!!"
"No!" I shouted, closing my eyes, and everything felt like it was in slow motion. In a split second, I could hear the trigger of the gun cackling on me and the bullet getting fired. It got loud, I could feel myself intuitively holding my hand against him and screaming for life, and then...
In that split second was a loud boom or more like a muffled explosion. I didn't hear the bullet fire continue. Instead, what I heard was like crunches and cracklings of fire. At that very moment, I felt a strange cold feeling rush up from my spine and spread all around my body. I opened my eyes. And my eyes went horrified with what I saw. The shape of the flame resembled uncanny in form as it appeared to resemble some shape that fire wasn't supposed to be like.
I saw Serato as the sparkling flame surged and travelled throughout his body inside and outside. Seeing him slowly burn in that split second because the flame ejected off my hands terrified me. It was almost like starlight because it sparkles and is brighter than fire with its surging light.
His face became filled with light inside and outside as he screamed slowly. His eyes brightened as the light went through it. His veins glowed, slowly burning his skin. Clothes of silk and tunic turned to ash as soon as it was touched by the light, becoming dust. He looked at the ceiling while his mouth opened as he slowly disintegrated in the flame and turned to ash.
Due to how slow everything was, the noise of the explosion became muffled. Serato's screams mixed with it as his masculine scream vibrated with the explosion. I sat looking in a mixture of awe and fear.
Everything was bright, Bright enough to illuminate the whole acre. Flames surrounded us. It wasn't burning any furniture nearby and only Serato. The light shot through the room's window, creating a glowing line resembling a beacon's slanted ray.
I realized that I wasn't only seeing things in my head because I felt the peck of heat creeping on my skin. The split second stopped being in slow motion. The explosion stopped sounding muffled as the light shooting outside the window dissipated.
I watched in horror as the corner of my room, the area where the door is and the ceiling above it turned black. Serato lay on the floor as a lifeless pile of dark grey dirt. I looked at my hands. The wall behind Serato and the floor he was standing on had streaks of glowing light etched through the elaborate and random patterns of the wood that gradually faded
What is this? I watched slowly as the sparkly fire faded and succumbed in my hands as it did in the air. It felt like it came out of it. Did I throw fire at him? What happened?
Do I have...
Witchcraft?
__________End of Chapter__________