Short Stories

It was a storm like no other. 

Thunder boomed. Trees swayed dangerously in a chaotic dance. Their limbs creaked; errant branches flung through the air in the sheer might of the howling wind. Eliana could scarcely see her surroundings as she ran down a muddy path. Her head bowed, she held one arm above her eyes as a shield against the flying debris of nature. Her clothes were soaked. Rain pelted her body with an unrelenting bombardment. 

Ella wasn’t supposed to be outside. She’d left camp before the evacuation order had come through. She hadn’t known what was coming. She doubted she’d have cared. 

I need shelter, Ella thought, raising her head to peer at the trees. It was futile. There wasn’t any shelter or building for miles. The camp was far behind her; only an endless expanse of rainforest lay before her.

“Ella!” A frantic voice shouted in the distance behind her. 

Josh. He’d followed her into the storm after all. 

Ella ran faster, slipping and sliding as the pools of mud deepened. She tried not to let in the despair that had been threatening to consume her. Her legs ached and burned. She couldn’t stop the trembling assaulting her body.  

Ella stumbled. Before she could regain her balance, her foot slipped. She crashed into the mud. She caught most of her weight on her right arm. She winced in pain. It was an effort to push herself up into a sitting position.

With waning energy, Ella contemplated her options. Her entire situation looked dire, no matter how differently she viewed it. She was a fighter, but it seemed like she had had to fight a lot lately. She was tired, so very tired. 

Just as Ella was ready to accept whatever fate may befall her, a scream split the air. She jolted to her feet instantly and darted towards the sound. Someone else was trapped. Giving it little thought, she ran through the trees. 

It didn’t take her long to find the source of the desperate scream. A flailing figure was dangling from the edge of a steep cliff. Hair plastered their mud-caked face and blood pooled over their arms. 

“Help me, please!” A feeble voice gasped. There was something familiar about that voice. A twinge of anger flared within her. A similar voice had tried to tear her down in front of everyone. Their words had been like barbs. They’d even tried to physically hurt her, goading her into a fight.

Forcing her emotions down, Ella sprinted to the cliff’s edge and dropped to her knees beside the struggling figure. Lightning flared, illuminating their terrified face. Cara.

Ella froze. The source of so much of her torment and pain lay before her. Unwanted memories stirred. They made her numb, empty. 

Ella’s heart thundered in her chest. What difference would it make if she walked away and never looked back? Her life was already over, wasn’t it? She’d already given up the fight. 

No! A spark flared within her. Perhaps her fight was over, but she wouldn’t allow herself to forsake everything she believed out of anger and hate. It wasn’t her. If she needed her life to mean something, then let it be this moment that defined her. 

Ella grasped Cara’s arms and hurled her up onto solid ground. Shame filled her. She didn’t think she’d have ever let Cara fall, but the fact that the thought had been there terrified her.

Josh called her name again. He was getting closer. Ella wanted to respond. To feel his arms around her and breathe in his familiar scent. To feel his warmth. She couldn’t. It was too late. He’d seen the worst of her. Hope was gone; it’d been fragile to begin with. He was never hers. She was as good as a ghost in his eyes. 

Ella’s heart ached. How she wished she could spread wings and fly away. She didn’t want to feel. Her heart, already tormented and wounded, was broken. She was broken.

PATHETIC!

OUTCAST!

FREAK!

The words echoed in her mind among the rampant memories Cara’s presence had already stirred. It was all she’d ever be. She’d tried to break free, but it’d proven futile in the end. 

Ella ran. Cara called after her, but she was too far gone to listen. Tears blinded her. She didn’t know how far she’d gone before she tumbled into the mud with an anguished cry, nor how long she lay there with no fight left within her to move. 

“Ella!” His voice was closer. Too close.

No! Ella thought desperately. Don’t let him see. 

Why had he followed her into the storm? He was going to get himself killed. She didn’t care what happened to herself, but Josh… the thought of him getting hurt…

A twig snapped. Ella jerked up. Josh came into her blurry view soaked but unharmed. Worry creased his face and filled his captivating eyes. He made to move closer.

“Go away,” Ella shouted. She tried to stand, but her legs couldn’t keep her up.

“Don’t do this,” Josh pleaded with her, his eyes shining with tears. “I won’t give up on you. I’ve been trying so long to tell you how I feel, but you were always so closed off. I never understood then, but I do now. If you can’t fight, let me fight for you. Let me in. I won’t lose you, El.” He approached her slowly. 

Ella wanted to run, but she was frozen in place. Could he—

No! She couldn’t let hope in. Not again.

“I’m sorry I never saw how much you were suffering. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” Regret filled his voice. “El, I see you exactly as you are, and I love you all the more for it.”

Something shifted within Ella. She could see the truth in his eyes, enough for her to dare to believe that not all was lost.

Josh held out his hand. 

Ella was standing on the precipice with a choice before her. 

Give up or fight.

Live or die.

Could love truly save her? Could it make her whole? 

By following her into the storm, Josh had proven he’d fight for her, that he would fight with her. But would it be enough? Didn’t he deserve someone better? Perhaps he did, but he’d chosen her, even after he’d seen her lash out after the bullying became too much to bear. 

The stormed had lessened without Ella realising it. Through a crack in the clouds, a single beam of light lanced down and illuminated Ella’s face. With it came a stillness and peace she hadn’t known for a long time. Realisation. Clarity. 

Reaching forward to grasp his hand, Ella made perhaps the scariest choice of all; Ella chose to open her heart and let love in.

Kayleigh White was the talk of Rosebay, the secluded town along the border of the chasm, a dark, seemingly bottomless ravine that divided two kingdoms. She’d arrived over a week ago with nothing but the clothes and pack upon her back. She spoke very little and spent most her time in the library. She’d heard the close-knit residence whisper about her when she passed, knew of the rumours and gossip that had spread like wildfire. 

I might as well be from another world, Kayleigh thought, doing her best to ignore the watchful whisperers two shelves across from where she stood browsing the musty, leather spines of several delicate tomes. She wished she could tune them out completely but try as she might they could not be ignored. It was better that they were only rumours than the truth, she supposed. The truth was dangerous, for Kayleigh and for all those around her. She was running from something, and she dreaded the day that that ominous something found her. Her heart clenched as memories threatened to burst passed the walls she had entrapped them in. 

Doing her best to push down her rising fear, Kayleigh reached up and ran her fingers along the faded leather spine of a thick book, reading the gold-coloured script.

This is the book I need, she thought excitedly, cautiously sliding it from the shelf. She tucked the book under her arm and padded down the aisle. Consciously aware that the crowd of gossips were watching her, she made her way up to the desks on the second level. She took a table furthest away from the current inhabitants and opened her book, scanning its list of content.

“Back again, Kayleigh,” a voice said to her left. It was the only familiar voice in town and one that was welcoming and warm rather than the typical scepticism. 

Kayleigh glanced up in surprise, she hadn’t expected company. “My father used to say that there was no better place to be than one surrounded by books.” 

“A wise man, indeed,” the voice replied. A middle-aged man took a seat opposite her, brushing a stray lock of ebony hair out of his sharp, green eyes. He was the town mayor, and his name was Solomon.

“What book have you got there?”

Kayleigh shifted uncomfortably. The book in question would raise a lot of unwarranted questions. Questions she could not afford to answer. Fear gripped her heart in an iron vice grip, but she was quick to hide it behind a nonchalant mask.

As if noting her reluctance, Solomon didn’t wait for a reply. “No matter, there’s some good books in aisle two…” he paused, a cryptic gleam in his eyes. “I think you’ll find them quite revealing.”

Kayleigh’s heart clenched with a renewed sense of panic. Could Solomon know of her true reason for coming to Rosebay? If he did, was he truly trying to help her? 

“Thank you, Mayor Solomon.” 

“Please call me Solomon,” the mayor said, rising to his feet. “If you ever need a new book to read never hesitate to ask.” Something in his tone implied a deeper meaning behind his words. Kayleigh mulled it over after he’d left, her thoughts churning. For a fleeting minute she considered telling him—

No! She couldn’t. The danger and uncertainty were too great. 

While Kayleigh knew she couldn’t reveal her true intentions to Solomon, she could at least follow his advice. Her mind made up, she gathered the book before her and hurried to aisle two. 

That afternoon, Kayleigh left the library with her arms laden with heavy tomes and headed to the Rosebay gardens, the town jewel. It was a bittersweet place for her, one of beauty and peace but also one of sorrow, for it was a heart-wrenching reminder of home. A reminder of the place and identity she’d lost but would forever hold in her heart and perhaps would one day find again. 

Kayleigh found a secluded place by a magnificent marble fountain and sat down on the grass. It was quieter in the garden, and she was less likely to be followed by a group of gossips. 

An hour before sunset, a disturbance in town drew Kayleigh from her reading. An eruption of violent noise flared towards the centre of town, ensued by a fierce tremor that sent the earth rumbling.

Kayleigh jumped to her feet in alarm and turned her gaze to the centre of town where streams of fire were visible. Overcome with anxiety, she gathered her books and sprinted towards the commotion. 

She arrived in time to hearing a booming, disembodied voice declare, “You are harbouring an exile. Unless you turn her unto me, I will send forth an inferno to ravage all you hold dear. You have till midnight, two days hence.” 

A shiver swept up Kayleigh’s spine. She shuddered. The voice was one Kayleigh knew all too well; it haunted both her dreams and memories. Her heart clenched in panic. Her greatest fear was coming to light. Her quest may well prove to be over before it ever truly began. 

The voice vanished, and so too did the flames that had encircled the town square. The gathered townsfolk were white-faced and talking fearfully among themselves. 

“Who has brought this ruin upon us?” one distressed farmer’s wife shouted. 

“It was the stranger, Kayleigh White, she must be brought before us to face judgement,” another resident responded. 

Kayleigh backed away. If she could just slip behind the nearest building, she could get away unnoticed. 

“There she is, arrest her!” a man shouted, pointing directly at Kayleigh. 

Kayleigh’s heart sunk. She didn’t want to harm these people, therefore fighting her way out—and she was capable of it—was out of the question. Thinking quickly, she raised her hands in a gesture of good will and allowed the villagers to herd her to the centre of the town square. 

“Kayleigh White you have brought doom to Rosebay,” the same man who had pointed her out declared, his tone was imbued with anger. “How do you respond?”

“It wasn’t my intention,” Kayleigh replied, doing her best to keep her voice from shaking though inside her stomach was tight with growing anxiety. “I came here to make a life for myself.” It was only half true, but to reveal the entire truth would only make things worse.

“I was but a child when I was exiled from my home. For years I have been left alone. I had no reason to believe that they would ever come for me.”

“Liar!”

“How can we trust you?”

“Cast her out!”

A chorus of angry voices rent the town square. They only died down with Solomon’s arrival. “Quiet, my people, give her a chance to explain.”

A tense hush descended the square. “Who are you to be pursued by such powerful adversaries?” 

Kayleigh knew that she only had one option; it was time to reveal the truth. It was not simply just to save herself but to save the town. 

“I am an outcast. My birthright, my identity was stolen from me.” Kayleigh paused. Once she revealed who she was there would be no going back. She swallowed. “My name,” she paused, steeling her nerves, “is Isabelle Kayleigh-Rose Emberlee.”

A collective gasp swept around the own square. There was no going back now, Kayleigh forced herself to continue. In a lot of ways speaking the truth was like lifting a great weight off her shoulders.

“I am the daughter of the fallen King and the rightful Queen of Nethaein. I came here to find a way to free my people and end the tyranny of my grandfather and the false king who has enslaved both our lands. I did not come here to harm you, and I will protect you from my grandfather.”

An eerie silence ensued her words. There was nothing more Kayleigh could say, it was up to the villagers now. 

Solomon was the first to speak, his eyes alight with a proud gleam. Kayleigh was beginning to suspect that he had known her identity all along. 

“I, among others, have awaited your return,” Solomon said. “I will follow you, my queen. You have my sword and service.” He bowed low and one by one the townspeople followed suit. Where there had once been fear in their eyes, there now was only wonder and awe. 

“We will follow you.”