The Demon and the Elf (Book 1)

Chapter Twenty pt 4

(TW: blood)

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Dust filtered the air of sandy ground, unkempt, filling the nostrils of any who breathed in. Merchants sold scraps as if they were gold, convincing passing patrons as so. Although, scraps they were to the eyes of the privileged, painted clay bowls, even with their cracks, were hard to come in the desolate plains of the outer cities. A luxury among them.

Used clothing with their tears were sewn and borrowed and lent. A girl who grew into a woman passed her clothes to a boy across the street, who gratefully accepted. Straw dolls were bundled together and given as toys, as the children made their plays of wealthy nobles who could afford to buy chairs to sit on.

Knowledge was passed down from their families, from books that had been silently stolen from libraries or found in trash piles from the inner cities. Educational institutions were but a fantasy for them.

Nonetheless, ignorance was bliss. And what they hadn't experienced, they would not miss.

Among the demons in this city was a child raised the same. With an older sister they fought with but loved, a father who gently took care of the two. They had a mother who died at childbirth, for a reason the child only came to learn of in the future could have been spared with better health facilities and knowledge— or at that time, the existence of a health facility at all.

With the things around them, the two siblings would play. Chasing each other as if their sticks were swords, whistling music into blades of grass, stacking rocks to see the tallest tower— the older sister would always win, which would lead to the younger crossing their arms and pouting for days.

The older sister had many friends her age, and when the younger would leave her in their fits, she'd just go out to play with the others. Bearing a childish loneliness and spite, the younger one's pouting fits would only last longer, silently wishing their sister would stay and give comfort.

Oh, how the sorrows of the past would be one to desperately envy had they known what was to come.

By the time the younger one reached late teenage years, a terrible fate dawned upon the inhabitants of the town. Somehow, a disease had made its way, quickly spreading among the demons, eating them from the inside. A burning sensation in their chest, an unbearable scratchiness throughout their skin. Cloths, clothes would be covered in red with every cough. Screams of agony would permeate through the air intertwined with wails, both the same from a distance.

The younger sibling watched as her sister lay in bed, drenched in her own sweat and spit. Crusty breathing croaked forward from brittle lungs, a pain with every stroke.

A wish could be granted, but with consequences. How the younger had wished their sister to stay with them, and they had received such. Yet, how they would trade all of their innocent wantings for their sister to be well again.

One of the neighbors who had not been met with the disease went to the capitol and sought an audience with the king to ask for aid. By the time he came back, all of the town had fallen to the disease, piles of limp, blueing bodies stacked. All the sick did not have the strength to dig for burials, nor a proper way to let the bodies aflame, letting their souls rest in ease.

When the neighbor had returned, anyone who could open their eyes looked his way, their dusty gaze yearning for hopeful words. But the man returned with red eyes, dark circles. A limp stance. And the glimmer of hope they held fell through their fingers like sand.

The younger sibling, clenching their burning throat, had the courage to ask the man what had happened. He looked sorrowfully at the other demon and told them the truth. The truth of how this disease was common, how those living near the capitol, the palace, had been given a vaccine at birth to grow immune. How the demons living in the outer cities, the poorer cities, were not granted access to the vaccine, although they had the supplies.

The poor man had asked the king with his audience, giving the king a second chance at hope. Already too far gone for a vaccine to be of any use, he requested the aid of the overstaffed health facilities in the wealthy cities, if some may come to the outer cities to provide care. The people who were able to take care of others in their town were dwindling, falling to the disease. They struggled for fresh food, fresh water. He begged. He begged.

And he was met with only one answer:

"Why should the weaker ones have any reason to be kept alive?"

So, he returned, empty handed, and empty hearted.

That night, the younger sibling went to their father's room, and numbly took the only clean cloth they could find— a handkerchief that was left as a memento of their mother. They wiped the sweat off his forehead and the blood off his lips and hung the cloth to dry.

They roughly walked to their sister's room, each step a boulder, each joint screaming, their hand still clenching their clawing throat. Sitting by their sister's side, they stared at the struggling body whose breaths were quick and whimpering.

"I'm—," sorry, they had wanted to say, but was interrupted by their own deafening coughs, red oozing down the ends of their lips and caressing down their palms. Their throat scratched and ached and felt like a thousand bugs ripping apart their skin.

When their coughing fit had slowed, the room was unusually quiet. Unusually still. Darting their eyes at their sister, they found the sister's body still, her skin pale.

In a rush of dread and quickening pulse, the younger one wanted to scream their sister's name.

Wanted to.

An odd sound came from their throat and soon, no sound at all. Unable to cry, unable to say goodbye.

A younger K'ra silently sobbed.

The next few weeks were a blur. K'ra had been bedridden with a high fever, hazily remembering they had been cared for by someone. Perhaps their sister had come as a spirit to ease them. Or perhaps their sister's spirit had come in spite, as living seemed to be a worse of a burden.

When K'ra had fully awoken, everything was quiet— the whole town an eerie grave. They learned of the traveling man with medical knowledge who had come into the city and had taken care of any survivors.

Which had been only a total of three.

Moving as a hollow vessel, they'd helped gather the soulless bodies, burying each with the soil, bringing them back to be one with the earth. The neighbor, who had also survived— who had actually never been affected by the disease, harbored a great length of guilt. And one day, after burying most of the bodies, he had disappeared and was never found again.

Days later, K'ra took their sister's body and laid her in a burrow near a tree they had played around as children. Placing their mother's stained handkerchief on their sister's chest, they shoveled piles of dirt on her, filling the burrow until they could no longer see her feet, her torso, her chest. Pausing to look at her face one last time, they breathed in steadily and finished the task.

K'ra's father had been the last survivor, miraculously, however holding onto only the faintest thread of life. Coughs and pains consumed him, but he was alive. He was alive.

The one with medical knowledge who had come did his best to take care of the father, trying to ease the pains of the residual disease as the father came in and out of consciousness. Neighboring cities had somehow come to learn of this doctor and brought their families and sick ones to ask for aid. Eventually, new residents started to fill the empty homes. Cleaning, reconstructing, making the homes anew.

Everyone helped another, a city where each person, each life was important. Together, they'd built the first health facility to graze the area of the poor, the doctor volunteering to stay.

The souls of the dead carried ambition along the streets, letting the people come together for a common cause. A city of commiseration and healing from the effects of the king's mistreatment and ruthlessness.

Every demon in this town had a story. And this was the story of K'ra.