Blood, Sweat and Tears

PROLOGUE

1851

It was an afternoon like any other, the brown-haired girl decided to go outside to do her chores on that small farm. Her parents were still not at home, and her brother was probably in the nearest town, trying to be interesting as he always did every time he went to a tavern. She had been left in charge of her younger sister, who was only 10 years old. Luckily the little girl was busy playing with the sheep so there was not much to worry about.

While she was cleaning one of the horses in the stable, she heard a noise in the place where the chickens were always kept, which seemed strange to her, they normally didn't make much noise, let alone something that could be heard from the horse stable. She got there in a moment and picked up one of the shovels nearby to use as a weapon of defense. They could call her paranoid, but there were plenty of people who would sneak onto farms to steal from and even kill the people who lived there.

She was silent for a few seconds, she heard nothing inside that place, had she made a mistake and there was really nothing but a couple of roosters fighting? Surely it had been a trick of her imagination, so she decided to leave, just when she heard the door of the shed next door open and close with a creaking sound, which although it had been faint, she had heard it perfectly.

Her heart was pounding, so much so that she thought it would burst out of her chest. She gripped the shovel tighter, until her knuckles turned white, and began to walk, trying to be stealthy, to that shed. In that place they used to keep the straw for the horses and some cleaning tools, as well as saddles and miscellaneous things. Thousands of situations went through her mind, each one more macabre than the last. She was scared, but she couldn't be scared, after all she had to protect her sister... Although she had no idea where she was, she hoped she was already inside the house for her sake.

She listened more to her heart than to whatever was going on inside that small wooden construction, already almost rotten. Just when she got up the courage and one of her hands was on one of the wooden planks that made up the door, a tremendous metallic clang could be heard inside. That had not been an animal, but a person, who in his attempt to be stealthy had failed miserably. Now she really had to do something, for her, for her family and for the quiet life they always had, she did not want to lose that.

With no more time to lose she entered, she thought she had done it quickly, but it had really taken her a long time, her limbs were numb from the shock and she hadn't noticed but her eyes were closed. She opened them slowly and at that moment she could see a man, a little taller than her, maybe six feet tall. He looked haggard, with threadbare clothes and rather shabby and dirty. At the sight of her he stood up with a smile that disgusted her terribly and reached over to try to grab her. She had not heard whatever it was he had said to her, as she had seen him open his mouth. There was only the sharp sound of the blow the girl delivered to his temple with the shovel she was holding.

She thought it hadn't been very strong but when she looked at the man, already lying on the ground, she saw that she had caved in his skull and that a huge pool of blood was underneath it. Her blood froze as she realized what she had done. He was dead. She had killed him. And sure, he sure as hell sucked and would have killed her judging by the knife strapped to his belt, but that didn't take away from the trouble she was in. She had a dead body in the shed.