A big crash, enough to completely shake the small village.
The sound of horses was already coming from far away. Their hoofbeats, clearly not in good faith, pierced the dirt road. Eagle-eye, the village watcher, gripped his binoculars tightly and stepped down from the tower. His flickering brown irises, sweaty body and worried voice said it all. He ran towards the village courtyard, shouting at the top of his lungs. His voice reflected the fear deep inside him, a fear that almost caused him to surrender his life to the Gods.
“Run to the shelters! The Roman soldiers are coming, save your lives!”
Out of panic and fear, the whole village ran for their lives, some forgetting where the shelter was and fleeing into the forest, others running for their lives. The Roman soldiers captured those they could find alive and killed those who were useless. The cries of the ruthless soldiers, “Don't even look them in the eye!” echoed off the walls of the village houses. The tiny village was at the mercy of the horrible soldiers' consciences. Fortunately, those who could save themselves were in shelters. Shelters they had prepared to be prepared for such raids.
But one small omission had frozen the blood of the whole village.
While counting how many people were in the shelters, the Village Leader was faced with a bone-chilling discovery.
“Please be quiet, I'm checking. Nara, Zayb the watchman ... ... Tityan ... Dr. Tiin .... Everyone is like - wait a second?? Where is Nihil???? ”
Nihil...
She was a girl who had lost her father before she was born and her mother at the age of one. She was not from their village; her father was a soldier, and he had come to the village with his pregnant wife, covered in blood, asking for help. The mother was saved, but not the father, who was mortally wounded. The mother died of fever when Nihil was one year old. As she grew up, she began to serve the whole village, and her name changed to Nihil as time passed. Hardly anyone remembered her real name. She was a beautiful girl, with jet-black hair and eyes, sun-kissed white skin and tall stature. Many men were after her because she was of the marriageable age, but no family wanted her as their daughter-in-law because she was an orphaned servant girl. There was great discrimination against her in the village. She lived in a tiny house on a small salary given by the villagers. The villagers only pitied her. She was a wretch who had never received any love.
But now the possibility that she had become a prisoner of the soldiers was gnawing the whole village with remorse.
“Maybe she escaped to the forest, to her parents' graves... ”
“The cemetery is not nearby, even if she tried to escape, she would have been caught”
“She's a cunning girl, she got away somehow.”
“They took Artina the Juggler in front of us and killed him when he struggled. Nihil can't escape from their hands.”
“Let's pray to God, maybe she will survive.”
The voices in the bunker mingled with each other, while above ground there was no end to the chaos. Soldiers had sacked the village and taken half the people prisoner, and Nihil was among them.
They had captured and chained the frail body as she had fled into the woods. She resisted and tried to escape, but she was badly beaten with the chains, she would have been killed, but her life was spared by the commander's order. The last sentence Nihil heard before she fainted was this:
“I can't imagine the reward I will receive when I offer this girl to the emperor.”
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CHAINS AND CRYSTAL (+18)
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