Ashes (Flame Ash Burned Backstory)

Chapter 7: Name

25th December 2000

Having spent the last year alone in the wilderness after leaving the village she had grown up in, Lula Jackson had grown used to spending her time alone. She went days, or sometimes even weeks, without speaking a single word, and even when she did, it was never to another person.

The closest thing she had to human company was the skeleton hand on her necklace, which served as a reminder to herself that she would find that nameless man who destroyed her family's lives and take more than his hand next time.

But it wasn't a pleasant reminder.

It kept bringing back terrible memories of what she had seen and experienced him do. It reminded her of his hands gripping onto her neck the day she died, his nails piercing her skin. Just looking at the rough, white finger bones brought the painful feeling flooding back.

Sometimes, she'd get the feeling that the nameless man was somewhere close by. Gripped by paranoia, Lula found herself constantly checking her surroundings twice or sometimes even three times before she could relax. She would check every dark corner, every tiny bit of movement out of the corner of her eye, and any sudden noises.

The nighttime was always the worst. The glow of Lula's flaming hair would only light up so much of the surrounding area, and in her opinion, it made her easy to find in the darkness. She didn't want to attract any unwanted attention from the nameless man, or anybody else who might want to hurt her. She never had any idea what could be hiding just out of sight, just out of the light her glowing hair provided, and that terrified her.

The winter months would have been easy for her to get through if not for the lack of food and water. She had long since ran out of the food she had packed in her backpack when she left the village, and she knew whatever water she found wouldn't be perfectly clean.

But she did her best. She hunted for food, made sure to cook meat, never ate anything she was uncertain about, and boiled water with the fire she had learned how to create and control to purify the water before drinking it. Because of this, she had survived over a year without getting sick.

But at times, it was difficult for her to get up in the morning. She felt as if the world was against her, and that nothing was ever going to get better. She was alone in the world. She knew she wasn't supposed to be alive, and for some reason, she was. But she believed that maybe it'd be better if she wasn't.

She would blame herself for the death of her siblings, even though she knew she hadn't been the one to kill them or her mother. The little girl just believed that maybe there could have been something she could have done to prevent it all happening.

Sometimes, Lula took out all of her pain, anger, helplessness and loneliness out on herself, resulting in her body slowly becoming littered with bruises, scratches and scars. At other times, Lula took her feelings out on her surroundings: slashing at trees with her knife, burning down a tree or two or killing her prey in the most violent manner she could manage.

It didn't end there.

One thing which made it all worse was the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Lula would be struck with terrible nightmares and flashbacks reliving the events of the deaths of her family. The five year old would wake up screaming, or collapse into a heap on the floor sobbing and shaking and begging for her family to come back. To wake up from whatever messed up nightmare she had been thrown into and find out that everything was okay.