Freedom To Live short: Sally

“Ah! Look, brother! Snow!” The younger girl pointed at the sky while walking with the older boy. “Yes Sally, snow.” The older boy frowned. “Eh, what’s wrong brother?” Sally looked sadly at him. “I’m just worried you might catch a cold…you’re only young so you’re easily sick…”

“hehe! I’m absolutely fine!” She decided to run around to show off her health. Whilst running, Sally slipped on some ice and face planted into a mound of snow that had fallen the night before. On impact a puff of white snow showered everywhere which made the older boy laugh as he tended to his younger sister. The small girl was covered in snow, enough to make people think her orange top head was white. “S-see! I’m absolutely fine!” she said just before she let out a big sneeze. Her older brother smiled slightly as he brushed the snow out of her hair and took his jacket off and gave it to her. “Just in case” he leaned over to give her a small kiss on her head. She frowned “I don’t need it!” she grumbled. “Yeah yeah whatever you say” he laughed. Sally’s faced scrunched up in fury “stupid brother! You might get cold too! You know you can get sick too!”

He poked his tongue out at her “like I would. I’m in perfect health since I have been trained that way, you’re not old enough to be trained to be like me yet so you can get sick easily.”

“my brother is annoying and naggy” she grumbled.

“What was that Sally?” he gave a devilish smile.

“My brother is awesome and cool!”

“That’s what I thought you said” he said as he patted her head.

As he continued to walk on she poked her tongue at him while he wasn’t looking “if you do that you’re tongue will freeze” he called without looking. Sally got startled, she remembered he had eyes all around, he always knew if you were doing something behind his back. She caught up to him and grabbed his hand. He smiled gently at her while she skipped along and hummed beside him. They walked into the forest near the village. “Today I’m going to teach you how to kill, I’m not supposed to yet since you’re younger then the age limit but not to worry; you’ve been through bits of assassin training so you’ll be fine! Let’s keep it a secret okay?” Sally nodded happily; to her killing things was fun. The older boy saw a group of people camping out in the distance and quickly pulled Sally behind a rock. “What’s wro-“he put a hand over her mouth before she could say anymore. “Shh. They’re an enemy… stay here, I’ll take care of them” and with that he disappeared silently. He knew exactly who they were, head hunters. They would always try to capture the people in his kingdom, usually to get bounty on the assassins that lived there. They were always desperate idiots that were stupid enough to attack a kingdom of assassins. He knew he could wipe them out before they could land one scratch on him. It did only take a few seconds to surprise them and kill at least 7 of the 10 that were there. While he was cracking the necks of 2 he found that letting one slip by was the biggest mistake of his life. Sally had followed him because she wanted to see him fight up close but the last guy had a strong grip on her arm and a knife to her heart without a second of hesitation he stabbed her. The boys’ eyes flashed a dark red for a second and within the second the man was dead. He rushed to his sister’s side “Sally!” he yelled. Her wound didn’t stop bleeding and he rushed to try any first aid he could but Sally stopped him by grabbing his arm. “It’s…ok...” by this time her eyes seemed lifeless “I’m absolutely fine…I told you…”

“Stop talking Sally! I’ll get you back to the kingdom and we can heal you! You’ll be fine” he gave a sad smile. But Sally knew it was already too late. “I’m…fine…” she smiled “I’ll be alright…Kohaku!”

***

A girl sat up in her bed panting from this nightmare, a dream about a girl that looked like her and a boy that looked like her younger brother. The girl in the dream was named Sally…but the girl’s name was Aika. Ever since she left the Kingdom dreams about “Sally” had been playing over in her head, they were almost too real. For some reason she began to start thinking like Sally and she didn’t know how long it would be until she was Sally. Sally! Sally! Sally! The name made her feel despair and cold like the snow in her dream. “Who is Sally? Am I Sally? No my name is-” Aika breathed heavily “I am Sally. Who is Aika?” Maybe if she started calling herself Sally her sanity would be fine, right? And like that, the girl who sat on the bed was Sally. No longer this ‘Aika’ who lay in the back of her mind. She tried to think straight but her memories were being mashed together, the most dominant memory was that she was ‘Sally’. Her head was sent into a spin and she fell back onto her bed and screamed in pain. Waiting for it to be over. “I need to get back to brother…” she murmured. But who was her brother? She had 3 right? No, she had 1. His name was Kohaku…but the boy in her mind wasn’t her brother was it? There were two Kohaku’s? No, just one? Brother? Did I even have a brother? Her head hurt and she was so confused, all she could hear ringing through her head was SALLY! SALLY! SALLY! She couldn’t bear it anymore and reached for the nearest thing. It was a glass bottle, she smashed it against her head in hopes to kill herself and make the pain go away. Her head bled like the blood in her dreams. “I hope I bleed to death” she murmured. As the dim light of the room faded away, the ‘shadows’ that were observing her moved in. She knew, when she woke up again, she would still be living in this nightmare.