The Piper Boy (A OUAT Fan Fiction)

Chapter 2

The funeral was a quick one due to the lack of funds. There was a priest there to say some empty words of no meaning to Amily. Some of the villagers turned up, family friends and neighbours. Amily's father was buried at the village cemetery but there was no tombstone. They just simply couldn't afford it.

Once the funeral was over everybody had left to get out of the cold. Outside it was snowing lightly but hard enough to keep the markets closed and everyone inside. Everyone except Amily. For how long she knelt by her father's grave, she didn't know. But when the tears started to leave frozen tracks on her face she finally had to tear herself away. With one last goodbye she made her way back home.

Her house was a quiet chaos. Timothy refused to leave the room he shared with Marcus despite his brother's constant pleading and her mother sat at the chipped, wooden dining table with a mug of something hot and sickly-sweet smelling in her hands. She was no longer crying. Her face was expressionless.

Amily just went straight to her room and cried into her pillow. She wondered why she was this upset. Her father had been on his death bed for so long now, it was only a matter of time. But even while sick he tried his best to still be part of the family. But his attempts just made Amily see the broken man that he had become all the more clearly.

She didn't know how long she had cried for but when Amily finally looked up from her soaked pillow it was dark outside and she could tell by the lack of crying and soft snores from the next room that her family had gone to bed.

Amily laid back on her pillows and stared up at the ceiling. It seemed like shopping for strawberries had happened a million years ago and yet it was only yesterday. So much had happened that she just felt drained. And Amily knew it wasn't just her father's death that had made her so weak, it was her life. Her whole life of knowing exactly what was going to happen and having everything laid out before her like a meal to devour was killing her slowly. She, like her father, might as well have already been on her death bed.

"Please, someone somewhere, save me. Take me away from all this. Please" she whispered, praying to a god she didn't believe in for just a bit of luck. 

***

Amily didn't recall how or when she went to sleep, she only knew that a breeze billowing in from the window across the room was what awakened her. Instantly she knew something was wrong. She was sure the window was closed when she came in...

Grabbing a vase off her dressing table as a makeshift weapon she leapt off the bed and prepared to pounce. The window was at least 6 feet from the ground and it was winter so whatever had opened the window couldn't still be there, unless they wanted to freeze.

Suddenly, as if imagined out of fear and doubt, Amily saw something just barely flick past the window-sill. A moth? Snow? But there was only one thing it could really be. A shadow.

For some unknown reason, Amily set the vase back down on the table. She felt instantly drawn to the window desperate to know what was lurking in the dark. Time slowed as she took steady, hesitant steps towards the window and peered out. Alas, nothing but snow and the cool eeriness of night. Amily didn't know what she felt. Disappointment?

"Hello?" she called out curiously.

 In reply the shadow flicked across Amily's gaze, leaving her stunned. Something whooshed past her. She froze. Whatever it was, it was in the room with her now.

Turning slowly around to meet the intruder Amily was more than surprised to find no one there but a dark shadow looming in front of her. Two bright, white eyes gazed down at her from the head of the shadow. A scream got caught in Amily's throat and all she could do was gasp. Sheer terror enveloped her as she stared at the shadow.