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25 - Sink

Snow

She knew something all of them didn't.

Snow would close her eyes, shielding the dry green globes from the flickering light. Her eyes burned. All she could do was blink as often as she could. She had stared too long at the fading fire again.

Every time her eyes succumbed to the darkness, memories of her recent prey, Stella, surfaced. They weren't in order rather random. The visions were flashes faster than lightning, but the weight of Stella's heart pushed Snow further down. The pull of the memory was so strong it's as if she lived it herself. The more these memories submersed itself into her mind, the more she looked at the world through Stella's eyes.

It looked like the life of Rogues weren't as hateful and as dark as she thought. Stella had her good days.

She was raised in a small village nestled beside a mountain. Her parents were farmers who tilled the land and grew crops, half of which they'd give to the community warehouse in the center of their village. It was for families who could not yet provide for their own food. Stella's profound job at the age of eighteen was to deliver baskets of corn to the warehouse, have it registered under her parents name and return back home.

It was a life farm from crime and bloodshed. And as Snow reached the end of the trail of her memories, the darkest of stories began to reveal itself. Though Snow did not know how she came about this life, Stella never changed. Her love for her family stayed strong until the moment she died.

At the age of nineteen, Stella was sold to a rich family at the foot of the mountain. Her prime years of childbirth was among them, and her family refused a dowry too little to keep the small piece of land they own. Her husband, though gentle and soft spoken, became heavy with hands as soon as the sun sets. It was the time when he'd drink too much rum.

Stella was battered, lost two pregnancies and almost lost her son. Though she succeeded to spare her little boy, the cost was her freedom. One stab in the heart left her husband dead. With the bloody knife on her hand, she surrendered to the chieftain who sent her to a life in Amarkand.

There she'll have a roof over her head, food in her belly.

Thunder made Snow flinch. The blinding light pierced the sky, almost casting daylight between the trunks. For a brief second, the forest brightened like midday. The wind, unforgiving, hit the forest floor in waves. She squinted to the debris that came with it. The embers fought, growing in brightness as the wind huffed all the more.

Thunder tore through the sky again. Yet, Snow did not even blink her eyes. She grew tired of fear. It did not seem to bother her anymore. She stayed to finish what she started after all. Her eyelids obeyed her as her vision returned to the black. And she was back in Stella's world.

There was one memory she was trying to relive. Although, she had done it several times she could not seem to return to the same vision. Although she was sure, what the memory unfolded to her. She needed to see it again to believe it.

Stella's life a few days before it ended revolved around feeding the Mad Wolf beneath the cellars.

The concept of Mad wolves were the stuff of tales, Snow thought. The ones that elders tell little cubs so they race to their beds before sundown. She knew very well because it was what Grimlake elders told her and her sisters. Snow knew as she grew up that Mad Wolves ceased to exist. The last account of one was during the Great War.