Her From Another World

~22. The Heartless Doppelganger~

~Eva's POV~

I hummed a soft tune as I turned the pages of one of my spell books, but none of it even remotely registered in my brain. My mind was otherwise occupied with conflicting memories and emotions.

After coming home from the carnival yesterday night my mind was plagued with memories of my past and the lingering fear that a demon from then was going to haunt me in the future constantly beat in me.

Even the spell books couldn't take my mind off it.

In my mind, I knew it was stupid, after all, I was in a different world now.

But a threat was a threat, I was not the same innocent ten years old anymore, I would tear apart anyone who thinks ill of me.

And unknowingly my mind wandered back to then when the nightmare began.

Nerves grated my tiny being as I sat inside the dim vehicle with the other kids. Nervous anticipation coiled in my stomach as I clenched my tiny hands to calm down.

I knew the days of living in hunger were over, but I was also scared that this was all a cruel joke the adults were playing.

Yet I did not want to go back to searching through bins and roads again for food, so I really hoped everything would go well.

Hours seemed to pass before the vehicle stopped and we all sat up alert as the door opened spilling light inside the dim interior of the vehicle.

The burly, black-clothed men came into view, their expressions apathetic and emotionless.

"From now on do as you are told, and talk only when you are asked to. Now get down and be quiet." A gruff-voiced one commanded coldly making me shrink back in fear.

Obediently we all got down doing as we were told but what entered my eyes was not the paradise envisioned.

We were in a massive field surrounded by a huge scary forest. Men and women walked around their features hard carrying all kinds of weapons.

Guns, knives, large blades, axes, they had it all, like the people on one of those big screens on the streets. The fear in me increased a little but seeing them.

The minuscule amount of blood in my malnourished form froze as my thin frame shook in terror.

Everyone was so scary.

What was going to happen to us? The question flashed in my mind making me understand that everything around me was not normal.

When I usually walked on the streets, people did not carry around weapons like this. Although they looked intimidating they were not scary.

Was I wrong to think that?

The other children around me looked around with the same trepidation I was feeling. Suddenly loud shouts reached us from the front where two men, one red-haired and the other blonde-haired were glaring down at each other looking very angry.

They were blaming each other for something and suddenly the red-haired man erupted with anger chopping down at the black-haired man with his ax.

I squeezed my eyes shut afraid to look but when the sound of fighting still continued I opened them back up. Now the black-haired man had the red-haired one under him pummeling the fallen man with his fist their weapons thrown to aside.

Loud grunts of pain escaped the red-haired man but the other one did not relent he continued to hit and beat him, continued until blood sprayed, continued until the red-haired man lay motionless under his fists.