Thorns in the wind: a collection of short stories

The Scaling Heights - Part I

They say that family matters most, that family comes first; but that's not how Aspen viewed life after the incident, she preferred a more stand alone approach. No tethers, no bonds, no connections, a person who only relied on two feet to walk the great mile. Alone through life, no one to drag her down; her world separate from everyone else's.

~~

Aspen walked down the alley cautiously, waiting for something to jump out at her like things usually did in the darkness. It was quiet as she continued her walk; the sounds and echoes of screams dormant as silence blanketed the area. It was different, she could feel it in her bones as a shiver ran down her spine, and not the good kind. It felt odd and unright, twisted up with a cold and dark aura that set off warning bells in her head. She breathed quietly and took another step across the uneven stone floor; she could feel a sense of tension as the scent of blood wafted up her nose. Aspen wanted to gag, to exile that smell and image from her body permanently, but that would require letting her guard down for a few moments; and in that alley, no one ever let their guard down or death would surely claim them.

Looking around, Aspen could see all the blood that painted and stained the pavement as she walked by it. It was not a pleasant sight to grace her eyes as she rounded a square corner into a courtyard littered with ash and bones. She let a gasp escape her as her eyes stung with sorrow for the lost souls damned to walk the area with no sense of peace or tranquillity that was often associated with the afterlife. Many of these people she had known when growing up in the orphanage that sat just across the courtyard, half burnt, and half standing; a crippled building near the end of its time.

Aspen picked up her pace, trying to get to the orphanage, praying that the children were still alive and safe. She had never felt fear so deep in her veins before the sight of her home now half ash. She raced to the beaten door crumbling in her palms as she tugged on the handle; she needed to move faster, she had to get inside.

As Aspen ran through the corridor she could already hear the cries of a child; it gave her hope in an odd way. She ran down corridor after corridor while dodging faulty ashen walls that could collapse at any moment. She turned around the sharp corners until eventually she arrived in the common area where the children's bodies - now corpses - laid on the floor; their faces twisted in everlasting pain.

A scream ripped itself from her lungs as she fell to her knees and wept, the sound of the child's cries now only a memory she had forgotten; that hope now forgotten as her heart shrivelled up to a bloody pulp that only now beat to get vengeance on the person who had done this; and lucky for her, she knew exactly who that was.