Chapter 517: Just a Nightmare
Elly was having a nightmare.
A terrible, terrible nightmare.
She dreamed that bad people all dressed in black clothes with masks covering their faces had come to her village and started knocking down doors, dragging everyone out of their homes, and shoving them to the central square.
Elly didn’t like most of the people in the village because they were always mean to her and her papa, always calling them names and making them do all kinds of hard, yucky work like digging graves or carting away waste.
Their treatment had only gotten worse when her mama died a few years ago; they were even forced out of their old home and made to live farther away from the village.
When she asked her papa one time why everyone was always mean to them, he only told her that it was because they weren’t really from the village.
Elly found this weird, as she knew several other families who had moved to the village not long ago yet they weren’t treated so badly.
All that said, when the bad people came to her village and began burning and beating everyone, Elly immediately felt both sad and terrified. She didn’t like how everyone was mean to them, and there were times when she punched, kicked, or even bit some of the other kids, but she never once thought any of them deserved to die just for that.
When the bad men noticed her house to the far south of the village, and began rushing over with torches and swords in hand, Elly wanted to scream, but before she could, her papa covered her mouth and wrapped a strange black robe around her.
"Run away Elly, run and hide with your mother, okay?" Elly’s papa whispered to her in a sad, sad voice before throwing her out the back door and then running out to face the bad men.
Elly didn’t want to leave her papa behind, knowing that the bad men would certainly treat him much worse than the villagers normally treated them, but even though she was just 7-years-old, she had learned about the cruelty of the world first-hand and understood that there was nothing she could do.
If she ran after her papa now, she would just get caught and waste all of his efforts to save her.
So, Elly ran, ran to the woods beyond the graveyard where her mama was buried, where she spent far more of her time than she wanted to, hiding away from the other kids in the village.
The whole time, Elly kept saying to herself that she wasn’t scared, that she was just doing what she was told, and that she would come back to get her papa and help the others when the bad men where gone.
Elly knew she was lying to herself, but what could she do?
She was too young and too weak to fight back, and even though she tried to be brave, she was scared.
Very, very scared.
So, she ran.
All through that night, Elly watched form afar as her house burned down and listened to the terrible screams coming from what was once her village.
She tried to shut the voices out by covering her ears, but she couldn’t block them entirely.
More than once, she tried to run back, to find her papa, to find the few friends she had, to save the few kind grandmas and grandpas who treated her well, but no matter how she wanted them to, her legs simply wouldn’t move.
When morning finally came, and the voices fell silent, Elly cautiously made her way back along the path and to what remained of the place she once called home.
Arriving at the central square, what Elly saw was too horrible to describe.
Most of them were unrecognizable, but there were a few faces in the... the pile that she could still make out, their twisted, charred expressions filled with pain and terror... her papa’s included.
Elly didn’t know how long she stood there, staring, unsure what to do or feel now that it was gone.
Everything.
Everyone she loved.
Everyone she hated.
Everything she had ever know.
Her entire world was gone.
The guilt, the fear, the anger, it all seemed to consume the young girl and was slowly driving her mad.
Elly even thought it might be better to just lie down there and die, but when she picked up the small knife she found lying nearby and tried to stab herself, she couldn’t do it.
She was scared.
Scared of being alone, but also scared of dying.
In that moment, Elly felt she was truly ugly and deserving of being hated by everyone. She had been too cowardly to help them last night, and now she was too cowardly to join them in death.
Just as she was wallowing in despair, Elly heard something coming from the direction of the river.
It sounded like... people.
Elly bolted without even checking to see who it was, fearing it was the bad people coming back to do... to do something bad.
She had no idea what more they could possibly want after all the terrible things they had already done, but she wasn’t going to stick around to find out.
As Elly reached the edge of the village, though, she slowed.
She had been too afraid to face these bad people last night, and that had left her feeling like she was better off dead.
She wasn’t going to run away again, not yet.
Elly was smart, and knew what she could and couldn’t do.
She knew she wasn’t going to beat these bad people right now, but maybe if she could spy on them a bit, and learn who they were, she could one day get strong enough to take revenge on them.
Her papa and mama had always told her that her great grandfather was a powerful Cultivator who could easily beat up any of the adults in the village today, so there was no reason Elly couldn’t become strong too if she tried, right?
Pulling up the hood of the black cloak, Elly hid in the shadows as she watched a lot of men and women wearing shiny silver armour cautiously enter her village.
She didn’t recognize any of them, or any of the symbols on their armour, so she assumed they were the same bad people from last night.
What’s more, they were now boldly showing their faces.
Most of these bad people were older folks, but there was one among them who was much younger, a girl with silver hair and purple eyes.
She was probably the most beautiful girl Elly had ever seen in her life, but she was a bad person, so that made her ugly!
Swearing she would remember these faces, Elly quietly snuck away while the bad people seemed to be searching for something.
Elly didn’t care what they were searching for, as there was nothing left in the village worth finding. All she wanted to do right now was hide until they were gone, then find a way to leave and head to the big town in the east.
Elly knew it was a long walk, and that there was danger along the road, but she also knew she couldn’t stay here forever.
Hiding in the cemetery again, Elly talked with her mama, telling her she was sorry and that she had to leave, but she also swore she would be back one day.
Before she could put any of her plans into action, however, Elly noticed someone coming towards the graveyard.
Dashing into the woods, the little girl hid behind a tree and peeked out cautiously, noticing it was the same silver-haired girl from before.
Instantly, Elly felt enraged, thinking these bad people weren’t even sparing the village’s graveyard.
Perhaps it was her anger that made Elly finally slip up, exposing too much of herself and thus catching the eye of the bad woman.
A chase through the forest ensued.
Elly was intimately familiar with all the paths and hiding places in the local woods, so she was sure that with such a big head start, she would be able to lose her pursuer, especially considering the bad girl with silver hair looked about the same age as the older kids in the village.
Elly had never failed to lose those mean older kids before in these woods, so she was confident she could escape this time too.
Unfortunately, she had greatly underestimated the bad girl, who turned out to be much stronger and faster than anyone Elly had ever seen before.
Elly ran with all her might and used every trick she had ever learned, but in the end, she was still captured. Even when she was caught, though, Elly didn’t give up and fought back with everything she had, even stabbing the bad girl with the knife she found, but it was all for naught.
Elly had failed before she even began, but perhaps it was for the best.
At least this way, she would be together with her papa and mama and no one would ever be able to hurt them again...
Elly thus let go, shut her eyes, and waited for the end she was certain awaited her to come.
Waking up in a dark room on a soft bed some time later, however, Elly breathed a sigh of relief.
Fortunately... it had all just been a nightmare.
A nightmare... right?