Vengeful Spirits

Prologue

A woman, no more than in her mid-twenties, ran throughout the streets of the burning town, her bright cerulean eyes wide with fear, her long, usually wavy blonde hair now messy and dirt covered. She panted softly as she hurried along, glancing back behind her, a look of worry within her eyes every now and then. The two men behind her were gaining on her very quickly, and she knew that with her current wounds she had no hope of reaching safety from them.

A small bundle within her arms let out a soft cry as a drop of blood fell from the long slice across her pale cheek landed on it. The woman was still running, though a gentle hand raised and brushed the blanket that it was held in aside. She gazed at her baby boy, the same hand rubbing the spot of blood from his face, a tender look in her eyes, for that moment, her fears disappearing. Her fears returned however, as a sharp pain caught her heel, eyes widening once more as a kunai sliced into her ankle. The small throwing knife tore at her tendon, causing her to stumble forward, and the young woman fell to the ground. Wrapping her arms tightly around her now crying child, she rolled over onto her back after landing on her elbows and knees.

Mud covered shoes pushed and scraped at the ground as she tried in desperation to scuttle back from the men, who were now within mere feet of her. The shorter of the two stepped forward to gaze down at her menacingly, a smirk on his face, though this was invisible to the woman, as most of his face remained shadowed by the glow of the flames behind him.

He knelt down before the cowering woman, a small whimper escaping her throat as he roughly took her right hand away from the baby, revealing the small child’s face to him. He looked back at his taller, more rugged companion, his face questioning as if awaiting a response from a superior, receiving only a short nod. Nodding in return, the man merely turned back towards the woman, his hand reaching over her own to graze the newborns flesh, his eyes narrowing at the baby. He smirks softly to himself, before his gaze meets hers, his voice finally coming forth. The sound of it was rather low, barely audible over the roar of the flames around them.

“He is the one we want… He is coming with us…” The man reached his other hand for the child, causing the woman to cower back further. Her arms snapped around the child protectively, though she was careful to do him no harm.

“Don’t you dare touch my son…” Her voice was trembling, and rather weak sounding, a coppery taste filling her mouth as she spoke. “He has done nothing wrong to you… I don’t understand why you are doing all of this.”

The man merely laughed at this, the hollow sound coming from his throat lowly, filling the night air and echoing throughout the roaring flames. He reared his head back slightly during the gesture, before stopping slowly, turning back towards her. His eyes were narrowed slightly, the charcoal orbs glistening with insanity, a smirk crawling across his thin lips as he spoke once more, forcefully grasping the woman by the throat with his left hand.

“Woman, that child is special to us. He will help us get what we want… As for your village… Why, we burned it because we could…” He raised his other hand up slightly, a sparkle of flames trailing from fingertip to fingertip, embers falling slightly towards the ground below and fading from view.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, though she looked a little shocked to see the flames near his fingers, realising that this man was indeed one who knew elemental magic. She choked slightly as he increased his grip on her throat, her grip on the child never fully diminishing, though it was weakening significantly.

His expression became cold once more, coal-black eyes staring towards the child, his hand releasing its grip on her throat. The man grasped the baby tightly, yanking it forcefully, but carefully away from her, cradling it into his arms and standing up.

“My, my…” He smirked softly once again as the child immediately began to fidget more, and wail loudly, his index finger raising to touch against the baby’s lips, as though to silence it. “Aren’t we a fussy little boy…?”

“Let him go!” The woman cried out, scrambling to her feet, her long nail raking into the earth as she tried to stand.

The shorter of the two men merely turned on his heel, stepping forward somewhat and avoiding her as she grabbed at one of his ankles, looking up towards the larger man. He wandered closer to him, raising the child upwards towards him, and setting him into the rugged man’s grasp, before wandering closer towards the woman.

A wicked grin spread across his face as he realised he had a chance to kill once again, holding his hand out towards the woman, blood lust sparkling within his eyes. Flames began to spark and flow in between his fingertips as he drew closer to her, speaking once more in a low, but insanity racked voice.

“It’s been a pleasure, my lady…” Flames scorched towards her form, licking at her flesh, marring it and melting at it rapidly. Her skin wilted and withered from the loss of moisture, burning her amongst the small inferno, her cries echoing within the flames and barely reaching the man’s satisfied ears, a sadistic grin still on his face. It didn’t take long for him to finish, the flames remaining around her dying form and spreading about.

The woman, now melting and withering away from the immense heat raised a burning, marred hand and reached out towards her child as the men carried him away into the distance, her eyes wide with agony and fear. She opened her mouth and faintly spoke out towards him.

“…James…”

Her eyes closed softly as the flames began to eat at her body, her limbs beginning to crumble and turn to dust, her hand that reached for him falling towards the burning earth below it as she cried out to him, hearing her own child’s cries one last time.

“JAMES!” Her voice slowly trailed off as she called out, her body fading away to dust as the flames devoured her and moved on to devour other parts of the area.

The two men merely continued to wander off down the road, walking through the middle of the town towards the exit, the baby bow still held in the larger one’s arms, the shorter one still sparking off flames at any survivors that seemed to have been showing themselves. Unbeknownst to the two men however, was the small, silvery-white glow emitting from the child’s forehead as he cried, the light gradually growing brighter as he was carried away from his burning home.

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………Yeah……… I came back from the dead… Well, anyways, I have been sitting around for over a year, and finally decided that I wanted to write this story. After giving it a re-read, I realised how incredibly crappy the original one was, and decided to rewrite it, and low and behold, this is what I have come up with… I’d say it’s not much improvement, but at least I plan on continuing with this one… Well… I hope you enjoyed chapter one of the revision… Reviews are greatly appreciated!