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The house had been torn apart.
A fight must have occurred within the small room in which he stood, for the chairs and tables were all strewn about. Some were broken, and wooden splinters littered the floor. Glass from the chandelier that had been the focal point of the room was glittering from the floor. Tiny droplets of blood pooled over the glass. The bookshelf that had stood beside the fireplace was tipped onto its side and the books scattered. There was nothing in the room not marred by the struggle.
For a long moment, he stared at the debris in disbelieving horror, before he realized something was missing.
The house was empty.
His sister should have been home by now. He carefully stepped through the mess, whispering her name. Heart pounding in his ears, Ashren raced to the bookshelf and crawled under the titled structure and up the stairs, sliding on the upper most step and scrapping his calf. Ignoring the sharp pain, he stood and raced down the hall, his feet making eerily hollow thuds against the wooden floorboards in the otherwise silent house.
He pushed open the door to her bedchamber.“Ashira!?” He found her room also disturbingly empty. It too had been throughly trashed in the apparent brawl. He ran back down the stairs, tears blinding him. Still crying her name, he stumbled out of his family’s home.
Somebody had to help!
He froze upon seeing the village people gathered in the front lawn. Ignorant of the guilt on their faces, he panted, “A-Ashira-”
“We know.”
“What?” Ashren blinked dully at the man. His body froze and all his attention was centered upon the words coming from the man’s lips. Words he knew he didn’t want to hear.
“Demons came. They demanded that we give them your sister or they would kill everyone.”
“We had to give her to them. You understand that, don’t you?”
Dread washed away his panic. His shoulders slumped as his lower lip drooped slightly. His eyes turned distant as their words found meaning within his dulled mind. The woman approached, holding her hand out to him while her own daughter hid behind her skirts. Ashren pulled away, repulsed at the thought of her touch.
Methodically, Ashren slowly turned his back on the gathered people and reentered his empty house. With deliberate care, he closed the door with a soft click. Forcing himself not to think, Ashren began to clean the house.
His hands began to shake as he picked up scattered books that once belonged to his father. His eyes overfilled with tears as he folded the curtains ripped from the windows. His mother had sewn them long before he and his sister had been born. His lips whispered unintelligible words while his mind could not grasp the concept of speech.
Near midnight, he found Ashira’s necklace, a tiny gold chain snapped in half. He wrapped the chain around his hand and began to search for the little pink stone that the delicate chain had held suspended around his sister’s neck.
He found it wedged between two floorboards. Cupping the tiny jewel between his hands, Ashren whispered to it, whispered words he’d never uttered before, words that came naturally in his chaotic state of mind. The stone glowed from within.
His sister still lived.
He ran back up the stairs and into their late parents’ bedroom, again slipping on the top stair. Under the bed, he found his father’s old pack. He was in the process of stuffing food between the clothes in the bag when he heard a knock at the door.
Thinking for a moment to ignore the knock, Ashren continued to stuff the pack. The knock insisted and he heard a familiar voice call his name. The elderly woman from next door, Millicent, stood hunched on the doorstep.
“Are you all right?” She asked, laying a hand on his cheek. Her kind and gentle gaze broke down the fine structure of his newly built defenses.
“I-I’m fine,” he stammered, sniffing and wiping at his face with the sleeve of his tunic.
The woman’s eyes trailed to the bag in his hand. “What are you thinking, little one?”
Ashren’s eyes followed the woman’s to the bag. “She’s still alive. I know it. I have to do something.”
“You can not mean to-”
Ashren stood at his tallest, disregarding the way his slight frame shook with fear of the unknown. “I can, and I mean to.”
“Child, the two of you have only had twelve summers. Do you know even where to start looking? It’s a large world out there, full of demons like the ones that took your sister. Even if you did find them, what makes you think you can rescue her? Do you think they will let her go after they went through all that trouble of locating her? Ashren, my child, don’t go through with this foolishness.”
Ashren frowned. “I will.”
The old woman sighed, knowing this family well. “You’re as stubborn as your mother was.” A smiled curved Ashren’s lips. “That’s not a compliment. When you’re done packing, come to my house, I’ll have some things for you. And dinner. You can start out in the morning.”
He watched her hobble away before returning to the kitchen. He sat on a stool that now wobbled and stared at nothing, lost in thought.
She was right. What could he do against a horde of demons? He knew naught of where they came from. He knew naught of demons in general, only what his father had told them when he was still alive.
Father. Mother.
Tears fell once again, trailing down his face unchecked. How he wished they were here now. This would have never happened then. Father would have stopped them. Mother would have protected them.
If only he had been home, maybe he could have done something to protect Ashira. He glanced at a claw’s marks on the wall, several inches deep and wide. Maybe he could have...
Shuddering, Ashren knew he could have done nothing that Ashira probably hadn’t done. She knew just as much as he about demons. In her place, Ashren held no false beliefs that he would have escaped where she didn’t.
If only he had been home. Then they would be together.
His fingers found their way into his pocket and pulled out the stone. He held it tightly in his grasp, warming it, willing it to grace her with his emotions of love and hope.
