The Bloodfeather

A short story about a man who is pushed to the edge of insanity and beyond in his search for a mythical object to heal his young daughter.

          The Bloodfeather is the cause of what happened here. It is an object of great power. With it one is granted the power to heal any wound, cure any illness, it can even bring one back from the edge of death. All it requires in return for its miracles is a bit of blood from its user.
    When I first heard about it from an old storyteller I knew I had to find it, had to have its power. I was not a selfish person. I did not seek the Bloodfeather for myself but for my daughter. It was for her alone that I did what I did.
    You see, my daughter was born with a mysterious illness, one that the doctors said they have never seen nor heard of before. It caused my daughter to fall into deep sleeps from which nobody could wake her. The doctors said it was not something to be seriously concerned about because she would always wake. I did not believe them for a moment.
    She began falling asleep for longer and longer periods of time and more often sometimes weeks at a time. I began searching for a cure. I looked in millions of medical books and essays but found nothing. We she turned five years old she fell asleep and never woke up.
    Weeks passed, months, a whole year went by and still she never opened her eyes. It was then while sitting at her side, holding her hand, and begging her to wake up that I made my decision. I was not going to save her by waiting at her side so I decided that I needed to travel the world to find a cure.
    I spent the next seven years digging through dusty libraries and medicine shops. I went through hundreds of magic elixirs and healing charms, thousands of prayers and religious ceremonies, and uncountable tears as every treatment failed one after another. Even after so many failures, I refused to give up.
    I met the storyteller in a small village so deep in the jungle that it was not on any maps and only had one road going through its center. It sat in the shadow of a great mountain range said to be cursed by the locals.
    The storyteller, an ancient woman, told me of the Bloodfeather. She told me of its power and how it was hidden to prevent people from using it. At first, she refused to tell me its location but after I told her of my search for a cure to my daughter’s illness, she agreed to tell me. She whispered in my ear its location. She said it was watched over by a priestess and her followers in a temple high on the highest mountain in the cursed mountain range that shadowed the village. I thanked her and set out to gather the equipment I would need for the journey.
    A couple weeks later, I started my journey to the temple of the Bloodfeather. In my search for a cure, I went to many dangerous places but none of them could come close to the harshness of this journey.
    The local people called the mountain Allamuereh. I was told it means something like Spire of Death’s Despair or the Knife of Lost Hope and Death. I thought nothing of the name. I thought the name was just meant to scare people away from the Bloodfeather. After I began running out of food and water I began to understand how fitting the mountain’s name was,
    I was willing to die to save my daughter but I could not stand to die with her still trapped in her endless slumber. The thing that kept me going was the memory of my daughter’s last words before she went silent.
    “Make me happy “she told me. At times, I thought about her so hard that I could almost hear her voice in the wind. If there were one thing I could trade my life for, it would be to make my daughter happy. I believed that by finding a cure I could do that.
    I cut through deep jungle, fought off wolves, bears, mountain lions, and other vicious creatures, and climbed trees and sheer ice cliffs. These are only some of the many dangers I faced on my way up Allamuereh.
    Finally, starving and injured, I reached the temple of the Bloodfeather. As I limped toward the snow covered building I was greeted by the priestess. She looked like an angel dressed in her white robe. I tried to speak to her, to tell her about my daughter and my mission but starvation and my wounds at last got the better of me. Before I could say a single word, my vision clouded over with black spots and I felt myself hit the ground.
    I woke with ice in my veins. I opened my eyes and saw the priestess standing over me. In her left hand, she held a feather as white as freshly fallen snow; its end was sharpened to a razor-sharp point. She pressed the point into her right hand. Her hand began to bleed and the feather began to darken. It turned pink then light red then finally sanguine. Every drop of blood that was on the priestess' hand was gone. If I had not seen her, I would not have believed that she bled at all.
    She put the feather to my forehead and the ice in my veins turned to fire. My vision tinted red and the smell of blood filled my nose. The voice of the priestess resounded in my ears.
    “With the blood I give I bring new life,” the priestess said.
    It was all over in a matter a seconds. I felt revived, I was no longer hungry and I no longer felt the pain of the wounds I gathered on my climb. The priestess gently placed the now snow white feather on a red pillow held in the waiting arms of young woman in a white hooded robe. The woman glided away with the pillow and the feather.
 The priestess looked at me, her face an expressionless mask and spoke. “Why did you come here?” she asked.
    I told her about my daughter and how I spent the last seven years searching for a cure for her illness. I asked her if she would help me. She told me that the Bloodfeather must never leave the temple and that if I brought my daughter here she would heal her.
    I barely survived the climb alone if I tried to bring my daughter here, we would both die. When I told the priestess this, she said there was nothing else she could do. She offered me food and water and told me I should return to my daughter. I begged her aid but she simply listened patiently and told me the same thing over and over again.
    Eventually I asked if I could stay in the temple for the night and she agreed. After much thinking, I came to a conclusion; if she would not give me the Bloodfeather freely than I would take it. I would do what ever it took to cure my daughter.
    Late that night I gathered my things. I packed the food and water they gave me in my pack and dressed for my decent. I sneaked through the temple looking for the Bloodfeather.
    I looked in every room but could not find it. When I came to a locked room the first one I encountered in the entire building, I knew it must contain the Bloodfeather. I did not come all this way only to be stopped by a locked door. I hoped I could grab the Bloodfeather and leave without the priestess and her followers realizing what I was doing but it seemed that would not be happening.
        I took out my tools and broke down the door. I would only have a few moments before the priestess and here followers came for me. The room was empty except for a single pedestal on which sat a red pillow and the Bloodfeather.
    I grabbed it and ran for the exit. When I reached it, the priestess and her followers were waiting for me. They stood in front of the door all in white hooded robes. The priestess stepped foreword.
    “You can not take the Bloodfeather,” she said. “It will do you no good. It can only be used by those who are pure to any other it will only bring despair and death.”
    I pulled my knife from my belt and waved it threateningly in front of them. “I don’t want to hurt any of you but I won’t allow anything or anyone get in the way of curing my daughter.”
    I slashed at the priestess’ arm. She did not even try moving out of the way. I cut through her sleeve and into her arm; her sleeve began to turn red.
    “We will not move” she said. “We will guard the Bloodfeather with our lives”
    All was silent; the only thing that could be heard was the wind howling outside. In that sound, I could hear her, my daughter. “Make me happy” she said, “Make me happy.” It sounded liked she was just outside. The only thing between her and me was the priestess and her followers.
    Nothing was going to stop me from going to her. I ran and the priestess and her followers slashing wildly. They never moved, no a single one even when I went from slashing to stabbing. They never said a single word.
    I stepped outside the temple into the cold mountain wind and snow. I felt hot even though the snow pelted my face with ice crystals. I heard a sound behind me. I could not bring myself to turn around.
    “It will only bring despair and death.” I knew the voice. It was the priestess. “It will kill you along with your daughter.”
    I started walking away. “All you have gone through will be for naught” the priestess called her voice grew weaker with each word.
    I kept walking and her voice faded to nothing covered up by the wind, by my daughter’s voice. “Make me happy.”
    I made my way back to my daughter’s side. I ate and drank rarely and slept only enough to keeping going. When I once again sat at my daughter’s side all my hunger, thirst, and tiredness was forgotten.
    I pressed the Bloodfeather to my palm and it drank greedily of my blood. It slowly turned pink. I pressed it harder into my palm and it turned light red. I pressed harder and at last, it became sanguine.
    I pulled it out of my hand and placed it to my daughter’s forehead. At first nothing happened then the Bloodfeather darkened and became a red so dark as to appear black.
    My daughter bolted upright and opened her eyes.
    It worked. After years of searching, I did it. She was cured.
    She stood up and opened her mouth as if to speak but no words came out. Something was wrong. Her eyes began turning red then black. Her face twisted in anguish, her mouth remained open in a silent scream. She crumpled to the ground.
    I panicked; I felt for her pulse but could not find it. I stabbed myself with the Bloodfeather and placed it to her forehead.
Nothing.
I tried again.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
I continued to stab myself with the Bloodfeather screaming in despair.
Nothing.
The doctors rushed in, ran to my daughter’s body, and tried to revive her.
Nothing.
Others began pulling me away and I screamed for them to let try again. The doctors shook their heads as one of them tried one last time to revive her. The doctor stood up.
Nothing.
    I wandered aimlessly for a while. The final words of the priestess echoed in my head. “It will only bring despair and death” she said. “It will kill you along with your daughter.”  My daughter’s funeral came and went. The others who came all said they knew this would happen. They tried to comfort me by saying that my daughter was happy now but I knew she was not.
    I could still hear her voice, clearer now then ever before. At times, I would catch glances of her in reflections in windows and water but when I turned to look, she was never there.
    Then today, a year after she died, I saw her. She stood staring at me from behind her grave.
    “Make me happy” she told me.
    “How” I screamed. “What do I need to do?”
      “Make me happy” she said again.
    “I tried,” I said. “I tried so hard to cure you but I could not. You died. Now you will sleep forever and we will never be together.”
    “Sleep”    
    “Sleep?” I said “What will going to sleep do now?”
    “Make me happy”
    I knew what I had to do. I write this now so people will know why I did what I did and to know the dangers of the Bloodfeather. I am going to sleep to be with my daughter. When you find the Bloodfeather, throw it away. Put it somewhere nobody will ever find it. It is not meant to be in the word all it causes is despair and death. If you do not believe me if you think you can use the Bloodfeather for good then remember this. The Bloodfeather is the cause of what happened here.


                     THE END
 
    
    
    

         
    
      

Author's Note

Ignore grammar, I want to know how I did with overall structure, dialogue, and character development.

Reviews

[jennilouhoo]

Very interesting story line. I enjoyed it, but I felt like it moved a little too fast. The time lapse between a couple of your paragraphs was rather large. When it comes to dialogue, I as a reader would have liked a little more and not so much inner thoughts, but what you do have is good. And character development: he's crazy and we know why, but like the time lapse, it happens kind of fast. All in all, it was a good story. Very inventive and intriguing :)