ℂhapter 2 - An uninvited companion

A Chapter by 𝐋.𝐂.

“Every rose has its thorns, every light its dark shadow…”

Chapter 2 - An uninvited companion

A few minutes after leaving the girl, I heard something behind me. I shot a quick glance over my shoulder, and saw the little girl was following me. That was several hours ago, and she still was walking behind me. At first I didn’t really mind, but soon it started to creep me out. I decided to try and talk to her. I stopped walking and, about 30 feet behind me, the girl stopped as well. I sat down on the ground and motioned her to come over. She seemed hesitant at first, but slowly edged closer. Although she really tested my patience with her slow approach, I kept smiling kindly and motioning her to come closer. After what felt like forever she sat down in front of me. After a short but uncomfortable silence I finally found my voice. “So, uhm… Why are you following me?” No reaction. She just sat there, looking at me with her big eyes. “Don’t you have any family? They must be really worried about you...” Again she stayed silent. I was wondering if she even heard what I said. “Please, at least tell me your name, little girl.” I was about to try something different when she suddenly spoke. “My name is Rafiela.”

I was taken aback by her sudden response, but I quickly composed myself. “Well, nice to meet you, Rafiela. My name is Ronan,” I said, but it seemed like she wasn’t going to say anything else. After a while I gave up and started walking again. After I had put some distance between us, Rafiela got up too and started following me again.

I after a while I finally arrived at Zeltica. Feeling tired, I immediately headed for the inn.

"Room for two?” the waitress sitting at the counter asked.

“What…?” I looked around to see if there was anyone else. And yes, standing beside the door was a girl of about 10 years old, wearing a white dress. It was Rafiela.

“No, you’re mistaken, she’s not with me,” I told the waitress.

“You sure?” she gave me a weird look. After a little pause she handed me the key to my room. A single room, as I requested. I turned around to pick up my luggage and walked up the stairs as quickly as I could.

While climbing the stairs, I looked back every few steps to see if Rafiela was following me. Strangely enough, she was nowhere to be seen. I arrived at my room and put the key into the lock. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept in a bed. Three months ago, maybe? Anyway, I looked forward to sleeping in a comfortable bed for once, instead of my old sleeping bag.

I woke up in the middle of the night to find myself covered with thorns. “Ah!” I cried as I tried to move my body. With every movement the thorns stabbed into my skin, making me feel like a human pincushion. Suddenly I noticed something was definitely wrong. The room was extremely hot and red lights flickered behind the door. That could only mean one thing; Fire.

The door was shaking as if someone was trying to open it by brute force. I could hear the heavy thumps of someone throwing his body against it. After several attempts the door flew open and revealed the dark shadow behind it, which seemed way too small to break open a door on it’s own. The person walked into my room and stopped in the center, watching me. Because of the orange light of the fire roaring in the hallway behind my visitor I was unable to see the face, but the silhouette looked awfully familiar. “Rafiela?!” I groaned as I tried to break free from the thorns that tied me to my bed.

The dark shadow walked forward again but stopped a few feet from my bed, as if she was not sure whether to come closer or not.

“It’s you, right? Rafiela…?” I repeated the question, surprised by the fear in my own voice.

She nodded slightly before finally coming to stand beside my bed.

She put a finger on my lips. “Shh, quiet.”

Rafiela’s body began to transform. Her fingernails got long and sharp and her arms and legs grew at an unbelievable rate. Her hair transformed into needles and red lights started glowing in her eyes. The numerous thorny branches that sprouted from her body quickly covered the entire room.They broke the windows and proceeded to cover the whole building from the outside, while other branches left through the door to cover the inside of the inn.

“No!” I screamed, “Rafiela, stop!” Suddenly the scene disappeared and I was blinking against the sunlight that was leaking into my room through the window. The whole inn was so quiet you could hear a pin drop and the thorns were nowhere to be found. The windows looked as good as new too, and the door was locked as well.

But the fire and the thorns and Rafiela… Was that all just a dream? I wiped the sweat from my brow and got out of bed. I inspected the skin of my arms and legs, but there was no trace of the tiny wounds and scratches that the thorns should have left.

I quickly got dressed and packed my luggage, determined to leave as soon as possible. As I walked down the stairs, everything seemed to be perfectly normal. There were no signs of burnt wood, no ashes and there wasn’t even the slightest trace of smoke. Stranger still, where was everybody? The whole inn was deserted, even the owner seemed to have vanished.

When I walked out the door, I was surprised to see the outside of the inn was completely covered with thorns. Then the scent of burnt wood reached my nose. As I looked around for the source of the smell, I noticed the neighbouring building was burned down to ashes. Smoke was still rising from the smoldering remains, and some of the logs that hadn’t burned down completely still had glowing embers on them.

I turned around, but in my haste I ran into someone. We both fell to the ground, and just as I was about to shout that they should watch where they were going, I recognized who I had ran into. “Rafiela?!” I exclaimed.

She was just lying on the ground, motionless. My anger was gone in an instant and replaced with worry. I kneeled down and gently shook her. “Rafiela? Can you hear me?” No reaction. I quickly inspected her, but was relieved to see her chest was slowly rising and falling. Good, she was just unconscious then. I stayed by her side, unable to abandon her a second time.

After a while, she slowly opened her eyes. “Are you ok?” I asked as I pushed her hair out of her face. She didn’t answer, but seemed to be looking at something behind me, eyes big with fear. “Is there something wrong?” Her scared look was making me nervous. I looked over my shoulder at the buildings behind me, and saw that the remains of the burnt building had started burning again. It still was a pretty small flame, so there was probably nothing to worry about. Then a strong wind appeared out of nowhere, blowing new life into the small fire. Within seconds the whole pile of rubble was burning again, and the fire quickly spread to the neighboring buildings. Before I realized the danger of the situation, I was surrounded by a wall of fire that was quickly advancing in my direction.

I jumped to my feet and tried to grab Rafiela’s hand when I realized she was gone. The fire was approaching fast, which left me with no choice but to run. There was no time to go looking for her, and all I could do was hope she had made it out safely. I found my horse exactly where I had left it, tied to a tree several feet from the inn. I quickly untied the reins and hopped into the saddle. Even though my horse was still carrying the heavy trading goods, the fire made him run extremely fast. Soon I had left the town, but I still kept going for a while to put as much distance between the fire and myself as possible. The town was built next to the forest, and if the trees were to catch fire the whole forest might burn down.

Eventually I stopped on top of a hill which gave a good view of the town. It looked like the fire hadn’t spread to the forest, but judging by the gigantic clouds of black smoke and the numerous fires, at least half the town would burn down.

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