An encounter in the cave.

 4.  An encounter in the cave.

-Alessa´s point of view-

My back is hurting, I wake up and my back feels so stiff that I can barely move. I open my eyes and see metal bars all over me and I remember that I was kidnapped on my way to the meet up.

I start shaking when I think all the horrible things they might do to me, I sit by resting my back between the bars. I wipe away the tears that are starting to drop on my dress, I won’t get to meet with my cousin now and when I said goodbye to my family I didn’t think it would be the last time.

I start gathering the mana but the amount of mana here is nonexistent and the amount I need to drown myself is large. My hands are shaking and my vision is getting blurry from the watery eyes but I have gathered enough mana to cast the spell.

I hear someone open the door and I lose my concentration and the mana disperses from my grasp, I lose all strength in me as the terror of the situation dawns to me. It is quite dark so I don’t see clearly who comes from the door but the silhouette of the person is short and small which confuses me a bit but my fear doesn’t let me think about it much.

he walks closer to me and I try to back away but the bars on my back doesn’t budge, when he is close enough I can see it’s a small human boy that is completely covered in blood and in his hands, he has a dagger that is also covered in blood. My surprise and fear fuse together and makes my mind go blank, I just stare at the boy without moving.

The boy looks at me for a while then he looks at the lock and then his pants, he puts his hand in to the pocket and takes out a key. He slowly puts the key in the to lock and turns it, opening the lock. The boy opens the cage and he goes behind the bars of the door and grips his dagger tighter while taking a stance as if he is ready to defend himself.

The situation is completely out my comprehension and as I can’t form any thoughts about the situation we both just freeze up in our places. As time goes by I begin to calm down and start to think about it rationally, the boy opened the cage so that would mean he is letting me go and he doesn’t mean me any harm.

The real question is how did he get here and what happened to the bandits that kidnapped me? As he is covered in blood I could assume that he killed them or a beast attacked the cave and he was the only survivor. He is cautious of me so I best not make any aggressive moves as not to scare him, he hasn’t said anything to me and his behavior isn’t normal for a boy his age.

I slowly stand up and the boy flinches a bit but then he fixes his stance and looks at me with eyes that are only observing. Those eyes make me so sad as I can’t even imagine his history that made him into this, it looks like he doesn’t feel any emotion and only thinks things rationally to survive.

“Thank you for releasing me. Can you tell me what happened here?” I ask him in a calm manner.

He opens his mouth a little as if he was trying to say something but there was no sound, when he tries again there is a small incoherent sound and he closes his mouth quickly looks down on and points to the door.

I move slowly out of the cage and walk past the boy without looking in his direction, then I turn toward the door and walk to the door, it was left open when the boy came into the room so I can see a wall and ground that has some red stains. I finally notice the smell that was coming from the boy and the corridor, I pinch my nose so I won’t black out from the smell.

I step out of the room and immediately see that there is a person on the ground and a lot of blood around him, I walk closer and see it’s a human and more precisely it’s the bandit who kidnapped me. Most likely this boy killed him and he is unstable right now so I cannot make him think that I think that he did something bad, in other words I can’t make him think that I could be his enemy.

He is my only ally here and even if I just ran away to escape this situation I couldn’t survive outside alone with the magical beasts roaming around, I also don’t know where I am so it’s impossible for me to escape, all I can do is wait for the guards to find me.

I take a moment to calm myself then turn slowly toward the door I came from, I see the boy looking at me from behind the door frame.

“Did you take care of this bandit?” I ask in the gentlest way I could.

He nods behind the frame and continues staring at me. I turn around and walk down the corridor slowly, I wonder how he could kill that man alone and most likely he killed the rest of the bandits too so even though he had a tragic past he is still a genius at the least otherwise he couldn’t have don’t all of this.

I reach a wide area that has two doors opposite to each other and I see a blood trail coming from both doors and they lead to the next corridor. I follow the blood trail and soon reach a door to my right, I open the door and find a pile of corpses and the smell makes me puke even though I was pinching my nose.

I close the door and walk outside to breath, I look around and see a forest in front of me and a slope to the left of me, to the right the ground is rising and when I look back I can see a rock face. I can hear water gushing down so I can assume there is a waterfall close by and as the ground is going downwards on the left it probably falls there.

I look at the entrance and see the boy behind the vines looking at me, he is observing my actions and is cautious of what I might do. I walk closer to him and slowly crouch down with my knees together.

“Can you let me live in this cave for a while?” I ask while smiling gently.

The boy looks at me for a long time.

“Why?” He asks in a quiet voice.  

“I don’t know where I am because I was blind folded and passed out when they moved me from the place they kidnapped me so I don’t know which direction is my home, the forest is also filled with various kinds of beast and some of them are magical so it would be extremely dangerous for me to leave this place.”

“Okay.” He answers after a while.

After he says that he turns around and runs away and I feel all the strength leave my legs and I sit down on the grass feeling relieved. That was the tensest situation I have ever been, I look at my hands and they are shaking like crazy. I am glad that the boy who murdered the whole bandit group is still reasonable enough to let me live here even though he doesn’t know me and even though I am a half a beast man.

All right, I feel alive again, the fresh air, vivid colors of nature and not feeling hopeless is amazing. I feel like I’m reborn and I can’t stop smiling. Then I remember the boy who saved me and I feel sad again. I resolve myself to helping the boy to my best capabilities. 

Chapter three. Chapter five.