How about a little fiction?
Inquisitions weren’t unheard of these days. But they were certainly rare enough. I never thought I might be involved in one of them.
How could everything have gone so wrong? Our first mission end not just in failure, but death. I glanced on either side of me and saw the worn tired faces of my team members, my younger sisters. Was it my imagination or did they look broken?
The empty seat of our necromancer, cousin Sarh, caught my eye.
I remembered when my Aunt and Uncle had realized their precious little darling was born to raise the dead. Sarh had barely been four. Her parents were hosting the mid-summers celebration. Everyone had been there. Imagine her parents’ shock when the family cat, dead two weeks came romping through the house. Their golden haired four year old following after. I was only six and still remembered my horror. I was always a little repulsed by her.
Nausea swept over me. How could I have ever been repulsed a girl, my cousin, my family?
“Why did you not call for assistance?” The voice of the inquisitor brought me back.
My hand trembled, my eyes stung. I blinked. I couldn’t cry during the inquisition. I would win their sympathy perhaps, but they would never let me off world again. Let alone lead my team.
“We have no elders. The rest of my family are younger than us, still in school. We couldn’t risk their lives. I wasn’t sure we would even make it.”
The old men magicked our family history. The shimmering outline of the text was in front of them.
“Surely there was someone,” the old man said, as he flipped through the text. “Ah, here.”
I closed my eyes and began silently counting. Trying not to remember the mid-summer’s celebration. My sisters’ and
I were hiding beneath the house.
One, two, three tables on the lawn.
Four, five, six, white table clothes fluttered in the summer breeze.
Seven, eight, nine a flash of light my Grandmother fell her eyes staring at nothing.
Ten, Eleven, Twelve the world stopped for a moment.
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Silence, nothing, it wasn’t real. a
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. A scream, tables overturning, everyone running.
Nineteen, twenty. My Father lay gasping in front of us.
That was the day that took the rest of our family.
And now Sarh.
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