{"id":6,"date":"2009-11-27T15:41:05","date_gmt":"2009-11-27T15:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sophiehoulden.com\/writings\/fair\/?p=6"},"modified":"2009-11-27T15:41:05","modified_gmt":"2009-11-27T15:41:05","slug":"act-one-chapter-1-it-starts-with-a-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sophiehoulden.com\/writings\/fair\/?p=6","title":{"rendered":"(ACT ONE) Chapter 1: It starts with a death."},"content":{"rendered":"

The rain beat down heavily on the forest, shaking the trees violently. Though on a night as dark as this they were only visible at the edges of the mother’s torchlight.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

She looked down at her child, sheltered in her cloak, tired from the journey and feeling the mud was getting the better of her. The mother hoped this was the only hardship the child would have to face. She knew there were troubled times ahead for people like them, but like now she was going to do all she could to shelter her child from the storm.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A flash of lightning turned turned the night to day for the shortest of moments, the trees were nothing but an instance of movement, a single frame in their movie fight with the wind and rain.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

But the mother was sharper than the lightning, she knew she saw something, but made sure she showed no signs of it though, if she was being hunted she didn’t want her stalker to know that she was aware.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Another flash of lightning and she knew she was surrounded. This was a situation where she was outmatched, her only motive now was the survival of her child.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The mother stopped, moved her child as close as possible, and then put out the torch.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u201c<\/p>\n

\n

The assassins probably didn’t hear the child crying beside her mother’s corpse as they approached, they likely didn’t even know the mother had her child with her after she was hidden in the cloak. The circle of killers slowly crept towards the body, still fearful of it, if the death was just a trick, a warrior this strong could be the end of their careers… and their lives.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The child still partly covered by the cloak tried to get some kind of response from her mother, she saw the blood running down her arm, her face laying sideways in the mud, eyes wide open.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Unblinking.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The girl could feel the puddle she was in was warm, she knew well enough what it meant, someone had taken her mother from her, she didn’t know why, but more than anything she knew it was the most unfair thing in the world.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The girl stood up, attempting to wipe the tears from her eyes, but the rain pushed on her so strongly there’s no way to know if she managed.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The assassins froze, it was clear to them now the child was with the mother, but it was not a part of the plan. One decides its best to knock out the child but they never get the chance.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It seemed like daylight for another split-second. But it wasn’t the lightning this time, when the light faded there was a circle of bodies surrounding that of the child’s mother.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The child out cried the storm.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rain beat down heavily on the forest, shaking the trees violently. Though on a night as dark as this they were only visible at the edges of the mother’s torchlight. She looked down at her child, sheltered in her cloak, tired from the journey and feeling the mud was getting the better of her. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sophiehoulden.com\/writings\/fair\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sophiehoulden.com\/writings\/fair\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sophiehoulden.com\/writings\/fair\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sophiehoulden.com\/writings\/fair\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sophiehoulden.com\/writings\/fair\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sophiehoulden.com\/writings\/fair\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.sophiehoulden.com\/writings\/fair\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions\/7"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sophiehoulden.com\/writings\/fair\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sophiehoulden.com\/writings\/fair\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sophiehoulden.com\/writings\/fair\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}