The Punishment

In this place, where you were destined to live all your life and are destined to die, I have to abandon you. Your end point is here and you can do nothing to save yourself. This mansion, in which you lived your life, waiting for someone to save you, to take you out and show the world; will become your grave. And I must do it. I must leave you to die here. I’m not as brave those ancestors who abandoned their lives to protect the heir of this place. This horse I’m sitting on, will take me to a place where I will live my life peacefully, bearing the sin of abandoning you.

“Wanna come with me?” I asked the innocent girl, who stood at the very land where she should get killed mercilessly. Even though I’m a coward who can’t face a bunch of magicians, I still want you to live. Find meaning in my words and follow me. This place is doomed. There is no need to throw your meaningless life away to protect it.

She clenched her fist close to her chest. Her fear was obvious yet she answered with the brave words, “I can’t. I promised after all.” The trembling lips gave me a smile. The words ‘leave already’ were all over her face. Not because she was mad but because she couldn’t stand on those trembling legs anymore.

I turned my back on her. “If fate allows. We shall meet again.” My brain wanted me to sprint as quickly as possible but this beating lump of meat wanted me to stay a while. Stay and listen to the trembling response she gives.

“Yup.” The moment I heard this response, my feelings went numb and all I could command my body was, “Move!” The animal started sprinting, taking me away from this abandoned villa, aiming at the forest, beyond which the salvation was I sought.

It kept on pouring cats and dogs yet I could feel no drop on my body. My whole body was wet, yet the only drops I could feel were tears pouring down from my eyes. Relieving me from my numbness was a sudden explosion I could hear from the direction Villa once stood. I stopped my horse and all I could do was stare at the black smoke emerging from the fire which had killed her.

The fear, the guilt and the realization of my weakness took control over me. Amount of water I excreted from my eyes kept of increasing. I screamed, screamed, screamed and screamed. I could do nothing. Even in this world where everyone has powers, even by being the offspring of the heroes of each era, I could not save one childhood friend. I aimlessly sprinted on my horse, while screaming my throat out because I could do nothing.

The next moment, I sensed an attack from behind, someone with tremendous speed came for my head. Reflexively, I managed to bend down to avoid the slashing swords. The sudden movement disrupted the balance of my horse and I fell down. Due to the wet ground, the fall was less painful and I got just a few bruises. My blurry vision cleared after a moment and I could see a man standing in front of me. The black hoodie was hiding his face and I could not see his face clearly. He was holding two small blades in his hands and slowly walked towards me.

I got enraged and started shouting, “If you only need the villa, you didn’t have to kill her. You could’ve obtained your objective easily, you didn’t have to come after me.” As I came to understand that it was over for me, all I could do was shout like a small kid who can do nothing but cry to get what it wants.

That was all I could do. If only I had power, I could’ve saved her. I could’ve saved myself.

“If you had no other objective but to get a piece of lan-” Not letting me complete, that man came dashing towards me and once again aimed his blade at my neck. Using my left arm as a shield, took it away from me. The blade cut through my arm and he stepped back. The lump of meat fell down and the blood started pouring. I grabbed the cut end of my remaining arm and started screaming with agony. It hurt so much that I wanted to die at that instant.

I bit my lower lip and stopped myself from screaming. I looked at him with the enraged face. “Like I’d fall that easi-” The moment I tried to dash at him to at least get one single hit, a dozen of blades stabbed me and pierced through me. All his comrades had pinned me to air and my whole body was filled with holes. My vision started to fade away and I started seeing death. With a little vision I had, I could see him walking towards me. “It was not just for land.” He let me hear my final words and while his comrades were holding the swords by which they stabbed me, he sent my head flying away.

My vision, smell, hear and pain, all went away instantly and during the time I was about to embrace death with the guilt I had, I clearly hear these words. “Do you want more power?”

“Ahh!”

A sudden jerk, I felt on my chest, and I woke up from the nightmare. The pain, the feelings and all the emotions I felt at that moment slowly disappeared and all that left was awareness. When I woke up, I was breathing heavily, my heart kept beating so hard that it felt like I would die any moment. I was lying down on my back. When my vision cleared a bit, I could see Sarah, worriedly trying to wake me up, saying, “Are you okay? What happened?”

I blinked, took a deep breath and tried to calm my breath. In answer I nodded and my breathing started to stabilize. “Yeah…. I’m fine….I’m fine now….” I sat up. “Everything’s okay.”

I once again focused on the experience I had with cool mind. No matter how you look at it, it seemed nothing more than a dream, a nightmare, but considering my intentions of leaving this place, it felt like the whole thing was a warning for me, meanwhile how real those things felt, I could not think about it other than a rewind. The conclusion I could think of was that it was a real experience and I had been blessed with a second chance, a second chance with the bravery I had never felt inside myself and a unique hope.

In order to make sure, I asked Sarah, “What day is it today?”

“17 May. It’s Monday today.” She replied to my question without asking the reason. I stayed silent after hearing her reply and started gazing to my feet, unintentionally, and fell in deep thought.

“Harry!” She got my attention.

“Hmm?”

“You should go today.” She went silent for a moment, collected her thought and continued, “You just turned 18 and you have a life ahead. You can’t even use magic, you’ll just die in vain.” Her determined face had eyes, stating the fact, gradually filling with tears.

“And leave you here to die?” She surprisingly looked at me. The surprise was obvious as I had wasted most of my time with her showing my coward side and trying to use her kindness to make her say such thing. “Sorry but I can’t repeat the same mistake again.”

Her hopeless, suicidal eyes, showed hope. Her mind seemed twisted. She must have been confused with whether she should be happy and die alongside me or whether she should die alone protecting me. But she didn’t know that no matter what outcome we choose, the result was never obvious. The result always ended up being unexpected outcome.

While she was troubled, I looked at the sky out of my window. I could see an eagle flying freely, seeking for its prey, its speed and thirst for kill made me remember my death. I could feel coldness from inside me, it felt like all my fears were gone. All I could think of was kill. The next moment, the eagle fell down. Its head twisted like someone had grabbed its head and body and twisted them.

“So, that’s what power is.” I muttered these words. I turned to Sarah, who was confused by my words, and ordered her, “Leave this place.”

“Huh?”

The sky was as dark as it could be. It seemed like night despite being noon. The wind showed the signs of pouring heavy rain but before water could make its way to the land, some guests came. Holding swords, with the speed of lightning, when he landed on the land he found a deserted Villa.

No life found. The mansion in which at least 2 human beings are supposed to be living was found deserted. Worry was all over his face and he couldn’t understand the situation. At that moment thousands of questions and negative thoughts must have been going through his mind, yet he decided to call his teammates to the same land he stood. ‘Mission failed’ was all over their faces and they had their guard down right to the ground. In between the sounds of rain, which had started pouring, and random arguments of a team, an unexpected shout came.

“NOW! DESTROY THIS PLACE!!!” Considering how well they move, I had anticipated the following movement. All those comrades received immediate order from their captain and used their abilities to fly away to the backyard, safer location if villa was supposed to be destroyed, but as expected their landings only damaged themselves. Their fists clenched as they understood their situation.

“They are around here, go search fo-”

The poor captain, behind all his comrades, couldn’t completely state his orders as I interrupted him. “Why don’t you try looking behind first?” Damn I love my sarcasm. The captain, along with his comrades, turned his head around and was stunned when he saw me standing right behind him. Before he could say something, I shouted, “FIRE!” and the next moment the woods all around the villa started burning.

His natural instinct wanted him to look at the surroundings but he decided to lead his teammates. “The target’s right here.” He pointed at me and turned his head to his teammates. “Eliminat-” Finding his teammate’s neck turned at 180 degrees, he couldn’t complete his orders.

“Why don’t you finish what you started saying?” I taunted the stunned commander, the same guy who took my life, and smirked. He trembled, looked at me and received a muddy shoe on his face. With the sudden movement he had done before, his legs were damaged to a point he couldn’t stand. He grabbed my leg and tried to move it away from his face.

“Damn you!”

I coldly stared at his face. “The previous heir should’ve hired better magicians.” He fell startled once again. “You can’t kill me with this bunch of losers.” I retracted my leg and kicked him. He fell down, and was difficult for him to stand. I raised and hand and snapped. His head fell off after turning 360 degrees. Such a pitiful death.

“You can turn the illusion off now.” I said to Sarah. She stood right behind me and showed pitied these warriors. She closed her eyes, cleared her thoughts and turned the illusion off. The villa, which was supposed to be destroyed, the forest, which was supposed to burning, and those legs, which were supposed to be broken; turned out to be nothing but an illusion.

“You didn’t have to kill them.” She said what was in her mind.

“These people didn’t seemed to be the type who would listen. Believe me I’ve tried.” I slowly approached her. I placed my hand on her head and said, “You better take care of your life.” Otherwise, my forty seven deaths would be in vain. That repeating nightmare is something I took for you. Well, I guess most of them were my head flying off, as a punishment for leaving you behind.