A Lone Traveler

 15 year old Kendall Grey walked through the woods. Kendall emerged into a small town. She started walking through the town. Then she realized this was her old home. The home she had come to know so well. She thought she smelled smoke but didn’t know where it was coming from. As she was walking she walked past the town square and suddenly she saw it. The reason that she would never, could never return home. 7 years ago Kendall had been at a party with her parents. Kendall was not the type to follow rules so when her parents told her not to go to the bookcase in the living room she did. But oh how she wished she hadn’t. Inside the bookcase was the thing she had heard legends about. The black mist. The black mist was a plague that would settle over a town turning anyone it came in contact with to ashes. It could also settle in places. Kendall had accidently released it. Because of that her parents had no choice but to let the mayor ban her. She was never to return home again. Now as she walked past the town square she saw the black mist lurking eager to attack. Kendall wondered why it wasn’t attacking her then she realized. The black mist was repelled my fire. All around the black mist there was fire. It was everlasting fire, something only her old town could create. She went over to her old house and when she looked in the window she saw her parents. Thank goodness they were okay. She wished she could go inside and kiss them and hug them but then she would be caught, so with sadness clouding her mind she left her old home. She hoped no one had seen her as she hurried back into the woods. Kendall had learned a few knacks after being on her own for 7 years. A few of those knacks were how to gather food, gather water, and fend off a predator. As she was walking she heard a growl behind her. When she turned around she saw a big black bear. I growled again and raised it’s claws. Kendall slowly reached into the satchel that she always carried. Never taking her eyes off the bear she grabbed a piece of meat. She always tried to give an animal what she thought it wanted first because she didn’t want it to find her again. She threw the meat on the ground and cautiously backed away but the bear didn’t want the meat. It walked towards her ignoring the meat. Time for plan B. She thought. Kendall stood there and took off her satchel. Holding it in one hand she raised her hands and began waving them and yelling at the top of her lungs. She swung the satchel, scaring the bear so that he went away. Ater that ordeal she picked up the meat and blew it off. She wasn’t going to eat it but she could try to give it to another animal. She then continued walking, picking berries here and there until she came to a river. She took a small bottle out of her satchel and filled it with water. Kendall knew that most waters weren’t fresh but she had been to this river before and she knew that the water here was fresh. As she drank the cold water she thought about her life. Why had she gone to the bookcase? Why couldn’t she just listen and not realise the black mist? As she thought her mind drifted back to her parents inside their house. She wished she still lived there with them. She missed her parents more than she would ever know. Kendall got up and crossed the river. She continued walking thinking about the Black Mist. The thing she had asked herself over and over throughout the years was could the Black Mist travel? But she had never gotten an answer. She was just about to take her find off of it when she saw it. The Black Mist coming towards her. Quickly she took a match from her stachel. Something she had gotten before she was banned from her town was matches to create everlasting fire. Now she took one of those matches and lit it, putting it down on the ground. She whispered something to the fire so that I wouldn’t consume her. The thing about everlasting fire is that the person lighting it can command it. That was the reason the fire hadn’t spread in the town square. Now as kendall stood in a circle of fire she realized that she had to keep moving. Kendall always liked to be on the move because she didn’t like encountering people and with a fire releasing smoke in the air anyone nearby was likely to come check it out. She whispered to the fire again this time commanding it to follow her as she walked still surrounding her but not burning her. The Black Mist kept following her repelled by the fire. She could have just gotten another match and she could have just thrown it at the Black Mist but Kendall only had one pack of matches and as I mentioned before her town was the only town capable of making everlasting fire which meant as soon and she used up her matches she would be ash and she had only been given 5 matches. She continued walking but after walking for almost 3 more hours she was too tired to walk any further. She saw a small grassy clearing up ahead and she decided that she would sleep there. She stumbled into the clearing and just stood there for a moment. Then she whispered something to the fire. This time she was commanding it to stretch around her when she laid down so that she didn’t get burned but it still protected her from the Black Mist. She took her satchel from her shoulder and set it on the ground beside her. She laid down on the ground and hugged the satchel close so that the fire didn’t burn the satchel. Kendalls eyes fluttered shut and she fell into a deep sleep but just before she did she thought about her life. She couldn’t go back in time so she would have to live with what she had done but the fact that her parents were still alive and well was enough. So she let that thought settle into her mind as she drifted off to sleep.