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“Where am I?” Shella woke up in a bed. She could hear someone walking around. Her grandfather Kiev pops his head through the drapes that covered the doorway.
“Ah, finally my sweet angel. You're awake.”
“Whaa-what?” Shella grabs her head. She had a splitting headache.
“You must have blacked out. It’s been several hours. But everything is alright now. We all saw the Darkness warriors retreat. They just packed up and left. It’s a miracle.”
“And where are we?” Shella felt disoriented, not sure where exactly she was.
“Well, you’re in my cottage and…”
“No!” Shella interrupts him. “Argh. My head. So much pain.” She grits her teeth. She held her head tightly due to her throbbing headache. “Everything is NOT alright! I have to get back. I have to get back to Corri. He's just passed out, that's all, right?”94Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAu0pk0Xzpv
“Shella, listen to me! You know the truth. You saw it.” Grandfather Kiev spoke with a serious tone. He knew she was still in shock, unable to accept reality, that her brother and father were gone. “You can get past this. Please, relax, I know it’s hard…”
That's when reality hits her, hard. She was trying to avoid the truth. Avoid the events that unfolded in front of her. “He needed me! Corri needed me and I-I couldn’t do a thing! I feel sick inside. My heart…. hurts.” She swallows hard. Shella began to sob uncontrollably. Her grandfather had cleaned her hands of her father's blood while she was out. As soon as Shella lifted her hands, she swore she could still see the red, the glossy dark red stain of his blood on her shaky palms. “Fathers gone, they’re both….” Shella felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. She grabs her chest firmly and closes her eyes tightly from the pain she felt deep inside. The people that connected her to her mother were now gone. The loss of her brother made her body tremble uncontrollably. She began breathing hard, not knowing what to do with herself.94Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj8Ony8K69i
“Cry to your heart's content. Cry all you want my angel. Cry until there’s no more tears left to cry. Your pain cannot me measured.” Shella wipes her eyes, frustrated, devastated, heartbroken that she couldn’t even protect her family.
Shella struggles to breath, gulping down air trying to control her emotions and wiping away any tear that rolls down her cheeks. She opens her eyes and stares at the ground. “I want to see them.” Her voice is low and raspy.
“We shall hold a ceremony for them soon. Right now many of the villagers are trying to get their lives back together again, recovering from the invasion. For now, I want you to rest. There are bigger things that are now being set into motion.” Shella lifts her head and looks at her grandfather confused. Tears ran down her reddish cheeks. She swallows hard again trying to catch her breath. While she inhales and exhales, her chest lifts and lowers each time as she gasps for air. She could feel the pressure building in her head.
“Wait.” Her voice but a faint whisper, “What do you mean by that grandpa? What are you talking about?”
“Rest Shella. Please.” He approaches her, gives her a kiss on the forehead and gets her to lower her body onto the bed. “Rest your mind. I need you to recover and we shall talk about this later.” He then turns around and faces the doorway.
Shella quickly lifts herself back up from the bed. She was sniffling and still wiping more tears from her face. “You know I can’t rest, now that you mentioned something.” Her grandfather stops in his tracks right before he could get to the doorway of the room. “You must tell me! What bigger things? I won’t sleep. I can’t sleep, if you do not tell me.” Shella demanded to know. He could hear it in her voice. She was a stubborn girl, determined to know.
“Sigh…..” Grandfather Kiev breathes in deeply and turns around. He shakes his head because he knows the type of person Shella is. A curious person, always trying to figure things out. She was the worst person to keep secrets from. If she even got just one clue, she would ask and ask until someone said something to her.
Grandfather Kiev looked at her, deep into her eyes. He could see a fire burning within them. A rage that couldn’t be extinguished. She was waiting for his words patiently. She had this feeling in the pits of her stomach that he was going to tell her something important. It was obvious, she could tell. His body language gave it all away. She was good at reading people, seeing their emotions. “Very well. But I will tell you only enough, so that you can rest easy.” Shella nods in a serious way, wiping whatever tears she had left on her cheeks. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and took a deep breath to prepare herself.
“It’s all or nothing. Please. Whatever it is, my mind can handle it.”
“Your mind has gone through a lot today, child. I will say this… there will be moments in our lives that we must stand up rather than shrink down.” At that moment Shella thought about the words her father spoke. They were the same words. It popped in her mind the very moment her grandfather said it. “This is your moment to stand.”
“My moment?” Shella had no idea what her grandfather was talking about.
“Many moons ago, in my youth I was officially trained in combat.”
“Combat? Like a soldier? ….you can train me….” Shella whispers, but her grandfather could hear her clearly.
“Yes. A soldier. Slow down. Let me explain. You see, this is why I can’t tell you these things now. You’re already calculating things in your mind.” Grandfather Kiev coughed and cleared his throat before continuing. “There was a kingdom called Inibera. A man known as an Aleeyah warrior trained me in the arts of combat. He was an Aleeyah Master. Only masters are allowed to train. I learned a lot. I raised up the ranks over time. And eventually I became an Elite Aleeyah Master. In my travels away from the kingdom I found out the sad truth. I had learned that the Kingdom of Inibera fell to evil forces.”
“No… Evailos, right?”
“It’s…. it’s a bit more complicated than that. I can explain that much later. What’s important is that I can teach you everything I know. But it's for a much bigger purpose.”
“Wait, you’re telling me you had the power, the ability, to defeat Evailos’ Darkness warriors and you did not act?” Shella could not believe what she was hearing.
“That is not the point. I was seeing the bigger picture here. I am only one man. If I were to stand up at that point and attack, many more people would have been killed. I could not stop ALL of them. And if I was discovered, if they knew I was a surviving member of the Elite Aleeyah Masters, Evailos himself would have ended my life.” Shella kept processing it all in her head, everything he was saying. She kept calculating every word.
“Look. You keep saying that, ‘bigger things’, a much ‘bigger purpose’ and the ‘bigger picture’,” Shella shakes her head. “What does this all mean? …..” She thought about it but responded quickly. “If you are going to train me, that means, you think… You think I can defeat Evailos?” Her eyes then filled with hope and curiosity.
“There you go again. Calculating things in your head. I didn’t say anything about you fighting Evailos child…”
“Then what’s the point!? Huh? Why do I need to train? If it’s not for that purpose alone… then I do not want to know how to fight.” Shella looked at her grandfather deep into his eyes. He can see her sorrow. The struggles she is facing trying to come to terms, to accept that this is now her truth, her reality. Her little brother Corri and her father are now gone. “What’s the point of fighting if you cannot kill the source? He’s the reason why all this happened! More people are just going to suffer. As long as that monster is alive, no one is safe. No one.”
“You’re moving at a million miles a second Shella. This is the result of your pain. I do not hold it against you, that you are reacting this way. It is your nature. The person you are inside. I presented to you something important and immediately you wish to shoot it down, because it doesn’t fit the mold, it’s not what you envision. Then you might as well give up your eyesight as well, if that’s how you are going to view things.” Grandfather Kiev paused, giving Shella a moment to process his words. “This is the grand purpose for your training. I’m going to be direct with you now. Pay close attention my angel. You are to find the Chosen One and train him. What I teach you, is what the Chosen One needs to learn to destroy Evailos and his dark forces.”
“The Chosen One? You’re talking about those stories that the Wise Ones speak of, right? I don’t believe in any of those things. Those stories.”
“Those stories they tell, of the Chosen One, those are prophecies, child. I am to search for the Chosen One. But at my age, venturing out into the unknown is dangerous. If I am killed, then all hopes for anyone that wishes liberation from the forces of darkness will cease to exist.”
“Alright, let me process this. You want me …to find this Chosen person. Who knows who that will be…. And you….. You want me to train them on what you teach me? And hopefully… That will be the solution to stopping Evailos. Right?”
“Yes, my angel. I’ll explain to you more details later… For now, it is important you rest and prepare your mind for the days ahead. We are still recovering from all this. Every villager here has been affected.” Grandfather Kiev nods then looks at Shella. “However, just know this. I cannot force you to do something you do not wish to do. It is all up to you. Prophecy or not, it is your choice in the end.” As Grandfather Kiev turned around and was about to make his way past the doorway, Shella spoke one last time.
“You shouldn’t be out there anyways.”
“What was that? I could not hear you.”
Shella spoke up with a serious tone in her voice and looked directly into her grandfather’s eyes. “I said, you shouldn’t be out there, traveling, looking for someone. You could get hurt. And you’re the only one I have left, that's family.” Shella swallows hard, contemplating on things that haven’t even happened yet. She knew that the road ahead of her was going to be difficult. She would face an uphill struggle, filled with pain and internal self-doubt. “I cannot live with myself, knowing that you're out there and you could face danger along the way… I’ll do it. I’ll take your place. I’ll train and take the burden of finding this person. Even if I do not believe in these stories, I can at least try something. ANYTHING is better than doing nothing…. I WANT to see Evailos killed.” As soon as Shella finished speaking a single tear fell out of her eye and rolled down her cheek. Her lips trembled as she tightly grabbed the bed sheets with her hands. Her head was still throbbing from the headache. She tried her best to ignore it.
Grandfather Kiev could feel it. He could feel her burning anger, her guilt, her sorrow and pain. She was determined to train and do whatever was expected of her to stop Evailos and his Darkness warriors once and for all. “I’ll prepare some tea for you, my angel. I want you to sleep. Even if you cannot, at least try your best to rest.”
As Grandfather Kiev prepared Shella’s tea, he began meditating on Shella’s mind. “Her mind is probably all over the place at this point. I must give it to her. The stress she’s suddenly under would have completely caused anyone else to shut down, yet, with hope she’s determined already to do something about it. But I must keep an eye on her. There are things in her mind that scare me. The way she calculates and processes things, concerns me greatly. At one-point she's distraught and then the next she’s curious and confident. How can a person switch emotions so quickly?”
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