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°⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧ Gem ⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧°
The day the watchers killed Gem’s parents, herself hiding just out of sight, her eyes were dry — she could only stare at their blood spilling on to the cobblestone, feeling nothing at all, because feeling meant breaking, and breaking meant they’d already won.
Her parents had been trying to help Gem escape the city, almost reaching the border of the most rural district of the city. She only had a small pack, filled with some clothes and snacks, not wanting to draw any extra eyes. They were only planning on stopping in briefly before crossing the border. From there it was another hike, but at least they’d be further away from the watchers.
They hadn’t made it that far.
As the houses had thinned, marking the boundary to the city, they had become more obvious, heading the opposite way from the other civilians. The workers had kept their mouth shut, but the suspicion in their eyes spoke louder then words. They were out of place.
They had reached the border, but as Gem’s parents had tried to move through, they screamed as marks rose to the surface of their skin. Hundreds of tiny angry red burns in the shape of symbols Gem had never seen circled their skin and arms. Gem had only begun to move through and so had only felt the sharp sting of burns on her ankle. It formed a sort of bracelet, which might have been pretty if Gem didn’t understand what it meant. They couldn’t leave. There was some form of twisted magic keeping them here. They were trapped like birds in a cage, able to fit through the bars, but wings clipped to prevent them from flying away.
Even if they could manage to push past the blinding pain, they would simply be turned in at the next town over. The red marks on her parents arm were clearly enchanted to serve as some sort of signal. Even Gem understood that at twelve, the waves of magic rolling off a warning. Other kingdoms would not want to ignite the watchers ire unnecessarily. Her parents scared whispers cemented their fate. They were stuck.
She glanced to her ankle once again, the area beginning to swell up slightly. The letters had become slightly clearer.
T∷ᔑ╎ℸ ̣ 𝙹∷ ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ ∴ᔑℸ ̣ ᓵ⍑ᒷ∷ᓭ ⍑𝙹ꖎ|| ᔑリ↸ ᔑꖎᒲ╎⊣⍑ℸ ̣ || ᒷᒲ!¡╎∷ᒷ T∷ᔑ╎ℸ ̣ 𝙹∷ ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ ∴ᔑ -
It didn’t mean she had any clue what they said, but the warning was clear. This was a permanent mark meant to show something. And it wasn’t good.
Her parents began speaking quietly in hushed tones, trying to get away from the border. Her mom was trying to pull down her sleeves and her dad was pulling his socks up. Gem copied him, hiding her own marks, and following them to try and hear what they were saying.
“– Gem might not be safe with us.”
“– supposed to mark traitors. If we go back-”
“- everything’s gone wrong but we need to get out of here -”
The urgency in their steps increased, and Gem could see her mum’s marks still. Her dad moved to cover them up with a hug, and just as they rounded the corner a purple suited guard accosted them. Gem’s dad shoved her out of sight, and she understood the notion to stay hidden.
“What are you doing here?” The guard demanded, suspiciously glancing over them.
“We were just heading back to the house because we forget our registrations sir.” Her father stated as calmly as he could. Before he could react, the guard had grabbed him. Gem stifled a gasp, as he was pulled away from her mother, revealing her red marks around her collarbone. His eyes narrowed at the symbols, having clearly seen them before.
His mother tried to lunge towards the guard, but another appeared from behind the wall the officer had been observing from. Gem began to shuffle away as quietly as she could, as the two officers began to mumble something into their watches. She cast anything she could around herself with her minimal enchantment. She was only 12, and her abilities were limited, but her parents had taught her some illusions and wards for their escape.
She remembered everything she could and threw every ounce of magic she had into hiding herself. Gem flattened herself against the wall, and began to slip away, averting her vision from her parents being captured.
She turned around when she heard a blood curdling scream from her mother. Two watchers had arrived. Gem had never felt anything like their presence before. It was as if the night itself had fallen upon them, an embodiment of it’s darkness suffocating her existence.
It was all she could do to watch as one of the watchers produced a thin silver knife and stabbed it through her mother heart. Gem couldn’t help but admire the knife’s beauty, before her brain comprehended her reality.
Her mother was dead.
Blood, so much blood poured out of her.
Gem had heard that their was far more blood in the human body then people expected but she had never imagined this. It flowed out like a waterfall, though far thicker and more vibrant. The cobblestones trapped the blood into small canals, the life force leaving red streaks in the streets.
Her father watched in the same dumbfounded horror as Gem, though with the grim reality of knowing he was next. The watcher pulled the knife from her mothers still body, letting her drop to the ground, unblinking, in a puddle of her own death. Even afterwards, the watchers would not grant her an ounce of dignity or decency.
That same knife that took her mother was plunged into her fathers flailing body, a final act of resistance. Gem still didn’t tear her eyes away from the last of her parents. Blood continued to flow through the streets, renewed with a new body given. Once again, her father was dropped and desecrated, her parents together again in death, their bodies side by side.
They stared up into the sky, their hands almost touching. The scene was one of immense sadness, the street filled with the weight of murder.
Yet Gem’s eyes were dry, her hands steady, her breathing normal. She couldn’t react to the violence she just witnessed,
She couldn’t break. She couldn’t let the watchers win.
If there was one thing Gem knew her parents would want, it was for her to live. So that’s what she’d do, even if she didn’t have them anymore. She couldn’t let their sacrifice go to waste.
She couldn’t escape the watchers, but she could surely do something.
She stayed quiet in the alleyway, still unmoving in the face of horror, not even sure if she was in control of her body anymore. Then the other watcher began to talk, and Gem listened in for anything important.
“Filthy traitors,” A female voice spat, and she wished she could slap her, “trying to escape the city.”
“There was another.” The other spoke, male this time, “Our visions showed three. The child has been warded.”
“Her parents are dead sir. Surely their petty spells have dissolved?” The watcher narrowed his eyes at the officer who dared to question him.
“The child can’t ward herself, so clearly her parents had contingencies in place. Otherwise, we would be able to find and kill her as well.”
The watchers could find them? Her wards worked? Gem’s mind was filled with so many questions and thoughts she wasn’t sure where to begin. If the watchers could see everything though, she would have to hide herself. Surely if they couldn’t see her mark, they wouldn’t recognise her?
There were so many citizens of Heremita, they couldn’t possibly locate everyone?
“Go find her.” The watcher ordered darkly, “We’ll lose the access to the ley-line to track her specifically soon, once she becomes irrelevant.”
So Gem just needed to survive a little longer and she’d be safe?
She could do that. She just needed to keep the enchantment strong. Gem breathed carefully, focusing on the thin veil that concealed her, continuing to thrust energy towards it, seeing it’s shimmer shining a stronger purple only visible to her.
The watchers and officer scattered, one of them heading straight for her. She moved slightly to duck behind a garbage bin, huddling down. Thank the stars she was so small still, even for her age.
The officer brushed past her, not scanning behind the garbage bin a second glance. He did open it and check inside briefly, before slamming it shut and continuing the scan the alley. As he turned onto a side street, Gem slumped slightly against the wall. That had been so close.
She didn’t dare to move for what felt like hours, the colour of the alley changing with the position of the sun. Gem sat alone, the scent of iron in the street reminding her of everything she had lost, and everything she could still lose.
Finally, as birds began to squawk, and the alley’s darkness thickened, Gem squeezed out from behind her hiding place. She carefully shuffled over to where her parents had been stabbed, their bodies left to decompose on the cobblestones.
The blood have grown to a lake, the red of life from before drying into a dead muddy brown. Gem kneeled down at their deathbed and finally cried.
Tears fell from her face like blood had flown from her parents hearts, fast and unstoppable. Her vision clouded, and her head thumped. Her subconscious was blaring with sirens, and she knew she couldn’t stay long. But while she could, she mourned her parents, everything she had lost. Those hours hiding hadn’t allowed her to truly process anything.
She was drowning in grief, barely breathing in air. Her throat was hoarse and her heart was beating out of her chest. A salty taste coasted her mouth and sense of smell, a small reprieve from the iron tang in the air that was a suffocating reminder of her parents death.
Gem was truly and absolutely alone in a world that wanted her dead.
A survival instinct began to kick in, and Gem’s overwhelming grief began to clear slightly. She needed to move.
Thoughts began racing through her head, a cacophony screaming at her to do something.
She needed to run.
She needed to hide.
She needed to fight.
Her body kicked into action, and she stood on her shaky legs, running from the alleyway. The final mental tether between herself and her parents snapped as she fled for her survival, only the backpack she had prepared earlier with her. She couldn’t spend her days simply surviving. She would avenge her parents.
And she knew just where to begin.
The watchers had torn her parents from her, and in return, she would tear their children from them. Whether she was able to kill the God-like beings was questionable, but she could get her revenge.
Her parents weren’t dead for nothing.
Gem was alive and she was angry.
Revenge could tear a person out from the outside, rage leaving a person boiling from within. But it was also explosive and would destroy everything in its path.
Nothing could stop Gem’s anger, and nothing could stop her from killing the watchers.
Gem walked, and walked, the night sky above her. She would wonder in the future whether something, someone, greater then her, greater then the watchers had looked down and hidden her. There were few explanations for the way she managed to hide, even consumed in a fire of grief and anger and loss, a fire no twelve-year-old should have had to face alone.
But either way, she made it underground. She his in the darkest corner of the southern city, sheltered by the hundreds of other tortured souls around her. She couldn’t sleep in the night, the darkness of the day lingering over her like a storm cloud. The cobblestone was rough underneath her, and she felt so exposed alone in the alleyway.
Eventually, the sun was reborn over the horizon once again, and trickles of light scattered the alley she had chosen to take refuge in. Gem stood, with the few belongings her parents had forced her to carry. She walked away from her temporary bed, the rough surface that had scratched her as the moon made her journey through the sky. Gem walked towards the centre of the city, out of the path of the building that had blocked the sun as it rose over the earth.
Gem stepped into the light and life began again.
Nothing was the same in the city that watched over her, and yet nothing had changed.