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Trist of a Tale pt.3

Part 3

By Michael GaydosPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
3
Trist of a Tale pt.3
Photo by Muhammad Haikal Sjukri on Unsplash

As we pack up my belongings onto the family horse, Stella continues to comfort my mother as a crowd starts to gather far away from the house, curious eyes gazing at us from windows nearby and from around corners of homes. I tie up my sleeping pack to the saddle of the horse, I can see Mother sobbing from my position and my mind wanders to what she told me while we were packing.

“You must never cross Stella alright sweetie.”

Her face looked frightened as she told me which stopped me from asking a follow-up question to that statement. She brought out a strip of cloth for me to wear over my eye so that I could have something protecting myself from people seeing it, Stella had a dark grey eyepatch for herself and she advised me not to take off the bandage unless I got her expressed permission.

We quickly hop onto our horses and make our way up and out of the sleepy village I had called home for all my life. Its landscapes and rooftops slowly drifting into the distance as we travel, I quickly pass the farthest point from home I had ever been and looked back to see the smokestack from Durn’s smithy churning out lazily floating plumes of black smog falling ever distant from us. I have so many questions to ask but Stella still hasn’t said a word all this time, after a few hours into our journey I had to break the silence.

“So, where are we heading Stella?”

I ask Stella who is riding just out of my arm’s length ahead of me.

“First to this brothel around half a day away, then after meeting with a friend of mine there, we will head eastward to Rhyverik for supplies and information.”

She replies to me with a flick of her wrist and the most laidback demeanor possible, not even looking at me. I quickly speed up my horse and once I catch up to her, begin to keep pace so I can begin asking,

“You’re taking me away from everything I know! Tell me I have some weird power tied to the fate of the world, and the first stop on our world-changing journey is the brothel in the next town over?”

She gives me a blank stare from where she sat riding on her horse steadily.

“Yes, and you’re welcome.”

She then proceeds to ride ahead of me to just out of my arm’s reach again and continues the new pace. I can feel myself burning up as my tolerance for what this girl had done to my life starts to reach a boiling point.

“Are you serious! I can’t believe how lax you are about the situation at hand!”

My body continues shaking uncontrollably and I have to grab my arm to try and stop the tremors of rage swelling through me. She turns slowly back to me while not slowing her horse’s gait.

“Is disbelief going to be a recurring trait you have to exhibit because if so, I can tell you right now that that is going to become old very, very quickly. And I am not the kind of person you want to push.”

As she finishes her last word I feel a pressure on my temples and then remember my Mother’s final warning for me and do my best to keep silent and calm down. The silence stays between us till my eyelids close for so long it becomes sleep while I am still in the saddle.

When I come to, my horse has been tied to a post outside a shabby-looking wooden building with a squeaky sign blowing in the breeze that indicates the building’s name, “The Dive Inn”. My sigh must have been audible throughout the whole town as I get off the horse ready to go try and find my traveling companion, the ever kind and friendly, Stella. As I walk into the decrepit-looking bar I feel a chill run down my spine as something wrong becomes very apparent to me concerning it, there is no one inside. The old bar lay bare with only a few broken bottles sitting on shelves, dirt and dust hang in the air as I search as well. My lungs force me to cough and I call out for Stella, only to be met with cold silence. As I continue my search upstairs the same styled scene displayed itself before me, empty rooms, dust, dirt, and not a soul in sight.

It is at this moment when I hear my horse whinny softly and bring myself to a room that overlooked the front of the establishment’s building and the main road. As I gaze past the balcony I can see a black shadowy figure brushing the mane of my horse with furry clawed hands. At that moment I feel my eye burn up a bit and instinctively grab at it, as I do that though I watch the figure do the same and immediately look up at me on the balcony. I cannot make out any facial features because of the shadows that seem to wreathe their body, coiling around him and obscuring his form. The only thing that pierces through is a large skinny yellow slitted eye and a similarly shaped violet one, both fixated solidly on me. Suddenly everything began to shake around my field of vision and I heard Stella call out to me.

“Trist wake up, we’re here.”

Link to Part 1 here.

Link to Part 2 here.

literature
3

About the Creator

Michael Gaydos

Just writing stories that speak to me and hopefully you find them interesting as well!

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