Demon of my past.

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“Run!”, I heard him scream, holding on to my little sister I had run across the forest, and my tiny feet echoes through the silent night. The moon was lost in the sky leaving the star with its dull light to guide my path to safety.

I ran so fast and never looked back as I was scared to, but a tiny voice in my head pleaded I do and when I did, it was to see the fire that had turned his once glowing skin to ashes.

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I staggered at the scene and turned to run but a twig caught my legs and brought me down to a stupor as I tumbled towards an unknown destination, holding my baby sister tightly I closed my eyes to the awaiting doom but I was saved by a gravestone which held me, acting as a cover as I saw the fiery one-eyed demon flew with its fangs dripping fire as it flew towards the sky.

A loud sound was heard and I opened my eyes, standing with my knees bent and my hands forward in a curvy way on attack mode only to calm at the scenery before me, I relaxed my tense frame and walked toward the door where the sound could be heard, opening the door was my little sister Tracy who was ready to put a hole in the door.

Glaring at me, she walked into my room with a frown too old for a fifteen years old to be wearing, I stood straight and scratched the back of my head as I knew why she had frowned at me.

After the incident that occurred 14 years back, Tracy had grown so fast that she had become my mom, she had taken on responsibility too heavy for her little self and missed out on childhood fun which reminded me of my failure in raising her to be her happy self. Though a little part of me was there reminding me there was nothing a 6-year-old could do to train a baby but I…

“You had a dream again?” she spoke up breaking my chain of thought.

I nodded in affirmation and saw her eyes soften as she stared at the rumpled bed that I had woken up from.

“I am sorry I didn’t eat last night, I was exhausted after training” I spoke out with a pleading tone but her eyes grew worried, taking off the existence of the glare she brought in.

“You train so hard and eat little, you know it is all over now and you can relax, it is gone and will never come back, you killed it," she said, her eyes pleading for me to let go, reminding me of my heroic day.

But my demeanor changed as my stance became rigid as I recalled the memories of the past, the cruel memory of the night that never left me.

Tracy was eight months old when our mother died and it was the tradition that every dead be buried on the outskirts of the village which prompted mum's burial there.

It was Tracy's one-year birthday when father woke us up and took us to mother’s grave to show her how grown her daughter was. But we never knew the night would become such a cruel one as a fiery one-eyed monster had attacked us on our way back to the village. It was a fiery beast with a fang and I had watched it burn my father's skin to ashes. I had run away from the scene but the memory it brought never did.

Mrs. Thompson our next-door neighbor had taken us in after the incident as she had seen the beast take my father too as she had gone to visit her dead son too. But 5 years later she died of a natural cause leaving me alone with my sister to cater.

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I had trained day and night after the incident and I was glad when the beast showed its ugly face 2 years later as I had it hunted and killed with other villagers which brought in triumphant music but my heart still felt heavy as killing it never brought back my father.

I continued training after that as the demon may have been killed but the memory it brought in never left me. I felt a hot liquid burn my eyes and I sniffed.

A tiny hand wrapped around me and I sighed deeply, hugging her in a tight embrace as I kissed her forehead.

“Yes I know I have to let go, but I have to fully heal from the burning memory it left to do that.”