Even In Death

The thick fumes of black smoke coming from their burning village was carried by the wind to the forest. It was the only remnant left by the onslaught that had taken place on the other side of the barrier.

Nefaaya didn't know how long she had been screaming. But it was long enough to destroy her throat and blistered her fist as she slammed it in futility, hopelessly hoping for it to break.

The fire continued to rage inside, from time to time she could hear the sound of something exploding. She had to wonder where it was coming. And what she came up with was no good either. Renaeril approached her from behind and tried to drag her, but she refused to move.

Nefaaya stayed kneeling before the barrier, watching as the flames swirled inside.

"If we stay there," he started, crying as he spoke. "Your mother's sacrifice would be for nothing."

Nefaaya's fist stopped on the barrier. This time each of her senses became alive. The sounds become more vivid. She could even smell the smell of something roasting and taste it at the back of her mouth. A crackling sound snapped her back. It had come inside the raging inferno. Her mind kept thinking on the things that she shouldn't go... were those sounds coming from the woods as they burned or were they from the villagers as they burned to ashes?

Nefaaya turned and vomited once more, more fluid than the solid she had earlier.

"Nefaaya," Renaeril said, trying to be firm. "We have to go."

Once again her eyes watered, Nefaaya was filled with sadness, hatred and anger. Anger that was so strong that she felt herself suffocating. She would burn it, she told herself, burn it to her memory so she would never forget. *Even in death, even if the oceans had gone dry…* Nefaaya would never forget.

She wiped her tears repeatedly, hoping for it to stop.

"All the reasons had left me long ago... I am more attached to them than I can admit*, she thought.

Renaeril offered his hand but she couldn't accept it, no matter how much she wanted. She felt that all the power and will that she had managed to collect through the years had vanished, crushed and wiped like a mist.

At last, her friend caught her in her arms and dragged her as they headed towards the mouth of the forest. Nefaaya looked back once again, she wanted to remember it—the fire, the roasting smell, the crackling sounds of bones, Reina's disillusionment as life leaves her body and Nefri's smile. She needed to imprint it on her mind, as vivid as she can possibly do. So she would remember, so she could muster her resolve to continue — to make those who wronged her pay for what they did.

The tall trees thicken on either side of them, as the forest becomes dark and darker, her resolve also cowered. She wished what happened was a dream. No, she wished her whole life here was a dream.

"Why gave me a whole new life? When it would be taken to me again after eight years,* she thought as she glanced forward. This time more serious to strengthen her resolve.

"They would pay," she said in the silence of the forest.

"What?"

Nefaaya turned to Renaeri who's looking at her curiously, "all of them would pay. The people who do this to us... everyone of them."

She promised. She pulled her arms from him and started walking on her own. From time to time, the two had to skip from the big roots of trees that were blocking their way. Nefaaya hadn't been in this part of the village, but her father always had. He used to hunt rabbits here and animals that weren't in her world. Once he had brought what he had called Glistor. It was a flying animal, that instead of wings it had something comparable to a curtain. Her father tells her that the Glistor used it to glide in the air.

To show his point he had released the animal. The creature with skin similar to a cow raised its antennas and slowly flapped her sides. These curtain-like things surrounded her oval body and had pockets used for trapping air. Slowly the Glistor started gliding in the air, it was as if she had seen a flying cuttlefish.

Later her father cut it into cubes and cooked fried before he added it to his cream soup.

From afar, she saw a pond. Suddenly, she felt that thirst that she wasn't feeling earlier because of her anger.

"Renaeril," she called. "There's a pond over there. Let's stop for a drink."

*This must be the pond he was talking about where the Glistor lives.*

As they got closer, Nefaaya had indeed seen the Glistor living in the pond, gliding in the air. There are three of them, flying around the pond like how a butterfly would do on a flower.

Nefaaya leaned down and washed her hands before cupping it as she brought the water to her mouth. The cold drink had made her feel light. From behind, she felt Renaeril walking towards the direction of the pond.

He stopped, "what are those?"

"They're Glistor," she said. "Father used to cook them."

Once again the memory struck her with pain. And as she dwells deeper in pain, the more her mind keeps going back at the crying and smiling face of Nefri. Her mother smiling sadly almost in trance before she was engulfed by fire.

She wet her face and shook her head. *I have to see my father.*

She turned at him and saw him gulped, "cook?"

"What are you disgusted by?"

He didn't answer and instead sat beside her and started washing his hand.

"Mother once cooked a pie out of this purple fruit," he said. "I forgot the name but what's inside the pie and how it tastes scares me. I swear never to eat something that doesn't share a look in our world."

"How do they taste? The pie?"

"It was sweet. Sour. Spicy and there's a weird aftertaste."

She blinked at him. "You want to cook this thing? Like roast them perhaps."

He looked disgusted at the thought, but still he nodded.

"What're we going to do?" He asked as the two of them stared at their reflection projected in the pond.

Nefaaya stiffened, the two of them had ran inside this forest without a clear plan of what they would do afterwards. Only if her father was her-

She shook her head, it wasn't the time to think of him. She felt ashamed at the thought of wanting to see her father. After living at the safety of her house she had almost forgotten what she promised the day she realized she was reincarnated in this world—which is to learn in order to survive.

*In the last eight year, I've been engulfed in studying language in order to cipher the grimoire and learned about Pulling that I forgot to study the nature of the society in this world. I forgot to study the history and the tension surrounding the four continents.*

She remembered the days where she slack off and felt regretful about it. She stared at her reflection and sighed, "we wait and move back at the village... perhaps we might have seen a survivor."

A rustle of leaves from above. She closed her eyes and tried to feel the travel of the wind, but she sensed no wind around them.

She heard a squishing sound, she looked back and found the Glistor already swimming under the water as if something had frightened it.

*They don't respond like this to us,* she thought.

Nefaaya trembled as she felt the surge of the heading heading in their direction. She slashed her hands upwards, casting an oppressive barrier of wind that had pushed the approaching rock.

"What is it?" Renaeril asked.

Nefaaya enhanced his vision with a Chant. In this state, she saw the energy heading towards his direction. He grabbed Renaeril on her side and managed to dodge the oncoming fireball.

She raised her hands, and started Chanting a spell as she felt something more was heading to them.

"Winds that breath, winds that bring, pushed the mountains of eternal time!"

"Air Number One!"

A shield of wind appeared at her front, with this she had managed to deflect much of the fireballs heading for her. But since this Chant is unsteady, all it did to the fireball was throw it in another direction.

Explosions echoed in the area, smokes and dust flew in every direction as one by one the fireballs landed in the ground.

*Where are they?* She thought as she looked for the Glistor, then she saw it flapping beside the crater.

She was almost filled with happiness that they had managed to survive. But when the dust finally settled, she saw the horrible condition that Glistor had been to. The Glistor flapped its wings on the side of a giant crater.

As she watched the animal die before her eyes, anger surged inside her. She remembered it all, how her mother, Nefri smiled at her, how she cast something so big that she didn't usually do. She imagined it all, did she die like this? Did she suffer?

With anger, Nefaaya looked up and saw six people in the air, wearing a white robe with flapping trumpet sleeves, with golden embroidery.

Nefaaya raised her two hands and chanted a Wind spell. Red Spiris started appearing around her. The trees became restless, clashing at one another as the wind picked up. Above, the sky had gone dark as a hurricane slowly descended on the for.

With all the power she has, she commands the Wind, bending it to her will in order to gather more power.

The tornado ravaged the forest, moving fast, towards the six people in white. But they laughed at it. Perhaps they thought they could dodge it easily. Nefaaya once again commanded the wind.

The wind around the six started sucking them towards the tornado.

Nefaaya had learned that a Chantl can be broken as long as the caster can cast a more powerful one.

*So, I just need to put more power into it,* she thought as she put all her anger, hatred and sadness in the wind. As she put more power to the tornado, she noticed that the Red Spirits had become more restless around her.

She heard them shouting, but Nefaaya felt no pity on them. But instead it had angered more. How could they have the right to shout and plead for their life? For her, these people don't deserve to plead. They deserve to die silently in the most cruel way where they couldn't ask to be forgiven.

The tornado became more powerful. So powerful that she started to lose her own balance. Nefaaya increased the speed of the wind and as she did she shouted all her anger.

She continued to inflate the tornado until she felt tired, until the tears in her eyes had gone dry.