short story, story promptGina has always wanted to be ‘normal’. No one in the village likes her or trusts her, but it’s not because of anything she’s done to them. They believe she’s responsible for stopping the elements from returning to the world.


 

“Georgina, wait!” her mother commanded.

Gina spun on her heel to face the woman. “I have waited! I’ve waited for six years! Since I was eleven years old, I’ve waited, trusting that you knew best.”

Her mother’s outstretched hand dropped to her side. “Gina, I know this is hard for you, but-”

“Hard? Hard?” Her lip curled. “You have no idea what it’s like for me.”

Her mother sighed in exasperation. “You’re being overly dramatic. Your life hasn’t been that bad.”

“I get called a witch, no matter where I go. People whisper about locking me away. The other children were never allowed to play with me. That’s not just hard on a child. It’s hell.” She looked down at her feet, painful memories taking the fight out of her. “I just want a normal life, mother. Is that too much to ask for?”

Her mother drew her close and wrapped her in a hug. “Everyone defines normal as something different, Gina. You’re completely normal to me and I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”

Gina pulled back and rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. I want to be accepted by them.” She gestured vaguely in the direction of the village. “Or, if not accepted, at least not feared. I’ve never done anything to them.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

Gina toyed with the braid falling over her shoulder. Her dark, chestnut hair was streaked through with strands of vibrant forest-green. It was her natural hair colour and no matter how many times it was cut, the green always grew back, interwoven with the brown. It was one of the main reasons the villagers were afraid of her. When everyone else in the area had standard brown or black hair, any other shade was odd, especially something as rare as green.

In an attempt to be ‘normal’ when she was 14, she’d bought an expensive dye from a travelling merchant from one of the large cities to the east. For a day or two, the hair treatment had worked, but the green soon shone through vividly. She’d worn a scarf over her head since then, concealing as much of the offending colour as possible.

“Why, mother?” she whispered. “Why do they hate me so much? Why do they blame me for the drought and crop failures?”

earth element

Sadness crept into her mother’s eyes. She sighed. “Very well, Gina. You’ve waited long enough.” Pulling out a stool at the table in the middle of the room, she motioned for Gina to do the same. “Not long before you were born, bad omens were seen across the land. A creature that was ancient and powerful awoke and started causing havoc, destruction and death.”

“The Elemental Beast,” Gina murmured. Everyone knew the stories about the creature. People were still afraid it might return. There were even places that had still not recovered from the beast’s rampage. “The stories say that four powerful mages gave their lives to stop the beast.”

“Yes. What the stories don’t say is how. The mages had to take away the beast’s power supply in order to stop it.”

Gina frowned, thinking. “It was called the Elemental Beast for a reason, wasn’t it? Did it draw it’s energy from the elements?”

Her mother nodded. “That’s right. As you can imagine, getting rid of the elements is no small task and almost impossible to do. Somehow, those mages figured out a way to siphon off most of the elemental energy and store it. They couldn’t get rid of all of it, obviously – without the elements, people would die. However, they managed to store away enough energy to weaken the beast, allowing it to be attacked and finally defeated.”

“That was the day you were born. At the same moment when the mages were drawing the power of the elements from the land, you came into the world. Crops were dying, water was drying up, the air became thinner and even the fires dimmed and gave off less heat. People thought that the mages would restore the elements once the beast was defeated, but they died before they could.”

Her mother shrugged. “As people do, they wanted someone to blame. Pinning it on mages far away that had saved the world must have seemed to ungrateful. So they looked for someone else. They found you. Born on the day when everything went wrong, with striking green hair, you were the perfect target for their blame. To them, you had something to do with the fact that the elements didn’t come back and your unnatural appearance was proof.”

That’s why they hate me?” Gina asked. “They blame a baby for all that?”

“Yes.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why didn’t you tell me this before? Why all the secrecy about it?”

A tear slipped down her mother’s cheek. “Because it’s partly true. You are part of the reason why the elements have not returned to the world.”


Cliffhanger!!! 😉

Is this one of your favourite 500-word-story-starters? Click the heart to like it and it may become a fully-fledged story! –>  2

<– Day 62     #    Day 64 –>