Miracle Child
A roaring waterfall.
A stone bench.
A bright flash of lightning.
A woman’s distant scream.
A hand reaching out for me in the darkness.
A soft voice calling my name.
A drop of blood.
And a black rose.

These are the only things I can remember; bits and pieces from my forgotten past. That’s all I can see. That’s all I know. In fact, I don’t even know my real name. All I know are those small little fragments, and the broken stories that have been told to me by the villagers. My past is a mirror, fallen from a mantle and striking the ground, shattering into a million and two little pieces that are impossible to put back together again.

I’ve heard it told many times, by the men and women that I had neighbored for almost as long as I can remember. They say that I was a miracle child. They say that I was lucky to be alive. They say a woman, walking through a silent white forest, on a frostbitten winter day was the found me. Me, a baby wrapped up in a white blanket, my black hair pulled up by a white ribbon, stained red. Blood red. They say that the woman brought me back. They say that she left me on the doorstep of some peasant’s house. They say…

There’s too much to remember. All of the stories, all of the words… They swim through my mind each day, never giving me a moment’s peace.

The last six years of my life have gone by in a swirl of hard labor, solemn prayers, and many hopes placed upon me. I was the child who was going to save them. I was the child who was going to bring their slavery to an end. But how could I, when I had been raised as but a peasant myself?

For a long time, I didn’t understand why everyone ran to me when there was a problem, when they needed someone to talk to. Ordinarily, a child would go to adult in times of need. But everything in this town was backwards.

The adults suffered, and I was one of the only children around. And I was the only girl. For a long time, I believed that that was why they turned to me. Why they sobbed on my shoulder, why they told me of their worries, their darkest fears.

But, I suppose I’ve gotten a bit ahead of myself. I wish that I could give you a proper introduction, and tell you my real name. But all I know is ‘Miracle Child’. They’ve called me that forever. That, and Hope.

I was raised in a village that really, like me, had no real name. Some called the land ‘The Darkness’, but most of them just called it Hell . I didn’t blame them. We, as people, were peasants. Farmers, slaves, servants. We sacrificed our health, our youth daily. For our power-hungry king, Raiken.

He was an evil man, who enjoyed watching people hung in the central town of the square, and would come up with any excuse to order an execution. I’d been forced to attend every one of them.

It was horrible. To see them hung, to see their heads lopped off, to see them burned at the stake. No one was safe in The Darkness. It wasn’t uncommon for innocent women, and even children to be sentenced to death.

We lived in fear. And all we could do was work, work for our lives. Everyone complained, though they knew that nothing could be done about it. No. That was to be my job.

And I feared. And I worried. And sometimes, I wanted to lie down and give up. Sometimes, I wished I could cry. But I was the Miracle Child. If I gave up, then who would be left to carry on? Would everyone else just give up, and lose the will to fight for their lives?

These thoughts pressured me. I was a young girl, at the age of six, when I was told that I would be the one to save them, even if it cost me my life. I was terrified, but I knew that I mustn’t let the villagers see me fear. I had to be strong. For them. For it was my duty to protect them, and one day free them from this horrible place.

My greatest shock came when I was eight years old. The bells tolled in the distance, making us all wake up to another grey day. I was tired, and I wanted to stay on the straw pile that served as my bed. When I stayed asleep for too long, I remember a guard, roughly dragging me up by my hair, and throwing me in line with the other peasants. A bruise appeared almost instantly where the guard had grabbed me, on the arm. It stung, but I knew that if I cried, I was most likely to be killed too.

We all piled out of the small, musty warehouse that served  as our home, in single file. The crows squawked, and the hard dirt crunched beneath our bare feet. I shivered in my filthy dress. Made of rags, sewn together by hands that had grown strong from al the years of work, my small dress had only straps, and it cut off above my knees. I had almost outgrown the dirty thing.

The crowd gathered quickly around the central square, the guillotine standing on the raised platform, as cruel and foreboding as ever. We weren’t kept waiting long. Within minutes, a boy was dragged out. He was tall and lanky, and from the looks of it, he was only about fourteen..

I frowned as I stared into his eyes, and I had instantly been able to feel the pain, the sadness that was flowing through him. Due to years of watching these executions, I had learned to tell whether or not the victims were actually guilty. Most of time, they were innocent, and that was the case for this boy. His sandy brown hair was wild, unruly, and reached down to his shoulders. No one in the village ever cut their hair, as knives and such were forbidden to us peasants.

My gaze wandered, to the littered streets, to the iron, uninviting gate surrounding the castle, and then to the highest balcony of the castle, where the king stood. His own little boy, the same age as me, I’d heard, stood by his side, his expression blank, unreadable.

As if sensing my eyes on him, the king’s gaze turned to me, and our eyes met. The goose-bumps appeared instantly, and the hair on the back of my neck and arms stood up. I visibly shivered, as the man’s eyes stared into mine. Cold. Gray. The color of murky water.

I gulped and tried to avert my gaze, but my eyes were stuck. It wasn’t until, with a silent scoff, the king turned away, and I was free. By the time I looked towards the raised platform, the blade came down, and another life was cut short.

It was in that moment, that which our  eyes were connected in a long, hard stare, that I realized.

I had to stay alive.
I had to work hard.
I could never stop.
I would have to do as I was told, no matter what the circumstance.
And no matter what, I must never anger the king.

For if I died, everyone else would too.