The Darkness In Your Mind

I am walking down the road to take another look at the surroundings of the cave. A few moments after walking down the road I comes across someone really injured. It appears to be a little girl who looks like she is around 10 years old. She has a stab wound on her stomach its pretty deep but luckily hasnt hit any vital organs.

The girl is unconscious so I decide to take her back to the cave and treat her wounds. But before I pick the girl up I notice two other people a bit further up the road. It appears to be a man and

a woman they are both already dead and have stab wounds just like the girl did. After I am done investigating I pick up the girl and take her to the cave.

Once I get to the cave I bandage up the girl's wounds with some of the cloth I have. Then I decide I have to go get some medicine from a town otherwise the girl might not live. I make my way to a town and buy some medicine. On my way back to the cave I notice that some bandits are harassing an adventurer.

I beat up the bandits and they go running away, the adventurer thanks me and gives me 5 silver coins in return for saving him. he also asks for my name I tell the adventurer my name and he says his name which is "will". We then go our separate ways and I return to the cave. I enter the cave and sit down next to the girl but I make sure to cover my face first just in case.

The girl is still asleep but then she wakes up the moment I sit down. She tries to stand up but says "ow, that hurts!" I tell her "you shouldn't move right now because your wounds are pretty bad." I then give the girl a small healing potion since that's all I could afford in terms of medicine. I then say "I know its not much but it should be enough to stop the bleeding."

The girl says "thank you." then she has a moment of realization. She says with worry "where are my mommy and daddy?" I then remember that there was a man and woman that had died near her on the road. I know that I have to tell the girl what happened to them other wise I may feel guilty later for not telling the truth.

I ask her "what do they look like?" just to make sure that those were her parents. Sadly the description matched what I saw and I have to tell the girl about her parents. I say "I-Im sorry to say this but, I found them dead on the road a few steps away from you." the girl's face looks like she had just seen a ghost.

Seconds later she breaks out into tears and I say to her "whats your name?" she says "M-my name is Lucy." I respond "Lucy, that's a good name my name is brine im sorry about what happened to your parents." I then say "But you shouldn't keep crying because they would probably want you to stay tough and move on in a situation like this."

Lucy wipes her tears and I say "we should burry your parents once your able to move because it shouldn't take long thanks to the effects of the potion although you might feel a little pain when you move." Lucy agrees with a forced smile and we wait 10 minutes before trying to go outside to burry her parents.

After ten minutes Lucy is able to move but it does hurt a little just like I thought it would. so I help her a little being careful not to touch her too much. After all my skeleton hands might feel odd and expose what I am. Once we get outside we head to where Lucy's parents are and burry them. Then we pay our respects head back to the cave.

I ask her "Where do you live Lucy? That way I can take you home." Lucy frowns and says "I dont have a home, mine burned down recently." she then says "We were on our way to town in hopes of finding a job and somewhere to stay, but then the bandits attacked." I respond with "Do you have a relative you could stay with?"

Lucy shakes her head and says "Mom and dad were the only family I had." I know I cant just leave Lucy all alone so I decide that I should probably take her in. But I know that means I may eventually have to reveal what I really am. I decide I will figure out what to do when that time comes. I say "I am wiling to let you stay with me at my home if you want."

Lucy looks up with tears still in her eyes and says "really?" I then say "yeah I wouldn't mind having somebody else with me, I might get lonely anyway." She says "Thanks, when can we go? I realize that she doesnt know that we are already there. Its probably because it doesnt look like much

of a home.

I say "well, we are already here this cave is where I am living right now." I then say "I don't have anywhere else to go right now due to a certain reason are you okay with living here?" she responds "You live here?" To my suprise she then says "Okay I'm fine with living here." I say "Are you sure?" She says "Yeah, its not like i have anywhere else to go."

I respond "Alright then if that's what you want then its fine with me." I look at her clothes and notice that she has several cuts on them. I say "Alright we should get you some new clothes because those seem like they have seen better days." Lucy says "Thanks Mr.brine." I then say "Just call me brine." She corrects herself "Thanks brine."

I look into my pocket and see that the only money I have left are the 5 silver coins that I got from will. I take some of the cloth that I used to run out of the inn and put it over her for the time being.

I then ask Lucy if she is feeling alright enough to go into town with me. She responds "it still hurts a little to move but I should be fine."

I then say "Okay but if it starts to hurt too much let me know and I will carry you on my back." We make it into town alright without me having to carry her on my back sadly. I thought that would be a perfect moment to make my bond with her stronger. We look around for a shop that sells clothes in her size and eventually find one.

I end up buying her a purple dress she says "Thank you Brine I love it." we start making our way back to the cave after we exit the store. As we are walking down the town road we end up being spotted by the bandits once again, but this time they have more people. There are 7 bandits and they walk up to me and Lucy casually and ask us to come into the ally around the corner.

I agree and we follow them into the ally. I am worried about what they might do if I doesnt listen since they may try to hurt Lucy. Once we are at the end of the ally one of the bandits say "I thought we killed this young lady, we cant have anyone selling us out aint that right boys." The badits all laugh and then say "yeah".

The bandit that was talking then takes out a knife and puts it infront of my "neck". he then says "give me everything valuable that you got on ya." I respond "alright but let lucy go." The bandit says "nah pal, she aint getting away were going to kill here right here infront of you." he then says"after we're done with her we're going to kill you."

He then says "you gave us a beating earlier and saw what we're doing here we cant let you leave alive." I say "trust me you dont want to do this" I then say "your better off walking away now while you still can." The bandits arent very happy with that and the one holding the knife to my neck says "Bastard what did you just say to me."

he also says "alright guys thats it grab the girl and kill her in front of this bastard." I then say "Well I gave you a chance to walk away in one piece, but I guess you dont want too." I then grab the bandit's arm and twist it so hard that I hear a crack. The bandit falls backwards and screams out in pain while clutching his arm "AHHH OH F.U.C.K MY ARM, YOU BROKE MY ARM!"

One of the other bandits say "You Bastard!" All the bandits then take out weapons and run at me one by one. They all take a swing but to no avail since I end up dodging them. I then cast shadow bullets at the enemies running toward me. they hit each of them except for one since I could only cast 5 bullets.

I manage to take out the last enemy with one of the weapons on the ground. I then turn around to lucy and start to say "Are you okay?" But before I could finish my sentence *slice* the bandit with the arm that I twisted managed to get back up behind me. He slashed the back of my head with a knife in his other arm.

the cloth that I was using to cover my face then falls to the ground and I slowly turn around and say "YOU SHOULDNT HAVE DONE THAT!" I then start to chant because now I definitely cant let the bandit get away. Now he has seen my face and not only that but the bandit also caused Lucy

to see my face as well.

I cast shadow engulfment because the ally is too big for the giant hand of the third spell that I have. The bandit then tries to run away in fear but his attempt was futile. The giant head catches up to him and devours him whole. I then turn around and look at Lucy her eyes are widened in surprise and a bit of fear.

I then take a step toward her and say "Its alright im not going to hurt you, I promise I wont do that." I then say "I only hurt people who do bad things like those bandits." Lucy calms down and says "those were the people who hurt my parents weren't they?" I nod and say "Most likely, I saw them on the road earlier not long after I left to get medicine for you."

Lucy then bursts into Tears and I walk up to her. I hug her and then say "Its alright they cant hurt people anymore and your parents have been avenged." I then take Lucy back to the cave but first I get a hood off of one of the bandits. I then put it on my head to hide my face once again. when we arive at the cave Lucy asks me why a skeleton like me is being nice to her.

I say "I actually used to be human but then something happened and I became a skeleton. " I then say "I don't know if I can become human again because my actual flesh and organs literally disintegrated/disappeared." Lucy says "oh is that why you have to stay in this cave." she than says "Is it because you are no longer human and don't want to scare everybody."

I say "yeah that's right, that's why I hide my face but its hard to do that with cloth since it falls off so easily and can be cut easily too." Lucy then says "I know to make mask's because my father taught me how, I can make you one if I want but I'm going to need some wood." I respond "That would be great, I will go get some wood tomorrow."

I then say "For now you should go to sleep, your body needs to get some rest now otherwise it wont heal fast." Lucy says "alright i'll go to sleep then." she then drifts off to sleep on a little bed I made out of some cloth and leaves. I then go and sit on a rock to monitor the cave for the rest of the night and make sure nothing bad happens.

After all this is the only place I can stay right now. I cant risk living in a town since it might expose

what I am so I have decided that I should protect the cave.