Daughter of a Curse

Sun, shining brightly through my eyelids. The warmth, caressing my face and warming my entire body. The previous night was so cold and bitter. I woke up many times because some part of my body was exposed and was starting to freeze. The tent’s opening was unzipped and wide open. The sunlight seeped through the opening and gave me a wonderful good-morning.

I stretched my arms way above my head, slightly touching the top of the tent. I decided that it would be a good time to arise, since Calissa had already made the decision to do so. I pulled my feet out of the sleeping bag and crawled out of the tent. The sun was so bright that it blinded me for a few seconds. Once my eyes adjusted, I looked around to see who was up. Only a few of the campers have awakened, including me, Calissa, Bodhi, and the passenger-seat-girl.

Calissa was talking to Bodhi on a picnic bench, while snacking on slices of watermelon someone brought. I slowly walked over where they were both sitting. Since I was tired, my footsteps were loud because my legs weren’t fully coordinated with my brain yet.

I was almost where Calissa was sitting, the side of the bench that was farthest from me, when Bodhi accidently spit a watermelon seed at my face. I didn’t know what it was because all I felt was something hard and wet hitting me right in between my eyes.

They must’ve noticed I was there after I got hit with a seed because they both started to laugh hysterically. I wiped my face off with a paper napkin that was at the end of the table.

“Sorry sweetheart, I didn’t see you there,” he said while still laughing. To be honest, I think he probably did see me there and thought it would be funny to spit a seed at me. Every footstep was loud enough for them both to hear me coming.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, signifying that I didn’t believe him. I sat down next to Callie and grabbed the thickest slice of watermelon. I took a big bite so I got a seed in it. I swallowed the rest off the melon and tried to not damage the seed. Once the seed was the only thing in my mouth, I aimed it so it would hit him in the same spot he hit me at. Once it was centered, I spit, and it right on target.

“Hey, what was that for,” Bodhi complained. He was rubbing where the seed hit since it must’ve hurt.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t see you there,” I said, mimicking his words. Callie just laughed like she was at a comedy show, while I was just smiling, somewhat proud of myself.

After a few minutes of eating, I went to change into my clothes for the day. I put on a pair of longish shorts that went a little past mid thigh that were a dark blue. I had a green tank top on that was very soft and cozy. I had the same sneakers on as yesterday, even though they were super muddy.

Callie had a very light, blouse on that was a light pink and had buttons in the front. She had short, shorts on that were a super light blue. She had a bright pink pair of flats on as well. She looked like she has never been camping before and doesn’t know what to wear. She also had light make up on. Black mascara, light pink eye shadow that went up to her eyebrow and a soft pink lip-gloss. When she came out, I stared at her like she was a tiny green elephant with purple polka dots.

“What?” She asked in a high-pitched voice. “Is this top to casual?” I knew that if I told her it was way to fancy for camping, she would get mad at me and start accusing me of ‘having no style’.

“It looks fine,” I told her.

Callie’s gaze wasn’t towards me, but off past my shoulder. Her face was filled with shock and confusion. I turned my head around to see what she was looking at. What I saw wasn’t anything shocking or out of place, it was just a small trail of smoke off in the distance. Since it wasn’t very large, it obviously wasn’t a forest fire. It was just other campers that were near us.

“What’s wrong with a campfire?” I asked. But, somewhere in her face signified that it wasn’t a campfire.

“No, people don’t camp here. No one has camped here for years. We are the only ones that come here,” she said. She sounded very dramatic. ‘Well, if we’re here, why can’t other people come?’ I asked myself.

Suddenly, the ground seemed to shake. But, it wasn’t like an earthquake when the ground continuously shakes, and shakes, and moves. No, this was different. The earth below us thumped at even intervals. Thump, thump, thump. I noticed something else though, the smoke moved. Before, it was about a few hundred feet away. Now, it’s about twenty yards. A few people came running out of the trees, moving in the opposite direction as the smoke. This wasn’t any earthquake, this was something alive, and it was huge.

I ran to our pink tent and grabbed both of our bags. ‘I might need something in it, or maybe we might have to run...’ I thought to myself. I ran so quickly to Callie that I tripped on my own feet. As I was on the ground, I looked up and saw a horrifying sight.

The thing emerged from the forest with a loud thud. As it came out, it looked up and down, left and right, and straight ahead, all at the same time. No, it did not have super speed or eyes all over its body. This beast had seven or eight heads, each moving in separate directions. Every head seemed to have a mind of its own. But, at some moments, every head seemed to work together as if they were one.

The heads were all similar to the shape of a cut diamond. The body looked like a dragon’s that you would see the movies, with thick, scaly skin that was a greenish-brownish color. It had a long, thick tail that dragged along behind the large body. It had four legs, each of them were long and thick. Every neck was very similar in length, very long. The dragon-like beast looked terrifying and deadly.

“Ahhhhh! Monster! Everyone, run for your lives!!” someone screamed. After that, almost everyone started to run around franticly. I was surprised that they ran after someone told them to, not the moment after they saw a giant monster that looks like it wants to eat you for lunch.

As people ran around and screamed their lungs out, the massive beast used all every head to lock onto a target. Once it found a suitable one, one of the heads opened its mouth wide open and released a liquid from its mouth.

As the liquid landed on the person, it slowly melted all of his skin and bones until he was just gone. I could see the flesh that was usually covered by skin. So I wouldn’t vomit, I turned my head away from the sight of the inside of someone I barely knew. Not that knowing them would’ve made a difference in the grossness factor. I realized the monster good spit out an acid that could melt what it touched.

Suddenly, my legs felt like twigs and I felt like I was going to fall. The combination of the disturbing sight of someone melting and the horrifying, fairytale monster attacking us made me weak. Luckily, I was still on the ground; otherwise, I would’ve fallen and hurt my self.

“Rosie! We have to go now!” I voice said from behind me. I felt a hand lift me up by the arm and pull me in the opposite direction as the monster. I looked to see who it was and it was Calissa and Brian. We ran for a few minutes until we were at the brim of the forest.

“Wait,” I said. I stopped in my tracks and waited for them to stop too.

“Ambrosia, why did you stop? We need to find help, like, now,” Calissa said anxiously. If it was just us, I would’ve most likely agreed with her, but since there are other people that have no clue what’s going on, not that we have an idea, I feel bad just leaving them.

“Those people,” I said. “We have to help them,” I said with concern in my voice. I looked to Cal who had a face of agreement and fear. She turned her head toward Brian who had a look that said are-you-kidding-me.

“You can do whatever you want, but we are going to live past today, come on babe,” Brian said as we pulled Cal away by the arm. Cal tugged her arm back and stood her ground. I was actually surprised, she was doing the right thing and not trying to do everything she can to be with Brian.

“Really, you’re going to fight a giant, murderous monster? Ha, with what, your shoes?” He said sarcastically before he crossed his arms.

I put the bags that I brought from the tent out in front of us. I searched through my bag for something that might be somewhat deadly. I remembered the scissors that I cut myself on, and I also found the kitchen knife that I packed. I grabbed the lighter and the hairspray, just incase we need some inferno to light the place up.

Callie searched through her bag as well, found nothing but tweezers and a pink nail filer, very dangerous. I shook my head in disappointment because I though she would have something that could help her in a dangerous situation. I decided to give her my scissors because I didn’t want her to be defenseless yet, I didn’t trust her with fire or a knife. I looked to Brian to see if he had anything. He pulled a small pocketknife out of his pocket and showed it to me.

“Really, that’s it? A shoe could do more damage than that could,” I mocked. He just glared at me and started to walk out of the trees.

“Wait, what’s our plan? Are we just going to go out there and hope to live while everyone else runs away? What’s going to happen after that? Wait to die?” She asked worriedly. I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t think that far ahead. I was just planning on winging it, deciding as I go.

“I don’t know,” I simply said. Calissa just rolled her eyes and walked up to Brian and kissed him on the cheek.

“Let’s do this,” she said as she snipped her scissors. We all ran out of the forest into the field, filled with scared people and a beastly creature. At this next moment, I realized how idiotic really Brian was.

As we ran out of the thick forest, me and Calissa stopped after a few seconds. But, the strangest thing was, Brian kept on running and screaming towards the awful monster. He ran, closer and closer to it until he was right in front of one of its legs. He readied his little pocketknife and made a gash in the monster’s leg. The gash drew barely any blood, but the beast noticed anyways.

The massive creature used every heads to bend down and look at Brian. Brian didn’t realized what a big mistake he just made. It opened one of its mouths and reached for him. It grabbed him by it shirt, while ripping a lot of it, and threw him up in the air. He was airborne for a few seconds before he landed inside one of its mouths. It gobbled him up whole.

Calissa gasped and fell to her knees and I wasn’t very happy either. Yes, I didn’t like him, but no, I did not want him to die. No one really deserves to die, unless they are very cruel. I bent down next to her and comforted her for a few seconds. She stood straight up, with her makeup all smeared, and held her scissors up high.

“Let’s do this for Brian,” she exclaimed. I was surprised; I didn’t expect her to be the one who fought for someone. I always imagined her to be the girl that an entire army of people would fight for. This is a very strange day for me. I thought.

The monster released a loud roar-like sound and it switched its gaze towards us. It took steps in our direction that shook the earth beneath our feet. One step at a time, it got closer and closer, one step at a time. I was in too much shock to move so I just stood there, like a rock. I noticed that Calissa started to take a few steps back, trying to hide in the woods, but that didn’t help at all, that made it worse. The thing locked on to her and followed her.

Calissa backed up into a tree and must’ve been too afraid to turn around and walk away from the tree. The monster slowly worked its way over to her, closer and closer and closer. I knew there was something I had to do to help her. I almost forgot about the weapons I brought with me. I slowly reached for the knife I brought, trying to not have him notice me, but I remembered what happened to Brian and decided not to. I moved my hand over to get the hairspray and the lighter. Maybe I could burn the thing. I thought to myself.

The monster was now right in front of Calissa. One of the heads moved in closer and opened its mouth. Before it could spit out any acid, Calissa snipped her scissors and cut the monster’s tongue. It released an ear-piercing shriek that was painful to listen to. I knew that now was my chance.

I got the hairspray out and opened up the lighter. I ran over the Calissa and the monster and prepared to burn it. I held out the lighter with the spray right behind it and pressed the button to light it up, but nothing happened. I tried it again and got the same outcome. The thing noticed me and now, I was its target. I backed up while trying to get it to work. It got closer and closer to me and soon enough, it would be spraying distance from me.

It was almost far enough away to soak me in the flesh-melting acid. It started to slowly open its mouth up to spit but just in time; the lighter released a warm flame. I positioned the hairspray just behind the lighter and pressed the top button. A large flame shot out as if I was holding a flamethrower. Soon enough, two of the heads were burning up while another’s mouth was bleeding since its tongue was cut, thanks to Callie.

Just in the distance, I could see a figure. The top of it and the bottom seemed to be shining in the sunlight. I realized it was the deer that I had met earlier. I got a feeling that it wanted me to follow it, so I did. I dashed over to Callie, with my backpack over my shoulders, and grabbed her arm. I forced her to follow be as we ran to the other side of the field. We were close enough to the deer to see his full body. He tilted his head, signaling for us to come.

He ran off into a small opening in the outline of trees. Now, Cal knew to follow me and I didn’t have to hold her hand as we ran. I followed the deer, while stumbling a few times, and she followed me. After some time of running, me and Callie stopped from exhaustion. The bronze deer noticed and came back to wait for us.

“Where are we going Ambrosia?” She said while still panting. I saw that the deer was directly behind me so I stepped to the left, revealing the beautiful creature. Calissa gasped at the sight of him.

“Is this the deer you saw yesterday while we were walking?” She asked with a bit of amazement in her voice. Now that we were alone, I trusted her to not tell anyone. The deer walked ahead of us, in the direction that we were running in before, and motioned us to keep going. Suddenly, we heard a thud, thud, as the ground shook below us. The monster was still following us.

“Come on Calissa! We have to keep moving,” I yelled to her as I began to run again. She followed behind me immediately. I looked behind me to see that it was on our tail; it had made it a goal to kill us. We sped up our pace, which meant more stumbling and tripping, but we kept on going. In the distance, I saw what looked like a farm of some sort. There was a very big blue building that had a few other structures near it. There was a field that had many red dots everywhere; I couldn’t make out exactly what they were. As we got closer the dots formed little fruits that were called strawberries. I now knew what we were running to. This deer was very smart, but if it though a regular farm could withstand a giant beast, this deer needed a lesson.

We slowly made our way to the farm-like place. I realized that we were running up. Not directly up into the sky, but gradually up a hill. At the top of the hill, I noticed a single pine tree. I could’ve sworn I saw something glistening in the branches. The deer, me and Cal made out way to the tree, and once we passed it, he stopped. He must’ve thought there was a special border that the monster couldn’t cross or something.

“Why did we stop?” Asked Calissa. “We need to keep moving, like, now!” I didn’t listen to her because I was watching the monster come closer to us. 100 yards, 50, 30, 10, until he was almost at the tree. I was confused, why the deer running away, until something weird happened. Once it got to the tree, it slammed into what seemed like a barrier. It flung him back a good distance and he landed on the ground. It got up and shook off as if he was removing dirt or the pain. It walked away, realizing he has lost.

The deer turned around to look at us. I walked up to him to praise him for helping us. As soon as I took a step, my knees bent and I was on the ground. I understood why I collapsed on the ground. One of the reasons why was because my legs felt like rubber from running so much. Another reason why was because I was in shock for to many reasons to count. The last thing I remembered was getting a mouth full of dry dirt and my face fell onto the earth’s surface.