Chapter 1: Kidnapped
Bright blue eyes swell at a mother’s face, whose fingers grip it tightly around the waist, hoisting and stooping up and down, taking a twirl all around. The room whirls around them in a blur, the young elf’s eyes stay fixated on her mother’s face. Loose lips expose a giggling smile as squeaks and hiccups come out of the small elven child.
The moon smiles down from high above. Tips of trees cower below it. They surround different huts and small houses, held tightly together with the surrounding clumpy patches. Many windows are still shining bright. Some are going dark now, as it gets deeper into the night. Shadows fade into darkness, but the moon’s glow presses out more and they lurk forward. Some of the dark shapes are large some are small. A few are tall and mammal like, with jagged edges and sharp horn shapes. They creep ever closer to the elven village. Now almost all the windows are dark, just the one window has yet to go out. The moon still smiles and then a twig snaps deep below. The elven mother flings open the hatch of the window and peeks her head out. A guard’s head turns, his hand extends to a tree and towards an owl that is flapping its way back to the top. The guard smiles and his blue eyes glisten in the moonlight. He turns about face then continues to patrol his scheduled way.
The elven mother lays the child into bed. With her fingertips only seconds from releasing the child, glass shatters from the window nicking her neck. It is followed closely by a jagged dagger, which crosses it. As her body slumps to the floor, her eyes widen and her hands try to close the wound. A troll with a dagger and a large sack looms above with his dim green eyes staying steadfast, not blinking or wavering. He grips his weapon until his knuckles are white and then continues to bloody its edge, slice by slice. The tiny elf shrieks from its bed and then the sound of far and near screams can be heard crying out. The elf grabs one of her stuffed animal toys and clutches it tightly hiding her face in its chest. The troll’s giant fingers grasp the elven child’s head, scrunching her hair into the palm of his hand and digging his fingertips into the top layer of her skin. He throws her into the large sack as if she were a vegetable in a busy market place. She still clutches onto the stuffed saber tiger as she falls into and tumbles to the bottom of the sack.
The troll exits out the window he came, to the right the body of the guard lies, the corpse is face down and there is an arrow sticking out of its back. To the left there are more trolls with large sacks and together their heavy feet stomp their way out of the village. Behind them broken windows, ripped off doors, mangled corpses and many fires burn. In front there are the trees with not a single leaf rustling, waiting for them to escape.
The strangely built monsters traipse with the thud of their feet and the flicker of their green eyes sending night critters scampering. They come to a river where empty canoes lie with their bottoms facing up towards the dark sky. The trolls flip them over, drop their sacks inside, push the canoes out and paddle away. Muffled cries and loud sniffles are quieted with heavy punches. The canoes glide along the river with the moon shining down from up high. The moon lights your path no matter what path that might be.
The canoes slide into mud of a bank. The color of the horizon now meshed with a mix of different colors, changing from black to pink and white. Trolls greet those leaving the canoes with shouts of excitement and exuberant dancing. The sound of music pierces the air. It sounds like a flute being choked and drums being beaten for all they are worth. The sacks are now filled with muffled snores or complete silence. They are picked up and carried by bulky troll women. The elven children are dumped out onto the ground. They are left there inside a giant cage. The cage’s bars are thick and metallic; they have some small gaps and tiny crevices.
The elves sit quiet and motionless, staring at one another. They certainly know each other from the village but still not a sound escapes their mouths. They are in a circle made of other elven children who each have a blanket and are so still in their sleep, it is as if they are dead. The new prisoners huddle up, with no blanket to warm them from the morning’s early breeze and the late night’s dissipating chill.
Several trolls come towards the cage; their heavy footsteps cause many young elves to sit up. Their eyes open wide. Their bodies are frozen still. The cage’s gate is opened and blankets are heaved into the center until they are one big pile. The thud of feet and the glint of dim green eyes return some while later. This time they are carrying a large bowl of liquid cream mush. They toss it into the center that now lays empty. There is a lot of shuffling in the blankets on the far edge, old prisoners crawl and hop towards the mixture. They grab it with their hands and others lap it up. The new prisoners stare reluctantly but soon their stomachs will remind them that once inside it is all the same.
The sun goes down and the moon appears, the sun comes up and the moon disappears. Cycles come and go and each bowl of mush starts to become the most exciting part of the elves day. One night two trolls feet thuds can be heard before they approach, but these are different trolls than the ones who brought the blankets and the bowl of mush. They have weapons, they have metal and leather that covers their shins, their mid section and their shoulders. They open the gate and step in, the elves move backwards and around. “How bout dis wan” says one troll guard to the other. “Naw” he replies “it be too young, we need da blood from anotha wan”. The guard grabs the arm of an elf who is slightly older than a toddler. The elf kicks and screams but to no avail. The troll guards are too strong. The elven child never returns and its blanket remains empty.
This cycle also continues as each night the elves go to sleep on their own blankets but as the nights pass there are more empty blankets. Then a few new sacks are brought and the same process is repeated; a heap of blankets, a bowl of mush, faces of distain and then everyone is happily eating once again.
At night there are also large celebrations and dances, with the trolls gathering around an object in the center of the village. Their dancing and chanting goes on deep into the night. The elves stand watching through the cage’s bars but they are shooed away by several troll guards. However, one night the troll’s celebration is interrupted. Something large is heard coming from the woods. Twigs snap and bushes rustle, small saplings swing and whistle as the intruder approaches the village. There are loud screams elicited from the trolls. Many run, others trip and fall, guards stand and prepare for the worst. Dogs come to the guard’s side as the danger approaches. It is a massive tiger. Its giant white teeth shine and sparkle in the dark as it bounds towards the trolls and their companions ready themselves to brace for its assault. Ravaging claws and its terrifying bite, send screams of panic and pain into the night. The troll guards and their dogs do not stand a chance, running and leaving a single troll guard to his fate. The tiger stands over him, ready to feast. Not yet finished with its kill, the tiger takes its first bite. The troll guard’s sobs and screams are met with nothing but silence and the beast enjoying its meal.
As the stars in the sky spark and dim hundreds of times, the moon smiles above and the village lies still. The tiger has come to an end of its meal. The elven children are lined up, some of them are smiling with enjoyment and others staring with their mouths open and tightly clenching whatever they can get their hands on. Their own garments, their hair, the parts of the cage. Not far from the tiger is a giant stone. Broken vials and filled vials surround it. All of them filled or emptied with red liquid. On the stone lies a young elf. Her eyes are glazed and aimed up at the sky. Her mouth is open in an awkward position. Her flesh loose and missing its form as she is bound tightly from her legs and arms. The tiger stalks closely to the prisoner; he jumps up and moves to his next meal. The elven children scream and cry, the tiger cocks its head towards the cage’s direction. It leaps and bounds and then pounces hitting the bars. The elves of different ages and sizes fall back and hesitate to climb back to their feet. The tiger bites and claws and rips at the cage. Then it turns back towards the stone where it eats what is left of the elven child.
The tiger has left and most of the prisoners have gone to sleep. Yet, there is one who remains there standing and sobbing. She is tall, with a thin frail body. She has droopy eyes from lots of crying. A ratty dress that is stained and dirty tightly clings to her body. Her hair is still braided from the night she was captured, it is now tangled and messy from not seeing a hairbrush for quite a while. Another elf who is much shorter sneaks up next to her. She puts her arm up and around the sobbing girl and shows her a small stuffed animal. It is her only one, as her blanket is empty without her and the small stuffed saber tooth cat. It was taken with her on the night of her abduction. The elf with the soggy eyes takes the stuffed cat and wraps her arms tightly around it. Her droopy eyes dry for at least that moment. As their eyes meet the taller elf reaches up towards her neck. She pulls off a necklace and hands it to the shorter elf in exchange for her kindness. Their arms wrap around each other and they embrace for as long as it takes the stars above to sparkle and dim four or five times. They slink back to their empty blankets. The taller elf cuddles up close to her new stuffed animal. A smile stretches from on edge of her lips to the other. Her messy hair rests against the blanket and slowly moves in different directions with the help of the night’s chilly breeze.
The shorter elf lies on her back and stares at the top of the cage, up at the ceiling. Her eyes move to the necklace. It is silver with small silver links. The amulet on the end has a design engraved onto it. There are three elves: one female adult, one male adult and one child whose gender is not obvious. The elven child lies in between them as the female and male arch up into two rounded edges, creating the shape of a heart. The elf lets it drop and it hits her chest, right above her heart. The elf tosses and turns back and forth several times, she shuts her eyes tightly but then tosses and turns again. After a dozen or so shifts in her bed, she sits up and looks out of the cage. On the rock there are the remains of the elf. The bones, most of her face and its skin but there is no blood and no organs or other areas of anatomy. The tiger had eaten all of the skin, the meat and the body parts inside. There is no blood on the stone though. There is only blood in some of the vials and on the ground near the broken vials. The elf lies back down and turns on her side. Her body is in a sleeping position but her eyes still stare wide. She has the eyes of someone staring at something far in the distance. Squinting and focused, as if something is waiting for her on the horizon. Then after her chest has gone up and down fifteen or twenty times, her eyes shut. She breathes gently and her amulet rises and falls as the last moments of the night slip below the horizon.