Invaders

My name is Eliza.

I live in a world called Faraday, within the Kingdom of Volta.

And I live just outside of the village called Watt

I had two loving doting parents, and a little sister named Delilah. She always followed me anywhere I went. Annoyed me much but she still my cute little sister whom I cherish a lot. Trust me when I say, if anyone dares to touch a single hair on her body I will pierce you bottom-up and feed you to the snakes then burn you alive.

....

We weren"t rich but were still independent. My family runs a small business in town. We sold potions and make the cure for a variety of diseases.

Mama made them. Since we live in the forest just outside the village, it was easy to find resources. Mother is a mana user who can enhance the effectiveness of a herb to make potent potions.

Papa, however, is just an ordinary guy. But he is wise and intelligent. He knows his way around town and gets money from who knows where it comes from.

One day, I saw papa whispered to a guy and he just gave a sum of money to papa then left without a word. Papa gave me a tam tam and ask me to keep quiet about. But doesn"t know that my favourite snack is bika, so mama ends up knowing anyway.

Papa would look at me with a sad face and sleep on the couch that day.

Enough with parents. Let"s talk about Delilah, my annoying cute little sister. She"s a bit special. Delilah can wield mana since she was a baby. I remember the day when she was born. Apart from her loud cry, we could hear screaming coming out from nowhere. While mama and papa were shocked I can"t help but hold my little sister tiny hand who was still a baby. She was looking at me and it feels like she was looking inside my soul.

But I wasn"t scared. Delilah was still my cute little sister. It"s the same for papa and mama too...

Simply saying, we are just one happy family living a normal life. At least that what I always thought.

It wasn"t the same case for others thought.

Before, we lived together with the villagers and papa doesn"t have to do any shady business while selling mama"s potions. People would knock our door in the middle of the night sometimes to ask for help.

While papa and mama were doing their work, I would go out to play with my friends.

Until... Delilah was born

It wasn"t just us who heard the screaming. The whole village was alarmed with the whole situation. Everyone thought it would end in hours, but somehow from hours to days, and finally a week has pa.s.sed since the screaming. People becoming anxious as they couldn"t sleep at night. Sometimes, the screaming would sound like a person getting tortured.

It affected the whole village social system and made them unable to function properly as the screaming continues day in and day out. Children especially were having nightmares almost every single night. Even farms and livestock withered and dying. Everyone had to stop working and find the source as more people getting weak including guards. It"s a relief that monsters also stopped attacking.

Papa and mama stayed home because Delilah keeps crying since she was born. I could feel something emanating out from her, but she"s still my cute little sister so I stayed by her side.

The guild also sends adventurers to work out on solving the whole situations but it backfired as some who get closer to the source of the screaming become crazy and start to attack the villagers. Eventually, many adventurers left the village.

In the end, the villagers thought it was cursed so they seek help from the capital of Volta which they responded by sending a group of priests who are skilled at handling cursed created by mana.

The arrival of the priests was a blessing for the villagers... but for us, my family, for me...

was the beginning of a nightmare

They detected that the source of those screaming was due to my little sister high apt.i.tude to necromancy and those were the voices of the dead. They say, Delilah already reach stage two of necromancy the power to interact with souls even though she"s still a baby.

This mean, when she was born she could see wandering souls of the dead scattering around. Her necromancy also almost reach the peak of stage two that she could affect the souls around with her mana. Since she was born with huge mana capacity, the inability to manipulate those manas as a baby has made them spread around making the voice of the dead could be heard by villagers, haunted them to their sleep.

Luckily, the priest has a way to seal my little sister mana by blocking her mana from flowing out. The priests perform the sealing which stopped the screaming. They advised my parents from not letting my little sister getting close to learning necromancy. She could learn how to wield mana, but learning necromancy is a taboo. If somehow she reached stage three of manipulating the deads then she must be banned from taking a single step within the kingdom border.

The priests left after a feast held by the villagers.

From that day, we were asked to stay away from the village. We could still go in and out, but Delilah was banned from entering for eternity.

At first, everything was normal. As days went on, people start to act weird. Everyone would stare at us when I walk around with mama to buy groceries. They would whisper something behind our back.

People stop knocking our door for potions. Even my friends stop talking to me as well.

I wanted to play with them, but they always looked like they want to say something but keep quiet to themselves and just left without a word.

One day when I went to school, I sit at my desk as usual. But something was off... instead of the empty glares they were giggling. That"s when I suddenly smelled something. Someone put faeces on my chair.

I don"t understand why but I just let it go.

So I rushed myself to the nearest water place when suddenly someone pushed me to the wall, then somebody threw a rock at me and called my sister a cursed child. Blood drips from my forehead.

I don"t understand why but I just let it go.

My forehead was bleeding so I cleaned my dress and went to the teacher but the teachers, every one of them... ignored me.

I don"t understand why but I just let it go.

I went to the toilet to wash my face, but suddenly a group of girls come in and threw a bucket of water at me.

"Clean yourself. Some of the curses must has stick at you"

They said while laughing. I saw one of my friend hiding near the entrance. They left, and she left with them. I heard laughter as they drifted away.

I don"t understand why but I just let it go.

I went back to my cla.s.s, and everyone was there including my three old friends. One has a stick with faeces attached at the end. Another was holding a rock. The last one... a bucket of water. They were standing in front of me and others made a circle around us.

"h.e.l.lo friends" is what I wanted to say but looking at the whole situation it wasn"t necessary now is it?

Chrissy bit her lips and decided to talk first.

"Hey, Eliza... it"s not like we hate you or anything. It"s just that... they would bully us too if we didn"t do this to you..."

I don"t understand why but I just let it go.

"You are our friend so you would understand right? You could at least take this as our friend right?"

I...don"t understand... why... but... I just...let it go.

"I"m sorry Eliza...I"m sorry Eliza...I"m sorry..."

Tanti said repeatedly while sobbing...

I don"t understand... Why? But... I...but I... just let it go.

Chrissy, Sara, and Tanti all threw their things at me. Everyone laughed at me while I stood there silently facing down the floor. I wasn"t crying, I wasn"t sad...instead, I was all confused. What did I do to deserve this? What did our family do that, people would ignore us? What did even my little sister do?

Everyone continued to laugh until the teacher come in and they all sit in their place except for me who was still standing near my desk. I look up, and the teacher didn"t bother to notice me. He asked the student in duty to clean the floor and check for attendance. I slowly walk out reminiscing what happened to me since I came to school. I didn"t bother to look back at all.

I don"t understand why I just let it all go?

That was the last day I spend in school.

Even though I lost all my friends, at least my little sister stopped crying from that day.

No one bothered to come to us. Papa and mama couldn"t make any business. No one wanted to sell anything to us as well. Thus, we had to scare any food from the forest. Somehow we were lucky, even though we live outside the village with guards to protect, no monster ever come close to our place.

For several years, we had to live every day trying to make it for the next day.

Until one day, someone knocked on our door and requested mama to make potions. It seems that no one could make potions and cure as well as mama does. If they want to buy from other places it would cost too much so they willing to patch the broken bridge just to get mama"s potion. Papa also tried to make way to find good deals in selling potions. Bad and good doesn"t matter when it involved mama, me and Delilah.

It wasn"t much but I was happy living our private life, together with my lovely family.

One day, a customer come complaining saying that mama made a poison instead of a cure. He asked us to compensate but mama denied his claim and ask him to go away. The next day, he brought several people over to complain. But mama still held her ground and papa managed to chase them after getting beaten up by those people.

I and Delilah would hide in the closet.

The next day it got worst. The whole villagers came.

The guy who visited us these couple of days walk forwards and said

"You killed my father. He was a kind old man who would use his wealth for charity, but you killed him with this poison of yours!"

"A cursed family is a cursed family. We already being generous letting you stay near the village. Now that you killed someone, we couldn"t let it go. Stay away from here or face the consequences!"

The villagers keep shouting and said bad words but papa didn"t back down and ask them for the proof of the poison. The man held the poison within a bottle which mama always used to contain her product and accused her of making it. Mama took the bottle and found out something is wrong...

"I promise you, I never dare to make poison. Someone must have changed the content! Use your mana sense and see that it doesn"t contain any hint of my mana"

"You dare lie to us at this point you witch? I don"t know what trickery you did but it all ends here. No one will buy anything from you ever again! Let"s burn this place down!"

The mana users of the village started to shoot fireb.a.l.l.s which burn our house. Papa and mama were still outside, but I and Delilah were hidden deep within closet unknowing what is happening. Papa rush into our burning house and mama followed.

No one expected they would go inside the house again and that"s when they realized Delilah and me were not there.

"Oh no! The kids. What if they don"t manage to save the kids"

"Good. Then all of them could just go die buried with their curse"

By the time, papa and mama reached the hiding place, the fire has grown in rage. It wasn"t possible to avoid the flames anymore. So papa, and mama use their body to protect us from harm. Until the point, they had to drag themselves as the pain from getting burn was unbearable. Finally we reached a window near the first floor.

Me and Delilah manage to go out, but...

Papa and mama was already exhausted. Pushing us away from the burning house was the last bit of their effort.

I was holding Delilah hands as I watched both of my parents getting burned alive through the window. Screaming in anguish and pain as the villagers celebrated with loud joyful cheer.