Status: All chapters are successfully edited and updated, I realize I made some drastic changes particularly in Vlamiras character but I hope the new changes didn't upset anyone
Better Left Forgotten
Chapter 1: The Forest Of Life and Death (edited)
Hey guys!!! I know this alot to ask of me but if you like my stories could you please please take pity on a diehard drama addict. There's this new drama coming out called 'Tears of Heaven' but the subbers aren't going to sub the whole thing unless they know a bunch of people are interested in it. Please visit their site at http://koreandramaonair.blogspot.de/2014/10/tears-of-heaven-korean-drama-engsub.html It would really mean alot to me and other drama fans who are dying to watch it.
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When they found me all those years ago, they said that my eyes were dull. Lifeless and empty like the eyes of someone who had lost everything. My clothes were nearly singed away, my hair and face darkened by the soot and blood of my people, and my eyes staring vacantly into an endless nightmare that refused to dissipate.
The wolves who found me snarled and gnashed their teeth at my face, but all I could hear were those screams echoing in my head. All I could see was the blood and the fire that painted the ground. When I was asked what I was, where I had come from, and where my family was I told them all I had forgotten.
Weary of me even after it was made obvious that I was no threat, the FireTree pack unanimously agreed that sending a child back into the clutches of the forest I had crawled out of would be cruel. Yet I was strange. I wasn’t human they could tell, but I wasn’t something they knew. Because I wasn’t them and because they knew not of what I was capable of it was also agreed that I would only be permitted to stay within the confines of their pack for four summers. So it was the year I turned eighteen that I was thrown out of FireTree pack and into the forest of life and death where they all expected me to die. I had defied these expectations before though and I would defy them again. They sent me away not knowing anything about the devastations I had caused before I entered their pack. They were wolves but I was death and the bitter cold taste of defeat would not touch me.
“Don’t look at her.” A worried voice chided as my bare feet traced paths in front of their homes. The little boy she shuffled away kept throwing glances over his shoulder at the girl everyone agreed was being sentenced to death.
“She was always such an odd one.” Another voice whispered turning away when my mismatched eyes cut through the frost in the air and into the superstitious gaze of the one who whispered it.
The air was filled with the tension and solemnness that only the promise of death was capable of bringing. The intense heated stares of the villagers burned into my back like hot molten lava. Looming before me were two wooden gates arising from the snow like two vengeful gods prepared to swallow me up whole and into the very depths of the hell they had crawled out of. The two burly men stood nervously next to the gates prepared to open it at the Alpha’s command. I stared them down and dared them to open it before it was yet dawn.
“My fellow pack members!” a rough voice boomed catching the attention of those around me. My eyes remained rooted to the wooden doors that sealed my fate.
“Four years ago on this day, we allowed a foreigner into the confines of this humble community. Against our better judgment we have allowed this strange…” At this, Alpha Carter paused, his thin lips curling in a sneer as if what he had to say left a bad taste in his mouth. “creature residence in our pack until she has come of age. Well, I am here to say that today is the day that child becomes a woman. Today is the day we send her back to where it is she has come from. Vlamira Striker, I hereby announce your citizenship of FireTree pack annulled and command you to leave the boundaries of my pack. Is there anything you would like to say?”
Straightening my shoulders I said the only thing that my restless mind could conjure, “Yes, I would very much like the twenty minutes of my life you just wasted with that terribly boring speech.”
I was probably the only one who had ever disrespected or stood up to Alpha Carter. (no wonder he wanted me gone) It was written all over him and showed in the way those thunder clouds of fury danced across his face.
The power that rolled off of him like the furious winds of a typhoon swayed all of those around me but I held my ground. His power did not touch me. I was not werewolf and my kind was not the type to be moved by displays of raw power.
“Open the gates.” He forced out and the two wolves standing next to the gates of hell eagerly complied. I watched in fascination as those large gates groaned and creaked revealing the deadly forest that lay beyond. Most of the wolves shrunk away, the women shielding their children from the view of the death sentence the Rogue Forest represented. Some of the braver ones sneered in triumph as if fear was something that was shameful.
While I understood the importance of fear, how fear kept us alert and alive, I had lost my fear of death a long time ago. Death and I played a dangerous game together. I cursed it and dared it and death in return seemed to laugh, reach, and miss me in a daring game of cat and mouse. I did not show my fear to these eager foolish wolves because my fear had been ripped out of me, buried somewhere with the last of my kind. It was just me and that gaping empty hole it left behind now. Me and the forest of Life and Death before me. Taking a deep breath I took one step forward and then another. The gates closed behind me and the silence settled around me in a heavy cloak as if trying to smother the hope that lied in my breast. That foolish silence knew nothing. It was not death that made me shake in despair or quiver in terror. Death and I were well acquainted. It was life that made me fear.
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When they found me all those years ago, they said that my eyes were dull. Lifeless and empty like the eyes of someone who had lost everything. My clothes were nearly singed away, my hair and face darkened by the soot and blood of my people, and my eyes staring vacantly into an endless nightmare that refused to dissipate.
The wolves who found me snarled and gnashed their teeth at my face, but all I could hear were those screams echoing in my head. All I could see was the blood and the fire that painted the ground. When I was asked what I was, where I had come from, and where my family was I told them all I had forgotten.
Weary of me even after it was made obvious that I was no threat, the FireTree pack unanimously agreed that sending a child back into the clutches of the forest I had crawled out of would be cruel. Yet I was strange. I wasn’t human they could tell, but I wasn’t something they knew. Because I wasn’t them and because they knew not of what I was capable of it was also agreed that I would only be permitted to stay within the confines of their pack for four summers. So it was the year I turned eighteen that I was thrown out of FireTree pack and into the forest of life and death where they all expected me to die. I had defied these expectations before though and I would defy them again. They sent me away not knowing anything about the devastations I had caused before I entered their pack. They were wolves but I was death and the bitter cold taste of defeat would not touch me.
“Don’t look at her.” A worried voice chided as my bare feet traced paths in front of their homes. The little boy she shuffled away kept throwing glances over his shoulder at the girl everyone agreed was being sentenced to death.
“She was always such an odd one.” Another voice whispered turning away when my mismatched eyes cut through the frost in the air and into the superstitious gaze of the one who whispered it.
The air was filled with the tension and solemnness that only the promise of death was capable of bringing. The intense heated stares of the villagers burned into my back like hot molten lava. Looming before me were two wooden gates arising from the snow like two vengeful gods prepared to swallow me up whole and into the very depths of the hell they had crawled out of. The two burly men stood nervously next to the gates prepared to open it at the Alpha’s command. I stared them down and dared them to open it before it was yet dawn.
“My fellow pack members!” a rough voice boomed catching the attention of those around me. My eyes remained rooted to the wooden doors that sealed my fate.
“Four years ago on this day, we allowed a foreigner into the confines of this humble community. Against our better judgment we have allowed this strange…” At this, Alpha Carter paused, his thin lips curling in a sneer as if what he had to say left a bad taste in his mouth. “creature residence in our pack until she has come of age. Well, I am here to say that today is the day that child becomes a woman. Today is the day we send her back to where it is she has come from. Vlamira Striker, I hereby announce your citizenship of FireTree pack annulled and command you to leave the boundaries of my pack. Is there anything you would like to say?”
Straightening my shoulders I said the only thing that my restless mind could conjure, “Yes, I would very much like the twenty minutes of my life you just wasted with that terribly boring speech.”
I was probably the only one who had ever disrespected or stood up to Alpha Carter. (no wonder he wanted me gone) It was written all over him and showed in the way those thunder clouds of fury danced across his face.
The power that rolled off of him like the furious winds of a typhoon swayed all of those around me but I held my ground. His power did not touch me. I was not werewolf and my kind was not the type to be moved by displays of raw power.
“Open the gates.” He forced out and the two wolves standing next to the gates of hell eagerly complied. I watched in fascination as those large gates groaned and creaked revealing the deadly forest that lay beyond. Most of the wolves shrunk away, the women shielding their children from the view of the death sentence the Rogue Forest represented. Some of the braver ones sneered in triumph as if fear was something that was shameful.
While I understood the importance of fear, how fear kept us alert and alive, I had lost my fear of death a long time ago. Death and I played a dangerous game together. I cursed it and dared it and death in return seemed to laugh, reach, and miss me in a daring game of cat and mouse. I did not show my fear to these eager foolish wolves because my fear had been ripped out of me, buried somewhere with the last of my kind. It was just me and that gaping empty hole it left behind now. Me and the forest of Life and Death before me. Taking a deep breath I took one step forward and then another. The gates closed behind me and the silence settled around me in a heavy cloak as if trying to smother the hope that lied in my breast. That foolish silence knew nothing. It was not death that made me shake in despair or quiver in terror. Death and I were well acquainted. It was life that made me fear.
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