Death Never Dies

by Milton Garby

  "Thanks!" She popped the bit of sandwich into her mouth at the same time Sara ate the piece of muffin. It was okay. Kinda squishy, though. Leira seemed to enjoy the sandwich though. "Mmm! This is good! What's your name? I forgot."

  She forgot.

  "Sara, stupid head," she said angrily.

  Leira narrowed her eyes. "I'm not a stupid head!" she returned.

  "Are to."

  "Am not."

  "Are to."

  "Am not."

  "Are to."

  "Oh yeah? Well, you're a stupid head for thinking I'm a stupid head!"

  What?! she thought "Am not!" Sara defended.

  "Are to."

  "Am not."

  "Are to."

  "Am not!

  "Are to!"

  "Oh yeah?" Sara said angrily. "Prove it!"

  "You prove that I'm a stupid head."

  "I asked you first."

  "So?"

  "So you have to answer first."

  "Hmmph!" Leira said, crossing her arms while Sara grinned. "Well... I'm not a stupid head, because I'm smart! And I can prove it, cause I know that there are different kinds of magic like frost, shadow, holy, and fire. Ha!" Oh. So her ability was called magic, if there were more kinds than just ice. "I know something you didn't, so I can't be a stupid head!"

  Sara couldn't argue with that logic.

  "Oh." She looked back at her sandwich, then back again at Leira. "Sorry for calling you a stupid head."

  "It's okay. Sorry for calling you a stupid head."

  She'd better be sorry. Sara took another bite of her sandwich. "Why did you sit next to me?"

  "You looked lonely. Maybe we can play tag during recess!"

  "What's recess and tag?" she asked, swallowing her food.

  Leira gasped. "You mean you don't know? After lunch we get to go outside to play, and after that school's over and we get to go home! And tag is only the best game ever! Someone is it, and they have to touch everyone else so they become it instead! And everyone else has to run from who's it!"

  "That sounds hard. I'd rather make animals dance."

  "You can make animals dance?"

  "Uh huh! I can show you after school in the park! Oh. But we have to go home after school."

  Leira frowned. "Yeah, my parents are taking me home after recess."

  "So do I, Mommy's coming to pick me up."

  "Wait!" Leira said. "Maybe I can ask my parents to come over and play! Or you can come to my house!"

  "Play what?"

  "Tag of course!" she said excitedly, throwing her arms up, then lowering them to take another bite of her muffin. While she ate, Sara took a gulp of water. "It's super fun, I'll show you at recess."

  "Okay," Sara said, turning back to her lunch. In no time she finished the sandwich, then the apple, then drank the rest of her water.

  And then, of course, Mrs. Laudenbor came to the middle of the room and whistled really loudly. It made Sara jump.

  "Alright! Everyone have a good lunch?"

  "Yeah!"

  "Yes Mrs. Laudenbor!"

  "Yep!"

  "Excellent! Now, I want everybody to get up, up, up out of their seats and form a single file line behind me."

  One of the other kids asked, "What's a single-file line?"

  "Ah!" the old lady said, raising one finger. "What did I say about raising our hands?" The same kid raised their hand again. "Yes Isabella?"

  "What's a single file line?" she repeated.

  "It's when one person stands behind the person in front of them, and someone else stands behind them, all the way back until there are no more people. Let's try it now. Everyone get in line behind me, no pushing!"

  They started to move towards the old lady. Sara lingered back, waiting. She didn't want to push around for a spot, so she just waited until everyone else was in a line and, with her empty lunchbox in hand, got into the end of line. The teacher walked out of the room, turned down a hallway, and they left the school through the back. From her spot at the back of the line, Sara could see that Leira was six people in front of her, swinging her arms back and forth as they walked into the field behind the school.

  The sun was still playing peek-a-boo from behind the clouds, casting moving shadows on the ground. There was a fence that cut off a large circular-ish square-ish shape behind the school, which went all the way to the forest. Pushed against the school's wall were creaky wooden benches. Mrs. Laudenbor stopped the line and turned around to face them. "Alright everybody! Next is something called recess. You get to play whatever you want or, if you're tired, come sit at the benches. There's only two rules; be nice, and stay where I can see you. Sound good?"

  "Yeah!" cheered the rest of the class. Every began to run freely, splitting up into... pretty much the same groups they'd been in during lunch. Weird.

  "Come on Sara!" Leira said, bounding up to her and grabbing her arm. She began to tug, then suddenly stopped and looked at her seriously. "I'm going to be it, and I'll chase you." Sara looked closer, and gasped in surprise. Leira had tentacles! Not very long ones and only, like, four or something hanging from her head. But she had tentacles! Like an octopus! "If I touch you, you have to count to five, then you're it and have to touch me."

  "Okay," Sara said warily. She didn't like how hard 'tag' sounded, but she didn't have anything better to do. Sadly.

  "Good! Run!"

  Sara turned around and started running away from Leira as fast as her five year old legs could carry her. Her dress got in the way, almost making her trip a few times, and when she reached the fence she had to turn to the side.

  That was when Leira tagged her. "Tag, you're it!"

  Sara frowned, but stopped and began counting. "One." Leira turned around. "Two." The blue girl ran away from her. Now that she was facing away Sara could more clearly see that Leira had a tail, like the big blue man she'd come with. "Three. Four. Five!" Sara broke out running, trying to reach Leira. It didn't take long for Leira to reach the fence again, and she turned to the side just like Sara had.

  But Sara was too slow! She got closer to Leira during the turn, but after that she started to fall behind because she was slower than Leira. Though it probably didn't help she was still carrying her lunch box...

  ... but at the next turn she got closer again, closer than she had last time. Then Leira ran straight, and Sara fell behind a little, until she had to turn again, then Sara came really close! She reached out to try and poke Leira's back but the blue girl slipped away... until the next turn, when Sara's hand touched her arm.

  "Tag!" she said victoriously. "You're it!" Sara turned around, not waiting to bother with Leira's counting. She had an idea, anyway. After all, she had to count to five...

  Leira was faster than her, so she got tagged eventually. As Leira was turning around, Sara quickly said, "Onetwothreefourfive!" and then tagged Leira before running away.

  "Hey! No fair!"

  Of course it was fair! It wasn't Sara's fault she'd thought of it before Leira had... of course that didn't stop her from getting tagged, but before she could finish her fast-count Leira was already gone, running past the other kids playing some sort of stupid head game.

  Slowly, as recess went on, Sara and Leira ran slower and slower and she breathed heavier and heavier. And Leira figured out her tricks, and she even tried to do the fast-counting thing to her! Totally not fair! But... Sara liked having to figure out which way Leira was going to suddenly change direction, then not being able to predict it and tagging her anyway, ha! Or when she ran behind other kids so Leira had to slow down, or she'd hit them. Or how to figure out when Leira had figured out that she'd figured out what her plans were; Sara really liked recess.

  And then recess ended by the teacher whistling.

  Everyone stopped and turned to look at her motioning them to come to her. "Aww, I don't wanna!" Sara pouted. But Leira was already running to the old lady, so she followed after her.

  "Alright everybody, did you all have a good first
day of school?"

  "Yeah!" everyone cheered. Even Sara had to nod. She had liked playing tag with Leira, even if it left her tired and wanting some ice cream.

  "That's great! Now, everybody follow me back inside." They did so, leaving the mild heat of outside for the cool shade of indoors. Mrs. Laudenbor walked over to the Good Job Board and gave everyone a sticker - leaving Michael in the lead - for being 'such good students'.

  "Alright everybody, I'll see you tomorrow! Your parents are here to pick you up, so everyone say 'Goodbye Mrs. Laudenbor'!"

  "Goodbye Mrs. Laudenbor," they said, running to the front door and out of school, finally.

  The grown-ups from before school were there, and so was Mommy. Sara ran over to her, waving goodbye to Leira as she did. Mommy reached down and grabbed Sara's hand. "Hey there honey!"

  "Hi Mommy!" she said, kicking at pebbles on the road as Mommy began leading her away from the building.

  "Did you have a good first day of school?" Mommy asked.

  "I guess," she said, still grinning. "I played tag with Leira during recess."

  "Who's Leira?" Mommy asked her with a little grin.

  "She's the blue girl - "

  "Draenei dear, they're called draenei."

  " - she's the draenei girl. She's not a stupid head like the rest of them."

  "Sara, you know that - nevermind, dear. So, do you think maybe you'll like school?"

  "Yeah," she said, looking down at the little rocks she kept kicking. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw that there weren't many other people around, for some reason. "Maybe. Oh, and I learned something today!" she said excitedly, thinking to when she learned the name of her abilities.

  "What is it?"

  She let go of Mommy's hand and focused causing black smoke to swirl around her free hand, and around it was a ring of color, green on the inside and purple on the outside. "I can do magic!" She stopped the magic, looking up at Mommy with a smile. She wondered how Mommy would react knowing she already knew how to do magic.

  "Oh wow, Sara. That's... very impressive. But I don't think you should go around showing people you can do magic, alright? They might end up jealous."

  Oh. "Okay, Mommy." Still, now that she knew it was called 'magic' she could ask Mommy and Daddy for all kinds of books about magic.

  She... just needed to learn to read first.

  Sara

  Where was something to play with?

  Sara looked around the forest clearing, searching for an animal to practice her magic on. Mommy and Daddy let her go into the woods as long as she came back before sunset and she had, like, tons of hours before that. And it wasn't like there was anything dangerous in the woods either, otherwise all the hunters in Greenevale would've chased them out. Sara wasn't lost either; she knew the exact way back by just going to, like, the left of the sun. She learned that in the first grade and she was smarter than back then; she was seven now, not just six!

  Which gave her plenty of time alone to practice her magic without anybody else getting jealous. Though maybe she wanted them to be jealous...

  There! On the little hill at the edge of the clearing was a cute little squirrel, with beady eyes and a bushy tail, looking her way with an acorn in its paws. It looked at her. Sara looked at it, and began to channel her magic...

  Before she could do anything, the squirrel dropped the acorn and ran away. Sara gasped and ran after it. She had to duck beneath a branch and then she saw the squirrel was climbing a tree, then scurrying along the limbs. Sara narrowed her eyes, raised her right hand at it, and then her magic began to glow around that one hand.

  The squirrel tried to jump to another branch but, thanks to Sara, it missed and fell all the way down with a little thud and started dancing in place. Sara ran over and looked down at the animal. Apparently it had hurt itself when it fell. Like, really hurt itself. It was bleeding and everything, even as it slowly danced to the tune of Sara's magic pulsing in her one outstretched hand.

  Most of the other animals in the forest ran as Sara started to play, which was no fun because Sara wanted to make all of them dance. Plus, she had to practice her magic to do more things; Mommy and Daddy said that practice made perfect.

  Sara focused on the dancing squirrel and narrowed her eyes. Her other hand also started to glow with magic as she concentrated.

  Sara wasn't, like, an idiot. Mommy and Daddy had told her tons of times that when she made things dance she was actually 'hurting' them. If Mommy and Daddy had said it, it was probably true. So Sara wanted to try other things; just making things dance got boooooriiiiing.

  She focused on the squirrel's legs and moved her magic from its head to the limbs. The squirrel stopped dancing and fell over, breathing shallowly with its left side coated in blood. It moved its head, but not its legs.

  Yay! I did it!

  Hmm... what else did she want to do with the squirrel? Maybe she could make it run up the tree and then jump back down. Or maybe make it walk around like people! That would be funny!

  Sara focused harder, pushing her magic on the squirrel's head. Suddenly Sara could see little lines in it, like someone had filled the squirrel's head with strings connected with each other, and little flashes of purple light moved across them.

  She walked closer to the squirrel and knelt so she could get a closer look. A lot of flashes were moving across her head, but she was more interested in the other ones. Sara stuck her tongue out to the side as she focused on one of the strings which led flashes of light down its neck, and plucked it with her magic like a violin. Immediately, despite her using its magic to keep it from moving, its left forepaw twitched!

  Sara gasped, then searched for another string to pluck. That one made the squirrel breathe in suddenly. Another moved its tail. Eventually, she found all four of the strings that led to its legs. With that done, Sara backed up and giggled, lowering her left hand and raising the right to begin plucking and pulling.

  The squirrel chittered as Sara rolled it over onto its stomach, then onto its back again, then onto its stomach again. She stood it up and began to make it dance again, kicking out its legs and pulling them back in while its head spun around like a top.

  "Hmm," she said aloud. "Can squirrels stand on two legs? I think they can." She moved her magic around the strings, causing it to lift up its forelegs... and immediately fall over and hit its head on the dirt. "Oops. Come on, up you get." This time she had the squirrel lean forward as it stood, and extend its tail behind itself. Then she lowered it to all fours and took a few steps forward, a few turns, and whenever the squirrel just fell over she picked it back up. Though... there was a lot of red coming from it.

  Eventually, the squirrel fell over one last time and Sara tried to get it back up. Nothing. Looking at the strings in its head, Sara found that whenever she plucked them with her magic, they just didn't vibrate anymore no matter how hard she tried; the poor squirrel was too tired to keep playing.

  Sara frowned and left the squirrel there to rest. She didn't feel like making it want to play again...

  Shuffle-scruffle.

  Sara turned her head to the right and smiled. Another squirrel! Yay! She was so lucky! Before it could run from her Sara pointed her hands at it and pushed her magic into its head. The strings leading to its legs stopped flashing with light and the squirrel fell over. She wiggled her fingers like it was a puppet, and the squirrel stood up on its hind legs and wobbled forward to Sara. She looked around, and there hiding in the bushes was... something else. It was in the shadows, so all Sara saw were its glowing eyes. Keeping one hand outstretched to the squirrel, she pointed the other one - covered in magic - at the animal. She imagined pinching on the strings leading to its arms and legs so the normal pulses wouldn't get there, and then she made it walk over to her.

  Sara giggled and had the two animals face each other while she herself sat on a log, hands outstretched like she was playing with puppets. She had the raccoon loom over the squirrel and she said, "Rawr! I am a big
mountain giant! I am going to crush your village, mwahahaha!"

  "Never!" she had the squirrel say, waddling up to the raccoon. "I will defeat you and save my village of Acornwind! Rarr!" The squirrel tapped the raccoon, which was tricky since she had to get it to stand upright and reach out while not falling over.

  "Oh no!" she said as the raccoon-giant stumbled back. "I am hurt! But you cannot defeat me, mwahaha! I am a mountain giant!" The raccoon walked up to the squirrel. "You're just a squirrel! Splat!" She had the raccoon rear up to hit the squirrel, but she didn't balance it properly and it fell over onto its back. Sara went with it. "Raargh! You have outwitted me!"

  "Hurray!" the squirrel went. "My village is saved!"

  "Oh no it isn't," the raccoon boomed, getting back up. "I am still a giant, and I can still take a hit! Rawr!" She made it rear up, and this time she balanced it right and made it smack the squirrel away. She didn't let the little thing get back up. "Mwahaha! Now Acornwind is mine to destroy!" The raccoon stomped over to some random twigs which, in Sara's mind, was Acornwind. She had the raccoon begin destroying it.

  "Nooo!" the squirrel said. "My home! Who ever shall help us?"

  Sara looked at the squirrel she'd been playing with earlier, still too tired to move, and extended her magic into it as well. She focused a bit harder, finding the squirrel's ability-to-move floating... well, floating somewhere 'out there' and grabbed it. She pushed the ability-to-move back into the squirrel, and at the same time the little hole in its side got sewn up as green light puffed out of the animal. Once it wasn't too tired to play anymore, she started to control that squirrel as well.

  "I am here to save the day!" Sara said in a high, squeaky voice, waddling it over to the giant trampling over Acornwind. "Have at thee, mountain giant! Hiya!" The squirrel charged at the raccoon and beat its paws at its hide. The raccoon swung at the squirrel, but Sara made it go limp so that the 'giant' missed and fell over.

  "Ragh! No! I am a giant, you are all puny squirrels!"

  The two squirrels formed up around the raccoon. "Chaaarge!" she shouted, running the squirrels at the raccoon. They beat at the raccoon a bit, and she had it smack one of them aside with a roar. Then she made the first squirrel roll it onto its back, leap onto it, and punch the raccoon's stomach.