"The Land of Despair-chapters 1 and 2" by Katarina V. Baralić

Prologue

My name is Sydeith. They hate me. They do not know me. They can not see me.

Last night I had a strange dream. Then, unusual voice told me I have to share my life story with people. When I woke up, I decided to do as I was told.

But, from where should I start? Which part of my life is the most important? My sad life. My life full of sorrow. My eyes saw many tragedies. My hart witnessed many horrors of life. So, why would anyone like to know more about me?

Anyway, sometimes, we have to do things we do not like.

Let’s start from Beladox. Beladox is a cruel place. It is the most awful place people ever witnessed. Place where to be loved by a man means to be hated by all, numerous women.

Place where is no mercy for those who break rules, and no space for those whose heart is full of fear.

Beladox. Beladox. Why am I, from all that beautiful, peaceful places, born there?

My first love was painted is sorrow. My first kiss was marked with pain. They exiled me. They made me abandon my home and family, and go to the wastelands of Guar.

So, here I am, in cave that obviously is my new home, and he, the love of my life, is far away, surrounded with all of them.

No way out. No possible solution.

As you see, at this moment, I am introducing you to really long story. You may be sorry for me and women like me. You may be with me to the end. And, at last, you may hate me.

But, it is not for me to say.

Welcome to Beladox. Welcome to the world without men.

Chapter 1

Eroint was my best friend. It was very rare for girl, like me, to have male friends, but, he was the best person I’ve ever met. Moirta, my good mother, didn’t mind me playing with him, and I didn’t appreciate that much. I suppose I just didn’t know how other girls behaved and what they were, or were not allowed to do.

Moirta loved me with all her heart and I loved her. She was really good as mother and let me do things other girls could only dream about.

Every day I hanged around with Eroint and had a very good time. His look was strange to me and he looked different, but, I didn’t know it was because he was male. Every person in my surrounding was female, so, I suppose, I couldn’t tell the difference.

One day, I watched him performing magic. Magic. Yes. That great thing I always dreamt about.

He took a candle from a wooden box and held it tightly. When he touched it with his other hand, fire appeared.

“How did you do that?” I asked clearly very amazed.

“It’s magic,” he told me smiling, “But, don’t tell anyone I have it. If my mother finds out… She told me my father had it and, when others found out about that, they killed him.”

“I don’t want you to dye!” I cried out loudly, but, then, I was confused, “What is a father?”

“Male mother, I guess.”

“What is a male?”

“It is an opposite of female, I guess. I am male.”

“You are not a female?”

“No”

“Oh”

From that moment, I started to understand.

Male. How can one word produce so many questions?

Other girls often talked about it, but they, too, didn’t know much about it.

“Have you ever seen a male?” asked one of them another one day.

“No,” her friend said, “Have you?”

“No, I think,” then she laughed, “But, I heard my mother saying they are not BAD. Not always, anyway. I’d like to meet one”.

Then they asked me.

“No, I haven’t seen a male”

For long time period I wondered why I said that. Eroint was male. He told me that. But, somehow, I thought he didn’t want other people to know. He didn’t want them to be afraid of him.

But, one question remained locked in my mind. What exactly means to be male? Who was my father? Who were fathers of all that girls? Of all that women? I couldn’t find an answer no matter hard I searched.

“How do you know magic?” I asked Eroint one day, “Why can’t I know it?”

“Because you are a girl”

“So what? Can’t girls do magic as you?”

He shook his head.

“I think not.”

“But, why? Why is that so?’

“I do not know. There are some differences in our body maybe”.

“Oh. Which differences?”

“I do not know”

Then, our conversation finished.

My other questions were answered on more brutal way.

Request from king arrived to our town. He ordered us to kill every single newborn baby. Later, I found out that request was referring only to female babies, not male.

I saw mothers crying. I saw little bodies thrown in the Laoron River. I saw sadness that could not be compared with anything I knew. That was one of the most terrible things I’ve ever seen.

When I asked why king asked something so awful, they didn’t bothered to tell me. My little cousin I hardly had time to meet died that horrible day.

When I finally came to my senses, I made a good decision- make them explain some things to me. I deserved to know.

Chapter 2

I desperately wanted to learn magic. Eroint was eager to show me everything he knew, but he too, like me, knew that only males could do magic. But, you know, when you really want something, it may come true.

I practiced every day. I hoped. I hoped with whole my soul and heart. I prayed and talked to wind. I asked it to give me special ability. I wanted to be the first woman ever to be able to call powers. Then, one day, powers answered on my call. They just appeared, like I was born with them.

It was not hard even though I was a girl. I should only focus on something and it would respond to my magic touch on most various ways.

I could lit a candle- it was quite simple thing- I only had to imagine fire circling around candle and it would usually appear. But, I had some difficulties with creating bigger fire.

I remember my first attempt to create is. I was sitting in my small room with Eroint. Everything was prepared for my practice. Big iron bowl was placed on the table in the center of my room and I was supposed to light the piece of paper that was in it.

I imagined flame, like I did with candle, and, with my eyes closed, I couldn’t realize what was really happening. I heard a scream and room suddenly became very hot.

Then, when I opened my eyes, I discovered that whole room including Eroint was in flame.

Oh my! What should I do? What if anybody notice? What would be then? Would I die just like Eroint’s father?

First I ran to help Eroint, but, he already called magic and flame easily disappeared from his burning shirt and trousers.

Then, we worked as quickly as we could. Nobody came in while we were returning everything to its proper place and, fortunately, there wasn’t any big damage. We had luck.

“I’m sorry”, I said when we finally finished, “I didn’t mean to hurt you”.

Only a look at his burnt clothes was enough to make me feel terrible, but he only smiled.

“Never matter. You had to practice on something. Why wouldn’t that be me?”

We laughed much after that and whole incident was easily forgotten.

My next attempt was better. Only table was in fire.

At last, after a week spent in practicing I did it. I finally created flame.

How happy I was! It was another discover, another big progress…

Eroint was very pleased with me although he didn’t know how magic responded to my call. It wasn’t supposed to. I was female. Magic responded only to males.

After all that playing with fire, my hands were burnt and it hurt much. I had to hide it from my mother and other people. If they had seen my wounds, they would have asked many questions like: What did you do? How did you get injured?

I didn’t want that. How would I answer?

To say I was learning magic was silly. Either they would not believe me, or they would kill me just like Eroint’s father.

After some time, I started to learn how to create a globe of light.

Eroint knew how to do that very well-it was his favorite work of magic. He told me it is useful. When you don’t have any other source of light, you can create it.

I didn’t really see what was useful in that, but, I accepted his teaching no matter what I thought about it. Eroint was my best friend and I didn’t want to disappoint him, so I created a globe of light easily enough.

I learned fast, but I thought I had all time in the world. I was wrong.

There was much about rules in Beladox I didn’t understand and that was my mother’s biggest mistake. She should have told me more. She should have told me that, aftem my 17^th birthday, everything would change and that, after that painful moment Eroind and I would be separated for the rest of our lives.