Page 12 of Barbi and the Villain

Fear and anxiety grip me, not just for me, but for my baby, too.

It’s now or never.

Holding on tightly to PomPom in my arms, I swing my legs over the rim of the well and jump in. The water splashes all around, but luckily, my feet soon touch the bottom. The water only reaches my waist, so that leaves PomPom mostly dry.

I wait with bated breath, listening for the sounds outside.

More voices. More orders of destruction.

No one is to be left alive for fear the plague might spread.

Seconds turn into minutes and into hours as the riders loot what’s left to steal before torching the remaining buildings. The smoke travels down the well, and it takes everything in me not to cough. Poor PomPom struggles too, and I hold my hand over her snout to keep her from making a sound.

It seems like forever until there’s no more noise around, not even the crackling of wood.

Though still slightly scared, I gather the courage to get out. First, I help PomPom jump out, after which I do my best to hold on to the slippery rocks and haul myself out of the well.

If I’d thought the village was the picture of devastation before, now I have no words to describe what I’m seeing.

Everything has been destroyed—leveled to the ground. The smell of burned flesh and wood permeates the atmosphere, almost making me gag. I’m wet, bedraggled, and smelly. My cute pajamas are destroyed. But hey, at least I’m still breathing. Yet no matter how much I’d like to wallow in self-pity, there is no time to dawdle around. I need to get out of here, and most of all, I need to figure out how the hell I can get back home.

“Shh, baby. It’s fine. We’re fine,” I coo in PomPom’s ear. “We’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

As I make my way down the sinister road, the wind blows a small, half-burned piece of paper in my face. With a frown, I peel it off my skin and turn it over to study it.

It’s a newspaper. And half a heading is still legible.

The plague has killed more than half of the population of Akkaya.

3

Disbelief fills my features.

Someone must be playing a prank on me.

Either that or…

I swallow hard.

“This can’t be happening, PomPom,” I whisper.

She looks up at me, her tongue out. She doesn’t realize the panic that’s forming in my chest or the fact that the impossible might have happened to us.

“This isn’t funny!” I call out, looking around for any decor flaws.

Maybe I’m in a simulation. Or a highly modern Hollywood studio.

Yet even as I hope to explain my surroundings that way, the truth is staring me in the face.

This is real.

The village was real.

The dead people were real.

Somehow, I’m not home anymore.

“Okay,” I take a deep breath. “If this is Akkaya by any chance, then it’s not so bad, is it, PomPom? I know those books like the back of my hand. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out the rules and find a way out of here.”

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