Ransom

The following is a flash-fiction story based on Rumpelstiltskin.

“You have one day to find your way out of this valley.” His words echoed in her ears. “If you are not back by sun down, your sister will be enslaved.”

Every step seemed to take her deeper into an endless forest with no end in sight. Ever since the nuclear destruction of Earth ten years ago, nothing had been the same.

Maps didn’t work, most technology was destroyed. At any minute she could fall into some underground world, stirred up by the explosions. If her sister was enslaved she knew that she would never see her again.

“I can help you.” A tall man with dark red hair appeared before her, a rare piece of technology in his hand. “I know how to get out of the valley. I can get you out by nightfall. In return, however, I will require your firstborn child.”

Did she really have a choice? It was a child that didn’t exist or her sister.