13th August,
year 1553 of the Milliscient Calendar.
He choked out a wet cough, limping over the frail oak bridge that creaked with each step. His heart sank at each squeak of the wood, eyes fluttering shut as a gush of torrid, cloudy haze blew past him. Nonetheless, dust managed to claw its way into his horrified eyes.
The wind howled once more, causing the conflagrated flames clawing at a sea of Golden wheat crops to crackle and roar with a ferocity unlike the gentle breeze the little boy was used to.
"Just there...hahh;; Across the bridge. Aemmi..."
The scorching atmosphere felt utterly suffocating. Like being baked inside one of Bavona's tandoors, feeling the very air expand and burn your lungs. He forced his crimson eyes open once more, glancing at the abysmal sight behind him.
The howl of the fire seemed to swallow everything; the cacophony of the scene unfolding bellow the indifferent, dazzling night-sky; The shrieks of innocent souls being snuffed out like candle wicks before bedtime; The dull thud of bodies hollowed like tree trunks, collapsing against blood soaked streets under the cruelty of the execution squad.
It was a massacre.
The innards of shops and humble abodes were spilled out, thatched limestone buildings crumbling as entire living quarters were leveled. The few buildings that were left standing upright were stained with splattered arcs of crimson caused by blade kissed stone.
Raeinth's heart hammered against his chest like a war drum, his breath coming out shaky and disoriented. He could feel the oxygen being deprived from the tips of his fingers—he was losing strength rapidly. Never could he ever have imagined that such a cruel reality would manifest. Yes, he'd heard hushed whispers of the village elders, something about 'advancing military activities' across the border. But Father said it'd be alright—that if anything serious were to happen, he'd ride out with the rest of the village guard and fight the enemies head on.
And yet, the ones who stood at the border of Bavona village weren't his fathers men. Iron plated ranks poured through the haze of the village, raising banners blackened with soot and faces full of glee twisted under the dancing firelight. Their gleaming swords rose and fell relentlessly, falling utterly deaf upon pleas of the innocent as they dripped with gore that trickled down on sacred Bavonian soil.
In the village center not too far from the oak bride, a woman knelt amidst glowing embers, her face tainted with tears and ash as she held two charred forms up to her chest—infantile in size, their limbs twisted like discarded rugs.
"My poor babies.." She sobbed, her voice fracturing as the heavy, iron-clad footsteps approached her. "I-...I'm so sorry" Her arms tightened around them, pulling them even closer, before a cruel chuckle shattered the melancholy with cruel agency.
A shadow fell, iron glinted, and the soldiers blade whispered through her spine in a swift movement. Her head fell off with a thud against the ground as she folded forward, her breath rattling out in a final, wet sigh as she joined her children in the dirt.
"Damn Milliscients'—Vermin like you lot deserved be cleansed rid from this earth!" The soldier growled with a clenched jaw as he frustratedly flicked the blood off of his blade, treating it like impurity as he melted back into the flame.
Raeinth felt hot bile rise up in his suffocating throat, slamming against his heaving chest.
His house squatted there, beyond the fields—a stubborn thatch roof house on the hill, with a neatly adorned oak door engraved with the village guard knight emblems.
In this moment, more than anything else, Raeinth needed legs that worked, lungs that didn't betray. Fumbling at his thigh, his fingers came away slick with his own blood, the gash from a stray arrow throbbing like a second heartbeat.
He clawed at his leather belt, his knuckles whitening around the worn slingshot—a gift from his father whittled from orchard branch and twine. His legs buckled then, knees kissing charred oak. The world tilted disorientingly , crimson flames rushing up to greet him. A gust howled past, smoldering and merciless, whipping his wavy black hair across eyes too heavy to hold open.
With one last cough, his grip slipped; the slingshot tumbled free, vanishing into the pyre below with a faint plink lost to the crackle. His knuckles unclenched, calloused palm empty now. The bridge, the screams, the sky's bloody weep—they blurred, dissolving into a hush deeper than death.
And in that void, golden light cracked through. Not the fire's lie, but something softer; memory's dawn. Pulling Raeinth back, back to a time before the ashes claimed Bavona. Before the boy became the flame.