1 - Night Raid

I turned my head and got up out of bed, slowly at first, then, with realization ringing in my ears, raced toward the window in my humble home. “Night raid!” I heard someone scream from out in the street, and after the distant explosion I heard afterward, I realized why. Fear tore at my chest and my eyes widened as I swiveled around to find my parents’ room. Fire danced on the rooftops of the houses down the street, eating its way inside like an animal might eat its prey, and I tried to push the thought from my mind, but couldn’t stop thinking about what could happen to the people inside those houses. I darted out into the hallway toward my parents’ room, my sisters trailing behind me in a frenzy of curls and nightgowns. I ran up to the door and flung it open, revealing my father as he shook my deaf mother awake.

“Dad—” I started, but he hushed me, helping my mother up and out of bed.

“A night raid, I know.” He started digging hurriedly through his dresser. “Get the girls onto the porch and we’ll meet you there.”

I ran from the room, leaving my mother digging through drawers with my father, and went back down the hall to my older sister, who was holding onto my younger sister’s hand and waiting at the end of the hallway near the back door. Hannah, my older sister, ran up to meet me, nearly picking Lillian up as she dragged her across the hallway. The little eight-year-old was bawling, and neither me nor Hannah did anything to stop her. It was best she just let it out.

“Dad says he wants us on the back porch,” I said quickly, picking Lillian up and turning around, but before I could start back down the hallway, Hannah put a firm hand on my shoulder, not turning me around, but not letting me go, either.

“Avi, listen, I was told not to tell you this”—I stopped squirming under her grip, and my breath caught in my throat—“but there’s a chance we might not make it out of this, so I thought you should know.” I heard her take in a deep breath, and for a moment her grip softened on my shoulder. My chest throbbed. We never kept secrets from each other. “Do you know the way Mom lost her hearing? Well, it wasn’t from disease, like you probably thought. It happened because she and Dad were once... were once...” her speech faded to a halt, and when I finally turned around to face her, her eyes were glossy and her grip loosened so much her hand fell to her side, and she just stood, and I stood watching her with Lillian in my arms doing the same. My attention snapped back to it when I heard another explosion, accompanied by the cries of villagers and Lillian’s gasp. I let Lillian down (she clung to my leg) and took Hannah’s hand instead. I tried to pull her toward the back door, but she stood as still—and as strong—as a statue, ensuing that I would not be able to move her without some serious strength, which I didn’t happen to have with me—and then I heard a loud explosion from just outside our house, shaking the front door on its hinges and rippling the picture-frames hanging on the walls. I struggled to keep balanced, and panic ran through me when I spotted Hannah tipping over like a stiff board. I stepped forward to try to catch her, but the floor shook and I fell to my knees instead, Lillian letting go and stumbling over my leg to the floor. I heard, faintly, her cries as I searched my blurring, panicked vision for where Hannah had fallen, but I couldn’t make out my own hand as I clutched the floor to keep consciousness. I removed a hand from the floor and flailed about to find Hannah, but only a voice met my efforts. I had to listen to hear it, and even then it was a weak, meager, soprano voice, failing to cut into the air with confidence as she normally did.

“I’m... not who you need to worry about anymore.” Hannah whispered weakly, and I heard her cough through the smoke and debris. “Mother and Father, they were in the attack a long time ago, and they... said... and y-you—you were... you are...” the smoke cleared enough for me to make out her face, her long blond locks falling around her pale complexion, now covered in soot and the light in her eyes retreating. “Take Lilli...” her eyes slid up and met mine, the last life she had meeting my gaze with a certainty I had never seen before, and I caught a streak of blood run down her forehead before I turned around and took Lillian’s hand, making my way back down the hallway and toward the door, leaving her behind in the attack. “And run.”

Terror ran through my thoughts, corrupting any hope of happy nights for the next year more and more with each step away from my family. It felt like tearing away one of my limbs and stabbing my head only a million times worse, and the only thought that soothed me was that Lillian ran beside me into the field, darkened by the night and a fiery red from the village fire reflecting on it like a painting of blood-splattered roses. I hated to think of how little people would survive this inferno, if any. Would my family make it out? It wasn’t likely. But if my parents made it through some attack before this, like Hannah said, then maybe they could make it out of this too... I thought of the defeat in Hannah’s voice when she told me to flee and tears stung my eyes.

“Come quickly, Lillian, we need to get away from Mithle as fast as we can.” I distracted myself, tightening my grip on Lilli’s hand but not moving any faster. If we lost the village, then there was a pretty good chance we would never get back, but that was the least of my concerns.

“But where we going, Avi?” She sniffed in an attempt to stop from crying.

I nearly slowed to a halt, but Lillian didn’t seem to think stopping to be such a good idea, so she pulled me along toward the edge of the field into the woods surrounding the village. We were nearly there, too, but then I couldn’t take it anymore, and I fell to my knees and pulled Lillian into my arms and dug my face into her little shoulder to hide my wet cheeks and swollen eyes. She stood, shocked at my sudden movement, then, just as she had begun to calm herself, began to sob and hugged me back, her little arms not reaching farther than my shoulder blades. Thick black smoke billowed through the air, and the earth smelled like ash, but I didn’t care. There was only one person in this world I still had, and that was Lillian. If I were to lose her, I might as well slay myself and join the rest of my family, and my eyes burned as I opened them again, looking at Lillian with what I tried to make an encouraging smile.

“Lets go to the woods.”

I got to my feet, not caring about anything more than my sister’s shaking nod as she agreed earnestly, wiping her eyes and turning around to face the forest line in front of us. We started forward again, our bare feet padding on the cold earth as we began walking, and we got to the edge of the field in a matter of seconds, neither of us daring to look behind us. I pulled Lilli toward the tree line, then I heard a rustling noise. I swiveled around, searching for what it could have been, but I found just the empty field and the billowing smoke and flame from the town. Suspicion grew in my thoughts and my grip strengthened on Lillian’s hand as I turned back around, and pain immediately shot through my head. My vision blurred instantly and I fell to the ground, my hand falling away from Lillian’s and falling onto something cold and... silky? It felt smooth and weightless as it enveloped me. I felt calm for some reason as it poured onto my shoulders, slithering up to the pain in the back of my head and covering me completely. Then I regained my senses and heard Lillian’s high-pitched cries that brought me back to reality.

But then they stopped, and there was silence. The substance that covered me retreated as I bolted up, and I saw vaguely as my vision righted itself that it was an unnatural glowing orange liquid that soaked into the ground like water, and in seconds it was as if it were never there, then the ground was dark and hard again. I scrambled to my feet and yelled Lillian’s name to the empty air. Silence tore at my ears and I focused harder, only to hear the distant plumes of fire and the burning village and the screams of villagers and the sound of everything but Lillian. My little sister couldn’t have left me so soon after I left my family. Tears streaked my cheeks and I cried out again and again to the silent field. I knew she would respond. She would respond, crying with her arms open, waiting for comfort. If I could hear her voice, if just one sign, it would all—

The searing pain in the back of my head returned, and this time before my vision blurred I caught a glimpse of a figure too tall and drawn to be Lilli in my peripheral vision as the cold tangerine substance broke through the dry earth to envelope me and take me away again, and I didn’t stop it. I didn’t hear Lillian’s cry again, and I laid still and let the calming liquid pour over me. This was a nightmare, and I was about to get up. If I died, then my nightmare would end, and I’d wake up to the smell of breakfast and a new set of chores with Hannah and Lillian making their beds and yawning, commenting on how the weather was nice. If I died—if this killed me—then I would wake up. My death would be the only end to this nightmare.

Because my nightmares would always end with death.

My death.