Year 1459 – Village of Shuru
Alaric didn't remember blacking out.
One moment his lungs were full of smoke and his head was full of screams. The next, there was just… nothing.
When awareness seeped back in, it was slow.
First came a dull ache in his knees and back. Then the scratch of grain against his skin. Then, finally, sound.
Crackling. A low, hungry noise.
Fire.
The air in the barrel was hot and thick, but not as choking as before. He tried to take a breath. Coughed instead.
Am I… dead?
His throat hurt too much for that. Probably.
He forced his eyes open. The darkness inside the barrel hadn't changed, but the thin line of light at the lid's edge looked… redder.
He shifted, wincing as his cramped muscles screamed. The barrel creaked in protest.
Outside, the roaring had lessened. No more shouting. No screams. Just the steady, awful sound of things burning.
The voice in his chest, the cruel one, was quiet now. Or maybe it was just hiding.
"Mom…?" he whispered, knowing she couldn't hear him.
No answer.
"Dad…?"
Nothing.
The emptiness outside the wood felt heavier than noise.
He pressed a shaking hand against the inside of the barrel. It was warm, but not yet scorching.
He imagined the house above him, a blackened skeleton. The roof half-collapsed. Beams fallen wherever they pleased. Smoke curling through holes where thatch used to be.
If the barrel tips… can I get out?
He braced his hands and shifted his weight carefully.
The barrel rocked.
For a heartbeat, he thought he'd imagined it. Then it leaned—slowly at first, then faster, as something under one side gave way.
"Oh..."
The world tilted.
The barrel rolled.
Grain and boy tumbled together as it crashed onto its side. The lid jarred loose, smacking his shoulder. A rush of smoke‑laced air burst in.
Alaric yelped, half‑strangled, and instinctively shoved upward.
The lid fell away.
He spilled out onto dirt and ash, coughing, bag clenched in white‑knuckled fingers.
The sky above him was gray and orange. Black shapes of beams jutted where his house used to be. Fire still licked at parts of the walls, but most of the flames had moved on to easier fuel.
He sucked in a breath of open air and almost choked on the taste.
The village of Shuru… was gone.
Where there had been houses, there were blackened frames. Where there had been fences, there were charred posts. Smoke curled up in lazy threads, as if the world had simply decided to stop trying.
Bodies lay in the street. Some he recognized by clothes. Some he tried not to look at too closely.
His eyes burned for reasons that had nothing to do with the smoke.
"Mom…?" he tried again, voice cracking.
No answer.
"Dad…?"
Only the hiss and pop of dying fire replied.
His legs wobbled when he tried to stand. He managed to get to his knees, bag strap still looped around one arm like a lifeline.
I was hiding while they....
He squeezed his eyes shut. The inner voice tried to stir again, but it felt… muffled. Like something heavy had been dropped on top of it.
He didn't have room in his chest for that voice right now anyway. It was already full of hurt.
Slowly, on shaking limbs, he pushed himself up enough to see over the broken wall of what used to be his home.
"Mom," he whispered. "Dad."
Only the burned skeleton of the village answered him.
The Demon God in the stories was supposed to be long dead. Heroes in murals. Tales of deliverance and peace.
But standing there amid ash and silence, Alaric felt like something huge and cruel had just walked through his tiny world and crushed it without even looking down.
He swallowed, tasting soot and salt.
"Why…?" he croaked to no one.
The sky did not reply.
Alaric hugged his bag to his chest and stared at what was left, the last of his childhood curling into smoke around him.