With 50% of the votes, the story continues on the third path. With the help of Rodrick, Rena goes to the neighboring village to inform them of what happened. She cannot shake the feeling that the fire that destroyed her home town wasn’t an accident and is determined to find out more about the tragedy.

By the end of the episode, three choices will be presented to you. Vote on twitter or below for whichever path you want the story to continue on.

Intro music: Lonely Dusty Trail by Jon Presstone

Logo Design: Mars Lauderbaugh

It took Rodrick a while to turn his caravan around on the narrow road and face the way he had come from, going back and forth, always just turning a little bit, and Rena couldn’t stop herself from thinking that it would have been so much easier with horses. She also couldn’t help herself from thinking that the ride in itself was much smoother in a horse-drawn carriage. She sat on the bench in the front next to Rodrick, Vincent lying on the ground between their feet, and her butt started hurting after only ten minutes as the entire wagon trembled and shook her around. And then there was the noise. Not just the noise of whatever machinery Rodrick had added to his caravan to get it to move on its own, but the clanking and banging of whatever he was keeping inside of the wagon, which she could still hear even through the walls separating them. She really didn’t know why Rodrick had created this monstrosity. He had somehow made it more uncomfortable, slower and louder than a regular horse-drawn carriage. She supposed it was smaller than a regular carriage if you didn’t have to account for the horses but she was also certain that it was much more expensive if he had to pay for coal to keep it going, or whatever else he was using. He might very well be using something that she had never heard about, you never knew with these city folks. They liked creating stuff just for the sake of it, no matter how useful or helpful it really was, and she was kind of sure this caravan was just one of those things.

They arrived in Halvint when the sun had set and the moon was lighting their way. Halvint was slightly bigger than her hometown, which just meant that it had an actual inn and visitors had somewhere comfortable to stay and didn’t freeze their asses off in a refurbished church tower. Rodrick drove the wagon through the streets as if he knew exactly where they had to go, as if he had been here before, but Rena supposed he had to have come from somewhere before she met him. The town was quiet, the streets empty, which probably meant that no one had noticed what had happened to her hometown, that there really wasn’t anyone coming to help them, that she could have stood there on the road before her village, waiting, for hours, with no hope for rescue.

“What are we going to do?” Rena whispered, unsure if Rodrick could hear her above the sound of his machine. Her blood was running cold again, the effect of the warm soup having suddenly disappeared when they crossed the threshold of the village. She clutched the ends of the blanket that was still draped around her shoulder tightly in her hands, her knuckles turning white. 

“First of all, we are getting you a place to rest and a warm bed,” Rodrick told her, one hand leaving the wheel in front of him and coming to pat her on the knee. “Don’t worry about anything else, I will take care of it.”

He drove them right to the inn, parking his caravan next to the other two that were standing next to the building. It looked so out of place next to the ordinary wagon’s folks used around here, as if it came from a far off country that you only heard about in legends and not just a province that was a handful of day-ride’s away from here. Rodrick climbed down and came to the other side of the wagon, holding a hand up to help Rena down, which she gladly accepted.

The inn was warm and lively when they pushed through the door, confirming Rena’s suspicion that no one had noticed or heard about the fire. Rodrick strode right up to the counter at the opposite side to the entrance where the innkeeper stood. Rena looked over the jovial faces sitting at tables around her and a weird feeling came over her, as if she wasn’t really there at the moment, as if she could see them, but they couldn’t see her. Slowly, she advanced to where Rodrick stood, looking from one face to the next.

“Good evening, sir,” Rodrick bellowed with a wide smile at the innkeeper over the noise of the crowd. “I would like to request your finest room for my companion here.” With this, he gestured at Rena who finally looked up at the innkeeper, their eyes meeting.

He frowned at her, putting the mug he had been cleaning down on the counter.

“You alright?” he asked her, keeping his eyes fixed on her.

She didn’t react at first, the words not wanting to register correctly in her mind. When she had finally processed what he had asked she nodded once, weakly, and the innkeeper’s eyes darted back and forth between Rodrick and her, his eyebrows knitting together tighter. 

“There has been an incident,” Rodrick murmured, leaning closer so the innkeeper could hear him.

The man stared at him with apprehension and only leaned forward when Rodrick waved him closer.

“I don’t want to alarm everyone and cause panic,” Rodrick continued, Rena having to step closer to understand what he was saying. “My young friend here is from Oceansthrow and she has informed me that there was a fire which destroyed everything. I want to discuss how to proceed with the correct authorities here but I thought the first priority was to get my friend to a place where she could rest.”

The innkeeper’s eyes darted back to Rena, wide in shock now, and he looked her up and down quickly.

“Everything?” he asked in disbelief.

Rena pressed her lips together and nodded, not trusting herself to be able to get any words out.

“What happened?” the innkeeper asked, looking at them both.

“I don’t know,” Rena croaked out.

“As far as I understand the situation,” Rodrick said. “My friend came home from gathering herbs to find the village in flames. This is why I wanted to discuss with your guard what should be done, because I myself have not seen the damage yet and I think my friend is too shocked to deliver us a full report on the situation.”

The innkeeper leaned back before shouting, “Devon!”

Half the heads in the room turned around to look at them and Rena immediately tensed up, a cold shudder running down her spine. The other half of the room seemed to be used to this kind of behaviour and didn’t deem it compelling enough to give it any of their attention.

“What?” a man shouted back from a round table to their left where a game of cards was being played.

“Come here,” the innkeeper shouted, waving the man over.

The man looked down at his cards then back up again.

“Why?” he shouted again.

“Just come over here you lazy bastard.”

The man huffed and pushed his chair back with force before carefully putting his cards down face-down on the table.

“Nobody touch these!” he told his companions while pointing at the cards, before walking over to where Rodrick and Rena were standing.

He nodded to the both of them as a greeting before addressing the innkeeper.

“What do you want?” 

The innkeeper leaned forward.

“Oceansthrow burned down,” he whispered.

“What?” Devon replied, apparently not having understood that this situation required hushed voices.

“Shut it,” the innkeeper hissed at him and leaned even closer. “You need to send someone over to check it out before the whole village falls into panic.”

Devon frowned at him before shifting his gaze over to Rodrick and Rena and looking them over, stopping to inspect Rena’s muddy clothes.

“Did you come from there?” he asked with a nod in Rena’s direction.

Rena nodded in response, wrapping her arms tighter around herself. She suddenly felt very exposed, as if the world had shifted to stare her down, and she disliked this feeling even more than the one she had felt before.

“What happened?” Devon asked the both of them.

“They don’t know,” the innkeeper replied for them. “Go fetch your nephew and ride out to the town, I’ll gather up some people here and then we can see what can be done.”

Devon nodded reluctantly before answering.

“Fine.”

He knocked on the wood of the counter twice before turning away from them and striding out of the inn.

The innkeeper leaned down to grab something from under the counter before placing a long key with a wooden pendant attached to it in front of Rena. 

“I’m putting the both of you in room 4,” he said and slid the key over to Rena. “It’s the best room we have. You’ll have your own washing room to clean yourself up. I’ll tell my wife to draw you a bath and bring you some new clothes. Just go down that corridor and you’ll find it, the number’s written on the door.” 

He pointed to a swinging door to their left which led to a corridor behind the counter. Rena picked up the key with ice cold fingers and mouthed a quick thank you. 

“Luck be kind to you, my friend,” Rodrick told him with a wide smile and bowed his head. “I will accompany my companion to our room and then come back to discuss what can be done about these tragic events, if you would have me.”

“We could probably use the help,” the innkeeper replied, his hands propped up on the counter.

Rodrick turned around to walk towards the corridor but quickly turned back to the innkeeper.

“Oh, also, would you allow me to bring my dog into our room?”

“Sure,” the innkeeper replied, frowning slightly at his request. “Just don’t let it on the beds.”

“Wonderful,” Rodrick replied and turned around again, placing a hand lightly on Rena’s lower back to lead her towards the room.

A few minutes later Rena had been set up in the room, a bath had been drawn for her and the innkeeper’s wife had brought her some new clothes to wear, a dress that resembled hers but which had a crimson vest instead of her green. Rodrick had brought Vincent in from the caravan and then left again to go join the discussion about how to proceed. The dog was now lying curled up in front of the lit fireplace, because when the innkeeper had said they were getting the best room, he had really meant it. Two large beds occupied the room, with enough empty space around them to fit at least two other beds, three if they really tried. And the beds were big enough for two people, so they could have easily fit up to ten people into this room, but somehow the innkeeper had elected to only have the two of them in here. Rena wasn’t used to this much empty space. She sat on the right-most bed and looked around at the sparse decor, the silence of the room hanging heavy above her. She could only hear the noise of the inn if she really concentrated on it, like she was lying underneath a pile of blankets. Suddenly she regretted having resented her siblings for being loud and raucous all the time, for having been playful and happy and alive. Tears welled up in her eyes again, wishing that she could hear their screams just once more. That she could hear them laughing and arguing and prattle on about the most meaningless things. She would give her own life if only she could hear their light snores once more next to her. 

Her hands clutched onto her dress in her lap, and she shut her eyes and lips tight, desperately trying not to cry again, but it didn’t work. Tears started rolling down her face and she gasped before she succumbed to her sobs again. She wanted to go home and sleep in her own bed and wake up in the morning to the smell of freshly baked bread and go to the kitchen to make breakfast for everyone and she wanted to meet her friend Talla again and listen to her ramble on about all the rumours she’d heard about the royal court and then fantasize about what the citadel in Mak-Hemma looked like and she wanted to sit down with her youngest siblings and teach them how to read and she wanted to go over to her uncle’s house to taste her aunt’s honey cake again and she wanted to stay up late at night with her family to sing the old songs her grandparents had taught her and none of it would ever happen again.

She struggled to breath, heavy tears falling down to her lap and staining her dress. She tried to force herself to take deep breaths so she wouldn’t succumb to her hiccups but it barely worked. She leaned down and pressed her forehead against her knees, bunching the fabric of her dress around her face and screamed into it, releasing all of her frustration.

As she sat back up her hand bumped into something in her lap and the confusion momentarily dragged her out of her grief. She patted around on the folds to see what it could be and then instantly remembered the figurine she had found near the church and stowed away in her front pocket. She fished it out and held it in both hands, running her thumbs over its surface. It didn’t look like much, it vaguely resembled the shape of a bird with outstretched wings, and it had strange carvings across its chest, but Rena really didn’t remember ever having seen something like it before.

She shot up, stunned, when the door to the room opened and Rodrick came in with two small rolls of dark bread in one hand and a bone in the other.

“You didn’t change yet,” he remarked when his eyes landed on Rena. His eyebrows knit together a second later. “Is everything alright?”

Rena nodded, pressing her lips together tightly and wiping the tears away from her cheeks.

“I’m just not used to being alone like this,” she replied, looking back down at the figurine in her lap where her dress was now covered in wet spots.

“Oh, child,” Rodrick muttered, closing the door with his elbow before coming over to her. 

He sat the bread rolls down on the nightstand next to the bed before sitting down next to Rena. He carefully put a hand down on her knee and patted it. Vincent stirred from his sleeping place and looked over at them, or more precisely, looked over at the bone Rodrick was still holding in his other hand.

“You know,” Rena started again, turning the figurine around in her hands. “Before I went home, when I was gathering the herbs and the woods were so quiet and calm around me, I was happy to be alone for once, because the house was always so loud, and now I’ll never get to hear any of them again and it almost feels like it’s my fault for wishing the noise away.”

Rena’s hand shot up to cover her mouth, as if it was trying to keep the words from stumbling out, from becoming reality. 

Rodrick wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer, his chin leaning on the top of her head.

“I wish I could tell you that everything’s going to be alright but I can’t. This will hurt for a very long time, but it is not your fault. You cannot beat yourself up for what you thought before the fact or for being a survivor, because none of this is your fault. It is just how life is, and we can’t change anything about its course.”

Vincent appeared in front of her, ignoring the alluring smell of the bone and instead placing his head in her lap. Rena took a few shaky breaths, calming herself back down, her trembling hand coming down to gently pet the dog behind the stubble of his right ear.

“I wish it wasn’t this way,” Rena whispered.

“I know,” Rodrick mumbled into her hair and they stayed like this in companionable silence for a while.

“What’s that?” Rodrick finally asked, lifting his head.

“Hmm?” Rena looked up at him and he nodded down to the figurine in her lap. “Oh, I found it on the ground in the village. I’m not sure what it is, don’t think I’ve ever seen something like this before. There were more of them where I found it.”

“May I see it?” Rodrick asked, pulling his arm away from her shoulder.

Rena handed it to him and he picked it up with his free hand, holding it up close to his face. 

Vincent, who concluded that his job was now done, snuck over to Rodrick’s other hand and sniffed at the bone before gently prying it out of the hand and walking back to his previous resting place.

“Fascinating,” Rodrick muttered, holding the figurine up to the light, his other hand still in the same position as when it had held the bone.

“What is it?” Rena asked, trying to make out familiar patterns in the inscriptions on the figurine’s front.

“Did you perchance grow up religious?” Rodrick asked her.

“Not particularly. We didn’t dismantle our church like other places did but we didn’t exactly use it for its intended purposes anymore,” she replied, looking over at him. “Why? Does it have something to do with the old faiths?”

“It looks like artifacts that have been found in old monasteries and such. Well, at least like a crude imitation of one. Like someone could only remember the basic shape of it or was really bad at carving,” he chuckled and handed the figurine back to her.

“And the writing?” Rena asked, letting her thumb run over the carvings.

“I’m not sure. I think it resembles some old script used in this part of the world ages ago, but I’m really not an expert in languages. I do know someone who is though, but they live up in the very north. It would take us a few days to reach them.”

Rena was silent for a while, turning the crude figurine around in her hands, feeling the coarse smoothness of the burned wood under her fingers.

“Why was it there?” she asked, frowning down at it.

“Who knows,” Rodrick said and got up, picking the bread rolls up again and handing one to Rena. “It could be as easy as someone having an interest in ancient history or someone trying to carve something from memory they saw a long time ago. We can talk about it more in the morning. For now, It would do you good to eat something and take a bath before going to sleep.”

“I just don’t get why this happened,” Rena muttered, turning the figurine around in her hand before breaking the spell and looking up at Rodrick, finally taking the bread roll he was handing her.

                        ~~~~

Rena woke up to silence and an empty room. She slowly opened her eyes and then jerked up, not recognising the unfamiliar room until the events of the previous day slowly crept back to her. She pulled her knees closer and crumpled in on herself, burying her face in the bunched up blanket in her lap. It felt like the room was caving in on her, as if the silence was pressing down on her to the point where she couldn’t breathe anymore and she knew she had to get out of this room as quickly as possible. 

She threw the blanket off herself and slung her legs off the bed in the same motion. She put on the new dress she had been given because hers was still drying and in a few quick steps she was out of the room and down the hallway. She slowed down before entering the main room of the inn but there were no sounds coming from it so she picked up her pace again, scared that she had been abandoned, that she was all alone again. As she entered the room her heart tightened at the sight of empty tables until her eyes landed on Rodrick who was sitting at a table near the fireplace on the opposite side of the room, hunched over a book or a journal, too concentrated to have noticed her come in. At his feet, underneath the table, Vincent had curled up and was seemingly asleep. As she walked in, she noticed another two people sitting at the counter, one younger guy with a bowl of food in front of him and an older woman who was writing a letter. 

“Hi,” she breathed out as she walked up to Rodrick, stopping to stand in front of the table.

Rodrick jerked up, looking at her with wide eyes, before relaxing and smiling at her.

“Good morning. Sit down.”

He gestured towards the chair opposite him, the one Rena was standing next to.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her.

Rena didn’t answer right away, letting herself float down into the chair and brushing her dress down before looking back up at him, forcing at least a small smile onto her lips.

“I’m alright,” she finally said, her voice thin.

“It is perfectly normal to not feel alright right away,” he told her, his smile turning softer and more apologetic. She nodded and looked down, trying desperately not to break this early in the day.

“Do you want anything to eat? Something to drink?” Rodrick asked, not waiting for her answer before getting up. “I’ll go ask Darian what he could make us, he’s in the kitchen, I’ll be back in a second.”

Before Rena even had time to process everything he had said he had already gone. She watched him go around the counter and disappear behind a door, thinking to herself that she wasn’t actually all that hungry.

Her gaze drifted back to the table and landed on Rodrick’s journal. It was still lying open to the pages he had been hunched over earlier. They were filled with tight handwriting and even smaller handwriting in the margins around the initial block of text. The inks that had been used to write didn’t all have the same shade, giving her the impression that the text hadn’t all been written at the same time. She couldn’t make out any words, not with how small the text was and the fact that it was upside down for her, but in the margins of the left page were symbols drawn in green ink that looked different from the rest of the page. She quickly glanced over to the door, making sure Rodrick wasn’t on his way back, and leaned closer to the journal, craning her neck to see the symbols better. On the side of the page there were five circles with simple flower patterns in the middle, like the ones she had already seen carved into the stone of buildings before. Her eyes drifted over the rest of the page, and only now did she notice that the text wasn’t written in a language she knew, although it still used the same script. At the bottom of the page her eyes however fell on a different script, something that looked similar to the carvings on her figurine, but before she could lean closer to have a proper look at it the door opened and she jerked back in her chair, turning her head to look at the inn’s front door as if she had just been admiring the room’s decor and nothing else. 

“Here we go,” Rodrick muttered as he put two wooden bowls down on the table between them. The bowls were filled with what people usually had for breakfast around here, a mix made of eggs, flour and milk and whichever herbs grew around the town. Rena pulled the bowl closer to her and took the spoon Rodrick was handing her.

The heat and the smell and the taste of the dish pulled at her heart, reminding her of all the time she had eaten it at home.

“You mentioned yesterday that this wasn’t the first time you heard of a village burning down like this,” Rena asked, her mind filled with a million thoughts at once.

Rodrick sighed as he sat down.

“I’m afraid not. I wasn’t certain yesterday because I didn’t know much about what had happened, but I talked to Devon and the other people who went to Oceansthrow yesterday evening and I think my fear that this might not have been a naturally occurring fire has been confirmed. Another group went to the village early this morning to bury the bodies and gather more information. We might learn more from them. I didn’t want to wake you this morning when they left because I thought you desperately needed sleep, but if your wish is to join them after breakfast I would be happy to accompany you.”

Rena thought about that proposition, about going back to the ruins of her village, about seeing the dead bodies of all her loved ones and her whole body froze, every muscle tensing, as if her body refused to even consider moving closer to that tragedy.

She stiffly managed to shake her head no before quickly spooning another bit of egg into her mouth, distracting her mind with the taste of the food.

Rodrick nodded slowly and started eating his own food.

“I also think that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for you to return this quickly,” Rodrick said.

They remained in silence after that until they had finished their food. Halfway through Darian, who she recognised as the innkeeper from last night, brought them mugs of elderflower tea and Rena welcomed the smell and taste of something that didn’t remind her of home.

“Can you tell me more about the other villages?” Rena asked, finally breaking the silence.

Rodrick placed his spoon down on the table, fiddling with it until it was perfectly straight.

“I sadly don’t know much about it,” he replied after a while. “I heard that a village in Mashod burned down about nine months ago and that another village to the north-west of here burned down about three years ago.”

“Why have I never heard about that?” Rena frowned.

“I suppose because people don’t like to talk about such tragedies and since it was so far away news might have just not traveled all the way down here. And there’s always the possibility that your parents didn’t want to burden you with the knowledge of such events.”

Rena’s frown deepened, unable to believe that the news of entire towns burning down would not have reached them, especially if it happened in their own province. And even if her parents hadn’t wanted to tell their children about it directly, it was impossible to keep such significant events secret throughout an entire town.

“There’s also the fact that local authorities seem to want to keep a tight grip on any information they have gathered about these events. I’m not quite sure why though, maybe they fear mass panic. But they tend to keep a lot of bigger events like this secretive, so this might just be the way they like to operate. It is, after all, easier to govern a kingdom if only a select group of people know about everything that’s happening.”

He said this last part with a light chuckle, as if it was just an oddity of life and not something to be concerned about.

Rena nodded, taking in all the information. It didn’t feel right that she had never heard about the other fires before. The thought of no one outside of their own little part of the kingdom ever hearing about Oceansthrow burning down made her stomach twist in a weird way.

“So how do we find out more?” she asked, looking up at Rodrick.

He glanced down at the table, his eyebrows twitching together as if he was thinking.

“We will either have to interview someone about the events or get access to the official reports,” he replied, still half in thought. “Although I don’t think either of those options will be easy.”

“Can’t we just ask to see the reports?”

“Sadly, no. These kinds of reports are kept in the archives of the provincial guard in the respective province’s capital and you need a special decree to access them, and you can only get such a decree under specific circumstances. I don’t think they count curiosity as a good enough reason.”

“We aren’t just curious about it though,” she answered, feeling anger rise up in her. “My entire family died and I have no idea why and they can’t just keep me from finding out who did this.”

“I know,” Rodrick said calmly, pushing his hands towards her on the table, palms up so she could place her own hands in his. “I know. We could try to plead your case to the guard, I just want you to know that they are very strict and secretive with this kind of information and we might not be able to get access to the records and I don’t want you to get your hopes up for nothing.”

Rena nodded and breathed in deeply, trying to calm down again, feeling the warmth of Rodrick`s skin against hers.

“Ok, so what about asking someone for more information?” Rena asked.

“Well, I suppose that we could drive up to the north of Vellashta and ask around, although I am not sure a lot of people would want to speak to us.”

“Hi,” a voice suddenly emerged from next to them. Rena looked up in shock, having not heard the man walk up to their table. It was the guy who had been sitting at the counter eating breakfast and Rena just realised she had completely forgotten that they were not alone in the room.  “I didn’t mean to pry, but I couldn’t help myself from overhearing your conversation, seeing as I was just sitting there and the room isn’t very big.”

He wasn’t much older than Rena, maybe five years, and he was wearing dark pants and a blue, long-sleeved shirt, both covered in patches where someone had hastily tried to cover up some holes. His curly, dark brown hair had been tied up into a bun, although a lot of strands had already abandoned ship. His eyes were of a slightly lighter brown than her own, with a tinge of green mixed into them, and his face was covered in a light stubble.

“Hi, I’m Logan,” he said as he dragged a chair over from another table and sat in it backwards, its back facing the table. He held out a hand towards Rena and she shook it automatically, too stunned to go against her manners. “As I said, I didn’t mean to pry, but if you are looking for information, I’m pretty good at finding the right people for that.” he continued and shook Rodrick’s hand. “Or finding someone who can get you one of those special decrees,” he added and winked at them.

---

Southern Regions:

Kingdom of Kal-Hemma:

With over 60% of the votes, the story continues yet again on the second path. Rena is face to face with a stranger and his bizarre caravan and has to decide whether he might have something to do with the burning of her home town or whether he is just an innocent wanderer.

By the end of the episode, three choices will be presented to you. Vote on twitter or below for whichever path you want the story to continue on.

Intro music: Lonely Dusty Trail by Jon Presstone

Logo Design: Mars Lauderbaugh

Rena stood only a few feet away from the strange caravan which was rumbling and sputtering out clouds of smoke, its driver staring at her, his eyebrows slowly drawing together in concern.

“Are you alright?”

He was close enough for her to finally really see him, a lantern at the top of the caravan illuminating him from above. He had a gentle, round face with wrinkles weaving across his skin and a long, bushy white beard with matching eyebrows. His skin was pale like the people from the northern border, but in this day and age that didn’t tell her much about where he was actually from. His hair was another cloud of white, with round, golden goggles above his forehead keeping them in check. His clothes were made of thick leather, like traveler’s clothes, but you could still tell by how clean and undamaged they were that he came from money. Although his strange contraption of a caravan could have told you the same. It looked like he had taken one of the ornate horse-drawn carriages that successful merchants used in the cities and converted it into a machine that didn’t need any horses. Or at least Rena supposed it didn’t need any horses because she hoped he hadn’t trapped them inside the wagon to hide them for some reason. She had never actually seen anything like this. You’d hear about all the marvels people were creating in the big cities, that they now had tools and gadgets that worked completely without muscle power. She hadn’t believed all the rumours she had heard, especially the ones saying these machines were alive and just ran on their own power, but she couldn’t ignore the reality that stood in front of her.

The man pushed a lever down next to him and the caravan rumbled and shook before finally going silent. He got up and stepped down the few steps to his left. He headed towards Rena but stopped when she stepped back, unsure about this stranger that was so different than anyone she had ever met.

She wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t think that this man had anything to do with the fire so she would probably be safe with him, but what if it turned out that he was really here to make sure the village had burned down completely, that no one had survived the inferno. Or maybe he really didn’t have anything to do with the incident but he would harm her in another way. Take advantage of her or try to rob her, even if he didn’t look like someone who would. Her mother had always told her she needed to be more careful with strangers, but she disliked mistrusting anyone from the get-go. It felt like thinking every human being was evil until proven otherwise, and that didn’t sit right with her. But now she was alone and there wasn’t anyone close that could come and help her, anyone that knew her and that she could trust, and she realised that this was the first time in her life where she was completely on her own.

“My name is Rodrick. You look cold. Let me go get you a blanket and some hot tea.” He turned around and marched towards the end of the caravan. “Or maybe some soup if you’d prefer.”

From the footrest of the driver’s seat a dog emerged and jumped down onto the road. It was reddish-brown with long, thin, black legs and a bushy tail that ended in white fur. It’s long snout was black at the end and it had big, arching ears, white fur inside of them, although one of its ears seemed to have been bitten off. Rena took another step back when she saw the dog because it looked so different from the ones she had seen in her village, too long and too thin, but its ears pricked up and its tail started wagging when it saw Rena and she recognised those signs. She slowly kneeled down, keeping her eyes on the dog, and held her hand out towards it. The dog lifted its head and she could see its nostrils working furiously. It’s head went down again and it carefully came closer to her.

“Hi there,” Rena said quietly as the dog approached. It stopped in front of her, stretching its long neck to smell her hand before carefully pushing its nose against her fingertips. Rena obliged and stretched herself closer to pet the dog behind its ear, and the dog instantly nuzzled its head into her palm. 

“Ah, I’ve seen you’ve met Vincent,” the man said as he came towards them, a thick, dark blanket under one arm and a closed pot and some sort of metal jar in either hand. “He’s lovely, isn’t he? When i left on my little journey I thought to myself, ‘Rodrick, you shouldn’t be out on the road all by yourself, it’s dangerous out there, get yourself a dog that can protect you’, and look what I ended up with,” he chuckled, setting the pot and the jar down on the ground and stepping around her to put the blanket over Rena’s shoulders. Her body went stiff for an instant as she hadn’t expected him to step so close to her, but he quickly stepped away again, not having noticed her change in body language, and her muscles mellowed out again.

“But I am quite happy with him, nonetheless,” he continued, getting back to his pots and driving the jar further into the mud so it would stand firmly. “I think I am much better off with a gentle companion than with a hostile protector after all. He brings me a lot of comfort. It makes missing home a bit more bearable.” 

He reached into an inner pocket in his coat and pulled out a metal tin. He popped it open and poured small pieces of coal from its insides into the jar. He put the tin back into his pocket and took a smaller tin box out of another pocket, handing it to Rena.

“Would you be so kind as to start the fire while I go get us some mugs,” he told her and stood back up with an expression of discomfort on his face and one hand on his back.

Without waiting for an answer from Rena he turned around and hurried back to the end of the wagon.

Rena looked quizzically at the small box in her hand, her other hand still occupied with petting the dog. She wasn’t exactly sure what he had just put in her hand considering all of the other strange things he seemed to have. She flicked the lid open and was relieved to see that it was just a regular tinder box. She knew how to operate those. She balanced the box on the top of her knees and took the flint and steel in her hand, striking them together until a spark fell onto the pieces of dry bark in the tinder box.

“Ah, wonderful,” Rodrick said as he came back just as Rena was transferring the small flame from the tinder box to the coals in the metal jar. He placed two dented, metal mugs and a clothed bundle down next to the pot and flicked a switch somewhere on the jar that slid caps away from holes in the middle of the jar. He picked the pot up and gently placed it on top of the fire in the jar. 

“We could use some chairs,” he said with a frown and hurried back to his wagon yet again. 

Rena put the tinder box down next to the mugs and watched Rodrick hurry away. She wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders. The dog came closer to her, sniffing at the blanket and poking her legs with his nose until Rena relented and started petting him again.

A moment later Rodrick came back with two wooden chairs. They looked completely out of place on the open road, with their ornate carvings and mother of pearl details. They looked like someone had stolen them from one of the royal palaces. Their presence on this mud road leading from one small town to an even smaller town in one of the most rural corners of Vellashta which was in its part one of the most rural provinces of the kingdom felt like a transgression in and of itself. Rena looked up at this strange man in front of her, seemingly a million things rattling around in the innumerable pockets of his coat, and wondered who he was and why he had decided to drive all the way down here. If he was a rich merchant he would remain either in the east where the royal palaces were located, to the west where most of the kingdom’s resources were produced, or in the north where the kingdom bordered its two neighbours. If he was a lord or margrave or viscount or whatever else these people called themselves he wouldn’t be out here alone at dusk. If he was some sort of other rich person who just wanted to come and see the ocean, he would have gone to Hollowtooth to their west or Mattak to their east where the beaches were made of soft sand and the ocean didn’t try to drown you any opportunity it got. The only people who came to these parts of the kingdom either had family ties to the land or were running away from one thing or another, but he didn’t look like he belonged to any of these groups and Rena couldn’t decide if it should bother her that she couldn’t place him.

“Here you go,” Rodrick said as he put the chairs down in front of the pot.

Maybe he is one of those people who get paid to think and write stuff down, Rena finally thought, even though she wasn’t certain these people actually existed.

She got up, scratching the dog’s chin one last time before she stepped around the pot and sat down on one of the chairs, delicately, so as not to break it. Before sitting down, Rodrick pulled a metal ladle out of yet another pocket on his coat, blew on it to dust it off, and pulled the pot’s lid up to stir the insides, which looked like a creamy, white liquid, perhaps a potato or celery soup. It was only bubbling slightly but Rena already got a whiff of its rich aroma. Rodrick left the ladle in the pot, putting the lid on top of it, and sat down.

“This is better, right?” he asked Rena, looking over at her with a wide smile.

She shyly smiled back and nodded. If he had wanted to hurt or rob her he would have done it by now, there was no reason not to trust this man.

“Could I ask what your name is?”

“Rena,”

“Ah, Rena. Related to the word erenat from ancient Bellastrak, which was spoken all over these parts a long time ago. Meaning the flowering one. Lovely name. The first born of Queen Anaya from the twenty-fifth century was named Rena. The child sadly passed away in infancy during the stone plague.”

Rena simply nodded, not knowing what to answer to all of this information.

“Now, what is a child like you doing out here alone in a muddy dress when night has already struck?”

Rena’s breath got caught in her throat. The novelty of Rodrick’s appearance and being had distracted her enough that for an instance she hadn’t thought about what had happened only a few hours ago, but it all came rushing back to her. The smell and the heat and the hand trapped under the beam. The image of her village being in ruins and the church being in flames and the wound on the arm opening because of her, because she wasn’t strong enough to lift the beam. Silent tears started flowing down her cheeks again, her eyes wide as she stared at Rodrick without actually seeing him.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” Rodrick muttered, his hands coming up towards her but stopping before he actually touched her. “Did something happen? Please don’t cry, I can help you. We can fix this. Did you get lost? Did someone hurt you?”

He looked her over, trying to find any injuries.

Rena swallowed and shook her head. She opened her mouth but nothing came out, her breath coming in ragged bursts.

“Take your time. Maybe after eating something you’ll feel better. I’m sure you haven’t eaten in a while.”

He picked up the lid from the pot and put it upside-down on the ground pouring the steaming soup into the mug before handing it to Rena. She gripped it in both hands, feeling the stark contrast between the hot metal and her freezing fingers.

She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to stop her tears.

“I am from Oceansthrow. I was out gathering herbs and mushrooms for my parents. I came home a few hours ago, but when I did, the town was in flames.”

She waited for Rodrick to say something but he remained silent. She opened her eyes again and dared to look at him. He now had the second mug in his hands, filled with soup, and was looking at her with hurt in his eyes and a hint of anger.

“I am so sorry.”

“I have lived there my entire life,” she continued, looking back down at her soup. “I had a mother and father and five siblings, and my uncle and his family lived only a few doors down from us. I went to school there, and I had friends there, and my parents had a mill and bakery, and everything is gone now.”

Her lips trembled so she pressed them together, biting down on them. 

“I am so very sorry. There is nothing I can say that will make this any easier for you. Life can be cruel to us sometimes and we have to carry that burden alone. But if there is anything you need or want, you can tell me and I will try with all of my power to help you.”

She nodded and brought the soup up to her lips, taking shallow sips from it so she wouldn’t spill it. It tasted rich and creamy and salty, like the soups her grandmother would make for special occasions. 

“I couldn’t help them,” she murmured, placing the mug back in her lap. “I wanted to see if I could find anyone who was still alive, or at least bury the people I could find, because I don’t want wild animals to find them first, but I’m not strong enough. Someone was trapped underneath the church and I tried to lift the beam that was trapping them but it was too heavy and it slipped and I made everything worse.”

She started crying again, bringing one hand up to muffle her sobs.

“My love, fear not, they will find peace in their slumber, but you cannot do this by yourself. Even for just the two of us the task is too big, it would take us all night to bury everyone, and I don’t think it is safe to go back to your village during the night. The buildings might be unstable and whoever did this could come back. Without light we won’t be able to find anyone, and I don’t want to break your heart further but the chance of anyone having survived is almost non-existent. We need to get you to safety first and make sure you can rest. Our best option would be to go to Halvint and ask for help. Gather a group of people and come back in the morning.”

Rena nodded faintly, accepting that he was probably right. They wouldn’t be able to see what they were doing during the night, and it was very likely that the houses were too unstable to look through the ruins when it was dark. Even if it didn’t feel right to Rena to just leave, there really wasn’t much she could do on her own. 

“Do you think someone did this?” Rena asked, frowning down at her lap, trying to wrap her mind around what had happened and how something so horrible could have happened in such a short time.

“I cannot be certain. There is always the possibility of accidental fires spreading from one building to the next, but the chance of it taking over an entire village without someone extinguishing the fire or without people at least running outside and saving themselves is very low. But then again, you would need a certain type of evil to commit such a heinous act and I truly do not know who that could be. However, I have heard of other accounts of entire villages burning down these last few years. They could all just be coincidences, accidents, just as the tragedy of Oceansthrow could be an accident, but to be certain about that I would need to investigate all of these incidents, examine what happened here and read through the official reports of the other villages, but the provinces aren’t always… very communicative about these things.”

Rena pressed her lips together and nodded, letting his words run through her head.

“Who would do something like this?” she asked, more to herself than anyone else, unable to even picture anyone who would come to such a tiny village and eradicate it completely, who would willingly murder over a hundred people that were barely important enough for the royal council to acknowledge their existence.

“Who knows. I could come up with any number of wild speculations, but I don’t think any of that would help you. It will not do you any good to rack your brain for an answer that you might never find.”

Rena looked off into the distance, wondering if he was right, that they would never be able to figure out what exactly had happened and who might be responsible for such an atrocity. But she didn’t even know for certain if someone was responsible. It might all just have been a very, very bad accident, and she wasn’t certain how she could ever find out what the truth was.

She took another sip of her soup, the images of her village in ruins not leaving her mind.

“Do you have family nearby? Someone you can stay with?”

“I have an aunt in Lomen west of here but she’s sick and I don’t want to be a burden. And my mother’s cousin is a notary in the court of Lord Tiber, but I haven’t seen him in a few years,” Rena replied, her gaze drifting back down to her half empty mug, her finger stroking over a notch in the metal.

“I am sure your aunt wouldn’t see you as a burden. I can accompany you until you have reached her house, and even if you decide that you don’t want to stay there, I wouldn’t mind having another companion on my travels.”

He shot her a gentle smile which Rena timidly reciprocated.

---

As time passed, so did the heat and the flames that surrounded Rena. The flames that had licked their way up the church tower were slowly retreating as they found less and less material to latch on to. Rena still sat on the ground, her legs cold and wet from the muddy road while her mouth and eyes were dry and prickling from the heat. Her own heart resounded louder in her ears than the crackling of the fire.

None of this felt real. Not what her eyes could see, or her skin could feel, or her nose could smell. But she couldn’t claim that it felt like a nightmare either. A nightmare would have ended by now. She would have woken up, drenched in sweat, and her mother would have come over to comfort her. She wouldn’t have sat on the ground for so long that the setting sun had turned the sky orange. 

The church tower suddenly collapsed in on itself, taking the rooms the town had built in it four years ago down with it, sending out a cloud of ashes into the sky with a loud, dull crash. A wave of heat hit Rena a heartbeat later, drawing her out of her catatonic state. She closed her eyes tightly and turned her face away, her hand coming up to cup around her nose so she wouldn’t breath in the ashes that had been stirred up. She drew her face towards her lap, waiting for the blast to wash over her and the ashes to settle again.

After a moment, she carefully opened one eye, peaking out towards the ruins in front of her. She sat upright again as she saw that the dust had settled, lifting her hand away from her face but not dropping it to her lap just yet. The thought suddenly crossed her mind that she couldn’t even recognise the outline of her village anymore. The church tower was in ruin, Jesper’s house was gone, only a handful of rooftops remained standing, and the two poles with the colorful ribbons tied between them that marked the entrance to the village were long gone. It suddenly hit her that she would never see these buildings again and she would have never thought that she could miss buildings or the wheat fields on the other side of the village, or even the annoying stray goats and pigs that roamed through the streets, but her heart clenched tighter with every new image that popped into her head that she would never get to see again.

Bile rose up her throat and she couldn’t stop herself from retching on the ground in front of her, the acid burning her insides. Her trembling hand came to rest lightly on her lips, her fingers ice cold against the burning skin of her face. 

She pushed herself up and away from the foul smell of her vomit. Her beige dress was caked in mud, falling heavily around her legs. She wrapped her arms around herself, hugging her chest tightly. She looked out over the village, her breaths coming in shaky and shallow. She turned around to look at the forest around her, her arms drawing tighter. Her surroundings were getting dimmer and soon the light of the sun wouldn’t reach through the foliage of the trees anymore. She stared at the road behind her, still looking exactly like it used to, and started to wonder what she was supposed to do. She couldn’t stay here on the road forever, she doubted anyone was about to come help her. She wondered if anyone from the surrounding villages had even noticed the fire. The smoke had probably been visible a long ways away but villages here were far away, especially on this side of the village. If she wanted to reach the nearest village she would have to cross the ruined remains of her town or go through the dark forest. 

But was that actually what she wanted? To just reach the next village? And then what? Ask them for help? Find a place to stay? Start a new life and forget about all of this?

A thought suddenly struck her and her head whipped around, her eyes wide. In the time she would need to get help, wild animals could come in and defile the remains of everyone in the village. She looked up to the tops of the trees around her, looking out for crows, but in the dim light she couldn’t make sure that there were none around. Her breathing started to pick up. She couldn’t leave without burying the dead bodies first but her body revolted against the thought of entering the village. She knew it was dangerous and she knew that she would never be able to forget what she would see once she stepped closer, but still, she had known these people, and she wouldn’t let wild animals defile their physical remains. And in the back of her mind she thought that maybe, just maybe, she would find someone who was still alive, someone who needed her help.

She slowly lifted a foot and stepped forward, her shoe sliding through the mud. Her legs felt weak, as if she could fall over at any second, but she pushed forward, eyes fixed on the first pillar that remained of Jesper’s house. She forced herself to look forward, to not look down at the rubble. She approached the house, her eyes fixed on the diminishing orange specks dancing around on the burnt wood. 

“H-hello,” she croaked out, her throat too dry to yell.

She finally looked down at the mess that remained of the house. She couldn’t recognise much in between the piles of ash and debris, except that the stairs to the second floor were still sticking out of the ruin. She walked up to the edge of the pile, trying to find a spot where she could step onto without hurting herself. She carefully placed a foot onto what seemed like a flat enough surface but as she put more weight onto the foot something started to creak and shift and she quickly took her foot away from the spot again. Her footprint was clearly visible in the ashes, as if she had stepped onto a thin sheet of snow.

She looked up over the ruin again, unsure of what she was supposed to do.

“Hello?” she called out again, louder this time, but only silence answered.

She waited an instant, trying to figure out whether she could hear something move underneath the rubble.

Suddenly, one of the remaining pillars collapsed onto the rest of the remains of the house, sending up a big pile of ashes and debris, and Rena had to step back, turn around and crouch to get away from the dust. She covered her face with her hands but still enough reached her lungs that she fell into a coughing fit. It took her a moment before she had recovered and could stand up again. She turned around, stepping further away from the house, and looked at the house to assess the situation, shaking the ashes out of her hair with one hand. She wished that she could be brave enough to rummage through the debris for signs of life, but it would be much too dangerous and if she got hurt now she wouldn’t be able to go to the next village and get help.

She stepped away and turned around, wrapping her arms around herself again, and walked down the street passing the houses that lay in complete ruins in search of one that hadn’t collapsed yet. Her eyes were wide open, unblinking, tears quietly streaming down her face again. From the corners of her eyes she could see what remained of her village. How the front of Maggie’s soap shop still stood upright even though there was only debris behind the windows and she could see the sky through them. How the produce stands in front of the ruins of the food store remained untouched, the vegetables and fruits covered in ash. How the home of her childhood friend whom she hadn’t talked to in years was nothing more than a smoldering mass.

She came up to the church, flames still weakly curling up from its remains, what was left of the tower spread out over the street around the church. Small pieces of paper were floating through the air and covering the ground, some empty, some with printed letters, and some with the shaky script of children’s handwriting. Her father always told her how proud the town had been after finally being able to convert the old church building into a school. When he was a child, he had to walk two towns over to go to school. None of his children realised how lucky they were to live right next to the school. And now all of these efforts had gone up in flames, only memories remaining in Rena’s mind. All the songs she had sung in class, all the games she had played in the courtyard, all the pages she had cursed at while learning to write. She was the only one left to remember them.

Her foot stepped on something hard and Rena stopped, her head looking down before she could tell herself that it might not be a good idea. Her muddy shoe covered whatever she had stepped on. She carefully stepped back, revealing what looked like a wooden figurine, a bird of some sort, the body long and pointed with the wings spread out to its side, almost like a cross. She frowned down at it. She’d never seen a figurine like that. It looked too simple and flat for something you would buy as a toy for a child, but it also looked too smooth for a home-made toy. She reached down and picked it up, swiping the mud away with the skirt of her dress. The wood was dark and looked burned, but the burning looked controlled, not like it had been laying in a fire. Something was carved on its front, from the tip of one wing to the next. It almost looked like letters but it wasn’t any script that she could read, just straight lines connected through triangles that didn’t look like anything she had ever seen. She wondered if it was a keepsake from a foreign country. Something someone had brought back with them after a business trip or from the war back in the days before she was born.

She clutched it to her chest, one arm still wrapped around herself, and looked out over the ruins around her. She saw another figurine stick out of the mud near the church but as her eyes wandered further they landed on something rounder, something redder. Behind the figurine, sticking out of the rubble from the church, was a hand. Her body went still, her grasp on the figurine tightening, and she couldn’t take her eyes from it. Her blood rushed to her ears, her heartbeat drowning out any other sounds. She held her breath until she couldn’t take it anymore, her lungs burning and clenching, and she had to take in a deep breath. She started coughing and the bile threatened to claw its way up her throat again.

She looked up at the sky, begging her body to calm down again. Above her, ash of paper fragments glinted in the last remains of sunlight. She had to keep moving or she would soon lose all daylight. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, regretting it right away as the pungent smell around her made itself known again. 

She stepped forward and opened her eyes again, keeping them fixed on the hand, determined to help whoever was stuck underneath the debris of the church. She stepped past two other bird figurines that had been stuck in the mud. As she approached the hand her whole body started to shake and go stiff at the same time. She stopped in front of the hand, looking down at the red flesh the fire had exposed, flecks of ashes covering the open wounds. Whoever the hand belonged to was stuck underneath a thick wooden beam, their body hidden underneath the rubble.

“Don’t worry, I’m here to help,” she told the hand. “Everything’s going to be alright. I’ll get you out of here and then we can look for anyone else together.”

The words failed to reassure even herself as she crouched down and reached a hand out, forcing it to advance and touch the wooden beam that was trapping the hand. Her hand was shaking so badly that it took her a while before her fingers could actually touch the wood. Its surface was still warm. She breathed in and the stench of burning flooded her senses that she had to turn around and throw up again even though her stomach was empty and the only liquid that came out was burning acid. She started sobbing, her hand covering her mouth, the other clenching down on the ground, her fingers digging through the layers of ash and debris and gravel.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered over and over and she got up. 

She turned back to the hand, eyes wide, looking over the ruins of the church, her eyes wandering past towards the houses that used to stand behind it and towards where her own house should have been. Her gaze went back down towards the hand and slowly, stiffly, she reached back down, holding her breath while both her hands came to grip the edge of the beam. She tried to lift it but her whole body hurt and her muscles were too cramped and the beam didn’t even creak with her effort. She stood back up and turned away to breathe in, before turning around and trying again, putting all of her remaining force into the attempt. This time she managed to lift up the beam, not enough for anyone to be able to crawl out but enough that the other beams lying on top of it shifted and moved and the one she was holding on to slid back, making her lose her footing and fall on top of it. She tried to catch herself and push herself back up but her shoe slipped on the layer of ash on the ground and she fell to the ground, bumping her elbow on a sharp rock that was sticking out of the ground.

The wooden beam had fallen onto the arm again and because of its displaced location the arm was now sticking up towards the sky, the edge of the beam burying into the soft flesh of the forearm.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Rena muttered and scrambled towards the beam again, pushing against it to try to move it backwards, but all she achieved was that the wound where the beam was digging into the flesh opened up wider and revealed the bone, trickles of blood falling down onto the ground.

“No, no, no,” Rena muttered, her hands reaching towards the wound but never quite touching it, unsure what she should do. 

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she repeated over and over as she backed away and scrambled upright, her breaths coming in quick and ragged.

She had thought she would be strong enough. That she would be able to help them and bury them, to give them the dignity they deserved after death, but she couldn’t do it. She didn’t have the strength or the knowledge on how to accomplish something like that. Her heart ached too much. Never in her life had she felt this much and this little at the same time. Like her entire being was composed of so much sadness that there was no space left for anything else. She turned around and walked towards the street again, rushing past all the remaining houses and darting towards the village’s second exit, the one that was closer to a neighbouring village. She would need to get help but most importantly she would need to find somewhere where she could lie down and rest. Lie down and forget what had happened, even if only for a little while.

She stumbled over the road as the sun set and the moon rose, barely visible in the orange sky, her arms tightly wrapped around her chest. She stared out into the nothingness in front of her, her eyes not actually taking in anything until she heard something approaching, something that almost sounded like a badly made machine, with a lot of clanking and humming and buzzing. She looked at the end of the road in confusion and saw a light approach, slowly, and as her eyes adjusted she could make out the outline of a caravan, but where there should have been horses there was nothing. A chimney seemed to jut out of the wagon’s rear, smoke coming out of it in thick clouds. In the front, in the driver seat, sat a person, their hair and beard making them look like another cloud. Rena stopped in the middle of the road, unsure what to do with this approaching contraption, unsure whether she wanted company at the moment or not.

“Oh, hello there,” the man called out to her in surprise before she could make a decision and the wagon slowly came to a halt with a loud screech.

---

With 50% of the votes, the story continues on the second path. Rena has to deal with the aftermath of the fire, her home town in ruins, and goes looking for survivors underneath the rubble.

By the end of the episode, three choices will be presented to you. Vote on twitter or on theheartpyre.com for whichever path you want the story to continue on.

Intro music: Lonely Dusty Trail by Jon Presstone

Logo Design: Mars Lauderbaugh

TW: Mentions of blood; mentions of death; mentions of burn victims; mentions of gore; mentions of vomit

Our story begins. Rena returns home to a tragedy.

You can listen to Season 1 Episode 1 below.

Intro music: Lonely Dusty Trail by Jon Presstone

Episode 1 – All was lost

As Rena marched through the forest, lifting the hem of her beige dress with one hand, an old basket in the other, she thought about how calm the woods were in comparison to her home. Sure, the leaves rustled and there was always a bird crying out somewhere above her, but a busy market space would be more peaceful than her home when everyone was back from school. She absolutely adored every single one of her siblings, she just adored them a little more when they were asleep. She was the oldest of six so naturally she was expected to look after them when her parents were working, which she didn’t mind, honestly. But she also didn’t mind using herb collecting as an excuse to get away from the chaos.

A chilly breeze flowed through her long, brown hair, her fringe braided back so it wouldn’t constantly fall into her face. With a light stride she floated over the forest floor, avoiding the young seedlings and shallow puddles that had formed the night before. She slowly hummed an old lullaby her grandmother had taught her, an almost melancholic song. The few sun-rays that passed through the treetops lodged themselves in her brown eyes, illuminating her youthful face with anticipation of warmer days.

Her parents weren’t exactly happy that she was wandering through the woods on her own, especially not if she went to the cliffs facing the ocean on the other side of the forest, but they were too busy with the flour mill at the moment to gather the herbs themselves, and her mother had stupidly advertised that the bakery would have rosemary bread next week without checking if they actually had any left at home. And so Rena had had the perfect excuse to get a break from the village. She didn’t even really understand why her parents were so bothered by her wandering through the woods. She was sixteen now and she had practically spent all of her life in and around this forest. 

Her legs were slowly starting to ache, and her basket was filled to the brim, so Rena decided to head back home. The shortest way to the village would lead her on an untrodden path through the forest, and she thought that her dress and shoes were ruined enough already, so she took the long way around which would lead her to one of the two only roads that lead to her village. Her hopes of saving her clothes were squashed however when she noticed that the ground on the path had been stirred up into mud by what looked like an entire battalion of horses. She cursed whatever king or lord or margrave had decided to march their army through dirt roads which mostly only lead from one tiny village to the next. Didn’t they already pave all of the roads in the north? Couldn’t they just use those? Who were they going to fight down here anyway? Their neighbour was the ocean, they surely weren’t here to fight the fish? Although, they might as well, then the village could have a big feast for once. She chuckled to herself, thinking about, how even in such a situation, there was no way that anyone from nobility would share their spoils of war with some fisher or farmer from the southern region. Maybe they could all sneak up behind the soldiers and just steal the fish while they were still busy fighting the ocean.

It began with the smell. She frowned down at the ground, her smile falling from her lips, her nose picking up something that hadn’t been there a second ago. She looked up and sniffed the air. She couldn’t place the smell but as she got closer to her village it grew stronger. Her frown deepened as she realised that she was smelling fire. Not a cozy, wooden fire that fills your heart with warm feelings of home. It was a vile, biting smell that brought horrible news with it. It smelled of burned wood, scorched dirt, hot metal, and behind it all was a smell that Rena’s mind didn’t dare place. Something that made her stomach tighten and turn. It smelled like scorched hair, melted fat and boiling blood. The smell tore its way to her nose and clutched itself to her lungs so that it would never leave her mind again. It made her look around in panic, asking herself what could possibly emit such a horrible smell. 

Next came the light. With every step she made, the horizon grew brighter. The trees were lit up by a pulsing orange light, it’s heart blazing up into a engulfing white that seemed to suck any last hope out of Rena’s heart. She squinted at what she previously had thought to be the setting sun but the light moved too much, casting shadows on the trees that made it look like they were swaying in the wind. She knew what was at the end of this road, at the end where the light was coming from. Her mouth dropped open and she regretted it right away as the smell crept its way up her tongue and she could feel the bile rise up her throat. She wanted to stop moving but her legs didn’t let her, as if someone else was controlling them. 

Last came the sound. The sound of cracking wood, falling roofs, searing haystacks and popping bones. But in some ways, it was very silent. She could only hear the fire, as if it was the only thing that existed in that moment. No wind, no birds, no mice had dared come near this forsaken place. Maybe they were right. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to continue on this path. If she could only get a hold of her body again, she could have turned around and run, just run until her feet didn’t support her any more.

The heat finally reached her when she came up on the last bend before her village. From this far away from the fire, it felt like the warm embrace of a campfire on an autumn evening. A speck of dust landed on her nose and she looked up and realised that it was ashes falling down from the sky. Her mind tried to come up with explanations. Maybe it was just someone’s field or barn or caravan that was burning. Maybe an unfortunate cow got stuck in the fire and that’s why the smell of burning fat and hair was fighting it’s way down to her lungs. Maybe everyone was so concentrated on putting out the fire and that’s why she couldn’t hear anyone shout or scream or cry. 

Her feet finally stopped, the last few trees blocking her view of the village. Every tree was backlit by orange light, their crowns looking like the beginning of autumn. Tears rolled down her cheeks, a trail of cold on her burning skin. She couldn’t blink anymore, her eyes staring at the outlines of the trees in front of her, prickling and burning, ashes landing on her eyelashes. She tried to swallow but her throat was dry. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, fat and swollen. The fingers of her right hand slowly uncurled, releasing the handle of her basket. It fell to the ground with a wet thud, the herbs and mushrooms spilling out onto the mud. Her palms were sweaty and although everything else on her felt scorching hot, her fingers felt ice cold.

She took in a long, raspy breath, cocked her chin up, and pressed on, her left hand holding her dress so tightly that her fingers were going numb.  Her feet were taking her faster and faster, evolving into a trot until she ran towards the fire. The end of the road came into view and with it the inferno where her village should have been. She came to a halt a few meters before the entrance to the village, her legs weak, her knees buckling under her. She fell to the ground, her hands and knees hitting the mud hard. She didn’t mind the dirt getting on her clothes any more, she was shutting out the heat that was scorching off her eyebrows and she completely forgot about the smell that was tugging on every fibre of her being. She barely even noticed the sting on her skin as her leaf-shaped pendant which used to belong to her grandmother burned its shape onto her. She looked up, taking quick, shallow breaths, her eyes wide, set on the remains of the first house beyond the path, the one which belonged to her father’s friend Jesper. Only two thick, vertical beams remained, black and grey when they should have been brown wood, specks of orange dancing around on them. Her eyes trailed past the ruin to the church that had also been their schoolhouse, the tower still engulfed in bright flames, ashes flying up from its fire. 
Her whole existence was in that village, her whole existence was that village. And now it was standing in front of her, brighter than the sun could have ever been, and there was nothing she could do about it.

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