Embers rising

Breaking the silence of the night as a loud bang resounded through the village as it knocks you out of the bed and fall to the ground. Fully awake now and frightened you start looking around as you look into the mirror and see your young face after turning 19 a few months back with your black hair and strips of white scattered randomly and quickly stand up to take a pair of glasses from your bedside table and look into the mirror once more as you put on your glasses as you rub your blue eyes awake.

Quickly you run out of your room and across the living room until you reach outside. There you see houses burning with an almost dull blue hue overpowering the night sky from the red of the fire as screams resound throughout the village. You look around panicking and see one of your friends Julius running towards you and grabs you by the shoulders.

"John! Do you know where your father's sword is!" He shouts at you panicking as he looks behind him from time to time. "What? My dad's been dead fo-"

"Yes! I know! But did he leave you a sword or a bow? Anything! He was a soldier before wasn't he?!"

"Uhh...Yeah-Yeah He did" You turn around and run into the house as you run past the living room and pass your room as you reach a room in the house that looked like a study. Hurriedly you push aside a desk as the books on top of it clattered to the ground. You pry open a part of the floor as a box lays inside the compartment.

You open it up and find a shortsword and a broadsword with a leather sheathe for both swords and some plated leather gloves, boots, and shoulder guards. Taking the shortsword and sheathe and the armour leaving behind the broadsword with its size being more of a detriment to you rather than being of help. You put on the armour as you run out of the house just in time to see Julius come back with a bow and a quiver strapped behind him.

"What's going on Julius? Where're the guards?" He grabs you by the arm and pulls you with him as you ran down the street. "No time to explain. Just know that everything's gone to shit" You both run around a corner and stop as you hear the sound of bone cracking and a liquid splattering on the ground followed by a thud.

"And for your second question. That's the guards" He points towards a visceral creature wearing armour with broken blades and arrows pierced into it with several more coming from behind in the same state.

"Stop staring and let's go!" You look behind you to see Julius already running the other direction. You turn back a final time to see the guard pull out the sword that was impaled into a woman as the body lurched as he pulled it out. Breaking off into a sprint towards Julius, you eventually catch up beside him. "What happened to them!" You shouted as you dodged debris scattered on the ground.

"I don't know. I was studying when my mother just came in shouting about bandits"

"You think those are bandits!?"

"I know that they don't look anything like bandits! I know...I saw my brother with them after all..." Julius looked down solemnly as he noticeably slows down before coming to a stop. You stop when you noticed he wasn't beside you anymore.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't know Julius. But-" You grab his shoulders and force him to look at you "we need to get out of here now. If we don't, we might be joining your brother soon and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't like that"

"Heh, He'd be happy to kill me. But you're right. Let's go, follow me we can cut across the village through here and reach the forest and maybe get to Briar Castle to ask for help."

"Yeah, sounds good to me" You both turn into an alleyway and after running for a few minutes. You reach the outskirts of the village and see the trees just past a few more houses. With being so close to freedom, you speed up and run faster. "John, wait!" His warning reaches you late as you turn to your side and see something like the guard on horseback with its sword on its highest peak ready to swing.

You flinch back and close your eyes. But instead of the sound of steel cutting into flesh, instead, you hear the sound of metals clashing. Slowly opening your eyes and peeking in front of you, you find a woman dressed in a dark cloak with her face shrouded in shadows but with locks of amber red hair escaping her cowl as it glittered in the soft light of the moon.

"What are you doing? Run!" She shouted at you as you stir awake out from your trance. A hand grabs your arm and you lurch forward as someone pulls you and you look up to find Julius with signs of tears streaming down his face and red eyes. As you run into the woods and deeper and deeper you go, you turn back and gaze at your village as the burning embers and the soft glow of the flames slowly dim as you disappear into the woods.

/-/

"What do we do with the kids?" A man in a robe who held an ornate staff which had a small dragon coiling around the top as a gem was held in the middle by the dragon. He turns to another man who walks up to him his hand gripping something behind him hidden from the other man as his body blocked his sight. They stood on top of a cresting hill beside the village and watched as the undead guards continued their rampage with most of the village dead and the remaining villagers gathered at a building taller than the rest. A town hall of sorts or a village centre to be more exact. They held crude weapons from pitchforks to proper swords that were probably left behind as an heirloom or picked up from the guards before they were able to be turned into undead.

"Nothing. What can a buncha kids do?" The man threw whatever he was dragging behind him and threw it off the cliff as it rolled down the hill. It turns out it was a body, a body of a young woman who had wounds all around her body with nothing spared. Not even her face was safe from the bruising and cuts. Then, a roar sounded out behind them as footsteps hurriedly rushed from the forest behind the hill. Both seemed calm and waited for whatever it was to reach them.

Ghouls in several forms of rot and decay ran out from the forest in droves occupying the entire forest from the forest floor to the treetops as the ghouls swung and ran from branch to branch or treetop to treetop. The ghouls ignored both of them and ran straight towards the village below. And soon with the arrival of the ghouls, the village people's defence quickly collapsed from the combined might of both the ghouls and undead.

"Are you already finished with the other village?" The robed man spoke as he looked at the body of the woman and raised his staff in front of him and pointed at the body before flicking it up as the body convulsed and twitched before it began to rise as the sound of its gurgling and growls reached them from below.

"What do ya think? Of course, I'm done" The man turned around and whistled. After some short moments, a wyvern flew overhead and landed in front of him and the man grabbed on and climbed the beast and mounted it. His silver-white hair flew back as he rared the wyvern to fly as the beast flapped its wings and flew off.

The robed man turned back to the village and saw a commotion at the north end of the village and saw a figure in a cloaked cowl jump rooftop to rooftop as the undead and ghouls tried to catch her. Periodically she would throw a dagger at a ghoul that was able to climb up to the rooftops only to crash back down into the streets below.

Gradually a slow rumble sounded out through the village and the figure also noticed as she ran from rooftop to rooftop as she searched around her. And as she prepared to make a leap for the next rooftop. She hears the rumbling right below her and trips and falls as she sees a hulking figure wielding a large club bare its teeth.

'Ogre...' she thought as she watched the Creature swing its club and it hits her with a sickening crunch as she soars above the buildings and lands somewhere in the forest.

The man smiled as he watched the figure land within the forest.

"Hmph. Useless attempt. Courageous, but ultimately useless." The man turned as clouds slowly flew in and blocked the moonlight. Giving way for the shadows, as it swarmed and coiled around the man. And when the clouds passed.

Nothing was left.