Ch.1 }> Slaughter.

The child's father wailed, lower half crushed under rubble as pale pinpricks of white danced throughout the air of their home village. Floral ornaments and colorful cloth burning in a white blaze. The fire and strange, armoured men closed in on their posistion. They could bandage their own wounds. No choice now. They could only run, and run they did. The sun was eclipsed by smoke that towered so high that it touched the clouds and swirled within as if a sinister infection. They kept running. The treeline called their name, and fire raged around them. The drumming heartbeat of indiscriminate usage of magical weaponry battered their ears and caused their chest to tighten. Yet the child was fast- fast enough to escape and small enough to not be noticed.

They made it into the forest and did not sleep until the rythmic pounding of warfare ended. And even then, they did not sleep soundly.