Escape From Kraznir

Chapter Five- Home

The feeling of failure rests heavily on my shoulders as I enter my once precious country. As I pass the well-worn corner into Slinsil, I see the unimaginable. Every house is engulfed in dancing flames and the bodies of the people I knew are strewn everywhere, black and red, burning. Many have spears or arrows sunk deeply into their flesh. I walk further into the chaos and feel the heat pressing on me from all sides. I glimpse my house, red and orange in the fatal flames. I grew up there I think to myself. Then I spot something terrible. My five year old daughter is crumpled and limp on the hard, dusty ground. I want to scream, to yell out for all that I’ve lost, but my throat doesn't obey me, only emitting a quiet wail. My friends, gone. Family, dead . Everyone I was ever close to has been obliterated, surviving only in my memories. I can’t stand this hurt. I know no-one here apart from the dead.

Walking slowly I visit each house, whether I knew the inhabitants or not, and check for life, anyone to help me break through the cold prison I have fallen into. I find only flaking corpses. I feel the flames lick my arms, but am numb to the pain. I want so much for this all to end.

 I stumble to a place I visited often as a child. It was beautiful then, though you wouldn’t believe it now. I look out over the miles and miles of land stretching out before me. I no longer have the strength to fly anywhere, so I clamber up the rock instead. The stone I am climbing is three meters tall, I measured it as a child in primary school. When I reach the top, the shaking that is invading my body makes me stumble. I glance down and see a few fragments of rock bounce of the cliff face. Deep breaths. Trembling, I bend my knees and hesitate. My heart skips a beat as I slip, falling backwards and smashing my head on the cold, hard stone. The world goes black and I feel the air rushing past my ears. Will I fall forever? A sharp pain pierces my dreams. After that there is no pain, none at all, not anymore.

Anyone watching would have seen a beautiful woman, with glistening rivers of tears streaming down her bruised cheeks, stand at a cliff edge with a look of terrible loss and pain scarring her delicate face, they would see this person and want to comfort her, but be unable to. They would then see that same woman stare vacantly out to the lands beyond Slinsil and scramble shakily up a high rock. Then they would experience that woman slipping from her perch on the cliff and severely banging her head. Running over to offer assistance, they would be forced to watch her fall down to the sharp rocks below, staring blankly back from the depths of her terrified, white face. That person would then bear the burden of seeing this woman die a death of failure and intense loss. That memory would be with them until their dying day.