Smoke and Ashes

Eyin woke up with a weird feeling. It was the feeling that something was wrong, but he couldn't tell what it was. He sat up and up and looked around his room and everything thing looked fine. Maybe there was something wrong with his aunt or her daughter.

He got up from his cot and walked down the hallway towards their bedroom. He stopped in front of a mirror. His black hair was sticking up everywhere and the side of his face was red from sleeping on it. For being only fifteen, he was very tall and looked older than most of the boys in the village.

Eyin peeked in the room and nothing was out of place. His aunt Yana and cousin Kia were both still sleeping.

A flash of bright, orange light caught his attention from outside of a window. Then, in what seemed like only half of a second, there was a scream and a loud, banging knock on the door.

Eyin ran to the front door and pulled it open. There was an elderly lady there.

"Hurry!" she screamed. "Get everyone out! The village is on fire!"

Eyin's mind went blank for a minute. How could the whole village be on fire? It didn't seem possible!

The lady at the door ran back down through the streets, alerting everyone with her screaming.

Eyin ran as fast as he could to his aunt Yana and his cousin. He shook his aunt as hard as he could to get her to wake up.

"Wake up! We have to get out of here!"

She didn't even ask what was wrong. She could yell that he was very serious and that they were in trouble.

"Eyin, go grab the purse in the top drawer of the dresser in my closet," she told him. While he did so, she woke up Kia , wrapped a warm blanket around her, and grabbed the little girl's hand. She knelt down to Kia's eye level.

"Kia, you have to be a good girl. There isn't anything to worry about. You're safe with us, but you have to listen to what Eyin and I say. Okay?" The little girl nodded in response.

Then Yana looked back up at Eyin and nodded. They all got out of the house as fast as they could.

The village streets were chaos. People were running in the direction towards them because the fire had not yet reached that side of the village. Some horses had been let loose from the stables and were galloping away, almost running over the people.

"Run that way!" his aunt pointed to where everyone else was running.

Eyin picked up Kia who was now crying, and started to run. Her eyes were wide and seemed to be in shock. Confused at what was happening with her surroundings.

Eyin slowed down his run to stay behind with his aunt. Just then, a carriage could be heard with more horse hooves. Eyin turned around and his eyes widened.

There were some men dressed in strange looking uniforms with symbols on their chests that he didn't recognize. They threw torches at building roofs and laughed when the villagers screamed. They seemed to enjoy other's pain.

"Eyin!" someone screamed. He didn't know who. For some reason he felt a pulling force. He wanted to get closer to the strange men. To find out more about them. He began to walk toward them. One of them with a cape and a hood got off the carriage and stretched out his hand towards Eyin. His hand was gloved and Eyin couldn't see his face. In fact, he couldn't see any part of the man.

Then in his head, he heard a soft, whispery voice say something to him. It was in a language he had never heard before and didn't recognize.

"Lein creain ma. Meic trena mashina dreis."

For one minute, he understood exactly what the voice was saying and in the next, it had lost it's meaning. He didn't even remember what it had meant. Eyin looked back up at the hooded figure, but it was no longer there.

"Eyin! Come on! Snap out of it!" He turned, picked Kia back up and ran towards the massive hill on the edge of the village.

When Eyin, Yana, and Kia, reached the hill, most of the town was already there. They picked a spot among the crowd and sat down to rest.

"Don't ever do that again! What was wrong with you? You scared me! I thought you had lost it for a minute!" shouted his aunt, looking terrified.

"I'm fine. How's Kia?"

"She should be. She's just shocked. I think we all are. What will we do now? That was the worst time for that to happen! The only Protectors in town were apprentices. And they can't handle a fire that big, even together!"

The Protectors were the soldiers who looked after the town. Made sure everyone was safe. They were also the only people who could create magic. It would have been easy for them to put out the fire if the fully trained ones were in the village.

Eyin knew how to create a little magic which he had learned from his father, but not much. Only enough to heal a paper cut, if even. His father had been a Protector before he had been killed in a battle against Omuhs, the blood thirsty demons. He had once wanted to become Protectoe, but he could not go for the year of training and leave his family alone.

"Can I sleep next to you tonight, Eyin?" asked a small voice. He looked down and saw it was Kia, who had stopped crying. Everyone was apparently very tired and most had already gone to sleep. The older men were takings turns to watch for any more of the weird men that had destroyed their home.

"Of course," he replied.

He laid down and pulled the blanket over the little girl. Even with the haunting images in his mind, it didn't take him long to fall asleep.