Prologue.

I was running. Running as fast as I could. The wind was hitting my hair making it fly behind my back. From Kilometers I could smell the stink of smoke, it tickled and annoyed my nostrils. I tried to speed up for all I could. At every step I took I could hear cries of desperation and fear. I knew that my hope to save them was useless; despite this I forced my legs to go faster to reach the town where I was born and grew up. The wood, which had always been a wise adviser, was all around me and it seemed to be tricking and mocking me. The tree crowns' whispers and the falling of the leaves seemed to be trying to interfere with my furious run.

Arrived at the borders of the town I felt like a hole just opened in my chest.

Houses were on fire, people ran in every direction trying to escape death. Their eyes huge looking for any sign garanteeing them salvation.

Someone ran into me taking me back to reality. I shook my head and threw myself over the huge gate which marked the border of the city. I ran untill I was breathless towards that which had been my house since my birth. The place that in my eyes was the safest and the most untouchable in the whole world was now sorrounded by flames and smoke. I couldn't even distinguish its profile. I couldn't breath, but without a second thought I threw myself in uncaring of the heat.

I called his name with all the voice I had, I looked for him among flames and burnt ruins without finding a glimpse of him. At the end, when I thought I had no more chances to find him I saw him under a beam. I approached him as fast as I could and kneed by his side throwing the timber away. I lifted him on my left shoulder and ran out trying to save him.

Once we were far from danger I put him on the ground, lying him on his back. Horrified I noticed his conditions. Almost all of the visible skin was burnt like the poor clothes he had worked so hard to buy, now painfully merged with his flesh. His eyes huge and empty of the vitality I was used to see in them. For a moment I just kneed there with my head in my hands screaming my pain and dispair to the sky.

Everything I knew and cared for was lost in one night time. I found myself hoping the Gods took him with them in the less painful way possible. I stared in his eyes for a long time, then I stood and got back at the gate to see if there was someone that could still be saved. But soon I realised there was no possibility of salvation for the few inhabitants of that small town. I walked around only to appurate my uselessness and I couldn't not wonder if I was the reason for evereything that the Gods had inflicted those innocent farmers. I took all of the corpses I could find out of the gate and sat down watching how the flames ate everything I had ever loved.

The fire lasted a couple of days during which I never moved, watching the smoke create images in the sky. When the fire died I decited the time had come for my fellow citizens and friends to reach and get over the river that would take them where the soul rested in peace for eternity.

Only after giving each one o them a right sepolture and having paid their last trip I paid a slow and accurate last visit to what was left of my town. I passed what had been cultivated camps, remembering when he had taught me how to grow and pick, where I could run free from any kind of worry enjoying every second of my youth; where we lied hiding among the tall sheaves to observe the sky, letting the sunrays heat our skin. A smile reached my lips just thinking of him.

Although he was left alone after my mother had died when I was born he had raised me wonderfully. I had everything I could've ever wish for. And just thinking all of that had come to an end because of what I was killed me. I gritted my teeth trying to calm down, turned my face and kept walking. I arrived at the temple, the only building that had more than two floors. There the cerimonies were celebrated in favour of the Gods. I had been taught the religious cult since I was a baby, as it was used at the time, and had developped a great passion for te cult of Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and Knowledge (And not only because ai was named after her).

I passed lots of distroyed buildings that reminded me of episodes of my life, leaving me with pleasurable but paifull sensations at the same time. My last stop was my house. I had lived the best moments of my life and I conserved them all jelously in my heart and memory.

I took a long and heavy breath trying to absorb all the sensations that place aroused in me, hoping to never forget them. After throwing a last glance at my town I took off into the forest, leaving my country but not its lessons and history.

I was ready to begin a new life.