The gentle breeze lightly tugged at my hair, making me open my eyes. The sky above me was beautiful and blue. Breathing in the fresh air something caught in my throat, making me cough. Sitting up quickly, I realized that I wasn't sore anymore. I felt the ground beneath me and froze. Running my finger through the ashes, realization of what happened dawned on me. When I had touched the sword, a blast of power was released and disintegrated everything within a few hundred paces. The ground below me had been blown away and I was now sitting in a crater.

Climbing out of it, the magnitude of the blast was evident. Only the outer walls of the building were partially standing. I heard footsteps racing up behind me and turned to see an old farmer running up to see what had happened. He stopped dead, staring at the ruins. I turned back and looked too. A couple pieces of the remaining wall, broke off and tumbled down a few feet to the ground. I began to run into the forest a few paces away.

"wait," the farmer said, "you forgot your sword." He bent down to pick it up and as soon as he touched it, I froze in place. It felt like someone was crushing my heart its self, keeping me from moving.

"DROP IT!" I hollered at him. Startled, he dropped it hard on the floor and pain shot through my head.

I turned towards him and realization spread across his face. " you are a demon. This place made a demon. I was wandering what they were doing here, but I could never imagine this. Please, let me help you. I live just off that way. You look starved. Come on.' He beckoned for me to come over. He took his shirt off and held out his hands to show that he meant no harm. Reaching down slowly, he carefully wrapped the sword in the shirt and handed it to me. I gently cradled it and he lead me to his house.

The woman the greeted us at the door was kindly and caring. She greeted me as if I were a long lost son and lead me inside to a table with a bowl of soup. I carefully leaned the sword against the leg of the table and ate it as fast as I could. The old woman chuckled and refilled the bowl. She had to refill it three more times before I realized how much I had eaten. I stopped with the spoon half way to my mouth and slowly put it down.

"I'm sorry."

"What the devil are you sorry for?" the old woman asked, wrapping her arm around my shoulder and kissing my forehead like a mother. "there is no need to be sorry for anything."

"but I am eating all of your food. I know how hard you worked for that pot of soup."

"well how do you know that?"

"Because I used to be in your shoes. I will do everything to make up for it."

"now you listen here," she began to point the ladle at me. "You will finish that bowl of soup, have another, then you are going to march yourself up those stairs and rest. And you will do it even if I have to force feed it to you." She gestured with the ladle at the bowl and refilled it once more. I obliged and she ruffled my hair a little. After the last bowl, she handed me a change of clothes and drew a bath for me.

Laying my head on the pillow, blackness slipped over me as I set the sword right next to me.