3

Now, earthquakes were not a common occurrence in Lyna Forest. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most if not all of the villagers had never experienced the rumbling of the earth beneath their feet before that quake. We didn't exactly live in an area prone to such events, and nothing in the various village creeds or the words of the adults ever gave incentive or instruction to prepare for them. We were simply never given any awareness to the idea that they even existed at all.

Thus, when a massive tremor came as if from nothing to shake the very earth we found immovable, it's not hard to imagine that Uunco and I were driven into a state of high panic and adrenaline.

I screamed; Uunco accidentally released the arrow, his aim thrown off by the surprise of the quake. The arrow flew uselessly far above the intended target, but it didn't matter; the buck had already taken off the moment the ground beneath its feet began to tremble. Where it went I didn't see, and I was too focused on fear to care. I gripped a nearby tree. Not even the crackling of snapping wood and thuds that indicated branches and trees were being felled in the distance deterred me. A terrible sound like the sky being rent in two penetrated our very beings.

The shaking was enough to cause Uunco to sway; dropping the bow he made to reach for me but the motion was incomplete due to his crouch. His body tipped forward from the motion, and with a look of shock on his face I saw my friend go over the edge.

"Uunco!" But there was nothing I could do. I was too scared to release my grip on the tree.

The tremor continued for what felt like fifteen minutes but was probably closer to one or two. Eventually, the rumbling slowed, and the forest became quiet. Only the rushing water below trickled into my ears. It was as if everything had suddenly died, or had turned to stone. For a moment, I waited for death to claim me as well.

Bird calls rang out. Life returned to the forest.

I was still shaking. Even though the ground had stopped moving, I hadn't fully registered it and had nearly blistered my hands with the intensity of my grip. After another moment, sense returned to me. I wasn't dead. I let go of the tree and sat down numbly on the soft earth. It no longer had me trembling.

I took deep breaths. Calm down. You're okay, I told myself. The worst has passed. I didn't know that for sure, but I had to convince myself for my own sake.

Okay. I took a long breath, then exhaled. Okay.

The now fading terror allowed fear for my friend's life to take its place. Not daring to stand up lest I too be knocked off the edge, I crawled my way over to the ledge and looked into the clearing.

Uunco was nowhere to be seen. The ravine was clear, with nothing in it but the running river below. The bow we brought with us was some ten to fifteen feet down the slope of the ravine's edge. I thanked the Wind Fish that the slope wasn't too steep, making it more likely that Uunco had tumbled down instead of falling from this height. Looking down at the river below, it seemed likely that he had fallen into it and been swept away; even from this distance, the current seemed quicker than the smaller stream near the village. Overall, there was a chance he could be alive.

Or he could be dead. Very, very dead.

I didn't want to think about that, so running with the assumption that he was alive I instead thought about my options.

Tracking Uunco was a real but deeply time-consuming possibility: the safest option was following the game trail to the bottom of the ravine and then following the river, but as Uunco pointed out earlier the time that could take was a variable. Instead I could chance sliding down the ravine slope, but the inherent risk of hitting trees and rocks on the way down had a very real possibility of forcing me to stay by the riverside to recuperate any injuries from the slide. The middle ground was following the ravine from the top and moving the opposite direction of the game trail to follow the river downstream. This would still save time, but there'd be no telling when or if I could descend when I found Uunco.

The opposite train of thought, returning to the village to get help, was also a possibility: with people like Caw, Sarah, and their families invested in Uunco's safety, gathering a search party wouldn't be too difficult and would make it much easier to cover ground and spot Uunco. The time lapse of returning home and then grabbing a search party would be an increase in opportunities for Uunco to wander, get lost, or die, though. It also happened that the explanation for our little venture and my insistence on pushing the elder's decree could lead the both of us into some deep trouble, regardless of whether we actually found Uunco or not…

The former possibility made more sense to me. Immediacy and less explicit drawbacks gave it an emotional drive that almost had me figuring out how to slide down the ravine without getting hurt. However, there was something holding me back. I wasn't sure what exactly it was until it hit me gazing at the flowing waters below.

And remember: if somehow we get lost from each other, retrace your steps and try to find the river to make your way back home. Those had been Uunco's words back at the stream near home. He had been insistent on that being the game plan should we get separated. I was hesitant to ignore his wishes despite the increased danger he would be in should I follow them.

"Damn it, Uunco." He had been right. Of course he had been: if I went and followed the river downstream, I'd lose track of the one near the village easily. I wouldn't be able to spot a cairn easily from the bottom of the ravine. It was in my best interest to follow the game trail back to the cairn, then return east until I found the previous one.

Gathering rocks to make another cairn, I glanced down at the ravine one last time. "I'm coming back for you. As soon as I can."

Stopping momentarily to make sure the earth had settled to normalcy, I began the trip back along the game trail.

The rays of the sun were beginning to lean from an acute angle as I reached the cairn marking our discovery of the trail. Despite this, it struck me that I wasn't entirely sure how exactly I could pinpoint east at this time of day. Thankfully the walk down the game trail had cooled my head a bit, and I stopped to rest and take a swig of water from my waterskin.

The most reliable method of determining east would be from the sunlight, which meant that my best chance was to let time pass to deepen the shadows. I took a seat on the ground.

My thoughts lingered on various things, but always came back to Uunco. His face was there in my head, as if he was still next to me. The idea of him potentially being dead was surreal, and I refused to confront it. I tried to shove it out by imagining Sarah's response when I got back, but that was equally unpleasant. A part of me wondered if our breaking of the elder's decree had angered the Wind Fish, and if that and Uunco's prayer had led it to invoking the shaking of the earth. There was no way to know without Elder Jaq confirming or denying it through communion.

I reached down and grabbed the pendant. Its jewel was deep like murky water, and I found myself gazing into it seeking a distraction. I wasn't really one for prayer, but then again, this wasn't exactly a normal situation.

"O Wind Fish," I said, as if it could hear my foolish words. "Forgive this idiot who's found himself breaking the elder's decrees. It's my own stupidity that's caused this, but if anyone should be punished, it should be me. Uunco only acted to help me. Please protect him." My grip on the pendant tightened. "Please."

Nothing. No quake, no sudden divine intervention. Figures.

I shut my eyes, closing out the world for a bit. Uunco...please be okay.

Some time passed, and when I opened my eyes again the shadows of the trees were more pronounced than when I had closed them. Judging from the sun's rays, it had to now be some four or five hours past noon. East was now much easier to determine.

It was time. I stood up and stretched the ache out of my muscles. It was likely that I wouldn't make it back to the village until evening at this rate. Gathering my strength, I set off eastbound.

The goal was to see if I could find the first cairn we had left before departing out into the forest depths. There was a very high chance of missing it, but the likelihood of finding the river was decent even if I overshot the cairn itself. So long as I held a clear head and was mindful of the shadows of the trees, I could probably make my way back. I thanked Uunco again mentally for insisting we put markers down.

During that long trek, I was alone with my own thoughts for longer than I would have liked. There were moments where I saw a cluster of trees and was nearly convinced they were trees I had seen earlier on the trek west. I "recognized" that group of trees two or three times before realizing that looking for the cairn would play less tricks on my mind. A part of me feared becoming lost and dying in the forest, a nagging panic that flared in the back of my mind occasionally when I had not seen anything familiar during my wandering. Squirrels and birds and rabbits peeked out from various hiding places as if watching and pondering why I had stumbled into their section of the woods. The sun threatened to set as the forest became darker with each passing hour.

I had just about thought myself gone and truly lost when I found the river. The sun had now mostly set past the treetops, leaving the woods dim and less friendly by the minute. It was less the sight of the river that told me I was home than the sound of gushing water ahead of me. Spurred by urgency I picked up the pace and found myself jogging despite my sore feet. Sure enough, there it was, that stream that but three months ago I had followed up with Sarah to the elder's hut. It seemed much smaller now, having seen the one in the ravine.

"Thank you, Wind Fish," I gasped, reaching down to cup a handful of water and bring it to my face. It was cool, unlike the water from my nearly depleted waterskin. I took a moment to refill it.

From here, the path home was something I could find even in the dark. Everything suddenly clicked and I made my way back with the first sense of normalcy since the earthquake. The thought of passing along the plans for the search party tomorrow, seeing my lovely wife again and finally resting my head on my soft pillow felt otherworldly. A certain exhaustion crept into me, deterred only by the hope of seeing Sarah's face. Tonight's rest would be a deep one, I was sure.

And then I saw a glow up ahead.

Now that was a strange sight. Normally any fire lit by the village night watch would be small and more for the sake of warmth than any substantial light. A glow that bright had to be from some sort of bonfire or feast to reach this far out into the woods. Did I space out on an important date?

The glow became more prominent as I stepped away from the river. The clearing was not far now. Curiosity overcoming my exhaustion, I picked up the pace and charged toward the light.

I made it to the clearing's edge. I slowed to a halt, eyes wide. My stomach flipped and churned.

My home, Mycenia Village, was burning. To be more specific, many of the buildings had already been razed by the flames and were more akin to burn piles. The mess hall, some fifty paces away from me, had been reduced to a massive heap of blazing wood, the flames roaring and heat radiating from the rubble. The clearing was lit so brightly from this display that it seemed almost daytime.

I stumbled forward stupidly, legs shaking from the sight my eyes refused to believe. It was hard to take my eyes off of the dancing flames, and I tripped when my left foot caught on something. I hit the ground, and it was there that I suddenly took in a horrible smell. I turned my head and realized that I had walked into a corpse, twisted in the throes of agony with wounds I barely recognized as spear stabs. I let out a sound somewhere between a yelp and a wail, kicking away from the villager's body as adrenaline and terror coursed through me.

Pulling myself up, the smoky stench wafted a new smell my way: the odor of overcooked meat. I realized it was from villagers who had been trapped in their homes, and it took everything within me to stop the urge to vomit. I forced myself forward, propelled by the realization that Caw and Sarah were somewhere in this hellscape.

"Sarah!" I couldn't believe it. "Caw!" I couldn't accept it. "Anybody?!" As I called out in desperation, my feet drove me forward past more mangled corpses I recognized. Uunco's parents had not gotten far from their home, his father beheaded and mother unmoving amongst ridges in the dirt clawed by her own hands. All about me were heavyset footprints, so large that my own were barely half the size. Smaller hoofed prints akin to livestock were scattered amongst them.

They had to be here somewhere. A horrible stench came from Sarah's old home, telling me someone had been inside. I stumbled more quickly, heading to my own home as dread rose with each step.

"Please, come on, Sarah," I said to no one in particular. Nothing but the crackling flames replied. "Sarah!"

At the end of the cluster of burning homes, amidst crops ripped from the earth and makeshift fences smashed apart, it sat alone as one of the last still standing settlements. Our home had, through the choice of elm wood, resisted the worst of the flames. It seemed that I had gotten there just in time, as the structure was finally reaching its last legs, smoke lifting lazily into the sky above. My hopes rose but were interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream from inside. "Sarah!"

I made it to the door and put my hands to it. It burned, and I hissed as I brought my hands away from it. Acting through the pain I kicked the door, forcing it open and flying into the house due to weakened integrity.

"Sarah!" I could see that the interior was quite hot, an orange glow from the walls spreading as flames crept toward the bed like searing tendrils. I dared not enter.

"Link…!"

I snapped to attention and squinted into the bright interior. There she was, beneath the bed. I was amazed it hadn't burnt down yet, but cinders sizzling onto the sheets threatened to prove me wrong. "Sarah! I'm here!"

"Where are you?!" She seemed disoriented.

I crouched down. "I'm in the doorway! Can you crawl out?" She merely coughed and spluttered in reply. "Sarah?"

"I'm...I'm scared!"

"Sarah, you're going to have to crawl out! Keep your head low!"

"I…!" The sheets burst into flames, and she screamed.

"Sarah, you have to trust me on this! I'll meet you halfway!" I got onto my hands and knees, watching the flames and smoke up above warily. "Come on!"

"I'm...I'm coming!" Shakily, she began to move out from under the bed. She was coughing and didn't seem to entirely know which way she was going. I had to get her out of there.

I muttered an expletive and took a deep breath before crawling in. The heat was oppressive. I quickened my movements until I reached her; she gave me a frightened glance as I took her arm and guided her back towards the door. A piece of the roof came down not far to our left, and she screamed before going into another coughing fit. I held my breath and urged her forward.

As my lungs screamed at me to breathe we made it through the doorway. I gasped at the outdoor air and then brought her further away from the homestead. We collapsed some fifty feet away from our home, Sarah spluttering as if no amount of coughing would soothe her throat. As if on cue, a creaking carried from the house and we watched it cave in on itself.

My body was slick with sweat. Despite being some distance away I still felt the heat move in waves. The numb pain of burns crept into my hands, and I felt like coughing too despite avoiding the worst of the smoke.

I turned to my wife. Sarah was clutching her chest, shaking with each hack. Her face was red, with light burns about her nose and mouth. She smelled of smoke and flames, and the dirt and singes of her dress and body hair made me wonder how long she had been hiding under the bed. She did not seem fully in control of herself; whether from the fire or shock I wasn't sure.

"Sarah." I embraced her despite her coughing fit. "Are you okay?" She pushed me away, turned, and vomited onto the ground next to us.

I gave her a moment to collect herself. Retching turned into more coughing, but she turned to me. "I'm…" She hacked again. Her voice was hoarse. "Where's...Uunco…?"

"I…" I swallowed spit. "We got lost. When the earth shook. I was coming back to organize a...search party." She made to comment but doubled over again, hacking her lungs out. "Are you going to be okay?"

"I don't," she coughed again, "I don't know."

I forced her to lie down on her side. "It's okay, honey, it's okay…" I kissed her forehead, horror rising up at how hot her face felt. "Just lie down for a moment."

She seemed determined to argue it, but her lungs shot the idea down. She was too tired to put up much resistance. "W-what...are we going to do…?"

I moved a strand of hair out of her face. "I'm going to find Caw. I'm not going anywhere, okay?"

Her sleepy eyes welled up with tears. "Promise?"

I put on a fake smile. "Promise. I'll be back as soon as I find him. He's gotta be hiding around here somewhere."

"...Okay. I love you."

Seeing her doze off, I brought myself to a stand and steeled myself for what was to come. I knew that I wouldn't be able to rest until I found him. I had to find Caw.

It didn't take long. Around the cluster of burning homes I saw him, lying on the ground amongst half a dozen corpses. I recognized them all, and the wounds they held were too much to describe. It was enough to make me double over and hurl. It was all getting to be too much to handle, and I gasped before puking again.

"...nk…"

I turned my head, almost convinced I imagined it. "Caw…?" I summoned strength and approached him.

When I got within five feet of him I finally caught it: despite lying nearly motionless, I began to see the slow, haggard movements of his bloodstained chest as it rose and fell. "Caw!" I closed the distance and crouched down, a sickening feeling filling the new void in my stomach. My friend had taken multiple wounds across his body, his tunic dark with dried blood on his lower torso and his left side. His right leg had a small pool of blood near the knee, telling me it had been struck from behind. His face wasn't entirely focused on me; his right eye no longer seemed to work as a gash crossed the entirety of the right side of his face.

His left, still functioning eye met my gaze as I crouched down, assessing the extent of his injuries. "Link…"

"Hey, man," I said numbly. "It's gonna be okay. I'm gonna patch you up."

"It's…too late for that…" His lips were chapped and crusty, and his voice barely a whisper.

"It's not too late. It's never...it's never too late."

"...Link…"

I refused to believe what was in front of me. "What...what happened, Caw?"

"...Monsters...monsters, they came, and…" He searched for words. It finally hit me that he was dying. "Where...is Uunco…?"

"He fell into a ravine. We got lost and separated. He's still out in the woods somewhere."

"Better...than here…" His breathing became fainter. "Listen…"

"Hey, Caw, stay with me. Stay with me."

"You...you have to…"

"Caw." He wasn't even looking at me anymore. "Caw!"

"...protect her…"

"Caw, listen to me! I'm gonna patch you up, okay? It's going to be okay." He didn't reply. "Come on, Caw. Tell me you're going to be okay. Tell me."

He said nothing.

"Caw."

He stopped breathing.

"Caw! Caw, t-this isn't funny! Wake up, Caw!" I dared to shake him. He stared at nothing. "Wind Fish above, Caw, please!"

He was dead.

I sat there. Numbly, I watched him, as if expecting him to suddenly move or get up or tell me he was going to be okay. He did none of those things. I couldn't look away.

I don't know how long I was there, waiting for some sort of response. Anything, really. I just couldn't accept that he was gone. It was too unreal, amongst flames belonging to my nightmares. Regardless, there came a point where it all rushed into me: the failure to capture the stag, losing Uunco down the ravine in the process; wandering the woods alone, wondering if I would ever return home; the razing of Mycenia Village, my wife barely clinging to life outside the rubble of our own home; and finally Caw's silent, unmoving body lying before me. Tears welled up in my eyes. I let out a sound that was unflattering, and it turned into wailing. I scrunched my eyes shut, unable to continue looking at the disaster before me. Fumbling some distance away from the group of bodies, I collapsed and finally let out all of the built up emotion from this harrowing day.

The night ended with my cries the last sound amongst the quiet crackling of what once was Mycenia Village. Crawling to Sarah's side, I whimpered and clutched her as the dark grip of sleep eased me from exhaustion.