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My nose crinkled as a yawn escaped my mouth, and before long, I lost myself to the realm of dreams.
But unlike Kaleb, when I slept, it was never a place of peace.
The towering oaks were falling, their dead leaves like tears as they hit the ashen ground. As the ancient giants fell, puffs of black dust saturated the air. It clogged my nostrils and choked my breath, but when the smoke started to roll in, that was when my lungs pleaded—desperate for air. We needed to get out of there before the woods swallowed us whole.
Kaleb was to my left, swinging his axe as he tried to clear a path. I grabbed a fallen branch and dragged it to the side. I moved as many I could, my hands bloody and raw, needled with slivers.
A scream unlike any other I’d heard raked against my bones—I knew that voice.
“Ezra!” I cried out, my chest heaving as we clawed and fought our way towards her. Panicked, we searched for the direction from which her scream came.
She wailed again. Fear landed a destructive blow to my gut, its fingers clutching at my throat.
“There!” Kaleb grabbed my hand as we took off to the edge of the woods, a wall of never-ending black mist swirling on the horizon, gobbling up the sky as if it didn’t exist—as if that were the edge of the world.
Our grip broke as another tree came crashing down. We fell on opposite sides but were quick to get back on our feet as Ezra came into sight—there was no sound coming from her mouth.
They had dragged her to the pyre, her frail body crumpled, nearly lifeless in their hands, that bloody iron collar wrapped around her neck.
“No!” I screamed like some mighty, deranged beast as I willed my legs to move faster with every fiber of my being.
They lowered the torches. I cried out.
The fire began to lap up the wood. My mother.
It inched closer to her. My home.
I blinked away the tears as I let out a mighty roar and leapt into the sky. My jump carried me the last fifty yards, my body suspended in the air as time slowed.
I could hear Kaleb shouting my name, to come back, but it was drowned out by the roaring, consuming fire.
I reached out. So close. A second more and I—
Before I could blink, Ezra disappeared.
And instead of her body being strapped to the pyre, it was now mine.
I awoke in a puddle of sweat and fear, my heart galloping at an unsustainable speed. My knuckles groaned as I slowly released my death hold on my sheets. I tried to gain control over my frantic breath.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Wash.
Rinse.
Repeat.
As my breath began to slow, I glanced towards Kaleb. He was still asleep. At least I hadn’t awoken him. For a moment, I wondered what he dreamed of. Hopefully, the opposite of my own.
Shucking off my covers, I crawled towards the round window nestled beneath the roof’s peak and pulled the moth-chewed drapes to the side. I surveyed the position of the moon and pegged the time to be around four a.m. I shrugged off the loss of a full night’s sleep, quietly gathered my day clothes, and made my way down the ladder, my bare feet padding silently against the wood-plank floor.
After I was dressed in a tight-fitting tunic and pants, I slipped out into the night.
The balmy autumn temperature made me wish I had put on an extra layer, but in a short amount of time, I wouldn’t need it.
I walked through the trees on my self-made path, the starlight illuminating my way. The woods were so quiet—even the nocturnal animals had been lulled to sleep.
