Echoes of Desperation

The morning sun barely lifted above the mist-filled trees as Huina's guards finished closing the thick south gate—a wall of logs and iron that now separated them from the world outside. The echoes of its heavy thud faded. With it, a shivering silence fell.

But inside Huina's village hall, silence had no place.

Even before breakfast, the main hall thrummed with purpose, shoes clacking against wood, hands full with bandages, mugs of hot water, and the tools of healing. Anxiety filled the air—a strange mix of hope, fear, and something unspoken. Because today, the people here were tending not just their own, but the battered remains of Arnan's last survivors.

Eight of them. Eight refugees, saved by fortune or fate, were carried, led, or limped through Huina's gate while the rest of their home was left behind—a nightmare swallowed by the forest. Now, they lay or sat or staggered, wide-eyed, upon crude beds and straw mats along the walls of the crowded treatment area. The smell of sweat and earth battled with the sharper scent of herbs.

Alice and Rutina worked among them, sleeves rolled up tight. Alice, usually calm and gentle, now moved quickly, her eyes blinking back tiredness, her hands sometimes trembling above the injured but never once losing their skill. She threaded between beds, her pale hair tied back, voice staying level even when her heart threatened to stutter with every new groan or wail from the wounded.

Rutina, her older sister, took command of one side of the hall. She placed her palm on feverish brows or glowing softly above broken ribs, giving gentle orders to villagers who could help. "Water, please. Bring more clothes. Hold him steady. You're safe now."

The main doors had barely ceased swinging when a new presence entered—all thin limbs and watchful eyes. Roy, the boy from Arnan, stood by the door, clutching a basket of dried leaves and roots so tight his knuckles were white. Rutina turned, her attention caught by the way he lingered shyly behind the others.

"It's alright, come," she called to him, her voice soft but unyielding. "If you want to help your friends, come stand by me."

He hesitated only a moment, then managed a wobbly nod. Roy looked about Rutina's age—young, but his face seemed older than it should be, drawn pale and tight by something too heavy for children. Still, when Rutina guided him to the row of wounded, he obeyed.

"I'm Roy… a herbalist from Arnan," he stuttered when Rutina introduced him to Alice. "I helped treat people there. I want to help now."

Rutina placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Then do as I say, and we'll save who we can."

Together, the three began to work—a rhythm born of urgent need.

***

Among the injured, one boy sat upright, heart pounding so hard even those beside him could almost hear it. Sweat covered his face, his eyes wild with a terror that refused to fade. Occasionally, he flinched at every loud noise—a crash of a dropped basin, a dropped stick, a cough from a nearby uncle—and threatened to bolt out of the hall.

Rutina noticed quickly. She knelt beside him, placing a hand on his arm, making her voice steady even when his panic threatened to infect her.

"You want to go outside?" she guessed gently.

The boy nodded, eyes shining with uncried tears. His voice caught. "It's too loud. Too—too many people. They… they all look like ghosts."

Rutina glanced at Alice, reading the same thought in her eyes. Reporting what she would do, she said softly, "You're not wrong to be scared. It's not easy. May I use a spell? It won't make you forget, but it will help you breathe, for a little while."

She whispered the old words, letting her magic move from inside her chest to the tips of her fingers. A faint, golden warmth glowed from her hand as she pressed it to the boy's back. [Calm Mind], they called the spell—lesser than the saint's miracles that could erase nightmare memories, but enough to soothe frayed nerves and carry a child through a waking terror. Within moments, the boy's tense shoulders dropped. His breathing slowed, tears drying almost before they fell.

"Go," Rutina whispered kindly, opening the door. "You can sit by the bench outside the window. If you need water, call someone. You're safe here; no one will ever force you inside again."

He stood, almost not believing her kindness. Rutina watched through the open door as he made his way into the morning air, fragile but alive.

***

Most of the others were less lucky. On the largest bed in the treatment area, Keynes lay sprawled, his body more ruined than whole. Strips of torn guard uniform barely clung to his broad, bloody shoulders. His arms were splintered with wood chips and puncture wounds, flecks of bark stuck deep between muscles so hard it was as if the trees themselves had tried to invade him. A sickly yellow-green bruise spread over one side, and his hands trembled, unable or unwilling to grip the edge of the bed.

His eyes—once sharp and fierce, so all the children said—now stared blank and empty at some spot on the ceiling, a silent witness to nightmares. In yesterday's battle, Keynes had defended the last south gate of Arnan. What lived in him now was not courage. It was the emptiness that came after losing hope.

Rudy, only a little younger than him but with none of Keynes' build, hovered beside him, refusing to rest. Black stains of dried blood covered Rudy's left sleeve and part of his neck—more from carrying Keynes than his own wounds. He had not left his friend's side. Each time Keynes moaned or shifted, Rudy clasped his shoulder and whispered, "Easy. You made it. You're safe."

Alice's hands worked quietly. She drew thin tweezers and a sharp knife from her belt pouch. One by one, she pulled wood chips from Keynes' skin—sometimes whispering "Sorry" under her breath as he winced, other times humming softly the tune their mother used to sing, even though Keynes could not hear her.

Rutina, standing at the end of the bed, went through the simple, practiced motions of healing. Her [Heal] spell made wounds pucker and fade, yet not even magic could undo the deeper hurt Keynes carried—the broken spirit, the shadow behind his eyes.

When the pain seemed too much, Rutina gathered energy in her palm and pressed it to Keynes' brow. "Sleep," she murmured, a [Sleep] spell drifting like a gentle breeze over him, until his breaths evened and the muscles in his jaw unclenched.

Meanwhile, Roy worked along the other beds, his experience and care surprising for a boy his age. He cleaned wounds, applied balms, helped bind twisted or broken fingers, whispered encouragement and the names of common herbs to ease the worst pain.

***

The air outside the treatment area brimmed with nervous murmurs. Herman, one of Huina's hunters and respected by all, arrived at the door. His hair was still damp from where he'd washed the blood of the night before after fighting the Sabre, his shoulders drooping with exhaustion.

Seeing Alice and Rutina, he gave them a nod. Beside him, Cren limped in too—his own wounds handled better after a day's rest. He greeted Rutina with a lopsided grin and mock salute.

"Looks like I'm better off than old Keynes, hey?" he joked weakly, flexing his leg with a wince but also pride. "Tell Alice I'll dance for her on the tables once I can feel my toes."

Alice rolled her eyes in a rare smile. "Just don't break your other foot, Brother Cren."

Herman greeted them softly. "We're lucky to have you two here. And you too, Roy. Without you, I don't want to think what might have happened…"

Then, in a more official tone, he turned to Rudy, who sat as still as a plank of wood on the bench. "I need your help," Herman said, quietly but firmly. "Come with me to Ton's Remedy. Our chief wants to know everything that happened in Arnan."

Rudy swallowed audibly, cheeks paling. But he nodded all the same.

After following Herman from the treatment area, they finally arrived in front of a building with "Ton's Remedy" on top of the door.

It is a small apothecary that stood just at the corner of the square. The shelves behind the counter were stacked with jars of roots, powders, and hand-written labels. Ton himself stood waiting—broad-shouldered, ancient in wisdom, the silver in his beard shone like moonlight. With him was Ronova, the night watchman whose sense for danger rarely failed.

The group took their seats—Herman nearest the door, Ronova dragged the chair beside the window, Ton behind his well-worn counter, and Rudy, at first, standing, uncertain. Herman guided Rudy into the battered wooden chair where normally Alice waited for customers, a place now heavy with shadow and expectation.

Ton's deep voice filled the silence. "No more rumors now, it's real after what happened to Arnan village and combined with what Herman told us last night. Rudy, tell us. Start with last night, from the moment you left with the others. We need the truth, not rumors."

Rudy stared at his own hands, fingers shaking until he clasped them together so hard that his knuckles whitened.

"I… I'll tell you what I remember," he began. "But some of it… it's hard to be sure now. It happened fast. Too fast."

Herman gave a nod. "Start from the beginning. That's enough."

***

Rudy's voice, though low, grew steadier as he recounted what he'd seen—his breath forming clouds in the cool air of Ton's Remedy.

"After the Huina hunters, Herman and the others left our village… there was a feeling the night would go badly. The west village gate, you saw for yourself," he spoke to Herman. "That was where it started. First, we heard something crash against the wood—hard enough to shake it, but not break it."

Ton motioned for him to go on. Ronova, usually silent, leaned in close, his knuckles white on his knee.

Rudy's eyes took on the look of someone seeing things he wished he could forget. "It didn't stop. Soon, more came… not just animals. Humania even… monsters. Shapes I can't describe. Some things walked on two legs, some crawled. All of them… dead. Or, they should have been dead. Their eyes glowed with the colors of the Arias—red, green, blue—and nothing we did could hurt them for long."

He shuddered.

"Keynes and I guarded the south gate. For a long time, only banging and scraping sound can be heard from the west gate. But then, in the middle of the night, a scream came from the hall. The kind you never forget. Keynes ran inside and asked me to stay guarding the south gate."

Rudy took a shaky breath. His fingers twisted together, nails biting flesh until they almost bled.

"The village hall… I heard things being broken. People are screaming. Something—someone—was eaten alive." Rudy gritted his teeth. "The chief came and told me to go find Keynes, to help him while he stayed guarding the gate. I tried, but I… I was scared. I waited, hoping he would come out. But… something hit the west gate. Huge. A monster, I think, bigger than any beast I've seen. It threw whole trees—logs from the gate itself—scattering everyone. After that… all I could do was run."

His voice broke, eyes squeezed shut.

"They killed the chief. I saw it. Then… people I knew, my friends, the ones who'd been bitten before… They stood up. Their faces are all wrong. They started attacking… and no matter what I did, no matter what anyone did, nothing worked. Even when you could see their bones… they just kept moving. So I grabbed Keynes—by then, he wasn't fighting anymore, just staring at the little hand he gripped—and I ran. We all ran, whoever could move."

He looked up, his gaze hollow—years older in just one night.

"And then… dawn. We reached Huina. The eight of us left. That's all I have. The rest…" He shook his head, "I'm not sure if they survived or not. Some of them ran to the south gate, some of them maybe tried to open the east gate".

The hall was silent, all eyes fixed on Rudy, even as the day's first full light crawled up the window, illuminating the lines of pain around his mouth.

"…Everything happened so fast that it's hard to catch up," Rudy finished in a broken whisper.

His hands, still clenched, began to shake so fiercely that blood from his bitten palm stained the tabletop.