Maya woke up. She jolted up from the uncomfortable bedding and found herself inside under the shade of a giant tree. Light shone through the leaves. She shivered from the morning cold.

She recalled everything from the last night—how they moved far away from Mossmore and camped inside a forest unknown to Maya. Rei appeared soon after, her face black with collected ash and her eyes void of happiness. She saw the village too.

What happened after was foggy to Maya, although she remembered going straight into slumber.

Maya took her blankets off and sat up on the trunk to see her three companions eating around a set-up bonfire.

“Good morning, Maya dear,” said Folke, holding out a wrapped piece of bread for her. “Eat. We have much to talk about.”

Maya sat down on the grass next to them as she took the bread. Her mind swirled around, still jostled by the nightmare she had. Or maybe it wasn’t a nightmare, she thought. It could have been the dead taking revenge on her for not even giving them a second glance. The possibility of it churned Maya’s stomach around.

The unknown Military man they encountered last night also had gotten her on edge, but she did not want to ask about it—it seemed like a dangerous topic to tread on.

Surprisingly though, it was Zachary who breached the topic. “Will that soldier… still be hanging around in Mossmore?”

Folke froze for millisecond. “No,” he said, tearing off a small chunk from his bread. “I don’t think he has any more reason to stay.”

“He ran away,” said Rei. “He had a metal wagon waiting for him. There was another female soldier as well.”

“Metal wagon?” asked Maya.

“Automobile.” Zachary tried for a slight smile though his eyes were downcast. “Rei must be scarier than I originally thought if she can scare a soldier armed with guns away. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

She squinted at him. “Home. I grew up holding a sword.”

He shrugged. “Make sure to hold that sword away from me then…” he muttered.

It was only then that Maya noticed the glinting red hilt of the sword beside Rei. Gold engravings swirled around it up to its scabbard. It was long and thin, something Maya never saw her whole life trading weapons around Osreon. “Where did you get that sword?” she asked.

Folke chuckled. “Careful, Maya dear. You might be hitting too close to home with that one. Rei does not want her identity revealed, you see.”

Rei raised a brow, but she did not seem too bothered by Maya’s question in any way. “No, this is fine.” She picked up her sword with both hands and presented it flat to Maya. “My grandfather made this sword. He is a master blacksmith, and he forged this when I was born twenty years ago. My little village thrives on blacksmithing, and it is tradition for each of us to have a sword representing of our family.”

Maya smiled. The sword looked much prettier up close, and not as deadly. Instead of violence, it exuded grace and elegance. However, Maya remembered how the sword was pointed at the soldier from last night. He would have lost his life.

Suddenly, she wasn’t feeling very awed by it. “Then you must have come from… the Handar community?” Maya asked. She knew little of it as it wasn’t near any ports, but she at least heard of the weapon manufacturers in that area. “I didn’t know they made this kinds of weapon.”

“Perhaps.” Rei looked unsure.

“What do those gold writings mean?” Zachary asked.

“Oh. Amberstone.”

Zachary widened his eyes. “Really? It’s not written like that, though. What dialect is that?”

Rei then started to flush. “Uh…” was all she managed to say. Her eyes fleeted to Folke, asking for help, but all he did was shrug as he took ate his bread.

“That’s what you get for talking too much,” Folke said. “Although, it isn’t bad to make friends. I haven’t seen you talk this much since… when I met you!”

Zachary rolled his eyes. “Nah, I don’t think so,” he whispered to Maya. She held a laugh in.

Folke patted Rei’s head. “If you ask me, though, it is okay to tell them. You can trust Zachary, and Maya seems like a reliable person.”

Rei looked at her sword, contemplating. “I will, then,” she said, as if she had been waiting for that option to come for forever. “In time.”

“Speaking of time, we’re running out of it,” said Zachary. He stood up and patted dust of his pants. “The map shows a small village west, and I want to get there before afternoon. Hopefully, they’ll have something to sell to us before we run into any more soldiers.”

Once everyone finished eating and waking themselves up for sure, they mounted their horses. As always, Maya rode behind Zachary, although not without complaints.

The journey to exit the forest was long and tiring. It’s been a few days since Maya’s last heavy sleep, and she could already feel the effects of weakness caving in. Before she knew it, she fell asleep with her head rested against Zachary’s back.

Only when Folke chuckle boisterously did Maya wake up. The sun was high up by then.

She blinked a few times before realizing she was on a horse, and worse, almost drooling on Zachary’s shirt. She lifted her head and rubbed her eyes, making incomprehensible noises as she did so.

“Oh my,” said Folke. “Because of you two, I’ve awoken Maya.”

Zachary grunted. Rei was holding a smile in.

Folke laughed again.

“What’s happening?” asked Maya.

“Oh, well these two here were playing a game of banter.” He shook his head. “It’s too long a round to tell you, but trust me when I say youngsters have the most fascinating brains!”

“And mouths,” Rei grumbled.

“Curse words are not against the rules,” argued Zachary.

Just then, the coolness of the forest disappeared. The group found themselves entering the plains, a wide expanse of long soft grass and flat lands. A calming heat wave washed over them and their horses, and soon enough, everyone was sweating.

Zachary wiped his forehead with his arms. “Keep an eye out for the village. We don’t want to miss it. I’m going to die if I stay under the sun any longer.”

“Summer is long this year,” said Maya. She could feel the trickle of sweat down her neck. Her eyes started to scan around, searching for the little village that would be their oasis. There was nothing in sight for half an hour.

“There,” said Rei so suddenly. She pointed over to the horizon.

Wood houses stood quaint and humble on the far edge of the land. A sparse amount of fruit trees surrounded the village, along with dried tilled plots and withered crops. Even from afar, Maya could tell that there were barely anyone in the area, and she could tell that it was not even a village. It was way smaller, like a hamlet.

The four of them entered the settlement without hesitation. They were all desperate for shade, and that was what they got, although it came with dreadful coldness.

An aura of eeriness instantly overwhelmed Maya. Her ears felt completely blocked of sound, and the silence of the hamlet was unnatural. There was no one around, no children playing, no adults doing their chores. The hamlet was deserted.

“This place looks like it has been empty for a while,” said Rei.

“Yeah,” said Zachary. “Like, years.”

Folke led the group with a brave front. “I would like to investigate this area,” he said. “I’ve been here many years ago. What could have happened for it to become like this?”

Maya had not noticed it right away, but the wood houses of the hamlet were all very much damaged. There were broken windows, missing doors, dirt and soot splattered on the walls. Not a soul was in sight—just shadows of them. Suddenly she was missing the heat. It was way too cold where she was.

Folke got down from his horse and looked around. Maya, too, dismounted and decided to take a peek into one of the wood houses. The hair on her neck immediately stood on their ends.

The floor and wall was covered in dried blood that seeped dryly into the floor—dark red and thick. The heavy smell of metal and something else that she dare not think about permeated up to her thoughts, making her fear for her own life as she stood defenceless in the hamlet. The house was void of light, but Maya did not need to see to know what was decomposing in there.

She gagged and turned her head away.

Rei looked at her questionably. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah…” she replied. “Just… don’t look in there.”

Meanwhile, Folke had made his way to the only house in the area that still had a door on its hinges.

“I might just… want to look around, too,” said Zachary. He started to walk away from the group.

“Where are you going?” asked Maya.

He pointed to wherever and took off.

Folke’s knocking echoed throughout the hamlet. It was an unsettling sound especially from a dead area like this one, where no sound is supposed to exist. He pressed his hand to the door, and asked, “Is anyone in there?”

The door was still, and no movement existed from inside the house.

Still, Folke was determined. He knocked again. “We just want to talk.”

“Maybe no one’s in there,” said Maya.

The door then opened half-way, however, proving Maya she was wrong. A pale woman peeked out, a white nightgown donned on herself. She looked daunt and ghostly with her stringy thin hair falling over her frail shoulders, and her eyes were sunken and void of life. “Who are you?” she asked, voice brittle.

Folke took a second to process, and when he did, he tapped his golden cane to the ground. “Hello, ma’am. My name is Folke Colenstein. I’m a merchant travelling from place to place, and I decided to visit this village.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been here before… And I don’t believe this is what it looked like last time. May I inquire what happened?” His eyes held a smile, but no doubt that he was as lost and wary as the others.

The woman’s eyebrows met and her knuckles turned white. “No,” she said flatly. “Please, get out of here.” Her hands held ready to shut the door, but alas, she was too slow.

Folke had protruded his foot through the small slip of space in between the door and the wall. “I’m sorry for doing this,” he said, “But I might need to ask one more thing. Where is everyone? Did a disease spread?”

The woman stared at him with melancholy eyes. Her lips quivered and her voice became thick with emotion. “No one knows what happened,” she said in realization as she held back tears. “No one knew, and that’s why no one came to help us.”

She stood there in silence as she sniffed back the tears, although few had managed to slip through. Her hand still held onto the door, and when a moment has passed, she puffed out her chest in rage and realization.

Maya expected the woman to shut them out for sure, but instead, she opened the door fully this time. “I have nothing to offer, but come in,” she said. “Someone ought to know the story.”

Folke did not waste a second. He strode into the moulding house without another word, leaving Maya and Rei alone with the horses.

Rei rubbed her arms. “Shall we enter?” she asked.

Maya nodded, and together, they entered the small wooden house.

It was just as Maya expected it to be—empty and dirty. A table with exactly two chairs stood lonely at the very center of the one-room home, and a bed was pushed against the end of the wall. There was nothing else, and Maya had to wonder about how the woman survived all these years.

“I’m sorry,” said the woman, tiredly taking a seat on one of the chairs, “Some of you will have to stand.” She shot Maya a sad look.

“It’s fine,” Maya said. She leaned onto the dusty right next to a window. Rei looked out of it.

Folke sat down on the other chair, not minding the dust catching on his trousers. “Tell me everything,” he said. “Spare no details, ma’am.”

The woman wiped her tears away with her sickly fingers, but she nevertheless talked with as much vigour as any person can. “It was the Military,” she started. “They came here and demanded that all able-bodied people join for the recruiting. They were… so angry that we wouldn’t let anyone go. They threatened us, but that was all they did, at least, for the first time.”

“They returned,” Folke inferred.

She nodded. “They came back after a week. With guns. They tried to demand for people again… but we still refused. We told them they didn’t need us, that we didn’t know how to fight. But then they became so violent! They started to destroy our harvests, land, and houses, up until we surrendered. A few of us died from the chaos, and the soldiers took most of everyone. The village never recovered after that.”

The woman looked like she was about to cry again, but she held it all in. “A lot of us left after our fields were destroyed… but I stayed… I stayed. I thought I could bring this village back to life, but the soldiers’ attack made it impossible for our crops to grow back again. They left us with nothing!”

Despite her strong efforts, the woman could not hold her tears in any longer. She held her face in her hands as she let out child-like sobs, the painful sound reaching out far.

Maya has not heard someone cry like this ever since the bombing at Oxford. She felt burdened by it, and she was forced to look away and down at her feet. Rei was likewise acting the same—her face contorted into pained sadness.

Folke was not so emotional though. He stayed silent as the woman cried, but it was apparent on his face that he was not satisfied with the story. As carefully as one would tiptoe in the silence, he asked, “Do you know where they took the people away?”

Maya felt a little angered at Folke’s behaviour. Why wouldn’t he just drop the topic? “To the Military to become soldiers, of course,” she answered for the woman.

Folke shook his head. “They couldn’t possibly be needing more soldiers. It’s… it’s just not it. There are so many more areas suitable for their recruitment. Something feels off about all this.” This time, he was talking to himself in a low voice. “What could it be?”

The house was void of all noises except for the woman’s crying. Maya yelped in pain when her fingernails dug into her arms. She had not noticed her tense body, because once again, the Military has proved itself to be something evil and wrong. “Is there something we can do?” she asked.