The barrel shook.
Something heavy hit the side, maybe a falling beam, maybe another piece of furniture. The grain shifted under Alaric's knees, making him sink deeper.
He clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering.
"Dad!" a voice shrieked outside. Joren? "Dad, no.....!"
The scream cut off.
Alaric squeezed his eyes shut.
Don't think. Don't move. Don't.....
A loud crack split the air. Then another. Wood breaking. Roof beams, maybe.
"…Marla!" Tomas's voice, ragged, from somewhere outside the house. "Run! Take...!"
His father's words were drowned in a roar as something collapsed nearby, not like a spell, but like a whole wall giving way at once.
"Tomas!" Marla cried.
Alaric's heart clawed at his ribs.
Mom. Dad.
He shifted, just a little, desperate to push the lid aside, to see, to do something.
If I go out there, I'll die.
If I stay here and they...
A strange pressure built behind his eyes.
The smoke thickened, seeping in through the cracks. It stung his nose, his throat. Every breath hurt.
Another sound cut through the chaos. High, piercing. Not a scream.
A siren.
But not the kind a village like Shuru would have. This was… higher. Sharper. Mechanical.
What....?
The smell of smoke wavered. For a moment, he wasn't smelling burning wood and straw. It was something acrid, chemical, mixed with concrete dust and metal.
His ears rang with two sets of noise at once: Shuru burning, soldiers shouting… and another place entirely.
Red lights flashed.
People ran.
"....they launched, they actually launched...."
A screen above a city showed a map with blinking points. Lines of text he couldn't read but somehow understood: missile paths, impact times, casualty estimates.
His own voice....no, someone's voice...was hoarse from shouting. "There's no time left, get below ground!"
"There is no below!" someone else yelled back. "The last shelter collapsed last month!"
The sky overhead.....wrong again. Not blue, but a flat, sickly gray. And in it, a new sun was being born.
So bright.
So big.
Shuru's burning roofs overlapped with city towers in his mind. Two worlds, layered on top of each other. Horses and tanks. Spears and sirens.
His breaths came short and fast.
This happened there. It's happening here.
Heat pressed in on him from both sides of his mind: the imagined wave from above, the very real fire creeping closer.
I couldn't do anything then.
He didn't know what "then" was, but the thought sank in like a stone.
I can't do anything now.
The barrel trembled as another impact shook the house. Outside, something let out a horrible, inhuman squeal, maybe a burning animal, maybe something else. He didn't want to know.
Smoke clawed at his lungs. His eyes watered.
Do something do something do something....
He reached for mana on instinct, the way he did for the little light spell, but there was too much noise. His thoughts scattered.
A voice, low and bitter, seeped through the panic.
See?
Alaric's head snapped up, though there was nowhere to look in the dark.
Who....?
You thought a little flame on your finger would change anything? the voice said. When this is what the world is really like?
His heart stuttered.
It felt like the voice wasn't coming from outside the barrel. It was rising from somewhere deep in his own chest.
"Stop," he whispered, barely a breath.
You're no hero, it went on. You're a boy in a bucket, hiding while everyone else screams. Just like before. Hiding in stairwells while the sky burned. Waiting for things to fall on you.
Images of concrete stairwells and flickering emergency lights flashed behind his eyes. He curled in on himself.
"Stop," he said again, a little louder. "I… I'm six. I can't...."
Exactly, the voice said. You can't. You never could. You never will.
Tears burned his eyes.
Outside, something collapsed. The sound of flames roared louder.
The barrel began to feel hot under his palms.
If the house falls, if the fire reaches here...
He hugged his bag tighter. It felt stupid and small. But it was the only thing in the world he could hold onto.
I don't want this.
That was all he could think clearly. Not clever plans. Not big vows.
Just, I don't want this.
I don't want to die like this. I don't want to watch everything burn again.
The voice in his chest went quiet for a heartbeat, like it was listening.
Then it chuckled, a dry, mirthless sound.
Then you'll have to become something that doesn't break next time, it said. If there is a next time.
His vision swam.
Heat. Smoke. Noise. White sky. Burning wheat.
Everything folded over itself.
Then, suddenly.....
Silence.