…brave the dangers. They are no less than the eyes of morning would bring.

Mind made up, you ready to leave, lowing the bag over the lip of the short roof and dropping it to the ground. Hiding it in the building is too great a risk; with its owner dead, you for foresee a looting far more thorough than the one Roland instigated. You’ll have to bury it. The time it would take to do so makes you wince, but there is nothing for it. Leaving it to the elements and the sight of passers-by seems particularly unwise when the principal element is fire and the general passer-by a thief. Fortunately, there are some bushes you saw close to the building with rough soil below them and it shouldn’t be too hard to find a place for it.

Struck with inspiration, you halt you own drop and run back into the room, searching for something to use as an impromptu shovel. A seconds search delivers a metal candle plate that fits the bill quite nicely. Tossing its unlit candle, you are struck a second time with the light of brilliance, and you decide to whip the bed sheet off, bundling it and taking it with you as well.

Dropping to the lawn and the bag, you look about before hefting it over your shoulder. Swimming with it would be an impossibility as it’s wonderfully stuffed to bursting with loot, and you practically stagger under its weight towards the buildings corner and the bushes below the unlit windows that offer safe storage. You crawl under them, out of sight inside and out, and in the dark streaked with distant orange glow, you attack the dirt with the plate, turning it and hollowing out a space within a few minutes. You bury the bag in a shallow grave, knowing it’s a hasty job, but sure that no part of it sticks out. It would be a good idea to fetch it before the next rain.

Sure to rake over your own footsteps with your fingers, you step back into the world of chaos you created and prepare to use it for your escape. It’s been a wild night, and even as it’s about to get wilder, you hope the morning can bring some respite. Already your heart needs a holiday.

Tossing the plate hard into the distant woods and frowning as your arm and aim falls short, you run about the building to its other side where the path to escape lies in wait. No one travels it, for now, and no one is at the door to the building or looking out its windows. You throw the bed sheet over you, wrapping yourself like a stage play ghost, covering your dark clothes and leaving only your face exposed, half covered with your black face mask. It proves a wise move. The path, as you set down it, is lined with woodland trees on both sides, and ember ridden smoke pours down like a heavy rain, hazing all you see before you in a blistering fog. Your eyes stay down and you try to follow the crunch of gravel below your feet as the path winds through the unformed world, your pace balanced on the edge of careful haste as you trot forward.

Soon the sound of your own steps are joined by others: a single set sprinting hard from behind and looking to overtake you. With a panicked turn, you step back, allowing the other man to pass, and the sight of him is nothing short of bizarre.

Dressed in plane yet immaculate clothing tailored perfectly to his form, an older man runs past you with barely a glance. He has short grey hair and an unsmiling lined face that looks hardened to a permanent expression of aristocratic superiority, yet his run -through smoke and flame no less- is straight backed and in perfect form. He holds a figurine in his hand, too blurred by his pace to make out, and you cannot help but indulge the impression of a high class servant running to his master with his latest summoned trinket. His hasty decorum swirls the smoke as he passes, disappearing without comment or a backward glance.

There is only one way to go, and you continue your trot down the path after him.

Two guards, imposing and tall, stand unmoving in the smoke, and you approach them with caution, then confusion, and finally a self-deprecating eye roll as you pass them both, looming shapes turned to stone gate posts. The path turns to a wide dirt road, and while the smoke and heat sting your eyes worse than ever, seeing is not a problem.

The islands village roars with fire.

The buildings on both side are hollow crackling ovens belting out walls of heat, consumed without and within, and you stagger forward under their oppressive attention. Sweat bursts from every pore, drenching and drying instantly on the blanket that wards only a fraction of heat away, and you stagger onwards, hoping the road takes you wear you need to go. You cough through the face mask. It was only meant to hide your features and the billowing smoke overwhelms the thin fabric. It feels thin and thick all at once, and you both cough and **** and stagger forward with blind and unsteady steps, left with nothing in a world of fire.

There are shapes in the distance, running through smoke, screaming, and you follow them, running towards them as they run away. The path bends, you think, angry buildings collapsing and spilling roaring wood across the road, and your staggering steps take you forward until the path narrows again, short walls forming each side as the road slips down, and-

Air.

You collapse, coughing and retching behind your mask, breathing deep the sweet air above the bone dry dust of the well-worn path. Just a few breaths. Just a few. You feel the heat at your back. Feel your dry eyes and cracked lips. You’re not going to die here. Standing, you stagger further forward, carried down a slope, and with each step the air gets cooler, the smoke thinner. You feel weak, coughing with each breath. Coughing until it hurts. Every lungful is sweet.

The sea is laid out before you. It lies down a long dirt path, lined with low stone walls, and the air is clear, the woods beyond the walls doomed but as yet unburnt. The fires slow progress down the hillside lags behind your own, and at several spots you have to hold the wall to catch your breath and drink more of the cool sea air. No one overtakes you. People move below, across wooden planks and sandy shores, and already several ships are pushing out into the sea, some more organised than others.

Still wrapped, you make your way down to them, and the few that see you take no notice. You spare an unseen smile to note the other faces of the crowd also wrapped in masks that cover the nose and mouth, or are wrapped in blankets, some of which cover burns. Some of which cover corpses. No one looks at you twice.

You see no evidence of the man you encountered on the path, not that you really look; from his pace, you could half believe he ran straight out to sea, treading water all the way to the mainland. Before entering the docks proper yourself, you veer off and walk the shores, all the way back to the familiar ground you swam to so long ago. At the end of the cove, where it becomes rocky and begins to climb again, you shrug off the blanket and leave it on the sands, still slightly smoking. The face mask is next, and breathing freely again is a joy that you cannot describe. Your first few breaths are cut short with a fresh wave of coughs. They leave you spitting grey tinged mucous onto the stony sand. You’re lungs feel burned, and your head aches, but you are alive; you’re pounding heart attests to that.

Now, breathing as you can, you look to the hard part.

You had originally planned to travel to the back of the island through the woods before swimming to your guide, who waits on an island not too far away. The way he described it, it’s well within sight, but hardly close. Now you have to swim out, past the cove edge, then along the length of the whole island to its back. Then, from the back of the island, you’ll need to make the hard swim through open waters to where he waits.

You glance at the horizon. The summer dawn will come early, but…you should have time.

Wading out into the waters, pushed and pulled by the gentle lapping waves, you begin to paddle. Swimming had not been a major part of your life, having been born a ‘landlubber’ as your guide called you, but you feel you make a good show for it. It got you onto the island after all. You had taught yourself to swim not too long after arriving at New Lilia several years ago. Traveling the sea had left you feeling so exposed, like the ship was a constant cliff edge and falling a certain doom. You’d been horrified to learn that even some of the crew didn’t know how to swim, and so you had resolved to teach yourself. A few lessons. More than enough.

You feel your clothes, soaked through and dragging you down, and the waves, while slight, are no longer carrying you to shore, feeling very different to the shallows you practiced in. Breaths saw and gurgle though your throat, and coughs are caused by both unlucky waves and the lingering rawness of your experience, but you paddle onwards regardless, getting around the coves lip and travelling along its side. There are rocks, and the lethargy you feel sends you carelessly into some of them, waiting at the bottom of the islands cliffs, and for a brief time you can walk across them then their slick surface. Looking up shows the islands trees, but as with the road, the fire has not yet travelled down to them yet. Ash occasionally floats down like a snowfall.

When you reach the back of the island, you see in the distance the island mentioned. It’s clear, and it’s far; already you have not made good time. The sun is far from risen, but distant cloud look tinged with a chasing red, beating you onward without rest. Your head hurts, the strain and growing thirst getting to you as you kick and push through the water.

The island grows, so slowly, its highest point gradually being painted with rising light. It also has a cove, of sorts, or an inlet, and within it should be a little boat and a wizened old man. A trip home and an earned rest. He was going to leave at dawn. Gods you hope you’re in time.

The hope does not speed you any faster. You’re tired. So, so tired. Your muscles are numb. You can hardly breathe. Your eyes hurt, the waters doing little to ease their dryness. The wide pushing stokes become a paddle, like a dog, kicking and clawing as your eyes drift close.

You’re so close. So close, and so tired.

Hands grab you, hauling you, and wood beats your limbs. A face, old, streaked with concern, then relief as it sees you seeing it.

“Cutting it close girl. I was gonna leave.”

The sun is up, painting him a liar. You smile.

“No as I can blame ye.” His eyes look to into the distance, returning to you with renewed concern. Perhaps he’s afraid you’ll burn his boat as well? The idea makes you laugh, which makes you cough. So tired. You lean overboard and spit, watching the grey spot drift away, head resting on the bobbing lip.

“Take me home, would you?”

More coughs, small, like little extra breaths.

“Aye. Right yeh are.”

You close your eyes. You could sleep forever.