She was lying on the flour.

It felt warm despite the fact that there was nothing but earth beneath
her. The air was full of different smell, but they all said the same thing; something was burning. She
caught as some remnants of the smoke entered her lungs. She opened her eyes. Darkness. She sat up
and the whole world swam around her. Her head hurt, and then she remembered.
A trumpet blast, her father’s fear stricken face, the sense of urgency in his voice, him urging her to
hide in the cellar and her stubborn refusals. Then what? Nothing. Did he knock her unconscious in
order to get her to hide? That would explain the headache, but what about the smell of burning?
She shook her head to ward of the dizziness and looked around. A ray of light protruded from the
ceiling. But how was that possible, she was in the cellar and the ruff should have made this scene
impossible. Unless... The hair on her neck stood up. Was the house gone? No that can’t be, she told
herself as with effort she got to her feat. The world spined again, but she refused to let that stop her
from finding out what was going on. Try as she might, she wasted a few steps keeping her balance,
before she reached the ladder.
A small stream of smoke rolled down from the edges of the scorched hole where the trap door used
to be and at the bottom of the ladder here charred and broken pieces of wood, that did not all
appear to be parts of that door. She had to blink a few times before her eyes got used to the light.
Fear as deep as anything she had ever experienced gripped her heart. “Was daddy alright?” she
wondered as she extended a shaking hand towards the ladder.
The ladder was no more than twice her size and yet she felt like it took her forever to climb it. She
almost fell of when she beheld the sight beyond the hole. It was horror above anything she ever
thought she could imagine. The house was almost completely gone. The only proof that it ever
existed were the blackened remains of the wooden frame, still cradling some remains of the embers
that shone brightly in the night’s shadow. Clambering up, her body still numb from the shock, she
saw something gleaming in the moonlight a few steps away from the hole. She approached it and
saw the burn shape of her doll , the gleaming object being its eye. Her capacity for terror and fear
were already filled beyond her limitations and the sight of her mother’s last gift to her hit her like a
sledge hammer. Unable to utter a sound, she fell to her knees while two rivers of tears, washed away
the ashes from her cheeks and revealed her pale skin.
She kneeled there for what seemed like an eternity, trying to cope with the horror laid before her.
Her mind was blank and she was unable to think or move drawing herself deep inside herself in order
prevent herself from just falling down dead. The first thing that came into her mind, after some of
the initial shock wore of, was her father. Where was he? She got up to her shaking feet and noticed
that without knowing, she picked up the remaining eye of her doll and was now clutching it tightly in
her palm. The place where her dolls face would have been was a smudged would-be circle
interrupted by five lines of her finger and the last of the burned shape of its body was full of small
dots where her tears fell.
She walk to where the door of her house was just a few hours previous. The sight beyond the door
hit her like a hurricane, but what she was forced to experience inside the house made her as numb
and hard as a stone. Her village was all but gone. No house was spared from the flames and most of
them still radiated an orange glow from where the embers did not die out yet. The streets were full
of objects, hidden by the shadows that made their shapes almost unrecognisable. Like the houses,
most of them showed specs of orange glow from the fires that knocked them to the grown, but the
far worse were the shapes that did not have the orange glow. Most of them were completely black
and some had one or two white dots at one end of them. These dots shimmered like glass in the
moon light and as her eyes adjusted to the shift in light, the dots were looking at her. They were eyes
of the villagers, her neighbours, friends, relatives; and they were dead. Everyone she ever knew was
dead and lying in a dried pull of darkened liquid that shimmered with red, where the moonlight
touched it.
All about were scattered the shattered pieces of farming tools the otherwise defenceless inhabitants
of the village used in vein attempts to fight of the attackers. Only one real weapon was visible, a long
and slender sword, that looked like it was made of pure silver and our girl knew it. She saw it in her
father’s hand, just before she woke up in the cellar. The sight of it took away the numbness, partly
because of hope she might see her father again, but mostly because of the fear of the condition in
which she will find him. Her legs stopped shaking and she started towards the sword.
Just as she reached it, a great dark menacing shadow appeared behind her and was followed by a
strong gust of wind that sent her singed hair flying all over her face. A moment later, there was a
loud thump and the ground trembled. Her heart was pounding and as she brushed the hair from her
eyes she saw a giant figure thrice as tall as her and just as broad. It was so huge, that at first she
failed to see the looming leathery wings protruding from its back.