• The damn fire wouldn't light.
    I was sitting on the ground, my back pressed up against the tombstone. The wind nipped at my cheeks and ran up and down my spine. My fingers fumbled with the matches; I had gone through two packs since yesterday evening when Arika intercepted me at the inn at Whonns.
    Damn Arika, freakin' spiked my water, now this? These are just damn sticks. Damn.
    I wasn't sure what time it was, sometime at night. It was late October so maybe one in the morning? It didn't matter anyway since I couldn't fall asleep. I wouldn't fall asleep. Not that my life valued over the majority of the world's at this point.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    It was early July when the Hejjhis attacked Kharatt. That was around my seventeenth birthday. Was it? I can't remember how old I am but I'm around there. It must've been, for my mother wouldn't let me chop my hair short until I turned seventeen. The Hejjhis attacked before I got a chance to chop it, so I cut it off myself with a dagger at that inn at Whonns.
    I could remember that evening very vaguely. It felt like decades ago, but in truth, I had only been hiding for nineteen weeks. That night was the night of my birthday banquet. All nobility from all over the world flocked to our castle in Kharatt. We hired the best cooks in the world, best meistros, best people-to-make-us-look-good. We looked good.
    The party had barely begun when the large western window shattered and the Hejjhis paraded in armed with swords and knives and anything they could kill with. I watched my father get slaughtered in front of my very eyes, a sword through his throat. I had fled from the room, terror running through my veins. As I raced up a narrow spiraling stair case, my mother closely behind me, I remember seeing one of those bastards grab her and hurl her down the endless flights of stairs. I remember her scream when she hit the floor.
    I was tripping over my dress. Damn dress. Damn good-for-nothing dress. One of the Hejjhis grabbed my leg, but I turned around quickly and kicked at his stomach as hard as I could. I saw my heal sink into it, and I saw him tumble backwards down the stairs, tripping other Hejjhis as he went.
    The end of the staircase was near. A large wooden door stood in front of me. I opened it with as much force as possible, but it hardly budged. However, I was able to squeeze just inside and baracade the door shut with steel sword hanging over the fireplace.
    The Hejjhis slammed into the door, trying to open it. It wouldn't budge. One started hacking at the door with his axe. I felt terrified as splinters from the door embeded themselves in my skin.
    I quickly swung myself over the balcony and began climbing down the vines. I knew that the Hejjhis had broken into the room when a victorious screech echoed through the air. They looked over the edge of the balcony, puzzled at my sudden disappearance. Unfortunately, one spotted me clinging to the vines for my life. He intructed the other to throw any weapons they had down at me in their strange language.
    Daggers, swords, shards of broken glass, they even destroyed the fireplace and began hurling large boulders over the balcony. One boulder his my leg and snapped it. I screamed in agony and they laughed at my pain. Then their leader instructed them to hack the vines away, and I went tumbling down into the lake, with a broken leg, and a large scar across my cheek from the sword that I had baracaded the door with.
    I fell into the water, and the freezing liquid bit at me and stung my wounds. I kicked my working leg and moved my arms in the direction of the shore. It took hours to reach the shore, but it happened. That night I fell asleep behind a boulder and a fallen log, not fifty yards from a Hejjhi campground.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Damn fire. In all that time that I spent recollecting that one fateful night, I had not caused a spark. I angrily slashed the final match against the tombstone, and it lit. I swore furiously, but then I heard voices in the distance.
    It was Arika. And she had brought a friend.