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Saharim was a place of heat and sand, stretching as far as the eye could see. Sometimes you would find ruin from villages, with some still being black as coal and warm to the touch. As I ventured through the remains, I began reminiscing about my mission from The Lord. It was impossible, it was blasphemy! But it was given to me by the lord, so it is the truth, to think that the church would do something like that…
Crunch
Quickly turning around, with my sword and shield ready, I face the threat… And found nothing. There is nothing behind me. My eyes search the surroundings but find nothing, My body remained tense, poised for an attack, talking a step back i-
Crunch
There that sound was again, but not in front of me, instead I located the sound coming underneath me, and slowly, I looked down seeing… bones. It took a little while to see what it truly was, because the bone was almost black as coal, looking like the ground of the burnt house around and under me. I must have crushed some of the bones and misheard it as someone following me.
I sheath my sword by my ri- left side and lower my shield and gently get down on my knee and look over the skeleton. It's small, too small, like a child with a skull that looks too big for its small body, with a big opening in its head from probably a sharp weapon.
The rest of its body is thin and small, probably malnourished, and its arms was broken, probably from when I broke them with my feet.
The child must have been living in this village before-
"कोई कृपया मेरी मदद करो…"
I was silent, listening, there was something here. A voice. A voice where there should have been nothing. Carefully and cautiously, I look around the burned village, the town was burnt to the ground, with the burnt remains the only singers of there having been a village here. The sound must have come from under one of the ruins, so carefully I moved to the nearest to me.
The ruins appeared to have once been a small wooden house, built for a family to live comfortably. Now, like all the others, it stood burned and empty, a hollow remnant of what once was.
With my sword and shield ready, I stepped inside to investigate. The ground was layered with soot and charcoal, the air thick with the scent of ash.
As I scanned the area, my eyes caught something—something hidden beneath a few loose planks. A glimpse of dirty white, likely fabric. A dress, perhaps. Once pure, now stained with soot and worn with time.
Keeping my sword raised, I cautiously stepped closer. The planks lay uneven, disturbed. Something was beneath them.
Carefully, I lifted one of the planks, making sure not to give whatever lay beneath a chance to attack—or escape. As the wood shifted, revealing the darkness below, my eyes widened.
And then, I saw it…