Thousands of miles to the south of the empire, a small tree sat at the fork of an old, abandoned road. It had once been planted as a place-marker to divide the boundaries of two families, but now it had far outlived that purpose.

Instead its new purpose seemed to be as a deterrent, ‘if you come across the lone tree, you’ve gone too far.’ Things of that nature were often said in regard to its ancient figure nowadays. It was a shame the unique tree was forgotten so easily. It’s fruits were sweet and hard to find in the region, and it’s roots were strong, and canopy; wide, giving plenty of room to rest beneath its twisting arms.

Perhaps it was the bizarre nature of a lone tree that deterred approach. In a landscape of rolling green hills, the appearance of a lone tree separating a road was, in a certain way, ominous.

It’s no surprise really that the road it accompanied had gone into disuse. With the changing of times, it had become a fork without its stem.

Yet despite the silence, and despite the urban legends, a figure sat beneath the tree anyways. An old woman clutching a cane, with eyes blankly pasted on the abandoned road.

She’d arrived like the wind, one moment there was nothing, the next she was there. She stood perfectly still, counting nonsensically aloud.

It was clearly bizarre behavior, but having only birds and small rodents as audience, none could call her on it; so she continued muttering the random numerals without a care.

“Ten, Seventeen, Eight, One Thirteen, Seventy-two, Eighteen,- now.”

As soon as the last word fell from her lips, the old woman lifted her cane and thrust it to her left side. With her other arm she opened her palm and held it outstretched as-if waiting to receive something from some unseen source.

For several long moments she stood in that strange position, until finally the reason for her arrival bounced up the road directly toward her.

Screeching to a halt a few dozen feet away from the lone tree, a woman stepped careful out the door of an older-looking jeep and gave a few signals to the caravan of vans and trucks following behind her.

“Excuse me,” She called out, stepping up closer to the woman with a cocked head. “Do you know which way…”

“Follow the road northeast.” The blind woman briefly explained, nodding to the direction her cane was pointing without allowing the woman to finish her question.

“But you didn’t–” The woman began to complain with a heavy dose of exhaustion noticeable in her tone.

“Go.” The seer merely asserted, averting her blank gaze away from the woman and instead to her outstretched palm.

As the driver formulated the proper curses to deliver the old woman, a strong gust of wind kicked up a gale of dry dust from the path; sending dead leaves skittering between the two and shaking the heavy branches of the ancient tree.

A few hollow noises resound from the canopy after the gust settled, and with a practiced ease, a soft yellow fruit tumbled from within the leaves, landing perfectly in the woman’s outstretched palm.

The old woman said nothing more and turned on the spot while clutching the fruit, she then casually walked away without even a second glance towards the baffled woman.

Heather Osborne sat frustrated for a moment until eventually she began hearing car doors thudding in the distance, so she had no choice but to shake her head and turn back to the convoy of strip-mall employees.

Parked behind her, and first to reach her as she was walking back, was the driver of the karate emblazoned mini-bus, Haung Xinyue. “What was that?”

“Just some strange woman,” Heather explained with a half shrug, “I guess she answered my question though. We’re heading east.”

“And what if we still can’t find food east?” Mr. ‘Xing’ asks with a glance back at the convoy. “We’re getting far from home.”

“As much as it might feel like it sometimes, that place isn’t our home.” Heather reiterated as she caught pace beside the karate instructor who’d been renting the space beside her bakery for the past decade. “If we can find a place that will accept all of us, we need to take it.”

“You know that won’t fly with most of them.” Mr. Xing sighed with a shake of his head. “Some only agreed to leave under the assumption they’d be coming back. You’re right, it might not be home but it’s better than nothing.”

“Come on,” Heather said without addressing the conversation they’d been having back and forth for days now. “Now we at least have a direction to follow.”

Even if it had come from a blind woman who’d left toward the west.

Ignoring that, the jeep roared to life and followed the vague direction the woman gave.

The jeep lead the pack with the mini-bus– full of wait-staff and movie theater employees– following shortly behind. A dozen more vehicles followed behind them, each packed with its own assortment of strip-mall employees.

They couldn’t know where they were going, and they didn’t know whether or not they were alone, but nonetheless they continued forward; fueled by what little hope they could still muster.

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Further east, a village was in chaos as a jet-black object swirled in the sky, unleashing massive bursts of inertia to destroy everything in sight. A random burst toppled a tall tower in the center of the village quickly lighting up in flames as the lanterns and oils inside collided.

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Shouts and cries rang out as the villagers scrambled for safety amongst the chaos of the sudden demon attack. There was little other choice but watch as their homes were obliterated each time the dart made a loop overhead.

Only after a dozen or so minutes did the area finally quiet down. The dart, apparently satisfied with the destruction, veered off after a final blast collapsed a well in the center of the village square. As it disappeared over the horizon with incredible speed, the few survivors could only stare in blank shock.

Slowly though they regained themselves and began searching the rubble leftover by the attack.

The only left standing in dull shock in the center of a side street was Lilyn Graczes, she was new to the area; so even before this the place felt like a maze. And now, the hand held out to lead her was buried under a rubble pile she’d once called a home.

Somehow the tears wouldn’t come to Lilyn as she looked at the splintered beams and pile of stone that had once been her entire life. It’s odd how that can happen, but sometimes when all you need is to cry, it can seem like the hardest thing imaginable.

“Uhm,” A small voice shook her body as it appeared from behind Lilyn’s back, “d- do you know where my mom is?”

It was all Lilyn needed as she slowly turned to meet the young girl’s anxious face with her own. The tears streaked both their faces as Lilyn knelt to grip the child in a tight hug. Both knew the answer to her question, so they could only hold each other to restrain the pain.

A few minutes after the long painful embrace between the two strangers, a few other survivors made their way around to where the two were. A final headcount was taken, and its results were stomach-churning. Of the seventy-some-odd villagers who’d called the place home once, now only eighteen remained.

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“Come on, I know you’re hungry,” Lilyn tenderly prodded the child sitting beside her in the ruins of the city-square. “My stomach hurts too, but we have to eat anyways, or else it’ll hurt more tomorrow.”

The survivors had set-up a make-shift kitchen from some scraps left-over in the attack and they made a large pot of a common wheat gruel mixed with a few spices and herbs meant for healing. It was common disaster practice, and the flavor of the stew was familiar to many due to its simple and easy to find ingredients.

It was fortunate, most of the grain supply and food-stores had survived the attack otherwise they would likely starve if they attempted to migrate to a different village.

“It doesn’t taste good.” Lilyn’s new ward, Hana grumbled into her wooden spoon with trembling lips. “Mom’s didn’t…”

The words seem to catch in Hana’s throat as they exited, if lack of salt was her complaint, the new stream of tears that traced her cheeks quickly saw to that as they fell into the rough carved bowl.

“I know.” Lilyn murmured with an arm wrapping Hana closer to her. “It’s okay to cry.”

Nodding, Hana shoved another mouthful of the gruel into her mouth and swallowed through the tears and tremors.

Beside her, Lilyn did the same; scrapping every bit of the warm paste out of the bowl and sipping slowly from a wineskin that’d been recovered from one of the homes on the way over to the square.

It had happened by coincidence, but Lilyn already understood her new responsibilities regarding the child. If anything, Hana had now become the one holding her together. A few minutes after Lilyn had finished her bowl, Hana cleared her own and handed it off to Lilyn.

Rising to return the dishes, with Hana clutching at the back of her clothes for assurance, Lilyn stepped over to where the other survivors were huddled and overheard a few words regarding their plan.

“-morning, then we can follow the Hurt-Raos trail until we reach Henbrooke Hovel.” A balding man, Lilyn recognized as one of the sons of a village elder, said as they arrived to the group. “I’ve made the trip with my grandad before, it was only a few days on horseback. I reckon it should only take about a week if we-”

“What?” Lilyn absently muttered without realizing the volume in her tone.

A few dozen eyes turned to her after the exclamation was uttered. She really hadn’t planned on interrupting, but suddenly hearing that people were leaving had caught her highly off-guard.

“Have a better idea?” The balding man asked with an arched eyebrow. He’d had to watch his family burn to death only hours earlier so the man’s fuse was already shortened extremely.

“I just…” Lilyn chirped with a glance around the ragged looking group. Not one of them wasn’t soaked with mud and drying blood, they all had gone through hell and Lilyn could see they weren’t in the mood for complaints. “Nothing.”

Feeling a worried tug at her back, Lilyn patted Hana on the head and gripped her hand to walk back to where they’d left their belongings.

“It’s alright,” She reassures Hana with a squeeze of her palm. “No matter what happens I’ll be beside you.”

Pulling the torn doll Lilyn had found for her amongst some rubble, Hana sets it on her lap and nods her head hesitantly.

Lilyn wanted to say more to assure the girl, but she knew that any words from her mouth would be meaningless. Even she could only half believe them as they left her tongue.

Evening came without the bell’s usual toll to mark it, a few of the survivors had intact homes so they graciously offered their side rooms to the others.

Lilyn and Hana ended up nestling together in a farmhouse on the outskirts of the small village, an older couple who’d witnessed the event while plucking weeds from their field had offered up the spot to the two and they hesitantly accepted.

From the sound of it, they would have an early morning, so they no choice but to get a good night sleep.

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The morning came strangely. The two were awoken by the old couple suddenly, something seemed to have startled the two as they rushed Lilyn and Hana to rise and come outside the small dugout home. Shocked by the suddenness Hana immediately erupted into tears as her eyes opened, but nonetheless she was dragged out by Lilyn as prompted by the old farmers.

The two were hurried towards the village square, so Lilyn was more convinced they were departing, but she couldn’t understand the rush in her bleary daze.

As they got closer, she began hearing another sound over the quiet sobbing of Hana, but she had trouble identifying it.

“These are the last two?” A similarly unfamiliar voice asked as the two round the corner into the village center. “Awh, sweetheart; are you okay?”

The owner of the voice, a young woman with curly brown hair knotted into a rough bun knelt as she discovered the distressed young Hana.

Hana immediately hid behind Lilyn when she noticed the new presence, forcing Lilyn to face the strange situation as a shield.

“Who…” She began to ask as she looked around at the array of new figures and structures littering the square.

Dozens of vehicles were roughly parked around the area and around a hundred people had spilled out to pack the square. Once again, the large kettles had been hauled out and gruel was boiling thickly over a half-demolished hearth.

“Like I was saying,” The farmer’s wife explained for what felt like the third time since she and her husband had woken the two. “They apparently came from a settlement a few days south of here. Tengun’s boy already worked out a deal with them to resettle all of us, and we didn’t even have to give up all the wheat.”

“How…” Lilyn muttered again in disbelief. It was still hazy in the morning so she couldn’t understand how so much could have changed so quickly.

Hana at this point had been coaxed from behind Lilyn’s back with the offer of a metallic wrapped item from the frazzle-haired convenience-store clerk. The young woman slowly demonstrated how to unwrap the treat; and repeating after her, Hana happily chomped on the chocolate candy.

Sniffing back her tears as she did, she gleefully praised it.

“So, what do you think?” The farmer woman asked Lilyn as the two watch Hana with a mix of feelings.

“Did they say what type of jobs we would have to do, or…” Lilyn quietly asked so as to not have the other two overhear.

“I don’t think that was mentioned at all.” The woman said in response with a shake of her head. “I can’t even begin to imagine after a look at those things.”

Following her gesture to the vehicles the group had arrived in, Lilyn couldn’t help but agree with a worried shrug of her own.