I had no idea why I jumped in front of the child. My body had acted on its own. The good news was that I managed to push the little girl out of the way. The bad news? Being sandwiched between the car and the wall. I could hear the people screaming around me and saw the little girl being both chastised and hugged by who I assumed was her mother, but none of that mattered anymore. Even if I wasn’t stuck, I had a feeling I couldn’t move my legs at all either way. The culprit for that would be the iron rod that had impaled my stomach and severed my spine. That had hurt so goddamn much that I had blacked out. But the screaming all around me and the smell of gasoline brought me back. I wish it hadn’t. I was stuck, in immense pain and no one seemed to do anything. People were pointing somewhere to my right, but a bright light and the wreck of the car prevented me from seeing what it was. I started ruminating whether I really had lived such a bad life that people would just watch me die, when everything seemed to slow down all of a sudden. And I understood it all.

The bright light from earlier was fire, coming around the corner in slow motion, riding along the gasoline. People weren’t just watching me die, they were just afraid of dying themselves. Not that I blamed them. Life was precious and all that. From the corner of my eyes, I could see the fire reaching the start of the stream of the gasoline. The fuel tank.

“Aahn. Fuck.”

A blazing end to my life, it would seem.

I forced my eyes away, wanting to see the setting sun one last time. Sorry mom. I wish I could’ve left behind a body for you to bury. It seemed that all that would be left of me would be my ashes, resting under the sun.

----------------------------------------

“Break!” Emned bellowed, right before he crashed into the door, shoulder first.

Fire had broken out in the house of the Odrid’s, but with how out of the way their house was, none had noticed before it was too late. If it wasn’t due to the dark night contrasting the bright fire, Emned wouldn’t have noticed either. But at this point, it had been too long to save the house, but maybe, just maybe, someone in there was still alive and needed their help. Emned and Galvec were the closest neighbours, a pair of brothers. Emned was one of the village’s lumberjacks and was employing all that strength to break the front door. Galvec on the other hand had gone to the river to wet his clothes. If he was to run into that fire, he’d need all the little help he could get. When he got back, his brother had already cleared the way, so Galvec ran right in.

Inside, he couldn’t see much due to the smoke, so it was almost a blindfolded search. Thankfully, the houses in their village were rather simple, most not even having a second floor. Annoyingly, this one did, a small attic. He had no clue what exactly was stored on it, but it was storage, Galvec knew that much. And he sure wasn’t going to check up there. Not when there was so much fire up there, likely the starting point of this whole thing. He wasn’t suicidal.

A quick lap around inside the kitchen and the bedroom didn’t result in anything of note. Thankfully, it also meant no bodies. He’d heard rumours about how bad burnt bodies smelled. If even a fraction of those rumours were right, he would not want to experience it. Back outside, others had gathered, looking at the house with visible fear, but their prayers and other mumbling silenced when they spotted him.

“Nothing,” Galvec said in between coughs.

“I don’t think anyone,” another cough followed, “was home.”

A wave of relief spread through the onlookers, who were now just vigilantly watching the burning house. They didn’t really want it to spread to its surroundings. That was until a broad man bursted into the scene. Fethre Odrid. Husband of Netru and father of their unborn child. And the owner of the house that was on fire.

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“Netru?!” Fethre shouted as he looked around, but silence reigned.

Galvec took a step forward, but was held back by Emned.

“Don’t,” his brother whispered quietly. “Who knows what Fethre might do, emotional as he is right now.”

Emned straightened his back. Galvec might be physically frail, but he wasn’t. Fethre would think twice before lashing out at someone whose biceps were the size of thighs.

“Someone looked inside,” Emned said out loud, drawing everyone’s attention.

“But nothing to be found. Unless she was in the attic, but the fire was too strong there to go up and look.”

Fethre snapped around, seemed to process everything for a second before widening his eyes.

“And the basement?! What about there?”

Emned frowned. “There is a basement in your house?”

But he wouldn’t get an answer, staring at the back of a sprinting Fethre. Emned grumbled something under his breath, but followed nonetheless. He did quickly turn around, ordering Galvec to go get wet fabric, to cool down Fethre whenever he came back out. But contrary to what everyone expected, he didn’t enter the house, instead digging at the side of the house with his hands. Emned sprinted to the shed over in the field, getting whatever tools in there. When he gave them to Fethre, the man took them without saying a word and with a single swing of his axe, split one of the logs he’d already exposed with his hands. Smoke flew out and Emned took a step back, but the father/husband didn’t even bat an eye, breaking yet another log. Tossing his axe to the side, Fethre stuck his hands in the hole and just started tearing out the remaining logs with his bare hands.

“Nethru!”

Having spotted his wife, he redoubled his efforts, but when a somewhat sizeable hole had been created, he got pushed aside. Raging, he turned around, but Emned wasn’t planning on moving.

“Move, Fethre. Who knows how much longer it’ll take before the hole is big enough for your massive body. Let Galvec go in.”

Fethre wanted to argue, but Emned cut it short immediately.

“Shut up, man! Think of your wife and child. Does it matter who saves them as long as they are saved?”

Fethre stood with his mouth wide open, but no sound came out anymore. He just nodded, prompting Galvec to slide himself into the basement. Awkwardly landing at the edge, he had to take care not to step on Nethru, who was curled up in the middle, clutching her chest. Try as he might, Galvec couldn't wake her up. Her chest was still moving up and down, but awkwardly. Wasting no time, Galvec scooped the woman in her arms. He didn't even have time to think about the odd sight that were tiny Nethru and giant Fethre. Lifting her up, her husbands massive hands took her, carefully maneuvering her out. Galvec looked around some more, but the baby wasn't anywhere in sight, so he gestured for his brother to help him out of the basement. Either Nethru had done this herself or she'd been incredibly lucky, but the hatch to the basement was closed, preventing most of the smoke from entering.

"Honey, wake up," Fethru said as he lightly shook her body, almost afraid to break it. She was still in that same feutal position, clutching her chest. But Galvec could see that it was rising even less steadily than before, so he hesitantly approached his brother.

"Her breathing is getting worse by the second. I don't think she'll stay with us for much longer."

Edmund sighed, not saying anything for a few moments.

"And their child? It would've been born by now, I think?"

"No idea. Didn't see anything in that basement though."

But their discussion was cut short by the cry of a baby, who had still been in his mothers clutches all this time. The child had chosen the very moment his mother breathed her last breath to announce he was alive.

"Thank the gods!" Fethre said as he gingerly took the child, almost fitting him in a single hand, tears streaming down his face. From the loss of his wife or the survival of his son, or likely both at the same time. "As your mother had wished, I call you Pheon, born under the ashes beneath the sun."