My mother died one early morning on Erstday. She had been sick, a victim of the spreading Vulture Plague, for half a year. Most succumbed to the Plague after a month or two, but my mother was one of the unlucky ones. After three months, she realized that she wasn’t going to die quickly. She begged me to kill her because she was too weak to do it herself. In moments of weakness, or maybe strength, I wanted to. But then, when the time came, and I had to look at her, laying in the bed, wasting away into nothing, and I couldn’t do it. I would fall to my knees and begin to sob, as she would whisper curses at me and beg me to end her misery.

After another three months of me caring for her, our savings had run dangerously low. Our fields had fallen fallow as I couldn’t tend to them alone. I was at my wit’s end. On that Erstday, I woke up early, before the sun rose. After a minute, I heard my mother begin to cough. This wasn’t an abnormal thing, though usually I would have gotten up to check on her. This time I didn’t. Her coughing became louder and louder, more and more violent, until it was hoarse and sounded like the crack of a whip.

Her coughing stopped abruptly, and she let out one final gasp before going silent. I stayed in bed until the sun rose. As it did, the bright rays of light poking through the windows, I finally got up and found her dead.

Looking at her corpse, it really struck me how much of a toll the Vulture Plague had wrought on her body. Her skin, which had been even darker than mine, was now the color of bone. Wrinkles that hadn’t been there half a year now clung to her face. Her hair was completely white, with no trace of its previous color remaining. She was skinny, so, so skinny. There was hardly any fat or muscles on her bones, just barely enough connective tissue to let her move.

It was hard to tell if she was dead, except for the fact that her chest didn’t rise and fall with her breaths anymore.

Staring at her corpse, I felt tired. A part of me felt relieved, that it was finally over, and another felt guilty that I hadn’t been strong enough to end it quicker.

An hour later, I was in the backyard, digging a grave. I hadn’t eaten in a few days and I had so many other things to do, but I knew that she at least deserved a burial. I didn’t have a headstone, nor the money to make one, so I carved a short epitaph into a plank of wood.

The next morning, I buried my mother. I didn’t shed any tears, nor did I feel particularly sad. If anything, I was impatient. I wanted to leave, to get out of County Tealland, and to go far away. I wasn’t sure yet, but I had some ideas.

There was one place that had been the center of my obsession for years. When I was ten years old, seemingly randomly, my father had taken me to the Capital. Growing up in County Tealland, I’d never known any towns larger than a small hamlets, so the almost endless crowds in the Capital were both terrifying and spectacular. I was only within the city walls for an hour or two, but for months afterward, I’d dreamt of the Capital every night. When my father disappeared, I began to have dreams that I’d find him in the Capital.

By the time my mother had died, I hadn’t had one of those dreams in months, but I still remembered them. That was enough. The endless expanse of the cityscape, the bustling crowds, and the dim glow in the night sky. The Capital called for me.

I collected all the money in the house. Looking back, it wasn’t much more than a pittance, but I was fourteen; it was more money than I’d ever had at once. I packed as much as I could carry and tried to sell the rest. I wasn’t very successful in that, but it was something.

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Two weeks after my mother died, I was ready to go. I took one last look at my mother’s grave before turning and beginning my journey. It was a long way to the Capital, but I wasn’t in any hurry.

Joana Dreadstone. Beloved wife, mother, sister, and daughter. Loved forever.

I didn’t return to County Tealland for over a decade and when I did, I made sure to steer clear of my small village. The idyllic fields and rolling hills of my childhood remained that in my head, and even as the Last War raged on, I could at least dream that my home, the place of my birth and upbringing, where my mother was buried, was the same small paradise that had protected me in my youth. It was a stupid fantasy, but a comforting one nonetheless.

One day, on marching orders through County Tealland, as we passed through a valley, I was suddenly struck with a sense of deja vu.

I looked around, soaking in my surroundings. The valley was in shambles. A drought had hit it hard, killing all the flora and fauna. It was bombed out; large craters dotted the hills and the smoke of war choked the air. And yet, I was certain I’d been in the valley before. In that momentary moment of distracted, we were ambushed by insurgents and taken captive. Those that weren’t captured were killed.

We were forced on a march, bound, gagged, and blindfolded, but that persistent sense of deja vu didn’t leave me. I couldn’t see my surroundings, but the image of the valley stuck with me.

We were thrown into a makeshift prison that used to be a farmhouse, but my mind didn’t go to escape. I was tired, so tired. Instead, I was solely focused on trying to reconstruct the valley into something I would recognize.

I replanted the land, bringing back the green grass and the lush trees that danced lazily in the wind. I revived the animals, restoring the sounds of birds chirping, the sight of a deer drinking from the river, and the feeling of life. I filled all the craters and cleaned the river of the pollution that choked it. I wiped the smoke from the air and cleansed the sky of its smog.

Slowly, I began to recognize the valley. It was one near my hometown, one I’d been to dozens of times. One I ran to when I didn’t want to do my farmwork, one I found solace in. One I knew well.

Suddenly, rough hands grabbed me and forced me to stand. I was shoved, prodded, and dragged and after a minute or so of walking, the blindfold was ripped from my eyes. After the initial bloom of blinding light, my eyes adjusted, and I knew where I was.

I was in the middle of my little village. My old house was no more than a five minutes from me. Someone pushed my head down and uncovered my neck, but I was focused on my house. I could just barely see it in the distance. I hardly noticed the executioner as he raised his sword above his head and brought it down in a swift motion.

Time seemed to slow and at the last second, I kicked the rebel holding me and rolled out of the way. The sword hit the dirt with a clattering echo, embedding itself in the ground.

I leapt forward, slicing the ropes binding my wrists open on the blade. A rebel jumped on me, but I threw him off. I grabbed the sword and pulled it from the ground, slicing open a soldier’s chest in the process. I wheeled around and stuck the sword through another soldier, who was reaching for his own blade.

At this point, all of the other rebels ran off. I didn’t give chase, instead, I turned in the direction of my old house and began walking.

Never has such a short walk felt longer. The land seemed to twist and distort as I grew closer, flashes of my childhood appearing at the edges of my vision. A pit formed in my stomach and I was almost overwhelmed by the waves of nausea that ran through me. But I pushed on.

When I reached the property line, I fell to my knees. My house sat in ruins. The rest of the village wasn’t in a great state, but my house had obviously laid abandoned for decades, rotting, and exposed to the elements.

I saw my mother’s grave, the plank of wood I’d placed there long since rotted away and consumed by plants which had themselves long died and dried out.