Fire and smoke. Yelling.

Rab crouched down in the dark shadow of a tree. For some reason it was nearly totally dark in that one spot. He was almost invisible there. Nobody was going to see him unless they really looked hard.

With a loud crackle the big house caught on fire. The flames whooshed up the roof, and lit up the village like it was daytime.

What a terrible thing to see, Rab thought.

His village, burning.

Everyone he'd ever known was gone.

Or would be, soon. He didn't want to think about that.

There was a scream. It sounded like a woman. Then it was quiet again, except for the sound of the fires.

The monsters that had come tonight had been different from anything he’d ever heard about.

Most nights, Ashmen or Bonewalkers would appear after dark. The sounds of the skeletons clacking and stumbling through the woods was something he’d grown up with, but always one by one, on their lonely staggering path through the night.

Ashmen would begin as whirls of dust in the red light of sunset, finally gathering together into dark, man-shaped forms that slipped silently through the village, moaning and searching for someone to take away with them.

But as long as everyone was inside with the doors shut, they were safe.

Not tonight.

After the sun went down, the Ashmen came like a river. More than anyone had ever seen. There must have been ten of them for every villager that hid in the houses. Bonewalkers came after them, sometimes armed with axes and swords and bows, but often carrying only sticks or rocks or rotten pieces of junk.

They swarmed through the village.

Then the fires had started.

It would have made sense if a fire started at the blacksmith's. Fire was always a danger there. Elm the blacksmith kept a bucket of water around just in case.

But the fires had popped up across the village, one after another. Like someone was starting them.

The Ashmen hadn't been able to get through the doors – every villager knew how to keep those locked - but once the fires started people didn't have a choice. They had to run.

Everyone ran out into the night, but there was nowhere to go. Everywhere was crowded with the mobs. The lanes between the houses were a chaos of terrified villagers and Ashmen and Bonewalkers in a chaos of running and yelling.

Rab hid himself, and watched the monsters walk past him. He was sure they were going to reach down and grab him, but not one of them even looked in his direction.

He couldn't see what was starting the fires, but soon every house was burning.

All he could do was hide. He wished he could do something, but the flames roared up into the night, and the mobs washed back and forth across the village, looking for anyone they could find.

What could one lone villager do?

After a long time, less Ashmen were swarming through the village. There were just a few, here and there, shuffling along the empty paths. Bonewalkers clacked away into the night, seeming to lose interest in the destruction. There was nothing left of the houses except the rock walls. There was no sound except Ashmen softly moaning.

Rab didn't move.

They were leaving. He was sure of it.

After the fires went out it was a long, dark night.

At first, when the sky began to glow red, Rab thought it was fire again. But then he saw that the sun was starting to come up.

The village was quiet.

Of course none of them could survive in the daylight. The Ashmen would melt away in the sunlight like mist, and the Bonewalkers would have gone deep into the forest, dropping random pieces of bone along the way until they collapsed again into a pile. It would be safe to come out then.

But was he alone?

What else might still be out there in the empty, ruined village?

He was afraid to see.

There was no sound, except for a cow mooing out in the fields. The mobs never attacked the animals, only the villagers.

When the sun was all the way up and shining through the morning mist, Rab knew that he wasn't hidden anymore. Anyone walking past would see him right away. So he stood up.

The air smelled like smoke, and he was afraid to move. He didn't know what to do. There was nowhere to go, anyway.

He stepped out onto the path, and his feet crunched on the gravel.

Almost as soon as he did it, there was a loud crash from somewhere, and he heard the noise of running feet.

Getting louder.

Whoever it was, they were headed straight towards him.

There was nowhere to run. All of the houses were gone - there were only blocks of stone and wood scattered all over now.

Rab jumped behind some stones and waited.

The sound of running feet stopped.

His heart was pounding. What was he supposed to do? Hiding was the only thing he knew how to do and there was nowhere to hide.

What was left?

"Hello?" a voice called out.

It was a girl's voice.

He knew it right away.

It was Nem.

He stood up.

"Over here," he said.

She looked at him and frowned.

"Who else have you found?"

He didn't want to tell her he'd been hiding until just moments ago.

"Nobody," he said. "You want to look together?"

He knew Nem, but they'd never been real friends. She stayed around the adults a lot.

"Alright," she said. "We can go that way."

She pointed down the path. She had always been too bossy for her age and size.

"We shouldn't just go any old way," he said. "We should have a plan."

"Okay, what's your plan?" she said.

But he noticed that her hands were scrunched up in her robe, and her fingers were white.

This probably wasn't the time to get into stupid arguments.

"Actually never mind," he said. "We can go down the path first."

She glared at him and started walking.

"What do you think happened to Gru?" he said. The village’s Defender had started fighting Ashmen right away, but Rab hadn't seen him again after the fires started.

"Gone," she said. "He was under a pile of them. I saw him flash and disappear."

Defenders were made of metal. It was hard to imagine how much damage it would take to kill him. People... people weren't as tough.

"Where were you hiding?" he said.

"Out by the west path. At the three trees. Where were you hiding?"

He didn't like the way she said hiding. Like he should have been doing something else.

"Just over there. In the dark spot."

She glanced at it and then yelled out "Hello!" again.

Nobody answered.

He followed her around the village twice, yelling for people to come out. It would be great if everyone suddenly stood up. If everyone had found great places to hide all night.

But there was only the sound of wind. And the cow that wouldn't shut up, out in the grass.

"We can't be the only ones," Nem said.

"We should see what's left that we can use," he said.

She started walking down the path again.

"Nem, wait," he said.

She spun around.

"We can't be the only ones! We wouldn't be if everyone had fought back! Everyone just ran and tried to hide!"

Her face was red.

Rab put his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it away.

"I hope we're not the only ones," he said. "But either way we still need to decide what to do."

"I guess so."

"Let's just start simple. We need food, right?"

She nodded.

"Okay, fine. Let's look for food."

Going through the houses one by one they found a few scraps of food - potatoes, carrots, bread. They divided it up between them.

They found loose torches too - they must have been knocked off of the buildings. Rab grabbed those and stuck them in his robe.

Light was going to be really important if they didn't have anywhere to go at night. Light was the only thing that kept mobs away – not just magical mobs like Ashmen and Bonewalkers, but dangerous animals too. Prowlers and Night Eagles would shy away from a well-lit village. Even spiders wouldn’t usually come into open light. But all the same he didn’t like the thought of seeing how well that would work when they were stuck outside.

The gardens were empty and scorched. There was nothing worth taking.

When they came to the last house, Nem gasped and pointed into a corner.

Rab didn't want to see for a second, in case it was something terrible. But he made himself look. Nem needed him to be the grownup, even if he really wasn't one.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

There was a sword in the corner, laying there where anyone could pick it up.

It glittered in the sunlight. Electrum. Since Rab was training to be a Smith he recognized it right away.

"Who had an Electrum sword?" Rab said.

"I bet it was hidden in a chest," Nem said.

It must have been Pen the Cleric. Rab couldn't see anyone else having something like this sitting around. It definitely hadn’t been in the smithy. He knew every inch of Elm’s workshop.

They both walked over and stared at it.

"You should take it," Nem said.

Something seemed terrible about picking it up. Like he was agreeing to something that frightened him.

"I don't know how to use a sword," he said.

It was heavier than he expected.

He tried to swing it, but he could barely even hold the thing. It wobbled in his hands like it was out of balance. After a moment it fell right out of them and clanged down onto the floor.

Nem stared at him.

"You have to practice," she said.

Rab had a feeling that wouldn't do any good at all. But he wasn't going to say it out loud.

"I will," he said. "Later."

He heaved it up again and shoved it into his inventory.

He really, really hoped he wouldn't need to try to use it for real.

When they stepped outside, they were done. They had picked up everything they could find through the whole village.

It wasn't much. They would be out of food in a couple of days at most.

Nem looked up at him.

"I know we're the only ones left," she said.

He nodded. What was there to say?

"What do we do now?" Nem said.

Rab didn't have any idea of what to do. He wanted to ask someone the same question. But there was nobody to ask.

So that meant he had to be the one to decide.

Nem was looking at him like she expected a good answer.

Great, he thought. Just great.

"I guess..." he said. "I guess we see if we can find somewhere new."

Orb the Librarian had told them stories about other villages. The library books talked about village life like it happened in all sorts of different places.

But Rab had no idea how far away another village might be, or in what direction.

"How do we find another village?" Nem said.

Well that's the problem, isn't it? Rab thought.

He didn't want to make Nem worried though. So he smiled and pointed. One direction was as good as another, as far as he could see.

"I think we should go that way," he said.

She looked over towards the hills and nodded.

"Okay," she said. She looked a little more confident. "I hope we can find the new place before it gets dark."

Me too, Rab thought. Me too.

He really didn't know what they were going to o when it got dark.

But there was still one more problem, and he didn't even know if they could do anything about it.

Nem followed him like she thought he already had it figured out.

If this part doesn't work, we're not going anywhere.

They both stopped at the end of the path.

As far as they knew, nobody from the village had ever gone farther than this.

Every kid had tried it. It was kind of a game. You went to the end of the path, and you stepped on the next block. Then you saw how long you could stay there, one step farther out, before you had to jump back into the village again.

Rab had counted to fifteen once, which was actually pretty good. He wasn't even counting really fast.

It started like a feeling of being sick and lonely, but it got worse and worse. Pretty soon you broke out into a sweat, and then you got really, really scared. Running back into the village fixed it right away.

Adults didn't even try. They all knew where the limits of the village were, and they all stayed inside of them.

It worked the same all around the village, but the end of the path was the spot everyone used for the game.

Now they were as far as anyone could go, and they looked out into the grassland.

There was only one way to know.

Rab stepped onto the next block and waited.

Nothing happened. Nem watched him with big eyes.

Still nothing.

"I think it's okay," he said. "You try."

Rab stepped one block farther out to give Nem room. Nobody had ever made it more than three blocks. They said it felt impossibly horrible after that.

Nem looked like she was feeling braver from watching him do it, so she stepped onto the block and squeezed her eyes shut, like she was waiting for a punch.

After a few moments she opened her eyes again and looked up at Rab.

"There's nothing," she said. She looked amazed.

Rab took three more steps. That made five blocks. He'd just set the village record.

He felt no different at all. Whatever it was that had held everyone in place, it was gone now.

"I guess we're okay," he said, and gave Nem a smile.

She grinned bravely at him and together they walked fifteen more blocks. For a moment Rab thought it was starting to get to him, but then he realized he was just feeling sad. They turned around to look back at the village.

"Bye, village," Nem said.

It didn't look much like home now. It was just a bunch of empty shells of houses.

"Come on, we need to get going," he said gruffly and started walking again. Because if he'd stared back for another second he was going to burst into tears. That wouldn't do anyone any good.

They headed towards the hills together, and Rab looked up at the sun.

Almost noon already. I really hope there's a village close by, he thought.

But part of him knew it wasn't going to be that easy.

They walked farther and farther away from the village, until they couldn't see it any more.

The sun was hot, but as they started to go higher into the hills, the air got colder.

They stopped for lunch near a little pond, and Nem bugged him about the sword until he pulled it out.

It wobbled in his hand, and he could still barely hold on to it.

"Try stabbing something!" she said. "Kill that tree!"

He rolled his eyes but did his best. As soon as he tried to stab it into the bark, the sword flipped right out of his hands and thumped onto the ground.

"Pretty sad," she said.

He picked it up and held it out to her.

"You want to try?"

She looked at him like he was crazy.

"It's almost as big as me. How am I supposed to use it?"

"I don't think villagers can use swords. It just doesn't work," he said. “They’re Player things. Maker things.”

They both knew the stories. Orb had told them about the Players, who made things and rode horses and brought treasures up out of the deep caves, or who fought monsters in the Underworld. Now he wished he’d paid more attention, but they were just old stories. Could a villager become a Player? Was it like a job?

Nem was still thinking about the sword.

"You practice," she said. "I'll tell you if you're getting any better."

So he wasted time trying to slash and stab at the air. As far as he could tell he never got any better. The sword felt like something alive - like it didn't want him to hold it.

The next time he dropped it, he made a disgusted sound and put it away.

"I'm done," he said. "We need to get going anyway."

"I think you were getting a little bit better," Nem said.

He knew it wasn't true though

They spent the rest of the day climbing through the hills. Everything was gray rock, and there was snow just a little bit farther up. Rab kept hoping they would find a good spot to see the land all around them, and maybe get an idea of which way to go to another village.

But even by the end of the day, all there was to see was rocks.

And it was getting dark.

They needed to decide how they were going to stay safe for the night.

The problem was, what were they supposed to do? Villagers didn't spend the night outside. They had never even heard of anyone trying to do it.

How do we figure out what nobody knows how to do?

They could see the entrance to a cave - it sloped away into the blackness below. They couldn't see anything at all down there.

"No way," Nem said. "I am not going into that place."

That was fine with Rab. He had a bad feeling about what might be down there in the dark.

"I say we stop right over there," he said. He pointed at a big flat area of rock.

Nem frowned.

"That's stupid. It's the opposite of a house. There's nothing there at all!"

"Mobs don't come near torches, right?"

"Yes," she said. He wasn't sure if she really knew that, or if she just wanted him to think that she did.

"We have some torches. We set them up and stay put until sunrise. No mobs."

He set four torches in a little square and told Nem to sit, then he sat down too.

He scrunched his back up against hers.

"Now try to look like a rock," he said.

She snorted.

"This is the stupidest plan anyone has ever come up with ever," she said.

"Rocks don't talk. Be like a rock."

It got darker, and Rab started to worry. The mobs last night had come right through the village, torches or no. The fires had been bright as day, and it didn’t seem to bother them at all. If they ran into mobs like that, the torches wouldn’t mean a thing.

He looked nervously up at the sky. Night Eagles were supposed to be afraid of light too, but he and Nem were just sitting there in the open. All lit up.

Do we look like a snack?

It wasn’t long before he saw the whirling of an Ashman clumping together in the last red light of the sun. Soon there was another. They just stood dumbly, lurking at the edge of the torchlight. But they didn’t seem to want to come any closer.

What worried Rab was the spider. It had popped up out of the cave and now it was only a few blocks away. It wasn't facing them, but it was way too close.

Nem turned her head to look at it.

"Do you think it can..." she said, and the spider hissed at the sound of her voice.

"Sshhh!" Rab whispered.

The spider had already moved towards them.

With a clattering sound, a Bonewalker appeared at the crest of a nearby rocky hill. It held something that looked like an old sword.

He'd never been so near to so many mobs at once. It felt like there were more than normal. They were everywhere.

The spider's eyes glowed. It was looking right at him.

What was he going to do if it attacked?

His hand grabbed at the sword in his inventory. It was all they had, but he knew it was useless. What else could he do, though?

Then the spider turned around and started moving away. The Bonewalker lurched off after it in the same direction.

He felt Nem shudder.

"We have to do this all night?" she whispered.

He nodded and shushed her again.

It wasn't going to work, though. The mobs were too close.

He leaned over and picked up one of the torches. He needed to move very, very slowly. He crawled out four blocks and set it down again.

That seemed better. The light went farther out.

He looked at Nem. There were no mobs near her.

"Can you do what I just did?" he whispered.

She looked and nodded.

Before long they had all four torches spread out around them, plus they lit two more, making a circle. They were right in the middle of it. It seemed kind of stupid - they were lit up like it was daylight, but none of the mobs moved any closer to them.

It was another long, long night.

At sunrise, when the last Ashman whirled away into a puff of dust that scattered with the wind, they picked up all of the torches again and Rab put them in his inventory.

Then he thought about it and gave half of them to Nem.

She looked at them.

"This is in case you die, right?" she said.

"It's just in case, is all," he said.

She put them in her robe and didn't mention it again.

They headed out along the bare rock together.