Theus

Mum: “Yur father ain’t be home till marrow”, Theus’s mother said calmly brushing his hair with her hand.

Theus: “He be getten them aminals,” Theus said while pulling an imaginary bowstring from the air. His mother replied with a chuckle.

Theus: “He be shootin and shootin and shootin. No more aminals left when he be done!” at this point Theus had managed to make it to the top of the table and was shooting pretend “aminals” from all across the room.

Mum: “Come down ere boy,” mum chortled. She looked at him with such warm eyes. They were a welcome embrace to the soul.

He climbed down and ran to her lap. There she combed his hair with her fingers more. She held him. The stove fire illuminated their bodies, which extended orange light to the otherwise dark home.

The house had only one room. The floor was compacted with dirt. It had two beds now, as Theus had finally been of age not to sleep with his parents anymore. It was a perfect-sized house for the three.

In a calm singing voice, Mum began to sing a lullaby.

Mum:

“The wood creaks with the cry of the wind.

The branch hangs the noose of the fruit.

And the roots dig the grave of the mole.

We pray for the wind’s pain.

We mourn for the picked fruit.

And avenge the death of the mole.

May our cabin protect us from the wind.

May our strength come from the fruit, of the pit.

And our hearth burns with the roots of the earth.

May the Willowmother bless our souls.

Bless our souls mmm mmm mmmmmmm.”

The lullaby was what Theus always heard before he would inevitably fall asleep. Sure enough, the song mixed with the rhythmic rocking brought his energetic mind to rest. The two rocked alone in the home. Suspended in time. A perfect moment.

The night passed, and the fire died down to embers. They smoldered faintly. Theus woke up with a whooping cough. He thought some of the smoke from the fire must have drifted to him.

He awoke to a dark room, only lit by the deep red glow of the embers. Looking around the home, his mother was nowhere to be seen. He was alone in the rocking chair.

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Theus: “Mum?”, he whimpered while rubbing his eyes.

No answer. He got up from the chair. A feeling began to meet his stomach. He was hungry, but it felt different than regular hunger. Theus had never been too starved thanks to his mother. But when his father had trouble finding game, they would go hungry. This was a different kind of hunger however.

Theus: “Mum?” he said louder, followed by another cough. Despite the small fire, the room had been filling with smoke.

Being the smart young lad, he approached the door. He knew from several minor house fires that letting the door open was the best way to expel smoke.

Whoooooosh! The door flung open with a single press of the hand.

Theus took in even more smoke than before and held his arm across his mouth and nose.

Thick sheets of smoke coated his view. “Mum! Mum!” he screamed. The smoke scorched his throat. He tried to reach for the door but couldn’t feel it. He could see nothing. His world became smoke.

His breath wheezed. He coughed over and over.

The hunger in his stomach grew stronger.

“Boy!” he heard in the distance. “Boy!” the voice bellowed over and over.

Theus: “Father! I’m here father! I’m here!” he said waving his hands and jumping.

“Wake up boy!” demanded his father’s voice.

With his eyes open for the first time in almost a week. Theus saw the face of the man he barely met but once on the main road.

Josiah shook Theus’s body.

Josiah: “Wake up damn it! You have to boy!”.

Theus replied with a horrid cough. His eyes shot around. Most of his view was covered in darkness. As soon as he came too, he noticed a dull itching pain in his right leg.

Josiah: “By the gods! Boy come on now. Try to get up now. Steady now boy”. Josiah lifted Theus from the ground. His face was covered in a cloth dripping with water.

The two left the smoke-infested tent. Looking behind while being dragged; Theus saw the tent he was staying in was smoldering from the inside. Smoke poured out of the many cracks in the canvas.

Josiah: “By the god’s boy we’ve been saved”. He was laughing to himself in a disturbed way.

The two found a semi-dry spot on the ground to catch their breath. Josiah finally dropped Theus, leaning him against one of the former camping logs. Sitting beside him, Josiah plopped a bag he’d rescued from the surgery tent on his lap.

Theus: “W-w-w-w, whats goin on ere?”.

Josiah: “Bastards came in the night. I fought. Took a wound and fell from their smoke. But I’m still lucky boy. Like you”.

With his words the surgery tent in the distance finally caught flame. The burning canvas roared in the distance.

Josiah: “Came to, saw the smoke from your tent, and remembered you were still kickin”. While talking he had been getting different equipment from the bag. He popped a ceramic bottle open and took a swig.

Theus: “I was in the wood. That Elia girl wheeled me back”. He trained his eyes across the horizon looking for the woods. And then he saw it.

The horizon was covered in smoke. He hadn’t noticed it before. But ash rained from the sky. Willowood was set up in a blaze.

His hunger deepened.

Theus: “No,” he muttered.

Josiah: “Damned smoke god. We didn’t stand a chance”. Josiah then yanked a broken spearhead that had been trickling blood from his left breast. He quickly began closing the bleeding wound with his needle. After, he doused the stitches with the same liquid he’d been swigging the entire process.

Theus: “It can’t be. It’s all gone”. His mouth gaped as his eyes panned the horizon. The pain in his stomach lurched as he looked.

Josiah: “Bettah them trees than us boy,” Josiah said wrapping cloth in an X pattern around his chest, covering his sown wound.

Theus propped himself up onto the log. With a single step, he moved toward the ash-barren woods ahead of him.

It took only a moment for him to fall to the ground. He looked down at himself for the first time. There laying on the ground. He saw it.

Josiah: “Yur lucky boy. Most fall to rot. I ad to remove it before it could spread”.

Theus’s right leg was gone. Josiah had amputated it just below the knee.

Theus just stared at himself. The strange hunger inside him devoured all his thoughts. It was too distracting to ignore.

Overcome with pain, Theus passed out.