A Stranger in War, A Hero in Death

In the fires that spread throughout the city, throughout the screams of the fleeing mob, all is silence in one broken and tattered household. A girl, barely out of her teens, curled into a ball under the broken remnants of once lively home. She is afraid, lost, and forgotten no doubt, a girl like her would surely be so amidst the panicking wave of people seeking refuge from the Great War.

Two years it has been, and two years it takes to spread into the continents, washing all nations that were once unaffiliated to be involved in a bloody conflict of arms, merging what previously was a Military Coup into an all-out war.

The conflict expanded into the proportion none would've ever anticipated, and the once honourable battle between soldiers now changed into a war of attrition. Bombings of factories, city infrastructures, and military holdings swept across all indiscriminately. None were spared, but there is no need to be, as in war, everything was permitted. Civilian casualties brushed aside as an acceptable crossfire that claimed the lives of many. The sufferings of any armies cannot be compared to the one civilians must endure daily, however, one thing that cannot be disputed was that everyone is suffering.

The Great War tore asunder the very fabric of humanity itself, pushing them further and further into a spiral of constant destruction. Heroes rise, traitors revealed, and cowards hide under whatever things they see fit. It is how the game of war is meant to be played. The misery of others was sacrificed to further the goal of another. No amount of justification for the "greater good" warrants for the hardships many had to endure, the cost was simply too much to bear.

And it is what the young girl, Erlia, has to go through for the past years.

She and her family were once-proud citizens of Greater Germania, a confederation of many ethnicities to form one great nation. One military coup was all it takes to break it apart. They were quickly brought into the misery of a war amongst brothers. They run from their home, looking for safety in the nearest cities, but they soon know that no place is truly safe, and so, they keep running and running until at last, they've reached the border of the Kingdom of Austreleich. From here, the civil war merged, and wherever Erlia's family went, war looming just behind.

It has come to this day, Erlia clutched her knees closer as artillery barrage pounded the city. The house shook, dust and debris falling from the ceilings, at any moment the structure could collapse, burying the poor girl alive if she were to stay. Yet, stay she did.

Either fate or luck, the bombardment halted minutes later. The defender must have silenced those gun batteries. Whichever the case, she's safe... for now.

The only thing left is to find her parents, they're surely looking for her. Getting onto her feet shakily, Erlia maneuvered around the fallen wooden planks that fell from earlier barrages of death. Just as she reached the front door, a siren blared throughout the city. This was no ordinary siren, it was a raid siren, an oncoming wave of bombers was imminent. Erlia knows this and was about to retreat to her previous hideout when the door slammed open.

A young man in military uniform entered, he was almost the same age as her but a little older. He had the same hair as hers, auburn coloured. His ocean-blue eyes gleamed, far brighter and intense than her soft emerald-green eyes. For a moment, both pairs of eyes met, and both glimmered in anticipation, or perhaps it was thrill? Moments later, reality sunk in as the boy grabbed onto her shoulder, dragging her alongside him hurriedly.

"Come on, the Bombers are coming, we're not safe up here," he exclaimed as he led her into a wooden door she didn't see when she first took shelter. As it opens, it leads down deeper into the earth, a cellar of a sort, a perfect place to take shelter from the bombings in the air.