Vignette: Terror (World of Warcraft)

Vignette: Terror

Run.

 She felt her mother’s hand roughly push her away, the usual gentleness replaced by fear-driven force, the soft skin moist with sweat.

 All around them, the small city of Astranaar was bursting with chaos; a conjunction of screams, explosions and the whistling of arrows through the smoke-filled air. It was as if her whole world were ending. All in darkness – just sounds.

 “Mavra, RUN!” Her mother screamed, gathering all her strength and shoving the child behind the nearest pillar, where she slid down, her small frame trembling in the shadows. She did not dare peek out at the crumbling town, too afraid that she might get spotted.

  But she had to know…

 Taking a deep breath, she rolled away from the meager shelter, propping herself up on her bloodied, skinned knees. For a moment, her hands caught her eye. The rose skin was blotched with dirt and dry mud, broken where stone and glass had pierced it, crimson glistening in the pale moonlight. But the dull ache was nothing compared to what her soul was feeling as she gazed upon her home.

 The once-sweeping roofs and arcs of Astranaar were now engulfed in pulsating, hot claws of crimson, the wood slowly crumbling to ash, the stone turning black as the structures toppled to the ground, setting the emerald grass and everything around it aflame. Citizens were running, Sentinels were swarming, trying to assist the panicked and keep the rain of fire arrows at bay.

 Bodies lay strewn all throughout the town, some nothing more but pincushions of arrows. Crimson seeped through the cracks and crevices of the ancient paved roads, running like veins on a corpse.

 Forcing her eyes shut against the overwhelming vertigo that now took hold of her mind, she tried to breathe. The smoke was bleeding into her lungs, squeezing them shut, burning her throat. Her eyes streamed. She saw a familiar shape dart out of their family home. The woman’s eyes briefly settled on her daughter and she mouthed “I love you” before throwing herself at the nearest Orc, with nothing but her nails to dig into the thick green skin. No match for a steel axe.

 No match.

 The said axe sang through the air, burying itself in her mother’s collarbone with a sickening, wet crunch.

 Opening her mouth in a silent scream, the Kaldorei child scrambled to her feet, tottering some distance away, forcing her legs to carry her farther away from the scene…from the nightmare…the horror. From her mother’s corpse lying in the grass, her collarbone crudely shattered, leaking life back into the earth until there was nothing more but a shell.

 “Minn’da!” She shrieked to the sky, stumbling across the bridge, into Ashenvale.  “Minn’da! No! Come back! Please! I need you!”

 Once on the outskirts of the town, she collapsed. Her mind swam, her heart torn.

 Her family was gone. Her home was gone. All gone. All lost in the ashes of the Horde’s fire.

She was alone.