🔥Flames🔥 (read description)

Five

I run for the palace. I run for cover. I run for my life. There are Rijalan soldiers on the ground now. Bullets narrowly dodge my ears and arms and legs as I run harder and faster. A bullet hits a man square in the back. He falls right in front of me. I trip. I fall. I'm shot. Searing pain shoots through my leg and up to the rest of my body. I bite my lip hard and try to get up. Tears threaten to fall from my eyes and I fight to walk. I trip again on something that I don't see and I can't get up. Dark thoughts course through my body as the bullet wound in my thigh throbs. I could die here. I might die here. I'll probably die here. I will die here. I shut my eyes and let the tears fall. Then I feel a hand brush my arm. It pulls me up on my feet. I'm in someone's arms now. They are running. I look up. It's a stranger. He runs me towards the castle. Just as we reach the first stone step a small bomb lands just behind us and we are thrown forward and I fall out of his arms. I crash on the hard marble floors of the great hall. I scream. Someone else screams. There are bombs everywhere. All around me. I cover my ears and shut my eyes as they explode. My head slams into the floor and the world goes black.