Synopsis: All her life, Cladriel has heard of the prophecies that said beasts would rain from the sky and come back for what was rightly theirs. As her city is bombarded by these creatures, she struggles to escape and reach her grandmother's house, a suspected safe haven.

--- The Remnants ---

Cladriel was fetching water when the Remnants fell from the sky.

The sound of the explosion made her shriek, and something pierced her arm just after the blast. She dropped the bucket.

She normally enjoyed the chore of walking to the well, dropping the pail deep within the chasm of blackness and emerging with something of value. It was something a nine year old could do and feel proud of. Today, however, as the cloud of smoke and ash fell to the cobblestone paths meandering through Steckholm, she wished she was at home in bed.

Cladriel could feel the gentle slivers of ash fall onto her lips. The flakes had little taste. She outstretched her hands and felt the base of the well with her foot. The ash continued to land on her skin and the smoke was beginning to make her cough.

“Hello?” she shouted. “Is anyone there?”

She heard some muffled screams from the alleyways, but she was on the outskirts of town and it’d be too hard to find her way back to the market where her mother was gathering fresh produce.

Another blast shook the ground. The screams just before the bang were silenced and in their place she heard the crackling of flames. Her hair blew from the front of her face and past her shoulders as the heat wave hit her.

“Anyone?” she shouted again.

It was time to act. She turned around, presumably facing the well again, though she couldn’t be sure. ‘One hundred and fifty steps to the edge of the grass.’

She walked in what she hoped was a straight line. “Seventeen,” she said, counting off the amount of paces it would take her to reach the edge of town.

When she reached one hundred, she had heard three more blasts further into the city. Cladriel’s mother was most likely dead, and her last words echoed in the girl’s mind. “Bring your grandmother some fresh water to brew some tea,” she had said. “She isn’t feeling well, and she’d surely love to see your face.”

There was no use in heading back to fetch the pail of water, unless of coarse the flames from the attack grew too close to her and she would need to douse them. The bucket could offset her balance or make her miscount her steps, and there was no time to follow the wrong path. The Remnants were probably already on her trail.

“One hundred and forty,” she counted.

The rough gravel that at times poked the soles of her shoes was now absent, and in its place instead was grass. ‘I undercounted,’ she thought. ‘I never do that.’

“Five hundred paces through the path to the split tree,” she recalled aloud. “Sixty paces past the brook and over the fallen log. Ninety five paces to Grandmother’s house.”

The Elders predicted the event would happen twelve years ago. She’d sit on her father’s lap, before he was called off to war, and he’d tell her of the prophecies. “When the Remnants fall from the sky,” he’d say. “They’ll spread out all over the globe in search of those who fear them. Do you know how to beat them?”

Cladriel would shake her head from side to side and expand her eyes, her father’s hairy hands tangled in hers. “If you see the faces of the Remnants you will surely give in to the fear. You mustn’t be afraid,” he’d say. “You must be brave. You must think. You must breath. You must feel. These are things you can do, dear Cladriel. Be happy for that.”

Now that she thought about it, the prophecies were terrifying. But if this truly was the Day of the Fall, and the Remnants really had bombarded the city, then she’d have to find her way on her own. And she couldn’t be afraid of what she couldn’t see.

She coughed again, the heavy layer of smoke entering and exiting her mouth. She hunched over close to the ground in an attempt to ease the asphyxiation.

“My, what do we have here?” The rumbling voice sounded like it was just inches away from Cladriel’s ear. The voice had a certain dichotomy to it, both deep and sharp, both here and there.

“Please,” Cladriel begged. “Can you help me find my way?”

“That depends on what way you’d like to go,” the stranger replied.

“The city has fallen. I am going to Grandmother’s house.”

The woods fell silent. Cladriel waited for a response. She bent down again and felt around her for a stick. The splintering bark met her fingers and she raised the branch and felt around her.

“What hope does Grandmother have?” came the voice again.

Cladriel froze as the end of the stick hit something. She raised the tip several feet off the ground and continued, searching for some end of the object. It didn’t make the sound a tree would make, and it was too solid to be a shrub, but too soft to be a rock.

“She is ill,” Cladriel said, quivering. “She is ill and I must find her. She will be scared.”

“And where does Grandmother live?”

“Just down the path, past the brook and over the fallen log.” When no one responded, Cladriel lifted the stick again, this time well over her head. “What are you?”

The stick was at once snatched from her hand and she heard it drop. She shivered. “I am everything and nothing,” the stranger replied. “I am a remnant of the lost ages and I’ve come to take back what’s mine.”

With that the stranger must have jetted off. A wisp of smoke hit Cladriel’s face and silence consumed the forest again. She lifted her dress to cover her mouth. ‘The Remnants,’ she thought. ‘They’re here.’

Panic set in rapidly. Her breathing, which was already strained from the smoke, was now heavy and blocked by bouts of coughing. She reached down and fanned her hands out around her, finding the edge of the path. ‘I must warn Grandmother,’ she thought.

When Cladriel’s feet plunged into the trickling stream, she knew she was close. She stopped for a second and cupped her hands together, submerging them into the water, and drank. The cool liquid funneled down her throat and chased the dry tickling sensation from her mouth.

She plodded on. Her dress was now heavier from the mud and moisture that had stuck to the cloth. Her toe abruptly hit the side of the fallen log and she flew forward.

She felt the skin tear on her knee when it hit a rock and she panted in pain. “Grandmother!” she shouted.

The voice was distant and faded, but nonetheless it seemed to sooth her worries. “In here, dear,” she heard.

Cladriel slowly forced herself up, ignoring the pain and focusing on reaching her grandmother’s stoop. Moments later, she felt the familiar wood paneling of the steps. “What is all that commotion?” her grandmother said.

Cladriel crawled up the outside steps and felt for the door. The air felt clearer at such a distance from the city. “The prophecies are true,” she said, feeling her way through the entrance of the cabin.

“And what are the prophecies, dear?”

“What are the prophecies? Grandmother, you are the one who told me so many times before. Has your mind wandered again?”

“Yes, yes dear. My mind has wandered.”

“The Remnants have come for us,” Cladriel said. “Do you not see the smoke?”

“I see the smoke. Do you see the smoke?”

“Grandmother you know I can’t see. You are not sounding like yourself.”

She walked four paces forward and three to the left. She outstretched her arms. Her grandmother placed a heavy hand in Cladriel’s. Something was off. Cladriel ran her finger tips along rough and cratered skin.

“Grandmother, what big hands you have today. Why are they so? Is it the sickness?”

“The better to hug you with, my dear. Much better than my normal hands. The sickness has done this to me.”

Cladriel followed the course skin up to her grandmother’s shoulders. She felt the bristly hair that she had braided so many times, but this time the strands were matted together with moisture.

“And Grandmother, what large ears you have today. Has the sickness done this too?”

“The better to hear your sweet voice with, my dear. Much better than my normal ears. The sickness has done this to me also.”

Cladriel ran her hand along the jaw-line of her grandmother and gasped. She felt boils and lesions and sores. She ran her finger tips along her grandmother’s chin and gasped again. She felt grazes and scratches and cuts.

“And Grandmother, what a large mouth you have today. This sickness has done all of these things?”

“The sickness has done this too, but it is much better than my normal mouth, dear. Much better to eat you with, you see.”

Before Cladriel could say anything more a deafening grumble sounded through the cabin and she felt a surge of hot breath on her face. She was at once surrounded by slimy walls. She pushed the material in all directions. She felt like she was stuck in quicksand, slowly moving her feet through a layer of grime and muck.

‘I must breathe,’ Cladriel thought, recalling her father’s warm voice each time he’d tell her of the prophecy. ‘I must feel. I must think.’

Cladriel slowed her breathing. She ran her hands along the slimy cocoon she was trapped in. The beast must have been trying to swallow her whole. The walls vibrated with a pulsating rhythm. She dragged her nails along the inner lining of the material and heard the crisp sound of tearing. The beast wailed.

She wrapped her hands around a hanging bag, a gooey ball that hung just above her head. She pulled with all her might. The floor began to shake in violent tremors. She heard the beast howl again. She pulled harder.

When she was spat back out with a flood of goo and mushy material, she gasped for air. She heard the door of the cabin fly open and faint yelps echo in the distance.

A sudden urge to cry started in her stomach and rose to her temples, but she pushed it back. She crawled away from the pool of muck that had come out of the beast’s stomach, and wrapped her hands around her knees.

In that moment she wished she was sitting on her father’s lap, tracing the outline of his beard. ‘You must be brave,’ she remembered him saying. ‘You must think. You must breath. You must feel. These are things you can do, dear Cladriel.’

Cladriel leaned back against the wall of the cabin and closed her eyes. She normally hated closing her eyes. Even though the scene remained dark and black whether her eyes were open or not, she didn’t like the feeling of closing out the world. Today was different. She began to sing a song to herself to drown out the distant rumbling from the city.

She was glad she hadn’t seen the face of the Remnant, or the scraggly hair of her dead grandmother, or the destruction that plagued the city. For the first time in her life, she was happy that sight was the one thing taken from her.