Urged on by the imminent threat of burning alive my mother picked me up and started running back towards the loose floorboards with the people who put their faith in me following shortly after. Even after I tried my best to convince everyone, some people led by the guy that argued against my plan instead looked for other ways to escape because they didn’t believe me since I was a child. Others simply sat down in front of the locked exit, gave up on escaping, and waited to die.

Many thoughts crossed my mind while my mother carried me to the floorboards. What if the fire has already burned its way past our escape leaving us trapped in front of walls of fire. What if I was wrong and the floorboards were just loose because of the chaos that has happened so far? If we managed to escape from the burning building would we even be able to escape from the soldiers?

My thoughts couldn’t haunt me for long however because we finally arrived outside the room I woke up in right in front of the loose floorboards. The people following us who seemed to be strong started trying to pry the boards out of the floor but they stubbornly refused to move. My mom set me down and took some other people to look for anything we could use to pry the boards up.

Soon some of the people that left to look around came running back. I was ecstatic when I thought that they may have found something to use to get rid of the boards only for my heart to sink when I heard the real reason they came running back. They said the fire had already reached the main room of the house that the hallway we are in connects to. The fire was almost upon us and yet we were no closer to figuring out if there really was an escape route beneath the floor.

It was when I thought there was nothing left we could and how we would soon die that I heard excited shouts erupt from behind me. When I turned around I realized that they had finally gotten one of the boards loose and that there was indeed a small room beneath the floor. Upon further inspection I noticed that inside the room there seemed to be a chair sitting by a desk covered by knives and a single lamp. While looking around the room I noticed two hallways out of the room both going in opposite directions.

I was about to let out a shout mixed with joy and relief that I was right about there being something hidden when I heard a huge crash come from the direction of the fire. After we heard the crash I heard a few screams of terror alongside someone who started to yell at the others. “The building is starting to collapse, the fire must have finished destroying some of the walls. If you guys don’t hurry up and get the rest of the boards out of the way so we can escape, the roof will crush us all before the fire can get to us.”

With more energy than before everyone tried to pry the boards up with their hands again. However even with one floorboard gone allowing an easier grip on the others, they still seemed stuck in place and refused to budge. If we could only get just one more board gone there would be enough space for everyone to fit through.

While I was thinking about the now small open space between the boards I came up with an idea and told it to the others. “I might be small enough to fit through the hole and if I get through I might be able to find something down there that can be used to break the floor.” Not waiting for a response to my idea I jumped into the hole in the floor and looked around.

I noticed that there was an ax hanging on the wall above the desk so I ran over and grabbed it. The ax was extremely heavy and with my meager strength I dropped it as soon as I picked it up. Someone shouted at me from above. “Hey kid, be careful if you hurt yourself and can’t give the ax to us I can’t escape.” Looking up, it's the same stubborn asshole that refused to listen to my plan. I thought that he was a hypocrite for refusing to trust me and yet now he wants me to save him. While I didn’t like him I still needed to help my mother and everyone else so I stifled my pride and picked up the ax once again.

I walked back under the hole and tried to lift the ax up as high as I could when I heard someone start to speak. “We can’t reach the ax you’re too far down. Is there anything down there you can use to stand on?” Thinking myself an idiot for thinking I was tall enough to pass the ax up to them I told them to wait while I set the ax down. I ran over to the desk, grabbed the chair, and I started to drag it over to the hole. That was when I heard a series of large crashes. It started to get so loud that I instinctively stopped dragging the chair, closed my eyes, and put my hands over my ears in fear.

I don’t know how long it took me to calm down but when I finally uncovered my ears and opened my eyes it was eerily dark and quiet. Remembering there was a lamp on the desk I rushed over and started feeling around for it. Suddenly I felt something cut my finger and for the second time today I called myself an idiot as I now remember that there were knives on the table.

I started feeling around the desk again much slower this time. When I found it, I swiftly turned it on and looked around the room again so that I could figure out why it had gone dark when there should have been a light shining through the hole in the floorboards. When I looked towards where the hole was I saw a mess of debris piled up under it. I was confused why it was there but it was much too big for me to dig through so I instead picked up the lamp and one of the knives on the desk as I walked down one of the passageways.

After walking for what I think must have been a few minutes I encountered a ladder leading up towards a metal hatch. I cautiously climbed up the ladder and when I peeked out from the metal hatch I saw that it was early morning.

I looked around where I came out when I realized the room I was in seemed to be the Village Chief’s. For a second I thought to myself why that passageway led to a hidden hatch in his room and why his room seemed to be fine even though his house should have been on fire. I quickly pushed those thoughts out of my head as I remembered I had more important things to do, I needed to find my mother. 

With my newfound determination fresh in my mind I walked outside of the Village Chief’s room and what I saw instantly brought me to tears.

Topgun1908

I'm almost done with the prologue chapters and I'll need to start with the fantasy worldbuilding so I'd like it if you voted in the poll to help me decide if I should include fantasy creatures and species. As of now I only have plans to include spirits, dwarves and maybe dragons with humans being the main species featured.