Chapter 3
A great commotion had stirred up the town square. A large crowd gathered in the front of the church around the priest. The priest stood on the steps trying desperately to calm the angry crowd down, but to no avail.
Yokig had come to the town square to get away from the bakery. The bakery had felt empty and cold since his grandfather died and Yokig needed to just be away from it for a while, he needed fresh air.
"Please, please calm yourselves!" The priest shouted as the boy walked within hearing distance of the rioters.
"Gregorith, these are serious allegations!" The priest shouted to an upset mousy man wearing a grey tunic.
The man waved his fist in the air. "I saw it father, with my own eyes! I heard it, with my own ears! I do not lie!" the man shouted.
"It's impossible," The priest countered. "They have been faithful to the One God ever since they arrived in our town!"
A woman in the raging crowds eyes met Yokigs. "There he is!" She screamed, pointing directly at the boy.
Yokig had to do a double take, he turned around to check to see if she was pointing to someone behind him but there was nobody there. What did I do? He thought. His grandfather's funeral was the day before, and as far as they knew he was loyal to their one god.
The priest threw a worried glance at Yokig. Yokig could see that the priest was deeply concerned.
"Kill him!" The crowd roared. "Burn him at the stake!" The crowd rushed toward Yokig like a raging stamped of flesh. The priest tried to stop them by running in between them and the fearful boy.
"Stop! You must stop!" The priest cried as he threw his hands up.
"Get out of the way father!" The man in the grey commanded. "I saw him consort with the men! With my own eyes! That inbred boy is a traitor to the One God!"
"Yokig, is this true?" The priest asked above the noise of the angry mob. The mob silenced just enough so that everyone could hear Yokigs answer.
"Two men did follow me home last night father, but they were only well wishers offering me their condolences for the passing of my grandfather. Of their affiliations I do not know." Yokig lied, he had to. This crowd was out for blood.
"Liar!" The man shouted at the top of his lungs. "Liar!" The crowd returned to their insanity, knocking the priest down and trampling him, within an inch of his life, into the dirt road in their unquenched rage. The answer Yokig gave wasn't enough, nothing the terrified boy could have said would have been enough.
"Death to the traitor!" The crowd chanted as they raised their pitchforks and torches high.
"Run!" The priest shouted above their loud mantra. His bones broken, helplessly laing in a pool of his own blood. "Run Yokig!" He commanded.
Yokig turned on his heels and started running as fast as he could back to the only place he thought was safe, the bakery. He barged through the bakery door and slammed it shut behind him. The glass of the window shattered as the crowd sent a stone through its pane. The glass and lead crashing to the stone floor. Yokig rushed to bolt the door closed with a heavy beam that was attached to the wall next to the heavy wooden door. He could hear the crowd ranting and roaring as they pounded on the weak wood, almost knocking it out of its frame.
"Death to the traitor!" The crowd chanted.
Yokig took shelter under the broken window and curled up in a tight ball. He tried to drown out the horrid noise with a loud hum but it was no use. He knew what he had done, but he never expected these people, who once were so friendly to him, these people that he saw everyday in his bakery and at his grandfather's funeral, to turn on him so quickly. These people that were once so friendly, now wanted him dead. This is how they were brandwashed, this is how they were taught to deal with opposition to what they were told to believe, to enemies of their One God, to him.
The crowd outside continued to grow. They had begun to gather dry leaves and straw, and place them in piles around the bakery.
"Yokig could feel their anger through the walls with every stone they threw, every pile that was placed and every cry of "traiter" that was uttered.
Was this it? Yokig thought to himself as the fear he felt kicked into overdrive. Is this how I die?
"Burn him!" They cried. "Burn it all!"
An enraged man stepped out of the crowd holding a flaming torch high above his head. "For the One God!" He yelled as he lit the straw that had been accumulated.
Within seconds the fire surrounded the bakery as the onlookers cheered and hooted with glee.
As the bakery caught on fire, smoke filled the boy's lungs, making it hard to breath. He struggled to get even the smallest amount of air in. He couldn't run outside because of the crowd that had surrounded the entire bakery. He would be caught and killed. And if he stayed inside he would surely burn to death.
How could they justify doing this? He thought, How could the one god allow them to do this to him!?
All Yokig could do was wait and suffer and gulp for what little air he could manage to get as he slowly burned alive. He regretted not taking the offer of Redbeard and blackpaw. He regretted not going to Grenlov.
As if by an answered prayer, a woman's face appeared out of the flames. Her pale skin glistening in the blaze and her red and orange hair burning like fire above her head. Then her body appeared, naked from head to toe.
She held her hand out for Yokig to grab, the boy had no choice but to accept her offer despite his shock at her arrival.
As soon as he took her hand everything went black. The chants of the crowd faded to an unsettling silence. All Yokig could feel was a strange sense of warmth.
When the darkness lifted yokig found himself on a lonely road. The woman in the flames had gone. Behind him rose a tower of fire and smoke, its ash filled the sky, blocking out the noon sun with angry clouds of red and grey. A mile in front of him stood the walls of Grenlov.
As he gasped for air, greedly taking it in after being starved of it, he knew he had to go to the city because there was nowhere for him to go back to. He had no choice but to keep going forward. He noticed that instead of feeling sad or sorry for himself and his loss he felt only a sense of relief. The joy of new possibilities, of new adventures, filled his heart. And he burst into tears, not from sorrow, but from his newfound happiness.