Locus jumped out of the carriage. The wagon itself was far too heavy to allow the horses to go fast enough to satisfy Locus.
To get to the village, he had to cover approximately 500 meters, though in that moment, Locus couldn't have cared less about the distance. Without a thought in his mind, he sprinted down the hill towards the giant flames surrounding his entire past and life.
Time was a concept that didn't exist for him at that moment. He didn't know if he had run for ten seconds or ten minutes because, to him, it was of no importance. Numbers and words didn't matter to him. The only thing he cared about was what he was going to find once he did reach his beloved home.
The smell of burning wood was in the air and completely covered up the smell of the wet grass that was all around the village. Locus used to play on these outskirts, but now there was nothing left of that happy and peaceful atmosphere.
His house was situated in the outer ring of the city, so he could always watch everyone entering and leaving the village. When Locus came within a radius of about 150 meters, he managed to get a more or less good look at his house. But what he saw was not good at all.
Half of the roof had collapsed, and the brown wood had turned completely black. With his eyes wide open from the shock, he came dashing onto the lot that he called home.
The heat was so intense that he needed to use the full extent of his willpower to move forward, and if he had been able to think clearly, he'd probably stayed outside.
"HELLO? ARE YOU THERE?"
He called out into the burning building, but his yelling was no match for a house falling apart right under his nose. Locus decided to run upstairs and open the door to his parents bedroom at the end of the hall, only to get pushed back by a wall of flames and hot air.
But just backing up wasn't an option. Not for him. Not now.
Locus collected all the strength he could muster and jumped through the flames into his parents room, just as one of the columns holding the building burst. The whole floor dropped by two meters, with Locus landing on his stomach.
But he didn't have the time to lay around. It was way too hot around him, and he still hadn't found his family. It was just then, when he looked up, that he saw a sight that was more frightening than anything he had ever seen before.
It was death itself.
The three lifeless bodies of his parents and his little sister were all lying in a pile of blood at the other end of the room. Once again, his head fell to the ground. This time, it wasn't any exterior influence but rather pure despair dragging him down.
Just then, a pile of wood from the ceiling crashed down an arm's length from his chest. Locus instinctively leaped up and took a few steps back. By now, the flames were all around Locus, cornering and surrounding him.
In that moment of shock, he regained consciousness of his actions, with the first thought running through his head being "What do I do?". He looked around. The flames were covering every piece of furniture in the room, the walls were falling apart, and he felt as if he were bathing in a tub of boiling water.
He looked at his family, thinking about what could have happened that led to this. He was thinking about what he could do to save them. That was when one of the different voices in his head spoke to him.
"They're dead. There's nothing I can do."
Without any time to spare and the intensity of the heat surrounding him, he again lost the ability to think and, as if it had been a reflex of his, jumped out of the window.
With the building falling apart right under his feet, the second floor had become the first floor, so, taking all of the adrenaline pumping through his body into consideration, he didn't even feel the impact.
When looking up at the rest of the buildings, he saw that he had still been lucky. Some others were just a pile of wood, and some had even already turned to ashes, with some blazes remaining.
There was nothing left to be saved.
Taking another look at his former house crumbling and disintegrating, he ran out of the village as fast as he could.
On his way out, he noticed something, for which he would later go on to wonder how he hadn't noticed it earlier.
The gardens were covered in bodies. In front of many houses, there were bodies lying in a pile of blood. There were even some bodies lying on the streets.
On his way out, he spotted Mrs. Copperfield in the middle of the street, not moving a muscle.
Locus shook her body with all the strength he had left, while his fear got bigger and bigger.
"MRS. COPPERFIELD, WAKE UP!"
Not a chance.
When he turned around her body, he noticed the reason why.
There was a giant slash stretching across her upper body, with blood coming out of it.
Locus puked.
The heat got more and more intense.
Screaming and covered in tears, Locus ran out of the village in the direction he came from, with the village burning to a crisp.
He had left all of them behind.
His family, his friends, Mr. Andersson, and all of the other villagers.
What if he hadn't delivered the ores to Mr. Orvis...
No, what if he had been home just a few minutes, just an hour earlier?
Maybe he could have saved them.
No, that's unlikely, considering they took out a whole village, but maybe he could have helped his family and everyone else get away.
Locus' body was covered with second-degree burns and exhausted from all of the running and emotional distress.
He got slower and slower while running in the direction of the carriage.
In addition to that, his vision got darker and darker until Locus eventually dropped into the grass and fainted.