"Huff, Huff, Huff"
A teenage looking boy was running, behind him his village was going up in smoke. Screams could be heard but he had no choice but to keep on running.
While no one had expected it some force had come attacking, these people came here to murder and capture the villagers to be sold as slaves.
They had set a burning hot fire to the village lighting everything up in flames.
The villagers were currently desperately fighting for the village, they could not run anymore even if they wanted to. It was already too late, they should've ran earlier if they wanted to get away.
But the boy had gotten lucky, his parents had sensed something wrong in advance and told him to run into the forest as fast as he could while they defended the village.
The boy wasn't an idiot, he knew what this meant, he knew his parents were most likely going to die here today. But there was nothing he could do about it so he started running as quickly as possible.
To escape he had to give up everything, he had to leave everything behind, his family, his friends, all the other villagers. He had no choice but to run as fast as he could to escape, to survive.
"Help me!"
"Don't think you will get away with this!"
"Kill all the invaders, show them what our village is made of!"
Screams could be heard all throughout the village.
But the boy kept running.
Even though his family was important to him, even though his friends were important to him, even though the village was important to him, he had to give it all up. What would it all matter if he died here today, survival was the most important.
The flames were generating an insane amount of heat, the boy felt like he was being boiled alive.
His body was battered, bruised and blood was gushing out of the wounds on his body. Even though he had gotten a head start he still got hit by an attack while he was getting away. But he could not stop, he had to keep moving forward.
As he suppressed the pain he looked back upon the village one more time, it was nothing but smoke and ash at this point.
The beautiful village, his home that had once stood there was already a thing of the past, it was hard to even make out the houses that once made up the central square. He couldn't even recognize his own house anymore.
The academy where he learned a lot of things and in which he had a lot of fun memories was also going up in flames.
He had hoped to see some other villagers behind him, running, escaping and desperately fleeing death or capture. But all he saw behind him were corpses or captured people.
He even saw the corpses of some of his classmates, people he had often talked to, lying throughout the village and suppressed the urge to vomit.
He gritted his teeth and turned around.
"I need to survive, I must survive. I have no choice, I'm sorry everyone." He muttered under his heavy breathing.
He knew fighting here would do nothing, he was weak, there was nothing he could do. If he could save all of them he undoubtedly would have done so, but he saw no point in throwing his life away in a battle of honor to defend the village.
The one thing he valued the most was his life, this is why even when he saw his parents corpses he remained steadfast in escaping.
"Try to keep as many of them alive as you can, we can still sell them as slaves!" Someone shouted.
Many raiders did not listen, this was natural, killing others would make them stronger and they had no need for the money generated from selling slaves. It would only make their superiors richer. And most of the lowly grunts had no such loyalty towards them.
The boy suppressed his tears, pain, exhaustion and hatred and finally made his way into the forest.
Now no one could find him. Unless they had someone with very good detection methods or someone had happened to see him slip away.
Even if someone was able to locate him it was still very unlikely they would chase after him. The raiders were busy ransacking, murdering and enslaving the village after all. No one would be willing to give up on profits just to chase after one simple villager.
The forest was quite dense. Tree branches, bushes and other plants were constantly getting in his way.
The boy pressed on through the plants, he was panting heavily as he ran towards his escape.
Even though thick tree branches were blocking his path and his body was not in the best condition he could continue on forming a path for himself.
He desperately hoped he would not encounter a wild beast on his way through the forest, usually he could maybe take on one or two and win but in his current condition it was impossible.
He knew that if he encountered a beast he would be dead, there was nothing he could do.
"I guess it's all up to luck now huh?" He said as he pressed forward.
He heard noises several times while running through the forest. Every time he did he would turn the other way and avoid the noises as much as possible.
He looked over his shoulder several times to see if anyone or anything was pursuing him.
He did not expect this would be the case since he wasn't exactly hard to catch right now. His pursuers would not need to be secretive about it, they could just rush in and capture or kill him if they wanted to.
After about 2 hours of constant running he got lucky and finally found a cave. Thinking he was just about safe enough to no longer be detected, he decided to enter it.
The cave wasn't very spacious, the boy had to crouch down so as to not bump his head on the ceiling.
The cold air within the cave permeated through his body making his wounds sting and making him shiver.
He sat down with his back against the cold cave wall, balling himself up burying his face in his knees.
"Why, why, why, why, why." He muttered softly, the tears finally streamed out of his eyes because he was safe now.
Scenes of his burned up village flashed through his mind.
He saw the charred up corpses of the villagers and raiders again, the corpses so burned they were barely recognizable.
He saw the other villagers being restrained and chained, thrown into cages like they were simply product.
But there was nothing he could do, he was still so weak, he was but a fly in a world full of giants.
He finally couldn't take it anymore. He threw up, vomit gushed out of his mouth. He felt awful he had never felt worse in his life.
As he sat there staring blankly in front of himself covered in his own vomit, blood and tears a cold wind blew into the cave.
'I always thought of myself as a colder and more logical person. I thought that even if my whole village was taken hostage I would not sacrifice myself for them, but now I realize I might have been wrong.' The boy thought inwardly.
He was genuinely shocked by his own behavior. Both that he had left his people to die and that he regretted it so much. Even though this was the only way he could have survived.
'I didn't expect that losing the people I cared about would hurt me this much, but how could I have known unless I experienced it first hand.'
'Out of all those people there I am probably the only one who made it out free and alive. The rest are either dead or enslaved.'
'But I survived, this is the most important. I need to keep following my old philosophy and sacrifice anything to stay alive. It's the most important thing after all, nothing is worth more than my own life. Even though I wouldn't be crying and grieving here if I was dead now, my life can't just end here.'
He had escaped desperately, shamelessly and most of all very luckily. It was a wonder he was still alive and free.
He straightened his back and looked up towards the ceiling of the cave.
"From now on I must survive in the wilderness and get stronger. I have no other option, I am still way too weak." He said to himself softly with sadness in his voice.
He didn't even dare to have any thoughts about revenge for now, he knew he would instantly be killed or sold as a slave if he even attempted to do so.
After staring at the ceiling for a while he lowered his head and buried it in his knees again.
"It still hurts damnit." He said as he started sobbing again.