• Nesdel’s word flipped. One minute she was running towards the general store the next… Fire Everywhere! People were screaming. Nesdel tried to stand up but couldn’t. Instead she scrambled up onto her knees. Her whole body felt like someone was pushing down on it. Her vision blurred slightly. Was this happing to other people? What was happening?
    “Janel!” It was Hla (hill-lay-a) the barber. “Janel are you alright?” Hla helped her to her feet. Nesdel and her sister had always looked alike. The mother always said they could almost be twins. With all this smoke in the air it wasn’t hard to imagine them being mixed up.
    “Hla I...” the words caught in her throat as a shadow loomed behind him. Nasdel stumbled back a few steps. It was huge and didn’t look friendly. Hla just noticed the presence behind him. “Wha…” he started to turn. Nasdel screamed and fell. As he had turned a blade came down onto his chest. Hla, at first seemed stunned, then he stumbled a few steps arms reaching for Nasdel before he finally fell, dead.
    Blood dripped off the blade as the thing walked towards her. The thing didn’t even seem to notice Hla’s body, stepping on him, bones shattering beneath. She tried to scot back the stone rode cutting her hands. The thing finally loomed into sight.
    It towered over her at, at least 8 feet (much higher than her 5’5) its head still covered in smoke. The rest of its body was covered in pitch patched armor, obviously taken from former battles. Its skin was a blue gray, and wrinkled at every curve. It bent its head down, only a few feet away, finally letting her see its face. Darker than the rest of its body, its face was bloated and round. It long black hair was greasy and laid in strands around its face. It eyes were mere slits and were almost hidden under its humongous hooked nose. Its mouth, turned up in a nasty grin showing off its yellow rotted teeth.
    Nasdel then realized what “it” was. An ogre. But it couldn’t be. They had supposedly died out at the last Great War, over 100 years ago. “I guess that’s why there a supposedly there.” Her mind spat out in a last ditch chance for humor. But she knew about the horrible ways they killed their enemies, and the things they did to women.
    “No.” she whispered as the ogre came closer. Suddenly a shadow leaped on its shoulders. A knife seemed to just appear in its hand and it stabbed the ogre in the neck. This only made the ogre angry. It swung its massive fists at the shadow in vain. The shadow was already on the ground. The ogre, with the knife still in its neck purple blood dribbling, turned to the shadow. In a flash the shadow a spashed something on the ogre’s right arm. The skin peeled away a small beating organ. Its heart. And the shadow was right there. A hand reached out and vines started to grow around the beast’s heart. The shadow then leaped to the side. The ogre coughed up blood as the vines wrapped around its body constricting it.
    Finally the ogre fell, its body, still tangled in vines, stiff. The vines then retreated back to the heart, squeezing till the monster was shortly dead. The shadows only then reproached it and regained its knife. Then slowly it turned and faced her.