The gentle sifting of the branches awoke me. I'd never been a heavy sleeper. The wind must have just started to pick up. My eyes flickered open and I watched the green blurs of leaves as the trees waved their heads about in great strokes, as if trying to paint the heavens. I rolled onto my side, feeling uncharacteristically restless, and heaved myself onto my knees. A sudden wave of nausea swept over me and I collapsed onto my stomach. The earth below my cheek smelled wrong. It lacked the warmth and vitality that I knew it to possess. Instead it seemed to heave below me, as if trying to expel some loathsome contaminate. I lifted my head slowly, cautiously, ignoring the sudden ache in my back and neck, and looked around me.

I seemed to be on a slope, facing the top of one of the low hills that bordered the valley. Beyond I could see the silhouette of Mount Promontory. I lowered myself again, hoping that if I moved slowly enough I could sit up without the discomfort of the nausea.

Eventually I had hoisted myself into a seated position against a large maple tree, facing down into the valley. But now that I could see, I wished that I had stayed blissfully ignorant upon the ground.

A thick black shadow climbed its way into the heavens, taking unfair advantage of the innocent stars as footholds, and forced itself on Mother Moon, taking a seat beside her in the sky. It billowed upward, reaching as though to grasp Her and drag her from the firmament. Abandoned carts and carriages littered the farmland surrounding Sri, and the city itself, barely visible through the hurricane of ominous smoke, lay in ruin. Flames still licked at the base of the Governor's home and the fortress. But worse that that was the absolute lack of sound. Not a cry or scream to signal that someone may yet live, not a cry of victory, nor wailing despair.

I covered my eyes with my hands and wept openly.