If only they had been able to keep the darkness where it belonged… outside. The barricades should have been enough, Adrian was sure his plan should have worked… he should have saved them.

The fire flickered out as the great mass of darkness enveloped the tavern, only for a moment, but it was enough. The screams echoed from within, and Adrian felt a claw rend his shoulder, he screamed in agony. Then, it passed, and only the unlucky survivors were left with the devastation within. Bogdan rocked over the body of his stricken dog, and Adrian stared blindly at the slumped figure, caught as the window cracked and the shutters tore from their fixings. David’s upper body was marked with hundreds of minor lacerations his face a barely recognisable mess. The oldest farm-hand, a man Adrian had known from birth almost, was dead. He couldn’t do a thing. His brothers were around him, Viktor was helping a quietly crying girl, her mother another poor unfortunate. Anton, his younger brother, was helping Grigory to one of the few undamaged chairs, his leg a mess of blood, his face contorted with pain. Adrian felt tears stain his cheek as he pulled at David, tried to shake him back to life.

“What have we done… to deserve this.” He muttered incoherently, even as one of the luckier men who had not suffered an immediate loss pulled frantically at the barricaded doors. Adrian had not the strength to stop him, though he was not yet ready to believe the danger had passed. The doors swung open, allowing other unfortunates to enter or leave the tavern at will if they wished, and the man himself ran out into the darkness, seeking loved ones.

Adrian’s will hardened then, there was something he had forgotten in the throes of his own immediate and shaking grief. His mother and Father, alone in the darkness, in the farm. What was it his father had said to him before he was to leave for the festivities? 

[i]Adrian, fetch some firewood boy, we’ll be lucky if we’re not taken by the cold come morning.[/i]

Adrian blanched, his face whitened, he had forgot.