Khaeris Dawndancer

Safe Room

She had never stayed somewhere with a basement. Or rather, it was really a root cellar, snug under the farm house. There were big folding doors that lay near the ground and opened outward. The lock had been easy to break, but the doors still closed tight together to seal out rain, snow, critters, and ... other things.

She looked around as her eyes adjusted. The room had dirt walls and there were the thread-thin roots that pushed at them. It seemed fitting that  she would bury herself down here to avoid the disaster overhead.

She had nothing but the clothes on her back and one alarmingly flat rucksack that had once been stuffed full. Supplies were running low. Until she'd found this haven anyway. Her heart was beating from a whole other rush.

She was dirty, so sitting on the floor wasn't gauche. Eating canned tomatoes out straight from the jar seemed a feast like Winter's Veil. If the owners had remained, they would have taken it away by now. The dead had ripped through Quel'thalas and swept so many away in their flood of destruction. Disaster had come to the elven kingdom. But here there were dusty bottles of wine, a bin of potatoes, all that cornucopia of fruits and vegetables in their clear jars, some cloth, a stash of tea--thank the Light!... The bounty seemed to know no end and she fell on it possessively.

She didn't smile. She didn't cry. She huddled in the dark and got the first sleep she'd had in days. And unlike so many, she survived.