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Hello everyone, this is Asclepius, with a truly chilling story, written and narrated by Womby. It is entitled

Seven Days

Assisting in the podcast I am also delighted to welcome Doctor Shroud as the guard captain, and Solstar as the guard.
Background music is “No More Regrets” by Smartsound.

Father:
Day 1
I’m keeping this journal because if I don’t write things down I think I’ll lose my mind.
We could have run. We could have gathered the children and a few of our belongings and fled south.
Ingrid, our eldest, wanted to leave with her boyfriend, but I wouldn’t allow it. I hope I did the right thing. Instead we chose to hide in our winter storage cellar. After closing the access hatch, our neighbour Avrok covered it with a large cupboard, so it is now completely hidden. He has no children and is no longer young, so we all agree he should be safe from harvesting. We are relying on him to let us out when the soldiers move on.

Day 2
We hear movement upstairs. The soldiers have set up headquarters in our home. We have plenty of food, but will run out of water within a few days.
We have a pickaxe and a couple of buckets, so we decided to make a tunnel. If we can intersect with the well in the square outside, we will have unlimited access to water. We can only dig at certain times of the day when our sounds are covered by the screams coming from above. We may not succeed, but at least it gives us hope, and is infinitely better than the impotence of sitting here in silence. Best of all, the children have perked up, as they have something to occupy them.

This afternoon we heard a commotion. Ingrid recognised the voice of her boyfriend amongst a group of prisoners that had been dragged into the square. Then we heard screams, and I had to physically restrain her. I can only imagine what happened to them.

Day 3
My heart leapt into my mouth as I recognised the voice of Avrok. I could hear him being dragged into the headquarters above, and he clearly sounded distressed. The head of the guard kept demanding to know where we were, and Avrok denied any knowledge. Despite being told he could spare his life by giving us up, he refused to answer. His execution was sudden and perfunctory, and the horror of hearing his body hit the floor was prolonged by the sound of it being dragged outside.

Day 4
We have made good progress with the tunnel, but still have not reached the well. Are we heading in the right direction? I am trying to hide my disappointment, but I can see in her face that Emma shares my concern. Keeping our children’s spirits up is proving difficult, and the need for total silence is taking its toll.

Day 5
Ingrid has developed a loud cough. We have hidden her in the tunnel and covered the entrance with dirt-filled sacks. Unfortunately we’ll have to stop digging until she gets better. Still, it seems to be working, as we can no longer hear her cough.

Day 6
I feel sick. She’s dead. Ingrid is dead! Everything is spiralling out of control. I can’t write.

Eventually I plucked up the courage to tell Emma.
I don’t know how she found the strength, but she was able to keep the youngest two distracted while I removed Ingrid’s body.
She had slashed her wrists. When I moved her, I found that she had left a note:

Don’t stop digging.
I love you.
Ingrid

I hid her under some firewood, with what little dignity I could manage.

Day 7
Finally some good news. We have reached the well. Fortunately we have enough rope to reach the water below, and have started filling up barrels.
Since Avrok’s death we have no way out, so we have started another tunnel that should take us to the nearby wheat field. Hopefully we can reach it before harvest time.

Guard Captain:
What’s this, soldier?

Guard:
Just some scribbled notes, Captain. I found them in that hidden tunnel we discovered under the storage cellar. They were with that last group we sent off for transformation.

Guard Captain:
Add it to the weekly report. The mages collect all that stuff. I guess it gives them something to do when they’re not transforming children into elves.

Posted by Asclepius - Email Author
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Please note: This is a SotA community run project, and any and all content may deviate from the fictional canon of the game.