Have you ever engaged in an enormous game of hide and seek with your friends at school? With about 250 hiders and 20 seekers; clenching your fists in suspense… experiencing the excruciating burn of the flames from the staffs brush briefly across your knees, or back… contorting your body to fit into the smallest, most awkward spaces in order not to be found… murdering a child…because they were making too loud of a noise… to save your people… No? Then you are one of the lucky ones.

Further Earth is a place of much chaos and pain, nobody survives… Hell, you’re not going to get out alive anyway fellow human, none of you do – that’s life. Speaking of life, mine will be coming to an end in approximately 24 days from now, along with another 750 humans, 3 whole villages…The remaining of the human race.

I am Hedrendia Finewhip, and these are my final days.

Every morning I inhale an ever so motivating scent of flownder drowned in molten bread which causes me to spring out of bed and rush to the dinner table to greet my family for the first time of the day; however, this particular morning was different… The scent of manchet bread and stewed oxtail; this could only mean one thing “Dwanith!” I stumbled down the wooden steps from my room and ran towards the fantastic hero; he welcomed me with open arms, I rest my head against his large chest, covered in a brown beard. It is almost as if beards are a rite of passage for the Dwarves. “Hedrendia, what brings you to our presence so early on this fine morning?” Dwanith stared jokingly, knowing that I can be quite apathetic even on the best of days. “A fine morning it is indeed Dwanith. I decided I would grace you.” I replied with a smile, returning the humour back to him. My family, sitting upon the somewhat unstable dining table seats, did not look at me, nor towards my direction at all – I suspected bad news… of course, Dwanith would never visit purely for curiosity and pleasure. “Wherefore art thou here? For if you carry burdened news, return from whence you came sir…” I proudly spoke, knowing that my mother could take no more troubling news, she would die before our time was up if any more heartache was placed upon her. “No Hedrendia; I fain state that you, amongst hundreds, have been chosen to repopulate the race of man and become a trained warrior” Dwanith bends down on one knee and presents a scroll to me as his head is bowed. I tremor in complete astonishment and dismay as I take the scroll from Dwanith’s large, powerful palm and open it without processing another thought. A black, complex symbol is painted upon the scroll, a symbol from the higher class races perhaps, and with total confusion, I hand it back to Dwanith, in rejection. Dwanith rises. “But you must. You must take it Hedrendia. You have been chosen.” Dwanith’s voice is calm, yet I can sense the great urgency and seriousness of the situation. I still reject it. “Hedrendia, you must go. It is your chance; this is how you will survive. You must accept this.” My mother arises from her seat on the table, her face full of woe and disapproval, but of course every mother has an aching wish to keep their children alive, and my mothers had come true, and all she had to do was die. Holding my mother’s hand tight and coercing her to sit back down and rest, my father nodded his head in agreement. “The council just needs our approval… and of you go…” My father grinned still clutching my mother’s hand. I was not going to allow this to happen. Why would my parents rather me stay on Earth where I would become a weapon for battle, and only be kept alive for breeding; when I could be with them, in solitude, where I cannot experience any pain, for eternity. “Hath Frendwick been told of this news?” I was not going to leave my younger brother behind, how my parents could bare to leave one of their children alive and let the other burn within the ashes is absurd to me. “Frendwick does not know, he is still in slumber. Please Hedrendia, do not wake him. Leave before he arises. I do not want him troubled also.” My mother squeaked, rushing over to the main room door to close it in case I decided to erupt in anger. “My greatest and uttermost apologies Dwanith, but I am not leaving, you have the wrong girl” I pleasantly spoke with a smile, hoping that would be the end of it that he would leave and this would all be forgotten. “Thou art chosen Hedrendia, you cannot refuse. It is not an option that you have” Dwanith replied, amusing me. How is it possible that I was not able to choose my own fate? Surely I am owed at least that. “Even if it means that I die here, right here, I am not leaving my kin. I will not.” And that is when Dwanith left, but that did not mean that he would not return. Alas, this is just the beginning of our tale.