Fifteen Years To Tomorrow

Heat pressed down on the dry valley like a hand over a mouth. The air tasted of dust and old smoke, and every breath Arnold took scraped his throat raw. Blood ran warm down his ribs into the mud that caked his palms, and when he tried to tighten his grip on the blue ribbon, the fabric slid against his skin as if it didn’t belong to him anymore. Somewhere behind the ridge, horns blared-long, metallic calls that made his teeth ache. He forced his head up anyway, squinting at the pale strip of sky where smoke smeared pink and gray together, and the world tilted as if it had decided he was done standing.

The ribbon-blue, soft, soaked through-pulled at something inside his chest that wouldn’t settle. With every pulse of pain, another picture tried to rise over the one he was living: green grass under his fingers, a chimney smoke curl, Jane’s voice saying his name like it could anchor him. Arnold blinked hard, but the memory didn’t blur; it sharpened, crowding out the horns, the grit, the sting of iron in his mouth. “Arnold?” he rasped, not sure if he was calling for help or pleading with the past. His legs trembled beneath him, and he dragged himself a step, then another, toward the direction the enemy pushed-toward the sea that hissed somewhere far off, faint under the roar in his ears.

He wanted only one thing in that moment: to keep moving long enough to buy silence for someone else. He couldn’t picture Jane clearly-her face kept slipping like water-but he knew her name the way he knew his own blood was warm. If he could hold them off, if he could make the world last a little longer, maybe it would mean something. Maybe it would stop the ribbon from being the last proof he had of her.

But the obstacle came in layers. First, the ground was wrong-cracked earth that snagged his boots and tore at his palms when he fell. Then his body betrayed him; pain flared with every attempt to straighten, a hot, bright burn where steel had bitten deep. His side felt open, useless, like his insides were trying to spill out with the breath. And behind it all, the memory surged again, so vivid it made his eyes water: the sound of a broom sweeping stone, the smell of soup steam, his mother’s voice cutting through a kitchen bustle.

“Arnold!” she’d called. Not the valley now-the kitchen. Not horns-pots and pans. “Go find your father at the square. They need strong help with the festival.”

His throat tightened around a laugh that turned into a cough. The horns returned in a hard shove. He tasted ash. His vision tunneled, and still the ribbon in his hand warmed as if it were held by someone else’s fingers. He swallowed against the copper taste and tried to drag himself upright, but his knees hit the ground with a dull thud.

The decision came like a blade: quick, final, and impossible to ignore. He couldn’t fight the past back into place, but he could choose what to do with the minutes he had. Arnold reached for the helmet beside him with one shaking hand, fingers slipping on blood-slick metal. The horns blared again, closer now, and the air thickened with smoke and something sharper-burning wood, burning metal, the same scent that clung to his memory like a promise.

He hauled the helmet up anyway. As it settled over his head, his mind yanked free of the valley for a heartbeat and dropped him into fifteen years ago with cruel clarity. The dry valley vanished. Green replaced dust. Sunlight poured through spiked grass. Jane stood above him in the shade, eyes bright, her mouth set like she was about to run the world into motion. “Why are you here?” she demanded, and the way she said it made his heart stutter. He could almost feel the warmth of summer on his skin, could almost hear her feet pounding stone as she took off.

“I’m supposed to help my family for the summer festival,” she’d said, but her eyes had already widened with trouble, with friendship turning into something he couldn’t name without choking. Arnold had followed close behind, the town busy with chatter-voices, wheels, laughter-everything moving and loud while he tried to keep his own thoughts from spilling out. Their mothers loomed in the background, responsibilities tugging, but Jane was right there, close enough to steal breath.

In the present, Arnold’s chest seized. He forced his gaze forward, past the smoke, past the ridge. Enemy shapes moved in the haze, too many and too determined. He pushed himself up on bleeding arms and let his weapon come into his grip. His sword felt heavy in the way certainty did right before it broke.

“Jane,” he whispered, and this time it wasn’t a memory. It was a vow made out of pain. He surged into the oncoming push, blade flashing through gray air. The ground shook with footsteps, and heat rolled off bodies and fire. Steel met flesh with a wet finality that stole sound from the air. Arnold fought until the world narrowed to the weight of his arm, the scrape of metal, the shock of impact.

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