I don’t recall a specific inspiration for this prompt, but I do know something that comes to mind when I think of it. It’s a series be D. Dalton called All Things Impossible. As far as I know this does not happen to the characters in the book, but the main character is from a small village that isn’t really affected much by what’s going on in the country at large.
With so many books out there, there tends to be at least some books that touch characters who live in every size community you can think of from tiny mountain villages with a population so small they can fit in one house to huge mega cities in space that have bigger populations than some countries or even continents today. Whatever size community you live in there is always the possibility of not seeing much beyond the boundaries of that community. High levels of communication can improve the likelihood of foster community outside of your current local, but it doesn’t mean you will.
When I wrote this prompt I was thinking of something with a lower level of communication a place where they may not get the news from outside the community for days, weeks, or even months at a time. Since the presumably fictional country they are in is at war with another nation the idea in my head is that they are both far from the capital and far from the border with the warring nation. They are also, most likely, not of strategic importance so why both with attacking them at all. I see them as being aware of the war, but only in the most head knowledge sort of way. They may have had excitable youngsters looking for adventure leave for the capital to join the war because they were tired of the mundane life they are living or at least see themselves as living.
So that’s where I see this prompt going and there is certainly more to the prompt that just the part I discussed, but I will stop with that. What kind of village do you see fitting this prompt? And what kind of carnage are they hit with when the war finally reaches them?