Boy ran towards the village in blaze.
At the entrance, villagers lay scattered like lifeless corpses. Shock, fear and anxiety overwhelmed him. But boy kept his mind sharp and moved forward toward his house.
Boy thought "Please be safe.", while sprinting.
Now boy couldn't care less about the villager....as he sprint towards his house built of wooden log, straw and plaster-mud wall.
Along the way, he came across countless corpses of the villager. Among them was Aunt Christina, his elderly neighbor, lying besides her crumbled house. Her lower body nowhere to be found, and her upper body drenched in blood; bits of brain matter lay scattered on the ground. Her face, however, bore a haunting stillness, as if nothing has happened.
Boy after seeing such gruesome scene in front of him...
Blyaaa*
Blyaaa*
He started puking.
His mind drifted away from everything, lost in chaos, until at last he calmed down. After he was done, he came back to his sense. Now, all he could do was hope for a miracle ,that his family was sill safe.
Boy arrived to the place he called home. Only to see a lifeless corpse of this father underneath the crumbled wall, expression of haunting stillness. House crumbled and ash of the burned house as black as charcoal lay in place of his old wooden log house.
Tears begins streaming down the boy's face. No word came out from his mouth - his throat felt as if it had been dry for ages.
Footstep*
He took a step closer.
Footstep*.
Then another. His face twisted into an expression of disbelief.
Just as he was about to take another step -
"h-help....me.... please..."
Cough*
The girl in plain pink clothing, drenched in blood, lays trapped underneath the fallen tree, calling for help.
Boy turned towards the voice. In an instant, flashing memory come on his mind, a girl in pink plain clothing slapping him in his cheek.
"You garbage of a man, why don't you just die, at least it would be better than living as a retard."
She had slapped him across the face, ripped his shirt open, while he stood there crying, helplessly before the girl's rage.
Boy's after having this thought, watching the girl begging him trapped underneath the the fallen tree, almost made him laugh.
Tears flowed down his face, but a grim smile twisted his lips.
Without realizing it, his tears stopped. He turned away from the girl and his eye's fell on his father lifeless corpse. And watching the girl back again to only see her body having a blink of life made boy realize.
Boy expression change to stillness of water.
"No matter who you are, at the end its still the world who get to choose who lives or who dies.", he mumbled to himself.
His voice trembled as he stared at her "So what if father was a good man and that girl just having a rotten mind, she lived while a good man died... i wish you would've died as well."
drip drop*
drip drop*
Sound of rain*
Rain starts to pour down, claiming all the blaze fire of the village.
Boy stood there in silence, his mind strangely calm, his face expressionless as if he has grown bore from this cruel play of life, his hair messy, ashes stuck on his hair, now wet.
He took deep breath, in through nose and out through his mouth.
Without looking back, he started walking towards his crumbled house. He Crouched down , searching for something in the rubble, his hand brushing away the broken pieces of what once was home.
"K-Knox.....h-help.. me.." girl called out again, forcing the words out with every breath she could muster.
Boy rose up to his feet, a black bow clenched in his left hand and a single arrow in his right. Without hesitating, he walked towards the trapped girl.
He stopped in front of girl broken body. Not a single word escaped from his mouth, Not a Flicker of emotion across his face, he raised the bow and aimed the arrow at her.
The girl having lost strength after the last plea, stared at him in disbelief as tip of the arrow leveled with her forehead.
The boy pressed his left foot down on her shoulder, pinning the girl from trembling.
Boy pull the string back, aiming at the girl, with his feet pressing down her.
" if I cannot even shoot this still garbage....or end up shooting my own leg in the process" Knox mumbled, "then it is worth to say the world wants you to live and wants me as garbage."
His voice grew colder.
"Please die, i don't want you in my meaningless life."
Girl turn her head to left in desperate attempt to save herself.
He released the string.
Thwip*
The arrow shot forward, directly piercing her temple cleanly.
She went still, lifeless in an instant.
He had expected to miss the shot, yet it pierced. This action of murdering someone oddly reminded him of hunting the animal. He felt as if the girl was nothing more than a small, trapped rabbit that could not escape.
"A human, an animal, makes no difference once they stop breathing." he said, staring the girl corpse having a arrow lodged in her temple.
Calming expression settled on the boy's face, as if say he had done nothing to the girl. This act of killing was very natural to the hunters but to the boy, who was so talentless, who couldn't strike the sleeping target, killed a human girl was new.
Killing her made the boy feel strangely refreshed, as though the leech that had been sucking life out of him had perished by his own hand.
Knox lips curved upward again, mocking his own decision yet he felt unburden by it
"So refreshing.....should've done this sooner."
whistle of air*
Suddenly, the faint hiss of an arrow reached his ears.
Knox turned sharply, and in the last instant he saw a pebble at a foot distance from him in front of his forehead.
The pebble struck the boy glabella. Instantly, fainting him.
An old man, with cyan color eyes, dressed in plain white clothes as an old sage, his broad shoulders covered by fabric color white as snow, walked towards the boy's fainted body. His long snow white hair and white beard swayed gently in the breeze as if no raindrop has touched him even once
"Tch, what a worthless body....nothing remarkable", old man mocking and glaring down the unconscious boy, "But, you'll make a better trashcan than any other"
Old man waved his hand slowly, deliberately, in an upward motion. The air stirred, a faint currents swirled and lifted boy's unconscious body from the ground.
Without another glance, the old man turned and walked away from the burned, collapsed and this perished village.