Smoke rose like pillars in to a pitch black sky, a town beneath rest torn to pieces as embers and flames ripped across the buildings, rendering everything to ash and soot, every so often there would be shouts and sobbing accompanied by screams followed by a dreadful silence.
He stood among the blazing village with his back straight and taut, his eyes filled with a forced coldness inspected the wreckages and bodies laying strung around the disturbed dirt, many other men ran around the area breaking in to unburnt houses and trashing them while dragging out any valuables they could find, whenever a survivor was found their lives were decided at that very moment.
The men were killed, the boys kept if they didn't resist, they would serve as 'fresh meat' for the group, as for the women their fate was worse in a different way, if they were quiet and someone took a fancy to them they'd serve as entertainment or live as a handmaiden for the group until they were of no more use.
His gaze took in the horrific sights that laid before him yet he remained unchanged, he didn't take part in the activities, his job was to lookout and take out any enemies that appeared, yet this was a small village, such a thing was unlikely to happen; These people were merely just trying to live their lives, they were incapable of being a threat to this group.
After hours of looting everything had come to an end, the endless screaming had ceased, the buildings now resting as ash and smouldering embers on the desecrated ground, their valuables piled up on a cart near the outskirts along with a few tied up bodies, everything but their lives that is.
As started he started pacing away from the site, his feet leaving footsteps in the ash as proof of his activity, he stopped when something bumped against his foot.
He looked down.
A small hand with blood lining the fingertips and claw marks in the dirt laid there, barely twitching, a small child barely big enough to walk and talk laid tattered and dishevelled, their skin flaky and dry from the scorching heat and burn marks covering their bare head whose hair had been burned away.
For a second, his eyes met the child's, weak, empty and hollow.
The small child's mouth seemed to move, using all the energy he had left.
And then, the light in his eyes faded, his body fated to join the rest, cold and still.
For the first time, his body shook and his eyes flickered with a watery light until he quickly supressed it before continuing on.
"Why?"
The words echoed in the back of his mind, even though he heard nothing, even though the throat that made them was too scorched to make a legible sound, the words seemed like a bomb going off to him.
Even though the scene laid before him, he had always kept his distance, he never looted anything, he never killed anyone other than their 'enemies', he refused to do such things, he wasn't like the others, he was only doing what he needed to do.
At least that's what he kept telling himself as he stood with a cold stone shield around his heart.
The truth was he knew, just watching everything happen as he stood by and did nothing was as bad as participating, no, the fact that he stood by and told himself otherwise made him worse.
He pictured himself murdering the defenceless, putting a torch to buildings and drowning in food that had plundered, as he did slowly but surely he felt a wetness infect his two hands, a red, scarlet colour that would never be erased.
Why? He was now asking that himself, why was he here, why did he continue to do this?
He was a mere hunters son, his mother had passed away at his birth and when he was barely 5 years of age his dad died in an accident when in the forest, he had angered a bear and got mauled to death leaving his young son alone to fend for himself.
As he was alone it wasn't long before everything he had was taken away from him, his inherited wealth, the house, even the clothes that he wore.
Soon he was left starving and on the streets, nothing but a filthy rag to his name; the scornful stared pierced his already shattered ego as he begged for the tiniest for morsel to continue living, he couldn't even get fresh water and relied on filthy puddles to drink, the best days were the ones it rained.
However it wasn't long before he was kicked out of the village as they were sick of seeing him, not knowing what else he could do he dragged his weak body on the path before him.
He just kept going, moving, pacing as much as he could, for him this was his death march, soon he would pass away and that would be that, in his mind there was no other result.
But it didn't turn out that way, for better or for worse, luck would be have it that a carriage passed him as he was plodding along on his last thread of life and a voice filled his little ears.
"Oi, there's a kid over here" A mans deep voice echoed out.
Sounds of shuffling were heard and another voice followed.
"Huh? Well, throw him in the back we have space" said the voice casually.
And with that, he was saved; He didn't care whether the people who took him were criminals, or that they only wanted to use him, to him, they had saved him and offered him sanctuary where the people who had lived alongside his family had chewed him up and threw him away.
And so he lived like that, for many years.
But now, that illusion he held, had steadily been ground to dust.
He opened his eyes and he was stood next to the pile of looted items stacked on a cart, the men around him were rowdy with laughing and shouting, ogling and judging the captives or items that they had obtained.
"Where is he?" He asked, they all turned and the light in their eyes showed a tinge of respect, why wouldn't they like someone who was strong yet didn't hold claim over the loot?
"S-sir he's over there" A skinny man pointed to a secluded location away from them.
"You know him, creepy bastard doing the usual stuff" Another chimed in to the conversation with a disgusted expression.
"Hah, go on and say that to his face next time" One of the crowd goaded on.
"Whadd'ya say?! You just don't have the balls to admit it!"
Soon the crowd became rowdy and a spat started yet he didn't particularly care, instead he went over to the location he pointed out.
He couldn't help but feel like as he approached the area, the temperature dropped a few degrees and a slight chill that pierced the bone filled the area, his instincts told him something was off.
The trees rustled slightly and the wind blew erasing whatever he could hear of the rowdy group behind him, he trod on and he quickly noticed drag marks and blood lining the ground in the direction he was going, it wasn't unusual in this situation or rather there were similar scenes everything.
However, …
He had heard of 'His' activities before, yet had never witnessed them first hand so he couldn't help but hold a degree of morbid curiosity has he made his way over.
But he wasn't quite prepared for what he was about to witness.
He came to a clearing, calling out 'his' name.
"Tai Min, what- "He stopped mid-sentence and swallowed his words, his pupils dilated to the size of a pin and his face turned a shade of blue.
What he saw was a pile stacked nearly as high as him, a pile of bodies, children of both genders, men and women, he could even see small bodies barely big enough to be identified.
Their blood dripped and merged together creating a cascading crimson waterfall that slowly dripped and darkened the mud beath the stack, a thick fleshy iron stench filled the air as their pale skin burned their colours in to his retina.
In their chest laid a hollow crevice where their flesh had been ripped and torn until something was extracted, and then their corpse discarded to the side like a useless casing.
At the centre of everything was a single man, his hair long, black and oily hung and swayed as he moved, his body was thin and lanky to the point where he bent over as he stood up and yet he didn't give the impression of being weak, on the contrary the mere sight of him made peoples hair stand up on their ends.
His bony hands were drenched in a deep red all the way up to his elbows, splatters and remnants of entrails and torn skin rested on his tattered clothes, he stood still with his sight fixated on what he had grasped in his right hand.
It was a small, red piece of flesh that kept steadily pulsating, small droplets dripping from the tiny orifices it was lined with.
"Yes… this one is good" He spoke to himself as he observed the item like a precious treasure, his voice cold enough to chill even the warmest of hearts.
He steadily brought it closer to his face, deeply breathing in as if smelling a fresh flower, his body shook as it revelled in the feeling; He brought it close to him mouth but as if suddenly remembering something his head snapped in another direction.
The twos eyes met.
Madness; a swirling mess of desire and bloodthirst, red as deep as the organs strewn over the place.
It send chills down the other man's spine, it wrenched the long supressed fear from the depths of his mind, his spine felt as those it had been frozen by sub zero temperatures, as if he had been dropped in to an arctic sea.
And then the voice echoed once more, encroaching on his already fragile mind.
"What are you looking at, Fu Li?"
…
His eyes darted open, the wooden ceiling he was familiar with entered his view and the sunlight peeking in to the room steadily warmed his mind.
He looked around, his wife laying in bed next to him, a sense of comfort wrapped his heart.
He rubbed his face as if trying to wipe away any fear that remained.
That was a memory he didn't want to dredge up, a name he wanted to forget, but he knew he couldn't, ever since that day it had been leaking back slowly but surely, the end hadn't come yet, but it was on its way.
"Fu Li…" A name he had once bore, a person he had thrown away to the past, yet now it had come to catch back up, Shu Li waited with a fear deep in his heart as he felt the warmth of the people most important to him now.