The half-demon was now completely alone. Having lost his home and his family, he sat beneath a tree wondering what his next decision should be. His body was still intact, he knew he had enough rations to survive for the next two weeks. After that, he had no idea what he would do, and his mind was slowly starting to slip away from him as he tried to cope with the loss of his family and his home.
He sat beneath that same tree for hours, occasionally hearing gunfire in the distance. The demon thought about his life up to that point. Although he was dealt a bad hand at birth, he was still appreciative of everything he once had. The feeling of isolation he experienced whenever he stepped outside of his home was now being forced onto him, and there was nothing he could do about it. He looked into his bag and took out a picture he kept of him and his family, it was one of the only things he had to remind him of his previous life. A life not devoid of misfortune, but one with a home where he belonged. He placed the picture into one of his pockets on the inside of his coat. Should anything happen to the bag, he wouldn't want to lose it.
Eventually, he resolved himself to get up. His first goal was to find some form of shelter since it frequently rained in his region of Denomi. He didn't know exactly where he was, but he knew he was somewhere in the more wooded area of the Esfan region. He took out the map he kept in his bag of the Esfan region and was able to approximately pinpoint where the closest small town was located. He figured it would be better to stick to the smaller towns in the outer parts of Esfan rather than the more densely populated parts near the center of the region. Finally, he started walking.
He had been walking for just over an hour before reaching the town, mostly sticking to the areas covered heavily by trees to avoid being seen by anyone. There weren't many buildings still standing, or people left in the area. But, seeing as he had no other shelter, he took to one of the broken-down buildings. He could tell that the building could collapse at any second due to all the damage it sustained when this town was overrun by militia. But this was his only option for now. Given the small number of people and resources in the area, militia in the nearby towns didn't seem to care too much about this place. The floor was made of broken wooden boards, the windows of the building were shattered, and dried blood was visible on the inside floors and walls. He found a room near the back of the building that looked the most stable. He sat down in the back corner of the room, laying out his bag full of supplies in front of him. He took out the picture of his family and looked at it longingly. He had only been without them for about half a day at this point, but the damage was already beginning to pile on his mind. All he could do was cry into his other hand while thinking about the family he lost. He cried into the night, with the sounds of gunfire still in the distance. He didn't feel safe enough to fall asleep, so he sat in the room all night hearing the horrifying sounds around him. He sat there until the sun rose, hopelessly thinking of what he would do next or if he would do anything at all. The only thing that kept him alive was the knowledge that his mother would not want him to perish this way, so he pressed on unwillingly.
He would spend the next three months moving along the outer region of Esfan, avoiding militia and living off the few rations he had prepared. Eventually, they ran out, and he was forced to find food and water on his own. He found very little food and water in towns and villages, so he mainly stuck to eating wild berries, leaves, and other plant life. Throughout his time traveling between villages, he was able to find various glass bottles which he used to make a rudimentary distillation setup to produce clean water to drink. Around this time, he realized he could use bending for performing tasks like this. He used basic water telekinesis bending to gather river water into bottles, and basic heat-based bending to distill contaminated water. He scrounged for whatever he could to avoid starvation. All this time he was alone, and he hardly spoke a word out loud. He was already a quiet person, but he was forced to be completely silent when he had to sneak around the militia There wasn't a night where he didn't think about the family that he lost, remembering the gunshots he heard above him in his home that day. The day he left his family to die.
Eventually, he began to notice the landscape change around him. New buildings and areas started being built by the new regime. Part of him wanted to know what they were for, the other part still wanted to stay alive. The Esfan region began to dim in population dramatically, areas that once housed towns and villages now had nothing but ruined buildings and military damage. Toranto began to take note of this, as these areas were best for avoiding soldiers. He often stayed in these abandoned villages, although militia would often return to these villages to snuff out any supplies or people left in them. However, he could only go on like this for so long.
At this point he had run out of food and useful supplies he needed to survive. Of course, he looked through empty villages to find anything he could, but nothing was useful at this point. Everything was either taken or decrepitude and useless. He looked for days for anything useful, but he couldn't find anything of value, and he was starving quickly. He had no choice but to steal rations from the local militia. He spent hours thinking of how he wanted to go through with this, he didn't want to be careless since he knew this would leave him to death. He figured the best way to get supplies would be to steal something when militia groups weren't around their camps and out for patrol. Although he knew it was a massive risk to get this close to any of them, he had no choice.
He walked through the more wooded areas of Esfan until he found a small camp of militia. It was the middle of the day, so he figured they were out on patrol. He scanned the area as much as he could before sneaking up to the camp and taking as much food as he could hold. Strangely, he felt a weak but sudden shock to his body when he walked up close to the camp. He felt minor fatigue, and he didn't know why. He figured it was because he was starving but it didn't feel the same as starvation, he knew what that felt like at this point. But he didn't have time to dwell on this. He needed to survive, so he got everything he could and got out of the area as fast as he could. He safely had enough rations to last him another week. He had no idea what he was going to do after that week passed but he didn't want to think about that right now.
He ran back to one of the abandoned villages in the area and ate. He wanted to eat more but he knew he needed the food to last him as long as possible. He was thankful for that experience to be over, but he knew this wouldn't be the last time he did this if he wanted to stay alive. But, for now, he was able to rest.
The next day, as he was scavenging the area for edible plant life, he began to hear soldiers approaching the area. Panicking, he ran back to the village he had been returning to for the past couple of months and hid in the basement of a run-down building. He didn't know how far they were away when he heard them running toward him, but he knew he had to avoid them. He hid there for over half an hour, paranoid that they were near him. His fears would be realized, as he began to hear the sounds of militia running through the small village and searching every building. "Spread out! Take anyone you find!" His heart began to race at the fear of him dying from gunfire. He sat in the corner of the building's basement and stayed as quiet as he could, watching the floorboards above him. "Found some!" Toranto could hear the sounds of a family screaming as the soldiers ripped them away from their home, tears began to form in his eyes as he continued hiding. Eventually, they reached the half-demon's building. He could hear them bash the door in and pour into the building. "Spread out, check upstairs and downstairs." The half-breed knew there was nothing he could do except wait for them to pour into the basement and murder him. He spent what he thought were his final moments thinking about his family, thinking about his mother. The feeling of fatigue came back to him for a second time, this time he chalked it up to the sheer fear and panic draining his body. He sat in the corner of the basement waiting for the door to slam open, hearing the footsteps grow louder each second.
Finally, his time had come. The door swung open as the soldiers rammed through it and all their flashlights were trained onto the half-demon in the corner of the room. Toranto reacted out of pure instinct and shifted his arms to bend the air around him, causing the soldiers to be pushed into the wall of the basement by the force of the wind. Taking advantage of the moment he ran out of the basement door as fast as he could back upstairs and out of the building. The upstairs militia gave chase to him upon hearing the gust of wind produced and the downstairs soldiers being propelled into a wall. He ran as fast as he could out of the small village, with half a dozen soldiers chasing him. He could hear them yelling to shoot him, he could hear the gunfire, he could hear the bullets piercing through the air close to his body. He tried to get as far away from them as possible, but he couldn't move fast enough to escape the gunfire. One of the bullets went through his leg, he yelled out in pain as he tried to continue running away. He limped away as fast as he could, but it wasn't nearly enough. He could feel his energy draining as his body felt a strong sense of fatigue. His leg was leaving a trail of blood behind him that soaked into the grass and dirt. He desperately clutched onto the trees around him to remain upright as he dragged himself onward. He could feel another bullet pierce his other leg, and just like that, he collapsed onto the ground. He could feel the pain burning throughout his body, his blood leaking out onto the ground causing the plant life it touched to wither away. He could hear the soldiers running up to him through the pain, they surrounded him all with their guns trained on his head should he make any sudden movements. "He's the one, I checked his stuff," one of the soldiers said. "Good, let's take them to site 17," another one said. The soldier turned his gun around and bludgeoned the half-demon's head. Toranto could feel the sharp pain in his head as the soldier beat him with the butt end of the gun. His vision quickly began to fade until he couldn't feel anything anymore.