Shadows, Before Dusk

THE SUN was a massive fireball, blazing like a red inferno as it disappeared in the far distance of the wilderness. The newly sprouted moss that had appeared after the snowmelt dotted the infinite savannah, resembling dark green burn scars. Deep in the savanna, the biscuit grass morphed into the fresh, verdant green.

Shadows bent over the lush green pasture, their dark figures resembling venomous snakes. A young monk with a sharp gaze stood on an earth mound, silently observing the changes of the shadows and the twists of the outlines winding up the mountains.

The young monk was dressed in straw shoes and a tacky, deep blue kimono. His apparel showcased distinct features of a flame-breathing dragon. The dragon's scales were blue and beautiful as the sky in spring. The young monk's shoulder-length, coal-black hair was left disheveled for the fierce wind to tousle as it wished. His eyes were closed shut and his lips were faintly blue like saltwater as though he was unwell.

The youth was now standing defiantly before a compelling mass of stacked earth; a mountain. The mountains piled on the earth at every mile were dressed in evergreen right up to their crowns of silver-white, and beside them was the bluest of lake waters. The world, now bereft of modern architecture, was a mystical array of nature blooming beautifully.

The young man's sharp eyes fixated themselves on the white zenith of the mountain, determination swelling in his burning gaze.

"What is a mountain without a conqueror? It is without a doubt nothing different from a gin-soaked ronin," mumbled the young man, his voice clear and soft yet filled with throbs similar to the rushing water in a brook. He clicked his tongue.

The young monk slowly motioned his hand to the unsheathed, thin wooden sword safe by his waistline. Grasping it by its hilt, he raised it with both hands, his back bent slightly. His feet parted to stand in an ever-familiar posture. He appeared to be readying for battle against a vicious foe as his face was laced with daunting chivalry, brows deeply knitted in a pair of dark frowns.

Suddenly, the young man burst out in a jittery war cry, his voice crashing down in an eruption of reverberations, echoing and rivetting throughout the tranquil landscape. The nocturnal songs of the night creatures clammed up behind his loud cry, ripples forming on the frigid lake waters. An eagle flitting through the starless sky screeched in fright, its wings pausing before falling back again into their busy flapping.

The youth's muscles bulged underneath the silky fabric of his clothing, seeming to contain explosive strength. His grip on the sword tightened, bluish-purple veins emerging from his hands. A dense, refulgent crimson light emanated from his body, and the dragon patterns upon his robes were accentuated with the stretching of the fabric. The dragon nearly seemed to be leaping out!

Swish!

One mighty swing of the sword split the air, leaving a light brown shadow in its wake. The wilted autumn leaves were thrown upwards as the brown shadow ran in their path before waning then dissipating after several miles...

"Haa..." The young man exhaled his held breath, his pale face mushrooming with hot moisture, and he allowed his tense muscles to relax. His chest heaved, then his shut eyes fluttered open. They were an abyss. His eyes, that is. They were black, like the darkest of nights, and as deep as hell. A silent, burning hunger for blood was awash in the abyssal depths of his eyes.

His shuddery breaths slowed and calmed. His sharp, left brow wriggled and the corners of his thin lips twitched. Hot sweat trickled down his forehead, specking his face before trailing the outlines on his collarbone, below the pale blue collar of his robe.

The youth wordlessly strode away from his spot on the mound, all the while casually swinging his trusty sword with one hand. He approached a towering dragon tree that stood tall at the mountain's foot. In the tree's umbrella-like shade was a deep trench. And beside the cavity stood a grey-haired elderly man in a tattered cotton kasaya. He held a broadsword in his hand...extended in the young man's direction.

The old man's chapped lips trembled. He swallowed a gulp of saliva, hemmed dryly before raising his palms to his chest, forming a kind of signal.

The youth solemnly glanced at the old man's shuddering hands and understood instantly. He nodded.

｢ Take. ｣

｢ Go. ｣

That was all that the aphonic, old man was trying to convey. The dim light in the elder's lean eyes shone and his arm stretched further towards the young man, the broadsword, black and unsheathed, firmly within his grasp. The sword's exquisite body glinted under the waning moonlight with a shine of sacred silver, despite the metal itself being obsidian-dark.

The youth's hands closed in on it and he held it firmly. His hand perfectly gripped the hilt and the feeling of quintessence made the youth's eyes grow wide. Sword in hand, he gradually sheathed it with a scabbard of drake-like patterns. He then kept it by the obi on his waistline, beside the smaller and more modest wooden sword that was blunt and inconspicuous yet hosted tremendous power.

"One moment of patience may ward off a great disaster; one moment of impatience may ruin a whole life," the young monk began reciting, his face austere and pale like a snowdrift in the frost. He was repeating what the elder had taught him over five decades, and he did this with a collected look but his emotions were turbulent. The sword was the elder's final gift and teaching to him, as the master was at the end of his life.

"Patience is power; with time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown. Certain is this humble rube that your equilibrium will reap you more fruit than the harvest of the richest merchant. This son of the soil will not abase your patient kindness, generous one. I shall return from the unknown with good news," said the young monk, his expression grateful and determined and yet he knew that he would never see his master again.

The youth betrayed clear integrity in his suddenly warm, black eyes; his coldness disappeared in a blink to reveal a peerless warmth and saint-like piety. It was as though the resentment and bloodthirst from before had never been.

The elder did not respond. His face was ashen and as icy as Death's chill hand. The white of his eyes had overtaken; there was no semblance of life in his haggard being. Silence prevailed for a long moment only to be interrupted by the regular screech of a bird or the trotting sound of gazelles in the distance. The young man stood silently and motionlessly before the corpse, his breath held.

"You...generous one, so you too have gone the way of the flesh," the young monk whispered, his slender fingers quivering with fear and despondency. His eyes scrutinized the cold and bony face for signs of life but it was all to no avail. It was no pleasant event to be realizing that you were now the only human breathing on the whole planet.

With trembling hands, the young man wordlessly laid the elder to rest. And a small mound of earth remained where the elder had once sat and patiently advised him over many years.

The young man sat before the mound and silently prayed to the heavens above. But who should he pray to, when it was the heavens themselves that had taken this good man's poor life and left him alone on this ruined world?

Unable to answer himself, the young monk miserably glanced at his bosom and removed a brooch with a silver cross shape. He kept it between his clasped hands and fell silent once more.

Then his thoughts gradually shifted to 'that fateful day'.