5. Hanging Heads

Soon, the group was surrounded by the giant treant-like figures. Mao Yin sat in the midst of all the activity with wide eyes. Of course he wanted to escsape but in his current situation, that was nothing more than wishful thinking. He could only accept the outcome no matter how bizarre and terrifying it was. His body was so bruised and broken that moving even the tiniest bit made tears well up in the corners of his eyes. He was nothing more than a sitting duck awaiting his death.

He was terrified and wanted nothing more than to drag his tired body home and sleep away his troubles. To just pretend that nothing ever happened. Mao Yin laid back down and squeezed his eyes shut as he waited for it all to end instead.

Maybe it was about time that his pitiful life came to a finish. He just felt so tired of it all.

The other kid's screams changed in pitch and Mao Yin shut his eyes even tighter. He could hear the sounds of their bones popping and their flesh tearing.

He felt sickened and lifted his battered arms to cover his ears. It was at this time, that he first felt it. Mao Yin suddenly sensed something fragrant and delicious. He tried to identify what it was that he was feeling. Was it a smell? No, not quite. He couldn't describe it, but it felt like the finest delicacy. Very sweet... and highly addictive.

But being in the situation that he was, he wasn't able to pay it any further mind and merely pondered on it for a brief, distracted moment before continuing to patiently wait for his demise. However, even after a long time, there was no action towards him. He waited a little longer before opening an eye.

Everything was completely still.

He opened both eyes properly and propped himself up. Everything was as it was when they first entered the forest. Not a single tree or leaf was out of place. In fact, Mao Yin would've thought that it was all in his imagination if it weren't for all the dead bodies piled up neatly before him like an offering.

There was so much blood around him that it seeped into his shoes and covered his clothes. Each of the corpses had their heads torn out with the bodies left relatively untouched. Some of the heads were torn with so much force that part of the spine was still attached. Each vertebra had chunks of flesh and small bundles of nerves still attached.

Mao Yin felt like he was going to throw up and wanted to quickly look away, but something caught his eye on the very top of the pile of corpses. He disregarded his disgust and nausea as he took a closer look only to see something very familiar to him!

He checked the inside of his robes to confirm, but the skull was no longer there!

He didn't recall anyone actually taking it out from the inside of his robes. How did it get out? And how did it get on the top of the pile of dead children?

Forget it, he thought. He didn't want to think about it right now. They had probably taken it from him when they were hitting him earlier. It would make sense that he hadn't noticed. He was in too much pain to be completely aware of his surroundings at that time.

He crawled over and picked up the skull. At that time, Mao Yin's state of mind was as unsteady as his footsteps so he failed to notice the purple eyes flash in its eyes as he held it. Nor did he notice that his condition had become much better, and many of his wounds had already stopped bleeding.

He felt quite dizzy and disoriented as he walked forward. His eyes shifted towards the bodies once more before glancing upwards towards the darkening sky. Ah, their parents must be looking for them by now. He frowned and held his aching head as he thought.

The correct thing to do would be to bring them back with him for a proper burial, right? Even though they brought him to the forest and hurt him, they were gone now and deserved the basic respect that the dead deserved.

However, Mao Yin was small and thin. He wasn't able to carry all the bodies with him, so after some thought, he just brought all the heads with him. Even so, he still struggled as he lugged the bleeding and decapitated heads by the hair back to the village.

Each head was quite heavy, so he took many breaks despite his worsening condition. Several times, he stopped to vomit in the bushes. Each time he went to vomit, it became darker and darker in color until it became as black as pitch. The strain from vomiting so many times had made Mao Yin's eyes turn bloodshot.

Finally, it came to the point where he could no longer bear their weight. He decided to leave them here in the forest for now. He would tell the villagers about it once he got back. Mao Yin knew that the forest had no life in it, but the days events had proved otherwise. He couldn't just leave the heads down on the floor for any creature to take so he decided in the end to hang them off the branches of the trees. Not too high and not too low. He wanted to keep them safe and sound for their families.