Chapter 100

While Jax was still in agony over his new impossible quests, in a small rural town south of Arklight City, mayhem was spreading everywhere. Polperro was the town's name and while it was tiny compared to Arklight City, where it lacked in developmental area, it made up in agricultural land.

The people who lives here were simple farmers who tended to their Miltanks and Tauroses, plowed the land and ate what they grew.

Their houses simple, two story tall made from the finest trees around, a brick chimney, and a window or two here and there.

Their roads were not cemented, rolled out with asphalt nor layered with tar. They were of humble origins, hand laid in stone, cobbled to give it a little more umph.

Their street lights spread evenly throughout, not a single place not lit up at night so everyone could enjoy the peace of night. During holidays, banisters would hang from its curvature all the way down to the floor.

With a glistening blue river not far away, the children went fishing on cool spring days, swam on sweltering hot summer noons, had picnics on chilly autumn evenings, and slid on it during frosty winter mornings.

Now, that same beautiful river was gushing a torrent of red, those same children floating along with its rampaging flow, bobbing up and down.

The lights that once kept the townspeople safe by lighting up their night and decorated with lavishing banisters during those jolly times were now hanging those same adults who it was built to safekeep.

The once cobbled road that was painstakingly laid out by hand now hand several stones unturned, dyed and matted in red so dark, it looked like tar.

Those simple houses made from the sturdiest and biggest trees around were now ash on the ground, waiting for that gust of wind to pass by and blow them to land afar. Those that weren't ash yet were quickly on their way as their roofs caved in and their walls lit up brighter than the fourth of July night skies.

And those townspeople. Those precious and always happy farmers. How they lay strewn here and there and over everywhere. A mother holding her crying baby only the baby was too young to notice that the once warm hands that held it with love had long since gone cold.

Two young love birds who held each other hands as they ran away in fright were huddled up in some abandoned alley. The young man laid against a brick wall, his fair maiden resting across his chest in his arms, a sword impaling them both.

A child, no more than 16 or 17, laid limp in a barn atop straw, as bare as when she first arrived upon this world. Blood flowing in between and atop, tears streaming down.

The Miltanks and Tauroses, charred, cut, slashed, and mutilated into steaks much like those sold in your local supermarkets. The calves and eggs, their fate not much better. Those that weren't found hid in the pasture, shivering from the biting, frosty winds. The eggs, those that weren't trampled over and spilling their contents shook every now and then, almost as if they were about to crack and the critters inside would stick out their heads to ask what all the fuss was about.

And everywhere you look, men and women could be seen laughing, jeering, snarling, grumbling, and hurling profanities or doing the most inhumane things imagine upon those both living and dead. In their madness and mayhem, they overlooked a child, a boy about 9 years old.

Jason LuMek had just turned 9 years old a week ago and for his birthday, his parents gifted him a new bike. Those same parents were now hanging from one of those street lights. The same mom who just earlier was assaulted by one of those men in black with the giant red R. The same dad who was bound by rope and forced to watch as those detestable men performed ungodly things on his most cherished Jezebel; the same dad who was now hanging by that same rope, his body dangling and swaying with the gentle caress of the passing winds.

His parents did not make much as farmers but they did the best they could to provide for their one and only child. They had difficulties getting pregnant but the joy on their faces when they found out about the little bud growing in one of their bellies, the two were simply delighted and thanked the heavens for their little miracle.

Growing up, Jason wanted nothing and asked for nothing, content with what he had. Until he saw that shiny red bike in the shopkeepers window display and begged and begged and begged on end for it. His parents could only look at the price tag and sigh, saying they just could not afford that kind of luxury.

As a sensible boy, Jason never asked for it again so imagine his surprise when he turned 9 and woke up to see a shiny red bike accompanied by a similar shiny red ribbon bow on its handle sitting in the living room, the living room of HIS house?

Taking that same red bike, that same red bike that was now red for other reasons besides its factory color, Jason pushed his feet on the pedals with all of his might. His destination, north. He pedaled until his feet felt like lead. His mouth more try than their hay barrels after a day's drying in the sun. His eyes drooping until it looked as if he simply had them closed. But even then, the boy kept riding his bike. Up, up, and even further up. Past the hills and past woods, the boy just kept pushing his feet.

Breaking out past the thick thickets of bushes and branches that seemed as if they wanted to embrace him, hold him forever. Jason LuMek, after seven days of non-stop riding, riding with no food or water and running solely on his willpower and determination, finally, he made it to a city. The first thing to greet him was a tall, concrete wall and from that wall walked out a most devilishly handsome boy around his age.