2 - Living A Nightmare

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Running from an unknown danger,

Drowning in sweat, I toss and turn.

Only to find myself drenched in fear

As I wake up into a fresh nightmare.

-K.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

They peacefully returned to the village entrance with their haul on their back.

Passing through the open wooden fence gates, a strange feeling washed over them. Right around this time, there should be more people walking around doing things, they thought, but it felt as though there wasn't even a single soul left in the vicinity.

"Uhhhh-huh," Nayani uttered. A cold shudder infiltrated their circle. The wind howled through the open doors of the eerily empty houses.

"Maybe it's someone's birthday and... they're waiting inside to surprise us?" Kayal speculated, to which Kairo replied with a shrug.

"I'll check my house," Kairo said. The other two nodded as they also sought to check their own abode. The three of them put down their wood-filled containers and marched cautiously to their own houses.

"Io? Mother? Father?" Kairo called out quietly from the door.

It was dead silent in their home, almost ghastly. Kairo felt a faint sense of dread but shrugged it off as he continued to go farther in.

It was nearly winter and morning had just started, but this was slightly colder than it should be, he thought. The howling of the cold wind couldn't even reach inside, the stillness of the moment made his heartbeat fill his ears.

He heard some sort of dripping noise coming from his parents' room. He tried to slowly approach that room while looking out for any signs of movement.

It was unusually quiet. The only thing he could hear apart from the dripping noise was his heart thumping and the floor creaking in every step he made towards his parents' room. He didn't realize that their floor creaked this much until now.

It was too dark, the sun still wasn't completely up. He couldn't see where he was going, so he held onto the wall to make sure he didn't trip on something.

The only light source guiding him was the dim, scattered remnants of orange sunlight emanating from the windows and the opened door he came from. He made a swallowing motion to combat the cold dryness he felt in his lungs in his every breath.

"Where are they?" Kairo thought to himself. "One of them should be here. If not, then maybe they're waiting for that surprise in some other house? Whose birthday is it anyway? Not mine..." he pondered as he continued his slow advance.

The creaking and the dripping were still the only sounds audible in the area. "I should take a look at that dripping sound before meeting back with Kayal and Nayani. There might be a leak on our roof or something."

Finally, he reached his parents' room. The door was partially open. The hair on his arms had been standing up for quite some time now.

He tried to completely open the door, but there was something heavy yet tender preventing him from doing so from the other side. He pushed slightly harder and was able to budge it. He pushed even harder and was making progress until there was enough space for him to just walk in.

He took a gander at what was blocking the door and froze.

"...Huh?"

It was his father lying on the ground.

"Father?" he stepped closer and realized that he stepped on a puddle of some sort of thick, dark fluid expanding from his father. "What?" in the puddle, there was a reflection of the window that partially brought cold light into the room.

Kairo almost forgot about the dripping and only remembered it when he heard it again. That slow, constant dripping on the wooden floor turned into a sound akin to when the remaining raindrops were dripping on a small puddle after it had rained.

It was coming from behind him, so he turned around and saw his mother lying on the bed, unmoving and looking towards him, or rather, towards the door.

"Mother, if you were there, why didn't you open the door or say anything?" he asked, but no response came from his mother's mouth.

She never even blinked once.

As he stepped closer to investigate, he felt like he stepped on something wet again. He looked down and saw the same dark puddle.

Then, there was a drip.

This was where the dripping noise was coming from. The liquid was coming from his mother's outstretched arm.

As he looked closer, the sun had finally risen enough for him to see colors adequately.

He saw crimson, and it was then when his whole body woke up. A wave of shiver from within him came from his arms, down to his back, and up his neck.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Kairo bolted up from his slumber, panting and covered in sweat.

He reorganized his thoughts and tried to separate dream from reality. "A nightmare?"

The moonlight shone upon his extinguished campfire. A nocturnal chorus of insects responded to his wake. He looked around and there was no movement but the wind's.

"That's right," he thought to himself. "Everyone's gone."

He finally reoriented himself and realized that the scenario he saw was a nightmare that he had just woken up from. It was not what actually happened this morning. How it happened was far different, though the result was the same. He pondered on why it was so vivid, as if he lived through that scenario once already.

He tried to remember what actually happened when he witnessed the burning of his village earlier, to verify his memories.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

And so, backtrack to almost sixteen hours ago, right before dawn came...

Nayani and Kayal were beside Kairo.

Nayani was on his knees, sobbing quietly, while Kayal was standing with her hands on her mouth, resisting the urge to shed a tear and trying to make sense of the blaze the village was under.

"Wh... where... where are our parents? The people?!" Kairo tried to recover his composure, but adrenaline and anxiety were kicking in en masse in his body.

"I-I don't know! Should we go check?!" Kayal whimpered.

"I don't hear anyone, or... maybe all this fire is too loud! I think we should look for them!" Nayani suggested in a raised voice or else it would've been muffled along the inferno.

"You're right. Let's meet back up here in five minu—"

In a flash, before Kayal was able to finish her instruction, she was hit by something heavy and sharp right in the neck, penetrating and crushing her throat.

Kairo saw it all happen as if time passed by slowly.

Kayal's pupils didn't even had time to contract as the heavy object that struck her neck pushed her body to her side on impact. Afterwards, Nayani was hit square in the forehead by the same dark object as he was kneeling, pushing his petite body backwards from the force.

Within that time, right after he heard the sound of two metal projectiles piercing through the air and his precious friends, Kairo's own body proceeded to move faster than he could process anything about the situation, running away in the maddest dash he had ever made in his whole ten years of living.

When he did, he heard the same piercing sound pass by closely, ending with a thud as it stuck to a tree beside where he was running, missing him by his ear. 

Kairo didn't see anything else but some red-robed figures in the dark in his peripheral vision before he left. He was absent for the following exchange, and so he remained ignorant of their schemes and identity.

"Should we pursue the leftover?" a man in a red hooded robe with a white, simplistic drawing of an eye on his dark mask asked the similarly-outfitted superior.

"No need. A child's soul will not amount to much. These two weren't that important either, but we shall take what we can get."

"Are you sure?" hearing this, the superior turned to his subordinate who dared question his decision.

The subordinate stepped backwards with worry as the superior slowly approached him. As if examining the subordinate, the superior paused for a few moments before pointing towards his subordinate. The subordinate flinched from this gesture.

Before the subordinate could even try to escape, he was executed by two other robed figures of the same attire with thin, rectangular blades that penetrated through him like a cross mark. Clinging to dear life, but to no avail, his death was swift and certain.

In the darkness of the sunrise, beneath the superior's black mask was an uncaring stare. His menacing stature was illuminated by the flickering of the burning wood and debris.

Without turning, he told the remaining members that were with him and in the shadows, "Remember this well, rookies. Insubordination will result in instant execution. There is no room for queries. You're as good as dead once you question the chain of command. Swift, on point, and without hesitation. That is how we strike, that is how we live."

The two subordinates unsheathed their blades from their former companion and hid it amongst their robes as the body fell limp.

The superior gestured to the two subordinates by tugging on his own robe and they immediately started undressing the body to get rid of any evidence connecting this incident to their organization. They then proceeded to throw the body into the fire.

They must remain unknown, or the kingdoms might try to stop their plans.

"And, a word of advice," they all stopped and turned to their superior to hear his next words closely. "Don't be like this guy. He missed his target. I'll have to make sure to be stricter in training," he said in a casual, yet disappointed tone, bowing his head and shaking it.

None of them dared to groan their complaints after what just happened.

"Once we're done, let's hit up the next location."