The scream sliced through the night like a sharpt blade drawn too fast.
Ren froze.
His breath stuck in his throat, his heart pounding fiercely against his chest, almost loud enough to drown the screams below. His eyes darted towards the direction of the scream....the village.
Another scream followed, then another.
Men, women, children. Cried out of confusion became cries out of terror. And then, flames.
A bright orange glow bloomed in the distance, like a second sun in the darkness of the night. It was followed by the sound of wood shattering and the unquestionable clang of metal. Not soft steel, nor practice weapons, but Real ones, real weapons.
The kind made to slice through flesh and kill.
Ren bolted up, his eyes wide open. The threads around him weren't dancing, they weren't in glee. They surged, violent, erratic, scared.
He never felt the threads like this before.
"Mei?" He called out almost instinctively, turning his head around frantically " Wu? Mom? Dad?"
No answer came.
His body moved before ye could think any longer, he ran down the slope, across the grass of the valley, and towards the second sun, towards the smoke.
Halfway down the hill, a terrible stench hit him. It was the scent of something buring, wood, straw, and even....flesh.
He stumbled.
His vision blurred, not from the smoke, not from the smell, but something closer in his chest, fear.
The cottages were aflame. The houses that were once filled with laughter were now filled with screams cracking in agony. The air was think with smoke and screams and something else.
Cloaked in dark robes, masked faces, blades dripping.
Figures, shadows, moving swiftly between the buildings.
One of them saw him.
They saw Ren.
Ren instinctively stepped back, his feet scraping the dirt.
The figure took a step closer, and another, before vanishing.
Ren blinked, then felt a sudden gust of wind behind him. He spun around, only to find nothing.
No, someone was there, he felt it. Watching, hiding within the thick forest threads.
He reached for the ring his father gave him, it was cold, far colder than the night.
More screams.
He turned again, moving through the thick smoke. A villager ran past him, full of blood, stumbling, eyes wild.
"RUN!" The man scream, not even looking at Ren "THEY'RE EVERYWHE--------!"
An arrow had struck the man mid sentence. His body jerked forward before collapsing. Ren stared, the threads, the threads surrounding the fallen man fadded, vanishing.
Dead.
His legs refused to move, his body trembled.
Something inside him rang in his brain in a voice not his own, Move before you die!
He ducked instinctively, nothing more.
A balde had cut the air where his neck had just been.
Ren stumbled onto the ground, rolled and bolted behind a wall. He didn't recognize what the building was anymore, half of it was gone and the other half was fiercely burning.
His back pressed against the charred wood, trying to catch his breath, trying to think.
The he hears a distant voice, Mei's voice, calling his name.
He didn't wait, he couldn't wait, any delay meant his life was gone.
He ran towards the sound.
But the flames didn't make way for him, the smoke didn't guide him. The threads were twisted like a storm, chaotic and deafening. For the first time, they didn't help him, they couldn't, they were panicking too.
He emerged from the smoke onto the street, and stopped cold.
Three masked figures stood over a grovelling woman, a child curled in her arms.
The woman was sobbing, holding the child protectively.
"Please.... she's.... she's only six."
One figure raised a blade.
Ren didn't think.
He screamed "STOP!"
The blade stopped.
All three figures turned to look at him.
One pointed.
And all the others moved.