9 Tails, 2 Hands, 1 Smile

"Run Taka! Save your self!"

"Live! You need to live!!"

"Remember that we love you very much."

Taka vowed to never forget their voices. It was the last memory he ever had of his family. He did as he was told. He ran and never looked back.

Just keep running!

He ran for hours across the barren countryside. The scenery around him changed from devastated ruins, to scorched farmlands, and to deserted houses reeking with the smell of death. He was lost, broken, and devastated.

He ran until he reached a dark forest with trees taller than windmills and the air as fresh as a new morning. The young man collapsed face down on a muggy pile of earth, soaking it with his own tears.

Where am I? How did I get here?

Papa

Mama

Kumi

Why?

Taka pounded the ground with his fist until blood trickled between the ridges of his bony fingers. He needed to replace the despair with anything. The anger, the sadness, the hopelessness, replace them with anything. Replace them with pain!

I'll kill all of you for taking my family!!!

But the pain didn't replace anything. It nudged deep into his broken heart instead, claiming a place of its own.

Taka propped himself against a tree and surveyed his surroundings. He could tell that it was day but the dense foliage on the trees allowed miniscule sunlight to enter. His vision began to dim and his strength started to fade. He was ready to give in to sleep when the sound of rustling leaves startled him.

A pair of red eyes appeared from within the trees. They emerged from the foliage and revealed a beautiful yet feral face, framed within full locks of silver hair. The face had dainty ears jutting out on the top of its head, flicking like butterfly wings. A lithe female body slinked down a tall cedar tree and dropped on all fours before himwith the uncanny agility of a fox. She wore a white gossamer dress which hugged her frame upon her every movement. Behind her were nine tails that spread majestically like a fan. They had the same shine and fullness as her silver hair and they moved as if submerged underwater.

A Gumiho! What terrible luck!

Taka trembled as the Gumiho approached him with hungry eyes and snarled with ivory-white fangs. He had heard the stories about the Gumiho, on how they killed men who wandered into the forests and ate their hearts and livers. His family died by the hands of the Horde. And soon, he would die by a Gumiho's fangs.

I...I don't care anymore. Just let me die.