The boy awoke as he did every morning, just before sunrise, in the spare room of the temple. He got dressed and proceeded with his daily chores. Wipe the floors, sweep the leaves, and collect the overnight donations to the shrine. All of the menial things that he’d been doing for the past seven years, ever since he was a baby, he’d gotten really good at it. He was able to complete his chores within an hour. After chores he had his strict regimen that he had to follow by. Run to the top of the mountain, alight the incense that they left there, and then meditate for the next three hours. He had to make his mind one with the wind spirits, then he would do the same at the waterfall for the water spirits, sunning rocks for the fire spirits, and the forest for the earth spirits. Only then, after he was in tune with the four major elements. Then he could return to the temple and he could eat. He set out for the mountain with haste, moving with the wind traveling up the mountain with him.
Finally he had reached the top of the mountain, he pulled out his crystal and proceeded to light the incense. He got into a meditation position, and inhaled deeply. In and out, in and out, just as he had been taught throughout all of his years of training. In and… it hit him and it hit him hard. A fowl putrid odor being carried on the wind, he knew the smell well, it was the smell of soot. Too strong to be just a simple camp fire, or a festival fire, no this was the smell of an entire colony that had been burnt to the ground. He look around and saw nothing. No smoke trail, no anything. He opened his ears to the sounds of the world… nothing, just the sounds of the animals that roamed these woods. The only other sound was that of the wind billowing at his robe… the wind! The wind was stronger than he had ever felt it up here, It was blowing to his right, as if urging him to go. Could this be the wind spirits trying to tell me something? He thought to himself. He turned and ran, he ran faster than he ever had, he had done it, he had finally connected with the spirits, and he would not mess it up.
As he ran the smell of soot grew stronger and stronger, so much that it soon became overwhelming. He ripped a sleeve off of his robe and tied it around his nose and mouth. Finally the boy came to a hill, and he saw it, an entire village in shambles. Almost everything was burnt to the ground. He ran till he got to the village entrance, or at least, what was left of it. He walked through the village hoping to find why the spirit had sent him to this horrible place, he could still see a little paint on some of the buildings. He could tell that it was once a beautiful place, but now it had been scarred black from a raging fire, he saw claw marks on some of the buildings, “A Grimm attack” he said aloud, then feeling immediately stupid, it was quite obvious there was no one around to hear his words, everyone had fled or… he refused to think of the only other alternative.
He found a building blown apart from the inside, the sign post outside was hard to read but he got the word dust out of it. Dust explosion would explain the fire he thought, untrained hands using unstable dust… well he knew those consequences all too well. A gust of wind came by he turned around just in time to see a charred door brake off of the last hinge that was holding it down. Another sign? He walked towards the building all too aware of the three Beowulf corpses that lied dead outside it. He walked through the door way and found that the building was, or at least used to be, a house. A fire place in the corner, what’s left of a semi modern looking kitchen, and the two chairs sitting in what was once a living room. He took note that the Grimm count grew as he went further in, it wasn’t just beowolfs anymore it was all kinds of Grimm. He saw the stairs and headed for them. At the top of the stairs he saw yet another Grimm whose face had been met with the business end of a Warhammer, which was still in its skull. He nudged the corpse aside and saw that he was now in a hallway with four doors, all of them seemed to be intact except for the last door, that one had been smashed open. He headed for it knowing he wouldn’t like what he saw, but the spirits had brought him here so there had to be a reason. He entered the room to see two corpses a man and a woman, huddled in a corner the state of their bodies was nauseating the man’s shield had been torn away from him he could tell it was the man’s shield because his arm was gone, still attached to the shield he had clung so desperately too. It looked like the man had taken the brunt of the damage, trying in vain hope to save the love of his life. She unfortunately did not make it, and neither did her head. The boy turned away from the scene to keep himself from vomiting he started to leave then he saw it, the bed in the corner of the room was too small for a married couple to sleep on, it was a child’s. The boy turned and walked towards the corpses again the odor seeping its way through his makeshift mask. He moved the man first, then the woman.
