Uh(WARNING!! Mentions of violence, war, rape, gore, and murder. Read with caution!)
~ Decades ago...
"Run!"
People cried out, as they shoved one another, heads turning to find a safe place as their pursuers grew closer to them, their bloodthirsty eyes glowing as they blended with the darkness the night gave.
"Hurry up Miriam!"
A man dragged his wife, with their child safely clasped in her arms.
The man pushed a scrawny kid out of his way, stepping on him without a bat of his eyelids.
The child screamed, his small voice swallowed by a sea of howls, fire blazing through houses with residents still trapped in, and sounds of gunshots flying in the air.
He dragged his wife to a sparsely dense area, shoving her in, as he hid along.
"Why did you push that kid?" His wife, Miriam cried with a red puffed face soaked with tears. "You could have helped him! He looked like he was four and you pushed him."
The man pulled a face. "We haven't protected ourselves and our child and you want to protect other kids?" The man asked, looking at his wife like she was stupid.
She argued, "He is not older than our child! What if he was also in a similar situation as him, Ford?"
"Goddesses forbid it!" Ford rebuked, "Don't speak evil. Nothing would happen to us or our child."
He stroked his son's hair. The young lad passed out. He stunned him.
Fortunately, Ford worked as a patrol guard and came across the enemy camp before they set off but he didn't expect the enemy to be so quick and determined!
"What are we going to do?" Miriam asked, clutching her three and half-year-old old son tightly.
"Wait here!" Ford said, running off.
"Ford—" Miriam whispered, her eyes filled with panic but he didn't listen.
He had rushed off the end of the alley, with half his head stuck out.
He peeped, and before his eyes, bodies of neighbors, companions, friends, and even rivals piled along the road like discarded rubbish.
Limbs, intestines, blood, and shredded clothes stained the grounds, leaving nothing spared.
Fire continued to raze, as houses burned along with trapped individuals who screamed and were tortured to their deaths.
Although some appeared dead, with faint breathing signs, they weren't left either.
He watched as groups of tall men swaggered as they inspected bodies with sharp swords dancing with a glint.
Some blades were coated in blood, dripping like water, flickering or swatting the thick liquid off their blades like it was nothing.
Stab!
"Argh!"
A man who showed signs of life was stabbed by a blade through the heart.
"P—please!"
A woman begged, coughing weakly, horror in her eyes trying to get away.
"Get back here you bitch!" One of the men scolded and laughed, tearing the woman's clothes to shreds.
She tried struggling and amidst this were the endless cries of agony being inflicted on the injured and dying individual who laid on the floor, too weak to run.
Wails of the woman brought Ford thinking of his wife.
He watched with tears streaming silently as the woman was raped, stabbed, and cut to pieces.
He closed his eyes, punching the wall as quietly as he could. It wasn't fair!
Those men laughed as they left her dismembered body, stabbing their swords into lifeless bodies, old and young, finishing them off completely with no chance of survival.
He feared they would come near.
He feared for his life, his wife's and his child's life. He was a desperate man.
He ran back before they could notice, but a certain person among the men looked suspiciously at the place he had just been.
"What's wrong Nolan?" A man beside him asked, not that he cared but Nolan had been starting at that place for a second too long.
"I think I felt something. I'll go check it out and see what it is. Tell the captain I will be back." Nolan explained, striding over to the alley.
"Okay, have fun!" The man nonchalantly replied, stabbing a crawling man in the back of his head with a blank face.
"Quick Miriam we need to leave!"
Ford rushed into the alley picking up his wife and child. "Let's exit to the forest, I know a secret passageway only used by the palace."
He dragged his stumbling wife, protecting them both with his huge figure, his head turning frantically. "Miriam please hurry up." He urged.
It wouldn't be long till those people get hold of their scent and if they did, then it's game over.
"Hide!"
He pushed her body to the wall, holding his breath as a group of men dragged along with them, people in chains.
Drenched in sweat, he observed as they marched past them. He dragged, pushed and scuffed his wife.,
"Sorry Miriam please bear with me." Tears rushed down his cheeks, occasionally turning to apologize to his wife as they hid and ran in a specific direction, stumbling on bodies as they lurched forward.
He eyed another batch of men walking past, but when he pulled his wife, he found out she had frozen, staring at a body two feet away.
"Oh, dear goddess!" Ford whispered heartbreakingly, his almost tear empty eyes, a broken dam seeing this particular person on the floor.
Two feet away, was the body of his mother-in-law, Miriam's mother.
To say, they had seen her alive and kicking a few hours ago but now, she lay dead in a sea of bodies.
An immense cut was on her stomach, her intestines purposefully dug out, her left shoulder twisted in a weird angle, and the right one, amputated. Her face was charred and she was–headed.
"Avert your gaze, Miriam, mother wouldn't want you to see her like this." Ford cried, his big palm blocking his wife's sight.
Even so, his palm couldn't contain the water in her eyes from spilling.
He continued dragging her forward. "We are almost there, Miriam. A little more and I promise you this will be over. I will keep you and our son safe and you will never experience anything like this again."
He was encouraging, but it sounded more of a motivation to himself.
"Almost there." He sang to himself, seeing the small door covered in moss, at the corner of the palace walls. "Come on."
He cooed, pushing the rusty door open, avoiding a pointed edge at the door. With a croak, the door gave way, only big enough to fit one person at a time.
He pushed hard but it couldn't go any further than this. A tree had taken root at the side of the wall covering half of the gate.
The tree branches slapped his head, thorns, hooking his hair and pulling his scalp till it drew blood.
It was an orange tree still in its early years. He wished he could chop the damn tree but now he didn't have the leisure.
He turned to his wife, trying to keep the door from slamming."Come on Miriam you go in first."
She feared, clutching the child tighter in her arms. "What about you?"
"Don't worry." He assured me, "I am right behind you. Now hurry up, we don't have much time."
Her eyes flickered, but she obeyed, choosing to believe him.
She slipped through the tiny space due to her small body, the dark passage almost swallowing her entirely. What told of her presence were her gray eyes synonymous with vampires as they adjusted to the dark.
"Your turn, get in." She said with a shake in her voice. She was uneasy about something.
"Okay but move back a little."
For a vampire, he was unusually large. She moved deeper, creating room for him to squeeze in.
He pushed the door a little bit, his body getting stuck halfway. The door almost recoiled, hitting him in the chest.
"Mn!" He groaned, trying to squeeze in when suddenly from nowhere, a sword appeared.
"Ah!"
The sword slashed him in the shoulder, making him lose his grip on the door.
Wham!
The door recoiled, hitting him in the chest. The sharp part pierced his chest and broke bones. The sounds of bone breaking were particularly loud in this quiet part of the palace.
"Cough!" He spat out blood.
"Trying to escape?" A man said with a sneer, gripping his sword in his hand. "Don't even think about it!"
He raised his sword, slashing at him and because he couldn't move, he could only watch himself get slashed.
"Miriam ran." He took a look at his wife hiding in the dark. "I love you and tell Joshua daddy loves him."
"No!" Miriam screamed but it was too late. She watched her husband die, using his body to block the entrance.
With the last magic in his grasp, he turned into a tree.
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