I awoke in the middle of the night to a loud yell coming from outside the door to my room.

As I walked towards the door, I noticed a strange crimson fluid seeping through the crack underneath the door.

“Is that… blood?” I wondered.

I then opened the door to find a pair of bodies outside. One was a large, burly man and the other one belonged to a man with a rather lean build.

My hands began to shake and my heart raced as I made a startling realization.

The dead men were my employers, Darat and Qaton.

The people who had kept me alive all this time and gave me a job had been murdered.

I tried to think of a way to help them, but I was interrupted by a high-pitched scream coming from somewhere else in the building.

Against my better judgment, I decided to investigate the origin of the sound.

I scoured every room, and all of them were filled with the corpses of people that I had recently seen alive.

A literal massacre had occurred.

Their cold, unmoving eyes made me feel a deep sense of uneasiness. I tried to pretend that they were just asleep, to calm myself down, but it did not help in the slightest. Still I persevered, carefully investigating every nook and cranny until I finally had found the culprits of this tragedy.

The Zi.

They were a group of six well-built men, all clad in sets of nigh impenetrable armor. They had come to this town to take out the people I was residing with, and they seemed to have accomplished that mission.

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They must have heard my footsteps, for their gaze turned in my direction. And being the person that I was,

I booked it.

I ran and ran until I had reached my room once again, all the while fearing for my life. I had encountered them before, and we hadn’t had the most friendly of interactions. But now that they knew that I was associated with the people that they were hunting for, they were sure to want me dead.

I barricaded the door behind me to make sure they couldn’t get in the room, but the loud knocking noises I heard showed their intent. I rifled through my trunk, looking for anything that I could use to fend them off. I looked and looked and was beginning to give up hope until I found something that was finally useful. I laid my eyes on a small dagger, no larger than my palm, lying at the bottom of the chest.

This would have to do.

I grabbed the blade and removed the obstructions on the door, getting ready to place my knife in between one of the eye slits of the nearest man’s armor and make a run for it. The door creaked open and I lunged with my blade not before stopping myself because of sheer confusion.

The man who had opened the door wasn’t one of the Zi, but in fact Qaton, the man who I was currently working for. He asked me what I was doing, and in return I asked him where the Zi were. He had a look of confusion, as he told me that he didn’t know.

After he warned me against doing such dangerous things with a knife and leaving, I was left to wonder “What the hell is going on?”

Was I in a dream?

I was sure that I saw him dead alongside the rest of the group. But when I opened the door to see where their bodies were, I saw nothing. To test whether I was in a dream, I looked at my hands. If they were blurry or strangely shaped then I would know I was dreaming, and sure enough they had a hazy effect on them.

So, this is a dream.

I tried to snap myself out of it, but it was to no avail. I knew that I needed to find some end to this dream, so I devised a plan.

I got a few matches, a jar of oil and the stone I needed to light them and wandered around town until I found an abandoned, wooden house which was far away from any other house. I poured the oil around the inside of the floor in order to prepare for the next moments.

I had a feeling the Zi would find me here, and sure enough, I heard their footsteps outside.

I lit a match hidden beside the door in anticipation of their entrance. And when they went in to investigate I ran outside, not before throwing a lit match inside the house and blocking the door with all my might. It was difficult to make sure that the six bulky men didn’t escape, but their strength was being sapped by the flames that were engulfing them.

While waiting for the fire to affect them, I could hear their blood-curdling screams as they were being cooked alive.

I had to remember that this was a dream and wasn’t real, but I was still affected by their deaths. After waiting for the noises to stop, I went inside to investigate the aftermath of what I had done. I tried to avoid the small residual fires which were scattered on the floor.

I then saw two bodies which confused me, since the Zi were supposed to be six. I looked at their faces and I realized that they weren’t the Zi at all, but the corpses of Darat and Qaton. In the midst of my confusion, their remains began to twist and turn as they began grabbing my arms.

I tried to resist but I was overpowered, and they held me on one of the flames that still remained.

I felt like I was about to die.

Then finally, I woke up.

I remembered nothing from the nightmare, but a single idea echoed in my mind.

I need to do something about the Zi.