The sky was a light, mouldy green as always, with a stale whiff trailing the still, dusty air. The ground was bone dry, with the dirt barely holding onto any residing moisture left within its grasp. Any trace of mud could only be found in forms of solid, crumbling cakes. The landscape was a sterile, empty wasteland. The only semblance of life within the scenery was the earth beneath, butting violently against one another, lifting mountains and sinking valleys in scales so incomprehensible that the only form of understanding it was to simply believe the sight before.

Among the many gorges in the land was a road, opening wide and reaching far between a valley as it wedged between rising cliffs. The ground was covered in a sun-bleached black, with cracks seeping around it from every angle, raising ridges across the stretch. Peculiarly shaped bodies of scrap metal piled on the sides like hills, forming a wall of rust along the road. Some bigger ones, too big to move, were simply strewn across the road, left to rot on their own as it decayed away into a formless, lingering stench of metal to corrupt the air.

Riding along the desolate road was a carriage; a rickety wooden dome rattling across the rugged ground. A man in a straw hat rode on the front, towed by a hairless, wrinkled, horned creature whose baked reddish skin had seen better days. The straw hat man himself was just as wrinkled as the creature before him, with a back so hunched that the notches of his spine raised like ridges from his skin. He wore nothing but a pair of overalls that hung from the straps over his shoulder, letting his skin soak in the blasting rays of the sun.

The straw hat man looked behind and stuck his head into the carriage.

"So what are you all heading to Sampah for?"

Within the carriage were seven occupants, seated around the sides of the cramped storage as they uncomfortably shifted around bulging sacks and metal boxes.

A man sitting on the far side of the carriage voiced out first. He was dressed in a plaid shirt that had met more sweat than actual water. He had a sack wrapped around his fat belly and held a flask in one hand with a blunt knife on the other. His skin was spotted, with a big birthmark spreading across his cheek.

He blurted out, "What's it to you?"

"Just an old man's curiosity," the straw hat man answered.

"I paid you to drive, not to talk."

"My apologies," the straw hat man turned back.

"And what are you looking at," the man with the flask and the blunt knife called out.

Seated directly across was another man that seemed timider and significantly less crass. He was dressed in a tight, light green shirt with a collar that rode up beneath his chin. His outfit too had seen more bodily fluids than cleaning agents but there was an obvious attempt to keep it neat and clean. He had a green, thick checkered cloth wrapped around his waist that covered his torn jeans.

Seated beside him was a little girl, covered in a tattered rag neck to toe. She was almost half bald, with eye bags so heavy that it dropped to her cheeks and aged her a dozen years older. The man held onto the girl and pulled her close to his side, keeping a squinted eye at the fat man whilst holding onto the girl.

The girl, terrified to her absolute wits, her tanned feet shaking in her wooden sandals. Her mouth was ajar, letting out a steady stream of drool dripping from her cracked lips.

A dark-skinned woman sat beside the girl, dressed in a long, one-piece garment that wrapped around her body that accentuated her slim figure. Unlike the others, she had her appearance kept to a great degree. She seemed relatively sanitary compared to the others. Her clothes were obviously much cleaner and spotless than the other occupants. She drew her sight towards the girl whose drool is starting to stain the corners of her robe. The timid man glanced to his side and caught sight of the act. In a panic, he frantically flung his hand into the cloth tied by his waist and pulled out a small, tattered handkerchief.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"It's alright," the robed woman said, pulling her robes to her side as she adjusted her clothes, “I’m not so barbaric as the others.”

The man with the knife boomed out, “What you say?”

The robed woman didn’t answer. She merely glanced towards the man and sighed as she looked away.

“I’ll make you squeal,” the man said, drawing up his blunt knife towards the woman.

“You wouldn’t be able to afford me,” the robed woman responded with a smirk.

“What you say?!”

The man lashed out, his voice teeming with frothy rage as his bloodshot eyes popped out from its socket. He swung the butt of his knife to the side, hitting the arm of the occupant beside him.

The sound was akin to softwood clashing against thick, heavy metal.

The occupant sitting next to the man with a knife was another man, draped in a trench coat with its sleeves torn, revealing his chiselled arms; or rather, arm. His left arm was a metal prosthetic, shiny and gleaming from the rays drawing from the holes poking through the tarp covering the carriage. He drew his scarred face to the side, his jet black hair blocking the dark gaze of his eyes as he glared towards the man with the knife. His appearance gave off the looks of youth as his tanned, smooth skin insinuated a great degree of exposure under the sun.

"Watch it," he growled.

"Or what," the man with the flask retorted, switching the blade to face the man's metal arm.

As a response, the man with the metal arm drew his prosthetic up towards the man with the flask, facing a backhanded fist towards him.

The tension between them bubbled to a near-fatal boiling point. The timid man held the girl tightly in his arms as the woman watched the two with cautious glee. The two glared each other down, burning one another with looks that would kill if it could.

"My, what a commotion," a feeble, brittle voice called out.

In an instant, the boiling tension phased away as a new subject presented itself. Everyone's gazes shifted towards the new target, sitting on the opposite end of the carriage.

An old lady, dressed in a tattered hood and loose, heavy thickset clothes, slowly drew her wrinkled gaze towards the crowd. She had a small, knitted satchel draped across her wrist, covered by her other hand.

“You all act like a Bantam with its tail blown,” she said, “Why can’t you be quiet like him?”

The old lady drew a weak finger towards her opposite seat. On it sat a body in an overcoat, its face shrouded by a hooded jacket underneath the coat. Its head leaned against the side of the carriage, limp and motionless.

The man with the flask peeped his head out from his seat, poking his knife out towards her, “You want to be quiet like him, old hag?”

The robed woman looked away, whispering under her breath, "Barbarians."

The man with the knife exploded.

"What you say?!"

At that exact point, as the man’s voice boomed, the carriage came to an abrupt stop. The occupants lurched to the side as they grabbed on for balance.

The man with the metal arm called out, “What in the-”

“I-I apologize,” the straw hat man said as he dismounted the carriage, “My Kertau undid the saddle and I don’t know how…”

The straw hat man left the seven occupants alone in the carriage as he chased the horned creature that had somehow escaped and made its leisurely way to the side of the road.

As the heat boiled over, so did the animosity and hostility. The man with the flask was on everyone’s throat, giving dirty looks as he fiddled with his blunt blade; save for the hooded figure, who was now slumped over its legs after the stop, still oblivious to everything that had happened. The man with the metal arm was keeping a keen eye to his side, occasionally glancing towards the robed woman whose expression seemed irritated by each passing minute. The timid man held onto the little girl still, pulling her close, soothing her balding head as he nervously darted his sight across the carriage.

The old lady was the only one that seemed relatively calm and indifferent to the situation; discounting the hooded figure, who might really be dead for as far as everybody is concerned.

Barely half a minute had passed before the man with the flask lost his patience and called out, “What’s taking so long?!”

He screamed towards the outside of the carriage, getting no response, fueling his already flushed face a deeper red. He pushed his way through the carriage, stepping on someone’s foot as he did. He stuck his head outside the carriage and tossed out an even louder voice.

“Oi, what’s the big deal-”

Then he paused.

“Who the hell are-”

The man with the flask never finished the sentence. Even if he did, no one would’ve heard it from the shattering bang that splattered his head into chunks of grey and red. And even if the man with the flask was indeed loud enough to be heard over the bang, the others wouldn’t have reacted either. A mere split second after the first bang more came tearing through the carriage, breaking through both sides of the wall, flushing everything in a fine, red mist.