In a blink of an eye, Azar had already spent one month as a human child. Finally, he was starting to get the hang of his new body. Azar had learned his current state's limitations, what a human child like himself could and should eat. It was a very hard lesson to learn, which involved Azar digesting a squirrel that he caught, raw. Humans could not eat raw meat, unlike dragons. Another reason why Azar disliked the human race even more.
And in that one month, the season had also changed its temper. No longer the calm and cool wind of autumn, the harsh and unforgiving winter was taking over. Azar's raggy clothing did not provide him with much warmth, and his soft skin was too weak against the chilling winds. Though he was no longer a dragon, he could still tell by the wind and the sky,
“Snow will fall soon …” he talked out loud.
Knowing that this young human body of his would not likely survive out in the snow, not like this, Azar had to take a little detour. There was a small town not far from where he was. Though he understood that it was the right choice, Azar still felt uneasy walking among the humans. For most of his life, he had been fighting against them, and now he was one of them. Azar did not know if he could ever shake off the feeling of a burning fire within him whenever Azar came into contact with a human. Azar feared that he could never truly be what God asked of him, save this world by leading the humans, and end all conflict. How could he do so if he was still despite most of the humans he met? To Azar, humans were still the same. Nothing had changed. 50 years had passed since those humans killed him, and the war had not ended. They still believed that he was the sole reason for anything bad in this world.
“Welcome to Oaktown,” the sign on the town entrance said.
A small little town with no building that had more than three floors. The people in this place did not look like they had money to spare. Instead, they always looked as though they were in a hurry. And though much better than what Azar currently had, most of their clothing was still far from looking nice.
If there was one thing Azar desperately wanted to learn as a human, it would be how to earn some money. But, especially in this weak human body, Azar feared that there would not be much opportunity for him. Though God had promised him this Godlike luck, Azar found it hard to believe. He had been living in poverty ever since.
Azar made his way through the town marketplace. The alluring smell of food spun his head. Azar had a choice, though, if he could not find a way to earn some money and buy the food he needed. Of course, he could always just try and steal them. The only reason Azar had not tried was that he did not know if he could get away with it and what his punishment would be if he got caught. While his nose was entirely focused on the smell of delicious food, his eyes caught something very interesting.
“Are humans cannibal ?” Azar's eyes fixated upon seeing some humans being shackled together in the corner of the market. As far as Azar understood, a human marketplace was mostly a place for humans to sell and trade their goods and products, mostly food or material. So Azar's first instinct, while smelling the ever so delicious scent of food and saw three human males showcasing and selling off their fellow humans right in the middle of the market, was that these humans were being sold as a sort of food.
However, the truth was much worse. Azar understood the meaning of the word “slave.” But, in his old kingdom, they never had slaves that were their own kinds. Azar found himself in disbelief seeing humans selling and trading off their own kinds so openly like it was nothing special. And he thought that he could not view humans any lower than he already had. What made matters worse, among those on display, there were very young human children. Some, he expected, to be even younger than him (the human part of him). Azar felt disgusted at what he was witnessing.
“No please !!!” a young female human child had just been sold off to a much older human male. The little girl looked like she was just around how old Azar was supposed to be, while the man looked like he was around Bruce’s age. He yanked the chain on the little girl's neck forcefully, pulling her away from the stall. The little girl tried desperately to stop him. Finally, she turned to her fellow humans and pleaded for their help.
“PLEASE ANYONE ! I DON’T WANT TO GO !” But no one even batted an eye. All she managed to do was get the older human angry. He yanked on the leash even harder, to the point that the little girl was dragged toward him. Then the man unleashed his wrath on the little girl. First, he slapped the skinny and defenseless little girl without mercy then kicked her in the stomach.
“That's for making me waste my time !” the old man screamed at the little girl, who was crying her eyes out and holding her stomach on the ground.
“Get up and start moving !” He forcefully picked the little girl up by the neck and pushed her onward.
“Ohhh yes…” the man said in a very disturbing voice. And the way he was looking at the little girl's body made Azar feel very scared for her fate. “You will do very nicely …” the man gave the creepiest smile Azar had ever seen on a human face.
Not a single person stopped him. No one even cared, except for perhaps Azar, a dragon stuck in a human body, the one that once was the sworn enemy of humankind. But all Azar could do was to watch as the poor little human girl got physically dragged away from his eyesight. Shivers sent down Azar's spines. He had been through many battles, faced many enemies, but this was the first time he had witnessed something that was truly horrifyingly cold-blooded.
Curiosity took over him. Azar had completely forgotten about the alluring smell of food and his own raging hunger. Nevertheless, he continued to observe the market stall and even tailed off the humans after being sold to know what would happen to them. As he found out, some were taken into houses that were, by comparison, considered to be wealthier within the town. While others were taken away from the town.
Azar did not know where these humans came from and why they were being sold to other humans. Even the small children were a part of them. It was very hard for Azar to take it all in. He could not understand how humans could be so cruel to their own kind. And once again, Azar suddenly realized that he started to feel that he shouldn’t have.
“Why am I even surprised ! And why do I even care for these humans anyway !?”He shook his head.
Azar was not a human. He was a dragon. Humankind destroyed his kingdom, slaughtered his friends, and killed him. But there was no denying that he truly had felt sorry for those humans. Looking into those young human childs’ innocent eyes, Azar felt a pain in his heart each time one of them was sold away. And within two hours, every human had been sold. It was unbelievably quick how a few dozen humans were sold as if they were nothing.
Azar snapped back to reality when a frosty wind blew by his small body. The sheer cold of a winter wind made his body shiver. He had no time or energy to worry about those poor humans. He had to take care of himself first. But with no money in his pocket, that was very troublesome. He asked many people in the market if they had any job that a boy like him could do, but they all ignored him or shook their heads. When the sun had long set, and only the light of the lonesome moon remained. Azar once again found himself without shelter. And worse, what Azar feared finally came. Snow started to fall on the small town. Within an hour, all of the roads were covered with white snow. The forest surrounding the town wasn’t any better either. Azar felt cold, but more importantly, he felt a little bit of shame. The shame that no human would want to give him some work, the shame that a dragon king had to sleep starving tonight, the shame that he had to feel the frost of the snow on his bare skin tonight.
Azar went a full circle around town and found himself back in the marketplace. All he could do now was find a spot that could protect him from some of the wind and try to catch some sleep. Leaning with his back against one of the stalls, Azar tried to fight off the bitter cold.
“You should not sleep on the street alone like this, child. It can be very dangerous for someone like you.” Then, Azar heard a female voice call out to him.
Looking toward where the voice came from, Azar saw an old female human looking at him. Her hair had gone grey and thin, the wrinkles on her face were much clearer than Bruce’s, and her arm was much skinnier than his as well.
“Did you see the bunch that was sold off in the market today ? That’s happened to homeless kids sleeping alone on the street. They would swoop you up when you were asleep and mark you as a slave.” she told him.
“I’m not sleeping here by choice if you are wondering,” Azar answered her with a slight shiver in his tone. “And it sounds like you are way too familiar with their method ….”
“When you get to my age, you won't get much sleep. Trust me kid, I have seen many horrible things those people did at night ….”
“And you didn’t try to do anything !?”
“What can an old woman like me do to those men ? Slavery is legal after all, so the government would not lift a finger. Heck, I’m pretty sure the mayor of this town has two or three little child slaves working in his house….”
Humankind was more messed up than Azar imagined. Azar’s body shivered again. The phantom’s white snow was falling thicker than ever before. That little human child's body of his was shaking uncontrollably.
“You don’t even have a blanket ?” the old woman called out to him again.
“Again, I’m not doing this by choice ….”
She gave a pitiful look then sighed.
“What happened to you, child. Where are your parents ?”
“Dead, I think….”
“How old are you ?”
“How old do you think I am?” Azar actually did not know and was curious himself.
“8 ?”
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“Yeah, that seemed about right.” Azar was glad that he at least got a rough estimation. He could never guess a human age, especially after what God had shown to him.
“Alright… come over here, child. You’re going to freeze if you sleep there tonight.”
“You have another blanket ?”
“No, I will let you share mine.”
“Really !? Aren’t you cold ?”
“I’ll manage….”
Azar saw that the little old woman was also shivering in the cold herself. Obviously, sharing that small and messed-up blanket off her would make it worse for her.
“Why are you helping me ? I have nothing to offer you back ….”
“You don’t have to. Life is not about give and take, little child. It’s about giving without expecting to receive anything back.”
“Do you do this a lot ? Giving homeless kids some shelter ?”
“I wished I had,... if so, then maybe they would not have fallen into the hands of those men… I have seen a lot, little child. I have witnessed childrens your age get kidnapped many times, right in front of my eyes. And I did nothing…. I did nothing… those young and innocent faces still haunt my dreams whenever I close my eyes … This time, just this time, … maybe I could help you,... this time, maybe I don’t have to stay on the side, watching all those poor souls suffer a fate worse than death ....”
Azar looked into the eyes of the old human woman. The tiring blue eyes of someone filled with regret in their life. Azar could spot that anywhere. He had seen a lot of them in his past life.
“So kid, how about it ? Are you going to stay there and freeze ?”
Azar looked at his shivering body and the thick snow falling around him. There wasn't much of a choice. Azar walked through the snow and got next to the old woman.
“Here, you looked like a snowman over there.” the old woman gave him part of her blanket. And for the first time since he became a human.
“Thank you.” Though that blanket was very far from giving Azar the warmth he desired. It was small, smelly, torn, and itchy, but it was much better than nothing. And with that, Azar slept through his first cold, snowy night as a human.
The warm light of the morning sun finally touched the ground. Azar woke up the second the bird started to sing. The old human woman was still sleeping calmly next to him. Though he would like to wait until she woke up and said his goodbye, he could not waste the daylight. Their time and conversation with each other were brief. Still, Azar would never forget what she had given him. He tucked the blanket on her and let her continue her sleep.
This town was a loss for him. There was no chance for him to earn any money, no food, nothing. He had a better chance heading out and faced the wilderness on his own by that point. At least that way, he did not have to worry about having a random kidnapper take him and turn him into a slave while he slept. But, Azar did manage to know more about how humankind functioned. Once again, he got a bittersweet taste of the human world. Azar got to meet the warm and good side of humans. But, he also saw how harsh and cruel they could be with his own two eyes.
“No wonder. To grow up in such an environment would make anyone become cruel”. Violence would only lead to even more violence. It was a never-ending cycle. It was true for all creatures, “It’s hard for one to feel the pain of others, when he himself is in pain” That was the lesson Azar taught himself a long time ago. Azar headed back to the road with much thought on his mind. However, he would soon get snapped back to the present very quickly. No more than 30 minutes after he started, he found his road had been blocked off.
“And what do we have here ?” a low and ominous voice broke the silence of the early morning.
“Hey, I think I saw this kid before.”
“Oh yeah, those nice bright eyes of his. He was the one that was watching our auction yesterday.”
It was the three men Azar saw at the market yesterday, selling off all of their fellow humans.
“Are you lost, kid ?” the tall and skinny man with a face that closely resembled a rat spoke to him.
Azar instinctively felt that this was not going to end well. So he quickly turned back and tried to head the other way. But one of them quickly ran past him and blocked it too.
“Why does a little kid like you be in a place like this alone ? Where are your parents, little boy ?” a fat man with a pig-like face told him.
“Yeah, don’t you know that it’s dangerous around here ?”
“Yeah kid, you better come with us. We can protect you” The fat man tried to grab Azar. But Azar got the upper hand. He quickly ducked down, rolled over between the man's legs, and escaped. Azar scanned the ground for anything he could use to defend himself, but of course, there was only a semi-long tree branch. Azar held it with both hands, took a deep breath, exhaled, and faced the three slave traders. Azar locked eyes with all three of them and took a stance like a true swordsman would. However,
“HAHAHAH…” the hysterical laughter from all three of the men.
“Look, we got another fighter ! And this one thinks he is a big man !”
“Hahaha … Look at those skinny arms !!!”
“Try to not hurt him too much like the last one, boys !” the skinny man told the other “With eyes like those, he could get us some good silver !”
The two men infront pulled out their knives
“You see little boy, this is a weapon !”
“Now we can do it the easy way, or the hard way !”
With taunting eyes and a voice that was as bitter as the winter snow,
“I’ll be damn if I lose to such pathetic humans like you. So cowardly and weak that the only way you can feel powerful is when you kidnapped and torture those innicent little childrens. With souls that are so corrupted that you actually find joy and fortune by selling and sending your following humans to a fate worse than death. And you know that when you die today, by my hands, no one in this world will mourn your death, no one will even care, no one will even know that you have even existed !”
Azar would make all the men’s faces go red with anger. Their eyes were like those of wild beasts. If there was something cowardly men, like those three, hate to hear the most, it would be someone calling them out with the truth. With minds filled with anger and bloodlust,
“Get that little brat and teach him a lesson !” the skinny man shouted. The two men with knives charged toward Azar. He, on the other hand, remained calm. Though his current body did not have much strength and agility, Azar still got a lot of experience in fighting and swordsman skill, which he hoped would be enough to defeat his enemies.
His enemies were getting closer and closer. Azar quickly calculated his next move, how to dodge and parry both of them simultaneously. But then, something distracted him, a strange sound coming from somewhere above. At first, Azar blamed himself for his careless ignorance,
“Of course, they have people waiting to ambush me from above …”.
He feared that he had stepped into one of their traps. But suddenly, the noise became louder, and it was clearly not man-made. Then in Azar's absolute surprise and the two men's ultimate dismay, a tree that was a size of at least three adult human males and 50 feet long fell right on the two men. They were both squished under the giant tree and died instantly. Azar did not move an inch, it happened only 4 feet before him, but Azar was absolutely unharmed. First, he looked at the tree and then to where it came from. Looking at the rotten root and the wet and unstable ground from where it was standing, Azar concluded that the only explanation was: The thin white snow from last night was melted by the morning sun, which slowly made the ground softer and more unstable, the heavy tree on the side of the hill with it root already partly rotten could not hold on anymore, so it fell down right at the moment that two human trash came running at him.
Azar took a step forward and leaned in closer. Though the men were dead and smashed by the tree, somehow, the weapons they were carrying slipped and landed right near Azar. He picked the two knives up, looked toward the sky with a bright smile, and winked.
“I guess God isn’t on your side, ... human scum..” Azar told the skinny human who stayed behind. Unlike Azar, the man's whole body was shaking with fear. He was far from being a believer and even further from being a good man. But even he could not deny that what he had just witnessed was definitely a divine intervention.
While the skinny man was still in shock, a sharp pain rushed through his chest. The smell of blood thickened around the air he was standing in, his eyes started to blur, and he felt both hot and cold at the same time. A knife, and not just any knife, one of his dead friend’s throwing knife, was sinking into his chest. The skinny human was so frightened and shocked that he could barely make a sound. Then something else came at him, as quick as the wind. All he could tell was it had eyes that were as shiny as the sun above his head. He crumbled down to the ground even before he felt the pain from his hamstring being cut. And in the end, he found himself at the mercy of that little skinny boy he was trying to kidnap.
Azar took control of the situation. He put a dagger on the human neck with one hand, while the other held onto the knife sticking out of his chest. Azar’s eyes showed no mercy, to the point that all the man could see was his own reflection and his dire fate upon looking into them.
“Please ! Please ! I’m sorry ! Mercy ! Mercy !” the desperate human begged.
Azar, however, showed the human no emotion. Instead, he was as cold as the winter night before.
“Mercy ,..” Azar whispered that word.
“Yes ! Yes ! Mercy ! I have already lost ! Killing me will bring you nothing !”
Azar twisted the knife in the man’s chest a little. He screamed in pain, but Azar instantly pushed his other dagger forward, cutting the skin a little bit, just enough to send some warm drops of blood down on the scummy human’s chest.
“Shussssss ….” like a master, commanding his pet to stay silent. “I always hate noisy humans !”
“Please, spear me. I have done nothing wrong to you !”
“So did all those poor souls do something so horribly wrong to you before you sold them off as slaves ? Did all those innocent children do something so wrong that their whole lives were taken from them ? Did you show them any of this so called mercy !?” Azar told him in a razzie and ominous voice.
“Please ! I was wrong, I admit it ! But doing this wouldn’t change anything ! I only did it because I have no choice ! I have to live too !”
“You’re right. It wouldn’t change anything. But it would make me feel a lot better …” Azar smiled condescendingly.
“Please, think off what you’re doing. Taking a life is not as easy as you think. It will haunt you forever, my ghost will follow your every nightmare ! Each time you kill, part of your humanity will die along with your victim !” the skinny man tried to scare who he thought was an 8-year-old boy.
Azar twisted the knives again. He tried desperately not to scream as his throat might be sliced because of it. Azar chuckled a little, then told him.
“Take a human life ? Oh you poor insect,... I have taken thousands ….”
The skinny humans trembled even more wildly. That voice, those eyes, he understood that Azar was not lying, not one word.
“And for humanity, … Let me tell you a little secret, … , I have none,” Azar twisted the knife hard and stabbed the man in the throat at the same time. “AND SO DO YOU !”.
Then, as he was slowly bleeding out to death, Azar leaned closer to the dying human and whispered to his ear.
“But that’s because I’m not even a human …” And those were the last things the man heard.
Azar waited until he was certain that his enemy was dead, then examined their bodies.
“Lucky me !” he found a small but heavy bag of silver and some other handy supplies. Along with the two knives as weapons, Azar was satisfied with what he had gained. However, before he continued his journey, he suddenly remembered something.
***************
The old woman, who had just offered Azar to share her old blanket from last night, finally awakened from her sleep. It was still early morning, and hardly anyone had woken up. However, the cold from the winter wind had prevented her old body from sleeping any longer. When she woke up, she found that the little boy from last night was gone, and next to her, there was a new blanket, five silver coins, and a loaf of bread.