Collapsing to the bare earth of the well trod path Bai collected his thoughts and forced himself into a calm state of mind which helped him to bring his spirit into a similar state. He needed to attend to the jagged wound the demon had inflicted on his upper leg. The pain he had ignored as he searched for the hunting parties was now a steady burn he could no longer put off. Worse, he worried about possible infection.

Pushing his awareness deep into his torn flesh Bai detected the incipient rot and foulness of a demon-inflicted wound. Healing such wounds was not unfamiliar to him and he rooted out the foulness inflicted by the demon from both his flesh and blood before knitting the flesh together, restoring his leg in only a bit more time than it had taken the demon to rip through it.

Despite having repaired his flesh Bai nearly gave into despair, the sheer weight of having lost everything threatening to overwhelm him. He didn't know what he should do next. The village was almost certainly lost, their warriors dead, and everyone save himself a victim of the demon's savage assault.

Returning to the village would be foolhardy. Who could know what demons would be up to after a successful raid? He only knew he didn't want to know. If they simply left the dead to rot in relative peace that would be enough of a nightmare. But the stories villagers told around communal fires suggested far worse things. Bai was of a mind to put as much distance between himself and the depravities his imagination invoked as was possible in the remaining hours before night fall.

Pulling himself to his feet he steadied himself before taking a step forward and then another as he firmed his resolve to continue putting one foot after another on the path even as he pushed thoughts of the likely fates of the other villagers from his mind.

It was then he realized he was traveling farther from the city near his village and putting himself farther from safety, not nearer. While his feet continued their determined shuffle along the path his mind was paralyzed with indecision. The way to the city lay through the demon-infested village - unless they had continued on to assault the city, but that was insanity. No, Bai knew they would still be haunting the dead. Which left continuing as he was the only real choice, though the uncertainty of how he would survive alone outside of the only home he had ever known left him chilled.

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True night neared as Bai stumbled to an abrupt halt. As had happened earlier, silence as total as the dark on a moonless night blanketed the woods and a distinct unease caused his shoulders and back to tighten. Somehow the demons were near though not so near that he could sense them. Cursing into the dead air Bai did the only thing he could; he left the path and fled, forcing himself through dense foliage and past low-hanging branches with prickly needles.

The needles stung and scratched, tiny cuts were opened by brambles, and his knees and elbows were bruised, abraded and cut in his frequent tumbles. Panic guided him in much the manner of a drunk horseman, leaving him reeling where he needed to be striding ahead with purpose. The demons surrounded him though he had yet to see one with his own eyes. He could sense no fewer than five of the murderous creatures and as many as seven at any one moment; there could be more. He didn't know, and pushing himself to ignore the growing list of painful injuries and continue his flight was the only path to continued breathing. Even faltering for mere seconds as he recovered from another stumble allowed his pursuers to pull nearer.

As he broke into a clearing, falling to his abused knees, Bai could sense not five, not seven, but nine demons pressing closer to where he knelt. Yet he was unable to move as he fixed his eyes on a what could only be described as a open doorway set in the air in the center of the clearing, a faint glow emanating from the outer edge of the door.

A tenth and eleventh demon joined the demonic pack and he could hear they had drawn close. He lurched to his feet and ran for the portal - something he was familiar with in the sense that he had read numerous stories of portals appearing before am intrepid adventurer and setting them on a grand adventure. And apart from adventure Bai hoped fervently in those spare moments before a ravening horde of demons would fall upon him that this portal would lead to safety.

The first demon broke into the clearing as Bai sprinted toward the beckoning emptiness of the portal, snarling and hissing in impotent rage as Bai breached the threshold and dashed through the doorway. Silence hit first, followed by an absolute darkness and finally by unconsciousness as the portal stole his life.