Vin slowly became aware of the world. This was new. Before he was floating around in a sea of nothingness, where even the thought of having a thought was far from his mind. Where there was no where or when or how. It just...was.

After all that, when he finally came around to feeling the light rain that fell on his body, making the scratchy clothes cling to his skin, he didn't think to complain. When he felt someone remove something from around his neck, haul him up and bodily throw him down on a pile, he didn't shout or berate or pick a fight.

He simply let it happen, content to finally feel, to finally think, to finally be...

...And also because he could tell...opening his eyes right now would not be smart.

Maybe it was the atmosphere, the putrid smell that clung to his senses, the deadly silence of the people around him. (And there were people around him, he could tell by the shuffling feet and the clang of machinery)

So Vin listened to the instinct. Letting a minute, then two pass, before he slightly peeked from beneath his eyelids.

He was met by a pair of grey eyes, unmoving, unseeing. Dead.

Eek! 

He sealed his lips shut and hoped nobody had heard that embarrassing sound. It would be awful if he was to die again after just waking up. Because that is what he could tell had happened. 

And it was also what had happened to the guy the giant of a man was pulling loose from the noose hung around his neck, hauling him up and throwing him next to Vin.

On the other corpses.

What in the flying fuck?!

Pretending to be dead again, sweating profusely in the cold weather, he waited for the giant of a man to go away before he risked another look around at his surroundings.

There was the noose, where the next man had just been killed by the executioner and was taken by the giant off it, the line of the doomed waiting for their turn and the guards.

Oh, man! 

He had just come into this body (he could tell it was not his body, don't ask how) just after its death. So, no more dying then.

That was good. He tried clinging to this small flicker of hope. Only for it to be blown away in the next minute when he turned his head towards the bright light he could see in his peripheral.

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Okay, this was just great!

He saw a fire. A large one, a torch maybe? No, a forge. And some people were attending to it. Blowing air using a lage accordian like thing, and throwing in fuel. All was okay until this point. Yeah, no this was no big deal.

Until he saw the fuel.

A man, standing near a large slab of rock with an axe was chopping up pieces for fueling the fire. After he was done, he would pick up the next source of fuel, remove the hats and shoes and throw them in a different pile, chop up the arms and legs, separate the head and torso and add to a large mound on top of the already high one on his side.

The bodies, the dead bodies that he was a part of(!!) was fucking fuel.

Oh my fucking Ch--!

This was macabre at its best. Executing and cutting people up, in front of the people next in line. Talk about knowing your fate.

Grrhh

'Pretend to be dead, pretend to be DEADDD!'  

But Vin did not need to be told twice when he heard the giant groan from carrying the weight of the very fat dead body. 

Yeah, what tough luck you have dude!

His next thought was, 'That would make a lot of fuel.'

Shaking his head to clear off the nonsense 'Okay, okay. This is just a dream. A weird ass dream. Who in the hell dreams this stuff up?! No, no, it's okay! It's ok!' He frantically explained to himself.

Only one way to find out. 

Avoiding looking at the dead-DEAD- man next to him, he stretched his hand to his thigh, and pinched. Hard.

"A---!"

He bit back the shriek before it escaped him fully. Damnit, it hurt!

Peeking through one of his eyes, he confirmed that no one had heard him, what with the light rain, and the roaring people eating fire and the dying people.

Small mercies.

'Okay. Time to focus more on a strategy.' He revved himself up. 'Think.'

He controlled his hyperventilation lest somebody see. He had to, if he didn't want to end up being butchered.

Rttt!

The ground beneath him started shaking. What now?1

An earthquake?!

No. The people around him looked too nonchalant for that.

Then he realised. Only he was moving. Only he and the corpses beneath him. 

And he was moving towards the fire. When he chanced a look, someone was pulling a rope that moved the rattling wheels beneath the platform they were on. Towards the fire.

'Okay. You can panic now.'

And he proceeded to do so. He had no idea how no one noticed the moving corpse.

His head was swinging around to find something, anything! The man pulling the platfform over the rails was looming closer and closer.

There!

He closed his eyes again as he reached the man. The hauling began again, this time to get the corpses off the patform.

When he was put down and the man was busy with pulling another body, he started inching towards the slope he had spotted.

His only way to escape from this shitty nightmare!

The dirt slope was off to the side. Far enough away that he could reach it in the split seconds he was not noticed. The dark and stormy sky helped. The ashes flew from the forge and spread through the air, providing just enough coverage to aid his escape.

He tried not to think of what the ashes were from as they got in his nose, and settled on his body. 

'Ugh'

Settled in the small patch just below the stone cliff (thank heavens!), he spit out the ashes he could taste in disgust.

His hands just on the rocky edge, Vin watched in horror the continued hanging and chopping of bodies.

'WHAT THE FUCK.'