Blood flowed throughout the streets, staining them crimson. The metallic scent wafted through the small village, but no one remained to smell it.

Every path and street was riddled with cracks, making them look incomplete. Fire roamed through the foliage, burning all of the trees to the ground.

Buildings lay collapsed, none were left standing. Even deep foundations were destroyed.

Anyone who came across this scene would feel their heart palpitate. The pure destruction that lay around, the corpses that were brutalized, bodies of both young children and elders. All were dead.

Where the market used to stand, a shop lay in pieces, and beneath the rubble lay a young man whose chest was rising and falling.

His body was in tatters, with his left leg completely gone, and his right arm bending a way it shouldn’t.

Blood leaked from visible scratches, with some bone showing through gashes on his chest.

His eyes opened, showing a dull grey. He felt the stinging of blood in his eyes but was able to pry them open.

Pain, all he felt was pain. The type of pain felt alive like it was beating in rhythm with his heart, uncaring to the world.

His tears fell past his cheeks, onto the dirt. No blood left, as proof of its not-so-freshness. It was dried and rough.

*Aaauuggghhh*

A miserable groan came out of his mouth when he tried to push himself off the ground.

He placed his good arm on the ground, and shifted his body, only to realize his leg situation, but his mind was too out of it to care.

Shifting some more, he pushed himself, with slow and excruciating difficulty. He finally pushed himself up to one knee and pushed up to his foot.

Leaning against a wall, tears streaming down his face, he looked out of the shop. He saw the destruction, the buildings, the ground, and the people.

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Blood rushed from his face and he fell to his knee again, scrunching over in terror, and pain.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH”

He cried, tears streaming down his face. He pushed his face so far down that dirt crudded into his eyes, and scenes of what happened flashed through his mind.

A perfectly normal day, where people did their normal duties. Ren woke up to his mother screaming at him from the first floor.

He pushed himself away from the warm embrace of his bed and started throwing on his clothing.

He rushed downstairs and saw both of his parents and his siblings.

His father turned to him and said “I know it's your day off, so are you sure you want to help Mr. Lawenski with his bakery, Ren?”

Mr. Lawenski was a small-town baker who made the most plump loaves, and often offered Ren some extra coins to help his shop when he went away.

“Yes father, I’m sure. He said he would pay me eight bronze coins in return for helping out today” Ren said with a strained smile.

If he was being completely honest with himself, the bakery kind of sucked to work in. The hot temperatures from the ovens left you sweating even if you did nothing. The ever-tempting smell of freshly baked bread and the distance from home made it a difficult job to have.

His mother set down his plate and told him to eat up, or he wouldn’t be able to complete the day he had planned.

After he left home, he went to the bakery and opened up, starting the loaves for the day.

Time passed quickly as he baked, sold, and baked some more. When it was close to closing up, he started hearing thumps and screams coming from outside.

He quickly opened the door to see what was going on, and his mouth almost touched the floor. Monsters he had only heard in folktale, revered as the scariest of beings, that could feed on your emotions, Demons.

Tens of them were flying above his town, raining torrents of fire down, and burning everything.

Ren quickly ran inside and locked the door, running to the back room that had an additional lock, and thick metal walls, in case of an emergency, and this seemed awfully like an emergency.

More thumps, screams, and crashes came through the door as he did his best to close his eyes and ears, afraid of what might happen if the demons found him.

Minutes passed as the sound of buildings collapsing rang through his ears, bringing more tears forth, and soon he felt the building he was in give way, and collapse. The big metal room around him collapsed like a tin can, shooting jagged metal spikes at him, and eventually knocking him out.

Ren came out of his memories with a sudden burst of pain as his ribs, which were already broken, started cracking at how much he was bending over.

Pushing himself back up, he hopped through what was left of the bakery. When he got a full view of what truly happened, in its entirety, he cried again but quickly tried to push those feelings down, failing tremendously at trying to be stoic.

He was from a rural village that had never even seen a dire beast, and the scariest things he had ever experienced were the nighttime plays at the theater.

Letting the tears fall freely, he started looking around but found no one. As he looked to his right, he saw a faint red glow, far in the distance, seemingly calling out to him.

He was enticed to head there immediately, as he felt whatever was calling to him pulling at his very soul.

He closed his dreary eyes and turned around, hopping towards his home, to hopefully find his parents, and siblings.

As he got closer to his house, a seed started forming in his gut, making it feel uncomfortably heavy, bringing with it a bad feeling.

There was so... much... blood.