It was a sunny day.

A beautiful picturesque monastery built of white stone bustling with activity. Children (orphans adopted by the monastery) running about doing various assorted work, mopping the floors, fetching the water, washing and helping with the cooking.

I was one of those orphans, a boy running around fetching water [actually, I wasn't really "him". See footnote]. I had finished my work for the day and was running around freely, enjoying the sunlight and fresh air and looking for work to do.

I ran to one of the side gates of the monastery and there I discovered a large, shambling man who had a huge wound across his chest (rectangular shaped wound spanning the entire chest, width 40cm height 15cm), where the skin was completely missing exposing the muscle underneath. The wound was festering but not bleeding, and the man had a blank look in his eyes, as if he was dead. He slowly lumbered through the arch (about 5m in length) connecting the outside world to the east outer courtyard (about 20m east-west by 25m north-south) and that was when I panicked.

I quickly ran through the arch (about 2m in length) connecting the east outer courtyard to the smaller east inner courtyard (about 15m east-west and 25m north-south) There were a few men plowing the fields there. I notified one of the men that there was a large suspicious man entering the monastery, and that it might be dangerous. I said the stranger had a large wound across his chest but didn't seem to be concerned about it at all. The man I was talking to laughed it off, thinking I was exaggerating the injury, until I mentioned that the skin across the stranger's chest was completely gone exposing the muscle underneath. At that point the man seemed to notice something but it was too late.

The man turned his head and saw the stranger closing in across the east outer courtyard from a distance of what I estimated was probably no more than 20 meters away judging from the speed at which the stranger walked. I was scared out of my wits and ran to the north-east corner of the courtyard hoping that the adults would protect me. The other men, all carrying hoes, began to gather around at the sight of the man staring at the stranger with suspicious eyes.

[Layout of the East Inner Courtyard: The east inner courtyard had 3 entrances/exits. The first connected it to the east outer courtyard, and was in the middle of the east wall. The second arch was in the middle of the west wall which connected it to the first inner courtyard. The third arch was in the middle of the north wall and connected it to the north outer courtyard. In other words, from the north-east corner, one had to run about 12 meters south to get to the middle of the east wall, or one could run about 19 meters (by Pythagoras) to get to the middle of the west wall, or one could run about 26 meters to get to the middle of the south wall.]

After about 20 seconds of waiting in the north-east corner of the courtyard the stranger finally made his appearance. Unfortunately, as soon as he lumbered through the arch into the east inner courtyard he immediately spotted me and focused his blank gaze in my direction. My heart skipped a beat. I knew I was fucked.

The stranger ignored the men who tried to hinder him and turned in my direction and began to walk fast. I instinctively knew I couldn't run past the stranger into the east outer courtyard so I ran to the nearest exit: the arch at the middle of the west wall.

As I ran I heard footsteps behind me and before I could turn around I felt a sharp pain in my neck and the world spun, and then turned to black. I realized then that probably he had caught up to me and decapitated me.

Suddenly I found myself back in the place where I first sighted the shambling stranger. This time I noticed that he was carrying a hoe, with which he probably decapitated me last time.

I was too scared to reflect on what happened just now (e.g did I really just travel back in time or did I have a vision?) so I ran again to the east inner courtyard. This time I knew I had 20 seconds before the man entered the courtyard. With that much time I ran directly across the courtyard and ran across the 15 meters in less than 5 seconds and entered the first inner courtyard.

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The first inner courtyard was full of children (all the children in the monastery were orphans) at that time and were doing various assorted work, some of them helping on the fields. This time I found a group of 4 boys who were moving some hay. I stood behind them and tried to hide myself as best as I could.

[In the entire monastery there were no good hiding places against a determined enemy. The monastery did not have any escape tunnels, nor did it have a basement. In other words, everything was on ground level.]

After about 15 seconds, two people - an old man and a decrepit middle-aged woman entered, the old man carrying a one-handed sword (blade length about 60-70cm) and the woman carrying a long dagger in her hand (blade length about 25-30cm), both wearing smiles on their aged faces.

One of the children, not knowing the meaning of danger, ran up to the old man and was promptly cut in half by one horizontal swing of the old man's sword which cleanly separated his torso from his abdomen. A few of the children began shouting and running for help whilst most of the children took up what tools were lying around and made a stand with looks of determination in their eyes. None of the children had any martial training and thus did not know how to fight together as a group, so I knew they did not pose a threat to the couple.

I instinctively knew the situation was hopeless and just wanted to know how I could survive. As the old man ran around with extremely surprising athleticism and exhibited abnormal strength, cutting down the children singlehandedly as he ran around as if cutting hay, the woman walked steadily towards our position staring at us intently - at this point I couldn't tell if she was staring at me in particular or just eyeing our group.

When the old woman was about 5 meters in front of us, two of the boys in front of me charged forwards - they obviously did not know how to fight together, causing their charge to be ineffective. Of course the other factor was that the middle aged woman was amazingly limber for her appearance and easily evaded their attacks and tripped them, stabbing them in the abdomen while they fell over. As soon as the boys fell she moved on to the other two boys in front of me. However, after the first two boys fell down, they got right back up again and chased after the woman.

The middle aged woman spun around, easily evading their wild swings as if she was a nimble dancer and cut them just above their knee. They quickly fell to the ground again, and this time the woman stabbed them in their upper backs. The second two boys attacked this time as well but the woman deftly avoided their thrusts. As with the other two, the boys were stabbed in their abdomens as they were tripped and fell down.

I stood there looking dumb the whole time, taking the whole scene into my eyes. After the two boys were stabbed, the woman disappeared right in front of my eyes, and then I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. I looked down and saw the tip of a dagger protruding out of my abdomen, which was soon retracted. I then fell down and stayed down, figuring the woman probably did not want me to get up again.

I kept my eyes closed and held my breath. I heard the second pair of boys get up and attack the woman. After some sounds of movement there were two thuds and then two quiet stabbing sounds. I heard sounds of another boy running towards our position, shouting at the top of his lungs, then more sounds of stabbing, falling down, getting up, falling down again, and then getting stabbed for a second time. Then the sound of the woman's footsteps going elsewhere.

After about 2 minutes there were no more sounds of fighting in the courtyard I was in, though I could hear some pained breathing as well as fighting sounds in other courtyards. After another 15 minutes there were no more fighting sounds in the entire monastery, and no more sounds of breathing in my courtyard. It was dead quiet.

I got up and tore my clothes to wrap around my abdomen to stop the bleeding. Apparently I did not get stabbed in a major artery, or I could not have survived this long whilst remaining conscious. I began to feel a little cold so I took the clothes of a dead boy nearby. With much effort I managed to prop myself up and I began to crawl around looking for other survivors.

Footnote:

* To be more precise, my consciousness was transported into the body of one of those orphans. I didn't know how it happened. All I knew is that this wasn't the 21st century world anymore, but that some of my memories from my life in the 21st century were still intact somehow. I don't remember much of my 21st century life.