In the quiet folds of dawn, the Jade Flower village came to life with a symphony of murmurs that twisted and turned into emerald bamboo groves. The distant call of a waking rooster, and the soft, rhythmic tapping of a hammer onto red metal provided a prelude to the morning that Meiying found her peace—the tranquility provided before the rest of the village stirred.
Who's Meiying you must ask? She's the village sloth, a character known for her generosity at heart and nature to never worry about the tasks at hand, always by the pond or a tall oak with her daydreams.
Her focus currently was toward the tips of the mountains. Her eyes, a deep and rich mahogany, fixed on the mountain peak where the first golden kiss of sunlight assaulted. She wore a plain green dress damp at the edges with mildew that she parted from nearby leaves.
As the village slowly awoke, Meiying remained still to the mountaintops. It was this hour that she cherished the most, a time to listen before the noise of daily chores and the humph of cultivators.
Her world was vicious, teeming with cultivators, monsters, and greed. She, however, was none of these. Meiying avoided the life of cultivation and lived as a mortal at the bottom of the mountains; the people around her also wore the humble attire of commoners. Besides the village elders, it was rare to see cultivators in the area unless a rare treasure or monster was spotted. Then the wilderness around the village was free grounds for looting.
"Meiying!" A voice shattered the stillness, causing a flock of nearby sparrows to take flight in a burst of chaos. Meiying turned her head to see a friend, Lihua, approaching her with a face pale with an urgency that rarely troubled the chubby face.
"What is it, Lihua?" Meiying asked, her tone still as steady and without concern as the ancient stones that lined the land.
"It's... the Elders," Lihua said, gasping for air, her hands on her knees. "They've called a meeting. Something... something has happened—they've said that they've felt a strange energy envelop the skies."
"The skies?" Meiying looked up, seeing that nothing had changed besides the sun flying a bit higher. It must be that mortal couldn't feel this energy...
Meiying nodded to Lihua without another word and picked up her dress by the waist before beginning to head off. However as she picked herself up to go, she felt it. Although she couldn't feel the "energy", she felt a nearby pond begin to ripple. At first it was a single ripple, then two, then four, then... it kept increasing and increasing before Meiying's eyes.
"What is..." Meiying began to say under her breath. Lihua had also noticed the sudden change and gripped tightly to Meiying's hand.
"Blink." A voice whispered into her ears.
And almost like it was an instinct, she had blinked. Her rich mahogany kissed the folds of her lids and seemed to fall still even after unfolding them.
She still saw darkness. An infinite darkness that dragged her away. Though she felt the hand of Lihua, she couldn't see her—all she could do was wait in this darkness that seemed to trap the very essence of time itself.
It didn't take long before the next series of changes.
"Blink." Again, the voice whispered into her ears. However, Meiying fought the urge to blink, refusing to play into the hands of the voices.
"Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink."
The voice went on-and-on, never taking a rest and still keeping the same monotonous tone. Meiying's eyes burned with each command issued. She felt the essence of fear creeping into her every pore that she had never felt before. And finally, she blinked.
When her mahogany came about once more, her senses were assaulted with a completely different environment. It was no longer the beauty of the Jade Flower village nor the infinite darkness that she experienced earlier.
It was still dark but not as dark as before. Her pupils dilated like cats, straining to see in this dim setting.
Then, a putrid stench filled her nose. It smelled of blood. She could almost taste the iron on her tongue with the thick stench of blood. It had also smelled of... feces?
"Lihua!" Meiying thought, looking to her right which Lihua had been hugging in fear prior. However, she was not greeted by the typical cheerful and chubby face of her friend.
She crouched down in the next second, to take a better look, to make sure she could rely on what she saw.
Lihua was there. Lihua's eyes were still the same color, a dark brown that always held a sparkle to them. However, her eyes held no sparkle. And instead of happiness, it was the last moments of fear that surrounded Lihua's face. And instead of Lihua, it was the bits and pieces of her that remained.
She was dead. Lihua was dead. Her entrails perforated and wrapped around a stalactite extended from the ceiling, almost like a rope of some sort. Her breakfast, freshly digested and mixed with blood, splattered in all directions. And her legs... her legs were moving.
Fear kept stacking on Meiying. She choked herself, forcing herself not to vomit. She pinched herself, making sure what she saw was real. And then brought herself up, ready to sprint from the sight.
Lihua's legs were moving. They were also shortening, as Meiying saw two crabs with a stone-like exoskeleton that camouflaged with the cave and scorpion-like tail, nibbling their way up each of Lihua's legs.
"Shit."