"Please no!!!" A mother screamed.
A child kicked the mud while being carried away by people covered in a mixture of cloth and armour dragged him away.
She extended her whole body out from below beneath the stilts of a house, her body sloshed the water as she tried to get back to her child.
The men covered in armour, the Hussars, simply just yanked her fully and dragged her off.
This was the Culling. Thousands of people were about to be snuffed out like they were nothing. Just like that.
Ryckel knees kissed the mud, hands tied behind his back, surrounded by countless others and secluded by the side of a house high on stilts. Including his family.
All of their bodies feeling the schlop of mud and shit. His dark golden brown hair sticking to his face. Ryckel was already used to this feeling.
"You guys can't do this!" One of the men beside Ryckel shouted.
He got up and began to run. "Fuck the tribute! I'm getting out of here!"
Idiot.
And right after, an immediate bang tore through the air, tiny metal shards went through his head and spilled the poor fool's brain right down to the ever so present mud of Wistnan.
The tribute…
The other people yelped and shuddered as the Hussar that shot the man walked closer to the corpse, tossing a U-shaped device with curled edges and spitting right into the mud.
Behind him, the town Ryckel had once called home was now a stark contrast to what were in his memories.
The straw roofs burning in the same manner as the unlucky corpses that littered the streets. Even some of the houses being burnt right down to the base of the stone pads that supported the stilts.
The wooden stalls destroyed with crushed, rotting produce all over.
"You all are just making everything harder for the both of us, don't you get that? But it seems you all are getting restless." The Hussar then turned his head, the gas mask below his chin clunking.
"Don't worry, you'll all soon be Culled enough and we'll both be done with this shit." He sighed.
'Culled.'
The word left a sour taste in Ryckel's throat.
He could see and hear the other people panicking. How some of them tried to pray to the Great Light, rubbing their hands like fluttering wings, hoping money for the tribute would spawn out of thin air.
But Ryckel couldn't care less. He didn't know these people. What he did focus on was on his little sister, Lyra, her pigtails ruffled while she looked on with a chubby face that's now full of dread. Silent, despite their mother's frantic breathing and cries as she held both Ryckel and Lyra with her calloused hands. Her long silky dark hair kissing their faces.
She's too young to be seeing all this… to be experiencing all this…
Lights! I wish that damn thief was the one here… watching all this. No! I wish he's the one burning and being killed!
It irritated Ryckel.
The memory of how a thief broke into their house and stole the tribute money that both him and his mother had worked so hard to gather…just gone.
They tried to report the situation to the Hussars. But as usual. They were no help.
Only saying that they should pray to the Great Light that they die a painless death.
Ryckel grit his teeth.
The damn Culling! The government loved their pretty words. They called it 'Resource Management.' Ryckel called it what it was, murder, just dressed up a little nicer.
He worried for both his sister and his mother. How they were going to run away from this all?
They could try sneaking under the stilted houses, but he wasn't too sure that his mother and sister would keep up… not to mention the Hussars as well.
And even if they managed through all that, how would they even survive in the woods? Especially when the Bleeding Hour comes. A specific time of day from some few hours into Dusk to a few hours into dawn where a red mist envelopes everything.
They had no gas masks.
One whiff of the mists and it would turn anyone into a Zhenren, a monster. He couldn't bare to see that happening to his family.
C'mon Ryckel think!
All those years of him collecting, disposing and selling shit and piss as fertilizer can't just go down like it never meant anything!
All those pains… the feeling of slowly and painfully dying inside…
A dark thought then arose in his mind.
Maybe it's all for best? The feeling of my soul feeling crushed as I do those jobs… I've lost a part of my life I'll never get back!
But Ryckel immediately shook his head, a desperate attempt to keep the thoughts away.
No! How can I be so selfish? Mother has worked her ass off helping in the wet field farms with the rice!
Father died protecting me from the red mists! Entrusting me with caring for this family!
How can I throw all that away?! No matter if I'm beaten or bullied for it.
A memory flashed in his mind of some of the town's children beating him shitless, which was ironic, because Ryckel reeked of human shit and piss.
He sterned his face and looked all around the ensuing chaos. More people being killed like cattle, others peeking through their windows, they had paid the tribute after all. They were safe from it.
Ryckel bit his lip. Trying to fight the rage he felt for the thief. They were supposed to be like that. But also the feeling of helplessness he felt when they were being robbed.
Not again!
That's when he also saw some of the Hussars packing up some people into the back of a wagon not too far off, it was connected to a domesticated Zhenren. He paid attention and tried to focus his hearing.
"Haha.. we got a good haul of Attuned here, probably going to get a bonus from the Amphictony now." A Hussar smiled.
"Don't get your hopes up, resources aren't much to begin with cause of this damn war with the Vascals… you think they'll give a couple of bums bonuses?" The other Hussar close to him replied.
"Well, yeah. We are giving them Attuned. They're better and stronger than ordinary people. Some of them can even strengthen their bodies and even control damn shadows! They're going to help with the war, also not to forget that we're actually in need of more arms y'know." The first Hussar chuckled.
"Let's just hope your right… I got my own tribute to pay for the Culling. Wife's depending on it." The other Hussar sighed as he closed up the wagon.
Attuned? We had them in this town?
Ryckel raised an eyebrow.
---The End of Chapter 1---