Tendrils of smoke twisted from the carcasses of town buildings and broken bodies lay strewn through the streets, dried blood splattered everything else. The stench of death and explosives burned the approaching man’s nose, but he did nothing to escape it. Nor did he look away from the carnage before him. He couldn’t bear to dishonor them one last time.
He passed through the bodies, his long robs occasionally snagging on torn limbs and exposed bones, but he said nothing. At the town center, he spun slowly until he numbly memorized the horror around him. It wasn’t his first town like this, nor would it be his last as long as he followed behind riders. But it never got easier.
A groan cut through the silence, and the man paused. A body beneath an eviscerated woman shifted, and the man carefully approached.
A teen was alive, saved by his mother, though his legs were missing and a wound in his shoulder would soon be infected. His face was pale, on death’s door.
He whimpered, his eyes still closed, and the man knelt near his uninjured shoulder.
“A pity you managed to live,” the man whispered as he unsheathed his knife. “Unfortunately, it’s time to let the dark claim you. You don’t want to be a survivor.”
The teen whimpered, his eyes finally fluttering open, and only horror reflected in them. The man stroked the boy’s cheek then cut swiftly through his jugular.
No, the boy wouldn’t want to survive this.
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