章 84: The pit
It didn't take long for Myra and Zhao Wei to find them. The Kingdom was big, but at their speed it might as well have been next door.
It was at the edge of the living quarters, a deep ditch was formed in the ground, and in it countless bodies were strewn around all covered in sheets. Some were brown with the dried blood that stained them from the bodies they held. Some had turned black with rot and decay. Altogether the sight was just inhumane.
Even in the old world, news reports of massacres and shootings happened on a regular basis. Maybe that's just how the primitive minds of every 'intelligent' organism worked. When it was a single child or person who died, it became a tragedy. Everybody comes to give their, even those who didn't know the person enough to remember anything about them. But when more die, it becomes a number, a passing headline between shows and advertisements. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, they were already desensitized by the constant information of how many people they don't know died and maybe that made it easy for them.
But as Zhao Wei stood above the heap, he couldn't dehumanize them. They weren't just numbers anymore like the old world had trained into his mind. He'd lived with one of them, talked to them, shared their food. He couldn't sit there and tell himself the rest of these bodies were inconsequential. Even if he didn't know any of their names, he knew, they had their own thoughts, families, lives. But they were here, thrown out like a big collection of garbage, added into the number of others who were forgotten.
He went down there, but he didn't start searching. He picked up the first body he found, brought it up, dug a pit and buried the person. Repeating this action he came down again and again. bringing the bodies up and laying them to rest, a simple plank to mark where they laid.
Every time he opened their wrappings, their eyes would still be open, regardless if they still had them or not. In their deaths he knew that they were still hoping, still seeing the horrors of the world but desperate for another chance. And worse still was when he found children, every time a light body came up, his heart died a little. Some were so small that they should still be wrapped up in their mother's arms instead of these dirty rags.
When he was done, it was already night time. behind him several graves stretched out behind him. At some point he wasn't sure if he could continue, but he couldn't bare knowing that they were there, up for display for anyone who passed by to see. Each grave was marked with a plank, but he regretted that he couldn't name them, that he didn't know who they were when they were alive.
At the end he sat there, head between his knees and hands holding them, he could only wonder if all civilizations were built on such depravity, even his own. And if there was a God, why he gave them intelligence to do anything in the first place if the first thing it took from them was their humanity.
Beside him were two bodies, he was sure it was them, he, couldn't be mistaken. The body was still fresh, the last things they saw, still etched into their horror-stricken faces, or at least one of theirs. Solith's body was almost unrecognizable from the number of stab wounds and blunt force traumas.
Rona was relatively cleaner, her face was barely touched. There were several parts that were caved in but no bruise, it happened after she died. But she saw, everything that happened, she saw. He could tell from the dried salt of the tears encrusting the sides of her eyes, it didn't run down her cheeks but the side of her head. She was already on the ground before Solith.
Flesh under he finger nails corresponded with the nail marks on her arms. She was holding to something as she died and they forced it away from her. Being a hunter in the jungle, if there was one thing he knew, it was death. From how they died, he could tell what was going through the beast's mind, if they felt pain and if they struggled.
Only two blows killed her, both on either ribs which caved in her lungs which filled up quickly, drowning her in her own blood. Few deaths could be crueler.
As he buried them, he carved their names onto the planks before stabbing it into the ground. The only two names among these blank graves.
Morning came and he watched as it flooded the field of graves he built the whole day before. The shadows of thousands of graves stretching with the rise of the sun. His only reprieve and consolation in this harrowing moment was the fact that after all the bodies he took and cried for, he didn't need to cry for Sola's, she wasn't here. Thank god she wasn't here.
When the sun rose higher, two men came over. "Well we'll see how many bodies we'll be throwing in today. Remember if it's more than five I get half your pay today."
"Oh please you already lost yesterday, there were only two and you haven't paid me back... The lady was beautiful though, if she was alive..." One of them said.
"Stop dreaming, you see what happened to them, if you were with her when she was alive the viscount would've gotten you too." The other replied.
"Which Viscount," a voice said from behind them.
They were shocked as they turned around as if they'd seen a ghost. But their mouths dropped open as they saw that the pit was empty and a number of graves had been made behind him.
"What the he... urghk" before he could finish his sentences Zhao Wei's hand had grasped his neck and lifted him of the floor. "Tell me who brought the two people yesterday here..."
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