Dear Reader, I would like to share this story with you;

It will take you on a seemingly endless journey.
A trip that takes you places I might have visited many moons ago.
It´s a tale that came back to me when I meditated on one of my past lives.

Click here to Start with Chapter 1

Chapter 11

Dear Reader, you've been traveling with me for a while, are you starting to get into the rhythm a bit?

Then I hope that after today you will not give up and that you know that I am not out to shock you.

I only report what I hear and see.

To those of you who don't have a strong stomach, today may be the day to skip a step.

As I don't want to lose you Dear Reader.

Flames blaze high, illuminating the night's darkness. They color the world orange-yellow and cast huge shadows on the ground. The fangs of the flames bite like the jaws of a huge dragon.

Jaws searching for things not yet destroyed by its unstoppable power. I hear the wood creak, here and there a jug cracks and I smell scorched flesh as the flames are fanned further by the wind.

Then I turn my back on the inferno. I see the remains of huts that once stood here. They are only smoldering piles that remain after having been engulfed by the conflagration. I hear screams, shrieks of terror that pierce my bones and leave goosebumps on my skin.

I run to where the sound came from. When I got there I stiffened. It is impossible to move as I watch a spectacle unfold in the dim light of the burning village.

Two men hold a woman to the ground by forcefully restraining her arms and legs. She squirms like an eel while the third strips her of her clothes and slaps her face. She spits, she misses, he spits. A big ball of green-yellow mucus drips from her eye socket past her nose and over her lips.

She screams in pain, but by opening her mouth to scream, the gurgle slips into her mouth and she chokes. Then she screams louder than before, in the orange glow I see that the third man has now penetrated her.

She calms down, looks at him penetratingly: "Now you feel like a real man, a hero. A hero with a cock so small that I don't even feel it."

The man now thrusts more aggressively than the first few times. The woman laughs contemptuously, louder and louder, almost hysterically.

I see the man picking up a knife with a short blade in the shape of a sickle. With a quick movement of his hand, he cuts the woman's throat. He thrusts twice more, then takes a deep breath. He places his index finger on the woman's lips and says "Sshhht," as the blood gushing from her neck surrounds her head.

"Who wants her now?" he bellows. The younger man holding her feet stumbles away out of sight, but I hear that he shares his stomach contents with the plants and animals in an unlit area.

The man who held back the arms raises his head, by doing this he looks straight at me. His surprised look lingers on me for a moment, then he speaks in a dialect I don't know and warns his companion. He turns around in a moment. With her blood still dripping from his face, he approaches me.

I'm still rooted to the ground. His arm is raised and the blade flickers in the light of the flames, gilded with a red sheen. I see the arm come down and raise my hand to defend myself, a burning pain goes through my raised hand and everything goes black.

I shake my head and open my eyes. I smell a burning smell, then I feel pain in the hand that was just hit by the knife. I look at my hand, it's on top of the half-burnt candle. A big black smear, a burn, and remnants of a blister around the rosy red wound.

My stomach goes weak for a moment, but I control myself, then fill a bowl of water with my good hand. I let my battered hand rest in it before I bind it with a mixture of herbs and oils.

The horror of the dream numbs the pain, while tending the wound I hardly feel it. All the more I feel sick of the events I have just witnessed. The realism of the dream is so lifelike, so oppressive. I can't get the images out of my mind. Slowly I remember earlier images of the same kind, less detailed, but absolutely connected to the dream I just had.

My mind searches, I dig deep and find what I was looking for. The thoughts had been superseded by the fact that it was Master Oniko's last day, the images of that meditation completely eluded me. Now they come back to me, the burning village, meters-high flames, the screams. Running people, trying to escape the slaughter that was going on. A massacre carried out by men in black on those tall-legged creatures.

Is it my imagination, my desire to find a clue? There, in the glow of the flames, I see the rugs that cover the horses. They are black, but they are clearly trimmed with gold. I try to make out the faces of the riders under their dark hoods, but something tells me it's not what I'm looking for.

My eyes wander from the hoods down. Their chests are protected by plates, on their arms the same black plates and there is relief in the plates. Then my eye catches a glint, an emblem on the right shoulder of one of the men, a golden flower surmounted by a black circle.

Gold and black, I had seen that combination before. But by throwing myself into the role of teacher and knight of Numico´s quest I had not thought about those terrible images or Master Oniko's last words.

The Next Chapter will be published in 2 days

Picture By Me And My Artificial Intelligence