He could hear the Plowhorn's frustrated roar behind him, followed by the thunder of its pursuit, but the undergrowth swallowed the sound quickly.
He ran until his lungs burned and his legs threatened to give way. The pain in his side was a constant, searing fire, each jarring step sending fresh waves of agony through him.
Blood soaked his tunic, warm and sticky. He stumbled deeper into the gloom of the forest, the sounds of Kasha's destruction – the roars, the screams, the crackle of flames – fading behind him, replaced by the rustle of leaves and the frantic hammering of his own heart. He didn't know if the Plowhorn followed; he only knew he had to get as far from the slaughter as possible.
He finally collapsed against the massive, moss-covered trunk of an ancient oak, gasping for air that wouldn't come. He slid down, his back scraping the rough bark, and slumped onto the damp forest floor.
The world tilted and spun. He fumbled with trembling fingers at the locket in his hand. The chain was broken, the clasp bent.The glass covering the portrait was cracked, spiderwebbed from the impact when it fell. And within the crack, nestled against the portrait, was a single, viscous drop of liquid. It was a deep, unnatural crimson, almost black in the dim light, yet it seemed to hold a faint, internal luminescence, like captured starlight. William had never seen anything like it. He'd always assumed the locket was empty except for the picture. Where had this come from?
He didn't have time to wonder. A fresh wave of dizziness washed over him, darker this time. The pain in his side was becoming a numb, cold emptiness, spreading through his limbs. He was fading. He looked down at the gaping wound in his side. Blood still seeped, but sluggishly now. He needed to staunch it, bind it… but his hands were too heavy. He could barely lift them.
His hand clenching the cracked locket, the mysterious drop still clinging to the inside, fall directly against the raw, bleeding flesh of his wound going inside of his body .
The effect was instantaneous and shocking.
The moment the crimson drop touched the torn muscle and exposed tissue, it didn't just sit there. It flowed. Like liquid mercury seeking its level, but with purpose. It spread rapidly across the ragged edges of the wound, sinking into the flesh, not just on top.
A searing heat, intense but not painful, erupted from the point of contact, radiating outwards. William gasped, his eyes flying wide. He watched, mesmerized and horrified, as the edges of the gash began to move. Not just clotting, but actively knitting together. Torn muscle fibers wove themselves back into place. Severed blood vessels sealed shut. Skin began to close over the wound with impossible speed, like time-lapse footage of a healing scar.
The heat intensified, becoming a furnace within his chest, the numbness receded, replaced by a strange, tingling vitality. The deep, bone-deep exhaustion lifted slightly. He could feel the wound closing, sealing itself shut beneath the locket, leaving only a faint, pink line where the horrific gash had been moments before.
But suddenly a surge of unknown energy started flooding his body. His muscles stared twisting tearing apart themselves,bones turning into dust and rebuilding. Blood felt like current ,started flowing through his veins. As if William was being rebuilt.
The world, which had just moments before been sharpening with the heat of healing, suddenly dissolved into swirling of pains and agony's grey mist. The sounds of the forest – the birdsong, the rustling leaves faded into a distant hum.
William's last conscious thought wasn't of the pain, or the horror of Kasha's fall, or even the miraculous healing. It was a single, desperate question echoing in the void: "What was that?"
Then, darkness. Complete and absolute. He slumped backward, the broken locket slipping from his nerveless fingers on his chest , its secret spent. His breathing, shallow but steady, was the only sign he wasn't dead.
********************
Back in Kasha, the silence that followed the horde's departure was more terrible than the battle itself. The Plowhorns had moved on, leaving behind a landscape of utter ruin. Buildings were reduced to smoldering skeletons. The palisade was a memory. The ground was churned mud mixed with blood, viscera, and the shattered remains of lives.
Near the east town wall, Mayor Li's body lay where it fell, a crumpled testament to futile courage.
Tomas's body was still pinned beneath the dead Plowhorn, a grim monument to unexpected valor. The bodies of other hunters were scattered like broken toys.
In the bunker, huddled in terrified silence, the survivors listened to the fading roars. Karl was among them, curled into a ball in a corner, his face buried in his knees, his small frame wracked with silent sobs. He'd made it inside just as the heavy iron door groaned shut, sealing them in darkness moments before the horde overran the square. He'd seen the hunters fall. He didn't know if anyone else had made it.
An old woman, her face streaked with soot and tears, peered through the narrow, reinforced slit in the bunker door. She saw the devastation, the bodies, the utter stillness. She saw no sign of movement, no sign of the hunters who had fought so bravely. Her shoulders slumped. She turned back to the huddled group, her voice a broken whisper that carried the weight of the world.
"Kasha… is gone."
The words hung in the stale, fear-thick air of the bunker. It was a hollowing out, a collective breath held in the face of annihilation. They were barely alive, yes, but the town of Kasha, with its laughter, its market days, its stubborn Mayor irrevocably destroyed.
Afterall it was the reality of the new world.
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