The decayed cabin swayed in the firelight, as if it might collapse at any moment. The air was filled with the scorch of burning wood, the stench of blood, and a nauseating aura of violence.
The young boy held a bloody farm tool, his arms trembled slightly from exertion, but the fire in his eyes burned more intensely than ever before.
On the makeshift bed behind him, his mother, recently pulled back from the brink of death, weakly struggled, her throat producing fractured gasps:
"Run... quickly... run..."
Each word pierced the boy's heart like a needle, yet it stoked the flames of defiance within him into a wilder blaze.
He could not run, nor was there anywhere to run to.
Outside were more bandits, a purgatory of arson, murder, and plunder. The bandit before him, with lecherous eyes and savage breath, was the first, and perhaps the last, abyss he had to cross.
