Child of War (Tales of Autcrem)

Chapter twelve, A Little Relatable

Hensei awoke in the darkness. An endless black void that he had been in before. Nothing, yet there was light to see with, nothing yet there was ground to stand on. Nothing yet, he did not feel alone. Then something appeared before him. A figure that was all white, like a ghost blazing like the sun, its blue eyes just as bright. It looked like a man, but it was hard to tell. He stood looking into the nothingness as it formed into a bloodied battlefield. Corpses of men littered it, but not only humans laid dead on the darkening fields. Beasts he had never seen before. Dark and evil. Some had pointed ears and dark gray skin, there green eyes like poison. Some looked like a mix between beast and man. They were hairy and beast-like yet in the shape of a man's body. So many more creatures he didn't understand.

The form stood before it all, his blazing blue eyes full of sorrow. "I had hoped to save all from war like this." It said in a voice of power. "Yet," he picked up a bloodied helmet. "Yet all kill each other as if a common enemy never existed." He stared into the sky as if sorrow was all he knew. "Why? Why can mortals never be left alone? Why, as soon as you do, they begin to kill each other? Why must they always hate one another? Why?" He dropped the helmet and looked right at Hensei. His eyes blue eyes the very color of sorrow. His white face the very expression of pain. "Why?" Hensei felt like he was asking him, but he had no answer.

The world changed again. It became dark and red. The sky was crimson dawn, and the air smelled of blood. The sandy ground riddled with bodies. Massive mountains rose into the dark cloudy sky off over yonder. It looked as if something dripped from them as if even they were dripping with crimson blood.

A massive mound of bodies sat in the middle. Full of all races, all but humans. On top of it sat a figure. The figure that had been haunting him so long. His black robe flowed to the left, yet no breeze blew. His black hood full of darkness. His skeleton hands, now covered in steel armor, griped the massive scythe with a blade the size of a human. Its handle made of bones. His feet were covered in metal boots. Dark and evil metal.

He sat on the mound like it was a throne, his throne. His scythe laying across this lap, its blade reaching far behind him. Hensei didn't remember walking towards the mound, but yet he was before it. His eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at the faces that made the mound. Many he did not know, but one, one stood out. An elf with pale eyes of a blind man, pale eyes that saw so much. He saw the face of the dwarf that had risen from the dead and stared in horror as a child came to kill him. He recognized another and another and another. So many he had forgotten and so few he remember, but he knew... he knew this mound of corpses was his. These were all the people he had killed from his first day of the war toonow. He remembered one face well. An orc with a nasty scar over his eye. He had massive fangs outside of his mouth that were broken. He had given Hensei the nasty scar across his belly. Hensei had almost died in their fight. He was the one and only kill of Hensei's very first battle. He never forgot that face.

"A nice little pile you got here." The figure said at the top. His voice dark and evil, a dark whisper that spoke so loudly. "Nothing like those." He pointed off to the mountains that had come closer. "Gut it'll get there."

Hensei realized they weren't mountains at all, at least not mountains of rock. They were corpses. Massive mountains of corpses. Some even almost touch the clouds. There was one that made Hensei want to puke. That one pierced the clouds and kept going as if it was going to reach the heavens.

"Ah yes," The figure said, following his gaze. "That one is impressive indeed, not the only one to reach so high nor will it be the last. Ha, some of them even belong to heroes. It's a shame, though, that one is mostly filled with innocents and weaklings. A couple hundred real strong people but then a couple ten thousand weak people." He looked back at Hensei, and Hensei could almost feel the evil smile that crawled through the darkness. "It's not hard to kill weak people. Now this mound." He said, stopping his feet on it. It made a squishing sound as it hit a mangled corpse. "Not one weak person in it. Well, some of these soldiers were nothing special, but not one person in this was just some normal person. Unlike the guy who made that one." He nodded to the one that passed the clouds again. "You don't spend time mass-murdering innocent people."
Hensei fell to the ground. He could only stare in horror. He had no words to express his terror, no words to describe his disgust, no idea what he was seeing. What was this? This hooded man who spoke of death so freely, so easily. What was this place? What was any of this? What was all he could really think of.