Agonizing Screams.

Opium war.

There's a village near a field where the river runs red and metal spears with broken arrows bloom from pale bodies. The village has ears for walls and lies for food. The elders suffer from false ailments and the children from true injuries.

It is truly a splendorous place for the cloaked figure. He received plenty of dead ones yet it is still not enough for his endless wish. The figure walked the streets with darkened joy as the villagers slept with sharpened swords and cleaned out basements.

In the morning the sun did not shine nor did the birds' sing. The figure floated past a murky-looking hut. The hut was puffing Opium clouds and the area around it seemed to cry out in hunger and thirst. The dark figure entered the hut to find a broken boy with hollowed-out eyes and a dazzling smile.

The boy was holding a bloodied mush that connected to a cold, stiff piece of a puzzle. "Don't worry." The boy whispered. "It will all be okay. Mummy did say that she will give me anything in the world if she could have my eyes." 

The boy patted the mush and the figure gently placed a smokey hand on the boy's sticky redhead. " Daddy wanted to play with Sissie again but I did not like her screams, so I broke Daddy's off and Sissie chopped him up. She went to clean herself at the well. It has been a day." 

The figure found out piece by piece as the broken boy with hollowed-out eyes cheerfully told him how, one by one, his family slowly lessened. When the Boy finish his small bedtime story he gave a slight giggle.

The boy placed the mush next to the cold puzzle and walked to his bed patting the spot next to him. The figure sat and read the book's title 'Album.' The boy opened the first page.

" I can't see what is in here and I never could but I never wanted to know anyway. If my Mummy and Daddy acted like they did since young the pictures in here must be thrillingly gory."

He paged through the 'Album' seeming like he could see but what the broken boy with hollowed-out eyes saw in his mind's eye was different to what the smokey, cloaked figure saw.

In the 'Album' a man, woman, girl, and baby boy with white eyes stared at the figure. Each picture was the same and the entire 'Album' was filled with that one picture.

Every man, woman, girl, and baby boy were smiling brightly like on a warm summer day except for one photo. It was shriveled up and placed where it was tough to see. It was glowing from where it was hidden and screams came from it. In the photo, a man, woman, and girl screamed as their blood dripped from their ears and eyes. 

The man's legs were bent in a direction that gave the cloaked figure shivers. The woman's hair and skin were being pulled off of her like someone pulling off a glove. The girl's intestines were hanging all over the place as she tried putting them back where they belong with tears streaming down her face.

The figure smiled contemptibly. It was good to see what the boy could do even without eyes.