I’m not a seed. I’m a man!

  Kato’s body jerked upwards as if taken hold of by some supernatural entity. His limbs splayed out to his side before spasming. Coils of agony washed over Kato as what could only be the plague fought over him.

  Kato grunted in pain. His bones tore against his innards begging for release.

  Kato’s rage clamped his mouth shut. It would not scream. It would not show weakness. It would prevail.

  Kato’s body spasmed again, driving him back through the dirt and leaving a small furrow behind.

  His rage screamed but no words came out. They would not be cowed by mere feelings, there was only one feeling worth having, it wasn’t pain and it certainly wasn’t weakness.

  Kato’s body writhed further. Clumps of dirt were sent flying to the air. Blackened grass flew around him, the scent of fire still heavy in the air. The grass had once stood proud too. Constantly growing. Striving forwards. Never stopping in their march. Getting higher and higher, until they looked above those who had once looked down at them.

  Then their own trial had come. One of fire. It tore all their dreams and aspirations to shreds, leaving them mere husks of their former selves until with time those too crumbled away.

  Kato writhed again. The sharp bite of small stones dug into him from all angles but they meant nothing in the face of the plague.

  He would not be like them. He would not mean nothing in the face of the absolute. This his rage vowed.

  Kato’s body jerked back, briefly becoming airborne, before coming down hard with a dull thud on the ground. He laid prone on his side, breathing deeply. it didn't help. He writhed again and his pupils shattered, tiny pitch-black particles that had once coalesced into his fiercest protector giving away when he needed them the most.

  His jaw unseized and his mouth fell open, hinged to its extremities.

  Then he screamed.

  The once dulled blue and green hues of a world turned cold shattered. Life came roaring back and with it came its joys. Kato’s body erupted into pain like never before, apparently his rage had been doing more than he thought.

  He screamed again in a never-ending symphony of lamentation. His eyes watered as they fought to burst out of his head. Kato’s cries were becoming more and more inhuman with every passing second.

  Then suddenly it all stopped.

  Kato’s jaw hung open, the phantom aftershocks refusing to let it close. He stared vacantly forward as lone blood-red tears splashed into the fallow ground.

  “First ploughed, now watered.” A cold metallic voice resonated around him. Kato forced his head up and blew his damp black locks from his eyes, but no one was there.

  He rolled onto his back. The stones bit into him again, even harder than before. With a groan, he attempted to get up but his body refused to listen.

  He looked around frantically. Of course a person would come now.

  Kato coughed, weakly, “show yourself!”

  Thump. Thump.

  Two feet met the ground next to Kato’s head.

  He turned, craning his neck backwards.

  A faceless man stared into the distance above him. The same metallic cold voice from before rang out. "Now all we need is the seed." Its face snapped to his.

  “It can’t be,” Kato whispered, “not you.” His body began to shake violently, but it wasn’t from the pain. Kato began rocking back and forth, he had to escape. “Not you.”

  After a moment the faceless visage turned and looked to the distance. Then the song came. A creepy, metallic warble that grated Kato’s ears, but it was hauntingly poetic nevertheless.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “In the battle’s blood we make our rest.

  Through the taken life that we made dead.

  Plough the ground till the dirt attests.

  This place was my home, and you made it dead.

  Wash the ground till its holy and blessed.

  This place was their home, and you made it dead.

  Bury the seed, till its life is suppressed.

  This place is your home, and you will be dead.”

  The creature’s clawed hand dragged through the turned dirt. Then it looked at him.

  Kato shook his head mutely.

  A clump of dirt hit his face.

  The hand went down again.

  A second clump hit.

  Kato closed his eyes as the pressure across him mounted, and the world faded to black.

  “BOY!” A woman’s voice shouted out, startling Kato.

  His eyes opened in a slow blink.

  He had awoken in a small room. Pale yellow plaster hung from exposed stone on the walls. A fire crackled at the back and smoke drifted through an attached clay chimney. The scent of freshly baked bread wafted through the air. A small wooden table lay to his right adorned with set of lockpicks splayed over a black leather case resting comfortably over the aged wood.

  The table was riddled with holes. Kato had told Maya time and time again to get rid of it lest the rot spread to the rest of the house. But she never listened to him. Said it was sentimental, part of the family. He had wondered then if she would've that still when the supporting beams inevitably gave out.

  They had lived a fairly minimalist life. Apart from the table and the fire, two rickety wooden chairs with high arched backs were the only comfort they had afforded themselves.

  “Didn’t I tell you to put your picks away” A slender, lithe woman teased, as she looked down at him.

  ‘This isn’t right, I shouldn’t be here.' Kato blinked slightly. ‘What’s happening?’

  A rounded face peered over him, her emerald eyes, staring dead into his. Her head was elegantly framed by striking white locks that extended well past her shoulders. And although she clearly didn’t live rich, she held herself tall, like a person who was used to getting their way.

  She gently nudged Kato’s shoulder. “Come on, forget about the mess,.Romero’s waiting for us.”

  Kato blinked slightly, ‘picks on the table is hardly a mess,’ he thought confused. His head was starting to ache. ‘This isn’t right,’ a voice whispered in the back of his mind.

  Kato stood up, his bones creaking as he fought against gravity. He looked at Maya, then blinked again. Her features appeared almost stretched across her face, the right side seemed normal but when she turned…

  It was wrong. It was all wrong. It was as if someone had extended her features. They were lopsided and twice as long as they should be.

  “This isn’t right,” he whispered. His head pulsed in pain in response.

  “Kato?” Maya asked. “We are going to be late,” her head settled into a normal visage as she flashed him a slight smile.

  Kato stepped backwards; his hand clutched against the wooden edge of the small table.

  “Kato?” She stepped forward, her eyes did not look so kind anymore.

  Kato stepped back again. His hand brushed against the discarded picks.

  “Oh,” Maya’s eyes flashed in understanding. “It’s fine Kato. You can sort that out later.”

  Kato stepped back again. The picks slid back along the table with his motion, making a small scraping sound.

  “We are expected,” the words sounded right, but her malformed lips didn’t move when she said them.

  Kato clutched the picks raising them off the table, ‘What’s happening?’

  Maya’s emerald eyes flashed. Black fog clouded her irises, intermittently pierced by flashing purple lightning. Her nose twitched. “I would hate to be late.” Then she charged at him, leaping over the table her mouth unhinged unnaturally wide.

  Kato’s vision went black.

  He awoke again in the same room as before but this time it was different. Pale black wisps of fog tendrilled through the room and the scent of decay hung thick in the air. The fire had long since run cold and it felt like it. Kato shivered in the chilled room. Charred coal remained unlit in the fireplace, as if to spurn him. It looked abandoned. 'Is this what happened after I left?' He looked around the space. Fog clung to what little furnishings were left, blanketing stone and wood alike.

  He looked to the wall. It was the only thing that had something new or something old, depending on how you looked at it. A small square portrait hung lopsided against exposed stone suffocated in fog.

  Maya had removed this particular item long ago. Her sentimentality apparently only stretched so far.

  Kato knew what it was. What the fog had buried. He didn’t even remember the face, but it was the one thing he was sure he would never forget. It was his father, the only image left of the man before he had disappeared into the unknown. Kato doubted a single person alive remembered his face. He’d asked. A lot. But they all said the same. “It’s been too long. I’m sorry kid. I really am.” The words felt hollow then and they felt no more solid now.

  Kato dragged a chair over to the wall; he climbed on it and batted the fog from the picture. With a tender hand he straightened the frame.

  A burnt mark for a face stared back at him.

  He looked at it for a moment, then started to laugh. This was all that was left, the only connection remaining. He laughed harder. Then without warning punched forward, his hands tore through the painted cloth and struck the stone behind with a sharp crack.

  “Kato,” Male susurrations broke out behind him.

  He turned.

  The fog had coalesced into a vaguely humanoid figure.

  Kato raised his hand again.

  “You need to go back,” many voices whispered out to him. Then with a thick, blackened tendril it shoved him.

  Chapter 1

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