Rain washes over me
It fails to purify my sins
Mine eyes, downcast, dim and grim
God? Faileth he to hear my  plea

The darkness of night enveloped the murderer of countless Sanritem and his poor sister, Myungeun. The two were asleep, although one slept in eternal repose. His body, awash with the color of sin, a bale shade of red, shivered suddenly from the chilly desert zephyrs. The man finally awoke from his slumber. His body shuddered and his mind quaked with intense throbbing. His eyes darted all over the desolate sands until they finally peered to his right, to the lifeless body of his sister. He huddled his knees in a scene of vulnerability and miserable anguish, tears streaming down his eyes like violent rivers.

 "Myungeun," he whimpered as he shook her body, an empty action, one taken in denial, hoping she might answer his call. "Myungeun, wake up! Please! You can talk to be about anything you want, and I'll listen! I promise I'll listen..."

His lips drooped and his cheeks sagged, he felt his strength being drained by her refusal to reply. His hand, rough and bloody, touched her rounded shoulder, but drew back once it felt the coldness of her bare skin. He tightly clenched his hand and bit his lip in agony. He realized the inescapable truth- she was dead and had been for several hours. 

Myungeun was the only light that existed for him. Without her, he would be swallowed up by the ever asive darkness. He pounded at the sand beside her and wailed with a deep bitterness. The crimson streak on her neck, the sign of death, a death inflicted by the abysmal evil of Oscuridaon pierced his heart like a blade and cut it up into pieces too many to count. His emotions swirled like maelstrom inside him, battering him against craggy rocks and shattering his will to live. But a hatred swam up from the unceasing whirlpool, bringing him to think with a clear sanity.

In that brief moment of clear reason, he cursed Oscuridaon for killing her, and moreover he cursed his god, Nesher. Why had he taken her? Why did she die a martyr for a stupid fable? Why did he, Myungsoo, not die? Why did she die and not him? Why couldn't she have lived? 
 
 Under his breath escaped words of blasphemy, the songs of heretics, the oath of the unbeliever. His heartbeat was like the marching of hell's armies, piercing, haunting, and aflame with the fire of unbridled hatred and wrath. His voice, as he wailed was the roaring of a demoniac; his eyes, devoid of humanity, a pitch black abyss. Nothing could save him.

The sky, an ominous steel gray, thundered and while most men would shudder from the booming trumpets of thunder, Myungsoo kept to his display of mourning. Rain pelted down on him like the arrows shot by skilled and battle-weathered archers, yet he was unmoved- still beside his sister, lamenting his loss. Soon enough the sight of her sister drenched in rain prompted him to throw himself on her, "You'll get sick if you stay in the rain, Myungeun!"

Answered by silence, Myungsoo moaned and observed the rain wash off the blood on his arms and chest. His face, craned upwards to gaze at the dim heavens, was cleansed by the cold rain.

He stood and glanced at his sister. With sullen eyes casted on her slumbering face, he recognized what he had to do, so he did it. He knelt and kissed her forehead and cheek one final time before he dug a hole with his bare hands. He would've wished for a more proper burial, but this was all he could muster.

Myungsoo considered marking her grave with his sword, but changed his mind after weighing his thoughts: she would consider it an insult to have her grave marked by a sword that has taken so many lives and shed so much blood. It was ironic to him, how his sister's bones would molder away in the same desolate place where he had left so many Adamah bodies to rot.

What would she have said had she discovered such an ugly truth? He smiled, happy, knowing she died with a pure image of him. She really did believe he was a kind and caring soul, never doubting the angelic mask and smiles of saccharin behind which he hid. Yet it was all a lie, a blatant farce.

The rain let up and Myungsoo continued to walk wherever his feet commanded. He had no destination in mind, nor any resolve to make it to any sign of civilization. His heart was heavy and his mental state, a haze of smoke that ascended from a real hell. Finding a nearby rock, Myungsoo walked up to it and sat on it, huddling his feet. Unsheathing his sword of gold and admiring its sharp edge, he questioned whether he should kill himself. But what would Myungeun say? She wouldn't want that. Of course not! If he did, would he even be in the same plane of existence as she would? In paradise? Probably not... He knew his soul would fall to the depths of hell.  A random thought flickered, what would Nesher say?! If he took his own life, would god care?

 "The blazes with that! Like I care what he would say!"

Myungsoo pounded his arm on the great rock, and with that, his golden bracer made a slight, sizzling noise. He gasped and brought it into closer view. Tiny sparks fizzled on it. Myungsoo knew what it meant. He tossed his head back and laughed like a vagabond long lost in a world of delusion and lunacy. In a serendipitous way, the golden bracer on his wrist was a memento left behind by his father. It's technology was an intricate masterpiece that was developed for decades until it was perfected. When it was fully functional it served as a weapon that shot out a powerful blast, a telecommunications device, and a teleportation device.

He had found the bracer long ago during his mission to slaughter a town suspected of forming a rebellion. He regretted not finding it before he could ask a local where they had discovered it; all of the townspeople were burning in a pile when it's shining glimmer caught his eye.

 "You couldn't even save me?!" Myungsoo shouted, "My father saved me, not you! You false god!"

Sweeping his long jet black locks behind his back, he sighed and grunted. Curling up into a neat ball, he did his best to find some sleep. But he couldn't, memories of his sister still alive tortured him. They preyed upon his decaying mind like ravenous griffon vultures and laughing hyenas, tearing his sanity apart piece by piece as they would peck and bite at the sinews and fats of unfortunate corpses.

"Nesher doesn't love me. Well, neither do I. I hate him."

Frustrated, he got up and walked without knowing where he would go. 

Sleep-deprived and mentally exhausted, he collapsed upon reaching a small sand dune that overlooked an isolated cabin. Getting up on groggy legs, he pressed on and without much thought, walked up to the doorstep of the wooden cabin. Food was scarce during his last mission and the pieces of jerky he shared with his sister wasn't enough to satisfy his hunger, let alone the small morsels he ingested during breakfast with the despot. He was hungry, thirsty. It was his survival instinct that pushed him to reach the house.

Collapsing again, this time against the rough looking door, Myungsoo let out a plea, "Food."

He was answered by a woman of incomparable beauty. Her skin was a glowing tawny color, lips, plump and scarlet. A mane of luxuriant hair, black as the outer cosmos and flowing down her s, adorned her head. Her eyes were a lapis-lazuli marvel. A tunic of white silk, with a girdle of gold was her outfit, and it all accentuated her luscious, lusty figure. She gasped at the sight of Myungsoo fallen and not responding to her timid tones, "Are you alive?"

 She brought him in, laid him on her bed decorated with desert blossoms, and tended to his wounds, about which her dainty fingers traced with soft movements. A warrior she was hosting in her humble abode, one who was intimate with the ugliness and carnage of battle. She was fascinated by his physique and the air about him, a mystique that made her chest tingle with a crackling and a throb. The young woman stayed by his side until he awoke the next evening.

He woke up to a sudden start, sweaty and confused. For a brief moment, he thought he was back home in his marble tower, with Myungeun sitting by his side, not the gorgeous dame whose ebony locks failed to obscure her gaze. With a fierce scowl on his face and cynicism lurking in the back of his mind, he asked, "Who the devil are you?"

 The fair maiden, hurt from his words, scoffed. "I saved you!"

 "Do you want me to thank you?"

 With agape and mind stupefied, she casted her vision to the ground.

His big eyes became narrow slits when he attempted to get off the bed; he felt drained of all his strength. Seeing this, the lady placed her dainty fingers on his arm and then wrapped her arms around it. "Don't leave, stay," she said with a hushed tone.

 Frustrated by his inability to get up, Myungsoo laid back down on the soft, silky covers. He hated to admit it, but danger was rampant out in the desert during night hours. It was more of a benefit for him to remain in bed than leave out the door. All too happy to see him stay, the girl smiled at him, "Why don't I serve you some soup?"

His eyes looked at her with an unfounded suspicion. He didn't say no, however, and was soon served a dark colored broth from a clay pot. Clutching the earthenware bowl in his hands, Myungsoo sniffed it. She was amused by his actions, "You're like a dog!"

He glared at her but chose not to respond, leading her to furl her lips, cutely, with feelings of vexation brewing from not having her remark reacted to.

 "It's not poison- see?" she said as she drank in the soup

He set off the bowl on the counter next to the bed as he replied, "No thanks. Not hungry..."

frowned. Following him, she set off her own bowl on the same counter and began to inquire of him. "Who are you? And why did you come to my door, nearly dead?"

 "You have my gratefulness, woman. But do not think I will answer your questions just because your outward appearance is comely and most likely praised by many."

 She was bewildered by his words again, taken captive by his cold appeal. Was that a compliment he gave her? She wasn't sure. All she knew was that she wanted him. "I- that's fine, I guess... Have you a woman by your side?"

 He scoffed. His gaze locked with hers and looked beyond her to recall with a wistful half-smile, his sister. "No," he said.

 A satisfied smile hung upon her face. Placing her warm hand upon his, she whispered, "I'm glad."

 "What do you want of me?"

 A giggle escaping her small mouth, she coiled her arms around his again. "Stay with me, forever," she said with a sultry voice.

 Any man would have yielded to her, but Myungsoo was not just any man; pulling his arm away, he asked a second time, "What do you want of me, woman?"

 She dipped closer and kissed his cheek, purposefully, letting her warm breath caress his cheek. Yet he was a stolid man, unmoved by her advances. She tucked a dangling lock of hair behind her ear, short not pointed like a Sanritem woman's, and placed her head on his bare chest.

 "You're heart's not racing?"

 "Why should it?"

 "Because mines is..." quoth the fair lady of mysterious appeal. 

Again, he answered her with silence, further irritating her. A frown appeared on her face once more.

 "Do you still love the other woman~ I know it was a woman who broke your heart, wandering warrior... Would you break mines?"

 He leered at her. Now, daring and bolder than most women, she forcefully kissed his lips. They were pleasing and her scented hair filled him with a peace. But he pulled himself away. "What do you want from me?"

 She clicked her tongue, but did her best to maintain a proper sense of delicate femininity. "Do you want me to turn into her? I could do it, I have the power..."

 "What?"

A purple mist covered her whole body, and in an instant, her likeness changed entirely. No longer was her skin a tawny richness, but the white of jasmines, and her hair, no longer long black tresses but a short cut, and her eyes no longer a deep blue but a welcome shade of brown: she had become a mirror image of Myungeun.

His mouth was open wide and eyes were stunned to see her before him. His heart raced with joy and his head, all the aching vanished.

 "This is the woman you love, right?" she said in Myungeun's gentle voice. He didn't answer with words but with tears. Knowing she struck gold, she threw herself on him and hugged him tightly, expecting her feelings to be reciprocated with a roaring passion.

They were, but with the sharp tip of his dagger that he stabbed into her abdomen, twisting it to inflict a deluge of pain and misery.

 "Why?" she wheezed.

 He laughed, "Woman! My sister! She saved me from an evil death- I know your kind, foul demon!"

 She reeled back and fell to the floor in a ball, blood gushing out her belly and spasming from the throes of death. By the time he strapped on his leather harness her whole figure had transfigured into an evil nightmarish creature with leathery skin, eyes, a pitch black and covering nearly half her face, with a jaw that extended up to her chest filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth. Small, impish wings that were bat-like in nature sprouted off her back.

She was a wicked witch that fed on the salacious, base desires of men who debased themselves to lascivious cretins; a being that gave lustful men their just desserts, eventually robbing them of their life force when their night of obscenity had transpired. Myungsoo knew all too well, privy of countless myths and rumors he encountered during his travels as head of Oscuridaon's army.

He stepped out the shabby-looking cabin and walked on, treading onwards with sluggish steps. The burst of adrenaline that surged through his veins like liquid lightning the moment he saw the tawdry copy of his sister evaporated like the morning dew on a hot summer day. On a whim, he turned and saw no sign of life behind him, only desert sands; the whole cabin had vanished.

Grunting, Myungsoo mused the fate he had escaped. If he had eaten the food the witch offered, he would've most likely died then and there. Whether it was poison or a sleep-inducing substance the soup contained, he didn't know; he was just sure that it contained the entryway to hell. Nearly stumbling on a rock, he caught himself and sat on the sand, letting his mind drift to other thoughts. He felt lost.

With a dark grimace, he cursed Oscuridaon and Nesher. He and Myungeun were living a lavish lifestyle as prince and princess up until yesterday. But Myungsoo cursed himself for his twisted thoughts. Why should he prefer the false life he was living as Oscuridaon's son? He bit his tongue and uttered blasphemous hymns. If his father never died, he and Myungeun would've most likely lived a better life, right? 

He was a coward, fleeing from the reality of life without Myungeun, finding pretexts and blaming everyone for the state of his life. He clicked his tongue and began to walk again. At a far distance, his eyes spotted a corpse rotting away. He turned his back and walked in the other direction.

Stopping in his tracks, he saw the ghost of his sister, a mere hallucination but one real enough to startle him. A cold sweat dripped from his forehead as he furled his brows. His eyes were trembling and his heart, confused if for the breadth of a moment. At the core of his heart, he knew Myungeun wanted him to properly bury the body of the dead Adamah.

He snarled and walked up to the sobering reminder of death, a body undergoing decay. He wasn't thoroughly bothered by the sight or smell, having grown accustomed to it as a ruthless warrior. What tossed him into depression was the realization: his sister was undergoing the same process.

He vented the air through his nose as he finished digging the hole beside the body.

It was at that moment that he heard the flapping of wings. "Vulturemen. Why?"

He was more than exhausted before he started digging the grave, but now he was barely standing. The last thing he needed was the presence of the horrid beings known as Vulturemen. These beings were ugly, an inhuman color of gray with beady, white eyes, standing over six feet in height, with a wingspan of ten feet, and talons, half a foot in length. Their beaks that protruded out of their misshapen faces were often stained red with blood. They were scavenging children of the night that feasted on dead and living alike during the forsaken midnight hours and had no real intelligence. Usually, they hunted in groups of two's or three's, and tonight was no different.

The temptation to let himself die was there but Myungsoo brandished his glinted blade and puffed out some air. After some reflection, he realized he shouldn't toss away his life so easily. His raison d'etre was no longer his sister but Oscuridaon. Only a live man can kill, a dead man can't. But before he could kill him, he would have to overcome the current problem at hand.

The first of the malicious demons swooped down, Myungsoo rolled out of the way and hacked the wing clean off its back. A piercing shriek emanated from the vile creature. Myungsoo ran to it and stabbed it's head. One down, two to go. While one began to peck away at the corpse, the other rushed toward Myungsoo, tackling him down onto the desert sands. A beam of light shot at the beast, piercing it's neck.

 "Faeries?!" Myungsoo questioned. He felt doomed.