[IC] Ai Qing Shi Chang Zhan Zheng [Vocab]

[AimeChambers]

There was a small smell of burning oil and wood in the air... along with another scent that Joshua's brain tried to correlate with an unwanted memory, but couldn't exactly place it. What was it? There was an overflowing metallic smell that overflowed the man's senses, giving the man's gagging reflux a chance to exercise. Blood... and a lot of it. As he opens his eyes, there's a cloudy sky directly above him, he's seemingly on his back. The clouds give off a weird feeling though, they are a mixture of smoke and strange moisture in the air. His body was temporarily immovable, just the nervous system trying to process what the hell was going on. He was lying on wet grass and as he raised his arm... the entire back of it was covered in browning blood.

Smoke licked at Joshua's nostrils and he began to cough maniacally. The man finally shifted into a sitting position before getting all the way off the ground. The grass was littered with body after body. Crushed heads under sliced up horses, legs sticking out of fallen war tents with astounding needlework and patterns. There was a nearby river that looked like it usually carried fresh water... but the liquid was dyed a deep blackish red and there, crossing from one side of the land to another was a row of wooden boats, slowly burning and all attached with a long chain...

That smell that no one could normally place was the smell of burning human flesh.

The sound of a cry of pain. There was someone still alive out there! A shadow of movement passing in between the fallen tents and what seemed to be plated armored soldiers that held bronze swords. Their hair kept in black high buns and waists tied with colored sashes drenched in blood. Out in the field of cut down tree stumps stepped out a man with only one arm, a cloth pressed tightly against the wound. He wailed in pain as he continued to move forward, his eyes blurry and his body ready to give out. Not looking where he was going, the man stumbled over a fallen horse and seemingly couldn't get back up.

[Temporary]

~ Animation ~

Plastic carrier bag clutched in one hand, he made his way up each slate step in the evening chill, and along a path or decorated stone towards a large, relatively worn but seen discernibly modern building, just off the outskirts of the city. They liked to keep the place out of the way, either to keep the patients from hearing the sound of traffic constantly, or to keep the crazy away from society. In either way, it was a pleasant walk up from the car park, just far enough of a distance to let him into a calm mood, on the off chance the visitation didn't go as planned.

She had already been locked up within the Harrison Private Psychiatric Hospital for four years now without signs of recovery. Some days she seemed to be a tad better, but any disparity in her condition reverted within the next couple days. For a few years Joshua had blamed himself; maybe if he was a better older brother, maybe if he had stood up to their father, or just been there more through their foster years, she wouldn't be in the state she was.

He couldn't let himself think like that, though. Couldn't harbour those kinds of beliefs and emotions. All they would do was hurt Emily. What if one day he could't visit her, or something else happened, while he was in his own self hatred? She could have another episode. If she was taken to a state hospital, who knew what they would do to her? It was a scenario Joshua simply wasn't willing to entertain.

But every step he took seemed to sound more hollow. As though the earth beneath each slated section of path had fallen away, deleted from under his feet. The world seemed to spin, the trees in all directions molding and warping in a psychedelic kaleidoscope of greens, and blues, and the oranges of the setting sun against a backdrop of grey clouds and white light from the city. It rained and snowed and thundered and the sun shone and detonated in a million sparkling stars shifting like a wave of diamonds that rained down on the planet and obliterated everything in their path to make way for a new reality.

His stomach lurched as he sat up, from those slated pieces of path surrounded on all sides by grass and trees, and the giant, wavering, illusory old but modern building. His clothes were soaked through from the rain, and the smell of pine and oak trees tickled at the back of his nostrils in protest to his location. The sky sat overcast, glaring at its newly procured victim with sneering beads of sunlight.

Yet the closer he looked, the more he let his eyes focus on the dim-lit sky and the rich, deep green trees, something clogged his view, blocking the passage of reality to his brain. No trees existed here. No overarching building of wood and glass, old yet new. No ornate path to the psychiatric hospital he had visited for the past four years. No grass. No glinting sunlight through dark thunderclouds.

Smoke and ash and blood and decay lingered in the air round his every molecule, filtering past his eyes and nostrils, the facade of a real world blemished with torment. This place wasn't real. He had just fallen unconscious, maybe slipped in a puddle on his way up the stairs. The life essence of human beings clung tightly in fabric to his skin, tarnishing his skin incarnadine. Turquoise eyes pierced the fog of war like a lighthouse beacon, radiating through the deaths of hundreds, and the burning of the churned and demolished land to see what he wanted.

For Joshua wanted nothing more than to see anything else. Bodies littering a wasteland of darkness, eclipsed in smoke from fires long since extinguished by time. The dull ring in his ears, taking in his surroundings from an upright position, letting feeling return to his legs and arms and brain to make sense of everything. Where, on Earth, had he ended up? Feeling the panic crawl its way into his throat with ragged breathing, caught on his windpipe, forcing out a cough from asphyxiation.

And a scream. A scream that drew his head instantly, despite the migraine that implanted itself deep into his brain. Even in an addled and vacant state of mind, Joshua had a duty; he couldn't let a person in pain or trouble to their own devices, especially not on the field of battle. The though had barely crossed his mind before he reached his feet and sprinted in the direction of the man.

Wounded, barley conscious, with his arm severed at the shoulder, collapsed against the bloodied corpse of a horse; the stench of decay clawing at his nostrils, forcing him to swallow down gag reflex time and time again. Just like that time.
"H-hey, hey, its okay." his voice shook as he spoke, still recovering from the dehydration in his mouth intermixed with the metallic tinge of blood, "Help! he felt himself shout, against his misgivings, "Th-there's a wounded here!" he took the cloth from the man and pressed it tight to the wound, attempting to stop the bleeding; he had basic medical training, but not for this. Not a severed limb or a... a sword wound.

Taking another glance around the field, everything seemed to slow. Corpse after corpse piled high against mud and dirt, peppered with smouldering fires trickling smoke high into the miasma of the sky. Horses lay strewed periodically, punctured with arrows and swords, much the same as the ones every soldier seemed to carry. Their weapons, their outfits... Where? Where the hell was he?

[AimeChambers]

All that came back to Joshua was the echo of his plea for help. None of the bodies stirred and all that could be heard was a rockslide in the distance and the rush of the blackened river. There was no birds singing or squirrels nearby, not with the stench and blight of war on the land.

The man was groaning and whimpering, his eyes looked dazed and his face was getting paler and paler. Tears and snot streamed down his face as he wept angrily, not even really noticing Joshua's approach. "Th-Those blasted scoundrels! How dare they perform such a trick of sorcery against the Kingdom of Li... Damn that witch! Damn Xi Lei so that I may get my revenge!" The rest of his words were muffled as he hacked and blood spurted out over his armored chest. The light continued to dim out of his eyes as tears continued to fall, "My death prevails in vain..." He whimpered, his shame pouring off of him in waves of despair. Finally he fell quiet, his struggling body going limp against Joshua's helping hand.

The man must have lost too much blood from the wound, there had been no way to save him. The body and blood were still warm and it seemed almost to seep into the bewildered man's hand. Only after a few moments did a speck of life sound from off in the near distance.

Down the river, there was a lone horse who still had an ornate saddle prepared on it's back. The horse itself must have belonged to some high official or strong cavalry man, with the gold stitches adorning the bridal and the horse's luscious mane which was only flaked with blood looked well taken care of. The horse seemed to have tried to take a drink from the lake, only to spit it out and back away frantically when the water tasted of something foul and probably poisonousness. Now the horse was sniffing around the bodies, trying to find something to eat and knocking a bottle of what seemed to be alcohol out of one of the corpse's pockets.

As the horse finally noticed Joshua, it reared up its head, eyeing the man carefully. A muffled puff of air and the horse started to get closer to him... Only to again, rear up its head, give a scared neigh and trot away, hurdling over corpses left and right. Something was a miss to scare a stallion away like that... but what?

The sounds of galloping could be heard coming from the opposite direction, many meters away was a horse moving towards Joshua fast... and had a rider on its back. The rider was dressed in a flowy robe that seemed to reach over the whole of the horse's back, his hair long as the bun had come undone. As the rider drew closer, he reached for the bow on his back and aimed an arrow at Joshua's head.

[Temporary]

~ Desperate Measures ~

The emptiness of the battlefield hit Joshua like a train. In all directions smoke billowed into the sky, pillars of destruction in a foreign land. He had barely been given time to breath, though the acrid air intoxicated with blood, decomposing bodies and burning wood made him wish he couldn't. Feeling another person's blood gushing from an open wound and across his flesh made him recoil, if only for a second, but he kept steady, doing his best to stabilise the man.

"Don't talk, save your stre...ngth..? he trailed off, watching the soldiers head lull against his armoured chest in a coughing fit before the last of his breathe leaked from his lips. Joshua grabbed his head, lifting up the limp body as best as possible, "C'mon, hey, wake up, don't go falling asleep!" he shouted, only to find himself confronted by the dim, open eyes of the recently deceased.

In the spur of the moment, he felt himself fall backwards against the mud, splashing foul and tainted water against his already stained clothed in a brief fit of panic. Not once, up close, had he watched a person die. Watched the light and life filter slowly from their struggling body, and feel them go still and quiet under his grasp. A thousand thoughts danced a serenade cacophony in his head, spurring him to his feet, spinning around in a circle, taking in the desolate landscape in its unholy glory; what manner of worlds did had he found himself in? What happened to his-

The scared neigh of a nearby horse broke his attention, drawing his head away from the landscape and out of his tumultuous thoughts. The fact that something was still alive, on the fields of war, granted him some semblance of calm. But in his calm he didn't recognise the fear of the creature. He watched it scamper off, over piles of bodies, clearly disturbed by something.

And the drumming. Joshua's body turned in the direction, glancing across the field. There was drumming coming from somewhere, off in the distance. A steady, repeating drumming, growing ever closer with every second that passed, thundering across the crimson soil, faster, and faster. A second past, beating, faster, faster, echoing the rhythms of his heart, faster, exploding, ripping up mud and soil and building faster and faster over the field.

A horse, decorated ornately in fine robes flowing in every direction from the wind. Beating its hooves against the earth directly towards him, the antithesis of its relative that had mere moments ago fled the scene. But in the next second, seeing the creature leap over a severed tree trunk and a mound of fresh corpses, Joshua saw the true face of the enemy; a soldier, a man, pulling tightly the taut string of a bow.

And instinct took over, forcing him to his feet. Things wouldn't be like with his father, never again; he wouldn't stand and take a beating when he could get away. Whatever world he had landed in, wherever he was, whatever foul event had taken place, his only priority was to survive. For Emily. He grabbed from beside him a blood and mud speckled sword, feeling its weight in his hand, before leaping over the dead horse in front of him.

"I'm so sorry." Joshua whispered, grabbed the robes of the recently deceased man by the neck and hoisting him in front of his as a make shift shield to protect against the arrow that would soon be loosed in his direction, "What the hell are you doing?! I'm not here to fight you!" he heard himself shout over the thundering hoof falls before him, barely able to see over the corpse in his hand.

[AimeChambers]

The arrow should have hit its planned target, but alas, that was not the case. The man shouted a curse that didn't sound familiar, aiming another shot at the foreign man before firing again. This one too hit the dead body and angered the calvary soldier all the more! Where had this man come from anyway? The soldier had scouted the area before, going through and seeing if he could find any kind of jewelry that could woo a girl back in Xi Lei. This soldier wasn't the most loyal man, more of a hired mercenary joining a bigger army for his country. He had joined for profit, nothing more. But the man he was staring at now seemed much too foreign for him to not have seen the guy earlier. He wore some kind of bizarre clothes with bizarre styles that the mercenary had never seen before... Maybe they could catch a hefty price. Well, tt didn't matter how the foreigner had survived the battle, he would have his head cut clean off soon enough. And what was even with that hair?

The man slipped his bow back onto the quiver on his back before grabbing at the sword on his belt. It looked well used and the bearded, crazy looking man handled it almost lovingly. "I am here to cut you down, isn't that why you called? To end your miserable life?" The soldier let out a hoot before pointing the sword at Joshua, "Say your prayers half-wit, you will soon see your maker!"

Before Joshua could say anything else, the soldier moved to strike the man in question in half with his sword, the horse getting ever so closer.