That was the first thing he realized when he finally opened his eyes. He was literally in the embrace of darkness, pitch black and suffocating. He wanted to move but he could only crawl. He wanted to scream but he didn't have any mouth. He became aware that he wasn't human anymore but merely a speck of mud crawling in the underbelly of something greater than him, something terrifying, somewhere where lost souls like him had no voice and were forgotten.

Richard didn't know how long he stayed in that darkness. He didn't know why, if he had really died, then why was he trapped like this? Where was the light that was supposed to bring him out? And why was he left aware with his memories fresh and intact?

The last thing he remembered was holding An Ning in his arms as he waited for the final loss of consciousness that would have faded his life and reanimated his brother's. But it didn't happen that way. It was worse, so much worse than death and dying. For his consciousness did not fade out, did not even lost a beat of its heart.

Richard brooded on his situation. He remembered how he brooded and grew bitter and angrier as the days and weeks pa.s.sed. Was this what dying was really all about? Somebody kicks your soul out of your body and that was it? The end of life as you knew it? But wasn't there supposed to be some sort of peace in that unconscious state? You die and your soul goes somewhere, maybe a haven for souls whose bodies didn't die but were instead replaced by another then conveniently forgotten. So, what makes a soul a soul? When it dies along with its physical body and the remains finally inspected then harvested for reincarnation?

He was obviously forgotten. No one came to sort him out, not even a tiny inspection to find out if he was good for regeneration or not. He waited and waited. Until he grew so miserable and so depressed and so angry that one day, he decided to just crawl out of there and find a way to kill himself for good. But it didn't happen the way he expected.

He crawled out of there, G.o.d knows how he did it, but when he finally left that despicable darkness, he found himself facing another insurmountable challenge. He was mud. No body, not solid, malleable. What was he to do? Richard also encountered hunger. A hunger so piercingly bottomless that he would think of food 24/7. There was no let up, not even in sleep. The hunger kept him awake, kept him roiling in his own h.e.l.l to the point of insanity. Until one morning when it happened.

He was s.h.i.+vering under the trees, having taken shelter from the storm when he smelled something so appetizing it literally made his insides boil. He didn't know how he did it since he had no nose, not even a mouth or a face but that smell...it was then that he discovered that the smell was above him, around him. He was practically in its embrace.

Richard crawled atop it whatever it was, delirious with hunger and he found himself literally feeding on it, sucking with his little mouth covered in mud, piercing with his tiny claws dripping in mud, feeding until his hunger was a little bit quenched. He would rest for a while and then do it all over again, crawling, piercing, sucking until the appetizing smell was replaced by the stench of decay. The appetizing smell started to rot and he couldn't feed on it anymore and he had to crawl out of there again because the rot had become so bad he was starting to feel nauseated by it. He could feel it around him, inside him. He was the rot and his mind again nearly went over the edge.

It took him several days to get rid of the smell. It helped that it rained and that the wind swept away whatever was left of the decaying smell and he could feel clean again and not gag as he smelled himself. But then there was the hunger. Even with the rot and the smell and the decay, the hunger never left him. It was persistent in its demands, insistent on him feeding and quenching its need and thirst.

It happened again days later. He was crawling, moving so slow with each effort taking its toll on whatever strength he had left when he smelled that appetizing smell again. The scent was sweeter this time, more savory and tasty that he went completely mad. Some instinct drove him to follow the source of the smell and when he neared it, he dove in for the kill, his hungry mud mouth, his famished mud fingers and nails sticking desperately to it, sucking and biting until the savory taste filled his mud mouth, filled his belly and momentarily made him happy that he almost cried.

Whatever it was he was stuck into, started to move and to run, the wind piercing his open pores with its sting. But he didn't care. The desperate feeding continued until he could feel himself expand, his body feeling light, his movements a little less sluggish. Then the stench a.s.saulted his senses again. It was worse this time, the rot filling his mud mouth and his mud body with the stink.

The fifth time it happened, Richard realized something. He had become like a leech, feeding off small animals by sucking their blood. He would attach himself to a living object and leech off of them their lives and existence until they die and the rot would make him stop. It was the rot that he couldn't take. He was a nothing, with no soul or body but he remained human because he couldn't stand the stench, couldn't stand the smell of decay and death.

The irony of it was not lost on Richard. But why allow him to 'live' then? Why not totally eradicate whatever existence he still had left in time and just finish him off? Kill him? Not make him suffer as a nothing? But he ate and flourished and continued to thrive and he didn't die. Then something happened that changed everything for Richard.

Eating off on small animals had their desired effects. He grew. The mud body his feeble soul was stuck into expanded and grew. From small rats and wild dogs, Richard's diet now included beasts in the forests, feral and wild and scared of him. Yes, scared and frightened. He became the living creature that every animals in that unnamed forest would travel far to avoid. They could smell his coming because he came with a stench that even animals grew wary of. That stench came with the decay of flesh and newly dug soil, the end of life and Richard was the frightening bringer of that inglorious end. Until one day, when it happened.

Richard was chasing after a mountain lion which tried to avoid him like a plague after smelling the stench he carried. The lion even went so far as to bravely forge through a rus.h.i.+ng river to escape his clutches. Richard gave chase, his mouth watering at the sight of the cowering lion, when something else caught his attention.

The smell was different. It smelled fresh and pure, uncontaminated by either wind or rain. It was not blood or flesh but something else, something that teased at Richard's consciousness so that he changed course, abandoning the lion which scampered away, while he followed the smell that made everything inside him boil with hunger.

The young man was alone trying to pitch a tent on the banks of the river. He tried to finish the task but was constantly stopped by the pinging of his phone. He was obviously texting with someone for his face would often break out in a smile every time his phone jngles a jaunty tune and he stops to read the inbound message. This happened several times until the boy finally abandoned pitching the tent and sat on a rock with his fingers rapidly typing a response.

Richard didn't even remember what the boy looked like. He remembered a young, clean face and light hair. He remembered freshness and the feel of crisp spring. Then the terror replacing the joy on the boy's face when he saw the black thing which was Richard rus.h.i.+ng at him from across the distance of the opposite banks.

The boy's face was startled then surprised then the realization of danger as Richard drew nearer and then complete silence when the blackness completely enfolded him in its embrace.

Richard was trembling. He lunged at the boy but did not devour him as he usually did the animals in the forest. He took the boy's neck between his claws until it snapped, not releasing until he saw something peeked out of the boy's mouth, the source of the sweetness and appeas.e.m.e.nt that he desired, the boy's uncorrupted soul which he took in his own stomach in one rapid bite.

He didn't know it was a soul, a human living soul, until much later. He thought only to appease his greed, appease his hunger and thought of nothing else so he could devour more, feed more of the same substance, the sweetness of life and innocence cleansing the stench, the rot he carried outside and within himself.

The boy was just the beginning. But he discovered that he could only feel clean and totally get rid of the stench if he devoured souls that were just at the beginning of growing. Young souls that were uncorrupted by anything their owners haven't the guts yet to do as they grow older were the best cure for his hunger, the best cure for his anger.

It must have started with the boy then. Because when it finally happened, his first thought was of An Ning. Fate and G.o.d have abandoned him. He will not look to chance if he ever wanted to come back and see An Ning again. It was up to him. He had been given a rare gift. To start life from mud. What did it matter if it took ten thousand innocent souls to bring him back? Life and death...he would even cross an ocean full of nails to see and be with An Ning again. For abandoned souls like him, was there really any other choice?