Isha is cooking, humming a familiar song often credited to a myth of mountains, “Whence it came, there he falls”. The meat is bleeding all over the cutting board, as it was freshly cut. Throwing some thyme into the pan as the burnt smell of butter fills the atmosphere, he is cooking some steak.

  “I should cook this well. After all, it’s an old meat and I don’t want to my boy to choke.”

  Back in his heyday, Isha roamed the mountains, herding his lambs across the hilltops. He is no different here, he herds his people through the unsound inclines of nation building… But he’s a shepherd at heart—a mountaineer surviving in an unfavorable position. And a good shepherd eats his sheep young.

  “Say ‘ah-’”

  The mother of the child died a year ago, about when he was 3 months old. She was on the leaner side of physiology, fit enough to bear the burden of a ship’s keel. It was a tragedy when it happened.

  A lovely, innocent baby, fed by his savant father, his cannibal father.

  In the cellar hidden under the rug, Lish and Jul are chained to a wall. But funnily enough, both aren’t really fazed.

  “Julia, so [aish] xo?”

  There’s a joke about it: “You can speak any language if you’re yelling”. The concept is that, if you sound convincing enough, your mistakes can be overlooked; you can just blurt out a word or two in between and the meaning goes through all the same.

  “Wai. Mo ai??o ko. ?u la so ai??o ko bik’tut. Mo soan ?’aian fy. ?ip yljo ?aban.”

  He has, again, fallen, stripped down to his rags and hung like a piece leather. Once the feared “Medic of Hell”, now rested on iron, awaiting his horrific end. But there isn’t any experience that he hasn’t gotten the privilege of living through yet. The burn marks, those thousands of scuffs and cuts immortalized in his skin, are the signs that he was once human.

  “We were crucified like this before, no? Back in Micro-2, with the sister... Those were the times, eh?”

  He does not track such events. Lish is quite the forgetful person; a person forgotten by history; forgotten to be written in the chronicles of the countries he has saved and failed as the myth and hope of the people.

  It’s people who you know, love, and most definitely hate—the gazes that lure you into making regrettable decisions—that influence your decisions to be as irrational as fighting a war for or against them. But Lish does not remember those faces; those looks that haunt others ‘til their end.

  In one myth, he was involved with the Crusaders of the East, fighting a war which he had no benefit in getting.

  In a city near the Aral Sea, his unluck claimed yet a lot of victims. On that fateful early morning, near the urban center of the city, he and his company were ambushed by guerillas.

  The spearhead was hit first, an RPG across the concrete jungle to the side. Then the tailender was blown up by a timed mine they had driven over moments before. He survived it alone, but they took him for information.

  That was one of his earliest missions. Various burn marks, branding from various “flames”, slowly spread across his body from then on. There’s one from the Aral city, one from the Caucasus, one from Anatoly, one from Crimea, and one from Kola, only tallying up his lower back.

  Lish isn’t only known as the Hell Hospitaler, but various names minted by those who were privileged enough to tell his tale. It’s to a point where he doesn’t even react when his birth name is called, or rather, he fancies the name Lish more than his own; the name of a flower, given to him by a kind girl, who soon fell victim to his unluck.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The “White Speed”, as he’s called near the Caucasus, is a legend of one man freeing an entire city alone.

  Near east, there was a sizable city occupied by insurgents holding civilians as hostage. In a single night, catered by gunshots of 18 different type of weapons, he freed it singlehandedly. Even though he’s human, his instinct and notice keeps him steps—even levels—above any conscript, which of 60 laid their lives trying to end his that night.

  But he’s quite strange. He has seen death many times, yet he cannot contain his grief when he’s repeatedly faced with it again. He cannot think rationally when he’s hungry, always so na?ve when he’s around a friend, and even hysterical --when he’s reminded of a better time. But this “unseriousness” that he has, has made him last ‘til today. Without it, he would’ve gone mad years, even decades ago.

  Lish wholeheartedly believes he doesn’t deserve life, not least the one that he has. But his ideals, of bringing everyone back alive, is the opposition to this fret.

  He was both happy and sad when he fell in Tan Cang.

  On that day, through the winding streets there, he fled the mafia, with false information tucked in his suitcase, selling his life for a chance at peace. He ran. He ran past the old city, the bay of a thousand ships, and then to the ship house. His aim wasn’t to hide, but to sell the idea that the briefcase being more important than he ever was. I’d doubt his adversaries even knew who he was; maybe “a thug insured with the promise of wealth”. And in that ship house, his unluck, the years and years of sorrow and despair, caught up, and… he fell. He ran and he fell, but his mission, the very last one, was completed.

  …

  All he ever wanted was to be normal. He is human, but his situations, the scenarios he has come out alive, are beyond fantasy. And when he finally thought he’s free from all the chaos, some inconceivable force called him upon this world to play a role in a mysterious plan. Though, it’s only human to rebel against others’ wishes, and go on a different path.

  Without the fear of scopes locked onto his forehead, without the need to make himself useful at every step, without him alone surviving as people perished around him, he will live, on his own accords, and happily…

  “Nu, Lisha, you should know this. I was killed in ’89 by your hands. Do you remember how you got that ‘Ashi’ on your body? That was me. I stood by your head, while you were on my table, and jammed a hot iron onto your side. You didn’t even budge. It smelt wonderful, too. While you choked me out, I was thinking, ‘How did he taste like?’. And then, I appeared here, or rather, in Limbo, with a bit of interest in human flesh. It’s strange too; I don’t have any desire for anything else, only the irrational want for flesh. Crazy, aye?”

  “Delusional is what you are; deluded by your selfish act that you cannot see past a wish some ‘thing’ has implanted in you.”

  Jul seemed to get scared from that exchange. How could she not be? A man with a knack for others’ flesh, rambling on about something in a foreign language, almost mocking and laughing at the only person you now hold any security towards.

  “I wish to die. But not at the hands of you, or anyone else for that matter. I wish to exist, just without the burden of living. You’d love to die, don’t you, Isha?”

  “Li?a, xo?o. Mo el, sen ka?ki xo?o. Ka?ki’iv so a’ne?, la mo ?’r’ka. Iei xo?o-”

  “It seems she’s scared of you, mate.”

  “Say, say, Isha, who are you? Really, who are you? Are you a crazy bastard who likes human flesh and obsess over one’s killer? Are you perhaps some sick headcase, tormenting a poor girl by carrying acts of violence against her kin?”

  “…”

  “I’m sorry I don’t remember you. I really am. But for me, if I know myself well enough, you were and still is just another person—another life that needs to be protected. And thank fate for resurrecting you.”

  Humans are a wonderous species. Physiologically, they are among the weakest; they can’t fly, they don’t have armor, nor do they have claws or beaks or even tails for utility. But this lack—unluck, if you will—of anything fortunate, that they use anything and everything one might think of. And we evolve. We constantly revolve.

  “Bliss to false to despair, all back around. Isn’t that what we’re subject to for all of eternity? We hold back the tears because they can’t spare some for themselves; we are too generous, are we not? Let’s be a bit selfish now, can’t we?”

  Tetanus is a bacterial infection caused by Clostridium tetani and characterized by muscle spasms. It is often associated with rust, especially rusty nails. Although rust itself does not cause tetanus, objects that accumulate rust are often found outdoors or in places that harbor soil bacteria. Additionally, the rough surface of rusty metal provides crevices for dirt containing C. tetani, while a nail affords a means to puncture the skin and deliver endospores deep within the body at the site of the wound.

  But the chains that held Lish were, in fact, rusty.