A/N Hello, all :)

What you are about to read is a short one-shot that came about by exploring how a modern horror-story-esque take on Hidan's backstory might look.

I liked toying with the idea of "Sometimes, the most violent thing to do is to do nothing", and how being in an environment that you have surpassed could make you give in and stop fighting to 'swim upstream', in a matter of speaking. Constantly being the one who makes things right could become very exhausting over time. It would be interesting to assume this could have been how and why he went on to do such extreme things, as a contrast to a boring life in a tourist spot.

Enjoy!

128 people died that year, but only one of them was innocent. It was as if the water washed up the filth from the coves and brought it here to fester. Such are the springs, it takes momentum to get out, but once you stop trying, you remain until the earth absorbs you back in. For three long months, the air was a warm rattle breathing down your neck, with a vice grip on your lungs. I still get the shakes when wind comes from the west, smelling of salty rocks and destitution. Some things are best left buried behind and far below.

If I told you not to do something, do not do it. I still stand by my decision to this day. The Village head's kid was an amateur, way too full of his own shit to man that tiny excuse for a boat alone through the ravines, let alone with over 20 people to get to boss around.

I told his old man himself, "Sato, this ain't looking good", but he waved me off. "Let them be", he said, "we have enough on our plate already. Besides, the coves are just round the corner and the water ain't deep". Gullible old fool. The sun had just started to set at the time, but no cricket chirped, no owls hooted. Cowards. I put on my hat and went back to my job, even though I was sorting from before dawn.

The water had sogged up all the soil. There wasn't a square foot of solid ground to walk on around the entire town. Some power lines were cut for safety measures and others followed suit. I was eager for summer dresses and strappy sandals to entertain my brain, but all I got to see were rubber boots and fishermen overalls. You couldn't take one step without sinking half-calf into the ground. It wanted to eat us all alive. Things like this are traumatic, your brain can't wrap its mind around the sudden change. Weeks pass by and it still thinks all of it is temporary, that it will go back to how it was. It took me only four weeks to realize it wouldn't, the day I watched my foot sink deeper than before, and muddied soil seep over the edge of my wellies. Mrs Yure from down the road drowned that day. We had to fish for her body blind, piece by piece. The mud is too dense for anything to float up. People started going out less afterwards.

Did you ever wonder how to bury someone, when you don't have ground to bury them in? People still kept dying, even more than usual, given the immense heat. We couldn't get to the coves. No car, boat or foot could wade through the sea of mud we were afloat on. Until we had an idea, we had kept the bodies in the morgue, but, since it sunk, we became desperate. Still holding on to the idea of honouring the dead, as a sort of last straw that bound us with the rest of the civilised world still, we decided to burn them.

Now, we had very limited resources, you see, and no one but me dared to speak of plans for the winter, heating, and so on. We couldn't afford wasting precious firewood on a mere courtesy. What if the mud is too dense to freeze and we still remain trapped? We had been cut off from the world in months and the ship boys weren't coming back. Planning was crucial. Old man Sato took my advice, of course. We started stalling death. Waiting for just enough bodies to pile up, so we could cremate them more efficiently. After a few days in a heatwave, though, they become unrecognisable. The bloat paints them all shades of green and blue. It made me wonder if they were like that when they were alive, would they have drowned? After this phase, the flesh would come right off, in heaps. Someone had to sort them all, keep them in check, you know? That was my job.

Have you ever been stuck? My brain was on neutral drive constantly. Even this disaster didn't change much in the people around me. They were still as dull as ever. What could you expect from a town of about 130 people and counting down? No more, no less. No one thought to check if the mud was all there is. I remember the first batch of burners, those poor bastards. You see, you can always get out of quicksand, as long as you're patient, but people here kept diving in, one by one, and never piping back out. Well, you know what they say:'Methane bubbles sink ships'. And they are also very, very flammable. When we placed the first torch down, it lit up half of town immediately. I still remember the smell, after all, I was closest to the fire. My torch set ablaze so fast it singed my sleeve. I wasn't panicking like the rest of the lot. 12 more people got trampled and drowned in the aftermath. If only they had remained calm.

The summer passed as slowly as the first breath of hot air rolled down the ravines. Half the town was dead, and the ship boys never came back. Of us 40 left, we had a good chance at surviving the winter with the supplies we had. The mud was indeed too thick to freeze. At least it was easier to walk around, but only in theory. It was so cold that you could only get a couple of steps in before your toes started to go numb. After that, frostbite came pretty soon if you weren't careful.

We were halfway into winter and no one had figured it out still, the cause of our demise. They weren't even trying. I had watched their husbands and wives drown, burn and rot, their kids disappear, and the world turn its back, and they couldn't care about anything more than the food they would have that day, or the food they had had. If only they had thought to check the main valve above our water supply, the one left rusting for the past 50 years or so. The same one I had stumbled upon back in May, during my trip to the forest.

If only they had thought to start the generators sooner, like I told them back in June, but they hadn't. I told old man Sato not to let the kids leave on that boat. I knew it wouldn't even leave past the ravine. I watched the soil take all 21 of them back in. That was the day I found out about the methane pockets. I knew we would be hungry in winter and that's why I took extra care of the bodies. Even now, as I watch them eat dried jerky, none of them even think to ask me where I got it from. Complacent. All of them. And that is why they will all die here. 128 people will die this year, and I am the only innocent one.