[Summary]: A village is attacked by Creatures of Grimm; without Huntsmen, the villagers are forced to face the menace by themselves.

[Warnings: death and gore]

[A/N: I am sorry if something is misplaced or if the paragraphs are not long enough, I wrote this in my phone and it was quite the oddisey.


A person gathered all of his strength to push their bed to the door with the hope of at least slowing down their incoming doom. Many questions appeared but none of them had a real answer just causing the frustration, fear and powerlessness to go upwards and reach the sky.

"It's recommended to stay indoors—"

The person laughed at the situation already knowing how useless those words were. The village was being destroyed, burned to the ground, there was no place to hide or run; the time was getting closer. The person looked at the barricaded door with glistening eyes, the tears that alleviated their pain when they were a child now did nothing but making everything worse.

The sound of slaughter had became a background noise, the Grimm outside the house were not going to ignore it; it was visibly unscathed. The beasts of darkness were powerful, cruel and will do everything they can to kill humans, therefore, the person that had barricaded in the second floor was not going to be save for too long. The reason why the horde of Grimm had not turn them to shreds was a mystery, maybe the beasts were just playing with their food.

This person breathed in and out but was unable to calm down. That was the end and there was nothing to do to prevent it.

"Dad?"

The person turned around, the moonlight illuminated the man's face. There was he, his son...but the last time he saw him was in the woods before the arrival of the beasts. A minute, yeah, all he needed was a minute to collect his thoughts and find a logical explanation to the phenomenon he was experiencing. His son was still out there, he was certain.

Everything was so blur, all he remembered was pressure in his neck and then hitting the ground. It was impossible that he had no memories about the way in which he made it to his bedroom.

"Get in the closet, Neil. Dad has to go downstairs, I'll be back."

His son said nothing, maybe he was too scared. The sound of the people dying was beginning to get on his nerves; they were dying, why did they have to make so much noise?

The man went downstairs quickly, he checked the front door and the one that opened towards the backyard; even the windows were intact. He rushed to the bathroom and tried to silently remove the mirror.

"You didn't leave them in there, honey. Remember the river?"

That was right, he looked at his wife who was waiting for him on the threshold of the bathroom. She was right; he had blurry memories about the river but he was absolutely sure that his pills fell from his coat.

He had pills in the kitchen too but going there might be dangerous, the Grimm had not caught his scent yet and maybe that was why they had not gotten attracted to his house yet but if they saw him directly then there was no way in which those beasts would ignore his presence.

One of the windows shattered, the man managed to not scream and that was what saved his life. An Ursa had thrown someone through the window; the man stood there frozen without knowing what to do. Whoever destroyed his window was bleeding out on the floor, there was nothing he could do. Before the agonizing person could say something, the man ran upstairs knowing that the house was not safe anymore.

As soon as he reached his bedroom, he called his son and quickly took him downstairs. He miraculously made it to the cellar door and was able to close it just before an Ursa destroyed the door. Many empty barrels welcomed them, his son was nowhere to be seen but he was sure that the kid hid somewhere.

"What is that smell?" the man said while pressing his hand against his nose. The smell was sweet yet sickening at the same time. Whatever it was, he could not do anything to get rid of it at the moment; his son would have to endure it even if each deep breath threatened to make them empty their stomachs.

"I know that the smell is not pleasant but we have to stay here for a while."

His son didn't answer but he was sure that he heard him clearly.

Even when he was in the basement, he could hear clearly how someone screamed in pain as well as flesh getting torn and bones being cracked and victorious and bloodlusted roars. That was right, he has to calm his son down. What would be effective?

"Son, everything will be fine we are safe here."

"No, we are not."

"Aurora?"

His wife was the one who said that. He looked for her but found nothing; the basement was not that big, no one could hide there for too long...

But the last time he saw her was in the bathroom upstairs. What was happening?

"Tell me, brave husband. Are you going to wait here until dawn?"

This time he saw her, she was sat on a barrel wearing only her lace panties. She liked to sleep like that...

The man blinked twice, his wife was not there. The smell was going to drive him crazy, his wife was going to drive him crazy!

He was not sure why the noises upstairs died down but he didn't care at all. His wife and son had to stay near him where he could keep them safe. With desperation, he began to aimlessly look for his family ignoring the fact that the space was not enough to stay hidden for too long.

Once the man finished, the basement was a complete disaster. The man wanted to cry, scream, punch the walls, but that was something he simply could not do if he wanted to get out of there alive. Where was his family?

"Open your eyes, honey. Look closely."

The man walked to the only two barrels that were intact and opened them.

[...]

Qrow Branwen sighed as he made it to the nameless village. There was nothing remaining but heavily damaged buildings and dismembered bodies filling the streets. That sight was worryingly common for Huntsmen that picked jobs from villages that were too far from the kingdoms. The bad weather had delayed his fly too.

The police officers behind him, at least the rookies, empties their stomachs on the floor. Qrow looked at them and shrugged, he could not blame them though. They did not need to walk for too long to realize that there were not survivors, the stench was unbearable and it almost made his stomach hurt.

After a while, Qrow reached a two stories house near the woods. That house was not as damaged as the others, if someone was still alive then that was the perfect place to hide.

Qrow and the policemen got into the house through the broken door. The first thing they saw were more dismembered body parts and a lot of blood, such a bloody spectacle was accompanied by the stench of rotten flesh. Qrow was unable to keep a poker face, the odor was at nothing from causing him physical pain.

It has been 48 hours, it was not weird that the corpses had began to rotten away.

"I will investigate this floor," Qrow said. The policemen nodded and went upstairs not really wanting to being near the bodies.

Qrow sighed, he looked at the floor looking for some clue that might tell him that someone was alive but all he found were holes in the wooden floor caused by the weight of the Grimm, marks of claws and even more human corpses. That maybe was the first time he saw so many corpses in one place. Did the Grimm purposely bring them there?

The hunstman headed to the living room finding just blood and broken stuff. The windows were broken, the floor was wrecked and the couches were upside down. Judging by the blood in the floor, someone had been dragged across the floor and then threw through the window. The huntsman advanced carefully towards the chimney and inspected what was on top of it. Pictures of an apparent happy family and fragile decorative items that had survived the night.

"It's impossible that someone survived this attack," Qrow thought as he carefully moved across the room dodging corpses.

The corpses were pretty hard to identify, there were missing or crushed heads along with mutilated arms and organs. Grimm normally tended to look for survivors pretty carefully, it was hard to think that someone survived but his duty as a huntsman forced him to look for survivors.

"Mister Branwen, we found something!"

Qrow sighed and went upstairs. The wooden staircase cracked under his weight which attracted his attention. Now that he looked closely, the house seemed to be in bad shape even before the attack, it could mean nothing but was curious. The house was old, that was a fact.

The first thing he noticed was that the second floor was unscathed. The window at the end of the hall was not shattered, the hall itself had no signs of damage, the walls and doors were intact. Well, there was no time to think on the old carpet or pay attention to the pictures on the walls.

"What did you find?" Qrow asked as he set foot in the bedroom.

Qrow's eyes widened for a second. The closet was filled by bloodstained tools, the blood was not fresh but it did not look old either. Qrow sighed, those were not tools used by butchers. Everybody had a bad feeling about the owner of those tools but they had to do their jobs and find survivors even if they were monsters.

"Any signs of survivors?" Qrow asked with his arms crossed and a scowl. "The lower floor is wrecked, everything is a mess. I don't think that someone survived."

"Should we leave?" asked one of the policemen.

Qrow pressed his lips and put a hand on his hip. "I will check the first floor once more; look around the house, maybe there is a basement."

The hunstman waited for the officers to leave the house before resuming his inspection of the first floor. The kitchen was not as damaged as the living room but there were signs of battle, probably the Grimm threw their victims through the windows and ripped them apart in the living room. There was nothing that could help him to find survivors there. There was a picture on the ground, a woman embraced her husband and son with a beaming smile.

As tough as he was, the idea of finding the family torn apart made his stomach give a 360 degrees turn. It did not matter how many times someone watched such a scene, it is pretty hard to get used to it.

While inspecting his surroundings, he noticed a pair of cellar doors in the floor. Maybe he would be lucky and the family was there, safe and sound. No, that was not going to happen, not with his rotten luck. He took Harbinger, his trustworthy sword and raised it over his head. Maybe that was not a good idea but the doors were shut and blocked by a thick-looking chain, well, it was not like a Grimm would wait in complete silence and calm down there.

"Last hope," he said as the blade descended upon the chain breaking it.

The dry sound of broken iron echoed through the hallway, Qrow knew that the chances to find survivors were not big but he could not simply assume that everyone died. With a sigh and a deep breath, he went downstairs.

The first thing he perceived was the low temperature, whoever spent the night there surely needed to get warm quick. Another thing he caught quite fast was the prevalent smell of wine and death but the latter probably was caused by the bodies upstairs. The basement was one of those used to store barrels of wine, Qrow had forgotten its name, there were probably a dozen barrels or so.

"I was not expecting this."

Qrow looked around once he stepped off the last stair. The basement was poorly illuminated which was not a problem to him. After using his "gift" so many times, his eyes got used to poor lighting conditions. There was something in the air, a fragrance thar did not come from the wine or the corpses upstairs. The only way to differentiate the smell was getting closer and that was what Qrow did.

"Is someone in here?"

His voice echoed in the small basement; it was not big at all, if someone was there then they heard him. Qrow took two steps forward before noticing something, a barrel was positioned vertically instead of horizontally like the others. Maybe investigating it worth it.

The blade of Harbinger collapsed showing two shotgun barrels.

Qrow advanced towards it, ready to blast the barrel if a Grimm jumped out of it. He touched the barrel using his Aura to detect something, there was nothing there, at least nothing alive. Since turning it over was not easy, it meant that something was inside. He sighed and prepared to take care of the Grimm.

He kicked the barrel knocking it over, the lid that secured it fell off allowing whatever it contained to get out.

Qrow took a step back nearly falling, his gaze froze over the gruesome sight trying to assimilate what he was seeing. He wanted to say something to ease the tension he was feeling but nothing came to his mind. The smell was almost as shocking as the sight, a grimm mixture of Mistralian wine and blood.

What laid on the floor was a corpse, by itself was not that shocking but the fact that it was holding two other corpses in an advanced state of decaying.

Although those two corpses were in such a state, Qrow could tell that there were a child and a woman. The corpse embracing them was way fresher and it had a wide smile in its face.