I'm quicker than I expected... I've got some kind of writing flash right now... so please enjoy.^^ If there are any grave mistakes concerning language, please let me know. ^^
Disclaim: The quotation belongs to Zhuangzi Zhou
Chapter I
Bloodred Poppy
Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly,
a butterfly flitting and fluttering around,
happy with himself and doing as he pleased.
He didn't know he was Zhuangzi.
Suddenly he woke up and there he was,
solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi.
But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi
who had dreamt he was a butterfly,
or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi.
Canton, 1860
"Liang! Over here Liang! We lose him if we don't hurry," the little boy in the dark blue Tangzhuan called out cheerfully over the wide field of blossoming poppies to the dainty girl running several metres behind him. A pleasantly mild wind rumpled up his black hair when he took a short eager look over his shoulder.
"Not so fast! I can't catch up with you if you run like this," a high, timid voice reached his ears. "Your legs are way longer than mine."
Frowning slightly the boy slowed down his steps before he eventually stopped, turned around and looked anticipating at the little girl wearing an orange Qipao. The flowers in which midst she was standing almost reached up to her thighs and contrasted her dress beautifully.
Crossing her thin arms in front of her small chest she had also stopped on the spot. Pursing her lips she was obviously pouting when she watched the taller boy approaching her.
"Don't be sore," he grinned when he came closer and teasingly tweaked one of her Odangos with his fingers. She curled her lips in silent disapproval. He knew she hated it when he did this. She didn't like to be treated as the five year old girl she was. But it was just too much fun. Biting back a satisfied smile he reached out his hand.
"Take my hand. Then you can't be left behind."
Big, golden eyes looked up at him sceptically, she seemed to ponder if it was a wise decision to follow his advise. She wouldn't be left behind but she would be dragged behind him in order to advance more quickly, that was sure.
"Only if you promise not to run so fast," she required a little sulky and reluctantly took the offered hand. The boy simply kept smiling his faint smile.
"Promised!" he exclaimed in a voice that was obviously supposed to sound honourable.
"But please come with me now. I want you to see it yourself."
At a now more leisurely pace he and Liang continued their way through the field. A remote muffled sound, a strangely dull roaring reached his ears when they slowly approached the little dark-blue coloured butterfly sitting on one of the crimson poppies and lazily fluttering with his paper thin wings.
"We better hurry," the little boy said will he carefully bent down to take a closer look at the frail creature. "There is possibly a thunderstorm coming up very soon. He can hear the boom coming closer. But do you see, Liang?" he whispered lowly while he made a little more room for her to look at the shiny, glittering wings.
"Isn't he beautiful?"
Liang simply nodded vaguely, too awestruck to speech. Her dark golden eyes seemed to become a little wider in pure amazement. As if they were glued to it they followed even the smallest of the butterfly's movements with blatant interest.
"Can we touch him?" she finally breathed conspiratorially as if even the thought alone was objectionable.
"He won't bite you. That's for sure," the boy answered airily and bent down a little further to observe. Carefully he reached out a slightly trembling hand...
A deafening boom made him cringe, his hand flinched. Astounded he watched how the butterfly rose high and higher into the darkened sky.
"Oh... look Liang, the thunder has scared him away," he murmured bitterly disappointed when he watched the blue colour slowly fade into the dark grey shade of the sky.
The grip around his hand suddenly got tighter, the little fingers clinging to his own almost hurt him.
"Don't you think it's strange..." Liang's voice suddenly sounded anxious. Constrained. She also gazed into the sky, an awkward expression of concern written all over her little moon face. "There are no clouds."
Irritated the little boy broke his gaze away from the flying butterfly and took a closer look at the ash grey sky instead.
"Shouldn't there be clouds when a thunderstorm is approaching?" she whispered lowly, squeezing his hand until the knuckles of her fingers became white and stuck out when she kept staring at the dark grey wall that had manifested itself above their heads.
He swallowed hard.
What concerned him the most was that this darkness above them really didn't look like a cloud, just like Liang had said. It was more as if someone had suddenly put a heavy woollen blanket over the usually azure colour. A cold wild wind came up, swept across the poppy field with such severity that the little flower heads bent and bowed, got violently stripped off their leaves until nothing was left behind but sad, naked stems.
Involuntarily he winced. The roaring sound came nearer while the wind freshened up further, thereby lifting the countless dark crimson petals up into the air, twirling them around like a maelstrom of flowers. Everything was dyed in a warm dark red shimmer.
Some of the petals seemed to glimmer more than the others. Radiating a glistening orange light they were taken higher into the air, as if they weighed nothing. They didn't fall to the earth when the storm ceased a little like the other petals did. And within the whirlwind of shining red was the little butterfly again. Fighting desperately with his weak tiny wings against the blowing storm and the swooshing petals. And suddenly within the blink of an eye the little blue butterfly blazed up in flames. One of his crystalline like wings had faintly touched one of the orange petals before flames consumed the frail body, flared up until nothing but ashes remained which were slowly taken away by the wind.
Sparks.
Instinctively he grabbed the little hand in his own tighter.
"Liang, we must leave! Now!" he yelled, instantaneously dragging his little sister with him over the dark red ocean. A peculiar warm wind blew into his face when he ran as fast as he could without loosing hold of Liang. From behind him he could hear the smothered sound of anguished sobbing, Liang was crying in fear and he also felt more and more like he wanted to burst out into tears. He didn't know what to do... he was only six years old himself but he had to carry the responsibility for his little sister. Something bad was happening!
"Come on Liang, we're almost there," he shouted without turning around to look at her. The warm orange sparks got brighter, hotter. There were more of them with every step he took towards his village.
"No!"
Like he had been petrified he stopped his run at once so that Liang dashed painfully against his rear, causing him to lose his footing. He tumbled and landed hard on his knees.
Kneeling on the little hill from which in good weather one could see the entire valley and the deep blue river he froze horribly shocked. Black eyes snapped wide open when they stared down to the bridge crossing the river. Of the once massive bridge was nothing left but a formless heap of crumbled, broken stones. Little figures like tin soldiers fell into the deep gap in the middle of what once had been the Palinkao Bridge. Raging flames licked at the stones, consumed the toy soldiers as red lightning flashed up consistently, accompanied by a sharp loud bang.
"Our village!" Liang screamed in panic. Entirely scared and now crying incessantly.
The little boy couldn't believe his eyes. Thick black smoke arose from the blazing fire on the bridge, interspersed with bright orange sparks where the flames were licking at wood or flesh. They were fighting. The men with the guns shot the people defending the bridge down like rabbits. A monotonous clatter and bang.
Out of nowhere the world around him suddenly got entirely black. A hot wave hit him like a head-high wall, instantaneously it took his breath away, thereby stuffing something inside his throat the painfully felt like steel wool.
With a deafening crack one of the massive canon balls fired off from the bridge hit the little hill they were standing upon. Earth was blown into the air, everything around them seemed to explode in one single massive blow.
He sensed how he lost the ground under his feet, how his body was hurtled through the air like it was nothing but a fallen leaf in autumn.
With a horrible thud that pressed all remaining air out of his aching lungs he hit the ground. A piercing pain rankled through his entire body, he suddenly felt terribly dizzy. Everything turned round and round like a carousel.
Strained he tried to support his upper body on his elbow, meanwhile peering through the only slowly clearing dark clouds.
"Liang? Liang are you all right?" he yelled huskily against the biting smoke and the roaring of the canons. The thick black smoke ate into his mouth and throat, made it difficult to speak or even breathe. His eyes watered, hot tears ran down his soot-blackened cheeks when he realized with relief he was in fact still holding Liang's hand in his own.
No!
Pure terror took hold over him when he gazed down at the lifeless, torn off arm which his trembling fingers were holding. An ripped off limb splashing thin sticky threads of blood. Black shreds of burnt skin were hanging from the broken bone like rags.
A vicious nausea was about to overcome him when his eyes spotted even worse.
The body on the field. The remains of the red poppies were dyed in an even darker shade of crimson. Almost black. Blood spilled out of the massive wound on Liang's chest and the hole where her arm had once been. Her beautiful orange Qipao was soiled, saturated with black blood.
"Liang! Liang!" he screamed like he had never screamed before. His voice so full of agony and deathly fear that the sound scared him.
In sheer panic and without thinking he dashed forward but his wobbly legs gave in to the weight of his body, caused him to fall hard on his grazed knees. Hot streams of tears ran ceaselessly over his burning, hurt face, bite into his cheeks like acid.
His throat tightened up painfully so it became difficult to breathe. The sharp smell of burnt flesh threatened to suffocate him when he crawled towards the little body.
Empty golden eyes stared at him blankly. Expressionless. Dead. Slowly an ungainly greyish touch mixed into their once so warm and friendly colour, made it cold and frozen.
Quivering uncontrollably he reached out for her, hold the lifeless body in his arms tightly, pressed it against his chest with all his might, rocked slowly back and forth in a soothing cradle.
"Wake up Liang, please wake up! Liang!" his breathy voice croaked hoarsely, tears were smothering him. The roaring of the canons around him faded into an ongoing whistling sound, everything around him became strangely afar, dull and hollow.
All he could hear was his own choked sobbing and the hiccups violently shaking his body. His right hand still hold on tight to Liang's ice-cold rigid one while he squeezer her as tight as possible in his arms. Greyish-gold eyes stared at him when her head tilted back, single strands out of her undone Odangos brushed against her pale face like sticky seaweed.
"Please don't die... please don't die!..."
His voice cracked. Not a single further word came out of his mouth.
And then they came.
Out of his eye's corner he saw them. Slowly they crept towards him. Like the monsters in the stories his grandmother had always told him they approached him like evil spirits. Men in dark uniforms, carrying guns and swords. And somehow... the little boy couldn't explain why but all of them seemed to smile. A malicious sneer written all over their faces, like it had been cut into them by a sharp knife. He crouched up into a bundle, frantically trying to protect the dead body within his arms.
Agonizingly slowly they were coming closer, speaking in a language he did not understand. Shouting and joking in a foreign tongue.
The boy did neither have the strength nor the will to fight back anymore. It would have been in vain anyway. His more and more fading out mind only marginally realized their vicious kicks and blows. How they punched him severly into his stomach. His head snapped back painfully when he was brutally slapped into the face so he fell to the ground. The bitter coppery taste of his own blood filled his mouth, made him want to throw up immediately.
His arms let go off the corpse, numb and heavy they laid next to his aching body.
He couldn't stand up. He didn't want to. The last final kick into his rips made him cry out in agony.
He could smell the sweet scent of the flowers when the world around him faded away, lost all it's contours and colours. Even the red poppies faded to grey.
They would kill him. He was sure. They had killed Liang... only a few more kicks and everything would be over. Only a little more pain and he would be able to die in peace.
But the sounds of fighting slowly became silent. As if the whole world suddenly had held it's breath he could only hear one thing. The reason why he fought one last time to turn his aching head towards the direction of the almost inaudible sound he was hearing. Blood dripped from his lashes into his eyes, clouded his gaze when he stared expressionless into the sky. And then he saw what had made the faint fluttering sound. It almost alighted onto his nose before he scared it away with his movements.
A butterfly.
A single, little blue butterfly - just like the one he had seen before. Light-heartedly he flew hither and thither into the burning sky.
His vision blurred when unconsciousness tugged at the very edge of his mind. Everything became hazy and indistinct, slowly but consistently consumed by the raging orange-red lights of the devouring flames around him. A weak little smile crept onto his burst and swollen lips.
Desperately his shivering hand tried to reach out for the butterfly but even though he tried as hard as he could it was impossible for him to reach the frail creature. He simply flew high and higher until he perished. Eaten by the sparks.
Just like Liang.
The little boy who laid there on the scarlet field of flaming poppies in full bloom, while his home, his whole village and everything he held dear burnt to the ground while his weak fingers still clung to the torn off arm of his murdered and mutilated younger sister...
This little boy was me.
Oookay... now I am scared/anxious/nervous of what you think about this chapter...^.^
For those of you who want to know some historical background: I'm referring here to the Battle of Palinkao in 1860 were the Chinese were beaten by the British. The rest of this chapter might appear familiar to you due to episode 20 of the Anime. ^^
Greetings, Eisteufel