As the Crows Fall | ONC 2020 Grand Winner

x | Sorrow Dressed in Blood

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Ruwei thinks she has patience, but she doesn't.

She is fire and brimstone and ash, all tied together in a hurricane of a girl and if she thinks she is made for ambush, then she is only fooling herself.

She is volatile and angry and she thinks that waiting means patience, but she sets eyes on the man standing at the grave wearing the necklace of the sister he killed, and she kills him without hesitation.

She is nothing but sorrow dressed in blood, coating her pain in the deaths of those who caused it, running, chasing - always chasing - after just one more wretched immorality to take her mind off of that which was stolen from her.

She was born under Xuanwu, the black tortoise made from everything dark and strong and patient, pulled together and forced into a world of violence that they never wanted.

Sometimes she wonders if, perhaps, she should have been born under Zhuque, the phoenix. Volatile. Intemperate. Pursuant. Cruel.

Sometimes she wonders if, then, she could be happy.

And sometimes it infuriates her more than she'd care to admit.

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Something changes.

The sun rises outside Douxiu, and the world feels different. Dawn approaches with angry orange brushing the horizon, red seeping through the clouds. Dark sunlight filters in through the crack in the cavern's ceiling and it is somehow more looming than any shadow could be.

Ruwei is scared.

It takes her a moment to realize what the clenched feeling in her chest is, what the stopped breath and tingling fingertips mean, but once she does, she freezes. Ruwei has not woken up frightened in years. Not since she pledged her soul to a god and placed that first set of flowers on her sister's grave.

"What?"

The word falls from her lips before she can stop it and it sounds lost in her mouth. She shivers against the morning cold and she doesn't know what is wrong until she sees that there are no crows about her. There are no soft caws in the crevices of the cavern, no gentle scuffling of feet against the floor.

Nothing.

She shoots to her feet and grasps at the necklace about her neck, but it is not there. Heart in her throat, she whirls around to face the waters. Slow trepidation seeps through her veins when she sees the tainted light hitting the pool. Small waves lap at the shore and a gentle breeze wafts through the cavern.

She stares at the light. She stares at the waves. She stares at the top layer of dirt that shifts with the wind.

"No," she whispers.

Where there was once stillness, there is now motion. Where there were shadows, there is light. Where there was once calm, there is restlessness.

Douxiu is dying.

No.

"Xuanwu?" she whispers.

"Xiao Wei, I am here," comes the quiet reply. "I am here."

She releases the breath she didn't realize she was holding. She waits for the flicker of the wraith that speaks for the god to appear, but it doesn't. A slow crawl of of dread runs through her. She is about to ask again for the god when the waters about her suddenly still. Dark blankets the cavern once more and it fools her with its tenuous comfort.