A short while into his walk through the tunnel of ash, Roy came upon a small fire that smelled of sulfur and burning hair. The wet stain on the ground beneath the fire suggested alchemy. The cause was most likely human, and Roy felt comforted by this assumption. For the first time since the previous night he could see the red on his clothing. Beneath the soaked bandages, on what he once considered to be his strong arm, he felt a blunt lack of feeling encased in paralyzing fire and frostbite--the mangled sinews and crushed bone that made up the length between his wrist and his elbow. By looking at the bandage alone, it was apparent that his forearm had lost over half of its mass. He lifted a piece of glass from the ground and polished away as much char as he needed to find his reflection. He peered down through the bottom opening of his scarf, which sat low on his forehead, protecting his eyes from the polluted air. His nose, mouth and chin were messy with crusted red. He widened his lips and grinded his teeth. The inside of his mouth was dark and raw. His gums were torn and bleeding in abnormal patterns, and gamy chunks of flesh were still wedged in his teeth. It soon occurred to Roy that his place was once the village crossroads.

     Roy woke up to the sound of blunt iron on wood—it was the front door.
     “Roy Hadley! Up! C’mon, quick!” The exuberant chirp of a young girl’s voice was muffled by the timber walls of the cabin, but still comprehensible—the person behind the voice was motivation enough for Roy to respond promptly, without realizing he was still asleep.
     “Comin’!”
     He wasn’t exactly disorientated from his sleep, but still came up short for better words. The butterflies in his stomach were flushed from his lungs as he scrambled to find his most flattering, informal clothing, and he hurried out the front door. Immediately upon exiting his cabin, wild arms lunged at him from the corner of his eyes, rocking his balance. The smell of lilac and puckered lips smacked the side of his face without notice. Although, not as intimate as Roy had truly wanted, it was flirtation making progress; the kiss sent a thumping jolt to his chest.
     “Did I scare you?” She asked.
     “Umm... No, I had it coming,” Roy played back—and with more confidence than he felt he should have.
     She examined Roy’s face and raised her eyebrow, and once again, Roy felt the underlying awkwardness that he had always felt when around this girl. This was an exclusivity that he unwillingly reserved only for her—for Sophia Rose. But the way she flirted felt like a distraction to Roy for some reason. Deep down, Roy knew Sophia Rose had a hidden motive behind her playfulness.
     Her arms slid down from around his shoulders, and one of her hands caught one of his. She began running, and with that, they were off towards the village crossroads.
     Anchored in the center of the village, the crossroads served as idyllic real estate for the daily market. The concept of holding a market at the intersection of two highways, as hidden as they may have been, was based on the idea that it would bring in outside money from the pockets of desperate travelers and road merchants. Unfortunately, the chance of this outside money reaching the village usually died the very same way many travelers had died during highway robberies and wolf attacks along these hidden highways. Other travelers knew to stay away from these parts if it included enduring the terrors of the night without a secure shelter.
     For most villagers, the daily market was located in a place of convenience. Those on the outskirts had to travel a mile at the most, and the distance was usually traveled by mount or small motor. This morning, Roy and Sophia Rose traveled the distance by foot.
     As was the case with every morning, most of the villagers were gathered at the crossroads in the midst of their daily routines, or so it appeared from the outskirts of the village. Somewhere in the far-center of the market, there was a crowd of distinctive peculiarity that seemed to be growing with each person walking by.
     “Over there,” Sophia Rose said without breaking stride. “I think they’re gonna kill ‘em.”
     “Who?” Roy demanded. Thoughts of a bounty-hungry mob, and his father awaiting judgment crossed Roy’s mind until he spotted the old giant entering the market grounds from the hills, after returning from his daily hunt. Roy’s next thought was to let go of Sophia Rose’s hand, but she didn’t let go of his.
     “Jodiya’s father,” Sophia Rose continued, “He’s rabid… and bloody. They think he killed somebody.”
     The audience was growing by the second. People were squished together back to gut, but somehow, forging a pathway to the main attraction was an effortless task. Sure enough, it was Jodiya’s father, Clifford Farelhorn, the village accountant, married and a father of three. The absence of Clifford’s children and a wife screaming for his release was a fair explanation for the accountant’s given situation.
     Clifford Farelhorn’s head was buried between his knees, and his body was shaking with sickness. His trembling wrists were braced in iron shackles, from which extended a length of heavily frayed rope tied to a hitching post. The color of the man’s skin, which was olive-tan—as Roy had seen the week before—was now drained of its saturation and thickness, and now littered with massive boils and purple veins. To Roy, it didn’t look like Farelhorn at all, but as if some patchy-headed mutant had stolen Farelhorn’s trademark rich man’s clothing, and had taken it upon himself to pull the hair clean from his misshapen head in front of an eager crowd. Roy understood that if it was this news instead of the kiss at his front door, he would’ve stayed in and locked his door—he had no obligation to bear witness of this brutality.
     The crowd parted across from Roy and Sophia Rose. The blacksmith’s apprentice and the butcher—both men of enormous stature—made their way through the crowd, and all eyes were immediately upon them. The blacksmith’s apprentice carried a spool of heavy iron chains. The butcher drew his heaviest meat cleaver from underneath a lightly stained cloth. A third wide-framed man arrived soon after—to conceal his identity he wore a rusted metal facemask, and a leather apron stained with grease and blood. It was evident to most villagers, including Roy, by the third man’s distinct pear shape and the dark skin exposed by rolled-up sleeves, that the third man was none other than Rojj Bannajan, the second councilman to the village elder. Councilman Bannajan carried an ominous chopping log. It now seemed clear and simple that the place where people tied their mounts and livestock to eat, drink, and shit would be the last place on earth that Clifford Farelhorn’s living flesh would ever touch.
     As soon as Farelhorn's hands and waist were bound and secured with the iron chains, Bannajan moved in with his chopping log, courteously positioned himself at Farelhorn’s side, dropped the log at Farelhorn’s knees, and lifted the guilty man’s head up for the crowd’s final testimony.
     Cheers and heckles revolted into panic and disgust. Many of the people at the front of the commotion turned their heads and discharged their nausea onto the feet of those immediately behind them. Those who didn’t lose it to the ground were fortunate enough to swallow it back down—Roy was the unyielding exception. Sophia Rose pulled Roy’s arm to leave, but Roy didn’t give. He stood as stone. Sophia Rose let go of Roy’s hand and locked her eyes dead down at her soiled shoes. Although he hadn’t been comfortable since they arrived, Roy couldn’t help but to stay—something inside of him felt a certain warmth and clarity. In what others in the crowd viewed as carnage in Farelhorn’s torn and ruptured eyes, Roy felt a burst of adrenaline. In the black iron horns bleeding from Farelhorn’s face and forehead, Roy felt “in control”. In the crusted blood on Farelhorn’s nose, mouth, and chin, Roy felt an eerie familiarity.