Dreaming

Fai was asleep, dreaming of a better world where he was the greatest cultivator in the world,.

He was awoken as a wave of water from the river he was walking next to splashed him in the face.

Fai woke with a start as water splashed onto him, he sputtered and grumbled, sitting up from the straw mat he was laying on on the floor. He looked up to see a wooden bucket, held in large roll like fingers. "Get up Fai! You have to weed the garden! And because you overslept you're doing it yourself." This from one of the older sect members, a larger man called Aboba.

So often Fai dreamed of being the greatest demonic cultivator in the world. This sect only taught regular cultivation, his birth sect had dabbled in other arts, arts he was not allowed to practice here. But he could dream about what he would do, the special abilities he would have. His dreams were the only place he could be free, escape from the harshness he was subjected to.

"I'm sorry I just-" Fai tried to say but he looked up in fear, covering his head with his hands instinctively while looking at the other cultivator. Aboba seemed to grow red in his anger, his neck, already very short and stubby, looked like a veiny sausage as rage filled him. The older man ran a hand over his own rounded, bald head and leaned down to spit in Fai's face.

"Sorry doesn't cut it! Because you overslept the rest of the sect had to make their own breakfast! That's not how things work around here shrimp." The grey eyed cultivator kicked Fai in the stomach and the younger man fell back against the mat with a grunt.

"Fine, I'm going Aboba..." he knew better than to tell any of the sect members to calm down, it only made them angrier. He'd been taken as a slave by this Sect, the Dragon Talon School after his own sect, The Foo Dog School, was destroyed. His parents and brothers were slaughtered but the Talon found him pretty enough to keep alive. Everyone in the sect looked similar to Aboba, whereas Fai had long black hair that ran to the backs of his knees, his eyes were pitch black and his skin was as pale as milk. His high cheekbones accented his sharp eyes and his lips were full and red. The older sect members found joy in making him bleed, beating him until he could barely move.

He quickly made his way out to the garden, but a set of sect members were in wait for him, his eyes widened and he tried to turn away. They caught him by the hair and slammed his face into the dirt, one of them, a tall lanky balding senior member, gripped his hair extra tightly. "Why are you doing this?" Fai asked as the lanky sect member slammed his sandal covered foot into the back of Fai's head.

"Shut up. This pretty hair of yours is disgraceful to the dragon talon school! Who told you you could keep it?! A mere slave doesn't deserve such finery!"

They cut his hair violently, ripping it out and kicking him until every time he tried to get up he could collapse back onto the ground. His eyes were swollen, he closed them as best his could, his robes ripped and torn, bruises covering his form. He stared up at the sky as the sun shone down hot. Through the pain he crawled over to begin to weed the garden, even though his fingers felt like hot needles were stabbing through them like fire ants biting at a living corpse.

He reminded himself that he would be able to sleep soon, that the scars from the beatings would heal, even though he knew for a fact that more would be joining them in the morning. As day melted into the night and the moon rose over the land, he stared up at the night sky. He breathed a sigh of content, the stinging burn of the sun on his open wounds was finally relieved. He coughed up blood onto the plants as he struggled to his hands and knees. Staring down at it with blank eyes, he knew it was going to lead to more beatings. He fell back to the ground, dirt sticking in his facial wounds, the injuries from yesterday split open by the beating he'd been given today. His remaining eye looked up at the sky wearily, a shooting star drifting across the skies. "I wish...things would be different, I want to be, stronger....the very strongest...." he then passed out, unaware of what he would awake to the next morning...