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In a city now reduced to ruins,

once shimmering in the sunlight and radiating like a lighthouse at night.

The buildings, once bustling with countless people, have lost their majestic stature, now nothing more than weathered tombstones awaiting the day they will settle into the ground, while hills of concrete and rebar stand silent as pathetic burial mounds.

What lies within these mounds with the people and various items?

Without coffins, people lay in the mounds, and the looted precious items yearn for eternal rest.

But who would want to claim such shabby graves?

Poor souls die without even a scrap of land to rest.

Similarly, these pitiful graves created in this city offer no guarantee of peaceful slumber in death.

Those buried here are all impoverished and unremarkable.

Trees are felled to become furniture, flowers are picked for wreaths, yet the wild weeds lying idle can’t even serve as firewood—such is the way of the world.

Drum, drum, drum, drum.

Once a city,

now a desolate graveyard.

Making burial mounds from collapsed buildings, erecting gravestones from the ruins—can any of it erase the old traces? Just like making a grave on a mountain doesn’t make it a mountain, floating a corpse down a river doesn’t change the fact that it’s a river.

This is a city.

A city that has been brutally destroyed.

A place where even the cries of despair are buried in the debris.

Drum, drum, drum, drum, drum.

Here, even rest is not easily granted.

Can you hear the sound of a tank struggling to move, entangled in barbed wire that fails to do its job?

Can you hear the hollow engine of that tank, which follows its final command while carrying the blood cocktail made from the people inside?

Do you hear the deafening sound that seems ready to shatter your eardrums, twisting and breaking rocks, bending iron—does it sound like the death throes of that tank?

Vroooom.

Boom!

Next to it lies a self-propelled artillery.

Underneath the slumped self-propelled artillery is a small bloodstain.

The person who once operated it has been ground into the floor, leaving behind only limbs shorter than two arms, while the shells that should have soared high and burst magnificently now lie scattered on the ground without purpose.

Still unable to lay eggs, the wheels spin wildly in sorrow, yet since it slumped sideways, the wheels merely spin in the air, making noise but connecting nowhere.

That sound, though much quieter than the tank’s engine, is enough to awaken the restless dead…

If only I could close my eyes and turn away from this calamity.

If the souls could ascend and the bodies could scatter, leaving only traces of their existence in this world, thus finding peace.

The raucous noise disrupts the dead’s wish to rest, while the unfeeling sun torments those who cannot sleep.

When the unrelenting sunlight shines on the rubble, stains become visible.

And above, countless flies flit about.

Is the absence of maggots a mercy of the sun, or the gluttony of the maggots busy feasting on corpses deep within the graves?

The shabby mound made from the ruins of buildings cannot keep even the insects out.

Just as their shantytown failed to shelter them from the storms of life, so too does the home where they rest in death.

They were insignificant beings.

They were weeds.

Had they not been buried in mounds, they wouldn’t have to endure such humiliation.

If they had known they would suffer endlessly, they would have preferred to be consumed by flames and transformed into a handful of ash.

People do not know when they will die, so they don’t prepare, and when they regret their lack of preparation, it’s too late to turn back.

Yet those buried in graves hold one privilege.

We never referred to it as a rite.

Those who unwittingly met their end, buried in unanticipated graves, and faced an unremarkable end also found a form of salvation.

“Everyone! We have come to help you!”

“It’s not much, but we brought food and water purification tablets!”

Rites are the ceremonies performed by the living for the dead.

Busy moving to hold rites for even the pitiful graves, there are those who take action.

People who clearly arrived from outside the city, dressed in clean attire.

They bore large backpacks or those carrying loads that seemed to weigh at least 40-50 kg.

Did they not fear the ones who had turned the city into this? They wandered about, proudly revealing their presence without hesitation.

“We have food.

We can provide clean water.

We have come to help you.

We have come to save you.”

They shouted as they roamed the city.

Their cries seemed so melodious.

Their shouts appeared so cozy.

The warmth discovered while trembling by a campfire appears as such.

In a life that had been controlled by the cold, the hunger that followed the mad capable person’s terror, the army launching shells and missiles as if to incinerate the entire city.

To those who never thought they would face, let alone experience things that should not be experienced, their appearance sparkled like a brilliant light.

They seemed akin to deities or immortals from ancient tales who aided the needy. Overwhelmed with gratitude for this outstretched hand of help amidst such distress and hardship.

“Hey, over here. Lower your voice and come here.”

“There are people here…”

“I… I have… food….”

Questions may arise.

Who are these people? What objectives do they have? How did they manage to enter this city carrying so much? Could they be part of a nefarious plot to erase the entire city and make it ‘as if it never was’? Could this be propaganda initiated by a foreign enemy from China extending a hand to us?

Countless suspicions surface.

Yet there weren’t many who rejected the outstretched hand of salvation, suspicious as they might be.

It is hard to refuse the offering of food that can fill an empty belly and water that can quench a parched throat.

How many are those who, fully aware they could die if discovered, choose to risk going out into the city to find warmth and food on a frigid night?

Only to find themselves captured by strange entities masquerading as people, or killed by soldiers wielding guns, or taken by terrorist wizards to become biological mana batteries…

If discovered, death is certain.

But if one remains in silence, death is also assured.

Better to be caught and killed; at least the pain would be brief.

The agony of thirst and hunger is not to be taken lightly.

That pain, that fear.

At first, it is the thunderous growl of a starving belly that makes one cower in fear of being found. Eventually, one becomes so drained they simply lay there, gazing blankly at the ceiling.

In that situation, food and water are… an irresistibly enticing salvation.

Thus, most people were touched by the fact that a helping hand was extended in their desperate plight, and they rushed out of their hiding places to joyfully receive food and tablets from them, hoping to avoid detection by the mad capable ones or the army.

“This is… an emergency food ration?”

“Is this a brick-shaped D-ration…?”

“W-Wow… bread, bread…! Thank you! Thank you!”

“Wow…! Ch-Chocolate… candy…!”

The elderly received food rations.

The middle-aged took the brick-shaped emergency rations.

The youth were given packaged bread.

The child received chocolate and candy.

“Yeah… this is better… Emergency rations are hard and difficult to chew, but with this emergency food, if I eat just one round ball, it’s fine… even those of us with bad teeth can eat it easily…”

“With just this one, I can feed my entire family…”

“Bread… snff.”

“It’s sweet…”

How wonderful it is to be able to put something into one’s empty belly.

Some shed tears while swallowing the food, others cheerfully shared the brick-shaped emergency rations among themselves and laughed, while some simply gulped down the emergency food, repeating to themselves that this too shall pass, and the children giggled joyfully at the sweetness they tasted.

Thus, people could find happiness in such trivial things.

And it was precisely because of this small joy that the rest afterward felt so sweet.

Unlike that night spent clutching their empty bellies, people who had eaten now fell into peaceful slumber, closing their eyes while feeling the hard cement or dirt ground as if it were a fluffy bed.

Even breaths and relaxed bodies.

Those who had eaten drift off happily to sleep.

And so, everyone slumbers.

The raging engine, now out of fuel, falls silent,

the dead, who should find rest, close their eyes under the descending darkness like a blanket.

Those who could not find sleep in their agony dream of happiness.

And those who distributed food and water to the people raise a toast in the sleeping city.

In one hand, a bronze stick.

In the other, a bronze goblet filled with wine mixed with black powder.

They raise the goblet high.

And then they cry out.

“O Hypnos! Bestow your power-”

“Bestow blessing upon your faithful servant!”

In their goblet is wine.

In the wine is Helene’s Medicine.

“Grant us your blessing!”

“Grant us your blessing!”

 

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