One quiet night in the lawless neighborhood of Exteris, town of Mercantium, trouble brews between gangs of unruly men as one of the stronger groups, called The Red Scarves, sets a raid in a rival’s turf to kill, steal, and ruin lives.

CLANG! Sparks fly everywhere. Things get noisy and rowdy. The bunch of goons roam the neighborhood, undaunted. They smash windows, set fire to property, and beat random people, indiscriminately. Wails and cries for help drown the streets, late at night.

Sensing the trouble, a family of three, prepares to ride the storm. The father bars the door, hammering nails to secure it, while the mother shuts all the windows and seal all the gaps in their house.

And like little mice, they cower and hide inside their home, isolated and protected from the noise and the trouble outside. The mother clasps her hands tightly, sweating profusely as she prays to god for protection, while the father rummages the house for articles he can use for self-defense. On the other hand, the boy peeps at the windows, innocently amused by the scene of bandits causing ruckus on the streets.

Her mother pulls him away, whispering to his ears “SHHH! Quiet, they’ll find us.”

Quietly, the family waits for the passing of the storm, hoping to weather it unscathed. But as the night deepens, the situation grows worse; the streets gets flooded with more bandits competing for loot.

The bandits storm unsecured dwellings, door to door. Numerous, they easily exhaust the neighborhood of easy game with all their pillaging, leaving only the securest of the properties untouched. Yet hoping to gain more, they stand undeterred; they start crashing and trashing into the securest of properties in the neighborhood. Thieves they are, they think the most precious of treasures lie hidden behind the doors of the secured properties, waiting to be plundered. With authorities absent, they are encouraged to continue onslaught.

BANG! BANG! BANG! Ramming against the door, they don’t spare the cowering family’s house either. “Cap’n! This one’s tight. Come here, help!” The ramming intensifies.

Seeing the nails come off the door, the father decides it’s better to run. He drags his family at the back portion of the house, only to meet an obstacle, a small window fashioned with thin bars of wood he nailed in earlier to secure the property.

BANG! Finally, the door gives way. The wooden floorboard rumbles to the footsteps of the bandits, storming the premise.

Running out of time, the father hastily grabs just anything he can use to force the window open. Bitterly, he forcefully rams his treasured wooden chest against the wooden bars, breaking the window open. Sadly, the opening is too small for an adult to fit in, so he decidedly forces the boy out of the window, instead.

Left in the dead end, the couple prepares to confront the bandits. They pull out of the window some of the broken bars of good length. With sharp broken wooden tips, the short wooden sticks can be used for self-defense.

Several bandits, all armed with crude rusty nicked blades, storm the scene, trapping the couple. One of them, armed with a sizeable but bent edge, points his weapon at the couple. “Hahahaha! I didn’t know you rats hide here! Seize the woman!”

Like rabid dogs, the crew of bandits charge in, swinging their crude blades against the man.

Fearless, the father faces them, wielding the broken sticks in each hand. “Over my dead body!”

“Then, DIE!” The armed men continue their charge. Three to one towards brave man, they thrust their swords mightily and swiftly.

The father courageously meets the challengers. With a light step, he avoids the incoming attacks. Then he kicks the floorboard to thrust his pointy wooden stick towards one of the charging bandits.

The counterattack connects successfully, impaling the goon in the belly, but in reaction, the wounded bandit coughs blood and pulls on the arm that launched the crude wooden weapon, holding the brave man trapped.

SLASH! “ARRRGGHH!” A rusty steel edge falls swiftly across the trapped arm, severing it. Blood violently spurts out of the severed limb.

CHK! CHK! The bandits quickly follow with a thrust, impaling the brave man side to side. They brutally twist and bury the weapons deep in the man’s body, making the rusty nicked blades meet in the man’s chest cavity, penetrating the lungs and heart and causing immense pain and suffering.

“ARRRRGGGHHHHHH!” The father groans, ending his struggle. His left hand loses grip, dropping the unused wooden stick.

“Fool! HAHAHAHA!” The men mercilessly and forcefully pull the swords from the dead man’s body, causing blood to violently gush out of the newly formed wounds.

DROP! The brave father falls on the floor, motionless. He bathes in his own blood.

Without any respect for the fallen man, the bandits immediately go after the mother. They restrain her, tie her all up, and rip her clothes apart, violently. One at a time, they take turns, brutally violating the poor woman.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKK!!” The mother screams, taking all the abuse, helplessly bound by the bad men.

“Hahaha, squeal some more, b*tch! Your husband did one on us. You have to pay. HAHAHAHA!” The bandits go on and on, satisfying their carnal desires on the poor woman. Done, they leave the woman lying on the floor and set fire to the house.

Peeping outside by the window, the boy witnesses all the horror. Enraged and bitter, he grinds his teeth in fury.

In a last-ditch effort to save his mother, he jumps in the window, forcing himself in the small hole. Inside, he is greeted by thick black fumes, making him cough and squint his eyes. For a moment, he halts; he can hardly see, his eyes sting badly from the smoke. Resolved, he pushes himself forward to reach his poor mother.

“Mother!” A few step away, he screams at the woman, but she responds not. The poor woman lies motionless on the floor, blankly staring at the burning ceiling.

“MOTHER!” BAGGHHH! A burning wooden beam falls down, smashing the floor, and a burning fragment flies towards the boy’s face, grazing the boy’s cheek.

Grimacing, the boy presses his hand against the nasty wound. Slowly, he opens his eyes. He sees his mother crushed beneath the burning wooden beam, severely disfigured. Sick to the stomach, he covers his mouth – a sharp pain pierces his chest.

BAGGHHH! Next to the boy, another burning beam falls, driving cowardice, malice, and sanity back in his head. Overwhelmed with fear, he panics. He rushes towards the window where he came in, momentarily forgetting the tragedy.

With a stream of tears flowing down his cheeks and a heavy heart, he abandons home. Unable to save his mother, he feels useless – he cannot do anything after all.

But fear defeats the boy’s sorry sentiments. It drives him to run far, far away, not stopping, not looking back, not thinking of anything else but to save his life. He charges aimlessly into the wilderness to avoid being seen by the bandits. And towards a hill, he runs unknowingly, but trips. Feeling weak, he can’t get back on his foot.

Clink! Clink! Clink! Trudging on the gravel, a man in armor approaches the boy. With a warm smile, he reaches to him. “Lad, need a hand?”

Wiping his tears and snot away, the boy takes the hand and rises up. And up the hill he walks, limping, not minding the friendly company of the stranger in armor.

Finally on top, he sees an overview of the town. He sees crimson flames rage in his old neighborhood of Exteris. To his eyes, the hungry vicious demons vigorously consuming the poor dwellings, especially those made of weak materials – straw, rotting wood, light fabric, and mud – leaving in its wake a thick, black, and deadly smoke that ascends the heavens, vanishing without a trace.

“Father… Mother…” He stares blankly at the raging fire. He learns that as the time passes, the demons only grow bigger, stronger, and faster, going after bigger and stronger dwellings, consuming the neighborhood more and emitting an ever thicker, blacker, nastier, and deadlier smoke.

Undaunted, those crimson minions of death and darkness march on, erasing the neighborhood block after block, after block, indiscriminately and indifferently – it erases everything. And unstoppable, they are; even the bad men do them no harm, but run.

“the crimson flames… they are unstoppable…” the boy mutters to himself.

Distraught, he suddenly recalls everything he saw. He sees the destruction of his family. He sees his good old neighborhood crumble with his very own eyes. He sees it all, looping back and forth.

“AAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!” His scream of suffering echoes in the wilderness.

“Sniff! Bad men… I’ll kill them all… Sniff! Bad men… I’ll destroy them…” He mutters softly. Tears flow down his cheek, mixing with the blood as it runs over the fresh wound. He feels the sting.

“Yes, bad men. There are many of them. You have to be strong to slay the dragon.” says the man in armor.

“Unstoppable… yes… a dragon. I wanna become one of those fire breathing monsters… Sniff! The crimson flames… Sniff! they’re unstoppable…” The man pats the boy in the head; his dragon engraved gauntlet shines silvery in the moonlight.