People dashed around in fear and panic, their nightmarish screams filled the night, drowning out the river which ran red with blood and the bugs that avoided the heavy tread of running of fleeing victims. Men and women in dark blue robes flew in the air upon swords that gleamed against the crackling flames. They uttered incantations using a vile language, summoning balls of fire that they rained down upon the houses and walls of the city. The city streets were littered with debris from buildings and dismembered bodies, the flesh still crackling from the searing heat of the mages in the sky.

"Mina, Rachel, stay by my side and don't let go of my hand!!" A woman wearing seductive makeup and robes grabbed the hands of two young teenage girls.

Mina's mother looked out from underneath her cover up at the sky. Mina could see at least a hundred blazing reflections painted against the pitch black night sky. Not even the moon shone for their escape. Mina felt her hand get tugged on and she went with it, she was running with her mother and sister in the street, following a raucous crowd.

A sword flew from the sky and stabbed a man before them. It squelched its way down through his throat, making him gargle and scream. His arms spasmed wildly from the pain 

Mina gripped her mother's hand tightly and blinked tightly, holding back tears and a scream of fear. 

"The red light district is disgusting as always." 

Mina opened her eyes and looked up to the sky, a middle aged man with a beard floated down on his sword, his robes swayed mesmerisingly in the wind. The man spat giving them a disgusted look. 

"What did the Fiva Red Light District ever do to your Water moon sect?!" Mina's mother yelled angrily.

Mina felt comforted as her mother clenched her hand tighter. 

"What else? You disgusting whores are making our students stray from the path of cultivation. We can't allow such disgusting behavior to withhold their path to immortality. And if we let you sluts go away some of our students would come searching for you lot, so it's better to kill you all."

The Water Moon cultivator smirked. 

"Your lives aren't worth much anyway," 

Mina trembled. 

"Mina, Rachel, run!" Mina's mother yelled, suddenly tearing Mina from her final comfort.

Mina fell backwards, landing in the dirt. Her mother took her hairpin from her hair and nimbly dashed forward, aiming to stab the cultivator but he caught her arm as she swung. 

"Let me go.You bastard!" 

The man holding her held an amused expression on his face. He raised his sword and brought it down onto her neck, cutting off her head. Her body stopped moving as blood sprayed in a torrent into the air. Her lifeless body slumped to the ground and blood ebbed from the finely sliced stump atop her shoulders. 

Mina stared in shock and felt herself about to vomit. 

"Mina let's go!" Rachel yelled.

Mina turned around to see Rachel had been running…like their mother had ordered.Her face was full of fear as she looked at the cultivators coming towards them. 

Mina scrambled in the dirt, struggling to stand so she could run away. Run away with her sister. She could run like her mother had said… no, ordered. She could hear the heavy tread of the cultivator behind her. She turned around and tripped backwards. The cultivator raised his hand, the shining sword floated in front of him before it dashed towards her.

"Sis!"

Before the blade stole her life Rachel leapt in front of her, stealing the blow from the blade. She croaked, looking down at the blade in her stomach. Mina sighed in relief, seeing that Rachel was still alive, then the sword began to move on its own, slicing through the soft flesh of her stomach. Rachel's top half fell backwards and into Mina's arms. A vile stench arose, as her innards spilled out from her lifeless body. Rachel's eyes had rolled into the back of her head and blood trickled from her mouth. Mina blinked, the reality that her sister's dark pink eyes would never look into hers with the affection that only a sister could provide. She looked at her brown skin, it was stained with the blood of her sister and she was too stunned to even move.

Mina couldn't even scream. There was blood pouring out of her sister's cleaved torso and covering her feet with blood and intestines and coating her. She did not even want to live anymore. Her mother and sister had died, what more did she have to live for? She remembered her mother telling her of her life, she had said she always wanted her and Rachel to live better lives, to somehow, get out of the red sect district. How could she let herself die and fail her mother's dream and not acquire the dream that Rachel so desperately wanted?

She looked back at the cultivator that walked towards her still, a silhouette with flames in his spectacles. Mina shivered. How could she get away from that? Before she could think of any way out of her predicament a building beside her was struck by a fireball which blasted the base of the building from underneath it. The building groaned and creaked before toppling down towards Mina. She screamed as it collapsed atop of her.

She woke up screaming. She was drenched in sweat which made her shiver in the cold night air. The moon shone down through her window illuminating the bed, her workplace. She shook her head, that night she dreamed of was years ago but it still haunted her, she remembered every detail so vividly. And she still felt the guilt of her sister just as vividly. She rubbed her face before standing up, she only wore a thin nightgown to bed which was translucent. Men liked it that way. 

She had escaped somehow that night, albeit with scars and bruises that acted as a constant reminder. She had run away to a remote town that she made her living in by putting to use the skills her mother had shown her when she was young. The sex was always an act for her, she always had to act like she was enjoying it more than she was. They were just strangers after all.

Mina slipped the gown of her lean and fit body and grabbed some underwear off a nightstand. She put it on and looked at her face in the mirror. A large scar had deformed her lip, made when the house fell on her. Was a shame, as a child she always wanted to see what kind of beauty she would grow up into. She was twenty-two now and had spent the last eight years waking up every morning to see her scarred body. 

Someone knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" She called pleasantly.

An act she had mastered

"Just me," Mina recognised that voice, Levi. "Someone has requested for you, are you ready to go?"

"Yeah"

"Alright I'll go get them."

Mina slipped the underwear on, and cupped her breasts in her hands. She looked in the mirror to make sure the presentation of her cleavage was just right. She put the velvet nightgown back on and fluffed up her hair with her hands. She then lay on her side on her bed, and looked toward the door. She waited for whoever had requested her to arrive. Eventually there was a knock at the door.

"Come in." Mina chimed sweetly.

The door was pushed open very slowly. A figure clad in robes stepped into the room and looked at her from under their headwrap. They looked around the room before their gaze seemed to rest on a chair. They walked over to it and took off their thick cloak and sat down in the chair. He sighed heavily as if out of relief. Mina sat up.

"So you want to do it like that?"

"No, No not really." the man said in a gravelly tone.

He began to unravel the turban and facewrap.

"Mina wasn't it?" He asked.

"Yes," Mina slowly enunciated, "and you aren't here for sex are you?"

"No, I'm not."

"Is it because of how I look? I saw the way you dismissed me when you first walked in."

"No," The man chuckled. "Not at all, you are a pretty one. But I am faithful to my wife."

"So then, why are you here?"

"You and I have something to talk about. Just you and me Mina, for I'm certain there is no one else who remembers that night in the past like you and I do."

Mina stiffened up at its mention. The man finally finished with his turban and headwrap. For the first time, Mina felt embarrassed to be half naked in front of someone. This man's green eyes were pure, they were like emeralds that glimmered with hope. Something Mina was all out of. His eyes also did not wander along the length of Mina's body which made her like him.

"Would you mind if I clothe myself in something more fitting?"

"Not at all."

Mina stood up and hid herself behind a room divider, before getting undressed.

"So… who are you anyway? Mina inquired

"My name is Jack Everett… I used to live in the red sect district."

Mina Slipped a shirt on and pulled some trousers over her legs. She emerged from behind the divider and took a seat on a chair next to her dining table. She faced Jack who was sitting at her desk. 

"So you went through that as well?" 

"Yeah, I was sixteen at the time. I fought to protect my family as they escaped, I fought alone because I had no father at all. Y'know, red district things. I managed to make it out of there alive because I went weak and scared after I killed one of the cultivators but I later found my family's bodies on the outskirts of the town."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Mina whispered. 

"Mmm. I'm sorry for your losses as well, but I tracked you down from mere rumours really, I wanted to find other survivors but there aren't many of them at all but I heard about someone in this town and I thought the Brothel would be the first place to check… no offence."

Mina waved her hand in dismissal. She knew her life was pitiful.

"So what are you here for?" Mina asked.

"To warn you."

"Of what?"

"The Water Moon Sect." Jack said, wrinkling his nose up. "I got wind of something, the cultivator apparently had a prophetic dream. After that he was collecting rumours like I am now and he began killing certain people. Anyway, I was seeing a friend… a fellow survivor like you and me and then Water Moon Sect cultivators came along and killed him. I managed to kill the two cultivators and now I'm trying to spread the news and alert everyone I can find of their hunt."

There was a knock at the door.

"Um, Hi… Mina it's me, Levi. Could you come out here for a second please?." 

Mina stood up and walked over to the door.

"Wait!" Jack hissed. "Something isn't right."

A wave of dread fell over Mina as she suddenly realised what Jack meant.

"No…"

The door was kicked open and two cultivators swept into the room. One of them looked at Mina and smiled menacingly, he stepped up to her and slammed the hilt of his saber into her skull. Mina heard a crack, and she fell to the ground. She suddenly felt tired, and could feel the warm flow of blood seeping from her head. She blinked the blood from her eyes and eventually just kept them shut.

"What was that life?" A man's voice boomed in her dreams, "She lived so pitifully until the end."

"Didn't she ever brother? Hehe." A weaselish voice cackled.

"But she had so much potential…" a female voice interjected. "Maybe if we just give her one more chance darling."

"But why?" the booming voice demanded.

"I have a suggestion brother." the weaselish voice meeped.

"And what would that be?"

"We give purpose to the life she already knew…"

"But that creature serves no purpose."

"But she has potential to give it one."

"Very well brother, you have convinced me once again… Sister, send her away"

The suffocating darkness evaporated.