To a friend,
Whose stories make me dream,
I hope this one will make you dream, too,
Mwuah
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Shrill screams and heart-wrenching wails roused him from his slumber, and the first thought that came to his muddled mind was: again?
There was no surprise, only a deep sense of disenchantment.
Still, the being rose to his feet and climbed out of his dwelling atop the mountain, his sharp eyes gazing down.
Here they are.
The soldiers wore their usual uniforms, the white and blue outfits standing out on the dirt road. It was impossible to miss them, even from high above.
Someone was barking orders atop a horse, and others were obeying, no questions asked. They grabbed the women by the hair and yanked them to the chariot, regardless of their pleas. Children, too, were caught and mercilessly thrown inside with their mothers, while the men were beaten to within an inch of their lives before being hauled with the rest of their families.
"Don't let any of them escape!" The words were carried up to him by the wind, and he listened with an impassive look on his face. "All witches shall be burned in the name of God! We're the righteous hands of heaven, delivering their just judgment! Do not falter!"
"Bring them to the stakes!"
"Kill them all!"
"None of these monsters shall be spared!"
Monsters, eh? The being narrowed his eyes, observing a scene he had so often seen these past few years that he had grown numb to it.
Still, deep down, it never ceased to astonish him. The madness of it all always left him at a loss for words, for he could not comprehend how some humans were monsters, while others were not. The only thing that differentiated these witches from these soldiers was their knowledge, and nothing else. There was no witchcraft involved whatsoever, but it might as well be, for when someone's knowledge was too deep, it seemed like magic.
The unknown had always scared humans, and witches were shrouded in too many mysteries for these fools to accept. They had to be inhumane for their existence to make sense.
This misconception made it all the easier to pin the blame on them for everything that could go wrong, be it diseases or droughts, and redirect the populace's anger toward them instead of the real culprits. Now, the idea that they needed to be dealt with for life to regain its normal course had spread like wildfire, leading to these witch hunts, or so the wind had told him.
It was absurd, but was he really surprised? For as long as he could remember, humans had always been like this, killing each other for reasons he could not fathom.
Humans were strange creatures. They did things in the name of a God who was said to be merciful and benevolent, but the moment another group of human beings didn't correspond to their standards or held beliefs that didn't align with theirs, then their God told them to eradicate them. They were deemed as demons, malevolent spirits, and certainly not humans.
Merciful and benevolent, indeed.
How foolish.
No God asked for these men to spill the blood of their brethren, and these witches didn't deserve to be burned at the stake.
Their only fault was remembering history. They knew better than to wage wars against others and knew better than to destroy their environment. None of them had forgotten the dreadful warnings left by their ancestors, and none pretended the horrors once done by humanity were a telltale; neither did they excuse it, nor shift the blame onto the Devil's whisper.
History had proved that humans could be plenty monstrous on their own, for what were the witch hunts if not a man-made monstrosity? Whatever excuse the soldiers came up with, reality was still reality, and their sins couldn't be washed away simply due to their ignorance.
Were they truly ignorant, to begin with? Or were they wearing blinders not to face the truth? Hard to say, and the being didn't dare to guess.
Another scream, another wail.
A thud, and a life was extinguished.
The soldier hit the wrong place and too hard.
The being closed his eyes and turned around. It wasn't his place to intervene, for he was not human. Whether or not he agreed with their madness was irrelevant.
He dragged his body back to the depths of the cave, curling up against the cold wall. His thoughts might not matter, but it didn't mean his heart didn't ache. So many lives had been lost because of this strange belief that witches ate children and cast curses onto the town when, in fact, they had nothing to do with any of what they were accused of.
The river was undrinkable, not because of a malediction, but because of the waste the humans dumped in it. They had polluted it themselves.
There were fewer animals in the forest, not because the witches had chased them away, but because the humans had destroyed their prey's habitat beyond repair.
Girls were disappearing from the town, not because witches had abducted them, but because they ran away from a bigoted society.
Witches didn't do anything; they didn't need to.
The humans were their very own undoing. They were a self-destructive species, smart enough to learn to create things, but not smart enough to learn from their mistakes.
Even he, a being who had no interaction whatsoever with these humans, was paying the price for their foolishness. The mountain was getting sicker with each passing day. The more they dug into its depths, the weaker he grew. What was the point of searching for these rare minerals that only a few could afford if it meant poisoning the land? How many would die in that endeavor? Most likely, too many.
A resigned sigh escaped the being as he put himself back into a slumber. He had to sleep, or he knew anger would take its toll on his mind. If it did, then the land would pay the price of his wrath, and countless human lives would be lost.
Although, did that really matter when they were all so keen on courting death of their own accord? A difficult question he'd need to ponder over once he awoke again, that is, if he ever did.