Unravel...

A fine mist of dust chokes the air on the battlefield. Musket fire erupts. Smoke and gunpowder feed the dusty cloud. Fallen soldiers scream as long steel blades plunge into their chest, hearts, lungs and stomachs. Murdering soldiers yell in triumph as they avenge their fallen brethren. Manic laughter cuts across cries of despair. Quiet ferocity smoulders beside final whispered prayers. Tears, sweat and blood mingle on faces and drip from chins into the dusty earth.

Szayel sits on a large rock in the midst of the carnage. Her fierce caramel brown eyes reflect the red rays of a dying sun and fixate on a distant inner plane. Her jet-black waist-length hair billows and fans out around her in some unearthly wind. Her near porcelain face contorts with the turmoil in her thoughts, the turmoil that seeps through her and into the air around her, the turmoil that fuels the massacre.

A handsome face, late teens, just a baby, smacks into the rock near Szayel's foot. His jaw cracks. His face, smeared with the blood of friend and foe alike stares through her with lifeless eyes. Szayel never sees him. She watches her thoughts. Her features contort. Her palms press deep into the rock. A trail of dark blood trickles from beneath her fingers. The slaughter intensifies. Dust and smoke cloud out the sky.

A hand grips Szayel's shoulder. Everything stops. A sword freezes an inch from a begging face. Every speck of dust hovers in place. A burst of crimson suspends from a exit would in a bearded soldiers back. A thousand scenes of murder hang in time.

The pale hand on her shoulder squeezes gently. The unearthly wind around about her dies and her black locks fall down her back and around her face. Szayel turns her head. And her fiery eyes meet a pair of the coldest bluest ice. And he smiles.

It's alright.