In Yaoming's Hut
Smoke from the burning barns still seeps through the gaps in the plank walls. The men stand packed tight, breath-clouds in the cold lamplight. Each of them has a wife, a child, a mother somewhere in the village — and each feels the minutes bleeding away like blood from an open wound.
"How do we buy them enough time?" The man speaking squints. His hands shake. Not from cold.
Yaoming steps forward. His shadow dances on the wall, huge and torn. "We lure the beasts to the river. It's the farthest point from the village."
Silence. Then laughter — thin and bitter.
"To the river?" An older man with a scar running across his cheek snorts. "Where the forest makes its home? You've forgotten the forest spirit, Yaoming? Or has the smoke driven you mad too?"
"Who knows," murmurs another, half to himself, "whether these Noctusborn are more dangerous than what lurks between the trees?"
Yaoming whips around. His drill-bit gaze bores into the doubter. "Are you mad?"
"Don't you trust your own eyes? Our whole town burns! Our neighbors are torn to pieces!"
"And the forest spirit? Does the forest spirit do such things?" Yaoming's voice drops lower, dangerous. "Meet him with honor, and he will grant us his respect."
The Scar snorts again. "If that were true, the village rules wouldn't exist. No entering the forest at night. Have you forgotten?"
"The rules apply to normal times." Yaoming clenches his fists. "But we're long past normal. Our village faces annihilation. The forest spirit will understand — he must understand!"
"Besides," Zuo interrupts sharply, "every minute we spend debating here is a minute our women and children might die."
The silence returns, heavier now. No one is convinced. No one has a better idea.
"Fine." The Scar scratches his chin. "But there's another problem, Yaoming. A big one." He leans forward, his voice dropping to a whisper, as if fearing the walls might listen. "How do we even lure them there? They're not stupid. They smell it."
Yaoming hesitates. His Adam's apple jumps. "You won't... be very happy about this."
At the Riverbank
The water rushes. Cold. Merciless.
Dozens of figures crouch at the shore — slender silhouettes with exaggerated curves, black against the moon. Wigs of long black hair, artfully braided. Rags meant to look like torn silk.
"Work first, pleasure later," says a stout village woman in a hoarse voice. The robe's fabric cuts into her hips. "So sweep nicely, ladies!"
The brooms scratch in unison.
One of the women counts softly under her breath. "One. Two. One. Two." As if the rhythm means something. As if rhythm could keep the creatures at bay. As if counting could prevent what they've all heard: how last night the Noctusborn dragged the neighbor from her bed, how her scream cut short.
"Very good, ladies!" A trembling smile. "Now you've earned a break. Into the water!"
They undress. Not slowly, not seductively — they undress like children going to bathe, unable to imagine anyone desiring them in these rags. Their hands shake. Not from cold.
Something rustles in the bushes.
A branch snaps.
Then another.
The women notice, pause briefly, but continue anyway.
Dozens of figures emerge from the tree-shadows. Red eyes glowing in the moonlight. Claws grown from fingernails, long and curved like hooks. They encircle the group, a half-moon of flesh and hunger.
"From now on," hisses one of the creatures, her voice like steel on stone, "you will serve Father."
One of the creatures reaches for a woman's breast. Her claws pierce the bosom. For a moment — a single heartbeat — they stare at each other. The creature sees no blood, only wool. Confusion reigns. Then the supposed woman bursts into laughter that sounds like weeping. It is actually Yan. "Lost your way, beautiful?" He tears off the wig. His hair clings sweat-soaked to his painted forehead. He grabs the fabric at his chest and yanks it aside. "The real bosom's over here. Come get it!"
The men break off the broom heads. Wood splinters. Metal flashes — spearheads, hastily nailed to handles, gleam in the moonlight.
"Spears!" The chorus of hissing voices sounds surprised. Almost... impressed?
The same Noctusborn who had reached for Yan's false breast snarls and leaps. This time she aims lower. Her claws dig into the fabric of his skirt.
Yan pulls it up — not slowly, not seductively, but with the panic of a man searching for his sword and finding only his own pale skin.
"Just don't look," he stammers.
The creature twists her face. Not human. Her muscles move wrong, as if still learning what disgust looks like. "Who would want to look anyway," she says, her voice like broken glass on slate.
Yan laughs. A high, hysterical sound. She got the joke, he thinks. Or she's pretending. Or she doesn't know what a joke is, but she's learned that laughter confuses humans.
The other Noctusborn grin and laugh merrily. A devilish, rehearsed sound that jumps from one to another like a wave.
"Now we will drain you," one of them sings, almost melodically. "To the last drop of blood. And then..." she licks her lips, "you will drain your own families. To the last drop of blood."
"Hahaha..."
But the village men laugh with them.
Yan wipes the makeup from his eyes, his grin wild, desperate, real. "I didn't think that would work, you idiots! You fell for it completely!"
"You're even stupider than I am! Hahaha..." Yan screams, his voice breaking with relief.
"You call us stupid?" The lead Noctusborn moves, and suddenly she stands before Yan, so close he can smell the stench of rot and old blood. "You don't understand your situation. You won't leave here alive. You stupid, mortal fools."
All the Noctusborn laugh. A choir of broken bells.
But the men laugh too. Louder. Wilder.
"If you don't understand that," the creature snarls, "we'll show you!"
"Attack positions!" Yaoming's sword hisses from its sheath. The spear in his other hand trembles, but his voice doesn't. "Back to back!"
Wood groans. Metal clashes. The men press together, an island of sweat and fear in a sea of claws.
"For our families!"
"For our village!"
"For Baiteng!"
"Teng dao zhi hui!" The shared battle cry tears the night, old and powerless, torn from throats never trained for war.
Then they collide.
There is no formation. No tactics. Only red desperation.
Yaoming thrusts, misses the heart, hits the shoulder. The creature shrieks, not from pain but from rage, and her claws tear through his upper arm like wet paper. Blood sprays. He stumbles, rights himself, thrusts again.
One of the villagers, Luo, swings his spear like a scythe. A head rolls — not a Noctusborn's, but a comrade's who stood in his way. Luo stares at the corpse, stares at his hands, and then he too is gone, ripped away by three creatures at once.
They are no warriors. They know what the white woman said: Heads off. Hearts pierced. But their flesh is too slow, their muscles too weak, their fear too great.
Zuo parries a blow, is grabbed from behind, whirls around, stabs blind. Something warm sprays his face. He doesn't know if it's friend or foe.
And yet — amid the slaughter, while around them men scream and die — they laugh.
A Noctusborn pauses, a villager's skull in her claws, ready to crack it like a nut. "Why do you still laugh?" Her voice sounds almost curious. "Your final hour has struck. I hear your hearts. They beat and beat. And some have already stopped beating."
Zuo spits blood. His smile is red. "We laugh because our women and children are long gone. They should have left the village by now. Safe."
"We didn't have to win," Yan gasps. He holds his belly, where something thin protrudes that looks like a broken broom handle. "We just had to... buy time."
The Noctusborn stare at each other. Then — movement. They want to turn back, to the village, to the women and children.
"No." Yaoming throws himself before the lead creature. His sword breaks against her chest, but he holds her for a moment. A single moment. "You stay here."
The men attack. Not to win — to hold. To buy seconds with their flesh.
They die bravely, farmers, bakers and fishermen. Their hearts beat to the rhythm of a battle cry they never learned, but which they now write with their blood. No warriors, yet still the hearts of true heroes.
And somewhere, far away, a door opens. Footsteps on dusty paths. Women holding children's hands, not looking back, running while behind them the night explodes in screams and heroism.
The men at the river will never know. But they die knowing it worked.
That is enough.