idea. And then, I felt someone boring holes into my back so I turned.
No one. No one, not a single soul was behind me. There were originally a few elderly couples strolling behind
me but no, they disappeared.
Then I saw it.
Blood.
My blood ran cold, and it feels like it’s going to burst out of my vessels any second. Their fate wasn’t
supposed to be like this. They were all dragged into this mess all because of me. I started blaming myself.
At that moment I realized, not just the people behind me were missing, the whole tomb was silent.
Nobody, nobody was there, but me.
The blood I saw seemed to increase every single time I glance back at it. Then I saw it. On one of the
Soldier’s axe, there was fresh crimson blood dripping down, but the bodies were nowhere to be seen. When I
glanced up to the soldier’s face, his expression made my toes curl, it was morphed into a smirking yet
expressionless face, and his eyes remained blank.
I wanted to run, but I can’t. All these blood shed by innocent people, they don’t deserve to die. But
because of me, their lives are…
So I decided that I was going to avenge for them. I walked into one of the routes leading to different parts
of the tomb, letting my instinct tell me where and which way I should go.
I chose a small narrow route, as it deemed to be the safest route of all. But when I walked in, a foul stench
of drifted into my nose. I wanted to puke, and just throw up everything I ate. And then, I saw it..
Piles, and piles of bodies, Over a thousand, I’d bet. Over a thousand bodies piled up to sky high, it was
no wonder why the stench was that foul. Some bodies seemed to be there for more than a century as dark
colored skulls stared back at me.
Other bodies seemed a bit more recent, like the blood shed happened a week or two ago, as the bodies
were half rotten and you could actually see the flesh sticking to the cracked open ribs.
But none of these corpses caught my eye, the only thing that caught my eye was a man, a young man,
about the same age as I was. He was only a bit injured as he was still breathing; he leaned on the wall next to the
corpses.
I stared at him.
Wrong thing to do, as he felt my gaze upon him, he looked up at me.
His eyes. Such a beautiful pair of almond shaped eyes, yet so expressionless. So similar to the eyes of all
those soldiers, those lifeless eyes. As I took another step closer, I realized that he was crying. Tears poured
down his eyes as he wiped it from his expressionless face swiftly. Even though he seems to be tough on the
outside, he still shows his pain.
Turns out he was in the same situation as I was; he said his name was Dan. And he was on a trip to Xi An,
just for fun. And they were visiting the Terracotta Army, when everyone just disappeared. So he tried to look for
everyone he knew, and before he realizes it, he found himself in this chamber of corpse, and his families’ and
friends’ corpses on the top of the pile.
After his tale, I explained that his situation was similar to mine. I told him everything about the letter and
the reason why I came here, all because of my curiosity.
And then I told him that I wanted to avenge for the people who died, who innocently died, even if it
wasn’t their fault. And with that, his eyes suddenly blazed up and shone with fire in his soul. He agreed
immediately and said he would aid me in the avenging process.
We found another route close by, and picked up swords on the floor, probably left by some soldier that
never came back out. We were going to creep into another chamber, before my watch’s alarm rang. It seems like
it’s 00:00 already, and if I did translate it correctly, the stroke of midnight starts immediately. As if someone or
something heard my thoughts, a loud stomping noise spread through the whole tomb.
Dan and I immediately ran into a empty chamber, a safe place to stay in. And we waited, but the noise did
not stop. Instead, it became louder and louder and it seems like there were many more stomps. Dan and I
exchanged glances at each other. And then, I did something really bold.
I peeked out.
And I wish I hadn’t. Outside, were the soldiers, the army. Looks like the line from the letter was actually
true. And on their backs, they were holding onto the tour members I was with a few moments ago. Their heads
were a bit deformed and they had blood dripping down on to the floor from their hands.
When the last one of the group wass gone, we followed them out.
It felt like hours after we left the chamber to follow the army, and for the whole time we were in this dark
tunnel, dimly lit by some fire torches, and there were corpses everywhere. I guess, there were actually people
who wandered down to this place and they never got out. That thought itself scared me.