By the time news of the monster's appearance reached Nekhlova's parents, Kazakhstan had already fallen.
Even a large country with a developed economy, strong strength, and a land area nearly twenty times that of Tanjikistan has fallen, let alone Tajikistan, which is located in a corner and is developing slowly?
As a country boy who had never even been to Dushanbe, Nekhlova had no idea how big the gap was between his home country of Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, the largest landlocked country in the world. But Nekhlova could tell from the solemn expressions of his parents that the matter was serious and the monster was terrifying.
However, the next day after hearing the news, Nekhlova, who had stayed up all night and dared not sleep, found that the chickens were still croaking, the cows were still plowing the fields, and the drizzle dispersed the smell of manure in the air. It's still the same as before, unchanged.
I don’t know if it was to celebrate, but Nekhlova’s father made an exception and took the family to the only restaurant in the village. It was said that the restaurant really praised this place. It was just a simple shed with only a few tables and chairs. There are also long pieces of furniture like beds for diners to lie on or cross their legs while eating.
Nekhlova will never forget that family dinner in his life, because it was his last family dinner.
That day, Nekhlova sat cross-legged next to his father, devouring the naan and vegetable platter on the table. The vegetable platter mainly consisted of tomatoes, cucumbers and radishes without adding any sauce. For the upper-class people who are accustomed to eating vegetable salads, It may be hard to swallow, but for Nekhlova it is a rare delicacy.
Vaguely, Nekhlova heard his father talking to his uncle. The uncle hoped that his father would take Monk Nekhlova's infant brother and flee with him.
Nekhlova could see that his father was a little shaken when his uncle described the cruelty and terror of the monster, but his uncle's unintentional advice made all his efforts in vain.
"Let's go, God can't protect us. Even Kazakhstan has fallen. There are many more people starving to death on the way to escape than you have ever seen in your life."
These were the uncle's exact words. He was too impatient and said something he shouldn't have said, which made his stubborn brother change his mind.
Nekhlova's father is a devout Sunni believer. He never believes that God cannot protect His followers. He said that the fall of Kazakhstan was due to their lack of piety, while the Tajik people, after leaving the Russian Federation, lost their faith. Be more pious than ever and you will be blessed by God.
The uncle who had read many books could no longer reason because the person he was trying to persuade was a fanatical believer who was more stubborn than an ox, so he left with a bag of naan and a jug of water.
Nekhlova could not deeply understand the look in his uncle's eyes before he left, because Nekhlova was drinking soup at that time. It was hot but not steaming hot soup, with a layer of oil and a layer of fat stars floating on the surface of the soup. The strong smell of mutton made Nekhlova's mouth water.
After a full meal, Nekhlova followed his father back home. His parents were discussing how to get his uncle to change his mind. A few uncles on the street were still gathering together in small groups to play the piano and sing as usual. Everything was normal. , coupled with his stomach full of broth, Nekhlova only thought that the doomsday rumors he heard yesterday were a joke.
But the next moment, disaster suddenly struck.
The small country of Tajikistan has not yet emerged from the shadow of Brexit and civil war, and its development is quite backward. The capital Dushanbe may be able to reach the level of an ordinary county or town in a developed country, but mountainous rural areas like Nekhlova are , not even a color TV can be found, let alone high-tech products such as computers and smartphones.
The limited channels for obtaining information meant that the speed at which they received news lagged far behind the normal level. By the time Nekhlova's village heard the news, the demonic tide had actually invaded Tajikistan, and this small village was the first to receive it. What brings disaster is not a monster with snarling teeth and claws, but a demon with human skin.
Just when Nekhlova was about to take a nap, a motorcade broke into the village. Due to the poor road conditions in the village, all these cars were parked at the entrance of the village. Nekhlova heard the roar of the car engine and woke up suddenly, excitedly Run to watch the fun.
It was rare to see a car in the small village. Now a group of people suddenly came. How could we not be curious?
However, those who came here were not friendly visitors, but a group of vicious and crazy armed thugs. Most of them were men, but there were also two or three women. All of them were holding guns and not only had knives on their waists, but also Human heads hung in the sun.
The children in the village had never even watched a movie, let alone thought of special effects makeup or cosplay. As soon as they saw clearly what the group of people who got off the car were dressed in, they immediately turned around and ran home. Those who fell to the ground rolled away. With him crawling, he cries for father and mother.
When the parents heard their children's cries, they ran out of the house unprepared - of course, even if they were prepared, it would not change the outcome - and faced these armed thugs head-on.
The thugs opened fire without saying a word, pouring all the bullets that could not kill or hit the monsters on the innocent villagers. Most of the villagers who participated in the civil war in their youth stayed away from their hometowns and went to work abroad in the Russian Federation or China. The remaining villagers This group of unarmed and inexperienced villagers are like human targets. They can't even dodge, let alone resist!
After the massacre, this group of thugs began to search from house to house. As long as they saw adults, they would shoot them to death without explanation, leaving only children like Nekhlova.
Seeing his parents lying in a pool of blood, Nekhlova's mind went blank. His father and mother, who were sitting together for lunch more than an hour ago, turned into motionless corpses in the blink of an eye. This sudden change made Nekhlova Unacceptable.
When he regained consciousness, Nekhlova found that he and other children in the village were gathered together and put on a truck, while the murderous demons scraped the ground and loaded all the food in the village into a truck, including The corpses all over the village were not spared. They were all wrapped in bags or bedding and tied to the back of the car.
Thinking of the dried human heads around the thugs' waists, Nekhlova guessed that they might want to eat all the corpses. Suddenly, his stomach was churning, and he vomited out all the lunch that had not been fully digested, making the closed A strange stench filled the truck bed.
Because Nekhlova vomited in the car, the thugs who were in charge of guarding them pulled Nekhlova out of the car and wanted to shoot him. Nekhlova was so frightened that he peed his pants and cried loudly for his parents to save me. But he forgot that his parents were now corpses, tied with ropes to the back of a car.
The thugs discovered that Nekhlova was speaking Turkic and not the dialect used in the village. They suddenly changed their minds and brought Nekhlova to the leader of the armed thugs.
Later, Nekhlova learned that these armed thugs regarded him as a toy for entertainment. The reason why they chose him instead of other children was because he could speak Turkic and could communicate with the thugs.
The thugs were eating naan with water and wine while laughing and looking at Nekhlova who had wet his crotch.
"There is not only fear in your eyes, but also anger and confusion. Is it difficult for you to understand why we want to kill them?" the leader of the mob asked with a smile, patting the head on his waist while asking. , the head had been dried in the sun, and there was a popping sound when it was patted, and no flesh and blood tissue fell down.
Nekhlova felt as if the human head was staring at him with its empty eye sockets, and he was too frightened to speak.
"Let me tell you why, because the demonic tide is coming here soon. If these fools stay here and don't leave, when the demonic tide comes, they will still die, and they will die even worse! Have you ever seen something taller than a house? A spider? I've seen it! Its eight legs are sharper than bayonets, and its mouthparts are like straws, and it can suck a living person to death in the blink of an eye!"
The mob leader began to ask himself some nervous questions.
"Compared to those strange ways of death, being shot to death is so refreshing. They are all mortals anyway. Rather than letting them die painfully at the hands of monsters, it is better to let them die happily, so , I kill them as a kind of mercy, do you understand? We are helping them, right?”
"Yes!" The thugs who gathered in a circle to eat laughed.
"You are talking nonsense. You are just trying to steal our food! My uncle said that more people died of starvation on the way to escape than my father has ever seen in his life. You must be trying to steal our food." Nekhlova He started crying again, "You are a group of heinous sinners, and God will punish you."
Upon hearing the word Allah, the thugs were stunned for a moment, then burst into wilder laughter after a moment of silence.
"Allah?" The leader of the thugs laughed and leaned forward. "If Allah would punish me, I should have drank boiling water and pus in Hell. Do you know why we kept you? Because you children have the best flesh." They are tender, eat less, and have no strength to resist, so they are easier to kill than pigs. If you can’t get to the next stop before the water and food are exhausted, then we will drink your blood and eat your meat.”
"Also, do you know why we bring these corpses? We don't eat this kind of rough meat, but when we are chased by monsters, we can cut off the ropes and feed these corpses to the monsters. You see, this kind of waste utilization Isn’t it a great idea? ”
At this point, the mob leader seemed to suddenly remember something. He stretched out his hand and took a large spoon and fished it out twice in the boiling cauldron in front of him. He picked up a fleshy little foot. It had been boiling for too long on the fire. Three of the toes have fallen off, and the skin has begun to separate from the muscles.
The thug stared at the foot in the spoon for a while, then looked up at Nekhlova and said: "This seems to be your brother's foot."
"Ugh——"
Nekhlova vomited uncontrollably again, as if his entire stomach was about to turn upside down and be squeezed out of his throat.
"Hahahaha, it turns out you really have a younger brother. Oh, I just said it casually, but babies are used to make soup. It is very nutritious. Do you want to try it?"
"Ouch!!!"
Nekhlova felt that all his soul and part of his humanity were vomited out together with the yellow bile. Can a person who has witnessed such a thing still be called a human being? Still a complete person?
As for the person who did such a thing, he is not a human being, but a demon in human skin.
Nekhlova vomited until he fainted. When he woke up in the turbid air in the truck compartment, he was determined to take revenge on these demons.
But Nekhlova didn't have the ability to take revenge. He tried several times and still failed to leave the carriage. He didn't find the slightest chance. He watched as his companions in the carriage became fewer and fewer - not being eaten, but being killed when they encountered monsters. Throw it out as cannon fodder and bait - Nekhlova had a hunch that he would probably die tragically like that at the hands of a monster soon.
Nekhlova didn't want to die in vain, but he wanted revenge but was powerless, so there was only one thing left to do.
When the convoy stopped at the intersection of a strange village, Nekhlova shouted at the top of his lungs in the carriage: "Run! Run away! They are murderous devils! God's people are no longer protected by Him! Hurry up!" Run away!”
Shouting in a sealed truck compartment may not reach other people's ears. Even if a warning is successfully given, they may not be able to escape from the hands of armed thugs, but this is the only thing Nekhlova can do. So he did, and curled up in a ball, waiting to die.
Fierce gunshots came from outside.
Nekhlova closed his eyes in pain, not daring to imagine the scene outside the car, but the scene of his parents' tragic death was still vivid in his mind. Coupled with the faint screams and wails coming from outside, it made him look like a massacre. comes to mind.
After a while, the gunfire stopped, and the locked compartment door from the outside was opened, and the dazzling light shone in, making other children squint their eyes. Only Nekhlova looked out with eyes that were constantly crying, and saw a yellow-skinned, The uncle with black hair and glasses.
………………
"This is what I've been through."
Nekhlova stared at the camera, his eyes red.
"The tragedy that happened to me is not an isolated case. Similar things have happened thousands of times in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Our military cannot protect us or even refuses to protect us. .”
"In just half a month, the number of coups, civil wars, and massacres that occurred in Central Asia exceeded the total number in the past century, and countless people were killed."
Nekhlova pointed behind him, and the camera turned to show a group of young children and a few old men with white hair and beards warming themselves by the fire beside the tent.
Beside the bonfire, the old people posed and prayed to the great Allah, hoping to be rescued, while the children looked numb and confused, staring blankly at the beating flames, and their empty gray pupils seemed to no longer reflect light. .
"Save us."
Nekhlova knelt down facing the camera. "For the sake of fellow human beings, please save us!"