Have you ever felt another's lifeblood, still warm, a bright pulsing red flowing from slash wounds, spilling on your arms, your chest, your face?

Tasted it as it trickled into the corners of your mouth, the copper fire burning your tongue and lips, the metallic taste grabbing at the back of your throat?

Wiped the crimson spatters from your bare skin and left the excess to drip slowly, like tenacious raindrops on the underside of a ledge, from your fingertips to the ground?

Stared at stained hands, your chest heaving painfully as you frantically gasped for air, the jarring sound of blades crossing mingled with pounding heartbeats still ringing in your ears?

On a chilly autumn's night, the wind carries the scent of anticipation, fear, predatory hunger, bitter duty, menace and challenge. Two men, tensed, poised in fighting stance, hands hovering over the hilts of the sheathed swords at their sides. Waiting.

A single dead leaf flutters down from the canopy, landing in the space between the both of them.

Muscles twitch.

Harsh moonlight glints off cold steel.

Dark blurs of agile bodies and thrusting swords.

Earth deeply turned and cut by the impact of lunges, tight turns and missed strokes.

Trees in the path of sweeping arcs felled cleanly.

Keening battle cries and dying gurgles.

Then, it is over.

As you stand there, your grip on your hilt growing slack, the shadows around you stir restlessly, shape-shifting, advancing like monstrous apparitions from a nightmare, the same breeze that whispered earlier now whips your hair madly around. A shower of light brown leaves spiral in the wind, catching the moonbeams, glowing golden veined scarlet. Your opponent lies still, sprawled out face-down, hands slumped inches away his weapon, the pool of blood beneath him spreading rapidly -- a fountain of ruby wine.

Still, too still.

The only sound in the woods is your own ragged breath.

Reality comes crashing down.

You have killed a man.

Taken a life.

By your sword, he has fallen.

By your sword.

Your sword.

Your hands.

Your stained hands.

You have killed.

Years of training and sparring have not prepared you for the fatal consequences of your actions. Not this guilt and bitter regret, no, not this.

You don't know how long you've been kneeling, the dirt and stone fragments grinding into your shaking knees and palms, biting into raw skin, and you don't care. You wish the sky would open and send torrent rains to beat down on you, punish you with a thunderstorm's fury. Still the patch above the clearing remains clear and cloudless - Heaven isn't willing to answer your prayers.

Your rub sand viciously onto your hands, like a man possessed, trying to clean away the dried blood. New wounds open as you knead handfuls into your flesh, screaming and wailing, yet never stopping, because you know nothing can erase the stains on your soul.

Alexiel Au Yong, 29-11-2001

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