Bone Feeding Poison: the Poison Swamp Notes of a Famine Boy

There are two smells in the wind: the smell of rotten chaff, and the stronger, sweet smell of grass leaves. The cracked earth is like the chapped palms of an old man, turning the last bit of moisture into a poisonous miasma. The starving corpse huddled under the soil slope, his ribs as jagged as dried firewood. Several crows were pecking at the grass roots in his arms that he had not had time to swallow. The grass roots were glowing with a strange purple color. The crows took two bites, then suddenly fluttered their wings and fell to the ground, their claws twitching into hooks. The mass graves in the distance floated in the fog, like soaked carrion. Hidden in the thickest fog was a swamp. A layer of green foam floated on the surface of the swamp. Occasionally, bubbles exploded, revealing the dark brown mud underneath. Half of bones were embedded in the mud, which was as white as a road sign someone deliberately inserted there. A shadow squirmed among the noxious weeds. The broken ribs were touching the ground, and every movement felt like a dull knife stirring in the chest. He stared at the swamp, and the blue spots on his palms suddenly became hot, like grains of red-hot sand digging into his flesh. There was a faint cry in the fog, like a child or a dying beast. He knew that it was not an illusion - there were too many children buried in this land who had not had time to remember, and their bones sprouted in the mud, and the grass that grew had teeth in its roots. He gritted his teeth and crawled toward the swamp. Behind him, the crow's corpse was festering at a speed visible to the naked eye. The pus seeped into the soil and gave birth to several small, jagged seedlings. The story begins here: When hunger hurts more than poison, people will always reach out to the most dangerous place.