Mercy

"That's where you're mistaken, they cannot be saved. Their bodies, you saw it before, they're basically slime, the same substance that makes up the creature at the center of the bog. To set them free is the same as killing them. It only kept their minds, or some of it, while it ate away at everything else. They're husks, hollowed moving husks nothing more nothing less…" Van Dijk raised his hand up and snapped his fingers, summoning a candle-like flame that was pitch black.

The moment the elder saw it, "What are you doing?" he said worry clear in his eyes, "Setting you free, from this cage…"

With a snap of his fingers, the flame in his hand began splitting into dozens of smaller spark-sized flames that flew all over the village, landing upon the Hollowed Wretches, and their homes.

"Be free, it is what you wanted," Van Dijk said. Almost instantly, every one of the villagers' bodies got lit up with black flames.