Tread Lightly – Among Monsters And Men

My sight returns after an unknown amount of time as I feel a small bit of air enter my shredded lungs and keep me alive. Seems as though the Bloody Palm has done a bit of its passive regeneration, but the massive healing of my body has not yet been triggered. Wheezy gasps of air enter me as I struggle to look around me with blurry vision.

And what I see and hear when I come to almost makes me wish I hadn’t. Four people from the campfire now stand, and one hangs off of the woman on the edge. In front of these people kneel Elizabeth and Earl. Leonard lies unconscious beside the two of them.

The man in front of the group, presumably the new leader screams at Earl and Elizabeth while spraying spit all over them. I try to listen and hear what they are saying, but it takes a moment for me to come to enough to hear what the front man is screaming at Earl and Elizabeth.

“It seems as though it's the two of you now. Your lil’ psychotic friend over there is dead and this one here probably got brain damage from using that damn shotgun. I don’t care too much that Arnold is dead, but y’all killed Annie. And in such a brutal way. That fucker treated her like a pincushion. But no one will ever say Wiley Emerson ain’t merciful, so how ‘bout this.”

The man pulls out a six-chambered revolver and opens the cylinder before taking out all but one bullet then closing it back with a flick of his wrist. This man wants them to play Round Roulette! A game of death. One bullet, six chances. The realization of this dire situation makes me try and move, but still, I am weak. My torso is shredded and my left arm is limp. Why is the Bloody Palm not activating? Am I not close enough to Death? I can almost feel her embrace.

The man explains what is about to happen as Earl and Elizabeth’s eyes go wide.

“I’ll let one of ya’ live. Just play a little game of Round Roulette. Just the two of you. I’ll even let ya’ choose who goes first. The survivor will get to join my crew. Just no fucking around. Or else we’ll put you both down.”

The man puts the gun out toward Earl and Elizabeth. Then, the two begin to shake as they look at each other. I see Earl frantically look around and lock eyes with me. For a split second shock shows on his face, then understanding as he quickly wipes away any emotions on his face. I see Earl reach for the gun, then as always, the clever man finds a way to buy me time.

“May I spin the chamber before we start? I don’t want to rely on someone else’s luck.”

The man chuckles before he opens the cylinder and hands it to Earl.

“Yeah, kid. That’s fine.”

And so, while Earl spends a few moments, wasting the man’s time before starting the actual Round Roulette, I try to fix the situation.

My first thought is to use Strugglers Gasp, but that’s just as likely to kill me mid-use than it is to actually help, my still present acute Ether saturation would make sure of that. My seemingly best bet is to somehow force the Bloody Palm to activate. The first, last, and only time it’s ever happened though was when I was literally on death’s door. So, do I need to make myself almost die?

I make my decision as I see Earl spin the chamber for the second time and get yelled at to hurry up. I take this as a cue for me to go faster as well. The only part of my body that is still a little bit mobile is my right arm, so I clench my fist holding my dagger, and slowly drag it across my body toward my neck. I watch Earl pull back the hammer on the revolver as I force myself to move faster.

I can’t let him risk even a single shot. The Nain Rouge is somehow still affecting us. He will lose. I’m sure of it. So, I take a single short and shallow breath before I sink the dagger into the soft flesh of my neck. Warm liquid oozes and shoots out onto my arm, and at first, I think that I just killed myself like an idiot.

But just a moment later, the blood spurts out in massive volumes as every wound in my body is covered by the red substance excreted by the Bloody Palm. Warmth floods through my body. It gives me just enough energy to move a little as I roll over slightly and grab the bolt action rifle that lies beside me on the corpse of the dead lady.

The men and women are clamoring for Earl to pull the trigger and he faintly squeezes it while having the barrel rest on his temple. Before he pulls the trigger, however, I pull mine while laying on my stomach, and blood absolutely floods my surroundings. I aimed at the man who gave him the revolver that I recognized as one of the people with Sigils.

The bullet tears through the air with a shattering “crack” and tags him in the shoulder. The group panics for a moment and looks around for a shooter before finding me, laying down and still faintly moving.

Earl and Elizabeth try to take advantage of the distraction I made. Earl stands and points the revolver at one of the men in the group, but the woman beside him in a leather jacket and pants notices Earl and swings her wooden bat at him, hitting him square in the jaw. His glasses fall off and he tumbles to the ground rolling in pain. Then, Elizabeth tries to dive for Earl’s revolver loaded with a single shot, but she is bashed by that very same woman with her bat.

I try to stand as I watch Elizabeth beat and Earl drop, but even with the Bloody Palm’s healing, my lower body barely moves. I think my spine got hit by that bullet and paralyzed me. The one woman stays back and continues to hit both Earl and Elizabeth with her bat while laughing the whole time. What a fucking psycho.

The other two, and the barely conscious Harold, walk over to me. I watch the man I tagged with the bolt action, Wiley, grab a bandage and tie his shoulder up. Then, he takes out a pickaxe with a single pointed edge and the other with a flat axehead from within the huge packs they carry and saunters over to me with another person behind him that carries Harold.

I quickly count up how many Sigiled are left with Chain Eyes and curse. There are three left total counting Harold, and they are all walking toward me. At least the one hitting Elizabeth and Earl is an Unsigiled. But the one with the pickaxe is the other 2nd Sigil. Fuck. Again I try to move, but below my ribcage is hardly moving. It feels as though it’s slightly healing with a bit of tingling feeling that returns, but not nearly enough to help. More motivation hits me and makes me do something stupid as I see the one with the pickaxe’s arms bulge and grow larger. He must be a Freak or an evolution of it. That bullet won’t do much to him with only a shoulder tag.

The man laughs while he approaches and addresses me.

“Seems like we got a little rat that just won’t die. Maybe bullets just won’t put you down. Time to do it the ol’ fashioned style.”

I need to move. Now.

Thinking of what my late teacher would do makes me cement my decision. Just earlier I called this idea stupid, but that was before I saw how limited the Bloody Palm’s healing was to spinal injuries.

The three of the Sigiled near me and I inhale a quick, raspy breath of air. Then, another, and another as pain spikes, and I force my Ether to go rampant throughout my body in preparation for a later gasp of Ether. My own Ether tears through my lower body and brings me pain to something I thought I could no longer feel. The sensation sorely needed to help guide the Ether I’m about to bring in.

I gasp. A Strugglers Gasp.

The crunch of the men’s boots on dust is completely wiped away as all the wind, Ether, and even emotions swirl through the air and flow toward me. My lungs expand and I feel the lead within literally shoot out of my body alongside spouts of blood creating more wounds. Then, I take the near-unlimited Ether that is funneled into me and push it into every corner of my body.

I shake and spasm as I’m not ready for Ether of this magnitude and I can’t imagine when I ever will be. But, I focus and while imaging the chains that bind my mortal and fragile body, I push Ether into them. Diverting as much of it as I can towards a thick, rusty, and dented chain that covers my spine like a snake.

My whole body distorts, but not in a get larger type of way and more intimidating type of way. This time when I use Strugglers Gasp with a focus on my spine, I feel my body elongate. My limbs grow thinner and longer. My stomach shrinks in size as my chest grows and all the while my torso stretches. My fingers, hands, feet, and toes lengthen as the nails that rest upon them sharpen and extend. I still am wearing boots, though, so my feet break out of them.

Alongside these physical changes, I feel an enormous rush of energy. Feeling returns to my legs even if it’s only fire and brimstone upon them. I raise myself just a little as I drop the rifle in my long hands. The dagger I placed into my neck now drops out and falls to the ground as my neck shrinks in size, compacting its muscles and power.

Just as the man steps in front of me, I perform the impossible. I breathe through broken lungs. I move through a broken spine. And while I stand on all fours with my distorted and less restrained body, I stare at the men in front of me with a gaze full of defiance.

The Sigiled man holding Harold who appears to be a bit younger and closer to my age than anyone else in the group opens his eyes wide upon seeing me in this way. Then despite him being unwounded and not yet having a tangle with me, he steps back away from me.

However, the man with the pickaxe holds no such hesitation as he hollers and hefts his pickaxe over his head to gore me with it. I can see the anger and frustration in his eyes as he swings at me, but I give him no satisfaction of landing the attack. With a quick push from my right arm and still fairly stiff right leg, I dodge the pickaxe that slams into the ground with a mighty bang and grab the fallen dagger from the floor.

A huge amount of dust and sand enters my eyes because of the impact of the pickaxe on the sandy ground. I focus on this man and dart around him, slashing at him with my dagger and dodging his wide swings of his pickaxe. We dance back and forth for a few moments until another one of his crew joins him.

The young man apparently worked up enough courage to help the one with the pickaxe. I feel a dangerous brush of air behind me as I rapidly turn away from the pickaxe man and take a hatchet to the side. Unflinching from the attack, I scream at the young man and make his eyes go wide as he tries to step back but his ax lodged within me prevents it. Then, I rotate my shoulder as much as I can while focusing on Ether and punch him in the face with the closed fist that holds my dagger within.

His head goes flying backward and he then falls listlessly to the floor, unmoving. Just a few left now. Unfortunately for me though, as I turn back around, the man with the pickaxe takes advantage of my distraction and slams my left knee with the point of his pickaxe. The hardest part of my body, my knee, shatters under the effects of the pickaxe, and I go falling.

Mid-fall, I catch myself with my arms and push myself backward which makes me dodge another swing. And where I land is right next to Harold, the man with my same Sigil who is barely conscious and looks at me full of anger.

I take this opportunity to snuff out the candle of his life while I can. I see that he has another pistol in his holster and well and I don’t want him to use that. So as I move past him using my arms to traverse the ground, I place my dagger into the back of his neck and take his pistol from his holster with a flick of my wrist. Only once I grab it do I realize it’s a single-shot derringer.

How… unlucky…

The man with the pickaxe pauses now that he sees me with a gun. I look worriedly towards where Elizabeth and Earl are now that I have a moment to spare and I see Earl over an unmoving Elizabeth taking hits from the wooden bat. I make a quick decision about where to put this single bullet I have.

It’s an easy one. I know what Edmund would do. I surprise the man in front of me by raising the derringer and firing it past him. My enhanced body full of Ether makes the shot accurate and it tears straight into the woman’s head who is far away from me and joyfully beating my friends to death.

The woman falls abruptly, now without a large portion of her skull, and I see Earl relax for a moment. Then he begins to frantically touch Elizabeth as if to wake her up. My heart sinks at the idea that she is possibly killed, but I don’t have time to be distracted. Every time I am, I get hit.

Wiley, who holds the pickaxe, looks back and then looks at me, obviously impressed. Then he speaks to me for the first time without derision.

“You got quite some fight in ya’ boy. You must be a son of one of those fancy Hunter families. I bet they trained you your whole life, huh? Well, I ain't planning on dying to a spoiled little brat. Come on, let Wiley wack ya!”

I wish I was trained my whole life. I’m sure that’d make this much easier. Probably less painful too. I grit my teeth and try to refute his claims, but all that comes out is a sputtered blood filled growl. The lack of success makes me inwardly curse and throw the empty derringer to the side.

Then, I and the man with the pickaxe approach each other slowly, like two mountain lions about to brawl. My body is enhanced by its positive overflow of Ether, but at the same time, it feels as though it’s about to explode. My lungs are on the verge of collapse. I need to let go of this breath soon. One day I wish I can use this uninjured and see how long I can hold it. But today is not that day.

 

The man opposite me is no slouch, though. His swings are filled with incredible power and any wounds I leave on him seem to fade away slowly. I restart our dance of death once more, but this time on a timer. If I don’t finish him soon, then I’ll have to release this gasp. And something tells me that he won’t be put down by some wind like the last girl I hit with the air of defiance.

In and out I dart as I’m much faster than him even with my destroyed kneecap. But he just takes any damage I deal at him and shrugs it off. It feels like he knows I’m on a countdown as well and he’s just waiting me out. Dammit. I gotta bed him down right now. Before my lungs burst.

And do, I flit towards him as fast as I can while my lungs are still intact. I go right in front of him and wait to dodge his attack before striking for the kill, but something goes sideways. Just as I attempt to duck to the side to dodge the pickaxe, my left hand that I used as leverage sinks into the ground and traps me. The rest of my body moves, but my left arm and hand stay put.

Instantly I know what the cause of this is. It’s the same feeling as when I fought the Nain Rouge and sunk into the sand. It’s here. Somewhere. But knowing the cause doesn’t fix the issue.

I am forced to watch the axehead of Wiley’s pickaxe approach my arm as I struggle and try to pull myself out from the vice that is the sandy ground