Tread Lightly – Among Monsters And Men

Wyatt “Wendigo” Graves

The last thing I remember was agonizing pain and a resounding gunshot. The red demonic Nain Rouge gouging into me with my rapier. The Bloody Palm struggling to use the last of its Ether and blood to keep me living. But eventually, it’s not enough. The Bloody Palm could only hold so much Ether into it at once and my injuries far exceeded that.

Maybe if the Nain Rouge never showed up to finish me off I could have slowly recovered because of the Bloody Palm’s healing capabilities. But that red little fucker pushed me past the tipping point. It even tried to stab me in the heart. But someone put a stop to that.

I don’t know who though. The second I heard the timbre of a revolver, I felt my heart beat for the final time. Like a final surge of water at the end of a flood before everything recedes. The heartbeat makes goosebumps appear across my whole body which quickly falls alongside my consciousness after the beat.

Then, I descended into inky black darkness. A darkness so encompassing that I couldn’t see anything, even myself. I could feel cold solid ground beneath my feet, though, so I walked through the darkness. There was nothing in the darkness. No light. No sound. No smell. No taste. Only the feeling of the freezing floor beneath me.

I claw about searching for anything in the unending shadows. But there was nothing. Nothing at all. And I discover something as I use my arms to look around, my left hand is missing. From just about the forearm a cleanly cut nub sits.

Am I dead? Is this what it's like before Death claims someone and drags them down to meet the Red Judge? Do all people enter the underworld missing their lost limbs? That doesn’t make much sense. What if you lost your head?

I sit for a bit with nothing else to do, careful not to fall as I am completely blind while I try to lower myself. There is just a blank shadowy void around me filled with freezing chill. But not a chill that makes you slowly die and actually freeze. Just one cold enough to make you suffer and feel its icy burn. I’m probably already dead, though, so I don’t think it’d matter.

I hope everyone else is alright. They likely are because of that final bullet I heard. All the bandits were dead, so the only one who could have shot the bullet was Earl or Esther. The substance that hit Wiley was insane. I couldn’t turn my head to see who threw it, but I bet it was Earl. I can't imagine that man surviving it. I could hear the flesh melting and the screams before the darkness enveloped me.

He made that bomb right? The Fulminate. It was quite useful. If only we had more, the fight would have gone much easier. I probably wouldn’t be wherever I am now. Wherever this place is.

For minutes I sit in silence, not by choice either. No sound can even pass through my lips. I can’t sing any songs or talk to myself. The minutes stretch into hours as I get bored and stand up. Without anything else to do, I practice. I try using Ether, but as expected, I cannot sense any.

The cold continues to enter me and make my body shake. Again, not enough to slow me down or kill me, probably because I might already be dead, but it is enough to hurt and keep me grounded. That’s all the pain really has done lately. Keep my head on straight. There is always just enough floating in my body or mind to steady my hands.

Without the chance to use Ether and grow in that aspect, I practice just moving. In the dark without sight, sound, or smell. I imagine obstacles I have to move over, arrows I have to dodge, and enemies I have to run from. Just trying to follow Edmund’s training regime. Teach myself how to live. Not how to die. I do find it quite ironic what I’m doing here, though.

Practicing to be alive when I’m likely already dead. I don’t let it stop me, however. Because I need something to do, otherwise I’d go insane sitting still for hours on end. And so, I continue to move, duck, dodge, run, jump, and all the other ways to survive in the West.

The East is much safer, not having to be anywhere nearby the frontier. It’s not entirely safe, though. Demons, monsters, and other creatures still slip through. And that’s not even to mention the East Coast. An endless sea stretches out from it so I’ve heard. Filled with unimaginable beasts and monsters that trump anything even the West can offer.

Yet, I don’t know how much I believe that. Because there are much more Hunters in the West that constantly are fighting and dying compared to the East, most of the Hunters who die in the East still die to Western threats that just make it through.

I continue to practice through my thoughts and the unrelenting frostbite that attempts to eat at me but that can never catch a bite. The hours turn to a day or so in the void. The progress I truly made is unknown in the dark, but despite my focus, the darkness seems to call toward me. A soundless hymn reaches my ears, beckoning me deeper into the dark.

At first, I refuse the call, thinking it was just a figment of my imagination. I merely continue to fight against my imagination in faux combat. But eventually, as the day passes into two, or maybe three I’m not sure, and the cold settles deeper within me, the call grows from its silent melody. I begin feeling it resonating within my bones. I look down to understand this feeling and can’t see anything. So, instead, I put my remaining hand against my other arm to try and understand the sensation.

I gasp in noiseless surprise at what I discover. My arm is so thin that my hand can wrap around any part of it. Even my biceps. Demoralized, I feel through the rest of my body that I can’t believe that I didn’t notice slimmed so much. My legs are similarly anorexic because I can run my fingers along my calf and feel the veins, arteries, and bones underneath. My torso is even worse. The largest part of my body has shrunk to the points I could pass for an early teen.

The malnourishment and thinness even reaches my skull. The skin pulled so tight I could feel each and every crease or piece of bone in my skull. Not just that, but my entire head is smaller, like a young child, underdeveloped and soft. My skull bone is so small there is so way my brain could possibly fit into it. How did I not notice this? Is this what happens when you die? Your body is slowly devoured by the elements and you waste away?

I try to figure out what is happening to me, but the call of the dark only grows. No longer does it just reach my mind soundlessly or resonate with my flesh. Now I can see it. Even through the dark. It looks like small convex waves flying out toward me. Somehow it’s visible before the void.

The newest level of the hymn finally grabs my undivided attention. Something I can see? Is there something in the dark? I thought it was just my overactive imagination begging for an activity for a while.

I walk towards the psalm. It continues to grow in the mental call, the physical resonance, and before my very eyes. I can feel my entire essence shaking as I traverse the dark toward it. And I have to walk for a long, long time. The few days shift into a week or more, and my sense of time is ruined by this point, so it's impossible to be sure how long it's been.

While I walk through, the sensations only grow. They grow and grow until each step is made with a conscious effort so that I don’t fall over in my now ever-present trembling. The soundless noise crescendos for what feels like a week before I finally reach what calls for me.

As I step through what feels like a massive bubble or barrier, I regain my sight and find a massive human hand with a long wrist connected to it. The hand is at least ten feet tall and fifty or so long. It looks pale, bloodless, and wrinkled. The human hand towers before me, emanating waves of this melody that now slams into me as I stand before it. In every direction just beyond the hand returns the void.

I recognize this thing. It’s the Bloody Palm. But how is it here? I thought that it fell off once it was used… So, why is it here? Curious, I reach my arm out to it, and I instantly regret my choice.

The massive hand feels warm to the touch and turns into a river of dark crimson blood as it flows toward me and enters my body. The sense of sight immediately disappears and I am once again in the dark, but I’m no longer alone.

Now there is a voice with me. No, a cacophony of whispers screams into my ear at unbelievable volumes in the dark, undecipherable though in their content. The resonance only grows louder and I feel my body breaking from the devastating quake that starts from within me. Bones crack, eyes pop, and teeth shatter.

“ᎩᎬ!

ᎠᏯ!

ᎤᎵᏍᏗ!

ᏂᎯ!”

I feel blood run down my eyes and face as I fall to my knees screaming. The whispers grow even further from being incoherent madness to deafening shouts that I can’t ignore in any way or no longer not understand.

“B̴͇͆̀Ḷ̷͝O̴̖͗O̴͍̱̓͌D̶̼͋ ̷̖͋Ĭ̵͔̈́ ̷͎̑̊A̷̭̒M̷̛͎̲̏

W̶͇͍͆E̷͉̩͛̐A̸̦͗K̴̜̘̕ ̵͈͑͗Y̴͇͐O̶͙̕͝Ũ̶̝ ̵̭́̆Ã̷͖͜R̴̡͑E̵̮̥̋̐”

These words eat at my mind, shaving off little pieces every single time one of these whispering voices screams them and adds to the cacophony. I try to focus and stand, but I can’t even tell my arms to move. The second I try, I am pulled away by the voices. I can actively feel them eating away at me. I feel myself grow even more starved and anorexic if that was even possible. My body stretches and elongates as if I’m being pulled by rope in two separate directions by carriages.

It's painful, but so much more disorienting and befuddling than just simple pain. The edges of my mind are being ground away till they are no longer sharp. The pain isn’t that strong, but the effects on my mind itself are potent. The pain only spikes here or there, sending me sprawling out on the ground despite my attempts to recover. Just as the whispers attempt to change their words, though, they cut off for a moment, a single quiet and blissful moment of clarity before returning.

“G̺̳͓̠͚̻I̞̫̩̞̬̻ͅV̗͖̰̭̱̞E͍͖͓͎͍-”

The reason for the moment of clarity is unknown, but I welcome the break even if I still feel the repercussions of whatever is happening still in my mind. I try to figure out a solution, but I feel more sluggish and mentally slow. Like my thoughts are coming as quickly. This isn’t good. What can I do to stop this? Because even if I’m dead, I don’t want to be devoured by this damn artifact.

Artifacts are made from leftover desires, emotions, and unwillingness to die, right? So, do I just have to overpower this artifact with myself? I don’t know how I’d do that. But, I do remember a similar time when I had to fight my own mind to keep myself moving.

In the forest, while I was dying to this fucking Bloody Palm’s hunger. It always comes back to bite me in the ass, huh? No free lunches or power, I guess. And in the forest, it was slowly eating me, were those illusions I saw not from the hunger I felt? Were they from the palm trying to what? Eat me? Take me over? Turn me insane? I’m not sure what it wanted, but I do know what saved me.

An old memory of Ma came knocking into my blurred and addled mind. Despite how odd and almost demonic she was in the memory, it did help. It gave me something that grounded my mind and helped me fight the hunger. So, I just need to do something similar.

Get something to ground me.

Just as I think of what to do, the blissful moment ends and the cacophony returns. Once again, I’m thrown to the ground in agony and pain as my mind is cut away from myself by imaginary lashes of blood from these whispers.

S̘͓̻UB͚̱͓M͔̮̫̹͕̣ͅI̝̰̯T̟̜̰̪ͅ.̰͎̥ ͍̮̰̠̩̜ḌIE͍̳. D̹̭̲I̙̘͈̦̳E̻̟̳̥̦.̮͈̫̪̖̤ D͚͍̱̦̭͉̙I̯̫̩̼̖͈E̲͙̝͚̯.̝̹͉ F̞U̬̜͈̗̱̦̖T̹I̭̬̮̺̻̟ͅLE. ͓͓D͖̟̱̹I̗E.͎̹̲̫̤ ̯̝̺K̟̙I̪̠̠L͚͇͉̞ͅL.̰ K͍͔̻̪̠̺̭I̻̯̳̱͇L̠̠̼͇̠L̟̝̯̟̗͉̖. ̺̬̣͖͇̜͖KI̮̖͓̰L͕͍L̘̦̤͓ͅ.̺ ̻EA͇͚͈̗̘̫̣T͉̭͇̝̲.͉̱͖͙̤̬͉ ̠ͅE̜̣͚̣̬A͚T̪̘̘̯.̳̰̜͇̗͎ ̤̮̗̱̹B̗̻͎̤̖͚͙L̩̭̝̹ͅẸ̦͍͓͔̘E͍̗D.̳̮͈̫̮ B̫L̘̟̪O̲͖̟̣̯̩O̞͓̫̪̳̮̙Dͅ.̼̭̲

This next period of devouring whispers from the Bloody Palm almost takes me as it’s much longer and more powerful than the first. Almost as if it’s getting closer and more connected with me. I barely can hold onto my consciousness despite the lightheadedness, dizziness, and almost deathly levels of vertigo I feel.

Alongside this barrage of emotions are quick almost imperceptible memories that flow through my head. All obviously from my perspective, but not all how I remember them. It’s like the whispers dig up and pull out the deepest and darkest parts of me. Like pulling out things that were hidden away. They each give me a plethora of hateful emotions and sadness every time I see them despite not knowing the contents of each.

Except for one. The first time I was ever taught how to read. It’s only a single quick glimpse of the memory I recognize, at most five seconds of recollection, but it immediately makes me question everything I’ve ever known.

It’s a few seconds-long strips of highly focused recollection. I’m sitting at the dining table of our house with a piece of paper beside me. I’m not too eager to learn, but I’m not that against it either. Similar to enjoying the feeling of a bath dreading actually entering one. There is one thing quite odd though, of this view that I don’t remember, my hands and arms all have large festering cuts and torn bandages upon them.

Then, as if asking if I have to learn this or if I could go play, I turn my head to look at Ma. For a single incredibly brief fraction of time, she looks normal. Then my sight distorts and another being is there, yet somehow I know it’s still Ma. She stands beside the table completely different from all my previous memories. Everything I had ever known.

All my life she has been a kind, caring, and sweet woman. A little short, but with freckles and infectious laughter. But my recent memories of her are fading. For a few years now, she had just been sick and bedridden, most of her joy gone. Is it me or her that is wrong? I don't know. Even the last fucked memory I had seen of her, she was fading and hard to distinguish with an odd voice which made my suspicion rise. But what I see in this small glimpse changes my mind about her forever.

It’s an ugly, though still obviously female, ogre-looking thing before me. Reddish-brown skin and teeth that resemble knives. It stands with a serrated knife in its hand and a weird language exits its mouth that I can actually understand. But immediately after it finishes speaking the memory stops and changes to another one, leaving me with just the image of her threatening smile of knives.

“You learn or you die.”

I don’t know if it's the voices that are making me see these things, but something tells me there are not. That something or someone is affecting my memory of the past. I am forced to push it deep down and save it for later, though. Many more remembrance flit by as I am beset by the noises of discordance but most are too short to remember or too abstract to grasp.

Every time I feel any emotion during these memories though, whether it's hate, guilt, anger, regret, or anything else, it feels as though the voices chew up the feelings and spit them back out at me so much stronger and fiercer, making me shake even further close to my tipping point.

The break does arrive eventually, although this one is a little bit longer than the first break. And I don't try to stand this time so that I am not forced to fall once more when the whispers from the Blood Palm return.

Quickly and frantically, I force my slow mind to find something to hold onto. My first thought is my Ma, but my doubts about her lately push that to the side. It’s not pure enough. Especially with that ogre-like memory that reminds me of how the Dzoavits looks in children’s books, I’m likely to waver before the whispers if I rely on memories of her again. There is either something wrong with me or with her. I’m not sure what concerns me more.

Then, I think of Edmund. But once again, I have to push it to the side because of how I failed him. The guilty regret I feel is likely to be taken advantage of. It will only get me devoured by the whispers.

My next possibility is Elizabeth, Earl, Leonard, and Esther, but they are pushed away too. The lie I’ve told them about me being an actual Hunter eats at me every day. They may be my only friends and I care about them a lot, but similar to the other two, the guilt will hold me back.

The final thing I think of is similar to the last time I needed something to ground my mind. Death. The phrase that Ma said to me in that weird twisted dream of a memory still sticks out, not to mention the memory when I was about to die to the giant man with the greatsword on the stump of wood.

Ma mentioned again and again how Death won’t take a Graves until they are weak, feeble, sick, or ready to die. How does that work? Is she unwilling to meet us for some reason? I’m not sure, but as I think about this, I remember an old letter I saw Ma reading when I was really little.

At the time, I could barely read. I was at most four or five years old and I sat next to her as she read a crumpled-up and battered piece of paper. The only words that I can remember or were able to read were mostly short words that were from a phrase in the middle of the page that caught my attention as a child.

“She will take me only when she earns me. Until then, I must fulfill my duty.”

For some reason, these words stick out to me amongst all those I have ever read. And something deep within me now makes me think that they were from my father about Death. This would have been the only letter I had ever seen from my father, so why did Ma never tell me it was from him? She just relied on me being unable and unwilling to read.

I have so many questions, but my gut tells me these words are special and that I need to focus on them right now. For some reason, Death will not just take us. She has to earn us. She has to work for it. Are we special? Ma always told me I was, but don't everyone's parents do that? Maybe there was a deeper meaning to those times she did.

And if this damned artifact, the Bloody Palm, wants to take me? This item that forces me to eat and devour crazily like a madman? This stupid, unthinking, unliving, object? It’ll have to work harder than Death herself. ‘Cause even Death, The Biting Embrace, The Inexorable Touch won’t take us when we aren’t willing.

And by the Red Judge, himself am I unwilling.

I got shit to do. And a great man to avenge.