Tread Lightly – Among Monsters And Men

Earl and I spend a few minutes joking and talking before he grows serious once more. Earl looks down at Esther and pats her on the back. Then, his brows and jaw tighten before he speaks.

“Hey, Wyatt.”

I look at him a little confused. I figure most of the bad part is over with. The Bloody Palm is temporarily controlled and we’re all safe. I'm even mostly healed up. But Earl doesn’t appear as though that's the case.

‘Yeah, what’s up man?”

Earl takes another deep breath. This one is different from the ones earlier when he felt guilty about what he had done. This time, it’s full of sadness and depression and so are his words. His words make my heart skip a beat in what they mean.

“Leonard got hit pretty badly, but he should be fine after a day or two, just a minor concussion. He woke up last night and is a little more dull than usual. Elizabeth, though… She won’t wake up. I think that crazy lady with the bat got her good in the head. We gotta take her to a doctor quickly. I think she might have internal bleeding”

I breeze past Leonard being hurt, I had figured he’d be fine the whole time. But I do feel just a little bit of guilt at how much more I care about Elizabeth being hurt. And I care a lot more, my insides turn sickly in self-hate. I wasn’t good enough. But now’s not the time to seethe. I need to act.

“Where is she?”

Earl motions me to follow him quickly and walks around a large bone structure. Kind of resembles a hip, now that I look at it. But underneath the massive hipbone, is Elizabeth sleeping upon a sleeping bag and Leonard sitting beside her with a bandage on the back of his head.

I nod to Leonard and ask the man how he’s feeling as I kneel down to Elizabeth.

“I’ll be fine, man. Just really dizzy. Are you sure you’re good? I thought Earl said you wouldn’t wake for at least a few days, let alone stand.”

I look at Earl in confusion and he just shrugs his shoulders.

“You lost an arm and more blood than we all have combined. The Bloody Palm now that it is attached to you is vastly more effective than it was previously.”

It seems so, I just hope it transfers over and lets me heal others just as effectively. I turn away from the two men and Esther who just watches silently like usual, both her and Lonnie do that quite a lot, or I guess did. Distracting myself from painful thoughts, I focus on Elizabeth before me as I take a gander at my new left hand.

It’s not the same as the rest of me. Slightly paler, a little bit wrinkled, and full of vascularity. It just makes me uncomfortable looking at it, but I guess I’ll have to get used to it. Hopefully, it can still do a little good despite the assault it constantly puts upon me.

To make it do a little bit of good, I place my left hand on Elizabeth’s face. Right before I do, though, I hesitate. She looks beautiful while sleeping. Peaceful. There's a blueish-black bruise on her temple, but other than that it just looks like she’s asleep. I shake away that perspective as I try to continue the process of healing her.

I force a large portion of Ether to flow into the Blood Palm, my new hand. The second I do, I feel the whispers return, but I push through and order it with my mind to bend to my will. It resists, but I do not relent. I continue to push and force more Ether into the palm and try to make it do as I want.

To heal Elizabeth. But it continues to refuse even after I force a huge amount of Ether on it. Enough to give even my newly enhanced Ether limit a pounding headache. And the only thing I get is louder voices from the palm. I am barely able to sift through them without my mind feeling like a knife is running across it.

They speak of devouring. They refuse to heal. The Bloody Palm only wants to eat, not regurgitate.

Disappointment and sadness flood me as my will relaxes for a brief moment. And the Bloody Palm takes advantage of this. I frantically pull my hand away from Elizabeth’s head as I feel a rush of warm energy that feels like pure life flow through me from my hand that rests upon her head. She visibly pales into a sheet of white parchment as if she lost a huge amount of blood. I step back in anger away from Elizabeth as I look at my hand. Then, I slam my hand into a bone slab next to me in rage several times.

I hear Earl yell behind me as I just keep hitting it against the bone slab trying to teach it a lesson, but I ignore him. I scream at it in an outburst of frustration as my hand begins to look incredibly damaged but only after enough beatings to reduce a normal hand to mush. I embrace the pain as I watch bones break and tendons snap in the hand. The hand is quite resilient, much more so than my right hand, but like a hammer, I use it to break the bone beside me.

I make great progress and chip off huge portions of the bone before I run out of breath and fall to the ground. Then, I watch in pure fury as the energy within the hand and the Ether that is still within it is used to repair and heal my hand in incredible swiftness. Every small bit of that warm energy heals an extensive portion of my hand immediately as it’s consumed and the Ether takes much more time and amount to help.

The hand heals from looking like a beaten piece of meat with fingers almost falling off and bone jutting out into a pristine hand within a single minute. It takes all of the energy that was within the hand, but I do not welcome the repair. I stand once more filled with ire at the thing that is forced upon me and raise my arm back to the bone. But before I can swing, I feel someone grab my left arm from behind.

Reflexively and still full of fury, I turn. I reverse to seek Earl holding my arm as hard as he can. Then he yells at me to calm me.

“Calm down Wyatt! It’s okay! Stop hurting yourself! Elizabeth isn’t dead. You just make it a bit worse. Now we need to get to a doctor very soon. Stop wasting time, energy, and Ether hurting yourself, instead make up for your mistake. I know you didn’t mean it.”

He looks as though he truly cares, but a whisper within me tells me that he doesn't understand. That he’s just.. He’s…

I shake the tendril in my mind away. My Daydream ran out of time and I didn’t notice in my rage. A rage that was both caused and probably further fueled by the tendrils and murmurs from the Bloody Palm. Once more, I feel the now comfortable weight rest upon me as my mind relaxes, no longer under subtle assault.

I reply to Earl once I’m sure I’m in control.

“Yeah…. Yeah... I’m sorry. I tried to heal her, but the Bloody Palm refused. When I let up for a single moment, the Bloody Palm took that moment to make a move. It was hungry, so it ate. Sorry, I’ll try to hold better control over it.”

Earl looks at me both guilty and sad. Then, he turns to Elizabeth and begins picking stuff up as if he’s getting ready to leave.

“I hope you can. Otherwise, we might all die. You need to always keep the Bloody Palm at bay. Every time it attacks your mind you must win. The Bloody Palm only needs a single failure to have you or us forever in a grave. I know it’s my fault that you are stuck with this burden, but you got this Wyatt.”

Yeah.. Yeah, I do. I won’t ever let it win. Can never let it take control of me. We need to get out of this damned Goliath graveyard, though. It’s driving me crazy sitting out here. Along with the palm, I guess. Hopefully, Rustbank is nearby. Both for Elizabeth and me. I hurriedly ask Earl how close he thinks it is.

“How far is Rustbank? Can we make it in a day?”

Earl looks at me with disappointment evident in his eyes. I know the answer before he even speaks.

“No, it’s at least two days on foot. Maybe one if we run constantly. And with Elizabeth unable to walk, one of us will have to carry her. Not to mention, Leonard who's in no state to run. There's also Esther, hey, don’t look at me like that girl, who can’t run that fast.”

Five of us need to somehow get there with one of us being incapacitated, one being concussed, and another being too slow. How will we do it? How much time do we even have? Is two days enough time to get Elizabeth to a doctor?

“Will Elizabeth be fine for two days on the move?”

Earl looks at the unconscious young woman and then back to me. Then, he ponders for a moment. And for the first time ever, fails me completely when it comes to knowledge.

“I-I’m not sure honestly. I think she has internal bleeding, and honestly, you might have fixed that with the Bloody Palm going haywire, but that’s up for debate. But now, she is definitely low on blood and injured. I’m no doctor, but as an aspiring alchemist, you learn a good bit about the human body. She probably has at least a day. Beyond that, I can’t tell. All I know is she’s in good enough condition now to last a day or so.”

Damnnit! So only a single day is guaranteed… What do we do then? The city is too far… The rest of them can’t keep up. Hmm… Maybe I could just run and take her? No.. I don’t know where the hell I’m going. We all need to stick with Earl.

Maybe I could just run? And carry them all with me? That’s four people to carry. For miles. Can I do that?

I’ll have to.

“I have an idea, Earl.”

Earl looks up from packing up and asks what the plan is, though he doesn't seem to believe in what I might say.

“How about I just carry you four and run the whole way? If I enhance myself with Ether the whole way, I can probably make it.”

The young man wearing glasses looks at me completely incredulously as if I’m mad. He vehemently denies the chance I can do it.

“No way, man. You cannot run close to a hundred miles in a day with us all on your back. Maybe if you were a physically focused Sigil, but you're not. Both of ours seem to be metaphysical.”

I shake my head at his denial. I can do it. I have to.

“I can do this Earl. Look at me. I can do it.”

“How??? How are you even going to carry four people at once? Are you gonna wrap us all up in a sleeping bag and pull us?”

“That’s not a bad idea, I think that might actually work.”

“Oh my. You’re not even listening. There is no way you can do it. You’d have to keep a running pace like the whole way without dropping. How will you even keep your defenses up against the Bloody Palm for the run?”

“I can take them down for a little while. I resisted it without Daydreaming before I ever evolved my Sigil.”

At this point in the conversation, Earl just puts his arms up into the sky and yells into the air.

“Just stop Wyatt! We will just have to walk. Don’t kill yourself like a packhorse trying to make it to Rustbank. Then we’ll have more to grieve.”

I understand where he’s coming from, but if there's one thing that I’ve always been good at, it’s running. I’m swift and can run for long periods. With Ether boosting me with Physical Enhancement I have confidence I can do this. I try once more to convince Earl.

“C’mon Earl. Believe in me. I can use Physical Strengthening to enhance my whole body and just push on the whole way. My Sigil gives me a much higher maximum for Ether saturation. I can handle it. I won’t just keel over.”

He sighs and goes to refuse me again but something about what I said catches his attention.

“You know a Hunter-issued skill? And what do you mean to enhance your whole body with Physical Strengthening? That’s not what Physical Strengthening does. I don’t know who told you that. It’s a simple, very easy-to-learn skill that only enhances a single portion of your body, like a hand, foot, or leg. Adrenaline Surge is a much more advanced skill that enhances the whole body with a dire cost afterward. If you use it the whole way, you’ll probably die of physical exhaustion halfway through as your bones break, tendons tear, and heart bursts of effort.”

He pauses in his speech to take a breath before continuing. This gives me some time to digest what he said. Edmund told me that it was called Physical Strengthening, not Adrenaline Surge. Did he lie to me or does Earl not know what he’s talking about? I don’t know which to believe. At this point, Earl has taught me much more about Ether and the supernatural than Edmund ever did. But why would Edmund have lied? I don’t have any more time to ponder this thought as Earl continues his rant.

“And your Sigil gives you a higher limit to Ether saturation? That’s absolutely insane. I’ve never heard of anything that does that besides time with a Sigil and ranking up to the next Sigil which increases it slightly. But other than that, most have to wait several months to gain enough of a resistance to Ether before they can even move to the 2nd Sigil. It does explain a lot about you though. FIne. We’ll try. I’ll try and pack stuff up, but you're not taking us in a sleeping bag. I’ll make a raft for us to lay on.”

Excited to try and get moving, I look around and look for any material for a raft. All I see is bone and sand. Confused, I ask him what the raft will be made of.

“What will you make the raft out of?”

He turns to me and pushes up his glasses before answering.

“What else is there but bone around here?”

Fuck. That will make this even harder, but I guess Elizabeth needs stability as she moves. I just sit and amp myself up with Esther who sits silently looking at Elizabeth as I wait for Earl to make a raft for us. After just a few minutes Earl returns, but without a raft. I put my arms up, perplexed.

He motions me to follow him as he reverses and walks back to where he came from. I shake my head and follow the confusing man. After about a minute of walking, we reach a thin slab of bone that juts out from the sand diagonally. Then, Earl reaches into his massive pack, taken from the bandits that tried to remove us of ours, and pulls out a pickaxe that he hands over to me.

I look at him confused, not understanding what he means. After a few moments of me not moving, he throws his arms up in frustration.

“YOU! Dig the bone! How else will we get a raft? I sure can’t do that!”

Motherfucker. I didn’t expect that. He's right, though. Earl is far too scrawny to break this thing. I sigh full of annoyance and frustration before I raise the pickaxe that removed me from my original left hand and swing at the bone. Only a small chip comes off of the thin slab of bone.

Fuck that’s hard. I shake off some rust and flow Ether into the whole of my body, activating, well I guess I’ll go with Earl’s name because it fits better Adrenaline Surge. Maybe Edmund just taught his name for the skill? I hope that's the case. I don't want to think that the man lied to me.

Then, I hear Earl walk away as I begin to pick away at the tough slab of bone. Strength surges through me, but even with the Ether that makes me more powerful, it still takes close to an hour before I break off the five-foot by five-foot slab of bone.

I look at it in the sand before I even attempt to look at it. This is gonna be a bitch to carry even without the four of them. I take a kneel as I face away from it and slip my hands underneath it before I rise to my feet and walk back toward the others. It’s heavy. Very heavy. Probably close to fifty pounds of solid bone.

I force my feet to move beneath me and after a few minutes, I reach the others. Where I see that Earl has already packed everything up. He motions me and the slab of bone over before throwing our bags and stuff on top of it. Then, he has Esther and Leonard sit atop the raft of bone. Afterward, he sits in the front corner of it and digs a small hole through it with a hammer and nail.

He tells me to pick up Elizabeth and place her gently on the raft as Earl does so. I follow the wise lad's directions and carry the young lady onto the bone slab before placing her carefully beside him. After, the rest of us, the concussed Leonard, quiet Esther, and I watch Earl dig a hole in both of the front corners before looping a rope through them.

Once he is done, he sits in the center of the slab and creates more small holes, and he wraps rope through them. Eventually, he makes close to six total things of rope on the whole raft as we all just watch him expectantly. While he does so, though, I pull out the manuals and read a little bit more. I don’t get that far as he doesn’t take too long, but I try to take Earl's advice. Especially because the more I know about the Bloody Palm, the better I can resist its calls.

After Earl finishes implanting all holes and rope things, he sits on the rafts and points at the front piece of rope.

“That’s your handle, Wyatt. Let's get this show on the road. If you pass out, I guess I’ll carry you the rest of the way and Leonard will get Elizabeth with Esther’s help. Leonard and Esther, if you feel as though you are about to fall off, just grab onto the rope like a handle. And Esther, can you watch Wyatt's fox for him? Elizabeth normally does, but she’s hurt.”

I see the two of them nod in response to Earl’s advice and ask for aid. I stand in front of the bone raft and grab onto the rope behind me. Then, I dig my feet into the sand as deep as I can. Once I feel as though the muscles in my legs are at their peaks, I begin to flood even more Ether into Adrenaline Surge, which I now believe is the true name after a short discussion with Earl while he built the raft.

Adrenaline Surge can take any amount of Ether as it is just a way to boost your entire body with Ether. But there is a massive downside, afterward and during, it destroys your body. It pushes your body to its limit and a little bit beyond depending on how much Ether is inputted into it. As long as you don’t reach Ether saturation, you can keep up the skill without feeling its side effects.

But the second it drops, the effect hits you like a steaming train. I always welcome exhaustion, though. It means I truly tried quite hard. But only when I collapse from exhaustion do I know that I tried my best.

Before we leave, though, a final question comes to mind as I look around and I voice it to Earl.

“Where’d the horse go?”

Earl looks at me and laughs along with Esther and Leonard. He breaks down and chuckles so hard that I think might die of suffocation, but he eventually looks back up and answers me.

“You pay so little attention to the world around you, huh? The horse ran off during the fight with the giant spider, or the spider ate it before it went up that skeleton. We left it at the bottom 'cause it’d be too hard to carry. The thing’s been gone for over two days now. I hope that when I one day die you at least notice.”

I feel a bit bad as I hear him and the other two continue laughing with each other, but I turn away and focus on moving forwards. With tightened hands and ears full of laughter I look forward, energy filling me.

And just for a moment, I think I know what the Forward Daydreamer means.