Perdition
Laughter echoed amongst the trees. The small clearing played host to innocence; a young Elven child, barely beyond infancy, frolicked through the tall grasses and reeds. The sun hung low, resting lazily upon the treetop canopy.
The youngling, a Wild Elf lad of merely a decade’s age, had taken up an important mission.
He would catch a rabbit.
With his bare hands.
Bear hands? He thought to himself. Haha, no.
No, that’s ridiculous.
He wasn’t a bear.
Unless he became a Druid like his uncle. Then he could be a bear.
Could he shapeshift just his hands?
Would bear hands help with catching a rabbit?
Questions for another time. Now it was time to focus.
“Where’d you go, rabbit?” He asked no one in particular. He wasn’t a Druid, after all - not like his uncle - and so he didn’t expect a response.
He pushed further into the reeds, only to be greeted by a frantic scampering. Movement streaked off into the trees circling the clearing.
“Hah! Ah-hah! I see you! I hear you! I’m gonna--” He tripped over a thick gnarl of flattened reeds and hit the ground with an audible ‘oof’. He hadn’t even fully expelled the breath from his lungs - involuntary though it was - before he was moving again, scrambling on all fours, face-first into the grass. Grass which easily reached his chest even after he had regained his footing.
A quick glance around yielded results: a trembling branch on a scraggly bush detailed a recent and panicked departure. The lad burst off in hot pursuit, giggling all the way.
His nimble steps faltered only occasionally under the strain of his uncoordinated youth; his Elven heritage working hard to compensate for his own lanky stature and lack of experience. While he did not bolt silently through the brush like an arrow loosed in the dark, he still moved with speed and precision. His keen eyes and keener hearing kept him on the trail of his quarry. He was as relentless as he was delighted; revelling in the joy of the chase.
A stumbling leap over a bush. A duck under a low hanging branch. A weave between a tight copse of saplings. On and on he ran, his face a mask of delight, cheek muscles burning with the effort of maintaining his grin, even as fire filled his lungs and legs. As he ran deeper into the thick canopy of the forest, light faded and colors muted. His frantic pursuit became a visual smear of vague shades and shapes. His eyes adjusted quickly and easily, his racial abilities making up for the dimness of his surroundings. Shapes sharpened up again as his eyes soaked in every bit of light they could find.
The swiftly-moving shape hung a sharp right around the trunk of a particularly massive tree. Despite his fatigue catching up to him, he put on one last burst of speed, confident he could close what remained of the gap, and force the animal into a corner amongst one of the tangles of gnarled, knotted roots at the base of the trees. His grin grew wider still as he pondered his victory, rounding the tree at top speed, dragging a palm along it to aid in the sharp turn necessary to pursue. He would have been giggling even now, had he had the breath to spare.
His joy turned to dismay as he rounded the tree to see no sign of the animal. Had it made it back to a burrow? Had it found a hole or gap in those same roots that allowed it to double-back on him without being seen? He started to turn his head to look to the sides, seeking movement, when something caught hard against his shin. It was firm but yielding, like a thick strand of spider’s silk. It strained under the impact but did not break, sending him toppling forward into the dark undergrowth he had been sprinting over top of.
He groaned, still sore from his chase and earlier fall. It took much longer for him to recover, this time; he indulged in a bit of pained wallowing, wiggling back and forth in the thick, cold grasses and soil. Eventually, he rolled over, winded and wounded - though primarily his pride - staring, dejected, up at the dark underside of the canopy above.
His breathing eventually slowed, though it took longer than he was accustomed to. I must have really pushed myself, he thought, musing at the weariness of his body. How far did I run, I wonder? Mother and father will probably scold me, he continued with a mischievous smirk, staring idly upward, tugging at tufts of the cold grass at his fingertips. The grass snapped and crumbled. The word frostbitten floated, unattached, through his mind, at the sensation. His conscious thought was focused elsewhere, and his position remained flat upon the ground.
He took a deep breath, trying to shake off the last of his weariness. He blinked, then, coming to the slow realization that the canopy above was utterly black. No light played in the branches, filtering softly down to the floor below. His surroundings were instead suffused with a low, barely-perceptible, sickly glow. The ache in his bones, the slackness in his muscles was not fading. Not fully. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as the wrongness of his surroundings slowly set in.
He snatched another handful of grass and brought it up to his face, as he sat bolt upright. It snapped as if covered in a thick layer of frost; it was cold, but not ice cold. As he stared at it, the grass crumbled into dust, then into nothing, wafting away into the dark.
His breathing quickened again, this time in panic. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. His eyes scanned the forest around him, only now noticing the twisted shapes of the trees surrounding him. Bent and angled, they creaked and groaned under the weight of their own aberration. They loomed over him, giving him the sense of being actively watched and menaced.
Panic set in, slowly. Adrenaline trickled into his bloodstream steadily, then faster, and faster still. Soon, his heart raced and his senses sharpened. There was a silence to the forest that was unnatural. A silence which bore intent, and hunger. His body tensed, coiled like a spring. He waited, watched and listened.
From the silence crept whispers. Cold, metallic echoes. Some sounded more… alive than others, while some were no more than echoing hisses.
Icy fingers of dread crept up the youth’s spine. He ran. He didn’t know where. He just knew he had to. The aching lethargy in his core grew the closer the whispers crept. He knew only that he had to flee, or he would die. He knew it instinctively. Whatever approached him would not hesitate to kill him. Whatever whispered in the dark would tear apart his very being.
So he ran.
A flickering shadow caught him on the arm, splitting open flesh like a keen blade; the wound rimed with frost and a sickly gray hue. His muscles went slack mid-stride for a moment, sending him into a stumble which nearly had him sprawled out across the cold, frail grasses. He recovered, barely, and kept running. In his wake, the crumbling reeds he trod upon disintegrated and billowed into the dark.
He ran.
And ran.
The forest never yielded. It stretched on endlessly into the silence and the pitch. His body rebelled against the exertion he forced upon it. A leg buckled. He hit the cold, uncomfortably yielding ground hard, sliding to a halt painfully in a kneeling position, at the edge of a clearing. A familiar clearing.
There was the briefest moment of relief, before horror set in again. The clearing was familiar, yes, but similarly twisted and dark to the rest of his surroundings.
A wet crunch and squeak caught his attention. At the treeline directly across from him hung a rabbit, suspended seemingly in midair by the shadows of the trees themselves. It contorted in agony and bled; a disturbing splash of color amongst the dark monotone of this cold hellscape. He gasped and felt panic force bile up his throat. He did not have the time to wretch, however, before the rabbit rose briefly, then dropped unceremoniously to the ground in a puff of shattered grasses. Out stepped a figure. Small; roughly his size, in fact. It was the vague approximation of a person. Arms, legs, torso, head. All present, if not totally correct.
It crept toward him - no, not crept. Stalked. Its pseudo-head twitched and jerked, spasming wildly on the thing’s spindly neck. In its face, a darker hole slowly opened, deepened, widened.
“Hah! Ah-hah! I see you! I hear you! I’m gonna! Hah! Ah-hah! I see you! I hear you! I’m gonna!”
He wanted to scream. He wanted to run. He had the strength for neither. He scrambled backward, eyes fixed on the thing as it crossed the clearing and set foot over the threshold of the treeline.
The hole in what was arguably its face writhed and shook as its head continued to spasm on its perch.
“Where’d you go, rabbit? Where’d you go rabbit? I see you! I hear you! I see you! I hear you!”
The heels of his feet struggled to find purchase amongst the brittle reeds. Every frantic kick slid free as the strangely yielding ground buckled and turf crumbled to dust beneath the impacts of his panicked, scrabbling retreat.
His shoulders struck the trunk of a tree; its gnarled, twisting tangle of roots flanking him on either side. Tears streamed down his face as he weakly hauled himself to his feet with the trunk as support. “It’s not real. It’s all a dream. It’s all a bad dream.” He clamped his eyes closed and willed himself awake. “It’s all a bad dream. Just in reverie. Just gotta wake up.”
His eyes flew open again a moment later.
Directly in front of his face writhed a gaping, empty pit of darkness burrowed into a smooth, wispy surface. It popped and hissed for a moment, then…
“It’s all a bad dream. It’s all a bad dream. It’s not real. Just in reverie. Just gotta wake up. It’s all real. It’s all real. It’s all. It’s all. It’s all. It’s all real.”
The living shadow mocked him, its echoing, hollow voice sounding back at him as if from inside a deep well.
He had to escape. He had to escape or he would die, alone and cold in this dim, alien place. The only way out, however, was through. It was then that his heritage showed itself fully.
Blood roared through his veins even as a panicked, primal growl roared its way free of his lungs.
With a surge of adrenaline shrieking through his senses - demanding action - he clamped his hands on either side of the shadow’s twitching, spasming head and yanked. The sharp tug propelled his skull upward into the shade’s own downward trajectory. The two heads collided with a muffled whump and the youngling utilized the momentum of the act to bowl the creature over backward.
Icy knives lanced into his flanks as the shade dragged its fingers through the flesh over his ribs. He screamed now in both rage and pain. His thumbs dug in where eyes would normally dwell, acting purely upon instinct. His arms pumped forward and back, over and over, slamming the shadow’s head into the ground beneath them. The shade’s yielding form grew less and less solid with each impact, and its hands flailed upward at the boy with no real meaningful intent; inflicting minor gashes along the Elf child’s arms and face.
Soon enough, though, the ferocity of the youngling’s assault brought the shadow low. As it lost the last bit of its solidity - its arms reaching, grasping desperately up at him - it seemed to dissolve entirely. Inky black residue stained the boy’s arms and hands, chilling his open wounds and turning the lurid crimson of his still-spilling blood into a more drab, sickly hue. His breath came in ragged gasps. His groans of pain and distress rattled past his vocal chords hoarsely; his voice almost entirely gone from screaming.
He knelt in the pool of dissolved shadow-stuff for what seemed an eternity before he had gathered the strength - or motivation - to stand. He limped into the clearing, then. Its familiarity to him acted as one last barb of desperation as his search revealed nothing but more open, empty air and more cold, dark monotones.
He collapsed, then; his body giving out under the strain of exhaustion, despair and blood loss.
He awoke some time later - the exact time being impossible to gauge in this lightless place - feeling less than whole, but more than incomplete. His wounds had stopped bleeding; the inky black substance seeming to act as a coagulant, suturing the gashes closed by virtue of its tar-like nature. He was cold. So very cold. However, he couldn’t seem to muster a shiver. He attributed it to the blood loss.
With great effort he clambered to his feet. Distractedly, he wiped a hand over the largest clump of the inky substance crusting his wounds; a thin, jagged line of rent flesh which was rendered gray by the remnants of shadow. The material seemed to hold fast like dried tar, moving little under the light pressure applied. The wounds were too fresh to use any more force, and so the boy made a mental note to wash it free when he found a body of water.
Water.
The thought immediately evoked a frenzied need in him. Water. Gods, how long had it been since he’d had anything to drink? His mouth tasted of copper and dirt. He looked around himself again. The clearing was unchanged from his search prior. The same long, brittle grasses surrounded on all sides by twisted, leering trees. The long-dead rabbit still lay at the forest’s edge, its lifeblood and color having bled away since. He cast his gaze around once more, lost in thought. His right arm hung limp, throbbing with a dull, burning ache, while his left clutched gingerly at the rends in both the flowing cloth of his tunic and the flesh beneath.
If the clearing is the same… Maybe the rest is too? He thought to himself, unsure if logic applied to a nightmare, or if this was even truly a nightmare any longer. Surely he would’ve woken by now, after all.
He shook the distracting thoughts from his mind and settled on action - any action - over remaining idle. He needed water, and it wasn’t going to come find him. He searched his memory. From his village, he’d wandered North. The clearing, then, shouldn’t be too far from a distributary running into the forest from the nearby river Chionthar; in fact, even at a leisurely pace he should be mere minutes from it. It was decided, then. He would move immediately in that direction. He would get some water, clean his wounds, then head home. Someone there would know what was happening.
He just hoped they were safe.
*
He climbed over top a fallen log, its twisted shape no longer fazing him, then hopped down and over some brush. He stutter-stepped to a stop on the bank of the stream running from the Chionthar, and with a grateful groan of relief, he jogged over to collapse into a kneeling position alongside the water’s edge. He started to cup his hands and reach into the stream but quickly changed his mind, thrusting his face in entirely. He drank suddenly and deeply, the elation of meeting such a dire need entirely consuming him for several seconds. He came up gasping for air, his mood high but rapidly falling.
The stench settled into his senses almost immediately. He looked around, confused, searching for the source of the smell. He realized soon enough, though, that the scent was embedded in his skull already. The water had run up his nose and soaked his hair. He wretched lightly, his gaze flitting up and down the riverbank, searching for the cause of such a taint to the water.
It was then that he noticed the water was utterly still, save for the ripples caused by his having disturbed its surface. Completely still and completely silent; the stream sat with glassy serenity - or indifference - its contents having gone fetid and stagnant long ago.
He wretched again - this time on purpose - desperate to force up what he’d already drank. His body refused, however, determined as it was to retain what it had been given. His heart began pounding again. The wrongness of his surroundings once more pressed in on him; his optimism shattering under the force of his situation. The wounds on his arms pulsed and throbbed painfully with each beat of his frantic heart. He looked down to the black, dry, yielding masses clustered around his wounds and clawed painfully at the substance. It was yielding, yes, but also strangely slick. He failed to get any sort of hold on it as it flexed, bent, flattened and stretched away from his attempts to grasp it. His panic grew, at this. His nails scrabbled and scraped with ever increasing urgency. The thin scabs that had formed over his lacerations tore open, eliciting a gasp of pain. Fresh crimson sprang readily from the reopened sores, pressing outward in excited waves of red, practically leaping in time to his pulse.
The ink-like substance clenched tighter, ringing the wound more securely, reaching inward and pulling the opposite sides of the rent flesh together before oozing into the gaps. The boy watched this happen in stark terror, and when the movements ceased, he ran. From what, he did not know. From the foul stream. From the thoughts he began to have. From his own body, even. His right arm trailed behind him, held out at an awkward angle as if he were afraid to allow it to touch any other part of himself. He ran on and on, at first frantic and panicked, before settling into urgent determination. He had set off toward home as a reflex, and stayed the course upon calming down. He covered a great distance in a relatively short time, given his weakened state. A mile. Two. Then three. He was nearing home. He knew it. He was starting to recognize landmarks, twisted though they were.
He squeezed and weaved his way through a tightly-packed copse of trees that seemed vaguely familiar, a cloying mix of relief and trepidation seizing him. He knew he was about to break free into the glade in which his village was nestled. As he stepped clear of the treeline and looked upon his home, his eyes eagerly scanned the view before him for familiar faces.
There were none.
Where once his village had stood now crouched a cruel simulacrum. Elegant, simple homes built by a community of Elves in tune with the land were replaced with foul, twisted mockeries. The simple ring of buildings that had once been his place of birth squatted, bent and leering, as if waiting for him to see.
To view their mockery.
Some craned with awkward height and strange angles, as if stretched too tall and thin, succumbing to their own weight. Others lacked features. Doors and windows were missing; some, entire walls. From inside one of the blank-walled dwellings came a weak, muffled thumping, and hissing whispers. The well and firepit at the center of the village radiated the scent of decay; as if the whole village were rotting, wasting away from long years of neglect.
The memory of an unmaintained cellar distantly rattled through his mind, gaining little traction within his conscious.
Dotted around the well and firepit were roughly a dozen shades. Larger, mostly, than the one he had fought and nearly died to. Their heads spasmed and wrenched about wildly upon their spindly necks, their bodies similarly twitching rapidly. From them, distantly - barely audible - he caught bits of speech.
“...water from the well.”
“Fetch your mother would y--”
“...cellent job foraging this morn--”
“Charis!”
His breath caught in his throat. He focused his attention upon the shadow that seemed to have just spoken.
The one who had said his mother’s name.
“...ere is Celsus?” It asked of no one, still swaying back and forth, spasming. The youngling’s heart skipped a beat. He didn’t understand. Why was this thing saying his mother’s name? How did it know his name? He sank to his knees and drove the knuckles of his fists painfully into his temples, again and again, desperate to drive his surroundings from his mind; to wake up from this nightmare. To be freed of this hateful phantasm.
The hair on the back of his neck stood on end just before a hollow, echoing whisper in his ear sent cold shocks of terror down his spine.
“It’s all.”
“It’s all real.”
He wept.
*
Hungry. Came the thought, unbidden, to his mind. Hungry. It repeated. Again, and again. The youth clutched at his stomach, rocking back and forth. The last two ‘hunts’ had been failures. The shades had been too numerous and too powerful to chase off, and he had grown weaker from hunger. This problem had only gotten worse in the meantime.
Hungry.
Angry and desperate, he snapped at his own thoughts. “Yes! Hungry! Always hungry here! There’s no food. No nothing! Just other things that have slipped through the cracks! So shut up!” He thumped the heels of his palms against his temples, as if trying to slap sense into his own mind. Or bludgeon it into submission.
At his outburst, a shimmering onyx sheen writhed and wriggled along the surface of his skin; its cooling touch catching his attention as the frustration drained away, leaving him feeling empty. The youngling' breathing steadied and he stared at the rapidly-calming shade which had attached itself to him. He wondered, distantly - barely having the motivation to even consider the idea in the first place - if the shadow was responsible for his sudden loss of anger. It was a suspicion he had held for some time now; every moment of elation, of rage, of triumph, or of despair had been equally short-lived. Clipped, as if someone had shut a door. Each time it was more muted than the last, but still quashed.
He shook his head, casting the thoughts aside.
Hungry.
He stood and walked in no particular direction, seeking a shade that moved with purpose, so that he could - hopefully - eat.
*
The shadow had been easy to dispatch. It was barely more than a wisp; its small size lending it aid in trailing its target, which had been fleeing larger, deadlier shades. It was a simple matter, crushing its form and watching it waft away. He was grateful for the ease of the kill; his strength had waned to the point where he was near to collapse. His muscles burned and his breathing was ragged as his body - according to its own macabre pragmatism - consumed itself in order to sustain itself.
And so he stood over his prize. Sustenance. The first in… He did not know how long. He took reverie when tired, but otherwise had no means to track time in this eternal dusk. There was, however, a complication. As his breathing slowed and the adrenaline-red cleared from his sight, he realized the problem.
It was not dead. Not fully.
It moaned, bleeding and drained. He froze.
A voice.
He rolled the bundle of fur over to reveal a crimson mass of fabric and rent flesh.
And a face.
His breath caught as he stared down at the young human male; as he watched deep crimson flow from even deeper lacerations. The young man - likely in his early teens - had suffered a garish wound to the throat. His breathing popped and bubbled hideously, lungs filling with blood.
As the Elven youth stared down, he could not help but marvel at the will to survive that must have driven the boy’s steps in spite of such horrific wounds.
Survival. That is what it boils down to, isn’t it? He thought to himself, a hand going to his sunken face, then to his stomach. Bile - seemingly the only thing remaining in him - rose in his throat as he considered his options. A panic crept in, along with a despair. How could he do this?
He will die anyway. Came another thought. He desperately wished to believe it came from some other source. To blame the shade which dwelt on his person.
But he knew better.
He paced back and forth, eyes never leaving the prone form as the blood flow slowed and the boy’s stirrings lessened. The gurgling breaths came slower, with greater gaps between them.
He is in agony. Mercy and sustenance. It is pragmatic.
He shook his head in fury. He would rather die, and he would rather live. He couldn’t find a way back home if he surrendered; if he laid down to die.
But if this is what it meant to live, could he?
He looked down at himself; at the shade, lurking just beneath the patchwork of furs that formed the majority of his clothing. He watched as it flicked about, agitated or excited. He watched it as his rage and despair faded; as this parasite upon his flesh returned to a calmer state. He made up his mind.
“Take it,” he said aloud. The shade froze as if listening. The Elf sensed the barest hint of something; a question, perhaps?
“Take it all. Keep it. My body will live or die, but I will not be a part of this. I don’t deserve to exist for entertaining these thoughts. For considering becoming a monster.” He continued, his voice growing more demanding. The shade seemed to shrink away, and the youngling sensed hesitation; as if the shade suspected a trick.
“Take it. Take everything, you filth. It’s what you’re made for.” He demanded through gritted teeth. “Consume. Do it. Do it!” He shouted.
There was a long pause, a silence broken only by the gasps of a dying human.
It ended those gasps soon enough.
Mercy and sustenance.
*
The slender form crouched low in the bushes, holding utterly still. Clad thinly in a sparse and worn patchwork of pelts from various small animals, it was careful not to rustle any branches or reeds, lest they crumble and waft away, revealing its location. Its breathing was measured, and its intent deliberate. Practiced.
It had done this countless times by this point.
At every opportunity.
Whenever it sensed a shift in the shadow.
Whenever it felt the hunger turn its eye away.
Again and again, as it had developed.
As it had grown - perhaps not stronger, but more capable.
It had lived for what seemed an eternity like this; moving from one scavenged meal to the next.
Again and again.
It had followed the currents - tailed the shadows.
When they struck, so did it.
And so it was again this time.
The shades had, themselves, been tailing something, and it had followed. Watching. Now, it had become clear that they had found living quarry. Their quarry had fled, but the shades always pursued. Tirelessly. Endlessly.
And now the prey lay, mouth flecked with foam, chest heaving. Exhausted. Perhaps dying. A trio of shades shambled spasmodically toward their quarry. Mindless. Hungry.
It was hungry, too.
Just as the living shadows closed ranks and surrounded their prey, the crouching form burst into action.
It leapt from the bushes, wielding a pair of weapons fashioned from bone. Long, slender implements, ending in vicious points. The figure used these to furiously perforate the flimsy creatures, overwhelming them with a flurry of stabs. Still, there were three, and they were not so small and delicate that they could be dispatched with a mere moment of work. They turned their attention - unhurried - to their attacker, their thin, inky arms reaching, flailing, clawing at the fur-clad ambusher.
The shades stumbled toward their attacker even as it reversed its grip on both weapons and lunged forward, driving them both violently down and into the face of the shadow nearest and to the right. The ambusher knew they had closed in when icy, yielding knives of pain lanced downward into the flesh of his left arm. The pain was intense, but where once the touch would have drained strength from its body, instead it was rebuffed. Where the shade struck, the flesh shone with a tarry black sheen.
The ambusher wrenched free the makeshift weapons, scattering the form of its victim into wisps of shadowy smoke. It turned its gaze fully to the next of the three, dropping the offhand weapon entirely in order to intercept another swipe from the next closest shadow’s spindly limbs. It pulled the limb up and toward itself. Then - using the force of the pull - it drove the tip of its remaining weapon up through the stomach of the shade, punching clear of its faux collarbone. It kept driving the weapon upward even as the shadow dissolved around the fatal stab.
The ambusher’s attention then turned to the final shade.
The final obstacle between it and a meal.
Its wiry frame tensed. Coiled internally. Readied itself for what was to come.
The second weapon dropped free from its hand as it leapt upon the shadow, driving its equally-thin, but significantly lighter form down to the ground. The ambusher’s face was a wild mix of desperation and elation as the shade - feeling no fear and having no intent beyond consumption - slammed its cold, hateful talons into its assailant. These attempts were as futile as the last; wherever the shadow’s strikes landed, the flesh shimmered an onyx, inky black.
It sapped no strength. It took nothing.
There was nothing left to take.
The last thing the shade's eyes saw, if indeed it could be said to have eyes, was a wide grin and two points of green.
The figure stood, then. It towered at an uncanny height, made all the more unacceptable by its wasted, gaunt form. Muscles tensed and relaxed rhythmically as it looked upon the carcass, already cold and somehow also already on the verge of rot. It rocked back and forth on its heels, swaying, holding itself. Sobbing could be heard, but it was wrong. Distant. Cold.
As if it lacked conviction.
The figure’s shoulders did not bob or shake as it wept. Then, there was silence. A pause.
“It’s… All,” came a hiss.
The figure relaxed and leapt upon its meal.
Despite its fervent hunger and surety, it endeavored not to look at the man’s face.
*
It stood idle. Its once-fair hair hung in wild, black tangles down to the small of its back. The weapons of bone it used to kill its competition sat limply in its grasp, tips gently dug into the yielding, unnatural ground beneath its feet. Its garments had long ago been torn asunder; replaced instead with a patchwork of scars crisscrossing the majority of its body. Its shoulders, neck and face seemed largely untouched, as if its assailants had mostly failed to reach high enough.
It stared out into the middle distance, unmoving. Wordless. Its expression was blank and impassive.
Any outside observer would be forgiven for mistaking it for a statue, so still was the creature. No wind disturbed the loose wisps of hair hanging near its pointed ears. Its breathing was so minute as to be almost entirely negligible.
Then came a flash.
The weapons of bone lifted in an instant, the statue abandoning its stoicism in favor of pursuit. There was a glint of something. Something bright.
Pain. Drifted through its mind as it blinked away the afterimage, sprinting in the direction of the light.
Another flash. This time between two twisted trees, leading into a shadowy mockery of a forest. It shifted course. Realigned. Its vision was further compromised by the second flash of light, its eyes long having adjusted to the near-lightless twilight that permeated its world. Still, it pursued doggedly, sprinting in the direction of the second flash.
Then came a third.
A fourth.
This went on for some time. It kept chasing the light, desperate to catch it, but unsure of why.
As it entered a clearing, an eighth and final flash caught its attention. At this point, however, it was helplessly blinded by the repeated bursts of light. Its vision swam and throbbed, swallowed up almost entirely by the lingering burn-in. It walked toward what it perceived as light. Its arms stretched out, trying to touch the asymmetrical starburst pattern burned into its sight.
A sharp pain lanced up its leg as an ankle rolled on a stone.
A hard stone. Warm.
It hit the ground hard, the wind knocked from its lungs.
It gasped and tasted dust. No, not dust. Earth.
It blinked.
And again.
The light in its eyes grew more intense. The whole world was on fire.
Pain! Tore through its mind, but it would not close its eyes. Warmth met its flesh, which seemed to steam under the ruthless barrage of light.
The ground was hard and unyielding. The ground was warm.
Sounds assailed him. High pitched squeaks which elicited a vague familiarity within him came from all directions, seemingly from the trees.
The trees. Straight. No sense of mockery. Green and alive. Confusion crept into its mind.
Then came the roaring. It clamped its hands over its ears and looked around frantically, blindly. Earth crunched beneath the approach of something large. Something far larger than it had ever fought before. The sound was steady, with a rhythmic, hollow pounding.
It looked in the direction of the sound, blinking furiously, clutching its primitive weapons tightly.
Then came the thunder. An incomprehensible cacophony of sound.
“...’re you s’posed t’be? Ain’t a bandit are ya? Y’can’t have m’horse or m’wagon, so y’better be good with them sticks o’ yers. Be th’first time I’ve had ta kill a starving, nekkid bandit afore, but I s’pose there’s a first time f’everything…” There was a pause. “‘Ey, you listenin’? ...Kiddo? Y’a’right? Aw, hells.”
The light went out and it tasted earth once more.
*
“Y’act like y’ain’t never eaten nothin’ afore. Where’s yer tribe? Where y’from?” The thunderous voice inquired
It kept its eyes down, the sun still not having fully set. It didn’t understand the sounds coming from the vague silhouette, but it understood survival. It consumed the meal presented to it: A modest serving of a simple meat and potato stew, and a hunk of some form of rustic, practical bread. The waterskin was inspected curiously before being tossed aside.
“‘Ey! Don’t be tossin’ stuff aroun’, now. Ain’t you have any manners? ‘S’got water in it. Sorry if ye were expectin’ some Elven wine or summin’.” The voice chided, trudging over to fetch the discarded skin. “Y’need t’drink. Y’look like ye’re about t’fall over dead any second.” The silhouette added, popping the waterskin open and thrusting it at the gaunt figure.
The figure blinked as drops of water flecked its skin. As if only just understanding, it seized the waterskin and upended it into its mouth, squeezing the water free of its containment with no small amount of desperation.
“Gods above… The hells happened t’you?” The silhouette whispered, more to itself than anything. “Ain’t never seen no one in a shape like this. Ye’re almost more scar than man. It’s all over you.”
The gaunt figure froze.
“What? Is it somethin’ I said?” Asked the voice as the sun settled lazily behind the treeline.
The figure looked up slowly, its expression a confusing, cloying mix of impassive and terrified. “It’s all,” it said simply.
“What’s all? What? I don’t understan’ what that means, kiddo.” The voice, belonging to the now-visible shape of a large, burly human male, continued. “First thing y’said t’me since I picked y’up on th’road two hours back, and it don’t make no sense.” The man sighed, frustrated.
“It’s all.” The figure repeated, more insistent, its whispering voice cracking under the strain of use.
“Right, well, I ain’t a pikin’ genius, an’ I can’t just be callin’ you ‘you’ so y’just earned yerself a nickname, ‘til y’bother t’tell me yer real one. Now shut yer trap an’ get some sleep 'Itsall,' 'cause I ain’t stoppin’ overnight in these damned woods.”
*
“Y’still don’t remember nothin’?” Asked Jerahm. It had been several months, during which time the woodsman had quickly determined that his new Elven guest was - for lack of a better term - a blank slate. Those first few weeks were an intense blur of attempted connection. The hulking woodsman had on more than one occasion needed to physically restrain the young Elven adult after something had elicited a panicked state in him.
Jerahm had taken to calling him Itzal. A somewhat macabre name, given its origin. The Elf would stand at the window of the cabin, at the edge of the light from the hearth, staring out into the night, rocking back and forth, whispering.
‘It’s all.’
Always that phrase. A litany. A mantra against something. What, exactly, Jerahm could not know.
Itzal looked up from his place at the table, his dexterous fingers adequately mending a leather binding that Jerahm used to secure his woodcutter’s axe to his lower back. After a long pause - which Jerahm had come to know was due to the young man slowly parsing the intent, if not the precise meaning, of his words - Itzal shook his head no.
“Well, it’ll come back. Leave the mendin’ fer tomorrow. Try t’get some sleep or whatever it is you elfy types do. Surely them nightmares can’t getcha every time.”
Itzal nodded and obeyed, standing and walking toward the darkened bedroom with more than a little trepidation in his step.
Jerahm sighed, bewildered and saddened.
*
“I do not speak Elven, I am sorry,” came Itzal’s stiff and disjointed reply in Common to a golden-haired Sun Elf. The Sun Elf looked at him with no small amount of confusion and a hint of disgust. “The language of the People should be in your blood,” they sneered, speaking the Trade Tongue with an air of disdain. With a derisive snort, they turned away sharply to seek business elsewhere.
“Aw, don’t worry about them knife-ears, Itz. Err, no offense. I mean, y’ain’t a knife-ear, even though yer ears is pointy. What I mean to say is, uh, well... Aw, hells. Y’know what I mean,” stammered Itzal’s adoptive father.
Jerahm always meant well, but didn’t often know how to communicate it. In this regard, the father was much like the son, and vice versa.
“I do not fully understand, no, but I will assume it is meant to comfort me. Do not worry, I was not bothered,” came the cold, methodical reply.
Jerahm sighed. “C’mon, Itz. Let’s pack up the wagon an’ head home. Ain’t got much left t’sell, and what little we got is jus’ gonna git haggled t’death by these snobs.”
*
“Fer the last time, yer shadow ain’t movin’ on its own!” Jerahm shouted in a rage. “I know yer kind ain’t have t’sleep near as much as I do, but I’m sick an’ pikin’ tired o’ wakin’ up t’yer whisperin’ an’ yer hollerin’!”
It had been many years of this, with Jerahm trying everything he could think of to alleviate the problem. He had consulted wise men and even wiser women. He had tried old wive’s tales and the newest supplements, which had not come cheap to a simple woodsman. Nothing had ever eased the torment the Elf experienced during reverie. In moments of frustration, Jerahm could only assume it was a bid for attention, done in the strange manner of thinking that Itzal was known for.
“I would not lie to you, father. I have no reason to do so. I… I do not understand. I swear, I do not understand. I am sorry.” Came Itzal’s reply, his usual robotic tone tinged slightly by panic and remorse. “I am so sorry. I do not understand.”
“Aw, hells,” sighed Jerahm. “I ain’t mean t’lose my temper on ya. C’mere.” He said, burying the taller but much skinnier Elf in a hug. Itzal’s form went rigid, fighting the urge to flee. The whispers kept coming even then. “I am sorry. I am so sorry. I do not understand.”
“Y’don’t have to, Itz. Y’don’t have to.”
*
“Ain’t uh… Ain’t as young as I used t’be, y’know. Glad t’have ye around right about now, though, that’s fer certain.” Jerahm spoke between heavy, deep breaths. The woodcutting for the fireplace needed doing, and for many years, Itzal had not had the strength to aid his father. He had grown stronger, though. He never seemed to gather bulk; instead, muscles coiled tighter and more densely along his slender, too-tall frame. The end result was the same, though. He possessed enough strength of arm to chop for Jerahm while the older human, now somewhere in his mid to upper fifties, rested and recuperated.
“It is good to be able to aid you in return, father. I will never be able to repay the debt of kindness I owe you,” came Itzal’s reply. As always, the tone was chilly. Unfeeling. The words would seem heartfelt if they had been spoken by anyone else. Jerahm, though, had long since grown accustomed to this. Itzal didn’t speak unless he meant what he said. He was highly literal, and Jerahm could trust him to be completely truthful. Or, if nothing else, to not know how to lie.
“Oh, while I’m thinkin’ ‘bout it, I got that book fer ya. The one about that feller Airvan? Airyvin?” Jerahm paused, frowning. “Ain’t never been able t’speak none o’ yer kin’s words. Let alone names. Thank th’gods ye picked an easy pair o’ syllables t’mutter to yerself… Where was I?”
“The book. The one with the eight-pointed, asymmetrical starburst. In Common. The book bearing writings of Erevan Ilesere?” Itzal had stopped his work, staring flatly at Jerahm - the barest hint of hope and excitement flashing across his face.
“That’s th’one! Erryvan Illseer! Yeah, I got it from that dockworker friend o’ mine in Baldur’s Gate. Said it didn’t cost ‘im anythin’, which I uh… Chose not t’question.” Replied Jerahm, chuckling. “When y’finish the choppin’ fer me, we can head in an’ read it t’gether.”
As he returned to his work, Itzal’s smile - while it did not reach his eyes - was genuine; as was his father’s.
*
It was a cold day. Rainy. Comfortable for Itzal, who never seemed to fully adapt to the warmth of the sun, or its glare. He reveled in it when it came, but would be forced to take frequent breaks due to the strain. Today, the rain served another purpose.
“We’re sorry for your loss. He was a good man.”
“He was a diligent one. Stalwart. Strong as an ox.”
“He was happier after taking you in. You gave him purpose. He wouldn’t have hung on so long without you.”
“Smile for him. He always wanted you to smile. To laugh.”
“Y’deserve to be happy, kid. He always told ya that. Try t’fake it ‘til ya make it, alright?”
“He lives on with you. Stay safe, and so shall he.”
“The big lummox ain’t done watchin’ out for you, y’know. Put on a good show for him, yeah?”
The community he had grown to know as his home filed past one by one. Each offered their own words of comfort, more for Jerahm’s sake than Itzal’s. His oddities had kept him sequestered away from the rest, forever on the outside looking in.
He watched as the casket was lowered into the cold but unyielding earth, the rain masking a lack of tears.
He was gone come dawn.
*
“Welcome to Skaljard town, traveler. The end o’ the line, as it were. No other place like it, thank the gods. Go see the Hovding, he’ll help getcha situated. Good luck, an’ stay safe!”
The sailor pushed the dinghy free of the dock and began paddling back to the ship Itzal had called home for some six months or so. The sailor’s head shook in disbelief as the strange Elf turned away and made his way up the stony steps toward the tiny village’s center.
The door to the Hovding’s modest home swung open, a cold breeze carrying a swirl of snow inside only to be melted immediately by the heat of a roaring hearth. A figure dressed in the deepest blacks stepped in and turned, closing the door with a gentle thud. The figure swung back around to face the Hovding - the town’s word for their elected leader - and approached.
With a wide grin and irritating, sweeping bow, the black-clad stranger spoke.
“Greetings, mayor. I am Itzal.”
*
Fin.
*
Fin.
*