Tread Lightly – Among Monsters And Men

The burning Concoction sears its presence once more into the depths of my mind, leaving its mark forever. I can feel the twice dosage of Concoction scorching its way through my innards. From my neck, it splits, half going into my head and my brain while the other half goes into my body. And then, from there, I notice half of what goes to my body siphoning toward the Blood Palm.

Just the agony of the Concoction entering my brain is enough to send me ballistic. Despite being unable to feel my body, I know I am having a seizure or something of the sort. The trail that the Concoction leaves throughout the rest of my body as it performs its duty in clearing my Ether, boiling it to reset my body, makes me dissociate.

I being to calmly watch the fluid move throughout my body with my mind’s eye. It appears like a black flood that washes out all the sparkles within my body. The Ether boils upon contact with the liquid and burns its way out of me through my pores.

I have no idea what is in the hell that is called a Concoction, but I would swear that no God could create a hell worse than it. Even the inner sight of it clearing my body resembles the torture that one might suffer within the Red Court deep in the Underworld.

But the worst part of the Concoction hasn’t even come yet, that I know. Something feels different this time. Like the dosage’s quantity has changed its quality in how it affects me.

While I observe the flood of cleansing darkness, voices emerge in my mind. Voices that I would never expect as not a single one of them include the murmurs from the Bloody Palm. Maybe the artifact knows who owns the body now? No, who am I kidding, the damn thing just focused on keeping its container alive.

The voices slowly grow in number from quiet whispers that I can barely recognize to a choir of people that I know who are yelling at me. Yelling at me to give up, to roll over and die, to kill everything nearby to rid this pain.

A thousand different offers and bargains hit my mind from these voices in such a rhythm that I struggle to ignore even one.

Earl tells me that he isn’t sorry. That he was lying so that he didn’t have to die alone. That even if I’m a monster, it's better to die with someone you know than alone in the middle of a massacre. This is the easiest voice to shake off. Earl doesn’t lie. The man just isn’t capable of it.

The voice of Elizabeth, whom I’ve not heard in a long time, tells me that she hates me. That she never wants to see me again. This one stings, but I know it's not true, after all, Earl said she slapped him for abandoning me.

The gruff and old voice of Edmund reaches my mind. He tells me that he’s disappointed in me. That it was a waste to die for me. That I’ll never live up to his expectation. That he should have just killed me when I met him. This voice hurts the most and makes me almost give up, letting go of the only thing holding me together, my very will infused with Ether. But I grit my teeth, unwilling to give up, the man I knew would never think that, right?

Several other people I’ve met whisper and eventually join the choir of screaming despair that torments me so much more than any physical pain ever. Another voice or I guess a series of voices, that is hard to ignore, are the screams of the people I have killed. They scratch at my insides, telling me that it should be me tossed in a ditch, forgotten on the dunes to die, or left in the middle of a road with holes in my neck.

I’m unable to block these out, I’ve never been entirely comfortable with killing, but I’ve just never had much of a choice. It’s either me or them, and it won’t be me. My care for others I do not know does not trump my care for myself and those I care for. But even still, I can’t ignore these voices, a small part of me loathes what I’ve done. I enter a tumbling psychological spiral that is only ended by another voice. A voice that recently has brought me both grief and salvation whenever I hear it.

The voice of my mother returns. A scratchy and ill Ma tells me to go and dig her up from her grave. That she’s fine. That he’s a Graves, even if married, and surely she wouldn’t die from a measly illness. That is the hardest one to block out. The slim chance that my mother is still alive.

And the hallucinations grasp onto that hope that I have.

The cries of hate, derision, and belittlement from the depths of my mind, transform into a scene. A scene so lifelike that I regain all my senses as I stand in front of my mother’s grave.

A grave that I had to put back together after I killed the monster that invaded the ranch and attacked me. Our tussle ended with the original head post fallen and cracked because I knocked into it and it stunned the Ratbeak. I still don’t know who sent that creature, but from the visions from Law’s Light, I can assume that the demon did.

I feel the autumn air pass over me as I lament on the near winter. Putting a hand to the sky and catching a falling leaf, I realize all that I have lost. The calm. The peace of growing up alone with Ma. Only weeks, no I think it’s been months at this point as winter is just on the horizon, do I truly understand what she gave me.

In a land of death, suffering, madness, and neglect, she gave me warmth, happiness, hope, and love. No matter the visions or oddness that I have felt about her since she left, I will always be thankful for that which she gave me. It has left me with a solid anchor, something to come back to and hide within when the world becomes too much for me to bear.

My attention falls to the sky as the autumn sun rapidly begins to fall. It looks like the day-night cycle speed up a thousand times as the sun quickly sets and is replaced by a dark, moonless night.

Along with that darkness, the voice of my mother returns, lapping at my ears.

“Dig me up! Dig me up! Dig me up! YOU MUST! YOU MISS ME, DON’T YOU?”

The sound is so loud that I fall to my knees holding my ears as the temperature drops unnaturally, biting chill scraping my skin. The sound is so painful that I stare at the floor, just holding on with a shiver. The air goes from cool fall air to the freezing depths of winter in less than a minute while the voice of Ma reverberates through me.

Only after a while of the voice of her being gone, do I recover enough to look back at her grave. And what I don’t see, makes me stand as blood falls from my ears.

The grave is gone. No, the headstone is along with all the dirt. It looks like something dug its way out of the ground while I was being attacked by the sound.

Cautious of what may be lurking in the dark night, I spin and look around. It’s far too dark for me to see anything, the moonless night disallowing any human vision except for what's just in front. And the worst part is that I can’t even listen for movement as the screams made my ears ring constantly. It’s almost impossible to tell the difference between the wind and my own footsteps.

Without any other option, simply by instinct at this point, I channel Chain Eyes, but nothing happens. No Ether moves, no nothing.

At this point, I truly get confused. What is happening to me? Where am I?

I continue to turn frantically, looking for anything that might be stalking me in the shadows, just beyond my vision, but I cannot find anything. Whatever, or whoever left that grave is nowhere to be seen.

What I do find, though, as I search is my home. The ranch that I lived in my whole life until I was sixteen. From a babe to a naive young man ready to face the bleak world. I’m sure it’s naive to even call a version of myself from less than a year ago, naive, but that’s how I feel.

As I step onto the steps of the ranch where I killed my first monster, I recollect. The past two years were spent simply taking care of Ma, the ranch, and Butter. They taught me how to take care of myself and another. How to cook, clean, and most importantly, hunt. Not often, but I did go out and hunt small game with a bow and arrow now and then.

Never got much, but what I did get saved us money. Meat is expensive, especially when where you live has almost zero monsters who can be killed and butchered for food among many other supplies. That’s all thanks to my father, I guess, who kept just about anything above 1st Sigil clear of the entirety of the Tornridge Territory, men, and beasts alike. Only Edmund, one of my father’s old friends was allowed to stay despite being beyond the 1st Sigil.

That rule that was in place I suspect was the main reason so many died in Elderfield, only 1st Sigiled Hunters were there. And I know from experience, that 1st Sigils aren’t that hard to kill. A single well-placed dagger or bullet ends the whole encounter.

I miss the days before I left the ranch. Before Ma died. I was naive for wanting to go out. For being enchanted by the stories Ma told me of my father as a child. I was naive about many things. The biggest was thinking I could help Edmund in his battle against Alexos. All I did was lose the Blooming Spider Lily and get the old man killed.

I should have just ran.

But sadly, that’s just not who I am. I face things head-on. As Alexos said while I was fighting the trio, no matter the horror or the beast that might bare its teeth, I walk forward. Whether that’s good or bad is only for me and life to decide.

And so, I walk forward once more, possibly into the waiting jaws of another as my feet make the floorboards of my once-home creak. All the candles, lanterns, and gaslights are off, so with the absent moon, it is pitch black in the home. Fortunately, this is my childhood home, and I need no sight, sound, or even touch to roam through it.

I take two steps forward and three to the left as I enter the kitchen, grabbing a cooking knife from one of the stands in the dark. No sight is needed. While doing so, though, I can see the sink. It’s full of dishes, just like when I left. Then after shaking away the odd feeling that the sight brings, I return to the opening hallway. I take a left back into it and head deeper into the home.

After seven steps, I walk in front of the washroom on the right, I pause just before it, waiting. Waiting in case something seeks to appear. I also listen despite the deafening ring in my ear, but I don’t hear anything within the washroom. Not a subtle breath or a small bodily shake. Nothing.

So, I move onward. After another step and on the left is my room. Once again, I repeat the process of sensing for anything, but there is nothing in my room either. No point in entering it either. No weapons exist in that room that may help me.

I continue onward, as usual when I don’t sense a threat. A few more steps lead me to the spare bedroom on my right, the place that Ma said would have been for a sibling of mine had I ever had one.

At this point, I believe that was a lie. From what I have heard from my travels so far, Graves are meant to not only be single children, but to also not have any family with them by the time they mature. Having a sibling would break that dynamic, no?

I just wish I knew why the dynamic even exists in the first place. Is it a biological thing? Maybe we’re simply unable to have more than one child. Or is it a rule thing? I know some families have weird rules that are passed down. It might even just be that we are too busy. Both of the Graves, who were born into the family, that I’ve heard of were incredibly powerful people, always on the move and doing a job or killing a monster for the Hunters.

I don’t know the answer, though. Maybe if I find my father one day he’ll tell me. That is if he’s alive.

I shake away these thoughts as I peek my head into the spare room, checking if there is anything inside, and while I don’t hear or see any movement or anything that might suggest life, I do notice the color on the walls. Amidst the pitch-black darkness, I see red. A crimson, blood-like red on the wall nearest to the door.

Quietly, careful to move only on the balls of my feet not to alert what may be lurking, I look at what is on the walls. It’s an old poem that was once sung to me, written tightly and close together in blood.

Oh, the Graves.

What unholy soul.

What unholy goal.

What unholy blood.

Forever stuck in mud.

Forced to wade through horrors.

The last explorers.

Unable to take their last breath.

For none can meet death.

I only read part of it before I skip the words written on the wall in blood and look at what lies underneath the poem. In big red letters, as opposed to the small and tight writing of the poem, I see another duo of phrases.

We are the true monster.

Only in the deepest dark will she conjure.

The phrase sends a jolt through my body the moment I read it and I take a step back. A step that is too harsh and makes a loud sound that resounds throughout the dead silent house. I hold my breath, waiting for something to appear, but nothing does. The silence merely returns after a moment of echoing noise.

During this silence, however, I feel a gaze touch upon my back. The small hairs of my back stand up, alerting me to another’s presence nearby.

Rapidly, without giving the other creature time to react, I turn and face the door. But what lies before my eyes is an empty doorway. The only thing that I notice as I look around is that there is a small black speck left on the side of the door that was not here before.

Slowly, I creep my head out of the room and look down both sides of the hallway. First, I look down the way that leads out, but it's too dark and I don’t see anything past four or five feet. After that, I turn right, looking down the hallway that now only leads to Ma’s room.

As I do so, a crackle of thunder echoes throughout the house along with a brief wave of light that overlaps with my gaze into the house. The thunder makes me jump slightly, but my recent shock from the words on the wall keeps me steady, what I see however, makes me go wide-eyed.

The brief wave of light lets me see a figure sitting on my mother's bed. Even with the light, it’s hard to tell who or what it is, the only thing that I can decipher is that the creature is facing away from me.

This appearance of another living thing in my house brought forth by brutal hallucination makes me move, not away like most might in this situation, but instead forward. I need to know what is in here. This is my home, after all. If I can’t keep it as a sanctuary, then what is the point?

So, I move deeper into the house, as deep as I can go because Ma’s room is the final one in the house down the hallway. Slowly, I step into her room, all her things still in place nearby the door that I can see.

And as my feet enter the room, another strike of thunder hits, bringing light with it at the same time which lets me see the creature before me clearly.

Just as the light touches the creature, it turns its head in a complete one-eighty unnaturally like an owl and meets my gaze. It is my mother, only a long-dead, and decomposed version of her. Hair falling off and dry with several patches of necrotic skin showing on her scalp. Her lips appear bulged and unnatural with specks of dirt over them. Her fingers are nasty, absolutely covered in grime, bile, and mud.

She must have been the one to leave the mark on the door. She was the one watching me.

I freeze as I look at her, unable to speak from just pure confusion and shock. The undead version Ma, however, shares none of my condition. Her voice reaches me as thunderous as the lightning that let me see her. At this point I can only see her silhouette as the undead head she wears on her shoulders twists and turns after every sentence.

“I don’t feel safe in these halls, Wyatt. Have you hurt anyone?

There are bruises in the walls, Wyatt. Did you leave them?

There are bodies in the floors, and they breathe so loudly. You killed them, didn’t you, Wyatt?

Why didn’t you come and get me, Wyatt? Ma is always here to help you, you know that right?”

As she finishes, my decomposed mother stands from her bed, twisting her head to fit her rightways before contorting her body to stand on all fours except with her stomach to the sky. Then she moves toward me unnaturally, limbs abrupt and bizarre.

“Why don’t you come to Ma? She’ll show you how to take care of the bodies so they don’t talk anymore.”

As she steps toward me, I back up, taking a step out of the room, realizing what I’m looking at is not at all my mother. After a moment of indecisiveness, I turn, and I run. I sprint straight out of the house, using everything I’ve ever learned as a Sigiled except for my Ether which eludes me to move faster.

I tighten the muscles in my legs perfectly to increase my speed and use the terrain to my advantage as I exit the shadowy house into the slightly less dark night. After about ten seconds of mad dashing it away and not hearing anything behind me, I turn to see if the creature that uses my mother as a facade is behind me.

And she is, moving with complete silence like an owl, she chases me down like a bloodhound, limbs shifting and twisting in ways that make me not want to see what she'll do when she reaches me. I turn back to face forward, and I run. I run and I run and I run. I run over roots, fences, shrubs, and even a ditch. I run until U see something in the distance. A speck of light far away exists just beyond the horizon, and I haul ass as fast as I can to it, not even turning around to see if it’s still behind me.

Just before I can reach the light, however, I trip on a branch invisible from the darkness, and as my head hits the ground, my vision goes white.