—Orion—

 

I slipped behind a wall before the disabled monster could see me, my heart racing with an emotion I couldn’t name. Even if it was too preoccupied with itself to notice me, I didn’t want to expose myself.

As much as I needed to put down the wendigo for my own safety—or for Sally’s…—I had to check the roots. To make sure that whatever… thing had attacked the wendigo was going to do the same to me, I moved to investigate the strange growth of roots. But they were gone.

A closer look revealed that the roots were still there, but more entwined with the earth. Before, each root was a single snakelike tentacle that had contorted around the others. They did not branch into new growths along their straight line towards the village. Too unnatural to be for shifting through the dirt to absorb minerals and other resources.

Not any more. The line of roots that were initially completely uncovered now had a layer of moss and grass, sheathing the exposed wood with a cloak of vibrant greenery. The verdant shawl was the most colourful thing I’d seen since the start of the snowfall. New growths had also sprouted from the roots sides, new feelers digging into the dirt around the main body, buried in the soil like roots should be. Curiously, none of the plants had grown past the line that they’d initially stopped at.

It looked as if months had passed since I’d last looked at them. It terrified me in the way only the unknown could—a predator just beyond my senses, too clever to be caught by me.

As much as it made the back of my neck itch, I turned my back to the forest. There was something out there, but I didn’t think that it would hunt me. The uncertainty of the assumption was enough to give me the echoes of fear the Ulun’suti and wendigo had made my heart beat to. But, the only predator I knew for certain would hurt me if left alone was inside the village, not outside it.

I leaned around the wall and watched the wolf-shaped maw of the wendigo gnaw and tug at the wood pinning one of its arms to its upper thigh. It ripped out the foreign body with a spray of blood, and then used the freed limb to pick up its almost decapitated shin.

“I’m so hungry…” I heard it grunting to itself, and the intensity and desperation in its voice reminded me of another victim of circumstance, but ring-obsessed rather than starved.

The wendigo’s body was gaunt and frailer than should be possible for a living creature, its stomach so bloated with gases that it resembled a balloon. All signs of the last stage of starvation before the end.

I could feel the intensifying quakes of my mental stability begin anew as I stared at its stomach, reminded of what it’d done, of what I’d failed to do. I had to look away and breathe deeply to recapture control before I talked myself into running again.

The sound of ripping flesh returned my attention to it.

The wendigo was gripping its half-severed shin, pulling at it until it ripped off the barely-attached limb, severing the last ligaments holding it to its body. It clutched the rotted and dead chunk of leg in its hands like it was a sacred object. It took a massive bite out of its own flesh a moment later.

The wolf-shaped skull chewed on its shrivelled calf for a few moments, humming uncertainly before spitting it out.

“Too old! Too rotten!” It shrieked, throwing its half-eaten leg at a nearby wall like a petulant toddler.

The monster turned its gaze to its other leg, drool mixed with a swirl of foul-coloured stomach juices dripped from its ruined lips. My stomach churned as I looked at it, its face the biggest victim of its transformation. The skin was tight enough that only bone could be seen, the lips all ripped off and eaten, and both eyes shot out and removed. Anything that remained of its face from before its fall to wendigo fever was gone, all it had left was the wolf-shaped skull.

With a grunt of effort, it tried to tear off its other shin at the knee, utterly unconcerned with the damage it was causing itself. I didn’t stop it from damaging itself either, and watched as it continued to pull at its limb with all of its strength.

After a few more tugs, it ripped it free and cracked the fresher limb in twain from the process. It held the two parts of its leg up to its mouth, inspecting the inside of them. The wendigo’s black slimy tongue darted into the centre of its shin, licking what had to be the insides of the bone. It gasped in excitement and dived into the meal with gusto, its tongue digging into its own marrow with ravenous appetite.

“Much fresher! But why does it taste so good?” It asked itself. I was so shocked by its gluttony that I couldn’t help but watch it eat itself.

“Ah! I must’ve eaten so many other people that I taste like them. Better than them” It hummed to itself as it finished one half of its calf, stripping the flesh from it completely before it moved on the other one.

It ate every morsel of meat from the other half soon after, and I forced myself to begin considering how I would kill the monster without my bow. When had I lost my main weapon? Did I drop it? Oh well, not worth considering another failure now.

Maybe I could stab it with an arrow? It might be possible with its mobility crippled.

But then I heard the monster loudly sniff, and its head snapped towards my location. It tossed aside its finished meal as the eye in the back of its throat locked onto my own.

“I knew I smelled another meal… Please help me, I’m starving…” It begged, the wendigo’s body flopping forwards. Its claws scrabbled against the rubble as it pulled itself forwards, the remaining stakes in its body scraping and catching on the stone tiles.

I couldn’t help but take a step backwards as it smeared a black trail over the piles of debris. Even when reduced to a crawling half-corpse, it was still capable of scaring me.

But even with the hesitation it made me feel, I began to move towards it. I decided that if I could not end it here and now, with it weakened to the point of self-cannibalisation, then I would truly be prey. The urge to run, or pity the monster, would not, could not be tolerated.

“Don’t bother to resist, you don’t have your bow or arrows silly!” It teased me, the deepness and unhealthy wet sputter of its voice only becoming more disconcerting the longer I heard it talk with a childish tone.

My plan was a simple one, stupidly simple.

I watched it open its mouth wider to get a better view of me, raising its body up using its arms so it could look over the half-standing wall between us. I felt a mix of reckless stupidity as I stared back at it from across the few metres of snow-filled air.

But I struggled to care about the danger of the scenario as I ran the short distance to it, raising my arm back as I approached the monster. I was too exhausted to care about my own safety at this point, too tired to come up with an alternative plan. I just wanted this to be over—either way.

 

[Using [Barbarika’s quiver]]

[MP: 13/25 -> 12/25]

 

Its mouth stayed open—out of shock or some other reason I didn’t know—but it was all I needed to stick my arm into its mouth. As my fist rocketed into its maw, I summoned one of my arrows inside it, and stabbed the iron tip into the gooey growth at the back of its throat.

 

[Strike dealt to [Wendigo Walker]!]

[Critical Hit!]

[Damage: 45]

[Damage reduced by [Pierce Resistance], 66%]

[Damage: 45 -> 15]

[[Wendigo Walker] [HP: 41/120-> 26/120]]

[New Injury!]

[Health: 64/64 → 46/64]

 

Before I could retract my arm from out of its mouth, its jaw slammed down on my forearm. I accidentally bit my tongue from how hard I had to clench my teeth to stop myself from screaming. With my arm still inside its maw, I twisted the arrow still embedded in its third eye, inflicting as much damage as I could.

 

[Strike dealt to [Wendigo Walker]!]

[Damage: 10]

[Damage reduced by [Pierce Resistance], 66%]

[Damage: 10 -> 3]

[[Wendigo Walker] [HP: 26/120-> 23/120]]

 

That was enough to make it open its mouth, and I shoved it off of my arm. I retreated as soon as I was free, and inspected my mangled forearm after making sure the wendigo couldn’t chase me. It was too busy clawing at its mouth, trying and failing to pull out the arrow still lodged inside it.

 

[Using [Appraisal – Lvl 2] on: [Wendigo Walker – Level 43]]

[Health: 23/140]

[Mana: 26/62]

[Conditions: [Starvation (Stage 3)], [Nature's Purification (87%)]]

[Automatic Activation: [Self-Healing]]

[Health: 46/64 → 55/64]

[Mana: 12/25 → 9/25]

 

I wiped the black-blood off of my skin, my own red ichor dripping onto the floor and mixing with infected liquid already there. My legs wobbled as I realised that I was done. The fight was over.

The wendigo had managed to pull the arrow out with one of its deformed hand, along with most of the eye’s tissue. The head of the improvised shiv had been completely swallowed by the organ, and the iron barbs had ripped out a fist sized chunk of the white flesh as it was yanked out.

It seemed to be enough for the wendigo to finally collapse, too weak to do anything but curl up on the floor. I watched with nothing but a sense of nausea as a heavy flow of blood poured from its mouth

It was finished—the monster was defeated.

 

[Automatic Activation: [Self-Healing]]

[Health: 55/64 → 64/64]

[Mana: 9/25 → 6/25]

 

But as I leant against a wall for a moment to catch my breath, I noticed an axe lying against an intact wall. I remembered that there was still one thing left for me to do, the least I could do for Sally. I stumbled over to the implement, and picked up the tool.

As I hefted the weapon into my grip, I noted that the axe-head was in surprisingly good condition—its cutting edge sharp and oiled.

I took my time walking back to the wendigo, and watched its broken body, absorbing the disgusting, pitiful sight in full.

I still felt pity for it. For its circumstances. I was disgusted with myself, so utterly disappointed that I felt sympathy for the… the thing that’d killed Sally, and destroyed a town. As I stood over its twitching, half-dismembered body, I couldn’t help but think that it was a victim of circumstance, that Chester didn’t deserve this fate.

I still thought that, even though it’d used my sympathy before to escape, weaponising it to attack me. How incapable I was of overcoming the emotions made me feel weak—especially when the stakes were so high, and when the monster had already done the unforgivable.

It made me feel like I was destined to be its victim, its prey. To always be a victim.

“...How did you make it invisible…” “…I’m hungry…” “...Please don’t…”

I raised the axe up, and did my best to ignore the multiple fragmented sentences that slipped past the blood and wooden shaft that blocked its throat.

With a grunt I slammed the axe down onto its neck, and I had to close my eyes when I heard the scream of pain—the guttural, supernatural, but distinctly human cry—and felt the spray of warm liquid coat my arms and legs.

 

[Strike dealt to [Wendigo Walker]!]

[Damage: 6]

[[Wendigo Walker] [HP: 18/120→ 12/120]]

 

I flinched when I saw the notification appear underneath my eyelids, when I realised that I couldn’t decapitate it with a single swing. I clenched my eyes closed even tighter as I raised the wood-cutting implement again, and tried my best to ignore its whimpers of pain as I slammed it down.

 

[Strike dealt to [Wendigo Walker]!]

[Damage: 8]

[[Wendigo Walker] [HP: 12/120→ 4/120]]

 

I… I can do it. One. More. Swing.

 

[Strike dealt to [Wendigo Walker]!]
[Critical Hit!]
[Damage: 48]

[[Wendigo Walker] [HP: 4/120→ -44/120]]

[Killed: [Wendigo Walker – Level 43 Aberration]]

[Experience received: 430]

[New level: 18 (33/150 XP)]

 

I wiped the blood off of my face with my upper sleeve before I opened my eyes and looked upon its corpse. I don’t know what exactly I’d been hoping to feel when I saw its unmoving body, but it wasn’t guilt. It wasn’t pity. Maybe I wanted to know what the satisfaction of winning felt like. However it… It still felt like I had lost—and in the worst ways possible.

 

[Using [Appraisal] on: [Wendigo Corpse]

[Wendigo Corpse – Level 43 Material]

[The dissected remains of a terrifying aberration of nature, now perfect for alchemy use!]

 

Its head was severed from its long sinewy neck, and I took in the sight of the monster’s face for the last time. I was determined to burn the sight into my retinas, so I couldn’t ever forget the face of my mistakes.

My eyes were eventually drawn to the budding growths along its temples, the antlers so mundane it felt more unnatural for them to have grown on its head than any of the wendigo’s other features. The budding growth had reached fifteen centimetres in length before the end.

Once I felt convinced that I would always remember its appearance, I flipped the orientation of the axe in my hands and lifted it up. I slammed the butt of the axehead into the top of its skull, and the blunt metal surface shattered the bone and reduced the head to a discoloured smear on the stones. I had to restrain the urge to vomit as pink and grey brain matter splattered onto my boots. The utterly normal colour of the organ—instead of the black-tainted shade I was expecting—made the act all the more… dirty. It felt oilier than anything else I had done.

But I did not drop the axe just yet. There was one thing left to do before I could fall apart from the guilt. Sally deserved a better resting place.

I knelt by the wendigo’s prone body and rolled the body onto its back, the bloated ball-like stomach sloshing with the movement. I choked down the nausea rising up my throat as I gripped the axe by its neck, just underneath the metal head. The idea of dirtying myself with its stomach contents made me feel… at ease? The thought of punishing myself soothed some of the greasy sensations inside my head. The relief was only momentary, but I welcomed it.

The axe easily cut through the layers of skin and gut, and the insides softly erupted out like an infected abscess being drained. My self-control over my stomach failed when the mixture of stomach bile, half-digested bones, and black-blood coated my thighs and lower stomach. I threw up, and the contents of my stomach quickly mixing with the wendigo’s on the ground.

I continued to dry-heave as I sunk my hands into its belly, shifting through the thick, viscous sludge as I struggled to find whatever remained of Sally. The stench released by the corpse’s insides was so bad that I could barely keep my eyes open, the smell almost a physical attack on my body.

But at the very bottom of the black cauldron, I felt the the touch of lukewarm scales. The feeling of his skin gave me such a visceral sense of deja-vu that I thought that he could be still alive somehow. The memories of all of the previous times that I’d touched his body or stroked his scales rising up to convince me of the impossible.

A choked, hateful laugh left my mouth, and the sound of self-ridicule struggling to make it past the tears and mucus in my throat made me aware that I was bawling. I went back to ignoring the warm droplets cutting paths through the blood and grime on my face, and I berated myself for being so quick to believe that he’d survived being eaten. For being so weak, so willing to want everything to be fine, for my mistakes to have had no effect.

I lifted the lifeless body from the wendigo’s corpse, the broken body completely limp in my hands. I clutched her—no, I… I should at least remember him properly. I have to do at least that much, hold his memory in the way he wanted.

I clutched his body to my chest and wiped the sludge off his face. Sally’s eyes were closed, his scales dulled and tarnished by the stomach acid. His body rested in my hands, his limbs facing the complete wrong directions to how they should be. The broken bones in his legs and wings made them roll and shift with my every movement, and the limpness with which they moved was nauseating.

Before I placed him—the body down, I… was too weak to stop myself from indulging in something I realised I’d been craving. Wanting ever since I saw him by that campfire at the bottom of the cliff. Aching for when I saw his scales sparkle in the sunlight for the first time.

I lifted the limp neck up and draped it over my shoulder, and shifted the corpse so I could hug it tighter. I rested my chin on top of his head and allowed myself to pretend that this closeness was real. That it was possible for me to ever hug Sally like this, that I really was embracing Sally in my arms.

It was nice. Foreign, yet completely welcome. A taste of… something that I’ve never had before.

I wished it was real. That it wasn’t a lifeless corpse I was holding. Wished that Sally was breathing. Wished that his body would be warm without my body-heat. Wished that his heart was still… beating?…

It was?

I immediately lifted him up and pressed my palm against his sternum, and tried to find proof of the impossible. I was sure that I’d just hallucinated, but I wasn’t able to stop myself from checking any way.

But no matter how much I whispered to myself that it wouldn’t be possible for a heart to still be beating inside of a body beaten and eaten whole, I still felt it. A weak yet stubborn thumping could be felt beneath his scales.

 

[Using [Appraisal] on: [Sally, Infant Cloud Dragon]

[Unique Connection Detected!]

[Sally, Infant Cloud Dragon – Level 5 Beast]

[Health: 0/6 (Alive)]

[Mana: 15/46]

 

He’s… He’s not dead?