“Peace! Peace!” I yelled, my voice cutting into my throat.

Two people clad in rags and ratty chainmail chased me around the corner, hot on my heels as I spun and scrambled over slippery cobbled stone. I pumped my legs, burning them up. It didn’t matter, this was about life and death.

Why? Why does everyone I meet want to bash my skull in? These people are insane, everyone’s insane, everyone just wants to kill me!

“Peace! Pea–“

I heard something approach from my side and ducked, as a third person charged me from behind a temple grave. A heavy object whooshed over my head as I slipped on a mud-covered stone plate and caught my footing just barely. I pumped my legs harder, just trying to get away.

Run. I can just run. Going here was a mistake. I should’ve stayed in the shallow swamp where I belong, hunting spiders, eating spiders, cleaning–

I reached the bridge far too soon. It wasn’t a long bridge; I could easily see from one end to the middle. As I ran onto it, worries rushed my already troubled mind. Can I lose them in the crevasse?

No, probably not.

After that, behind the statues?

Maybe.

They won’t follow me into the swamp, into the mud, right? They can’t, right? Right?

I’m not going back into the swamp. Never. Not ever again. But I have to make a decision. Now.

I had nearly reached the end of the bridge when a squeak and the feeling of weight on my shoulder missing made my heart drop. George! He was holding on to my shoulder, wait, how, why did he hold on, why didn’t he just run?

George flopped to the ground behind me. I turned around, just in time to see the tall guy nearly step on him as he tried to pummel my head. I ducked under the left-hand swing, looking up just in time to see him go for a stab to my face with something he was holding in his right hand.

I threw up my shield, but in the darkness, I wasn’t accurate enough, nor did I have the time to be. The thrust skipped off my buckler and I felt a hot biting sensation as his broken sword slashed across my chin.

The rest of the thrust bit into my chainmail but didn’t penetrate. He was this close to stabbing me in the neck.

I was half tempted to hold up my weapons and yell “I’m not a threat. We don’t need to fight.”, but as soon as the thought entered my conscience, it was batted away by another backhand swing from the club.

This guy was relentless, but that one I managed to block better. It bounced off my shield completely, but man did my hand hurt after receiving it.

I’m doing something wrong. Is he that strong? Am I that weak?

No, dammit, it’s not supposed to hurt and give away that much when I block with it. I’m either gripping it wrong or not strongly enough. Probably the latter.

My grip strength couldn’t strangle a child, but putting that image and other moral quandaries aside, I stepped into the next thrust in the flurry of attacks launched against me and went for one of my own.

I was close to his body as it pierced right through the rotted fabric. Yesss!

Then it didn’t sink deeper than a finger breadth. Metal clinked on mail. Nooo! The tip of my broken sword wasn’t sharp enough and I didn’t have the strength or weight to force it through as it slipped off the mail shirt.

A bash to the top of my head rattled it a bit, then a second from the side hit hard.

Gah! Stop. Bashing. My. Head.

I thrust my left hand up, half in a desperate attempt at dissuading a third strike, half holding it up to parry.

What I got instead was the feeling of meat cutting roughly along metal followed by another hit skidding off the side of my helmet and weakly onto my pauldron. There was a moment of pause, then a scream as the figure in front of me let its bludgeon go, clenching its wrist.

I took it as my chance and, without thinking, went for a killing blow. I had to.

“I’m sorry” I said somewhere in my mind, but that voice was distant, only a tinge of guilt pressed to the back of my head by the need to live. The messy thrust went through his unarmored throat from below. A spray of something warm hit me across the face.

I stood still for a heartbeat, nearly paralyzed. My heart was hammering between my ears. But his body fell to the floor, and I knew it wasn’t over yet.

The woman came next, stepping onto and over my previous attacker’s corpse like it was nothing. There was nothing in her eyes, nothing coming from her mouth but gurgling and a hateful scream. She wanted me dead, too, but not out of revenge. They all just wanted me dead, and I didn’t know why. My only saving grace was that I was fighting them on a narrow bridge, one after the other.

Another thrust came at my left. I turned, punching it to the side full force. The broken sword in her hand was launched off the side and into the dark.

I turned towards her, pointing my sword at her. “Surren–“

A bull or something like it hit the side of my neck and everything went fuzzy. The darkness, the figures in the darkness, the feeling of someone bashing me over and over and over and over–

I came to, like suddenly surfacing from a pool of water. I smelled blood in my nose. My left hand hurt. My sword was not in it. I looked up, as another hit smacked right into my shoulder. The pain was dull, but it reverberated through my bones and body.

She was looming over me like another giant, like everyone always does, a bludgeon in hand, no, a rock, no, no, no, no…

Flashes from my first encounter with people in the other graveyard played across my vision. Her figure aligned perfectly with my vision as she reeled back for a hopefully decisive blow to my face, gripping her club with both hands.

I-I didn’t mean to kill her, she was killing me, she wanted to open my skull and unsort the insides, I was just defending myself, this isn’t fair, fuck her, fuck you, fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou!

I pulled my head to the side just in time, the attack hitting the same shoulder as before. Ow. Pauldrons! Praise be!

Before she could pull her hand back, I grabbed it with my left and pulled myself towards her. I didn’t get further than half a foot off the ground, but I wasn’t trying to get up.

I kicked her knee to the side and pulled again, harder.

She stumbled forward, onto, then over me and fell with a thud. I pushed myself back up again, just to receive a shallow stab to my left arm and a hard hit to my shield that ricocheted off it towards my helmet, then off that into the darkness.

The third rabid human stood in front of me, about my size and armed like the rest. The woman behind me was no doubt getting up. I was in a bad position.

Another strike came at me from the front, a messy flurry of slashes that failed to do anything. I couldn’t just write him off as a threat though, no matter how hard I wanted to turn around and stomp on that bitch’s neck.

Correction: How much I wanted to punch her in the tit, then run away. No one else had to die today. Even though I was really, really on edge, my conscience wouldn’t let go of me. Or, I didn’t let go of it. It didn’t matter the result was the same. Killing was murder and murder was a sin.

Another downward strike with the bludgeon came at me. It didn’t exactly fail to connect. As turned to the side, it slid down my chest plate and hit the mail below my hip. I felt that and staggered for a moment, gasping before blocking another thrust.

I don’t have a sword, I can’t attack, how am I supposed to attack, he has two weapons, the one behind me has to be up by now, dammitdammitdammit.

I threw myself forward, pushing my whole bodyweight on to the one in front of me. It wasn’t much, even with armor, but he wasn’t tall either. He stumbled with surprising ease and gave away. When I stepped on his foot, he screamed and stopped flailing at my head and exposed back.

I felt my heart pumping in my ears, my joints creaking as a second wind surged through my body. I told myself that this was the best option as I body-slammed him to towards the ledge. He stumbled, tipped and with another push, he fell off the bridge.

Hopefully he doesn’t fall too badly.

A sickening crack sound followed shortly. I cringed internally at the sound of it.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

He’s not dead. He’s not dead.

I turned around, half expecting to be greeted by yet another swift bludgeon to the face. Instead, lying in front of me was the buckling form of the woman, shakily trying to get up. She was slow, so slow, as if all the anger and hate that had propelled her forward, to assault me, to stab and maim and kill without reason had drained her so much that she couldn’t even stand up on her own anymore.

I looked at her form for a long moment. I was breathing heavily and hurting all over, but as I calmed down, I felt the anger inside of me slowly fade away. There wasn’t any point to going any further if she could barely stand and she looked beaten enough that I felt some vindication.

“You. Lost. Give. Up.”

I turned to look for my sword and went to pick it up. A sharp feeling of pain hit me in the right foot. I screamed, almost falling off the bridge, but I caught myself. The woman was standing shakily, half crouching, half leaning on one hand. Her sword had cut right through the side of my boot. A trickle of blood poured from the wound.

She tried to stab me. After all that, she still tried to fucking stab me.

I turned around, looking down at her. She was taller than me, but not while still half on the ground. The anger was back and just the feeling of getting to look down on this unrepentant bitch was making my mind swirl.

I grabbed whatever was closest to me, finding a club. It was light and smelled of coal and blood. It would do. Then, I looked at the woman staring at me from under her patchy hair. There was nothing in her eyes but a dull emptiness and hate as I gripped the club.

You had your chance.

I pushed towards her, shield covering my neck. Her broken sword cut harmlessly across the top of my helmet as I pushed her back again. She fell with a low moan and as I stood above her, for a moment, I swear I saw fear in her eyes.

In spite of it, I swung my club wide, smashing it into the side of her face. Something in her chin cracked and I winced. She fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

It’s over. Finally.

I was panting and standing shakily, looking at the carnage around me.

One dead, one unconscious and another I can’t see. And for what? Why did this have to happen, what is it with these people, what is it with me that makes them lose their minds and attack like a rabid dog?

A sudden thought hit me.

It’s because I’m a demon. They know, they know that I eat their souls and they were scared. So they did it. They attacked me, as if I was some wild wolf out to kill their children. And I killed them to save my life, to save a soul eating demon. It’s murder, it’s murder, it’s murder.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. It smelled faintly like fresh sweat, sunburnt earth, and a hint of wet pebbles.

But in the end, I’m the one who’s alive. Gods, that stings.

I tried putting my mind on other things, but I just couldn’t distract myself from the fact that I had just consciously smelled the odor of what were most likely human souls for the first time.

I’m a demon. I’m a fucking demon and that’s why they’re trying to kill me.

There was this sudden feeling of being unclean again and I felt violently ill to the core. I chucked the club, or what was likely an old torch, way off the bridge. The feeling was still there, the primal urge to vomit warring against the civil urge to keep it in.

I barfed.

At least I broke my visor ages ago.

Where’s my George? I need him. My small squishy friend.

A small squeak sounded from behind me. I turned around and could see twelve feet far.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“No. George. Stop!”

I don’t know if it was the smell or just the simple lack of food in these parts, but something about the puddle of regurgitated spider bits on the floor was acting like the purest temptation for my emotional support rat.

I tried picking him up, but he somehow made his body like liquid, always allowing him to slip off my hand and then beeline it towards the chunky puddle.

I caught him with both hands, completely intent on not letting him go. He struggled, but as I turned him to face me, he mostly stopped wriggling.

“It. Is. Bad. For. You.”

He just looked at me with innocent beady eyes. Was he listening to me – wait, could he even understand me? Rats were clever, I knew that, but not clever enough to understand human speech. Still, I half expected him to nod at me when I said “Do. You. Understand?”

He didn’t nod. I put him back on my shoulder and moved away from the bridge. “I’ll. Find. Food. Good. Food. Better. Food.” For both mine and George’s pleasure.

I think George resigned himself to the oh so cruel fate of not eating pre-digested spider giblets as he squeaked indignantly and settled himself next to my neck. I could feel his warmth through the chainmail, and it was good.

I sharp pain on my lower left arm, leg and chin reminded me that I didn’t exactly get away from that fight completely uninjured. I opened the ball of wyckwax, unscrewing the wooden shell and taking a short whiff of the remedy in question. It smelled like burnt earth and sun-poached leaves with a faint trace of alcohol. Not the worst smell I’ve had to deal with. I took another whiff.

This feels slightly addicting.

Alright, let’s I put some on my arm first an­– gah, that stings! It’s only a pea-sized blob, but man, this is almost worse than being cut. Not as bad as a bristle spider sting though.

Come to think of it, I don’t think spiders actually have stingers. And their front mandibles were more like wide, jagged pincers than small daggers, too. Huh. Maybe they don’t really look like spiders under all that hair? I’ll find out if I ever find a way to get brighter light. Except that I still have no idea how to get that.

Sigh.

I finished applying the rest to my chin. The trickle of blood was staunched completely, and the mixture was adhering quite well, even after it dried a bit from my body heat. Rather than turn brittle, its texture felt more like a piece of worn leather while its surface was smooth and slightly oily like a candle.

So that’s why they call it wyckwax.

You know what else is nice? Finding better food. Except to do that, I’ll have to walk further through this graveyard. With the way I’m holding up, I think I can take a few more fights. Not many though, and I feel I should rest soon.

I stood up and started on my way deeper into the graveyard. I was not looking forward to it and while a part of it was because I already felt drained, it was my conscience and guilt that were giving me worries without end.

Thing is, I don’t think I want to fight anyone around here. If there are more of those people around, I’ll be forced to make a choice if they attack me: kill them or die. I’m under no false impression that I can just restrain them, knock them unconscious or tie them to a tree. I’m not strong enough. Every fight I get into, it’s life or death.

I pet George’s velvety fur. It was wet, but somewhat comforting.

And I don’t want to kill people. Is that such a hard thing to ask for in this hellscape? To not have to make that choice? Spiders I could kill and squish and at the end of the day, I wouldn’t be sad but proud of what I’d done. Culling their number was doing the world a favor, but killing humans? That was setting me miles back on my road to redemption, not to mention the guilt piling up at the back end of my mind.

It’s right to kill a monster, it’s wrong to kill a person.

The problem is that I am fully capable of killing spiders and humans. I’ve proven that on at least two separate occasions now and I hate myself for it. My sword doesn’t become any less sharp if I face one or the other. I’m always fearing for my life, my body, my soul.

George squeaked as he nibbled my chainmail. It was cute, but by now, my mind was too mired in the mud to get away from these creeping thoughts that easily.

I just scrambled to defend myself. I survived, yes, but I got lucky, so, so goddamn lucky.

If I hadn’t slit the first guy’s wrist on a sword I was intending to parry with?

He would have kept hitting me. And I would have kept on taking the hits until my brain was turned into mush and leaking out of my ears.

If I hadn’t pushed the other one off when I did?

I would’ve been stabbed in the back without any warning.

Hells, if I hadn’t out of some selfish, disgraceful need to keep a ‘memento’ of the angel-lady stolen specifically that one ring from her warm corpse, I would’ve drowned on my way here! I would’ve been eaten, swallowed in the swamp, never to be seen again!

Squeak went George.

I didn’t even know it was a ring that let me breathe underwater, hells below, I thought it was making me see better when I first took it. But it doesn’t, I’m only alive by a fluke and I’m still so godsdamned blind to everything going on around me as before.

I’m not going forward anymore. No progress, no future. Just backtracking backwards, step by step. I can’t go forward without fixing the past, but I can’t go back without going forward first. I’m stuck, in the mud, in my head, in this stupid, stupid pitch-black nightmare.

My breathing got faster and faster as I clutched my head, another headache forming from my most recent series of physical trauma. I tried to put my thoughts in a box, but they kept on spilling out.

If I had woken up with any less armor, I would have been skewered by a bristle spider. Hells, without finding a shield at the exact moment that I needed it, the damn one-handed giant would’ve seen my insides becoming outsides because I was just too goddamn slow to run!

Without my helmet, I’d have been brained by the first two people I murdered. Because I did, I had to kill them.

If I had been any slower in killing my first bristle spider, I’d have succumbed to poison right then and there.

If I had been any slower in fighting off a demon in disguise of a frog, it would’ve taken my soul, my own single soul which is supposed to be mine, supposed to be special, supposed to be good and give light (I guess) and do neat things like stay inside of me. It would’ve taken it but if it had, three other people would still be alive.

I shook my head, trying to empty it of all the thoughts, good and bad. It didn’t really help, only making me feel a bit sick and jumbling my thoughts together until I arrived at a frightening question.

But are they even people?

NO! No, I am not allowed to think like that. They are people. I’m people. But then, doesn’t that mean that we can talk it out?

Why? Why didn’t they listen to me? Why did they have to attack me, why couldn’t they have just ignored me, why am I so powerless, why…

I fell to my knees, dropping sword and shield as I buried my face in my palms. I needed to calm down. Calm like the ocean, calm like–

I don’t even know what a fucking ocean is!

I felt my everything slipping again, memories, goals, emotions. Not even the increasingly worried squeaks of George helping me move forward and out if this muddy pit.

I’m not a saint, not a heroic knight, not even a good person. I’m a demon, in body, in action, in soul.

I can’t even pretend right. I’m a fraud.

Gods, I should just stay here before I do more damage to the world. Just sit down, curl together and let whatever happens happen to me. And only me. Harris would understand. He can fend for himself. As can George, the adorable little bean. He doesn’t need me; he was here long before I was.

A light set of taps rang from on top of my gloves. A pitter patter of rain set in, doing absolutely nothing to lift my mood. I looked up, just to make sure I wasn’t imagining the wet drops of water fall and break upon my body. A body which in my heart felt like a cracked egg, so fragile and small.

“Hey.”

A deep, almost growling voice caught me off guard. Not that I was intending to be on guard, I didn’t care about being approached and attacked by people I’d have to kill out of reflex and fear rather than want or even need. I lazily lolled my head to the side.

Left: nothing.

“Hey!” The deep voice spoke again.

Right: nothing.

“Hey!”

In front: A rat. George. The goodest. At least his was a life worth his station. A rat didn’t have to accomplish much to fulfill the expectations everyone had of rats. A rat could just be, and it would be just right.

George sniffed the air in front of me, his rat tail twitching, his back turned towards me.

“Hey!” it said again.

Is George trying to talk to me?

His lips didn’t move, not more than usual. The voice was low, like blowing into deep brass. But there definitely was a sound that existed somewhere in my head, coming from directly in front of me. I blinked twice.

I think I’ve finally tripped and fallen off the deep end. Gone crazy, gone bad, gone to never come back.

Then, something hard came from the right hit me in the side of my head. I teetered to the side, almost falling over. But somehow, I was too tired and sluggish for even that.

“Fuck. Me. What. NOW?”