Lights of red and black. Dilation. White noise, the void of everything. Stars and soil. Dust and fire. The air around and within. Fingers twitched, as he felt them moist and watery. Something had been stuck under the nails. Twitching, Dale breathed in, at last. A gurgling breath. Not one of exasperation, but rather that of forced entry. Something was stuck in his throat, yet it evaporated, like a bad memory. Iron. He finally smelt it. Tasted its sickly sweetness on his lips. Licking, his eyes flashed open. The void was gone.

Dale had returned to the living. A distant ship’s bells could be heard against the rocking waves that lapped against the pier. The woodwork he stood upon. A lonely lantern, hanging from a safety grate illuminated him. He was on the lower level of the docks, his head snapped back, and as far as he could tell in this singular moment, his arms wide, flexed out as if he had claws- armed and ready to pounce like some primeval ape.

Flicking his lips instinctively, he finally understood the taste.

Blood.

Almost hurling up his dinner, he crashed into the shadow unabated by the lonely lantern, the incessant bell of an approaching ship ringing in his ears. It was as if the world was bussing as his hands went for his face. On his ass, Dale shivered, trying to wipe away the liquid that had adorned his lips, scared to see if he was wounded. He was not. In fact, his hand movements had no effect.

Looking at his palms, his vision regulated itself to the half-darkness of his surroundings. Though silhouetted and badly illuminated, he saw that crimson had covered his fingers, his palms- streaking even across his white shirt, the linen threads soaked in it. Dale could only moan freakishly, babbling in grunts and gasps of shock and disgust.

It turned into a slow, warping scream, like an approaching wind over the hill, whistling across the bay hauntingly as he saw past his shivering hands more blood.

And amidst it, a body. Mangled beyond recognition. There was scantily any other color than the motley of clothes, the pink ish skin of a human, if that mass could be called as such anymore, and of course- blood. The scarlet liquid was everywhere, and the wetness that Dale could feel told him he had either been drenched in it from head to toe- or he was in a pool of blood so large that it had expanded across the woodwork in an alarming radius.

The eyes were missing. The teeth were sprawled across the pier, glinting slightly in the lamplight. The legs were misconstrued, crooked in their loops and angles. One leg was missing a foot. The fingers were gone, except for one hand’s thumb, while the clothes across the body were tattered and thrown about. Like a wild beast had ripped them apart so savagely and so cruelly as to get to the meaty prize of the body. The innards that smelt of acid and feces, which looked like they exploded from the inside- ripped to shreds and…

-Gnawed- upon. Dale screamed, before hurling his guts out from the sight across himself. It took him a few moments to slowly crawl over to the body, once more in the light, and simply stare in horror. His sweat mixed with the victim’s blood, and all things were pointing to one culprit. It gnawed at his mind, and all he could do was whisper futile rejection at the facts forming within his brain.

The sad truth of the matter is that somehow, someway, Dale had killed Robert. Robert, his buddy. His colleague. A trusted friend at the pub. A trusted mate in the dockyard. A fellow man. Cruelly dismembered and gnawed upon. And what was the reason? He did not know. Dale had killed his first man, and in this dazing truth, Dale could scarcely believe that this was reality.

He was given a taste of reality, as the bells got closer. Before Dale could react, his eyes blinked up to see that the ringing ship had approached the side of the pier, nearing closer. Though slowly, as it ready to lay anchor and safely tie itself down beside the docks. As water sloshed harder, Dale tried to scramble away, if not for his eye contact with a lazing crewman aboard said ship. Through the gunhole of a cannon, the opened window gave way to a young man, his blue eyes meeting Dale’s brown, no doubt seeing the horrifying spectacle the vessel that the boy served upon just passed by. Muted by fear, the boy stared, until out of sight. So did Dale, like a deer, staring at the spot from which the sound of a cracking tree branch had been heard. And like a deer, as the ship passed, he stood up on wobbly legs and ran. He could already hear the boy’s echoing voice across the bay’s waters.

A call for the captain. The ship crew would notify the guards. The guards would search. They would find Robert. And they would find Dale. Looking down, Dale could see that his boots sloshed with the same scarlet liquid his hands and face were adorned with.

Moaning out a soft curse alongside a plea for the almighty God, the Reclaimer, he continued his sprint up the dock. Stopping just as he came up on the top of the ramp that led up and down the two levels of the pier. Peeking out, he looked back and across the planks to see the ship having stopped, a constable of the Docking Guild and some crew of the brig conversing with each other. 

Looking around, he did not see any other souls under the lamplights strewn across the pier. He ran, continuing to do so as swiftly as he could, heading deeper into the yards. As far as he could tell it was… Not five in the afternoon anymore. No, as he looked up past the city rooftops up to the New Saint Ilmater Cathedral, he could see over the skyline of the city of Bloodstone the clock on the tall tower had clicked just now to a new hour. Nine O'clock.

That… Four hours. Four hours had disappeared from his memory? Dale shot his gaze back down to the horizon and soon skid to a stop, almost landing face first into the crates he dived to cover behind as a couple of men with pipes aflame came out from the darkness between large boxy containers and into the light of a lantern. Trying to do his best with breathing slowly through his nose, and as quietly as he could despite his hyperventilation, Dale overheard a bit of their ongoing conversation.

“...aid the Khan was thinking of coming to strike down our doors. ‘Parently the Guild of Shadows has been messing with Oldwall again.” one man said, haggard and rusty in voice. Dale thinks his name is Fingon, one of the older workers on the yard. Dale did not know him too well to be appropriately knowledgeable of the old man’s personality.

“Blast it all, Fin,” so it was him. The other, Albert, Dale knew, continued to speak. “Why do you care? If the Khan comes rolling ‘bout, it’s just another long, boring siege that he can’t do right. The man’s good with enforcing his policies on his own empire, putting down hellbeast rebellions and playing explorer out in the West Yonder. Pah. Have nary a fear, Fin. Nothing’ll come of it, one way or another.”

Dale did not care about anything to do with Khans or hellbeasts or sieges. He wanted to get out. And he needed to, as he saw the approaching lantern held by the constable down the dock moving his way. Dale acted quickly, as he ran around the left side of his hiding place, swiftly making his way through the shadows past the two smoking men. They seemed to notice him, calling out, before their calls were drowned out by the constable’s whistle.

Running even faster, the adrenaline pumping in Dale’s veins ignored all inhibitions of the human body. Dale did not know how long he had run, but there he was. In what seemed like a few delirious moments of animal instinct, he was in one of the many alleyways of the vibrant cosmopolitan port city of Bloodstone, reclining his back against ancient cement of the wall behind him and sliding down against it, sitting down and, finally, breathing as raggedly and openly and as swiftly as he could to catch himself.

He sat there, crying and breathing and punching himself in the head and wiping at both the tears and blood across his face, which both increased each other’s presence the more he did so. After a while, he had peeked out from the shadows of the late Autumn night to understand where he was. Having located himself, he tried his best at getting back home.

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By the time he had clambered into his apartment as quietly as he could, he locked the door behind him and laid down on the floor, sleep and fear and especially exhaustion taking him into the little death.

Light licked at his face. Groggily, Dale opened his eyes once more and they were crusty. The blood across his hands and face had dried. He had not bothered with cleaning himself after reaching home. As he regained his consciousness, Dale spent the next few moments pacing. Sobbing quietly. Sitting. He had hunger and tiredness still resting heavily on his soul, but all that mattered to him was understanding that the moment he had fallen asleep within his home and awoken once more was the final moment that the chance that this was a nightmare had gone.

He had killed Robert. He did not know how, why or when, nor did he know why he did not remember tearing the poor man apart with his bare hands and.. Feasting upon him. If he still had had the energy, Dale would have once more vomited. He did not. As Dale clutched his brown, sticky hair in both hands, he almost jumped out of his skin at the sudden knock to his door. Fear gripped him for a moment. The constable? Had someone seen him in the late hours of the night coming into his home, drenched in someone else’s blood?

The voice on the other side, muffled, raised his fear even higher.

“Dale! Dale, you in here, lad?” He could hear Old Margaret ask. The landlady and a minor noble within Bloodstone, old Margaret was a lover of the destitute. The lower castes of society amongst the city state’s inhabitants. She had a voice in the City Council, and used it to advocate for their kind. She had been like a doting auntie for Dale, ever since he had moved into Bloodstone seven years prior, having left his old home of Cliffmoore.

Dale held his breath. If he opened it now, she would see him caked in blood. And if he did not, she would no doubt want to snoop around. He could already hear her trembling hands get out her keyring and ready the keys she had for his home.

The young man decided to take a leap of Faith. Silently praying to the Reclaimer for providence, he stood up and shakily walked to the door. Unlocking it and turning the handle, he opened it slowly. Just enough to peek out with his face. Having hoped there would be shade to hide the blood, Dale’s heat on his forehead increased alongside his rising panic and the sun blaring in through another window against his face. Narrowing his eyes, he looked upon the shocked, petrified face of Old Margaret, her wrinkled face having gone stone solid and mouth agape in what Dale considered as horror.

“... M-my Lady Margaret, I… I…” Dale began, croaky in his voice, yet he could not finish as Margaret swiftly pushed herself in the gap, shushing him. He let her push him inside his home and saw her do a roundabout within the hallway, before sliding in and locking the door behind her.

With the same horrified face, she looked Dale over. He felt naked under her gaze, ashamed, and especially terrified of what she would think. And yet, he noticed the glint of worry- of empathy within her own green ones. Thin lipped, she finally spoke amidst the silence.

“Poor Robert was found dead in the docks last night.”

Dale did not say anything. He simply shivered against her gaze, finally unclasping himself from her eyes and staring down at the dirty floor where he once laid moments ago. She continued to speak.

“That is the reason I came. I was worried for you, Dale. And now I see you…”

Dale swallowed hard. The lump in his mouth was as big as charcoal and he could not make it go away. His fingers flexed, wet with sweat and crusty with dried blood. Margaret turned herself fully to him, staring into his downcast eyes hard and making herself known with a stern, wide stance in her green and deep blue dress and her necklace of silver, coining her as a member of the Council. Her hands on her hips, her raspy yet authoritative,motherly tone took that of a prowling cougar.

“Did you do it, Dale?”

He could not lie. He did not waste another heartbeat. “Yes.”

“Why?”

This, however, was a harder question to answer. He simply answered to the best of his abilities. “I… I do not know. I truly don’t know.”

“How can a man who kills his best friend not know how he killed his best friend?” She asked, almost rhetorically, gripping her corset harshly under her long, white nails. Dale raised his voice, out of instinctual fear and deep denial, finally staring into her accusatory eyes.

“I don’t know! I… I was stood over him! He was like that when I came to! I don’t remember anything! We were working and then… Then I… Gods…” He whimpered, falling back and crashing into the chair he had occupied, back to holding his face in his hands. Although after a bout of silent weeping, for the tears had run dry by now, the old woman takes the palms of his hands and grips them tight, pulling them from his eyes, which look up to her stern gaze.

“I have seen enough things in my life, lad, to know an innocent man when I see them. Whatever happened to Robert is a cruelty to be punished. But you are not the one to be punished. I am sure of it. Whether you did or not, this is a crime by someone else,” she breathed in, closing her eyes, and a grimness came to her tone as she continued. “And there are great and terrible powers in this world, as you know. The Gods have powers gifted to us mortals that are… Beyond our understanding. Come. Rise.”

And he did. And slowly, the noble helped the simple dockworker with washing his face and hands. The linen shirt was thrown away. And soon, they were both sitting at a table, eating food that Margaret had cooked from Dale’s pantry. Slowly, they ate, with Dale looking into the meaty steak on his plate with disgust while Margaret watched him in silence, chewing.

“Eat, lad. You’ll need it for the journey.”

Blinking, Dale peered up at her. She quickly explained after swallowing a piece of potato with meat. “You’re being hunted, Dale. Not yet, not fully. But when the Watch gets a whiff that you and Robert were both on the same shift and same place from all the witnesses last night, you’ll be hanged by the neck in three days. I won’t be able to protect or hide you.”

“What am I to do…?” He asked shakily, the knife in his hands clutched hard by fearful fingers.

“Flee. And quickly. As far as you can. Do you have any friends? Family, distant relatives…?” Margaret asked, peering between his eyes as he himself looked away, deep in thought. Brows scrunching, he remembered, indeed, the family he had in Cliffmoore. Or, rather, had -had-. He did not know if any were still alive, or wanted him back. He had fled that life. His father, mother and sister. Distant memories before he began to travel from city to city.

“... Cliffmoore. A distant backwater. An old kingdom. It’s- my old home. Childhood. Foggy, is all. I might still have my family there. I honestly don’t know, my Lady.”

“Then run. Run as far to Cliffmoore as you can. The law won’t catch you. At least Bloodstone’s. It’s your only chance to live on, Dale.”

“As a criminal? A murderer? Why are you doing this? I deserve the noose!’ Dale roared out, slamming the knife down against the table, embedding its underside right into the plank. Margaret froze, staring at it with wide eyes before, trembling looking into Dale’s eyes.

“Believe me, lad… I’ve seen curses before. The Council’s too… modern, too tolerant of Tarkhanite sciences to say otherwise. Magic’s not something explainable. They’ll call you insane, a murderer unable to control themselves and in need of a putting down. But you’re not at fault here. You were simply used as a weapon. By whom or why, I dare not wonder. It’s best you run as far as you can, lad. Please…”

Margaret, at the end of her plea, began to soften her expression and tone. 

“Why do this for me? Cursed or not…”

“If I began to explain, I believe you would hardly understand. Know that despite whatever may come of your life, young Dale, there are…” her eyes parted away from his, peering out his window, draped over with covers, with only a bit of light coming through. A distant church bell could be heard. She turned back to him in eerie silence, filled with the clanging in the distance. Her expression had hardened.

“There are friends you don’t know about.”

The look in her eyes put the fear of God in Dale’s eyes, so much so he was silent. Silent still,a s she left, with a pouch of gold, neatly prepared for him. So he did with it what he should, and by the time darkness had settled on the city once more, Dale of Cliffmoore was approaching a man holding a lantern aloft close to his face, holding the reins of a horse, one of two, hooked up to a carriage.

“Hale, is it? Strange name.”

Dale said nothing. He simply got on the carriage, having thrown the man his money. Grumbling, the driver hollered to the other passengers beside Dale, who looked at him with both worry and distrust.

“Alright! We’ll get past the curfew in a few moments. No yammering. One way ticket to Oldwall! Hyah!”

The carriage took Dale deeper down south. Deeper than he should have. As he got closer, a sinking feeling came to him. Perhaps, for the first time in his life, Dale understood that the life of freedom was not for him. Somehow, the feeling of returning home was both comforting and painful. Comforting that he would go to the place of his childhood, and once more settle there in the beauty of his little backwater…

And pain from the claw-like grip that strangled his heart, as he got closer and closer to that dreaded kingdom. And each night, he could swear he could hear Robert’s screams.

And a woman’s laughter.