Chapter Forty Seven
Joe rested against the tree, the rough bark oddly soft against his back as he gazed up into the stars. They trailed across the skies in beautiful spirals amongst an overwhelming sea of stars. Garnedell, Kilniara and Zilnek played in the distance out in the field running around the camp fire, its bright light spreading far enough, allowing them to play in the fields with the small children. Kilniara and Garnedell spent quite a bit of time with the kids, chasing and playing with them; Garnedell because of his youth and Kilniara because of deep love of children. Zilnek played with them a few times, but remained a bit aloof from the children and the other two apprentices. Joe pulled his eyes away from the campfire and back to the stars, recognizing some constellations, a deep sense of satisfaction and calm coming over him.
A few moments later, a scream rippled through the night, and Joe found himself standing with bow in hand, faster than he’d ever moved before. Kilniara and Garnedell were dashing back towards the fire, pulling the children behind them. The scrambled towards the camp while Zilnek stood, turning to face outward. Behind Garnedell and Kilniara, several bandits swept in, sliding across the ground so quickly that Joe felt he almost didn’t have time to respond.
An arrow appeared in the bow, the string already drawn back and his sight on the first bandit. The arrow flew from his bow and slammed into the bandit. Joe didn’t even watch what happened and already had another arrow flying to the next bandit. His drawing arm moved in a blur, arrows streaking across the field as he killed each of the bandits and soon sighed in relief, dropping his bow when he felled the last one.
But when he glanced back, he saw the first bandit had only slowed, the person was still standing and moving towards the campfire. Joe immediately raised his bow again and let loose another half dozen arrows, easily felling the bandits once more. He didn’t drop his bow, however, and looked back at the first one with some fear.
The bandit was still walking, struggling to get to the campfire at all costs. This time, he aimed carefully, making sure his arrow struck the bandit fatally. The arrow hit the bandit in the throat, an obvious fatal strike. However, the bandit seemed to split, a body tumbled the ground, falling as if killed by the strike of the fatal arrow. Simultaneously, the bandit continued walking forward, the arrow disappearing and following the corpse to the ground while the bandit seemed to continue walking forward without having been struck at all, only moving slower.
Joe sent another three or four arrows at the bandit, all hitting him and killing a clone or shadow but not seeming to stop him. Soon, Joe looked behind the first bandit and found the next ones catching up quickly as they had only been struck a few times. Joe quickly began sending arrows between each of the bandits, striking the fastest one to slow it down as quickly as possible.
Joe felt his instincts flare, a warning sensed rather than actually seen. He sent his next shot, making sure to keep his eye on his target but immediately took a step to the right as he was able to see things to his right were clear. As soon as he let the arrow fly, he quickly turned to his left, looking for what caught him by surprise and felt his eyes widen in shock. A stream of slowly shambling rotten corpses struggled towards him, rising with arrows in their bodies. It took him a bit to catch it, but each corpse had one of his arrows in its body. His eyes flicked back to the struggling bandits, ever pushing to close with his apprentices and the two children before sliding his eyes back to the trail of ghostly bodies left behind them. His eyes followed the trail then froze, the feeling of a gasp escaping his lungs although he couldn’t say that he noticed or felt anything.
One of the bandit’s fallen corpses began twitching, its body struggling to its feet before it turned towards him and began stumbling towards him. Joe grimaced in worry and quickly looked back at his apprentices. The living bandits were now walking a bit faster, almost as if there were slowing recovering. Joe grimaced a curse, and turned his shots to the legs. His arrows struck true, hitting thighs or knees. These shots did not slow the bandits at all, nor did any corpse fall from the bandits at all. Joe panicked, his arrows returned to fatal strikes and soon had corpses raining from the bandits as they pushed towards his friends. They slowed as they did before, but the zombies seemed to be reviving ever faster and faster.
Soon, Joe saw the ones he’d hit in the knee and they did move slower towards him, but now each attack would require two arrows. One to maim the future zombie and one to kill it and slow the bandit. Joe changed strategies and strained to send two arrows into each bandit, keeping them back from his apprentices and the children, while simultaneously trying to slow the zombies that shambled towards him. Joe was able to continue for some time, but was soon dancing around the field in a desperate attempt keep away from the ever growing zombies.
Joe scrambled away from the zombies, trying to now push towards his friends, hoping he could at least stand by their side. But even as he pushed forward, he zombies suddenly seemed to crowd in front of him, and he began an anxious drive to the side, always finding himself pushed to the side and further from his friends each time.
Joe grew more frantic, pressing forward harder, but pushed away further while being surrounded with ever increasing numbers of zombies. Soon, he was barely able to fire off a shot before he had to wildly dive to a side, the fingers and arms of zombies brushing his body before he stood again and tried to fire another shot. More fingers brushed him, arms sliding across torso, arms, and legs. Breath came frantically, shallow and insufficient.
He got another shot off and smiled, happy to have saved his friends once more before he tore away once again. However, something small, insignificant, snagged the edge of his jeans and he felt his leg catch, unable to come forward quickly enough. He stumbled forward, waving hands wildly for balance and just barely stood again, but then felt another brush, another bump, another small hit, that killed his balance.
He fell to the ground and tucked into a frantic roll. He almost made it. He almost stood again, but then a zombie collapsed against his back, dropping him flat to the ground. He bucked violently and scrambled forward, able to throw the zombie off and gain another couple of steps, but another tumbled onto his legs.
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His bucking proved less effective as he arched his body anxiously. The zombie tumbled off, slowly, and for a split second, he was able to scrabble away once again, but another toppled onto his back. He dropped low to buck strongly, but another wrapped up his legs, and then he felt another two dog pile him. He bucked wildly anyway, then scrambled forward once again. He made a few feet but ran directly into the legs of another zombie which promptly dropped on his shoulders.
Soon, they were falling like rain across his back and pinning him down, the claustrophobia of darkness and the dank smell of earth invaded his nose. Soon, he felt a slimy sensation of cold mucus running across his arms, legs, and torso, hard teeth slipping across his skin, lubricated by the mucus.
Calm thought and reason evacuated and he was left with only panicked flailing. Pain began punctuating his entire body. Suddenly, the zombies that had collapsed on his head closed slowly on him, and he was unable to close his eyes, his back to the ground, face to the sky, and five dead bandits with rotting faces, mucus and rotting flesh dripping onto his, slowly came towards him, teeth bared and seeking to gnaw his face.
They came towards him. They always came towards him but never reached him. And he recognized every single face as they forever loomed closer and closer.
* * *
Joe woke with a gasp, heart pounding, and stared at the soothing black above his bed, the faces of the five bandits he’d killed now gone, but somehow still floating at the edges of his sight, like some form of after image left over from his dream.
His breath rattled like a century old steam engine, functional but not quiet or orderly, jangling wildly and loudly. He blinked several times and wrestled with himself, bringing his breathing under control and calming his fears. Glancing around the room wildly, finding it empty but for who should be there, calmed him and allowed him to be able to face the early morning.
He had woken earlier than usual and allowed himself a moment to simply lay in bed. His mind skittered around his dream, wishing to dismiss it but soon realized that he might have to confront it. He’d had several dreams now, all of them of the same place, friends, and enemies, although Zilnek and Kilniara had joined his dream after they started joining their little team.
Previously, he’d never realized that he was dreaming of the five bandits he’d killed on the trip to the city, but with the way the five faces had loomed over him, he quickly recognized them for who they were. His mind once again danced away like water on a hot pan, but he forced himself to confront the issue, his mind searching through the issue.
The problem seemed rather obvious, as he’d never killed another being before, except for hunting wild animals. He’d never felt much concern for the creatures he’d hunted, although he wasn't callous either, hunting them for food, and not simply for sport. This was the first time he’d ever killed a sapient, and he realized that it would be very obvious why it would affect him. The only thing he couldn’t understand was why he was able to sleep so easily the night of the event and for several days… even weeks!... afterward without any concern.
Why am I freaking out now? What’s bothering me? What’s changed?
Despite careful exploration, Joe was not able to come to any conclusion why he was only now experiencing what he could only guess was PTSD. At least maybe it’s mild? Only got dreams right now? Joe flushed but then worried, knowing how important rest was and worried how he would be able to live well if he was never able to get any decent rest.
Joe mulled over the problem a good half hour but couldn’t find anything, soon finding the fear and panic returning as he began to think on his dreams more. He took a deep sigh and decide to table it, not wanting to deal with a panic in the early dark hours of the morning.
Run away, for the win! No internet, so next best thing. Status!
Joe’s status came up and drowned himself in the numbers, finding a peace that was at least able to distract him, if not calm or set his worries to rest. He spent a good chunk of time playing with party theorist job guidance, exploring the possibilities of the job, but found it limited and unwilling to help him. Is it worthless? Or is it something else? Job guidance worked for him, and what description he was able to get seemed to say that it was a superior version of job guidance, specifically for that grouping of jobs.
Joe spent a few more moments wrestling with it before he finally gave up and went back to exploring his skills, checking their stats, and then looking at his stats. He double checked how he was doing with his base growth and found that he was still quite far from any of his earth based stats. Wait! Magic stuff is close! Only four points to reach the average one hundred. Nice!
So… that means I’m done with MP, magic, and magic defense; along with IQ and wisdom, although I was able to get those past max a good couple weeks ago… wait…!
Joe began scrambling in his mental calendar, trying to place the timing of things and was soon quite sure that he’d gotten his IQ and wisdom to the minimum around the same time as the dreams had started. Is that…?
Joe’s mind wrestled with this new data, but wasn’t sure what he could take from it. He knew that he’d felt quite a lot of relief when he knew that he wasn’t going to turn like Zilnek was now. And while the wisdom was nice, he wasn’t certain he understood what it actually meant, practically. He was very certain what IQ did.
Joe felt the panic coming on him, but shook it off again. Don’t have time, man! Still got quite a few more stats… Realization washed over him and Joe sighed, relief following realization as he chuckled slightly. Heh… I feel like I made it, so now my brain feels like it’s ‘safe’ enough to panic.
Joe shook his head and, with that understanding, felt calmness come to him. He wasn’t sure what he could do, but knew that it would calm with time. He spent some time trying to figure out what he could do to deal with it, but he wasn’t one for much in the way of psychology or the humanities. He’d spent most of his time on his martial arts, and his college degree was focused more on practical engineering. He had almost no training, beyond psych 101 from his first year in college.
Joe dug through his thoughts, trying to bring anything he could think of, but ultimately found himself unable to find anything pertinent and finally decided to simply fall back on what he’d been taught. Admit it, apologize, and forgive. Who? Um… myself, I guess? So… I guess I… killed someone…
As soon as Joe made the statement, his heart began pounding and Joe found himself unable to continue, sitting up in bed quickly and desperately trying to get his panicked breathing under control.
He took some time to bring himself to some form of normalcy and felt his mind skittering away from the issue. Noping right out of here! Don’t … can’t deal with it right now!
Joe dove back into his status but found his mind still circling the issue like a lemming anxious to leap back in. He struggled but soon gave up and came to his feet quickly, stumbling into a form, losing himself in a kata, washing his mind away into oblivion.
* * *