Insanity is a unique feeling. Many thought I was insane for my actions, although back then I was thinking with the utmost clarity. There was no insanity, it was more instinctual if anything. I wanted to kill so I did. I wanted to be cruel so I was. Everything I did had purpose and lined up with my aims and goals. When fighting a monster, usually it’s a very physical challenge – lots of needing to outsmart a creature whose existence revolves completely around its ability to hunt and kill humans and other monsters. Such a life is a constant war, and to kill one requires the right tool and mind. The closer you can walk along the path of insanity while being completely sane, the better you will be at dispatching something which is very much a walking nightmare. I have the tool for the job with Savra and I can defeat it, but this creature – this foul monster makes me feel insane.

It really does feel like chasing a shadow. Shadows move, grow and jump out at me in all sorts of strange, surreal and horrifying forms that ebb and flow with the wind and preexisting shadows. It never jumps out though. It doesn’t rush the kill like a normal monster would – no, it knows exactly what it is doing and has the patience to do it. Its battle plan is simple yet brutally effective. Stalk me until tired. Make me chase shadows so I am constantly focused and on edge. The moment I begin to doze off, do something to keep me awake. Make it so I dive into the shadows and swing wildly, then let the adrenaline wear off and repeat until I am completely exhausted. When I cannot lift my knife and my eyes physically cannot stay open, that’s when it will strike. Brutally efficient and normally if I was in my right mind, I would just lock the door to the cart and let it do its thing with Sam but… I just can’t bring myself to let that happen. I promised myself and Sam that I would protect us, and if another horse dies, the blame will continue to fall on myself. Not only will I never make any money but I also will run out of good will. So why am I so lost in thought right now? That is because, Fa, the only way to deal with this monster is to not let my bodies natural response exhaust me. I need to stay calm and focused. I cannot tetter too far down the path of insanity, because with each shadow I dive into, I release just how foolish that action was and doubt my judgement.

Sam on the other hand is constantly spinning and moving around. She is tied to the cart but still has plenty of room to move and is using every single milimeter of space to spin and run around in. She keeps wrenching on the rope, threatening to tear it in half or bring the cart down. I know that if she runs off, not only will an important companion be gone but Sam will also swiftly meet her end. Every fearful neigh sears deep in my soul. The intense feeling of being stalked is all that holds me back from completely breaking down in tears. Why empathy? This is exactly what I mean! Sadness and fear are such useless emotions! I would never have this issue if it wasn’t for this damn curse. I would have let Sam go ages ago to give myself time to rest, or use her as a bait and the moment she is pounced upon, I would finish the monster. I have used other travelers as bait plenty of times. Two birds with one stone, my murder is covered up with a monster attack and I get to enjoy decapitating said monster. Fuck, I need to do something or Sam might just knock this cart over and end up dead. All this movement isn’t helping her injuries at all either – wait, why did the monster not kill her? Was it to keep me on edge? Would it kill her if it had the option or is it solely after myself? That would make sense – with the curse I have, bringing forth a monster that is designed to destroy me would be a simple task.

I have been sitting down for the past minute or so. My eyes are closed to both rest my eyes and pick up sounds and movement more effectively. This also helps me break through the shadowy illusions that this monster has plagued me with. Rustles. Growls that are both low and high pitched at once. Shrieks. The sound of metal scraping on the ground – what is this thing made of? Every single sound echoes throughout the frozen landscape, surrounding my senses with an unnatural sense of dread. No, not just dread, the sounds, the sights, they really do make me feel insane. What could this monster be – a metal clawed wolf that can teleport around in the shadows or something? That is just stupid, what does it have two heads, one tiny and one massive that shriek and growl at once? You see why this is slowly making me feel insane.

The echoes fade to a quite whistling wind. It… must still be out there, waiting for me to relax so it can strike again. That is the only option here, I mean, what else could it be doing? Leaving me and going for someone else? On Langnet’s road? No, I am the only person here. I take a deep breath and open my eyes.

Eyes. So many eyes. A panel of onyx black eyes stare down, millimeters from my face. Where eyes are not, a thick black and gray fur pokes through. The eyes do not blink, nor does the creature move. Neither do I. The pupils of these eyes have no glow or vibrancy. Its mouth is curled open in a permanent smile of long, sharp and jagged pitch black teeth with a tongue that looks like a night sky – a black parchment with countless white dots poking out of its form. Saliva drips from its maw. Its head is so big that I cannot see past it. The horrible sound of metal scraping on metal drills deep into my ears, but I do not turn around. I cannot turn to see whatever is making this noise. I clench Savra, my only comfort in this moment. The head slowly twists to the side. It continues twisting. And twisting. And twisting. A large blanket of pale skin slides down, covering the eyes, the fur, the mouth – everything. The head pulls back and I turn to the side – there is a long, icy white and blue tendril with hooked claws along its underside. They tear against the ground, shredding any snow or ice along its way. At the very tip, the tendril splits into twin tips that… that… that burn like coals. Those were not eyes, but whatever this strange tendril attached to its face is? I quickly hop to my feet as the head pulls back. I must follow it to find the body – this is my chance! I run after the head – wait. That is no head. There is a… a large circle of white around it with countless black veins running through it. That pale skin wraps over the… its eye once more. That was no head, its just one of the creatures’ eyes. Just an eye, larger than my body, or Sam, or even the cart – so large that all I could make out was the pupil. I push myself to keep running after the eye. I must see this body – must I? It… it must be horrifying – why do I care of horror? I am horrifying! I am the monster both humans and creatures fear. I have never tasted fear before so why is it coating my mouth so?! Why is the sickly taste of despair making my muscles tense? The wind is making me tear up while running – I wipe my blurry eyes and see a looming shadow. The… the eye pulls back to it. I cannot see its body, but – no, it can’t be. There are… there must be twenty or so pairs of burning coals. They are spread out all over its form; one eye can move quite the distance, so whenever I saw coals and through it was eyes, I wasn’t wrong but that was not the creature but a very small part of it.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

The light from my torch fades as I get to the edge of its glow. The eye stops moving as I do, almost beckoning me forward to witness its true form. I slowly walk backwards and the eye follows – I cannot leave Sam behind. I cannot leave her to be butchered by one of the tendrils. The eye follows me curious at my sudden change in direction, or at least I assume it is curious because if not, why wouldn’t it shoot all the eyes at me and tear my body apart with its hook covered tendrils? Everything is so dark and black, I can barely make out details beyond colour and vague shape. Why does the eye have a mouth? Why a tongue? Why an eyelid? Why fur? This thing is… it makes no sense. I get back to the cart and the eye just keeps moving forward. The bastard. It twists, dialing and focusing in on me. I dart around the cart, ducking out of view. It lost me. Good. I turn and… there are another twenty or so pairs of red coals here too. Are there two? Or is one merely so massive that it is the land itself? It this frozen wasteland but one monster? That couldn’t be, how would one kill that and how would it sustain itself? Monsters still need to eat for survival but something this big, how could it be patent and wait for anything? It must be starving constantly, waiting for pray to quickly devour so it can get the nutrients it so desperately needs. No, there are either two or it is one massive one, potentially. Both options are still… terrifying. Terrifying? Again? I cannot believe I would say something so blasphemous but… yet it is true. I am truly afraid down to my very core. I need to do something.

I grab the torch while climbing up the cart’s side. The eye hasn’t found me yet. I can see behind the eye. There is a long black and gray furred twine that slowly pulses with a faint red glow one every second or so. The twisted twine bulges and swells, launching whatever is stored in its body deep into the eyes. This is a chance. My chance. The eye is still looking for me. It goes to the ground and a long, thin tube extends from the pupil of each eye within its one, massive form. The sound of air being sucked is heard before the cart begins rolling towards the eye by its own accord. Is it smelling the air? I cannot wait for whatever this is to finish.

I jump off the cart’s roof; colours blur.

I slam against stiff, moist fur; I lift and, with all my might, swing Savra down.

A thick liquid explodes into the air. The eye writhes in pain.

The eye snaps around; I grab the back of it.

It cannot see me, but it can feel me. The eye shakes and trembles. I wrap my hand in hair coating the eye.

Wind blasts against my back; the eye shoots backwards.

The eye snaps still; I barely hang on.

I look down and see the monster… the creature… the beast.

It’s body is a twisted mess of twine, tendrils and hair all woven together in a cryptic braid. The eye retreats into a socket where other eyes rest with different colour of skin eyelids covering them. This creature is able to sleep and act at the same time, it would seem. I am close enough. Savra finds the twisted fur underneath me and cuts deeply into the tendril on this second strike. It takes me one slice to get through a human neck. One to get through an arm. One and a half – or two if we are being technical and rounding up – slices to get through a leg. This massive form has taken two full strikes and still it is only halfway through being severed. I am truly a disappointment if this is my end.

The eye launches back; I cut again.

The eye stops and shudders; I cut again.

The eye writhes in pain once more; I cut again.

The eye falls: I my fall is cushioned by soft fur.

The fur unravels, giving way to a massive maw. The rest of its body is hidden in darkness and shadow, blending into nothingness. It is as far as my eye can see without being able to take in anything. It does not have rows of teeth, instead it has thousands of long, thin tubes – just like what the eyes had. Blood flies as the eye’s stem uncontrollably flies through the sky. I grab the hair. Air gets sucked in. If I fall, I will be pulled onto a cluster of those mosquito-like tubes and be unable to respond as I assume my innards are torn from my body.

WOOMPH!

I squeeze the hairs, barely hanging on. The air pressure is so great, it is as if my soul was being torn from my body. The pull is so powerful that my muscles are slowly being torn as I try to hold myself back. I could drop and let my blade to the talking but there is no proof that this would kill such a monster. I cannot see or fathom the rest of its form. The light of my torch is barely holding on. This is the moment. I drop my torch and it is sucked into the monster. There is a loud shriek of pain – or at least I hope of pain. Air is pushed out of the monster, launching me high into the air. I lose track of what up and whats down – without light, I am merely spinning through murky sky. Wind surrounds me as I fall up and down – or down then up? Where am I falling? What am I doing? Who am I?

BANG

I slam against the cold floor. My body shudders and throbs with a numb pain. My senses are knocked out of my chest. My migraine is back. Fuck it all. I try getting to my feet but my body does not move. I try groaning in pain but once again, nothing. I try to at least pull myself up to a seated position but I just cannot move. I cough. The taste of blood coats my mouth. Fuck, how high did I go? How fast did I drop? Do I have any broken bones? I hope not, there is no help or salvation here.

After a fit of coughing up blood, I gather just enough strength to stand up. The creature is completely gone – not dead, just gone. Swallowed up by the elements – I might have won the battle but… this creature cannot be dead, not that easily. A little torch fire is going to do nothing. I was hoping for a massive inferno of the hairs all burning at once. I was hoping for a large corpse so at least I knew there was safety now, no matter how much I would throw up at killing another living creature.

“Good job, Fa. Not only have you lost your light, but the great monster here has merely gone into hiding after eating something a little spicer than anticipated. Allow me to remind you, first and foremost I am your tormentor. Nothing I bring forward is quick or easy, especially this being. Let me be frank with you, your thinking before was right. This whole frozen wasteland is that monster.”

My heart sinks. Was this really just a pesky annoyance to the monster?

“Well, a little more then that. I would not recommend sleeping for very long but do try to keep madness away. I would hate for this to be your end. Torture is never good if the torture end prematurely. Surely you can understand my opinion, you are a master torturer after all.”

You bastard. Yes, I understand you. I do not want to think about it, or else I might collapse in a pool of my own vomit.

“Well, better then being drained of your body, spirit, and soul. Now sweet dreams, I do wonder when it comes back, and if it is hungry for a little horse.”

There is a rumbling from where my cart and horse must be. There is no light and no way for me to find my route home. There are no footprints since I was dragged here through the air. Shit, I need to escape. I will escape.

I run back to where the cart should be. But there is nothing, nothing but darkness.

Fael help me.