With that notification, the carnine’s eyes glaze over, and I find myself seated next to its corpse. It really is an ugly thing. Scattered, ratty hair. An ugly red color, like a sore. Mostly bald tail. And its eyes… don’t look peaceful.

I guess it makes sense, considering I’m holding the fragments of its soul…

But there’s something about its eyes that haunt me.

Something that makes me think.

Demands an answer for why I was willing to destroy it. Why I thought death wasn’t enough. In the silence of the aftermath, it becomes harder and harder to justify the extra measure. Not because Rav was here to see it, he wouldn't know what I did. Couldn’t know. All he saw was me grab the broken leg of a monster, and the monster stop moving.

…

No, I don’t care about his judgement, if he even would judge me for it. I’m judging myself for this. I don’t think I was this way before… willing to kill and indulge in sadism…

Even in the heat of the moment, I always had a line I wouldn’t cross.

And then I got here, to this place. This beautiful, horrifying world, full of endless opportunity and boundless danger… and I lost that line.

It bothers me. It bothers me that I’m kicking myself for what I essentially *had* to do. There’s no room for civility here, for morals or standards. It’s kill or be killed, these are monsters. But it still hurts. It still… I don’t know. Regardless of what fragments do, I’m sure I’ll wish I had gathered more by the time I need them.

In a detached sort of way, I know a lot of my remorse is just as senseless as the aggression that caused it. Chemicals in my blood making me feel angry and strong, then their absence making me feel mortified… but knowing that doesn’t stop it. Understanding what’s wrong doesn’t fix it.

And the same voice that whispers ‘coward’ in my ear every time I’m not paying attention is now whispering ‘murderer’ too.

__

I don’t know how long I sat there, staring at nothing. I do know that my emotions are getting far more chaotic than normal, just flying from blind rage to crushing guilt. Before all this, it didn’t really happen… but maybe that was because nothing ever drove me that hard. I was never attacked by anything that meant to kill me, never genuinely thought I was going to die… my life was pretty easy. I got scared, sure, but honestly the fear was never real. I was always safe, and I knew I was safe. Even when I probably wasn’t safe, staring down some random bear during a hike, I *knew* it wasn’t going to attack me. So, while I felt scared, I didn’t… *feel* scared. Now? My mortality is ever-present. Whether it’s traumatized humans that might snap at a moment's notice or crazed monsters than seem intent on killing people, I know that ‘guarantee of safety’ I felt before is long gone. I… never realized how accustomed to that safety I had gotten until I had it ripped away. Knowing there’s nowhere for me to go, no safe haven with people who care and would protect me, no higher power looking out for me… it’s not something I ever thought I’d face.

And now? With all *this* in front of me? Why… why do any of this? I can either become a killer, squashing the things I think make me human, or I can… die. Part of me wishes I could hole up next to the river and just forget about all this. Try making something of a life. I think it would even be fun to try building a fort or something. Make my own tools, build, grow, and learn. I would like that. Then, the whole ‘gamified’ existence I have going on now could actually feel like a game. Gaining skills and stats, seeing measurable progress in whatever I try to do, all that would be a bit like life before, but more fulfilling. There is probably plenty of adventure to have on this world that doesn’t involve killing. Mountains to summit, caves to explore, ruins to delve. Why can’t I have that?

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…

But I’m pitying myself. I know that. I can hear my own common sense wryly responding to every one of my complaints with exactly why I’m being a whiny bitch and exactly how to fix it, but I don’t want to fix it. Any of it. I don’t want to die and I don’t want to fight.

It’s not like I could tame any of those Carnine creatures… and even if I could, they aren’t powerful enough. Maybe it would open a line of communication with the other monsters, but what then? Ask them politely to let us kill them all? We literally have a quest to ‘eliminate’ them, and if we don’t then we can’t get whatever benefits a ‘village’ provides, whatever the fuck those may be.

We were thrown into a game with a torn and burned piece of the rulebook and expected to just figure it out. Or maybe we’re supposed to be like food? I’ve been treating this like something that was designed around people, around humans, but it might not be. What if we’re just fodder for something stronger? Some far superior alien race that is using this place as a… game…

Oh.

Wouldn’t that just be fucking hilarious. Aliens that don’t invade, they just rob a world of all its people and pit them against ridiculous challenges, themselves, or random monsters, or whatever. I wonder if they’d have cameras or something that just watch everything. A giant battle royale of fuck.

I shake my head slightly, sighing.

There’s no reason to think about this kind of stuff, and it’s all spite-motivated speculation anyway. Cathartic, maybe, but not useful, and right now I need useful. Until I’m safe and can break down in peace.

Speaking of safety, where’s Kaythe?

I stand up and look around, but I don’t see it in my immediate vicinity. Alarmed, I rapidly turn over the corpses, worried it might have gotten hurt, but there’s no sign of it anywhere. The surrounding hills make for extremely inconvenient sight lines…

Where the hell…

I mean, it’s not a huge creature, but it also isn’t tiny, and the grass isn’t tall enough to hide it. I jog up to the top of a nearby hill and quickly survey the area. I see the fortifications of the monster camp, the looming mountains, and I can barely make out the glistening river we came from… but no Kaythe. Did it… decide to go home? But why?

The thought of it leaving by choice fills me with pain, reigniting the loneliness I vanquished only minutes before. I try my best to dismiss the possibility; Kaythe wouldn’t leave without saying something. But where… Damn these blasted hills! It could be anywhere!

I hear footsteps approaching me.

Rav, I already know, wondering why I’m looking so panicked.

“I need to find Kaythe, it’s gone and I don’t know where- did you see? Rav, I can’t find-”

“Calm. Calm yourself, friend. I know not what happened to your little companion, but I am sure I did not see it harmed. Come, we will find it.” He smiles, his usual, innocuous smile. It doesn’t do much to calm me, but I try to stop outwardly panicking as much. More as a sign of solidarity than anything.

I nod, and do my best to open my senses.

Something I never noticed before, being just a regular human, was the control we have over what we experience. All of your senses can be willfully dulled, but when you have such a small range to cover, you barely notice it. The change isn’t meaningful enough. A child, screaming endlessly? Dull your hearing. A normal human wouldn’t notice much difference, perhaps the experience is slightly less irritating, but nothing more. But now? My hearing is constantly assaulted by a cacophony of tiny, meaningless sounds. The rustle of an insect in the grass 10 feet away, the wind shaking a bush in the distance, the beating of my own heart, but hidden in all of that could be an actual threat. I can dull it so only the really pronounced sounds get through, like a sudden crackle of dried grass or the heavy pounding of a charging monster. It isn’t perfect, and while I can focus on particular sounds that I already hear, I have trouble listening *for* particular sounds. For instance, the clacking of my wayward cathid.

Stats give you the ability to be better, but not the knowledge of how. Even though my perception is higher than almost any other stats, I still need to wade through learning how to be perceptive.

Classic.