It was following him.

The sieve of evolution had imparted prodigious stealth, yet Ulick could feel its eyes upon his skin. Lubricated grapes, rolling and sliding over each finger, arm, and toe. Yet they were beyond sight. Hidden amongst rambling trees, with mussy roots and barrelled chests. The dark oaks rose high, their bark pickled with cavernous wrinkles. Laid beneath the canopy spread a sour blanket of water. It bundled not in comfortable nesting, but moss-laden clumps. Amongst it all, within the slick greens and brackish brown drink, the hunter scuttled. Watching.

Flawless was not a trait one could impart upon it, for the hunter clicked and splashed beyond the ignorable. It imitated each step, like some foul parrot of frightful hunger. But, where those fowls sang to the beat, this one was a step behind. The ripples mismatched, disturbing water when it ought to be still. Childishly spry and an overwhelming desire to act. To discard patience, and then reign it all in lest you go to sleep without dinner. A kiddish cry for the arrival of another, to the keen-eyed enemy.

Ulick took a deep breath. Corpse-stink had traded for sickly, overripe fruits. Each step seemed to unearth some new layer beneath the skin. Tangy, sweet, sour: they all passed in a stage-less blur. Rhythm secured each step, and for want of eking silent distance, they weighed like mocking peals of laughter. Grim settlement of a need to outpace time’s notches upon his legs pushed him forward, despite their weary state. Stopping would merely sap what strength remained.

At one point, he considered the torch. It burnt low but carried deceptively far. The swamps were the kind of dark even an owl would be hard-pressed to pierce. Why was it then, that he sensed eyes upon him? One would think such unnecessary orbs would fall in adaptive popularity. Unless, they were not eyes, but a sense of attention? A way for the mind to internally comprehend a sense it was not adapted for? Ulick did not know.

Consideration below the burning belt struck such thoughts from grasp. A stranger’s hand. His own was a pale, bony thing of intimate familiarity. What gripped the torch was new. There were points of distant connection. How one finger tilted ever so one way, while another did some such. It was a repainting, conducted by a fan who saw flaws not for their character, but as points in need of correction. It was perfect. A beautiful thing. Something any painter would still self-critique, but in the eyes of its subject? The hand was everything Ulick could have wanted. And it sickened him.

Entranced, Ulick almost missed black-pearl eyes. They shone, wet, and viscous. Wide-grinned, and mid-pounce, the hunter swept out his feet. Falling with a heart-dropping grunt, beneath the brown waters, he sighted it as the torch submerged. A bald, chimpanzee figure. Sloped muscles dripping – threatening to snap its reed-bones. Sunken eyes framed its terrible grin and snub nose. Its long, childish hands were curled into tiny hammers. Ulick’s head, a proverbial nail, drove deeper into the sticky riverbed with each blow.

Trashing, they became a tangle of limbs. Water rushed through his nose, tunnelling straight down his throat. A torrent of coughs escaped, fleeing this lost cause. The hunter reared back. One hand came up, redirecting a lethal crunch to the neck. Blunted incisors ground and tore at the collarbone – savouring the taste it found. Ulick screamed. He curled a thumb and jabbed at its eye. At first, there was resistant. Strong, and plastic, it flexed: hardening with pressure. With a final heave, it split, and he sunk to the knuckle.

Now, it screamed.

Ulick sensed another blow – this one seeking in-kind retaliation. Jerking, his head smeared. Moving like paint across a canvas, Ulick’s very being became malleable. Its harlequin nails met riverbank, where it ought to have caught flesh. Off-balance, he rolled into freedom.

Breaching with a lung-rasping heave, Ulick snagged a dagger. Gripping the leather with wrist-stressed strength, he waited, kneeling. It howled, splashing like a toddler. Sloshing atop long, spindly arms, it rushed him. A harsh stroke brought him down, diagonally. Rubber banding, he gashed its chest. Ducking beneath an arching swipe, Ulick dripped. Pulled down like fat, wet blobs of paint, he sunk. Abstracted, and simplified into stokes, he was reimagined behind it.

Ulick struck. Imbedded to the hilt, the blade wheedled against its spine, seeking passage. It choked, clutching its neck. A pigment of empathy awash with motes of anger struck a violent addition. Rearing as it had, he slammed the steel-tooth into its back. Again, and again, he hacked away. Leaving a life lost under stabbed crosshatches. Ulick had lost himself, gone off on some mad artistry – pardon, killing. Complexities returned, dotting in emotion with a score of nuances. Over time, the rendition was complete – though something lost. Like a copy of a copy, more of the original was tweaked by a well-meaning replicator.

Exhaustion collapsed his knees, and adrenaline left shaky hands. An urge to vomit rose, but there was nothing to release. The pain knocked, announcing its presence before squeezing its mass through the door. Rising, and filling the room, the swell centred him. An hour passed before his legs felt steady. Boarded with burdensome imaginations of infected, puss-pocketed muscles, it was a matter of necessity. On the topic of which, sight was now a memory.

Eyes upon palms, the world alight with various fondles. Treading an unseen path, he felt forward. Blunderful gropes tangled his hands among roots, and tree trunks that seemed without end. They were rough, snaking things, with twists and turns deep enough that his nails never met their bottom. Stumbling through bothersome resistance, underfoot silt and sticks nipped his heels. More than once, a patch of slippery something upon a bough would whisk him underwater, with a deafening splash. Yet, no one heard it.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Peculiarities surfaced, bumping recollections of paths traversed with circling doubts. Neither ankle nor wrist popped. Fingers no longer stiffened from unuse, and his nose was a touch thinner. Its bulb more tolerable to his own critique. Had he lost himself already? So soon? No. Though Ulick may be a moniker of choice, it had yet to become his name. A definition of being. He was still himself, by the name of his birth – just… a little different. But everybody changed. Just, not in this way.

On a similar topic, woozy was a word. A fun, whimsical saying that stated its feeling in pronunciation. Say it aloud and feel the verbal swoon. The recoil of “woo” and return in “zy.” Blood was a vital source, full of oxygen and other little factors of importance he cared not to commit in long-term memory. No, the aim of the now was princess pipedreams and satin sheets.

“Hey, now hold up a second there, Mr. Me,” he thought, stumbling. “Just hit me.” He smacked his arm. “Thanks. Now, I was talking to fairies before. Like, non-human sentient things.”

A minute passed.

“That’s not normal, we know that so… like, care about it me.”

He pretended to.

“Nope.” Ulick sighed, and continued, thinking, “Great. Anything else you want to brush under the rug?”

Another voice answered him.

Ulick’s knees dropped, tumbling him against a tree with unnatural fluidity. Breathing ceased. A minute passed – nothing. Words carried, but no matter how he craned an ear, the meaning was lost among the reeds.

Had they seen him? No, he had no torch. Heard him then? Maybe. He needed to move. Yes. That was a sensible idea. Staying where they might expect, pardon, know his location was a dance with death. What if they had bows? What if they could see in the dark?

He peeked around the tree. A stranger’s pale moon glow caged beneath cloth cover beckoned him forth. It did not waver, patient in its dreary call. Ulick pulled back.

They had a lantern or something, so they must not be able to. But what if some could? They may not even be humans. This is some weird fantasy land with fairies – speaking of which, he was way too calm that chimp-thing. It had tried to kill him, and it did not even strike him as important afterwards! Who was casual about a lanky ass ape with baby hands coming at you in the swamp? A-and, and… there it went. Gone. Absent. Rather than rage against this unwilling calm, Ulick embraced it. Not for a lack of care (thankfully), but a mental nod to its importance in keeping calm. A panic attack might well kill him.

Ulick needed to approach and assess the situation. That required a stealthy approach. Something he was not confident in unless he went terribly slow. In darkness without borders, and scenery revised in the mind’s eye by fingertips and palms, it was a stretch.

Peering around the tree side, details were strained for ideas. Hanging motionlessly, the light would be just beyond reach, had he been standing below it. The absence of movement suggested a fixed source, implying a structure ahead. Of what, there was no clue. Neither of whom. That said, even if the strangers or building fell into tropes like slavers or some such, the princess pipedream was still… somewhat alive. Tribal fishers in a hut were about the extent of his expectations.

Shivering with revulsion, Ulick submerged to the chin in piss-warm water. It smelt like an old egg salad, but him silent, and the kept leech daydreams away. It sucked upon his wound, stinging and prodding with sharp pain. Time passed, the exact quantity of which eluded Ulick. Inversely, the path was all too clear. It tugged and pulled, like a hair about to part from the scalp. Until it did. Unravelling, three strands spun with small dog tugs, going about life as if no development had passed. A sinking feeling said they were tied to the voices ahead. That left little room for alternate plans.

At least their voices had cleared. Well, two to be precise.

Irish lilted, and bone-shatteringly deep, one said, “I have made myself plendiciously clear.” The sentence was raised at the end as if implying a question. “I have, yes? Yes! And you sir, are testing my patience.”

“Agreed,” replied a crack of stone. Though distinctly male, it rang strangely hollow. “Rations better. Yes?”

Ulick bit back a choice word or two as he headbutted a branch.

“Why I will have you know, I am quite well-fed,” the Irishman said, lips thoroughly smacked. “I have other concerns, I do. Unless you’re a doctor?”

Eyes pressed against his skin, rolling, and spreading an oil slick of cumbersome cunning. It dripped through his pores and coated the nerves beneath. Riding the electrical rails, it sent shivers of pain. Skittering from the toes up, the oil formed a jagged point, and at once, slammed between Ulick’s teeth. His gums itched, he tasted blood – it was as if he had cut between his teeth with a bread knife.

“Oh no,” he thought.

“No. Needs, yes?” said the other man. “Walking needs shoes. Alternate fee?”

“This is really bad.”

Ulick looked up. The lantern had moved, settled against the barest of visible surfaces. “Irishman’s too far from it. No other pair of eyes though.” His head cocked. “Maybe they just suspect somethings off?”

The Irishman made a noise of approval, absentmindedly agreeing with their agreeable agreement. “Unfortunately, my needs and your own,” it paused, rolling a half-formed word. It grunted, pained. “Misalign.”

“You ask too much. Shoes are needed. We agree, yes?”

“You have not been listening then, my crunchalious friend.” A large, thumping weight settled. “I merely need the one.” The itch intensified. “And I am quite tired of our chat.”

“Too steep.”

“You’ve to ten then.” Two meaty giants slapped their mitts. “And my counting is quite unreliable, if I must say so.”

A metal rod scraped its way into a hand. “No deal.”

“Woah, hey now!” Ulick yelled, standing with raised palms. “Let’s chat about this, yeah?”

“What am I doing?"

Something patted his back, urging him onwards.

Light unfurled, snapping between his eyes. Leaning into it, he said, “I’m sure we ca-?”

“Name,” cut off the man with a hollow voice. “Purpose. Or death, yes?”

A great weight settled and splashed a wave that rose to his chest. “I too would like to know, yes indeed.”

Blindingly focused, the figures beyond were fleeting silhouettes. He had to look away, and over their dance across the water. Its shimmering tango led him to a hulking thing. Take a man, and stretch him long and wide, such that he fit a square. Fill it with a burly, two-story-tall mass of muscle and fat. Add baboon gums, and a mouthful of shrapnel. Such was the Irishman's splendour.

“Call me Ulick,” he said, eyes locked on the Irishman “That’s what I told the fairies, at least.” Chest swelling with false pride, he stated, “And I have no clue what I am doing.”