Clicking the release, Abe spun the revolver’s cylinder and laid the bullets out across his bed.

He could smell the toxic, antiseptic odor that drenched the bullets. His senses filled him with discomfort as he eyed the bullets, telling him to keep clear of them.

Discomfort building, Abe threw his blanket over the bullets and took a step back.

“That’s right, they’re blessed and I’m a monster,” he mumbled, glancing down at his hands.

He killed that guy, the captain. Abe had smelt and tasted him, he was undeniably human. He had also killed two of those things, and been responsible for the girl’s death. But he didn’t care. Not in the slightest. They may have been cardboard cut-outs for as much as his conscience was concerned.

I’m supposed to feel guilt, aren’t I? All that stuff about blood on your hands… I don’t feel any of that. I mean, they did attack me first, is that why? Or because I really am a monster?

His hands looked normal. Deathly gray and veiny, but normal enough.

Why should I care? I mean, they were attacking me but still… They were human after all, you’re meant to care about killing other people. Feeling nothing isn’t normal, is it?

With a shake of his head, he pulled out the bottom drawer of his cupboard and used the blanket to funnel the blessed bullets into it. Abe had considered their usefulness, but for now, it seemed better to keep a weapon designed to kill him out of reach.

Elissa had taken blood packs defrosted by Ricky into her room across from his and locked herself in. It was more peaceful without her around, but a part of Abe wanted to know how she was doing. It wasn’t empathy, he wasn’t sure he possessed that emotion anymore, but a sense of debt. She had helped him in the fight, and he felt a desire to repay that.

Turning his gaze back to the revolver, he ran a finger along its cool metal.

I wonder if they have bullets for this thing in storage.

Locking his room, Abe went downstairs.

Walking into the Kennels, Abe waved, “Ricky.” His brows raised as he recognized one of the slayer corpses chained up in one of the cells.

“Can’t wake ‘em up without the Mistress,” Ricky said, noticing Abe’s gaze.

“They weren’t too friendly last time we met, you think this is wise?” Abe said, turning to the skull.

“Eh, they won’t remember a thing,” Ricky bobbled in the air. A metallic ding churned as he returned to what he was doing, “How can old Ricky help you? Or did you just come to reminisce about your old home? Got plenty of rooms for you if you want to return.”

“I, um, wanted to ask you about something; you know the cage door upstairs?”

“Been nosing around have you?”

“I’ve been defending this place,” Abe said, walking over to Ricky’s workbench and placing the revolver down. “And it would be a lot easier to do with bullets.”

“Jeez, kid, that thing stinks,” Ricky shook, turning to eye the gun. “Clean your instruments if you’re going to bring them in here.”

“So, bullets?” Abe said.

Ricky quieted for a moment and hovered closer, “Point four-sixty, Smith and Wesson,” he shook. “But you ain’t going to find anything like that around here,” he began to chuckle.

“What about in town?”

Ricky’s chattered as he broke into a laugh, “Yeah, in town. You’re going to find four-sixties in that shithole.”

“So, it’s useless then,” Abe sighed, collecting the pistol.

“When did I say that?”

“Oh?” Abe perked a brow.

“There’s one guy, Bazaarbus. He’s kind of hard to get a hold of though.”

“He’s around here?”

“Should be,” Ricky bobbed and tilted as if shrugging. “Doesn’t mean you’ll be able to find him.”

“And I guess you’re not able to help me?”

“Look, he has a boat. If you’re going to find him, it’ll be on water. Won’t do you no good without gold coins though, ducats to be precise.”

“And how exactly am I supposed to come across those?”

“I guess I could spare a couple if you were to run a few errands for me,” Ricky turned and smiled.

I probably should have seen that coming. Greasy little bastard.

“Fine, how can I help?” Abe rubbed between his eyes.

“This old thing I’m working on, need to get it back in alignment.”

Abe leaned forward to get a look but Ricky flashed blue flames and he retreated.

“Best avert your eyes for now. It’s sensitive. But important. Pay attention because this is going to seem a little weird to you,” Ricky stared at Abe a moment before continuing. “I need aspects of the manor and its surrounding grounds.”

“What do you mean, aspects?”

“Hard to explain in detail—you know—items that represent the manor. That kinda thing, get me?”

“Err, not really,” Abe forced a smile.

“The manor, it’s a house, right?” Ricky said, pausing as he watched Abe’s expression for some kind of understanding. “I need to feed this thing items from it, things that represent the property. A couple of items from the house, the garden, maybe even the fence—I dunno.”

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

“So, I can go get you a lamp and some flowers from the garden?”

“You can try, it’ll let us know if what you got is an aspect or just junk.”

“Right,” Abe eyed the back of the skull. “What about the Kennels?”

“You think I haven’t tried? I’ve been on this world before your grandaddy plowed into old Misses Abraham. Don’t ask stupid questions, okay?”

“Your taunts might work if I remembered who the hell Misses Abraham was. Or who the fuck I am, for that matter,” Abe said, waving as he left. “You better pay me, bones.”

The next few hours were spent fruitlessly collecting stuff from around the house and surrounding grounds.

“Seriously,” Abe stretched his hands out pleadingly. “Not a single thing?”

“Nope, told you it wouldn’t be easy,” Rikcy said as he made a nightstand float away from his workbench—shrouded in his blue flames but undamaged.

“We’ve tried just about everything I’m able to carry,” Abe rubbed his temples. “Are you sure about this? Maybe you misunderstood it, whatever it is supposed to be.”

“Nope. Sorry, bud. There’s no mistaking this. Either find something it wants or find your own ducats. Like I said, I’ve been around a while. Picking up junk you find around the house likely isn’t going to cut it, okay? If it were that easy, I’d have figured this out myself.”

“My god,” Abe sighed as he walked toward the exit. “You could have said that. I have carried half of this damned building down here and now you say, ‘if it were that easy, I’d have figured this out myself.’ God, I’d rather go back to fighting hunters than this shit.”

“We all gotta earn our bread somehow,” Ricky yelled as Abe marched upstairs.

Abe shook his head as he walked through the snow-capped gardens, “How am I meant to find something that he can’t? I’m the new one here,” he groaned. “I barely understand anything about this place. Or me for that matter,” he stopped to glance down at his hands.

Something flickered at the corner of his eye and he raised his head, “Huh?” he tilted toward the movement.

That stone, was it always a fish?

Narrowing on the stone statue perched atop the wall, he curiously stepped closer.

Only inches from it, he lowered, brow arched, “What the… so much detail.” he extended a sheepish hand, posed to poke the life-like scales.

“Blub.”

He turned, eyes locked on its face.

“Did you just…”

It was still.

With his gaze locked on the statue’s head, he pressed his index against the scales.

“Blub.”

“You moved,” Abe said, inching closer to its face. “I saw you.”

It remained still.

“Well, what if I,” he shoved his finger into its mouth.

“B-b-b-arkh,” the statue choked and splattered.

Abe’s finger plunged deeper, far deeper than he expected as it met the soft, moist fleshiness beyond.

“What the hell,” he muttered as the fleshy hole expanded and his second finger was submerged. The fish’s mouth suctioned around his fingers, creating an unyielding pressure that pulled at him harder and harder until his hand started to disappear—first his knuckles, and then down to his wrist, and soon his entire arm was being sucked into its wet mouth—the fish sputtering with every inch it swallowed.

“Let me the fuck go, you dumb fish,” Abe shouted as he tried to pull away, but he only fell deeper into the moist hole as he struggled.

Within minutes, he was shoulder-deep, saliva splashing across his face as he neared the spluttering fish’s mouth.

“Come on, I’m sorry. Just let me go!” Abe tried to pull again and he felt his torso being sucked into the ever-widening fish mouth.

“Great, so this is how I fucking die, is it? For a second time. And for the record, I preferred hot vampire over stupid rock-fish.”

His shoulders followed, the wetness of the fish lips traveling up the back of his neck and swallowing him with a moist, pop.

Stumbling backward as his gray vision made sense of the darkness, Abe clawed at the viscous gunk that covered his hands and face, throwing it away in chunks and spitting the stuff that had found its way into his mouth.

“Disgusting, you taste so damn fishy.”

He brushed his hands against his pants, trying to remove the goo

Oh, fuck it. I’m living with this shit now, aren’t I?

He pressed a finger to his nose and snorted, clearing both nostrils before cracking his neck.

“Everything smells like dead fucking fish in here, great. Just when I had gotten used to zombie guts, I get swallowed by a freaking fish.”

“Blub.”

“Oh, funny,” Abe shook his head, turning around in the red-walled corridor of flesh, lined by the silhouettes of bones and drenched in the sticky, viscous fluid.

The fleshy ground suctioned to the bottom of his boot as he walked, forcing him to stomp his way across the room as if dragging himself through the mud.

“Yeah, this is fucking gross, you know that right?” he murmured as his foot got stuck. “ Let go of my fucking-” he pulled his leg free and went stumbling forward, almost falling to the ground

“Okay, you win, last time I go sticking my finger where it doesn’t belong.”

Abe sniffed, sifting through the layers of fishiness as he noticed something else. A distinct and peculiar scent lay hidden beneath the toxic odor. It was too foreign for him to place, but he got the feeling something was trying to mask itself below the rancid smell of dead fish.

“I’m on to you, fish,” he muttered with a grimace and turned down the fleshy corridor toward the faint scent, a moist slapping of suctioning flesh sounding with each step.

Continuing down the fish, the red flesh of the walls grew increasingly darkened and necrotic, the previous stench of fish being replaced by rot. Which was somehow more bearable for Abe.

I should probably thank my undead nose. As sensitive as it is, I’m fairly certain I’d be throwing up by now if I were still human.

Soon the flesh of the walls had decayed away to reveal lines of sharp bone jutting out. Calcified bone formed deformed walls with sharp beams of ivory sticking out at awkward angles, and the tunnels of the dead creature stretched out, forming massive chambers.

“What a sight,” he mouthed.

The chamber of bone widened as he walked, and soon a rolling white mist blanketed the ground.

“B~lu~b,” came the fish again, but this time it was broken and distorted.

“You don’t sound too healthy.”

“B~lu~b, ah~araargh~”

“Wrag~w~welcome, ghoul,” the guttural, broken voice coughed and cleared, forming chilly breathy words that carried along an icy breeze, bellowing across the mist.

“So, are you supposed to be the fish that’s been talking to me?” Abe said, hesitating a moment before continuing to walk. His senses tingled, but they didn’t pick up violent intent.

“I was, once long ago. Now, I am but a figment of what I once was. Cursed to and bound here for eternity.”

Furrowing his brows, Abe thought a moment, “You’re not part of the house, are you?”

Cold chuckles reverberated along the ground, sending pulses through the mist.

“You could say that, in a way. My soul was bound here to give life to those cursed plants within the inner garden. A joke, mockery of my once foolish attempt to seek immortality through the harmony of body, and earth. Now tell me, why is it that you have come to disturb me here?”

“Well, it wasn't entirely intentional,” Abe grimaced.

“Hmm…”

“I stumbled here on accident whilst searching for something,” Abe raised a finger. “I don't know if this is going to make sense, but I'm looking for aspects of the manor.”

“I'm aware of what it is you search for, and it is something within my power to grant. I only ask one thing in return.”

“And that is?” Abe stammered, fear mounting at the thought of incurring further debt.

“When you feed that thing our aspects, make sure that mine goes first. Do I have your word?”

“My word?” Abe's brow rose and he slowly nodded. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“Then follow your path, you shall find a sheet of my scales. It should suffice for your needs.”