The roar of gunfire pierced the stunned acceptance that had consumed Garm at the moment of his death. The maw of a thousand jagged teeth inches from his face begins to retract out the window. With an ear-piercing shriek, that Garm fears will shatter his eardrums, the monster and its terrifying visage flow out of his room and with a loud thud, slam into the ground below.
A torrent of thoughts flies through Garm’s head, but amongst the shock coming from the last-minute rescue, warring with the remaining terror, a single thought elbows its way to the front.
“I am alive!”
Garm falls to the ground, the spell finally broken and blissful movement returning to stiff muscles.
The jubilation of his continuing existence fills Garm with warmth, every breath he takes feeling like a blessing. His bliss, however, is short-lived as reality takes back the reins once more. This is not over yet, and there’s only one person he can think of who could have fired that shot.
Against his better judgment, Garm gets back up and skitters over to the window. He carefully peaks over the edge, fearing that at any moment a cascade of fangs would ascend out of the night to perforate his skull. Finally looking down from his window, into the garden below, he sees the creature flail its limbs in seeming pain. Several meters to the monster's right he spots his father aim another round in its direction.
To Garm’s dismay, the monster hurls its bulk over, and before the next shot can ring out it’s bolting towards the Grime. Watching the scene play out in horror and amazement, he looks on as Jonas begins running after the fleeing form of the creature like his leg isn’t even bothering him. With rifle in hand and a furious trot, he seems intent on pursuing until he has its hide in his hands. At least, that seems to be his intent, given the continuous tirade of vile obscenities escaping his mouth.
Seeing his father rush after the terrifying monster, Garm takes one look down at his hands before sneering and turning towards his door. Snagging the knife on his way out, he rips the door open and throws himself out into the hall, then sprints over to the stairs.
Standing at the door to her room Hannah calls out in a worried voice, “What’s going on Garm? I heard gunfire!”
“You stay here!” Garm shouts back to her as he runs down the stairs, “Jonas shot it, and I’m going after them!”
“After them? What do you mean?” Hannah tries to call out, but Garm is already rushing down the stairs and isn’t stopping.
Down into the kitchen, then through the living room, Garm runs. Stopping for neither shoes nor jacket, he throws open the door and bursts into the cool night air. Orienting himself briefly in the moonlit landscape, he soon spots the silhouette of his father running through the open fields. He briefly registers a “Garm, wait!” coming from inside the house, but there’s no time to lose so he sets off after his father.
Keeping the moonlit outline of Jonas centered in his vision, the excitement, and adrenaline is pumping through Garm’s veins as he’s chasing across the soggy terrain. Noticing neither the cool wind on his cheeks nor his socks soaking through, Garm can only think of one thing as he runs. Redemption!
At last, he could be something more than the burden his father could only spare looks of scorn and resentment. Years of shame will be washed away this night, and all he’ll have to do is help track and kill that wounded monster. He will show Jonas he can help, that he can be useful and that he is more than just an anchor to this family.
Through the howling wind and his own ragged breathing, Garm can hear him already. For the first time in years, his father will praise him once more, and tell him how proud he is to have him for a son. And then, finally, he will look down to find his hands still and steady, and steady they would remain.
Suddenly, Garm is ripped forcefully from his fantasizing as he steps into a depression between two tufts of grass. He goes careening through the air and hits the ground in a tumble of limbs and wet earth. Although there were days since the great storm had torn through the valley the landscape had yet to recover. The barren grassland forming the middle of the valley remains pock-marked with muddy holes, snaking trails left from rainwater, and the occasional ditch of swampy mud. These facts make up the bulk of Garm’s ire as he heaves himself out of one such ditch.
Now half-covered in mud and aching from the fall, Garm resists the urge to scream his anger into the night. Instead, he bottles it all up and scans the direction he thought his father was running. Checking to his sides just in case he’d gotten disoriented in the fall, he finds, to his dismay, that there’s a distinct lack of his father anywhere in sight. How could that be? Looking around for something that could obscure his line of sight, Garm sees nothing unexpected, the landscape is as flat as always.
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Feeling the cool wind on his skin for the first time, now made even colder by his soggy clothes, Garm begins walking. Following the direction he’s the most sure he’d seen Jonas run towards, he’s soon back to a steady trot. Finding himself coming down from his emotional high, he’s having to maintain his pace to keep up the warmth of his body. Suddenly, and brutally, he’s been dragged out of his daydream and once more faces the harsh reality before him.
What the hell is he doing out here? Feeling in his pocket for his knife, he finds that taking it out offers less comfort than he needs right now. Still, he holds on to the much too-short knife like his life depends on it. His confidence evaporating before him, all that fuels Garm now is the desire to find his father.
What was he thinking, going after him? He was struck, for the second time that night, with his own childish notions and how quickly they’d turned to ash between his fingers. How would he even have helped? Holding up his monster-killing weapon, he eyes a blade smaller than his little finger like it’s at fault for his shortsightedness.
Garm feels like he’s about to be overwhelmed by his emotions again, but with a valiant effort, he holds them back. This is not the time for tears. He has to find his father. Thinking of Jonas’s bad leg and the terrible condition it was in earlier that day, he increases his pace.
As he runs through the moonlit valley, Garm skids to a halt when he spots something hidden in the grass. Angling his run, he’s soon hovering right over it, looking down as a growing feeling of distress fills him. Before him, moonlight glinting off polished metal is his father’s beloved Krag sticking out from the foliage.
Growing more panicked by the moment, Garm daintily lifts the closest thing to a family heirloom they have out of the dirt. Looking over it for damage, he finally takes a deep breath seeing it’s undamaged from the fall. He slings it over his shoulder before hearing a faint “Garm!” coming from behind him. It seems Hannah’s followed him after all.
Garm’s about to call out to his sister, her presence more reassuring than he’ll ever let her know, when he spots a small movement in his peripheral vision. “No, wait!” he hears Hannah call out, but he’s already running again. Focused entirely on the spot he saw stir, Garm soon sees, to his relief, that it belongs to a very human shape lying on the ground by a small pond.
“Jonas!” Garm calls out with relief evident in his voice.
Coming up behind him Hannah calls out, “Dad, is that you?”
The two approach the prone form of their father when he finally turns to them. He inhales sharply and lets out a ragged “No!” while looking at them with a mixture of panic and sorrow.
To their horror, Garm and Hannah see rivulets of blood running down from a cut on their father’s scalp, then along something seemingly propping his head up. Tracing the strange object, Garm sees it run under, or into, what he previously had thought of as debris swimming in the small pond. Looking closer at his father’s neck he sees that when he’d turned his head to look at them, the sharp edge of something white dug into his skin. Seeing Hannah is about to run over to Jonas, he holds out a hand to stop her.
As if waiting for its cue, the black mass with its bleached white death mask rises from the murky water. With the appendage it has kept under Jonas’s head, it hoists him up as if to display its prey to its captured audience.
And captured they truly are. The dread, so familiar, yet impossible to get used to get used to, fills Garm’s every cell. Behind him, he can hear Hannah’s breath getting caught in her throat as she, for the first time, experiences the primordial terror that comes with looking upon this monster’s gruesome visage.
Through the bone-deep fear that keeps him locked in place, Garm can hear his father choking where he hangs. The creature eyes them in what Garm distinctly feels is something akin to rye amusement. Looking fearfully at the creature, there’s little that gives away its emotional state, yet the thought that it’s putting on a show becomes the center of Garm’s impression. The idea that it’s simply playing with its food, doesn’t make Garm’s situation any lighter, and all he can do is watch on in horror as several more clawed appendages move towards his father.
Lifting him from the brutal chokehold, the limbs hold Jonas up in a much more gentle carry. Gasping for air between choking sobs, Jonas stares with wild eyes as the creature opens its gaping maw and a tongue-like tendril covered in bony barbs slithers out to hover before him. Trying to fight against the hold, he finds he’s completely restrained.
Seeing death staring him in the face, Jonas looks to his children and with his last breath shouts, “Son! Take your sister and run!”
The barbed tendril plunges like a biting snake, pushing down into Jonas’s throat. Forced to look on as his father’s eyes bulge while his skin reddens in pain, Garm finds that although he’s drowning in terror, his father’s words shine like a beacon of light in the darkness that consumes him.
It feels like he’s moving through molasses, but before he can think about it, the little knife clutched in his hand jabs into his thigh. Pain streaks through his body, but with it comes clarity. Finding he can move again, Garm hasn’t got a moment to spare. He turns on a dime, grabs his sister by the hand, and with all the effort he can muster he runs for the farm.
It’s slow to start, Hannah is unresponsive and feels like a block of stone dragging behind him, but that only makes Garm haul even harder. The thought that any second now, the monster would give chase and tear them apart drives him on, his legs pumping even faster. After another ten meters, he feels Hannah wordlessly start running as well.