Johnny grabs me by the arm and pulls me to Silas, who has stopped his horse's movement. He doesn't let me do anything against his strength with a glare that warns me of any action at all. The undead looks at me with an evident smirk of laughter on his face. The white flames instead of eyes do make me a bit uncomfortable, though. Silas offers the back of the horse to me with a burst of laughter.

"Haahaahaa… Is he like that always? Reminds me of an old friend of mine. Do wish I could recall her name, though; some things just slip by whenever you die. She was as tough as an ox and as stubborn as a mule. Feel free to hop up here with me, Wyatt. Darkmane's got plenty of room, just don't pull on her hair."

I look away from the fires in his eye sockets as I reach an arm up. Silas bends down and pulls me up with a measure of unexpected strength. I must quickly recover and stabilize myself behind him before falling off. The pain in my feet wears off soon as I no longer walk on them. A dull throb still flows throughout my whole body, however. The entire group returns to traveling just a few moments after my episode, almost like nothing happened. Only Johnny seems to care as he keeps looking at me with worry transparent in his eyes.

I don't want to disappoint him, but I felt like I was approaching something there. How else am I to get strong enough to survive whatever might come at me with the soon-to-be fall of the Hunters if I do not take risks? And that fall, I feel, is only a matter of time. A demon like Aniwye in the middle of Sinscreak is proof enough. We can no longer hold our own. Kai Vinson, the Rougarou Hunter, the Pillar that guards Sinscreak, let it slip past him. One of the fairly more active Pillars getting played like that toils the knell for the rest.

The more and more I see of the world, the more sure I become of Johnny's prediction. A storm is coming, and it's not going to be a relatively small one like Hura was. This next one will likely reach all of the territories. At the very least, it will graze all of the border territories, though. The high-up Prime may be okay all the way in Onyx Gate, but those of us near the border will not be. I loathe to think how the territories only guarded by a Forerunner like Qune, Seaside, Northene, and Gravecross will perform when the shit hits the fan.

I think we might have held it off a bit by not letting Rustbank fall, but at the same time, it is not the full truth. Johnny mentioned that if news gets out that I, a Graves, was there, the defense of the place would likely be attributed to me and not the strength of humanity. That will give the demons and whatever else might want our land, like the Nahullos or Pygmies, the assurance they need of how weak we are as a whole.

While I didn't do much in the grand scheme of things in the siege of Rustbank, that's not how anyone else will see it. My family is known for being loners and doing things on their own. None of those who are weighing the risks genuinely know me and will simply base their choices on the past.

And in the past, Graves were a secret weapon, one that cannot be compared to the average human. I mean, we do have a territory named after us. Can any other family say the same? Well, yes, both the Vallens and Qune territories are named after individual families, but that's not the point.

As my thoughts whisk me away from the travel and the pain now that I don't have to focus on walking, I slowly begin to drift to sleep. But before I can fall to slumber naturally, Silas turns around and faces me with a coin lodged between his thumb and forefinger, presenting the woman with a scythe to me.

"You look pretty rough, buddy. If you have some money, I can help you out."

My eyebrows raise at this man, no, this undead. I know his Sigil is based on money, but come on. Is he really trying to gouge me for cash in the Underworld? How can he possibly even help me? I shrug my shoulders and pull out a few silver dollars, several quarters, and about ten dollars of paper money. All that I have on me.

"What can you even do for me? And is this a lot?"

Silas laughs at my meager display of wealth, but hey, it's hard to have money when you have a bounty on you. Not much legal work you can do, and most of my cash has come from Edmund, the Outlaws I killed, or Johnny's generosity.

"No, it's not. I have a skill, Stipend. I can take the money someone gives me and turn it into Ether that either rejuvenates your body, energizes your mind, or temporarily eases your control with Ether. But that little amount won't do much for you. For it to do much, normally, a hundred or so is the minimum. At most, a small cut will heal with the fifteen or so you got."

I sigh softly as I put the money away. I won't ask for Johnny for any more as he's done enough for me. I'll just try and get some rest on the way there. Silas said it'd take about a day with breaks to rest, right? I should get enough sleep to recover a bit. No way I heal even enough to fight without worry that I'll just break down, but maybe my feet will hurt less.

So, I lean my head down and try to get comfortable to fall asleep. I don't want to waste Heath's sleep aids as it is pretty calm right now. I'm excited to see Edmund, but I don't feel like there is a blade to my throat. As such, sleep should come much quicker, even if when I close my eyes, I see a flicker of bat wings.

Again, however, my sleep is interrupted by Silas. The undead must not realize I'm trying to sleep; he can't, after all. The most he can do is whatever "stasis" is.

"I do have something else I can do, though. Another skill, Doubleback. I connect us with a strand of Ether and flip a coin. I call the side before I do so. Should I get heads, which I always call, your injuries double in severity? Eh, depending on Ether resistance, it can be a bit lower, but that's beside the point. While that just sounds shitty, it's not because if you win, your current wounds are split between the two of us. It's a very risky skill to use in combat, so I don't think about it much."

Silas plays with the coin in his hand for a second or two before continuing, as if he is considering using the skill or not. My eyes light up at the offer of healing, but they quickly dip at the truth of it.

"But I am willing to do so for you. None of you seem to know Regeneration; I'm judging from your small cuts and scrapes. It is one of the hardest, if not the hardest general skill to learn, after all. I know it, however, took me two decades to learn, but if we split wounds, I should be mostly healed by the time we get to No Man's Land."

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Silas might be willing to take my hurt, but should it land on heads, I'm dead. One hundred percent. And I reckon he is underestimating the wounds on me; should he take even half, he might just potentially lose his last life. I am forced to turn him down. I like taking risks that I can't deny, but this one is unnecessary. I will heal with enough time.

"Thanks for the offer, Silas, but I'm good. I'll die if it lands on heads, and I like being alive."

He nods at me in understanding before turning back around to face the front. I wait a few minutes to see if he'll turn back around to speak with me, but he gets distracted by Otto asking him more questions. With that opportunity, I take out Heath's sleep medicine. Earlier, I didn't want to waste it, but I'd like not to be woken up.

Interrupted sleep is a quarter to a dollar compared to a full slumber. I inhale a deep but emotion-filled breath as I take a rest of my own volition for the first in a while with the needle entering my own. My exhaustion is so profound I pass out just walking or some Angel that rips me into the darkness. Just good old sleep…

*********************************

I recognize that something feels off the instant my brain drifts off. Dreams have been missing from my slumber for quite a while, but they return for some reason now. And not just that, but I'm fully conscious in the darkness of sleep, kind of similar to when I entered my memory with Abraham. I figure it might be because of what Ewaki did when it entered my mind.

I don't know what it did to me with the time it had before Aniwye, but I can only imagine it was terrible. Probably just as bad as what the Bloody Palm has done to me. The difference in time would be made up by the power gap. The Bloody Palm made me angrier, more bloodthirsty, more rash. Those things seem apparent even to me.

And its abilities deal with those things, but Ewaki? According to Aniwye, it specializes in sleep, memories, and dreams.

These thoughts run through my head as the darkness swirls around me and coalesces a scene before me. One similar to those I saw in large quantities before the Bloody Palm arrived. Once it did, I actually don't think I got any of the same kind.

Past memories are distorted into barely recognizable things. Sure, there was that odd trip to my house with the undead thing that replaced Ma, but I think that was just Concoction-induced madness.

The only real difference between this distorted memory and those that I saw before is the clarity and length. No longer is it foggy, fuzzy, or hard to understand.

The late morning sun above a nearby field to our house that appears before my eyes with a young me and a youthful Ma is startlingly clear. I can feel the wind breeze in my hand as I raise it to touch my face. I can smell the newly painted wooden box just across the duo. Seems like this is another one of those memories like the one Abraham saw with me. Don't remember what he called it, though.

My focus turns to the mother and son duo in front of me rapidly as they start to move within my memory. Ma puts a small derringer in my hand, and I must be at most six or seven at the time. And I hear her speak to me with ruthless direction.

"Hold it straight. Point it at the box. No! Steady your hand. Don't shake. Take deep breaths. In. Out. When you feel confident, pull the trigger."

Six-year-old me follows her directions to the best of my ability. With trembling hands from the weight of the pistol and the harsh wind, "I" take aim at the box and slowly squeeze the trigger with closed eyes.

A loud bang resounds, and "I" jump backward as Ma yells at me for both completely missing and my reaction to the round being fired. She doesn't seem to appreciate my… I don't know… weakness? Inability? Can't be fear, right? I'm fearless.

"Damnit, Wyatt! How many times do we have to do this? Focus! Don't be affected by anything else! Get it right this time! Again! Reload the gun!"

Under the loud yells from Ma, "I" begin to cry and whine, asking to stop.

"Can I go home, Ma? I don't like guns. I'm hungry."

My mother's response to the younger version of me shocks me to the core as it reveals a part of her I never thought existed. She walks in front of "me" and screams into his face.

"No! You can go home when you hit the box! No food until then, and if you don't succeed by sundown, you can eat tomorrow!"

Tears only continue to well up in "my" eyes as my own heart trembles. I don't remember her ever being like this, and I quickly get the answer why. At "my" reaction to her yelling, she just curses and puts her hand on my head. Her face distorts into frustration mixed with focus.

“You… fucking hell…Haaa… Let's try this again."

I see sparks of pinkish-purple come from her fingers that sink deep into "my" brain, making me fall unconscious almost instantly as the memory turns exceptionally blurry. However, I can somehow still see what's happening, even if only vaguely. Ma takes a few moments to reload the derringer before picking me up and placing me standing with the gun in hand.

She whispers to herself as I struggle to contain my shock. Ma was a Sigiled? What? How? Why? When?

"Eighth time's the charm? Knew that the last one wouldn't work. I lost my patience a bit early. I don't know if this is worth it, though… we've been at this since sunrise… Oh well. It's what Killian asked for. Even I think it's a bit cruel, but eh, whatever works, right?"

The realization that Ma had wiped my memory hits me like fucking train, and in the dream, I fall to my knees. Breathing rapidly becomes difficult despite how fast I'm inhaling and exhaling. With frozen eyes, I watch Ma tap "my" head with sparkling fingers before "I" shake awake and look at her.

Before "my" eyes reach her, though, a gleaming smile is twisted across her mouth in such a way that the young me would never know what is happening. Instead, he gleefully asks her a question.

"What are we doing out here, Ma?"

Ma smiles lovingly at "me" before replying with a sweet yet calm voice which instantly disgusts me and makes me want to puke despite the fact I can't in a dream. So only the feeling exists, not the response.

"We're out here, so I can teach you to shoot? You want to be a Hunter like your dad, right? This is the best place to start, Wy."

Little cheerful "me" nods like nothing just happened a moment ago. Which I guess for him, nothing did. Why would Ma lie to him? She's only ever been a perfect mother to him. Perfect, because she's had many attempts.

As I sit there, barely comprehending what is happening, the memory begins to break and show me something else. At the same time, I get a flap of leathery wings in my ears and a quiet curse that goes alongside them. Inside my mind, I desperately hope for the next scene to show me something different as I start to question reality and my sanity. Of her being kind. Of her being the loving mother I remember. But it is not the case.

The colors rapidly shift before my eyes and instantly reveal something that changes everything I've ever known. A "me" around eight years old kneels quietly inside a dimly lit forest, the only light being the single twin out in the sky, Olijee. Ma stands stock still in front of me, seemingly waiting for something. I don't have to wait at all, however, as I can see it in the distance.

Instinctively, Chain Eyes seem to activate and show me a large creature, a giant, walking toward us with thundering steps. But the vision only lasts for a single moment as bright magenta chains blind my right eye, which sees the giant more clearly due to the trees in the way. Not just that, but a mental shock runs through my mind, one similar to the one from Aniwye.

I fall to the ground, shaking from both the pain of seeing the Angel and the shock of everything. I barely manage not to spasm as I force Chain Eyes. Once the skill is deactivated, I look up carefully and see a large female Ogre enter the part of the forest lit by the light of the moon above.

Just looking at her and the cleaver that is attached to her back makes my vision tremble. I watch with utmost caution as Aniwye walks forward toward Ma and reaches down with a single giant finger to touch her head.

The same deep voice comes from the Ogre as she does so. Words that reveal to me far too much than I can handle.

"You've done well. Here's a bit more Ether. Looks like I won't have to swap you out for another persona. You're a bit more impatient than the others, but at the same time, you are less… empathetic."

Ma kneels as Aniwye speaks to her and talks like a slave to a master.

"Anything you desire, maker. I exist to serve."

A rumbling laugh comes from Aniwye as she turns around and starts to walk away just as quickly as she appears.

"Just keep raising the little one. I'll be back in a few more years to check up on you two. I got to go try out that thing his dear old dad gave me, though. I'd love to get a few more toys from whatever is willing to deliver themselves unto me."

Just as the giant Ogre that is close to three times the height of young me disappears into the dimly lit forest, I hear a flapping of leathery wings behind me that send a shock throughout my flesh. I scramble to get up instinctively and jump to the side before looking behind me.

Nothing is there, though, just the empty forest of a long-lost memory. My eyes scan the darkness for any hint of something within, but the cracks and crevices of shadows relay nothing to me. Nothing but confusion, sadness, and anger.