In the darkened, blue, dull world before me, I sat still. The earthend spot from where I always stayed was shaped in my image, but it became more uncomfortable to sit in with each passing night. For nearly a week I had routinely watched over the pitiful farm—not because I cared for the pleas of that woman, but because I wanted to follow my first lead in over a year.
She often talked about how her pig corpses would occasionally end up with strange bite marks. Although it was a stretch to think that it was from what I was searching for, I had to take the chance. Because if I found him, no matter how slim of a shot it might have been, all the years of suffering as a Slayer would finally be worth it. My life’s goal would finally be accomplished…but I had that thought every time I found a lead. And every time I would be disappointed.
When I first set out on that “adventure” of sorts, I was but a young child, traumatized by the image of his massacred parents. I despised the idea of doing that very thing in order to stay alive, but I was too good at it. It was too easy. But soon enough, to both my benefit and detriment, I grew numb to it. The only people that were left in the world that cared about my actions were those on the outside—and they just hated my very presence. People saw what I did as no different than that of what the creatures of the night do, and to some extent they weren’t wrong. Slayers are people who dedicate their lives to the thrill of adventure, slaying monsters and evil men alike—heroes by definition, but not by society.
I would say “we” when describing Slayers, but their way of life was only a means to an end for me, not the center of my life. Nevertheless, I was technically one of them, and so the scornful lens that the world viewed them with was also used for me. Slayers were always seen for what they represent and not for what they actually do. Even though what they do saves many lives and protects the interests of the very world, that reality does not matter to the dull, average person. They only see the image of one as an omen for bad things to come, not as a sign of insurance against an imminent threat.
As I sat in the dirt, my back pressed against the side of a rotten barn, I let half of my consciousness reflect on the path that brought me to where I was. I thought of the faces of my parents, no matter how blank they had become in my memory, hoping to salvage something of worth. Over the many years of isolated journeying, the flames that once ignited from the mere thought of them dwindled to nothing more than a charcoaling ember. On nights like that night, I often desperately try to force the heat within my heart to burn like it used to, fearing that I might lose all direction if I didn’t.
Just as I began to lose myself with my own mind, the other half of my consciousness picked up on something. Both halves of myself quickly forced themselves together, and I brought the entirety of my being to the present. I focused everything in on the environment around me, hoping to find the cause of the initial disturbance.
Looking around, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. The fresh, blue-white moonlight cascaded visibility to everything within the vicinity, and none of it seemed strange. The drooping trees of the forest that surrounded the northern edge of the small farm swayed with their normal, dredging energy. The newly planted crops were still in place, and the ground around them was just as untilled and disturbed as it had been. The only thing unchecked was the livestock corpse pile that laid just beyond the ridgeline.
Slowly and quietly, I got to my feet. I rubbed the valrose that was in my front jacket pocket, sheathed my sword—seeing as the way it reflected the moonlight would give away my location—and began prowling over towards the pit.
Each footstep of mine was careful, silent, and dark. I would say that I was extremely intentional while I walked, but the truth was that the movements were second nature to me. Stealthy, I crested beyond the entry of the woods. The air around me began to stir ever so slightly, and the breeze warmed up.
Within a few minutes, I was at the edge of the pig trench. The foul odor filled the atmosphere around it, muting that sense, entirely. Most people who had never worked in such an environment would surely pass out, but unfortunately I was both used to the stench from inspecting it every night and from the fact that I had slewn creatures fouler than that.
Just as I approached the edge, before looking down, I calmed myself. For the first time in a long time I felt nervous. Leads, in and of themselves were rare to find, nevertheless one that had a possibility of truly leading me towards him. I let my heart rate stabilize, my hands still, and let my breathing regulate once again. I then glanced down.
And I saw him.
Towards the bottom of the ten-foot or so hole was a vaguely humanoid shape. It was hunched over what I presumed to be a pig carcase, their back turned towards me. I was certain that it had not noticed my presence. I could not believe it. The anger that I thought I had lost a long time ago began to boil once more. My muscles flexed, my teeth gritted, and my eyes became bloodshot. My entire body was steaming with fury and hateful passion. The only thing that felt cold was the wind.
Even though the small, rational side of my brain screamed at me not to do it, I unsheathed my sword. My mind was begging me to think of the possibilities and scenarios in which the shape that I saw before was not who I thought it was, but I couldn’t. The darkness of the night made it impossible for me to see anything but what I wanted to. Just as the valrose began to unfurl, with the silence of a hawk, I leapt down into the pit.
I plummeted downwards, my blade slicing through the gloomy air—my trajectory was directly above the figure. Time itself seemed much colder and slower as I descended. Every thought that I could have been thinking was forgotten in favor of the present. That being said, every frozen ounce of my person instantly thawed out the moment I came within a foot of the figure’s neck. My body’s temperature rose and I swung my sword with a strength that I had never felt before.
My vision blacked out from the strike, and when I came to, the image I was met with was one that I was not expecting: I was staring at dirt and rotten flesh. Hastily, I drew up my blade next to me and feverishly looked around. About six feet away from me stood the same figure, seemingly completely unharmed. Now that I was in closer proximity to them, I got a better look of who they were. Covering most of their body was a loose-flowing cloak that blended in nicely with night, although its hood was now pushed off of the figure’s head.
The figure was a man of relatively young appearance—around my age—although his features suggested a slight bit of adolescence to him. His eyes were just as bloodshot as mine and quivering just as much. However, there seemed to be more fear in them than anger. His hair was exceptionally curly and long. If it wasn’t for their curl, it would certainly cover his entire face. Its color, on the other hand, was hard to pinpoint. Because all colors were drowned out in the night, I couldn’t tell exactly, but I knew it was certainly darker than mine. The one thing that stuck out the most to me, however, was the crimson trail that trickled from his mouth. And in that mouth, I clearly saw two fanged teeth.
“You!” I yelled out to him. “I finally found you after all these years.”
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The man just looked at me with the same intensity that I stared at him with.
“Do you know how long I have waited for this?” I continued. “How much I have sacrificed? How much you took from me?”
His eyes then narrowed, his head slightly cocked to the side, and he took a step backwards. I took a step forward.
“Your time is up,” I firmly stated.
And with that, I charged towards him, my feet mutilating the carcasses underneath my feet. Every step I took was uneven and sloshy. I could hear the hollowed out bones below me break, snapping with the slightest touch. The organs—at least the ones that hadn’t been devoured by maggots and other such animals—popped out of every body. But I did not care.
Just as I was within range, I brought my sword down towards the fanged man. With a surprising quickness, he managed to slip to the side, dodging my strike, altogether. Carrying that momentum, I turned my blade and took a side-slash at him. Again, he managed to evade, this time lowering himself below my attack. Again and again I sliced my sword through the air, intent on cleaving him in two—it must’ve been over two-dozen strikes within a few seconds. And again and again he managed to avoid ever getting hit. The agility on display from him was almost supernatural. While he was a lithe creature, his body still did not give off the impression that he had such swiftness to his movements. Because of that, the only things my weapon ever found purchase on were the bodies below me and the stone wall of the pit.
Using the brief window of opportunity afforded to him when my blade got stuck within the wall, he immediately attempted to scurry up the pit. With all the anger, frustration, and might that I could gather, I pulled the sword free. Using that same energy, I took one final slash at him. My steel vengeance cut through the icy-cold wind like the claws of a silent devil, and this time, it managed to sink into its victim.
“Ahgh!” I heard the fanged man grunt as my sword carved a decent-sized wound on his back.
However, using the same inhuman dexterity that was displayed during the altercation, he effortlessly climbed to the top of the hole. Just as he moved beyond the point of visibility, he took one last look at me. The way his warm, yellow-tinted eyes looked down at me and my frigid-blue eyes, surrounded by a pile of corpses, irritated me to no end.
The moment he got out of my sight, I yelled out, “Don’t you run away from me! I will kill you if it’s the last thing I do!”
Feverishly, I began to try and climb out of the hole I found myself in, but I kept slipping. I only had one hand available to grab the stone walls and pull myself up—the other one held my blood-tipped sword. I could’ve gotten up much quicker if I let go of that sword—hell, even if I just sheathed it—but something inside of my burning heart refused to let go of it. And so, I struggled to move even an inch past the floor. Minutes went by, the wind began to cool my body, and eventually I climbed out of that pit, sword sheathed and all.
By the time I managed to pull myself out of there, the fanged man was nowhere in sight. Still, that didn’t stop me from running around the perimeter of the area, like a chicken with its head chopped off, panickedly searching for anything.
I let him go, I thought. I let him go. I let him go. I let him go.
Trees began to blend together, swirling around in my crazed vision. I began to sweat and breathe frantically. I couldn't cope with the fact that I let go of the one thing that I had been searching for my entire life. I had him in the palm of my hand, and yet he slipped away. It felt like everything that I had ever worked for was suddenly ripped from me. The madness began to turn into sorrow, which turned to anger, then it transformed itself back into sorror, finally completing the cycle with a feeling of emptiness. And that cycle continued to play over and over, exaggerating my desperate nature. In fact, I was so desperate that I almost didn’t see the old farm lady appear in front of me.
“I heard you scream,” she said, wobbling like everything else in the world.
I pressed my hand against the nearest tree and let the world regain some semblance of balance.
“I lost him,” I absentmindedly replied.
“Lost who?” she asked. “Did you find out what was doing that to my pigs? Tell me I’m not crazy. Tell me it was some sort of—”
I slammed my fist against the trunk, silencing her and partially cracking the outer bark. I felt my composure begin to realign to what I was used to. I allowed my mind to find itself amid the chaos, and through that pounding against the tree, the last bit of hatred that was stuck inside of me was released.
Taking a deep breath, I coldly said, “It was a monster.”
Gasping, she replied, “What kind of monster?”
My fists clenched up and my teeth grinded against each other, causing my next few words to come through more piercingly. “A fanged man.”
Her face instantly went pale. “Are you serious?” she inquired, her expression more than aghast.
“Why would I lie about this?”
“Well,” she said, her breath skipping a few beats “did you kill it?”
“No…it got away.”
Her expression shifted from one of worry and frailness, to one of confusion and slight annoyance. “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice carrying a sharper tone and intonation.
“I mean,” I started to respond, solemnly looking down on her in the eyes, “that it got away. I failed to kill it.”
Her lips curled downwards and her eyebrows furled. She then walked up to me and slapped me across the face.
“How could you let it go?” she huffed. “You’re a Slayer, all you’re good at is killing. I don’t like you, but I figured you could at least do this.”
Her attitude unmasked her sense of self-righteousness and importance. Both of those were things I despised above most other things.
“You really are nothing but trouble,” she continued. “How could you screw up this job?”
“Job?” I replied, lifting my chin up. “I don’t recall getting paid.”
“Why would I pay someone like you? You should be grateful that I gave you the opportunity to help me. That’s what your people are all about, right?”
I sighed the longest sigh I had ever released. I then pushed myself off of the tree I was leaning against and started to make my way out of the forest.
“I don’t have time for this,” I stated.
Throwing her arms in the air, the entitled farm lady shouted at me. “Where are you going? You have to stay here and protect me,” she demanded.
Still carrying on, my back now turned towards her, I replied, “I don’t have to do anything.”
“But what if comes back and attacks me?”
I stopped in my tracks and looked back over my shoulders. “That’s not my problem,” I replied. “Unfortunately, though, I can assure you that it won’t come back. At least not here.”
I then continued onwards into the dead of night.