The night was starting to come to an end by the time we reached the bottom of the mountain. The climb down was quicker, cleaner, and freer. I didn’t need Hunter’s guidance and he didn’t need to follow me. Silently, we both made our way down, separate but together. It was like our minds were acting as one. We jumped and fell in jagged unison, even though we never said a word.

Once we reached the base, just a few minutes away from the edge of the forest, we stopped for a moment. We didn’t need to catch our breath or take a break for any physical reason, but we still stopped.

“What’s wrong?” we both asked at the same time.

I was surprised, and I could tell from his open eyes and mouth that Hunter felt the same. I took a couple seconds to gather myself before speaking again.

“Nothing,” I answered. “And also, we should probably get in the forest soon—it’s going to be morning.”

Hunter wordlessly nodded and we both entered the forest just as the first rays of light began to break through the waking sky. As we walked through a familiar trail, I noticed that the trees seemed more animated and full of life. The vines that occasionally hung down swung loose and free. When given an ounce of light, the bark of each tree glimmered with beautiful moisture. Even the leaves danced, brushing with the perpetual breeze. When I realized that the wind was back, I listened closely.

It sang a beautiful tune, and for once, I could understand it. It started off slow, almost melancholy-like, before starting to sway and bounce in a subtle manner. At first, I thought of the melody like a hymn, but as I became more entrenched in the song, the more esoteric it became. I felt the breeze reverberate inside of me, attempting to make me one with it. And as it did, I felt a sense of direction unlike anything I had felt before. It was like a hug that I felt throughout my entire being.

Before I knew it, I felt an outside force yanking on my arm. Snapping back to reality, I quickly glanced to my left and found Hunter tugging at my arm. I looked at him with a confused and slightly dazed look, which he replied with a softly surprised one.

“What’s up, Hunter?” I asked.

“The sky,” he sarcastically replied. “But really, I’ve been trying to get you to stop moving so I can actually guide you through here. But now that I think about it,” he looked around, “we have been going the right way.”

“Huh. Funny how that works out.”

I then began to take another step forward, but not before being interrupted by him.

“Also,” he interjected.

“Yes?”

“It’s morning now—I think we should rest.”

I nodded in agreement and we spent the next hour looking for a dark and comfortable enough location to rest. What we found was a grassy grove that seemed almost carved out of the forest. There was a ten-foot wide patch of grass that was surrounded by trees and brush. It was impossible to see or even know that it was there just by looking at it, but the wind blew in such a way that the slightest crack of the grove peeked through behind the swaying brush.

We set up a small, recluse campsite in the middle of the hidden clearing. We didn’t bother lighting a fire, both because we had nothing that we wanted to cook and because the space was already warm enough.

Just as we got settled in, I looked at Hunter and said, “I think we should take watches.”

“Watches?” he replied.

I adjusted myself against a tree. “Yeah. You sleep for part of the day while I keep a lookout for anything, and then I sleep for part of the day while you do the same.”

“I…” he hesitated, “...I guess we can do that.” His face, the entire time he said that, was perplexed, to say the least. “Soooo who’s going first?”

“I can,” I firmly answered. “Go ahead and sleep.”

“O…kay.”

Although it took him a moment, he eventually curled up in a ball and fell asleep. I, on the other hand, feeling refreshed and full of energy, continued to look around the vicinity. That being said, it was just an excuse for me to get lost in my own thoughts. I had so many new things to sort out in my head.

What is this lightness? I asked myself. And why is it so much easier to see in the dark?

I looked up in the direction of the sky, which I could only imagine was there, seeing as the canopy above was dense. It reminded me of how my mind was just a few hours before. Even now, it’s hard to describe the difference that I felt. It was like someone, who had gone their whole life with fog in front of their face, finally seeing a clear day. It was like that, but also it felt like what I imagined being a bird was like—light, free, and above the world, seeing for the first time how small it all is.

My head began to spin around a single image of Hunter, and it drew me closer to it. I then saw the ethereal light of his mother. As her face filled my sight, I stared deep into her darkened eyes, which I found comfort in. Before I knew it, I was already deep inside her pupils. Quickly, I then found my vision thrusted through twisting, dark, and familiar caverns. I flew by the sorrow-filled faces of those who were forced to live there. I saw the people that sat around and wasted the days away, forced to cower from the world, and forced to pretend that they don’t exist. And finally, my vision came upon a man, or what was once a man, bound by black-iron chains. The entirety of his face was covered in shadow, and when I peeled that darkness back, I saw my own face. But it was distorted and twisted with the visage of the past.

Instead of fear, I only felt pity when looking at that face. Maybe it was because I had already come face to face with it, but the initial shock of that dark mirror didn’t take hold within my mind anymore. In fact, I already felt myself moving further away from the image. I felt that it was only a matter of time before I was someone different than that of which I was gazing upon. When I thought about myself in that light, I stopped feeling the flames of hatred in my heart.

“Hey,” I heard a voice call out.

I pulled away from the chained man.

“Hey,” the voice repeated.

I turned around.

“Hey,” I saw Hunter say to me, looking me directly in the eyes. “It’s your turn.”

“What?” I replied, shaking my head.

I looked around and found myself back in the forest. Normally I would know when in the day it was, but at that moment, my internal clock was all out of rhythm for some reason. I didn’t linger on that thought for too long, but it still left a bit of an impact—just like every other part of me that was changing.

“Oh, right,” I said, remembering our watching shifts.

I then laid down and turned over, facing my back towards Hunter. I let my eyes close from their own weight. It seemed much more natural. There wasn't an ounce of hesitation from me nor my body. I was comfortable.

Just before I drifted to the realm of the unconscious, I heard Hunter speak up. “Hold on, I wanna ask ya something before you fall asleep,” he said.

“Hm?” I replied, still teetering on the edge of sleep.

“I, uh,” he stuttered, “I was wondering, uh, why am I alive?”

Still in a bit of a tired daze, I answered, “I don’t know, ask your mother.”

While I couldn’t see him, I could feel the confused energy radiating from his subtle, sporadic movement that started right after I responded to him.

“That’s not…” he started to say, fumbling his words. “I know you want to kill me, and I just kinda figured that you were gonna do it when I was asleep.”

“I don’t care anymore,” I responded. My body was slowly becoming more numb, and in that numbness, my outer shell was gone, leaving only the most sensitive parts of myself exposed. It’s said that a drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts. But I believe that the more accurate phrase is that a sleeping man’s thoughts are an honest man’s words

“W-W-W-What???” he rapidly said. “How? Why?”

On the precipice of sleep, I said, “I like you. I’m just like…” My words trailed off into incoherency. Just as the last glimmer of consciousness slipped away from my grasp, I heard Hunter continue to stammer about.

“You can’t just say something like that! You’re not mak…and what ab…the end of…”

***

Throughout the next two days, we traveled through the forest and across the open plains of the grasslands that surrounded Varunia. Although some moments were calm and other moments were a bit awkward, there was not a single instance of tension. There was banter, there were jokes, there was silent travel, and there were things to behold. The journey back felt so different than the one to the den. Even now, I cannot describe it with words. Nothing “special” happened during it, but it felt magical all the same. There was simplicity to the magic, and emotion to the simplicity. That time, however short it was, felt like an eternity of contentment. There was a familiar spark shared between us as we wandered through our small part of the world. And in my sincerity—and my honesty—I can say that I truly cared about him.

One instance of that spark being somewhat ignited was the night after we slept in watches. After about an hour or so of walking—and Hunter giving me the weirdest glares—we finally spoke to each other.

“So what did you mean by that?” Hunter finally asked.

“About what?” I said, cutting down some of the shrubbery in front of us.

He then wormed his way next to me with a neutral frown. “Last night,” he stated, “you said that you don’t want to kill me because you ‘like’ me. What in the hell does that mean?”

I stopped for a second. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I replied, before continuing to walk forwards through my newly-carved path.

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“Oh, don’t play this stupid game,” Hunter sighed. “You always answer in vague riddles or lies. “So which is it this time? Or will you actually give me a straight answer? Hm?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about and I wouldn’t have said that. How could someone like you? You’re an annoying little brat.”

“Says the guy who pouts like a child,” Hunter jabbed.

Turning around, I replied, “I’m twenty-three, idiot. I’m not a child.”

As I managed to turn completely around and look at him, I saw that his eyes were wider than I ever thought possible. His mouth was hung open and his face curled in shocked disgust.

“Twenty three!?” he yelled. “Damn, time really doesn’t do everyone justice.”

I fulred my eyebrows at him and cocked my head. “Look who’s talking, you little shit,” I fired back.

“I’m an adult, too, you know?” Hunter responded with a sly smile. He then rubbed one hand on his chin in a very flamboyant and showoffish manner. “I’m nineteen.”

“Yeah,” I laughed, “nineteen months…maybe.”

There was a pause, like the calm before a storm. Then we burst out laughing. I didn’t know why, but unlike the times we jabbed at each other on the way to the den, there was no tension between our words; no malice in them. From that moment on, there was a sort of levity to our casual conversations. We talked a lot, but about very little. There were many examples of small, playful talks between us during that journey back, but none that ignited like that one.

At the beginning of the last night of the last leg of our journey, we found ourselves sitting on top of a massive hill that overlooked the grassy plains. In the distance, lit up by the full moon, was the small town that we called home. Behind us were the towering crags of the twisted mountains, and in front of us were many houses, clustered together. Behind them, like the backdrop of a nice play, were the stars of the night sky. The dark hues of purple radiated into pinks and oranges. All of those colors were further accentuated by the shine of the distant lights that populated the sky. There was even a comet or two that flew by. It was a grand sight that made me realize how tiny my world really was. It was clearer more than ever at that point. There was not a single cloud in the sky, and those stars were allowed to shine and twinkle as much as they wanted.

We rested on that hill, silently basking in the beauty of the world—and it looked prettier than ever to me. Eventually, I was the one who broke the silence.

“You know,” I said to Hunter, staring out into the great beyond, “the night sky has never looked like this to me.”

“It usually looks like this to me, but sometimes there are cloudy nights, too,” Hunter responded in a nostalgic tone.

“Yeah…” I sighed, “...I hope those clouds are behind me.”

“I think the first time I ever saw the sky like this was when I left the den with my mother. Actually, I think we sat on this hill. Ain’t that funny?”

“What are the odds?” I chuckled.

“Maybe it’s fate?” Hunter proposed.

I took a second to answer. “Maybe,” I finally said. “I’ve never believed in such a thing. But how else could I explain all of this?”

“Exactly, I feel the same way. I feel like maybe there’s something greater out there—something just outta reach.” I looked over as he said that and saw him lying on the ground, arms outstretched upwards.

“You think there’s something bigger than God, herself?” I asked, still staring at him.

He didn’t look at me and continued to gaze at the stars. “I feel like there’s gotta be. Everything seems so big out there, bigger than this place. I mean look at how small those stars look. I don’t think they’re actually small, just far away. And look at all those colors! That must be where Imora got her colors. They surround this planet every night, and yet we’ve never touched them. They must be something only God can touch.”

I laid down and moved my arms towards the night sky. “But we always reach for them.”

I turned onto my side just as he was doing the same. We looked into each other's eyes and smiled.

“You’re right,” Hunter said. “We always do.”

I simply kept my smile up in response.

“One day, I want to reach them,” he calmly said. “I want to go beyond them and be with them. Honestly,” he sighed, “I just want to know why everything happens the way it does.” Tears began to subtly form on the corner of his eyes. “I just want there to be a reason for it, ya know? I don’t want all this pain to be for nothing. I don’t want it all to be pointless.”

“Maybe there is,” I genuinely answered, “maybe there isn't. But either way, we gotta keep reaching for them. If there’s one thing I can thank my younger years for, it’s that I learned that you always have to keep fighting, no matter how painful.”

Hunter turned over on his back and said, “It’s hard, you know?”

“It really is,” I replied, doing the same. “It’s even harder for me now, because I’ll always know what the night could look like. I’ll always have this image in my head.”

“Yeah…”

We continued to lay there for what seemed like both a minute and a day. Time didn’t exist while we were up there, and honestly, I didn’t want it to ever come back. But all good things must come to an end. With a synchronized nod, we both stood up and made our way towards Varunia.

***

It was about an hour before the sun would greet the land, and there was a slight mist that hung low, just beneath our knees. We just walked through the open gates of the town, and found that there really wasn’t anyone standing guard. In addition, I didn’t hear any birds singing that morning, which was rare enough on its own. What was more strange was the distinct desolace of the town. It wasn’t empty, but there wasn’t the usual crowd of night-lovers out and about. There was a hollowness to the end of the night.

Hunter and I looked at each other, and I could tell that we both were feeling the same thing. There was an unspoken connection of mutual understanding made at that moment. One that wasn’t made from fear, but one that meant that we would both be even more vigilant.

Step by step, each footstep echoed against the night-washed houses, reverberating against the stone road that we were walking on. It was about ten minutes or so into our travel within the town that the mist grew slightly denser, clinging to our bodies like a scared child. The further into Varunia we got, the colder it got. There was mourning dew that hung from each of the hanging plants in the central plaza. In that light, I could’ve sworn that they were deader than before.

“A bit quiet, isn’t it?” Hunter said with a bit of chilled frost exiting his mouth.

My eyes didn’t look at him, but instead they looked around our immediate vicinity. I replied, “It is.”

We then took a left out of the central hub, and continued on a straight path towards Bram’s place. Because of how tucked away it was, we had to navigate around a few alleyways. Nothing about them seemed out of place—we passed a few stray animals, a bunch of trash and broken things that have long lost their identity, and a single man who was slumped against a wall, unmoving. I began to walk past the man, but something in the back of my head drew me back to him. Just as I was turning back around, I felt Hunter’s hand grab my shoulder.

“Do you think we should—” he started to say.

“I already planned on it,” I cut him off.

I then walked up to the unmoving man and looked at him. He was a human, probably in his forties—although his time outside could’ve made him look older than he was—and he had a grizzled beard that hung a bit past the middle of his neck. His eyes were shut and in his hand was a glass jug.

“Are you alright?” I asked him, gently prodding his shoulder.

“Yo, you good?” Hunter added.

After a few seconds, the man began to come to. His eyes flickered a bit and he groaned. He leaned a bit up from the wall he was up against. After taking a large, raspy sigh, he asked with a mumble, “Whadya want? And whadds da…”

“I was asking if you were alright,” I repeated, a bit more stern than before.

“Neva better,” he answered.

“Well, ok then.”

I began to pull away, but just as I did, Hunter kneeled down and began talking to the man.

“If you need a place to stay, you can come with us,” he said. “We’re almost at my place now.”

“Nah imma…” the man stuttered, “I’m good.”

“Are you sure? It’s right over there.” Hunter then pointed down the alley towards where we were walking.

“If it’s ova there, then,” he hiccupped, “I hope it ain’t destroyed by the mob.”

Hunter pulled back for a second. “What do you mean?”

The man adjusted his position and looked Hunter directly in the eyes. “Have ya not heard a damn thing? Dat was all the rage last night…” the man looked around, ‘...or maybe it was two nights ago.”

“There was a mob? What did they want? What were they doing?” The panic in Hunter’s voice rose with every sentence.

“I gots no idea. They were angry and loud sons of nuns, though. I couldn't get a wink o’ sleep. They stormed by and I think they looted that old inn ova there,” he said, pointing in the same direction we were heading.

Hunter immediately pulled away and stood straight up. He looked at me with wide eyes, whose yellowness was sparking with uncontrollable energy. I saw his nostrils flare up and his breathing began to intensify. Without saying anything, he took off in a dead sprint towards Bram’s place.

I tried to follow him, but he was just too good at running—it was all he really knew how to do. I bobbed and weaved around every broken piece of furniture, jumped over every abandoned item, and kept my eyes focused on the man that was slowly making his way further and further away from me. I did eventually lose sight of him through the various alley curves and straightways, but I knew where I was going.

Eventually, I ended up in front of Bram’s place, or what was left of it. Every window was smashed, the front door was comepley missing, and there were many slash and burn marks on the exterior. While the building didn’t look pristine when I first came there, it has more of an abandoned or hidden aesthetic to it—now, it just looked violated. The condition of the house aside, the other, more glaring thing that stuck out was what was in front of the building. In various states of carnage were two humanoid bodies.

I ran up to those bodies and began inspecting them. Fortunately, they were not people that I recognized. They were two females, both wearing average attire for the town. In both of their hands was a weapon of some sort. The one nearest to me held a shovel, while the other held a pitchfork. However, the one strange thing that they both had in common was not something that they had nor wore…it was the bloody mark that ran across their body. At first, it looked like a giant slash from a sword, but that wasn’t quite right. The way it fluidly curved around the body and tore it up made me think of a whip-like weapon. But in my mind, no whip could cause so much damage. The way the body was desecrated by that one, single attack, was enough to fell a person. Whoever did it was powerful and skilled with that weapon.

I shook my head free of any more thoughts, stopping that train before it went any further. After all, I still hadn’t seen Hunter. And so, I continued to make my way into the abode. Just like before, the interior was lightless, but I could see it more clearly than before. And in that clarity, I saw a horrible sight. In front of me, scattered across the ground, were dozens of corpses. Some were slumped against the wall, while most laid across the ground. Some were partially buried beneath the obliterated furniture, and some were impaled by it. However, like before, I saw that most of them had a similar, burning slash across their body.

I didn’t stay in that room much longer and, instead, I decided to make my way upstairs to see if Hunter was in his room. I tried to go up the stairs, but even more human carcasses were in my way. At that point I didn’t care anymore, I stomped on them and continued to climb. I felt flesh and bones tear and snap beneath my feet. Oddly enough, it wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling. Eventually, I reached the top and to my unsurprise, I saw even more bodies strewn about. That being said, what did shock me was what I saw lying up against the wall next to Hunter’s room: a familiar man. As I approached the room, my suspicions were confirmed. Surrounded by at least twenty annihilated, unrecognizable bodies, was the dead viage of Bram, whip in hand. He was pinned up against the wall by a pitch fork, and his face torn and slashed. His hat was sitting right beside him, just in front of the door. It was crumpled, like it had been stepped on by a few people, and sitting still. I was drawn to it. And so, I picked it up and put it on. It felt oddly comfortable on my head. In addition, I grabbed his drac whip, holstered it on my side, and thanked his corpse. I then entered the room.

And there I saw what I feared. Standing still like a statue was Hunter, hovering over his mother’s bed. The window next to it started to beam in a mourning light, seeing as the day was just about to break into the sky. I approached the bed and saw what Hunter’s eyes were fixated on. Lying cold, still, and in tears was his mother. He white, snow-like hair was defiled with streaks of red, and her eyes were nothing but vacuous holes now. As I followed her body down, the means of death was as clear as could be. Pinned against her heart and stabbed through the bed was a single sword. And on that sword, adorning its hilt, was the petal of a valrose.