I am Senghor
Cold. I felt so cold. Like the eyes of the Grimm before they descend, like the beast within as he arises and destroys everything. I walked for so long alone. I felt cold, naked, and hungry. My sated appetite for what festers inside me not quelling my actual hunger levels. I managed a few months without allowing my 'problem' to get out of hand. Not long enough, if only I had the willpower to stop myself from going too far, I'd be able to find something to kill and eat. It had been a week or so since I'd eaten, running from Vacuo to wherever I was now. A feat itself. I was told of a place where hunters and huntresses gather and hunt at their own leisure. A place called Beacon. I needed to get there, fast.
The snow was almost blinding, such a bright sun for such a white land. My eyes stung every time I looked forward, making me wince every single time I thought picking my head up was a good idea. So I stopped relying on my eyes and instead relied on my sense of smell. My nose was assaulted with multiple different scents. The smell of death coming from the stripped of flesh carcass to my immediate right, the weird, crisp freshness of the snow filling my nose from all around me, and to my relief, the smells of a forest. My mouth watered and my vision went hazy almost immediately. Birds, foxes. Deer. All were mine once I was I was inside the forest, finally. Food.
My arms went limp as soon as I entered the snowed over forest floor, I could hear and smell them, rabbits and foxes and deer and many other creatures everywhere. My mouth watered like crazy, I felt my mind go numb as thoughts of me tearing into moist, wet, raw, bloody flesh filled my mind. My arms went numb once again and my war-axes fell beside me, I keeled over, feeling my skin and bones become incredibly hot. Not again, not now. I willed myself to get up and shrug the feeling off, I wasn't going to allow myself to go that far.
I picked up my axes, my now blue hands so numb I could barely feel the entirety of my colder than ice hands, or the axes within them. I could still move them though. That was a good thing. I trekked onward, not actively hunting anything until I could see it in front of me, occasionally checking behind me. Occasionally. Every time I set my eyes forward I felt some other things eyes tear into my back. I knew what was following me, I just didn't have the strength to fight them right now, so I ignored their existence. I heard a twig snap to my left and prepped my axes. A deer. A beautiful, gorgeously warm, blood filled, fleshy, fatty deer. Ohohohohhhh…yes. Went the animal inside my mind.
My mouth quivered with each bite I took out of its throat, the warm, thick, juicy crimson liquid that tickled my taste buds hazed my mind over every single time I tasted that strange metallic tinge. I dug into the flesh around the ribs. It was warm and...fleshy. The throat provided the necessary juices I needed and the ribs provided the skin, flesh and other things that I don't know the name of. I was content with the feeding. It had been a while, so this was absolutely delectable. I shoved my fists through its guts when I finished feeding to warm my hands up, and it worked wonders. My hands felt warmer in minutes. I ripped the deer open completely, pulled all the entrails out and slotted myself inside, my dreadlocks getting sodden by the remains of what was left, but I didn't care. I was warm. I started to blink out and before I knew it, sleep subdued me.
The rants of a madman filled my mind as I entered the blissful darkness of sleep. I had a good idea of who the madman was, if I was right. They liked to plague my mind with visions and apparitions of death and despair, reminding me of things I didn't want to remember. I felt the coldness of his breath down my neck, a chill going down my spine. "Don't run from it!" He screamed as I heard a familiar roar beat against the inside of my mind, as if a woodpecker was stuck inside my skull. "He will find you, boy! He found me and I am unto a God!" He roared again. The same words filling my head with each of his fanatical ranting screams. His voice as deep as the ocean, yet as shrill as metal grinding against metal. I started running into the darkness of my mind, the ranting getting louder with each passing second. My heart was in my throat, I felt each throb of blood course through my body, fear driving me further, it was definitely him, it was definitely him. He was getting closer to me, I could feel it. Breathing down my neck as he screamed into my ear, claws outstretching in the corners of my eyes, the voice of a monster and the sight of one. "You will give in to me; you will give into us all!"
I awoke (Thank the creator) to the sound of howling (crap…) and remembered something…I was followed. I popped from the insides of the deer like a bloody hell child and as expected, I was surrounded by a pack of beast born. I grabbed both my axes and prepped myself for the first strike. "Why did I go to sleep?" I asked myself just as the first one pounced. I swung my one war-axe and behind me dropped the decapitated body of the beast, its head following not long after. The petals poured from the withering husk of the monster and straight into the air they went, flowing around me in a beautiful array of red. The others looked at each other, and decided to attack me in unison. I leaped high into the air, stirring up the petals of the dead beast born behind me, I smiled as I watched the wolf like creatures dive right into the deer's stomach. I linked the handles of my axes and felt the length of my weapons shaft increase and the weight miraculously double as the entire thing changed from the two, one handed war-axes to this much larger, two handed, labrys that I required for the three beast born lined up underneath. And…"Rawr!" I brought the axe down hard on them as I let out that inhuman guttural noise, the one blade edge caught two of the wolfish creatures, severing both of their heads from their now limp bodies. The other was trapped underneath the metallic shaft of the axe. So I dragged the beast from underneath it and began beating it. Pounding on its face until it was barely recognizable whilst crushing its sides with my legs. It howled in pain as I grabbed the sides of its head and ripped it off, the petals of my glory exploding into the air. My victory was short lived as I heard more howls, my body was soon becoming numb again, so I picked up my things. And ran.
I could see a group of people ahead, hopefully the people I had been looking for, I ran towards them as quickly as I could, the monsters not far behind me. The people obviously saw me, their silhouettes seemed to turn and face this direction, I turned my head briefly just to see the teeth of one of the horrors wrap around the air right in front of my turned face. I squealed a little and carried on running, this time a little faster. I saw one of the people waving their arms and I smiled momentarily, before I saw the spell that was cast. I stopped to raise a barrier around myself as quickly as possible as the ball of destructive energy hurtled towards me. When it hit it felt like I had been kicked in the ribs, I lost all the air in my lungs and almost all of my energy was gone. Everything was completely engulfed in smoke. I turned to see the vast majority of the monsters dead, save the few that were on top of me almost immediately. I hacked and slashed using the last of my energy to quickly tear apart the beasts that had pestered me for so long.
I breathed heavily out of my nose as i killed the last one, dropping its arm on the floor after beating the now dead horror in front of me with it. I turned around once again to face the people I had been trying to reach for a time, to realize they were now in my face. I was greeted by a middle aged man with glasses, grey hair, brown eyes and a black suit, over a black vest with a green undershirt underneath that. And next to him stood the perpetrator for the spell casting. I could feel the power of the dust coming from her. This person was also middle aged, had their blonde hair held up in a bun, had dazzlingly cold emerald eyes, and also wore glasses. This person was a she, and she was wearing a white long sleeved shirt that let a bit too much of her upper bodily qualities show, with a long black business skirt with buttons on it. They both looked at each other and then looked at me. The man gave me a quizzical look, as if assessing me. My body was beginning to shake, I didn't eat enough it would seem and I'm still a lot weaker than I thought. My vision blacked out a few times before he said anything.
"Well, You seem to be very popular today." He gave me that look again, as if expecting me to speak. I didn't. He squinted a little as if signalling how he knew I wasn't going to talk and i wasn't. Not yet. "Who are you…and why are you not, clothed?" I thought about what to say as I was blacking out, the nausea i felt in my stomach hitting levels I never thought possible. But to be with fellow hunters was my dream, to hunt, kill and eat what we wanted, when we wanted. It was almost too good to be true. I felt myself teetering on the spot as i opened my mouth to say what i was going to say.
"I, am Senghor, and I…I don't…" I blacked out completely, felt weightless for a second, and succumbed to the darkness that enveloped my mind.