Bloodborne: An Amnesiac's Redemption
Paleblood Pursuit Arc
Disclaimer: I don't own Bloodborne, this is just a Fanfiction.
Featured Music: "Hunter's Dream" - Bloodborne OST. Scene 3.
Scene 1
"Oh, yes... Paleblood..."
The voice sounded far off and muffled, as if dreamy and in a distant land.
"Well, you've come to the right place... Yharnam is the home of blood ministration. You need only unravel its mystery. But where's a figure like you supposed to begin...?"
His blurry eyesight finally began to adjust to the inky darkness of the room he was seemingly laying. He tried to move his body but couldn't seem to. The owner's voice soon began to come into focus.
An old, bearded man advanced on him, the wheels in his wheelchair squeaking distinctly.
"Easy... with a bit of Yharnam blood of your own... but first... you'll need a contract." The bearded man spoke from beneath his well-dressed and well-worn out top hat.
Contract?
The wheelchair-bound man flashed him a small grin from his advancing position, somehow looming over him. He rose up an aged parchment from inside of his cloak and, somehow, it gleaned down at him.
How...?
His eyesight blurred a little as it flashed over him in silvery moonlit, bright letters.
STEWART FORBES
"Good... all signed and sealed," the strange seeming doctor claimed, his soft words bringing him out of his trance with a contrasting startle. "Now... let's begin the transfusion..." The unnamed bearded man spoke in his growing, slow grin as he loomed over him. "Don't you worry... whatever happens... you may think it all a mere bad dream..."
As if immediately on queue his vision soon began to worsen and blur once more and he found himself struggling to even hear anything anymore. He opened his mouth and attempted to ask the man above him a question...
… but it would not come to him.
His eyes re-opened but not for long; the dim glow of after-sunlight had left the room he lay in. He tried to gasp but his body felt much too weak even to open his mouth however, movement made him turn his head around to his right.
A massive pool of bright, crimson red blood opened up on the ground not far from where he lay. He stared over at it and narrowed his eyes, as if to readjust to the darkness but it seemed near impossible. Soon enough however, a night-black form emerged from the pool. The eyes it bore stared threateningly over at him and his ears distinctly caught the sound of its paws splashing into the crimson-hot blood.
It couldn't be... a wolf...?
His blurry envisioned eyes widened and, though he tried to call for help, he could not find a voice to do so. Panic began to shoot up uncomfortably and vertically up his spine as fear took hold; the ebony wolf-beast leaned forward slowly, hovering its frighteningly sharp claws toward the fallen patient. Just when it near came into contact however it jerked its arm back and widened its own amber coloured eyes; a mass explosion of fire covered the roaring wolf-beast, forcing it back the way it came. The large creature gave off one final pained howl before falling to the blood covered floor, seemingly dead.
What was happening...?
"Am I hallucinating...?"
His thoughts were soon interrupted though when he found an impossibly small form climbing upwards on the stretcher he rested on. He double-took in its direction to his right and his eyes widened once more at it; a strangely unnerving little thing. Porcelain white, as if a doll and emaciated. Soon more began to join it and the group of open-mouthed small beings began to crowd around and over the wide-eyed patient. Fever and fear gripped at him once more and, as he stared skywards at the group of small forms, his vision began to blur. Only a single sentence echoed throughout his subconscious when he lost his sentience completely.
"Ahh, you've found yourself a hunter..."
–
2
"Agh..."
He grunted in obvious pain as his eyes re-opened and he sat upwards. Strength was finally seeming to return to his legs and to his body; his mind quickly attempted to piece together past events as he swivelled himself around to face the side, lightly hopping off the stretcher.
A contract... and then a wolf.
The old man, he thought.
Where was he?
He looked down at himself and found himself wearing simple clothes, a ruined and bloodied bandage across his two forearms. He raised his hands slowly up and looked down at them, turning them over.
They seemed fine...
He felt upwards and found himself wearing a strange hood.
Finally, his eyes widened when he realised one very important thing.
He could not remember a thing about himself.
His only clue was the name he had once seen on the contract the strange old man showed him.
STEWART FORBES
"But is that... even my name?" The seemingly foreign man thought to himself as he gradually clenched his fists softly in tandem with his shutting eyes. Even as he shook his head and re-opened his eyes, they were soon drawn to a distinctly lit up note lying in a chair dead ahead. His curiosity piqued, he strode forward and narrowed his eyes down at it; bending down to pick it up, he very quickly read the handwritten scrawled note hungrily.
SEEK PALEBLOOD TO TRANSCEND THE HUNT.
"Paleblood...?" The amnesiac parroted out in a low murmur, his brow furrowing in remembrance and thought.
Where did he hear that word before?
The old man perhaps?
The patient merely shook his hooded head of the note and discarded it softly back down to its original place, turning his eyes on the double-doors to his left.
The exit?
Even as he strode forward, opened the doors up and walked out them he found the flash of the amber sunset through the top window terribly aching to his eyes. He raised up his free left bandaged hand to block the sun's falling rays across his eyes and climbed down the long staircase before him. Soon striding into a second hallway entering into another room, his eyes darted around as he dropped his left arm, his vision unimpaired.
Other stretchers, just like his.
Was this a clinic of some kind?
SQUELCH
He winced and jostled at the sudden and disgusting noise to his top right; his narrow-eyed head snapped to his right and that familiar wave of fear and nausea began to bite at him once more.
It couldn't be...
Not again surely?
He bent his body downward for stealth purposes and hid behind one of the many stretchers lying around the clinic room as he moved around it, as if using it as a shield. He stretched his body to the side to allow his eyes to similarly move past the blocking tools of the hospital room.
What he found chilled him to the bones.
A number of horribly disfigured corpses, covered in blood and entrails, lay beneath a hungrily scoffing wolf-like creature.
It can't be the same one, he thought to himself in dim vain.
His eyes darted upward to find the entrance to another seeming hallway.
If he could sneak by then maybe he could avoid a fight entirely.
But what if it detected him...?
With no weapons he was as good as dead.
I can't fight it like this, he thought.
What if I can't fight at all?
He gulped down a hefty amount of saliva and, gathering what small courage he possessed, the youth lightly stepped around to the wolf's blind side; the right. Very slowly and controlled, he tapped across the floorboards, hoping desperately not to cause any noise. He could hear the creature ravenously rip apart the dead flesh that lay beneath it, seemingly savouring in its meal. He shut his eyes as he listened, his anxiety growing as he attempted to sneak by it.
CRASH
The patient's eyes shot wide open as he felt his left leg brush past one of the tools, causing a rather loud noise indeed.
With his eyes shut, he could not have noticed at all.
Oh no, he thought.
With agility he did not know he had, the patient could barely gasp as he leapt to his right instinctively to avoid the roaring wolf's leaping slash attack. As he rolled across the ground and the floorboards noisily, his widened eyes watched the similarly skidding wolf-beast crashing into and easily destroying one of the stretcher beds he once snuck by. Time soon shut down for the pair as they soon came to a simultaneous halt; staring one another down from their positions, the wolf-beast hungrily and the patient worriedly.
The youth's eyes very quickly snapped to his right, as if eyeing the exit desperately; his similarly eager foe seemed to notice for its own eyes followed his and, as it soon broke the silence into a slow approach, the patient immediately turned around and broke into a frantic run.
CRASH
Another seeming stretcher bed was destroyed in the creature's wake as it charged through in hope of catching its next prey. The gasping patient attempted to leap over the fallen and half-eaten corpses but soon found himself frantically tripping up, perhaps on a body or a part of it. His eyes widened once more but this time in abject horror as he found himself falling to the ground. Attempting to scramble back to his feet he barely had more time to move before the growling wolf behind him finally caught up.
SQUELCH
The youth's eyes snapped wide open for the second time and he let loose a blood curdling scream of terror and pain as he felt its presumed claw pierce his left leg's flesh. Attempting to turn his body around to get a look at his attacker, he could only catch sight of its chilling amber eyed glare before, finally, it leaned forward with its free right claw and sunk it forward into his face.
–
3
His eyes snapped wide open and, though he tried to reassert himself, he found his senses dulled somewhat. He winced and attempted to rise upwards only to find the area ahead of him blurry and disorientating.
What in the world was going on?
A garden lay before him and a small bath to his left at the end of the clearing. Behind him lay a path that seemed to twist around the garden and in front of him to his right were four graves. Only one was designed differently however; a strange and seemingly almost vulgar design. Its front was roughly cut in half, lead up by the twisting staircase into a small house-like structure above. His eyes stayed fixated on it and he began to stride forward as if to climb up toward it before suddenly stopping just short of the staircase itself. He double-took in his left immediate direction and widened his eyes at the sight next to him.
A small but very life-like doll lay on the small stone hill next to him, its head tilted to the side. The young man blinked down at it and could almost feel it staring back at him.
Strange, he thought.
It was a well-made creation indeed; its long silvery-white hair came down like draped curtains over its porcelain-like complexion and the regal clothes it wore seemed to indicate a strange sense of importance.
He gave it one last lingering look before finally deciding to shake the sight off and resumed climbing the staircase before him. Just as he did however, his eyes double-took once more to the ground below him; he stopped just short of the strange sight before him, eyes widening. A quadruple group of small life-forms seemed to congregate around a visible glowing item. He blinked down at it before narrowing his eyes at the small life-forms, recognising them.
Weren't they the things in his dream?
What was even going on anymore?
"Am I sane...?"
With that thought driving him on he very carefully knelt down and reached a hand out down to the small circle. When he finally touched it however, he heard the small life-forms utter something and his eyes widened when he pulled his left hand back to find a broad brown axe inside it.
"What the...?" He murmured out. Before he could even question the strange forms below him however they very quickly disappeared as soon as they reappeared. He turned his quizzical eyes over to the three remaining groups and walked on over. Reaching down just as before he pulled out a pistol of some kind and, finally, a small notebook. Blinking down at them, unsure, he placed the pistol on his belt and stuffed the notebook beneath his vest.
His mind, burning with questions and curiosity, drove him on as he pushed the double-oak doors before him. With a single effort-filled grunt he parted them both to reveal a surprising sight indeed; a workshop lay before him. Books upon books upon tables of research lay around the small room. With the new axe's hilt laying softly in his right hand he turned his eyes around to examine the new workshop around him. A wide storage container lay to his right and a small cabinet of books to its own right. Turning his eyes to the table next to it he soon double-took a third time only to widen his eyes at the sight.
A smiling old man stared back at him, sitting in a wheelchair.
The blood minister from before?!
No, he thought.
Somehow... it wasn't.
Then who...?
"Ah-hah, you must be the new hunter," the well-dressed man greeted over in his light smile. He held a fashionable cane between his legs as he stared up at the approaching young man. "Welcome to the Hunter's Dream. This will be your home, for now."
His voice seemed to be of common origin; cockney perhaps?
He wore a peculiar but very worn grey cape and trousers and his long greyed hair seemed to go well with the similarly worn top hat he wore.
"I am... Gehrman, friend to you hunters," the old man began again as he smiled up at the youth. "What is your name?"
The youth's eyes widened.
What was his name?
Suddenly, memories of his dealing with the blood minister from earlier came rushing back to him.
STEWART FORBES
"M-My name-"
"You don't seem to be from around here do you...?" The newly introduced Gehrman questioned him with a light tilt of his head. "Your accent...," he started, raising one of his grey eyebrows upward. "It's not recognisable to me and yet..."
The nameless youth blinked back at him as he listened.
"You seem... so familiar...," the old man claimed as he lost his smile, very temporarily to a suspicious narrow-eyed frown. The nameless youth turned his eyes away from his new friend, unsure of what to say in response. "Well, no matter," Gehrman claimed, this time with a light grin on his aged face. "You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this," he began to explain before his grin seemed to widen ever so slightly as he tipped his head to the side knowingly. "Just... go out and kill a few beasts," he attempted to reason with the youth. "It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it..."
"But-" The young hunter began as he frowned back at the listening Gehrman. The elderly man raised a curious eyebrow up at him, as if to press him further. The youth winced as he lowered his eyes in response, as if looking for some kind of reply. "Really...?"
"Yes," Gehrman chuckled, as if the answer itself was as obvious as the sun's setting. "Yharnam has a bit of a beast problem you see," he explained briefly, his smile faltering as he did so. "And we have need of young men and women like yourselves."
The nameless youth frowned unsatisfactorily but could only nod back in response as he listened dutifully.
"Now... what shall I call you?"
The hunter's eyes widened.
Oh no, he thought.
What was his name?
I can't remember, he thought to himself worriedly.
What should I say?
The name from the blood minister's contract was the only name he could think of but he did not feel comfortable giving claim to it.
Not yet anyway.
"U-Um I'm sorry... I... I'm not sure-"
"Amnesia, is it?" The old man chuckled knowingly; the youth's eyes shot back up in recognition and surprise, allowing him to continue. "Yes... it seems to be a thing with our hunters in this particular workshop..."
"So, then...?"
"Then I shall call you... good hunter," the elderly man smiled onwards as he tilted his top hatted head at the youth. "Is that acceptable?"
Stewart nodded enthusiastically, the ghosts of a smile slowly approaching on his young features.
"Excellent," the wheelchair-bound man similarly nodded in his growing grin. "Then... your training begins now... good hunter."