MUAHAHAHAHA! To all those who enjoy my mutilation of Clyamore, feast your gaze!

(For everyone else...)

MUAHAHAHAHA! Beware—this is bad writing. If you value your eyes, turn off your monitor and scroll to the bottom...if you can get there! You have been warned...

Inhuman

Title: Day before Journey

Pieta. "Town of the Beginning"? Heh...that's what we all called it. At least, that was before the monsters started showing up to eat everybody. What a joy ride that was...

Now, Pieta is our Town of the End. Dwindling, cold, ruined, full of half-dead farts and miserable souls who can't wait to get out of here. And now, those half-Yoma have showed up. We're not in the best situation, no?

I can't say I'm happy about leaving behind my home, but I'll be glad to get away with my life. Heck, just being in the town now gives me the shivers—those silver-eyed witches prowling the streets are horrible. They just stare, unblinkingly, with those massive swords, then walk off, making you think that they want to kill you. Well, I guess that's what you get from a half-Yoma demon like that.

Tomorrow, I'm going to leave this hellhole. I'm going to go South, maybe to Rabona, and leave this shit behind forever. I've put a tidy bit of cash away—who knows? I might be able to find a nice plot of land or something, and do well for myself.

I put the diary down, sighing. Halfway through that entry, I'd lost the will to continue writing. I just stared into space, and closed my eyes, wishing in all hell that I was somewhere away from here.

Here was shit. Here was freezing, slippery, bloody, gut-strewed misery. Here, in short, had become Hell.

I'd already packed everything for my journey out of Hell. Tomorrow would be a new start, I'd decided, a fresh breath of the different life to come.

We'd been told to get out of town a few weeks before, when we'd been informed of the presence of a large number of Yoma. It didn't stick well with a lot of us. People complained to the Elders and the Mayor, and moaned and groaned about the trouble they had to go through. Besides, for a city like Pieta, with its cold and gloomy weather, it was really unlikely to have a large amount of Yoma congregating.

It wasn't until the first half-eaten corpse appeared that we started to take some notice. My fiancée had been worried by that—she had sat me down and we'd had a talk.

"Link," she began in a serious tone, as she always did when she wanted me to pay attention, "I think, to put it simply, we should get out of here. Someone's already been eaten, and 

that threat of Yoma that the mayor talked about seems a lot more real. Do you think...well, should we...?"

Of course, I agreed with her. It didn't help my preparations when she was the next person the Yomas ate. So there I was—alone, scared, and desperate to leave. Pretty much everyone in the town was in the same position.

And then those half-breed monsters came.

There were only four of them, passing through, the first time. They walked through town quickly, arriving in the morning, and were gone before the day was out. It was a few days later, when another six arrived and requested a room at the inn that we started to feel uncomfortable.

We started to realise just how much of a target our town was. How vulnerable we were—to have inhuman half-monsters fight inhumane monsters on our behalf. That's when the exodus began.

Perhaps two days before I was to leave, I saw a large group of those —those Claymores arrive in town. They were sickeningly calm, amidst news that another five people had been eaten during the night. The death toll had been rising rapidly; we all feared for our lives and here they were, strutting with their heads held high and the giant claymores after which they'd been named hung loosely on their backs. They didn't even seem to feel the need to draw them—so calm were they that they might as well have been going for a fashion parade of some kind. That is, if blonde hair and silver eyes was the new look.

It was that slick coolness, that uncaring demeanour—that was the real reason I hated those Claymores. It wasn't that their bodies were half-Yoma, that they had the potential to kill us all—it was the fact, the conception that they didn't have a shred of compassion or humanity left in them. They just strolled around, merrily, with inattentive voices as people told them about the latest massacre. They shrugged uncaringly and told us "It'll be taken care of" or "Please wait a few more days".

Just the fact that they'd lost the core of being human—that concern and compassion about others—it sickened me. I hated them, everything about them, from their doll-faces to their indifferent airs and nature.

So I was glad I was leaving. To be stuck between these horrors and the cannibalising Yoma was a position that I had endured for long enough.

It was in the morning that I was leaving that one of them came up to me. A Claymore, a little shorter than myself, her massive sword trailing behind her approached me to tell me something quickly. I did my best to hide my disgust—though I have to admit her uncaring manner almost made me wretch.

"Sir, are you leaving today?" she asked, politely, unconcernedly. For a woman—thing, it wasn't a woman anymore—who'd spent its life fighting against those barbaric Yoma, it sounded similar to a human, if a bit disconnected.

"Yeah. What?"

"It's unadvisable to leave today, sir. There is a large snowstorm expected across the pass today, and it will make crossing toward the South extremely treacherous." Her voice was automated; clear, precise and rehearsed.

"Look, I'm leaving today. I don't care about no snowstorm or anything, I'm outta here!" I was annoyed that she could suggest that I stay here, waiting to die, for any longer.

"As you wish, sir." She bowed politely, then walked away. I stared at her retreating back, wondering how she could stand there and tell people to stay in a slaughterhouse because of some snow, and politely request we wait for some Yoma to eviscerate us. Why would I have trusted her words anyway?

So I finished packing the wagon that I'd bought, checked my belongings one last time and with a loud CRACK! of the whip, I started toward the South.

The Claymore-bitch, however, was quite right. The snowstorm swamped the track that I was on, and within a few hours of leaving Pieta, I found the way blocked by the snow. Hastily, I found a small cave, submerged slightly, with the wind blowing past its entrance and the snow falling outside. Halting the wagon outside, I dragged my horse into the cave and tethered it to a spire of rock, before finding some flint and tinder to start a fire.

My first few attempts weren't successful, but around the fourth or fifth a small, cheerful fire was blazing amongst some of the firewood that I'd had stocked up on.

Although I'd barely covered much distance toward the Southern lands, I decided to use some of my rations, since there were a few towns on the way to Rabona, the Holy City that I intended to visit. Taking the salted meat, I managed to cook some of it with the aid of my trusty frying pan. It smelt good, and it was hot—the perfect remedy to the bitter cold outside.

I was halfway through my first bite when the first Yoma arrived.

It was a dark brown colour, yellow eyes menacingly gazing upon its next meal: myself. I sat, rooted by my arse to my seat as it licked its lips, spreading that wicked mouth wide open to reveal row upon row of sharp, canine-like teeth.

"Oh God..." I whispered. "I'm going to die..."

Quite a natural reaction, I assure you, for someone who is facing something they have no hope of overcoming. My surety of impending death was when a second Yoma stepped into the cave, smiling cruelly.

"Hey," the first called softly. "Little human. Do you have any lunch?"

My horse whinnied softly in fear, while I sat there, mouth agape as the two Yoma began to advance.

"We're a bit hungry, you know?" the second one said. "We were wondering if you had some guts for us to eat. Human would be good..."

"I think you'd make a nice treat!" the first one added. There wasn't any more banter after that—it just sprung toward me, leaping with its claws extended and its mouth wide open.

Never in my life had I been so terrified. A Yoma, faster than me, stronger than me and with a body designed to kill humans, was about to tear me to pieces.

It never got the chance to fulfil its mission, however. A sword had hurtled to through its head, sending it flying forward and pinning it to the cave wall.

"I'm sorry," a very female voice echoed off the cave walls. "I meant to put both of you out of your misery with that attack, but it looks like I missed..."

The Claymore from earlier was standing in the door of the cave, weaponless, having just thrown her sword to save me. Her blonde hair whipped fiercely in the wind; silvery eyes met golden Yoma ones and locked them into a contest of wills.

Abruptly, the Yoma laughed, a deep rumble full of malice and spite.

"Oh? You killed my companion?" He grinned, turning toward her. "Does that mean I get this guy all to myself?"

I cringed at that thought—the idea of being eaten wasn't exactly appealing to me.

"If you can kill me," the Claymore replied, taking a step forward. Even without her sword, she still looked dangerous, a figure of judgement come to slay the demons of this world.

"Heh," the Yoma's voice dripped with mockery. "But how will you fight without a sword, little half-breed?"

"Watch me..." her challenge faded and she suddenly disappeared from sight. "...if you can," she finished, appearing behind him and aiming a kick at his head.

The Yoma ducked, but she swept him off his feet, smashing him to the floor with a fist into his gust. All of a sudden, his claws extended like flying arrows, pinning her to the roof of the cavern. If she'd been there, which she wasn't.

Taking the opportunity to grab her sword, she dashed backward, grabbing her blade as the Yoma stood and dived toward me again. For the second time, I saw the hideous grin, followed by that unholy widening of the mouth that indicated my death and subsequent devourment.

And for the second time, a sword flew past me, slicing into the top of the Yoma's head and cutting diagonally through him, into his ribs and out the other side. I rolled out of the way of the corpse, watching the purple blood spill onto the cavern floor.

"Are you alright?" the Claymore asked, surprising me. I'd expected her to just run off after she was done, so I was almost shocked by the sudden care that she showed. "No injuries?"

"Uhh..."

"Guess not?" she smiled, alleviating that aloofness that she'd worn when I'd seen her earlier. "Is your stuff safe?"

"Huh? Oh!" I checked on my wagon outside—thankfully, nothing had been damaged or stolen by those darn Yoma. I looked at their bodies and wondered what to do with them.

"Here," the Claymore said, catching on to what I was thinking. "I'll take them." She picked both of them up and threw them outside. "They decompose pretty quickly anyway."

"Oh...okay." I could only reply in one word phrases—the image of the unnerving warrior seemed to have vanished into thin air. The girl in front of me contrasted that warrior so greatly that my mind was still numb thinking about it.

"I guess I'd better stay with you for tonight," she said suddenly. I'd never expected this—I began to protest. "No, no! If you get attacked again, who's going to be here to save your arse?"

She grinned, childish, girlish, normal—suddenly, the soldier had fallen away and left a girl in its place. The lifelessness that I'd imagined all these Claymores lacked had suddenly arrived in the form of this girl.

"My name's Zelda, mind. You are...?"

"Huh? Oh! Yeah. Link." I felt foolish again, realising my stuttering and stammering betrayed my nervousness about what she was to her—it a tiny voice corrected quietly. Zelda was disappointed for a moment—I could see it on her face, but she disguised it well.

"I told you, it was a stupid idea to go out in the middle of a snowstorm, what with all them Yoma crawling around." She sighed, and rapped me on the head—clearly overcompensation in her attempts to appear friendly. The disappointment was obvious—she was hoping that there would be someone who wasn't so afraid, wasn't so disgusted by what she was.

She was, in essence, inhuman. Actually, I should say she was not really human, just having the visage of being one. Every person in the world thought that way—that Claymore were cold, unfeeling and utterly malicious half-monsters that threatened to turn on us at any moment.

And here I was, spending what looked like the whole night with one.

I should have been afraid. I should have been shrinking and shivering within my boots.

Actually, I was feeling quite relaxed for a while.

"Are you hungry?" That was the first, tentative fully-formed sentence that escaped my mouth. She looked up from staring at the floor (I had no idea why), startled by my kindness, then shrugged.

"Well, I don't eat that much. To tell you the truth, I don't need to eat for three or four days in a row..." She shrugged again. "But, you know, I wouldn't mind having a little bite. If it's alright...?"

"Yeah—hold on—"

I ambled back to the wagon and pulled out some more firewood to restart the fire for cooking—it had died whilst the Yoma were fighting her. A meal and a warm place during the night—it was the least I could do for someone who saved my life. I returned to the fire to find Zelda stripping off her armour, and—much to my embarrassment, most of her extra clothing. All she had one was a light-coloured bodysuit, outlining a trim figure and womanly curves.

Now, in this perspective, she was much more human. It was hard to believe that someone who looked that...well, that beautiful spent most of her time killing demonic, hulking Yoma. The indecency of the situation, however, was not lost on me. With a quiet ahem to gain her attention, I turned my head to the side, embarrassed.

"Oh!" she giggled again. "Sorry. We're used to being like this most of the time. Do you mind?"

"Not...not at all..."

She smiled—she had a nice smile—and stretched herself along the ground. Lounging back onto the floor of the cave, she closed her eyes and seemingly drifted off to sleep. Sighing, I put some of the meat over the fire and let the aroma of roasting steak fill the small cavern.

I watched her eat—I don't know why, but I was curious to see how she ate. It was odd, strangely...girlish to see her take restrained bites out of the meat and chew it thoughtfully, then swallow with the grace that comes from perfected acting. Only the most bureaucratic diplomats and skilled performers could bring that rehearsed elegance to eating. And she possessed that, without a doubt.

She'd barely eaten a whole piece when she smiled to me, wiping her mouth, and said "I'm full."

I stared, unbelieving, as I realised that I'd cooked nearly all my meat supply, and she'd barely taken one piece.

"What? I told you, I usually don't eat a lot, but I was hungry. That's more than usual."

I stared down at the measly amount that she'd eaten, and the monstrous pile of food I now needed to finish.

"So, Link, right?" She asked cheerfully while I tried to stuff the rest of the cooking down my gullet. "I noticed that you're one of the last guys to leave...why?"

"Huh? Oh. My fiancée—she got eaten." I turned my head away from her, unable to meet her eyes. I didn't want to see whether or not they were filled with compassion, whether or not those silver eyes would betray some sense of sadness or pity. Those emotions—it was too hard to comprehend such human-ness coming from a Claymore. "She was the second person to get devoured. I had to bury her...but it took awhile to get the priest here for the funeral. The local pastor was the first person to get eaten."

"I see." Zelda said quietly. "I'm...I'm sorry."

There wasn't much else that she really could say, but I still wanted more. I wanted to prove that she wasn't human, and in my mind that was just another throwaway remark about something she didn't care about.

"It must have been hard. To see what happened to her..." Zelda said—she was facing the wall, looking slightly uncomfortable and embarrassed. I don't know why—but I remember that when I turned back to look, she wasn't looking at me; instead she was staring at the rock. "I remember that...when my parents died. When my parents died, they buried them...and they threw me out of the village."

"They do that, don't they?" I said, but somehow, she seemed more and more human. Every word she said spoke of human hardships and toils, and to lose family to the Yoma was definitely one major nightmare that played in life. "Throw people out because they were close to someone who turned out to be a Yoma..."

She nodded, now preoccupied by memories. Her inattentiveness gave me a chance to properly study her profile for the first time. There was no loathing or disgust clouding my vision, and I could see that, had she not been a Claymore she would have been quite pretty. She had a heart-shaped face, and almond-eyes that, even without colour seemed to have some kind of warmth in them. Her platinum blond hair was tied back, away from her face—I guessed it was a practical measure so that it wasn't in her way when she fought.

She looked up, caught me staring and sceptically arched an eyebrow. My own carelessness—despite her good looks I really should have been more careful—had me cursing myself inwardly for my tactlessness.

"What are you looking at?" she grinned, crawling closer. Her body position allowed me a very good view of something that most men dream about during their adolescent years—her breasts. My face was tinging red with every passing moment, and my pants were suddenly inexplicably tight. I felt the urge to follow her lead and move closer, resisting it with only sheer willpower as my explanation. "You were...how do you say it...checking me out?"

"'Course not!" I ejaculated quickly—actually, let me rephrase that—I exclaimed quickly, turning my face away to hide my embarrassment. The fact that I had been checking out someone I had only just met—and what's more, it was a Claymore—only served to deepen my guilt.

"Oh, don't deny it. Even the worst of us have it happen to us." She smiled at my awkwardness, moving backward and lounging against the cave wall.

"Well...well, who would check out a Claymore anyway?" I blurted out. She blanched at my words. The repercussions of what I had said did not hit me until a second later.

"What do you mean?" she asked—I could hear the pain in her voice. I was quite surprised—I wouldn't have expected pain as a reaction to come naturally to a Claymore, let alone pain brought about by emotion.

"Well, you know...it's not..." I stammered through a list of unfinished excuses, trying to find one that would satisfy her, to no avail. "I..."

Her face didn't change—no more reactions—and stonily, she turned away from me to face the unmoving wall. It was like her. Unmoving. At least, that's what I thought then. Now?

Now, I think that maybe she had started to trust me. Thought I was a nicer person than most. And look how wrong I'd proved her? In all fairness, when I think about it, she was just a young girl, an adolescent like myself, who was shunned, hated by society and alone. No-one to trust, no-one to comfort her. And, to think that the first person she'd begun to open up to had betrayed her trust so severely?

You must think I was a disgusting person. Well, then again, I would think that anyone in my situation would reveal their "disgustiveness" as quickly as I did.

But, back to Zelda. And myself.

Mentally, I berated myself—what kind of dumbass would tell a Claymore, straight to their face, that they were horrible people? At that moment I was more concerned as to whether I could live through the night, without her cutting my head off as recompense. I don't think I realised just how much I'd hurt her feelings.

Nevertheless, we sat there for awhile, her and I. I looked at the wall. She looked at...well, who knows? I almost wondered whether she was sleeping. When I peeked at her, her back was all I could see—she was still facing the wall, and if she'd made any movement, then it was so silent that I'd never heard her. That silence was an uncomfortable absence of sound, punctuated by my discomfort and guilt, and her perception of how I'd felt.

Night was beginning to crack open across the sky like ink across paper. At least, I imagined that it would have if I could've seen the sky. The snowstorm still raged, and there was no way to see past that opaque blanket of white. Sighing, I pulled out a sleeping mat and set myself to sleep, feeling tiredness ebbing at my mind.

"You want to sleep?" It was more of a courtesy on Zelda's part, but I answered it all the same.

"I'm tired, that's all." She nodded in response, laying herself flat on the floor.

"Well, I might as well catch some shut-eye too." She closed her eyes, as the thought of security from Yoma or anything else wondering in the night crossed my mind.

"What if we're attacked?"

"I'll know if they're coming from miles away," she replied, not opening at eye. Whatever progress I'd made in revealing her gentleness was gone—she seemed cold, an ice-queen, unmoved by emotion. Later I realised that, in the time when we'd been silent, she must have perceived my feelings. It dwelt on her mind, the fact that I found her despicable, and she might have been...

Sad? Hurt? Angry? I don't know. All I can say was that she had a most human reaction to my discomfort toward her.

For my part, I managed to doze off, albeit a little guilty as the night began to settle in. I had a dreamless sleep, until I was woken by the sound of a sword stabbing into the ground.

My eyes opened, and despite feeling refreshed I was still wary. My thoughts turned to Yoma and danger, and I turned my head around to look for Zelda. She was there, sitting against her sword, looking at the floor and holding her head in her hands.

"In the end," she murmured quietly, "this was the most comfortable position?" The words were laced with anger, disgust and sadness—a combination of emotions that I would never expected for a Claymore. I watched the emotion cocktail play upon her face, screwing up her doll-like visage with agony and despair.

I sat up slowly, eyes on her as she faced the floor.

"You're up?" she tried to revert to her emotionless self, but it was a failed attempt. The forced blandness died in her throat, the expressionless face quivered and something seemed to break inside her.

"Can't sleep," I whispered. Outside, the snow had finally died down, but it was a night of pitch. The darkness smothered the inside and outside of this cave like a blanket of down covered a child. "Are you...are you alright?"

It sounded lame—pitiful and pathetic to my ears, and I realised just how much like one of the maidens that had lost their suitor she seemed. Only, I had the feeling that she hadn't lost a suitor, and I had no method to comfort her that I could fathom at that point.

"Link," she said, "would you like to hear a story? It's a story I never told before. I want at least someone to remember it before...before I die. It might change the way you think of me...but, would you like to hear it?"

"Uh..." Her request sounded more like a command, yet I felt that it wasn't something I could have refused anyway. She'd changed, or at least, throughout the night my perception of her had. She wasn't the cold and calculative person I'd imagined her to be—instead, she was emotionally-starved. It looked as if she was crying out to pour the past years into something, as if she'd never had an outlet for every day of horror and misery she'd endured.

She looked totally different to the calm and composed killing machine I'd first seen. There was something in her eye—she wiped it away, but it might've almost been a tear—and her lower lip trembled. She almost composed herself by sheer willpower, but it was her eyes that betrayed that inner turmoil and grief.

"Okay," I finally answered after an eternity of silence.

"Rabona," the word escaped her lips in a whisper. She leaned back into the flat blade of the sword and her head tilted back to stare at the roof. "The story of y miserable existence begins there...when I was a child, I lived near the city. I had a good family—parents that wanted me to go to a school in the big city, a brother who worked the field harder than any other man, and a sister who was always looking out for me. My life was idyllic, without cares."

She paused, her narrative unfinished, and stared at me. "You hate me, don't you?"

I gaped for a second. "No, of course I don't," I stammered, sickened at my own cowardice, my own inability to say 'Yes, I hate you. I hate everything about you.' Instead I was blabbing on with, "I—I, well to tell the truth I don't—"

"Shut up. I know how you feel." It was blunt, tactless and raw, and I forced myself to accept the humanness of her feelings. "I know you think I'm a monster, someone who wanted this life for myself and that I could kill you any time." She nodded, and, even if her face hadn't 

betrayed it yet, the anger in her clenching fists was evident. "You think I don't care about any of you, you think that we feel superior and we hate all of you."

I said nothing—how could I? I was too embarrassed, too ashamed that my dark, brooding thoughts had been unearthed. I nodded, and she continued, eyes hard as she continued staring at me.

"I'm telling you my story. I'm telling you how I became...how I became this..." the last word was pronounced with such venom, that I was wondering what she'd been talking about for a second or two. When I realised she was talking about herself, I almost thought her insane—I mean, I could never understand how anyone would be able to live with that self-hatred for so long.

"One day we heard that a neighbouring farm had lost two of its field-hands. They were found without their stomachs, and their hearts were ripped out. Many people were afraid—they said it was a Yoma traversing the area. Everyone was scared. We all thought we'd be eaten next."

"When I arrived home the next day, I—I..." her voice trailed off, choking her as her eyes glistened. Angrily, she wiped them away, biting her lip and gritting her teeth. "When I arrived home, there was blood everywhere. My brother was lying on the floor...half of him, at least. My mother and father were just limbs strewn across the floor..."

I didn't want to hear anymore of her horrible story. I shut my eyes, trying to block out the visions that formed in my head, but they materialised ever clearer, 'till I thought I could smell the nauseating scent of blood and see the flesh torn apart by monstrous claws and rabid teeth.

I wished to all Hell that she would stop—she did pause, and her glistening silver eyes glanced at the floor. The tears rolled down her face freely, and her mouth contorted between a silent scream and a tremble in her lips, as though she were about to break down and pour out a lifetime's worth of misery, suffering and misfortune. It was something I thought I never would have seen—a Claymore crying. The women protectors of all humanity, the cold ice-queens of judgement—could you imagine a figure carved out of stone, without morals or compassion, to cry? I couldn't. I could only bring myself to the reasoning that she was as human as any other person I'd met.

"I found the Yoma in my sister's room," she choked out. "It didn't notice me—it was too busy with my sister..." There was a blazing look underneath the tears, the utter loathing of her face undeniable as the memory that she had tried to suppress resurfaced. "It was—it raped her! It was on top of her, holding her down, doing...doing..." She clutched at herself, then buried her face in her hands again. I, personally, think that it had been a long time since she told that story to herself, and never to another person. I would imagine that the mere thought of that painful day was too much for her to bear.

"I watched the whole thing, too scared to move. My sister was screaming, whimpering—I felt the rawness of her throat and the moans of that monster as it pleasured itself. And 

when it was sated..." She shook her head. "It left...it spied me on the way out and grinned...and then it left."

"And, do you know what happened next?" She paused, clutching her arms around herself. I sat there, horrified, stunned and unable to move as she broke down. "My sister took a knife from our kitchen and sawed through her throat! She killed herself in front of me, and then..."

Zelda brought her head to her knees and curled into a foetal position. Her long blonde hair covered her face like a veil, and her silver eyes closed tightly as she tried to ignore the stinging tears. "That's how I lost my whole family."

What was I going to do? To lose my fiancée—compared to this, I guess it was nothing. She was totally beyond my comprehension, someone of a different mind and idealism. And I thought this was this end of her story?

"I went to all the homes, but none of them let me in. None! They all thought I was a Yoma. One boy that I'd went to school with, he..." she choked again. "He grabbed a pitchfork and speared me through my arm! Do..."

There was no more she could say—she just began sobbing. And I was at a loss. Here was a person who had spent the last few years bottling up every day, every day of blood and death and insatiable horrors and releasing in a torrent of rage and despair. I had no idea what to do with her. So I did the only thing—the first thing that came to mind.

I came, and sat next to her. And I brought a blanket and covered her up.

Perhaps, to you, the reader, this was not a big thing.

"He just brought her a darn blanket," you say. Well, for me, it was massive. Humongous. Entirely, out of this world. Why? Because I was sitting here with someone who was supposed to be a half-demon, a monster, a hybrid and unnatural creation of humans who weren't supposed to exist in the first place—and I was comforting her.

I don't know why I did it. I don't know why I felt so sorry for her, why I connected so much with her. Maybe I just thought she was good-looking. Maybe that idea that she was forbidden, a taboo in society—maybe I'd found that alluring. I'd have liked to, personally, have thought that I saw something truly human, more pure than any other person I'd met, in what was supposedly a monster.

She sat there, sobbing, holding her head, attempting to muffle her sniffling and silence the memories. She looked, in all honesty, pathetic. Pathetically human, pathetically whatever—at that point, I didn't care any longer. A strange combination of revulsion and curiosity overcame me, and I longed to hear the rest of her story with a dreaded anticipation.

"What...what happened after?" I asked quietly. I leaned into her, wondering how she would respond, and wasn't that surprised when she leaned back, wrapping herself in the blanket and letting her head dip against the wall. In the dying light of the embers, her face was beautiful—sorrowful, sad and beautiful, and the lines of her tears flickered as the light reflected off them. In my eyes, she had evolved from pretty, to beautiful, and not just because of her looks. Now, she was another worn and weary creature, and for the first time, I saw just how hurt, how human and how fragile she was.

It had taken me up till then—I confess, all my philosophical discourse about understanding her didn't really occur to me until around that point. But, in that dead light, wrapped in a blanket, hair askew and silver eyes red from crying, she was lovely, and I found myself loving her for it.

"You wanna know?" She hiccoughed, and her head dipped again.

"You might as well finish your story..." I whispered, and she nodded silently. Her eyes looked forward, as though she could see every event she described painted clearly in front of her.

"In the next town, a man found me. A man in black. He took me to..." she trailed off, then began a new sentence. "They gave me clean clothes, said I would never be hungry again and that I would be among girls like myself. They said it was a...a support group. For girls like me. I was too shocked to connect 'girls like me' to 'Claymore'."

"When I went to sleep that night, they stole me from my bed, and they—" she wretched on the words, tearing at her own body before clutching herself and rocking back and forth. "—they cut my body up and put Yoma parts in and...and..."

"Every day..." she whispered hoarsely. The tears had gone—all the years of sobbing had all been done in the space of a few minutes. "Every day I wake up and look in the mirror, and I see my hideous self. Sometimes, I..."

She turned to look at me, making another feeble attempt at a smile. Her mouth wavered again, and she brought a hand to her throat and made a motion, as though to slit it.

"Sometimes I wish I could do that. End this all. So I don't have to live this nightmare..." she looked up again at the roof of the ceiling. Her eyes glazed now—something stirred in the back of her mind, a memory of sorts that she didn't want to remember.

"Do you ever wonder..." I began. She looked up, and I continued, as personal as my question was. "Do you ever wonder what it would be like if you'd grown up without being a Claymore? Found a guy? Married? Had kids?"

"I would have loved to..." she whispered. Her gaze turned toward the floor again. "I dream about it sometimes, just being normal, without Yoma or Claymores to think about."

She reached up, grasping my arm. Her hands trembled at the touch, her grasp shaky and tentative. "It's so long...since someone's even touched me. It's..."

I had no idea what I was doing anymore. Heck, I didn't know whether I loved the woman or whatever. My hands acted of their own accord—reaching up, caressing her face and cupping her cheek in my hand. It was soft, delicate, surprisingly warm—it felt like a girl's cheek—and she flinched at the touch. Slowly, she took my hand from her face and wrapped my arms around her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, closing her eyes, and leaning her head into my shoulder. "It's just that"—she yawned—"I had to tell it...to somebody at least...thank you..." Her voice trailed off into the soft, slow breaths of an attempted sleep.

I nodded, and slowly we fell into slumber, wrapped up in clothes, blankets, and each other.

When I woke up, she was already dressed in her armour, fully clothed for battle. I sighed, unwinding myself from the blanket and stretching. Zelda watched me intently, as though she were studying me, then shrugged.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing..." she began, then grinned. "I was just thinking that you looked kinda cute." I blushed—it was an awkward moment!—while she remonstrated about her love life. "I never meet cute guys. All I have are lots and lots of women around me...makes me want to turn gay. No?"

I shrugged, uncomfortable with the question. Clearly, she knew I found her attractive. I couldn't even tell whether she was playing around or not.

"Oh, just relax. I'm only messing with you." She grinned, turning around and jogging outside the cave. She spun around on the spot, leaving a slight imprint of snow from her footprints. "It's pretty clear today. I don't think it'll snow or anything—that was kinda just a one-off snowstorm. You should be able to make it outta Pieta and back to wherever in no time."

"Thanks." She didn't turn around—I had the feeling that the warrior persona, the tough, polite and unfeeling person that I'd met earlier was returning. And I wanted to delay that as much as possible. "Really, I mean it. You saved my life, and—"

She nodded, still facing the other way. Her head bowed, and she stared at the floor for a moment.

"Have you ever thought that you might become something else? Someone else, totally different to you?" Her voice was steely, and it cut through my dwellings like the blade we'd named them after. "That you'll lose your sanity and become a mass murderer?"

I looked at her, watched her stand there facing that cold, harsh world. She looked...well, resolute. Stronger, tougher, but I had the feeling that something in her eyes had changed. Something was warmer, more concerned—but it was only a feeling. Maybe she was exactly the same. I'll never know—she never turned around.

"Why would you ask that? Are you going to turn into a mass murderer of people some time?" I made the distinction between Yoma and people clear.

"Yes." The answer was cold and resolute. There was no beating around, no wordplay or games. "One day, I'll become a monster. I'll become a Yoma, and I'll start killing and killing, until I'm killed." She still didn't turn to face me—the shocking truth that she'd stated was too much information for my bedraggled head. The thing that I'd tried to convince her that she wasn't, that mass-murdering broken monster was what she would become in the end? "I'm afraid. I don't want to think about tomorrow, or the day after because we're here to fight those monsters. And what's worse than death is when we surpass the limits of our bodies and become Yoma ourselves."

Finally, she turned to face me. The fear of being a monster—that painstaking, gnawing fright that festered at the bottom of her heart—finally revealed itself.

"I'm scared shitless!" she said, eyes wide with horror. "I'm scared that when I wake, I won't be me anymore!"

There wasn't anything else I could think of—I took her in my arms again, and as we stood there, she rested her head against my chest. All the philosophical crap in my head flew out as though it'd never existed, and I let myself love her again, without any of the miring thoughts about monsters and Yoma.

"Whatever happens, Zelda's Zelda, right?" I whispered into her ear. "No matter what. To me, you'll always be the beautiful blondie that I met last night. So don't be afraid, yeah?" No response; instead she leaned her head into me more and grasped me tighter. And tighter—

"Ow! That hurts!" I cried, rubbing my back. Her arms flew apart, and she gasped, blushing.

"Sorry! I forgot that you were just a normal person!" She rubbed her neck, embarrassed. "Umm...thank you?" She looked at me ruefully, but her eyes didn't show that fear they had only moments ago. Either she'd buried it or lost it—I hoped to God that it was the latter.

"Well..." I said.

"Yeah..."

"Guess I, uhh...should get going, huh?"

"True."

"Maybe..."

"See ya 'round?" She cocked her head to one side and grinned.

"That'd be nice..." I smiled back, then noticed that her eyes were glistening again. Without warning, she stepped forward and hugged me—gently—then broke apart.

"This'll be the last time I see you, I think. So thank you for everything." She stepped back, toward the other side of the path, and began walking backward, away from my destination and back towards Hell. "I—I really like you! If I ever see you again..."

"You will see me again!" I yelled to her, watching as she retreated toward Pieta. She stopped, raising her hands to her eyes as the tears began to stream down her face. "Promise me!"

"Alright, it's a promise! I promise!" She smiled as the tears rolled down. By now my own eyes were watery—I think I'm quite entitled to say I was more than a little infatuated with her—and I watched as she began walking backward again. "I'll see you again! Just wait for me!"

And then, she turned and ran. She ran—mind you, it was at a phenomenal pace, because Claymores can really run—back, toward Pieta, toward Hell, and I watched her retreating back as it became nothing more than a speck in the distance.

For the first time, in a long time, I started praying. For her. For Zelda.

MUAHAHAHAHA! Be exposed to my crappy writing and despair! Muahahaha!

In all honesty, I want to leave this here and let it be. Just a oneshot. However, if everyone wants a happy ending, say it in your reviews. If I get over twenty requests to have a happy ending (or just to give Zelda a death scene) I will add to this. MUAHAHAHAHA! Fear my horrible writing! MUAHAHAHA!

(PS: I apologise for MUAHAHAHA! appearing all over my work. It's not good, and I really am a horrible editor, but BETAs are hard to work with sometimes. So yeah. Sorry! But I hope you all enjoyed this-not that I expected you to. But I am a review-cholic. Flame me, FLAME ME I say, but leave your thoughts on this little oneshot, and the inadequacy of the ending for me to read and moan over. Thank you. Torment makes life that much more interesting.)

Inhuman-The End