"It was a town of wide extent and dense construction, yet one with a portentous dearth of visible life." – H.P. Lovecraft. The Shadow of Innsmouth
When will I wake from this nightmare? This desolate life that only careens death and mayhem at every turn. I hope to beckon any semblance of sanity to rain down upon me like the filthy water above The Fishing Hamlet.
I hate this town, and I know it hates me. Me a hunter, a monster with authority to keep the rotting mortality intact on the townsfolk. The healing church has granted me the task to help along with their grand experiments for the great ones. I wish I can believe that.
What we have done to these people will always be from the far reaches of forgiveness. Like the Astral plane that many of my compatriots have inspired to it will be a length in which no human mind can ever measure. Many of the townspeople have said that they are cursing us in hopes for our children's children suffer in what we had accomplished in this small fishing town.
Men and women only torso high, covered with barnacles around there bodies, their faces ridden with revolting flesh that taunts you to look away. We have done this to these poor people. Reducing them to only slabs of meat for a church that believes the greater good was the only goal for its price on innocent beings.
I believed I was a good person when I decided to join the hunt. To caste away my family lineage of the Vilebloods to the ocean and to never look back. But my pale skin and immortal body still continues to bring memories of my ancestry. I was cursed from birth with a family that only smelled and ate power as a hearty meal. I wanted to walk away from my blood. But instead I only became just as evil as my birthright have entailed.
But I didn't stay to be hunter for the church. The church does not care for the lives of its hunters, only to ask for penance in the old and new blood. No, I stayed for someone not something. I stayed for my teacher, my love.
I would sacrifice everyone in the fishing hamlet just to forget his name. I only fool myself in promising to never speak it from my lips, thinking that alone would undue all my happiest of memories towards him. What a fool you are Lady Maria. You will never forget his education, his authority, his love.
His love for me I knew firsthand was true. The way his dark eyes peered unto me with fierce romance whenever I greeted him in the morning. But he would only shutter away when wanted only just the smallest touch from him. His curious mania was becoming too much for him to handle as he would only talk openly to no one in particular of the rummages in his mind.
He wanted to leave the dream. He wanted what was promised to him by the healing church. A pact he made with a cleric named Laurence long ago but will never be met. My teachers mind started to curl away from sanity after years of the hunt. Our ages were not so distant, even though as he grew old and weary I still looked young. I was cursed with the Vilebloods genetics of never aging, never showing the wrinkles of old age. But despite my teachers grey and withered hair I loved him just as the day I met him.
My teacher knew why I decided to take on the hunt. It was just for the fact that I wanted to do away all my family has done with one strong swoop of a weapon. A weapon that would strike fear amongst the blood thirsty monsters around the town of Yharnam. My Rakuyo.
A weapon in need of great dexterity, and one unlike many hunters have used did not require blood. It is the only weapon from my town of Cainhurst that I had decided to bring with me during my tutelage under my love. When he first looked upon my weapon he only smirked with a smile that I prayed to see a hundred times more.
"I hope your small hands could wield such a weapon," My teacher laughed
"I will show what I can do with it, you will see," I said under protest.
His patience from his teaching was indescribable. My long winded attacks, my bumbling footwork, my subpar defense was all molded into a fierce hunter under my teacher's calm hand. His name must still not come away from my lips.
"Curse here, curse there, a curse for he, and she, why care." A voice bellowed beside me.
The grotesque being smelled worse than the fish that once swam around in the town. A shawl was covering his face, masking the unbearable looks that I was sure fooled no one. I believed he looked like any other from the town. A misshaped creature with the face of an infected bowel was like any other here
"Byrgenworth...Byrgenworth...blasphemous murderers...blood crazed fiends...atonement for the wretches. By the wrath of Mother Kos...mercy for the poor wizened child. Mercy, oh please," his voice was riddled with infection I can only tell.
His mind was probably the same as well. Never caring if his words had an ear as he limped low and hard passed me. The darkened water was only above my ankles as I heard the splash of it against his shoeless feet. Still ranting for only him to hear
"A bottomless curse, a bottomless sea. A source for all greatness, all things that be. Listen for the baneful chants. Weep with them, as one in trance. And weep with us, oh, weep with us."
Its words cling inside of me, a slow temperate flame that will only curl into something stronger. Years ago I would have wiped my Rakuyo blade under its filthy chin and be away from his breathless banter. But today was not going to be that day. My aristocratic attitudes towards those lesser then I has put me at ease. At least towards the townsfolk.
Houses bent over from haphazard construction, architecture that screamed the telltale signs of horror that should be turned away from any chance of intelligence.
I stand next to a well. A well that I had passed many times over. The large gaping hole clings to a gravity that is pulling at me. The blood curling screams vibrate inside my memories. The men and women we used to experiment for the healing church. They did not want this, no one has or ever will. My Rakuyo is not a blood blade but that does not make it any more ceaseless from blame. I pullout my weapons and admire its breathless brutish beauty. My teacher taught me to hold you right didn't he? These twin blades were an extension of my admiration for my beloved. Every beast of the night that was cut down by my blades were my true devotion to him. Oh how I hate him.
I can hear the loud clomps from my blades hitting on the bottom of the well. It gives me relief and despair knowing that I will never make use of it anymore. My life of hunting is ceasing to exist. So let the monsters of this nightmare do what they must with it. They will do no more harm with it then I have had over the years.
The Astral Clock tower is where I reside. A place of comfort and reflection. The wooden floor creaks from my fish watered boots as I smell the poison inside of my nostrils. I have trained for a horrendous amount of hours to refine my skills in this large room. My teacher poking and prodding me to make my form right to make the hunt swift and quick as possible.
I loved being with him and away from the hunter's workshop. His place of martial education. He was stoic and bitter in his teachings with me, keeping his familiar verbiage inside of himself. But not here, not in the clock tower. It was our second home with one another. He was peaceful and true to me, and the only place that compelled him to show only an ounce of his affection towards me.
"I have much care for you. Don't you forget that?" He whispered to me many nights ago.
His wrinkled and hardened face hung low when he told me those words. Care, he actually cared for me. Usually I have heard men tell me how much they have cared for my affection. But, my teacher was not one to throw away such words. He always spoke with an air of calculation. Each syllable marking what he needed to say rather than want. Oh he loved me that crazy fool. His care meant love for me and I have always fought to bring it out of him. But the stubborn bastard always held me away.
I remember the last day I saw him. A vivid reflection that still marks me. We were at his workshop. My body worn out and battered from battle. My teacher only looked worried and fearful.
"Are you...are you alright?" I asked.
He sat down in his crinkled chair and shoved his head away from my question.
"You are tired, please rest." I said fetching a warm blanket for his weary bones.
"Please wake me from this dream." My teacher mumbled.
I knew what he had meant, but I still wanted to steer him away from his silly notions of the hunters dream.
"We can stop this. The dreaming. All of it." I exclaimed to him.
His pale eyes looked toward me, beckoning a real solution from me.
"We can be together. Just us. I will take care of you. Please." I pleaded.
"No!" He bellowed.
I felt the warm tears waving inside of my eyes. How dare he spit away from my true affection towards him. I was not some charlatan who wanted a quick fling with him. I wanted to become his and him become mine. He was liar to deny me such valor.
"Stop being an old fool!" I yelled.
The Vilebloods genes were rising high inside of me. The act of refusal was too much for me not to turn towards him in anger.
"You must be away from me...Now!" He roared.
His one leg shook ferociously against the floor. Indicating truly that he did not mean what he said. My teacher loved me and I knew it. His body was begging to lean towards me and show me his love. What kind of fool was my teacher?
"Don't do this. We can be away from this life. Let's find a true home and start a new life together. Away from the church, away from the great ones, away from the night of the hunt. I love you." I said making my last words clear as anyone could.
His moment of silence was like eternity, my teacher's chest heaved to and fro hard but slow. A new level of fear that I had never seen before.
"Be away from me and this workshop, and never return. So if you do I will swipe away that pretty head of yours!" He seethed.
I wanted to cling my blade inside his chest and into mine. My anger was becoming too much to hold inside.
"Your curious mania has become too much for you. You are now an old bastard that doesn't know what a descent world you can live in!" I screamed.
"And you are the same my child. You forget what you made your oath for. I should kill you where you stand for just even mentioning that you want to leave the hunt."
"But you won't. And that is because you love me too much to even lay any finger on me. Either in violence or care."
He wanted to stand on his wooden leg and slap me across his face. But he couldn't. The old fool just couldn't.
"Leave and never return! "He said without any care of my retorts.
The next bit of memories were only fragments. Slashing away anything that came my way until I reached the fishing hamlet, the ghost town that reminded me of what sort of life I had led.
Now I sit on my rusty throne. Keeping away the vagrants of the research hall that I had led for the healing church. Countless innocent men and women used for experiments for the cosmic beings. Their bodies riddled with blood as there head was only covered with a mushy flesh wrapped around there faces. They say they can hear the sounds of the water splashing all around wanting forgiveness from me that I have nor ever will have the authority for. But I have no more remorse for their screams of brain fluid. Only for my own from an unrequited love.
I look close to me and I see a framed picture. A picture that brings me happiness and sadness. It is of him and I. A teacher and his pupil. His name still hesitant from my lips.
I slap the picture across and see a large bit of glass from the shattered picture. It is the form of a blade. A weapon just perfect to end one's life. But what life did I have? Was it from bloodlust? Or was it for love? I want to stop these endless questions that will never have an answer. I want to stop this immortal life. Curse my ancestry.
I could feel the sharp glass across my hand as I steady it under my chin. I feel just the second tear of my life roll across my cheek. And I breathe out the last breath I hope to ever partake.
"Gehrman!" I let out and a quick swipe let out a pool of blood from my neck.
I felt the hot air escape from the hole I just exposed. A feeling of hopelessness was washed inside of me, wishing for this to end as quickly as I had slashed myself, but my thoughts of my teacher holding hands across the a garden of flowers ran inside my mind. My teacher looking at me with a care that he had always shown towards me but this time was followed by a kiss upon my lips.
I want this to be my everlasting cerebration. A forever realization that will give me comfort until my last breath. Oh Gehrman, how I love you. Please just stop this useless hunt and give away to a real dream. Let your curious mania subside and fall like the monsters of the blood. I love you.
I can only feel my breaths getting shallower but not ceasing as of yet. I will keep these thoughts to bring happiness towards me and hope that someone or anyone would leave a corpse well enough alone.