Author's Note: Final part of this story! Review if you like it :)
Chapter 3
The road to Hemwick was a long one, filled with dogs and gun-toting villagers. The transitory area in the graveyard gave me flashbacks to the time I got lost in the forbidden woods - I had to call a cooperator to lead me out, but her "shortcut" led to us running into the Shadows of Yharnam - but we found our way out soon enough. Sean bounded over to the lamp and lit it with an expression of visible relief on his face. He hadn't amassed enough echoes to return to the Dream yet, so we continued onward into Hemwick proper.
I threw myself upon the witches dancing in the clearing, taking them out before Sean even knew what was happening. He was better with the next group, putting down the witch and the dog coming down a stairway while I darted ahead and killed another witch throwing Molotovs. We'd begun to work together better as a team by this point, our blades flashing in a synchronized dance of death. At the Cainhurst crossroads, a troll-like Executioner grabbed me and slit my throat with his blade, but Sean covered me excellently for the moment my life was flashing before my eyes.
"Damn," he commented as I steadied myself and stood up on shaking legs. "That's a lot of blood. For me it'd mean a trip back to the Dream for sure."
I shrugged and gave him a thumbs up, still unable to speak for the moment but otherwise feeling well enough to continue. In retrospect, I was still a bit dizzy, and probably should have waited longer. But I'd long ago run out of patience for these sorts of things, sick of just sitting there while my flesh knitted itself back together. So Sean and I crossed a bridge and entered a dark hut, climbing up a rickety ladder to the roof. This was a tricky part. The roof was narrow, and we'd have to sidle along a ledge for a while to get to the other side. What's more, the drop off the side of the roof was more like a cliff, descending into mist and nothingness toward the lake. We sidled around a corner to cross the narrower part of the roof, and suddenly alarm bells went off in my mind. There was something here, up ahead, that had killed me once, but I couldn't remember…
"Wait," I said, but my voice was still hoarse and far too quiet. Sean didn't hear me, or maybe wasn't listening, but he took another step forward. Just then, a tall unpleasant-looking old woman leaned out from around a corner and struck him over the head with a huge wooden mallet. He staggered, and I ran to cover him, but the roof was narrow and the old witch was too fast for me. She hit him again before he'd even recovered properly from the first blow, and Sean went over the edge.
I smashed the witch with my Tonitrus, not even checking to see if she was dead, and crouched down to peer over the edge. I couldn't see where Sean had gone, but the fall did not look to be survivable. Damn it! My faulty memory had gotten him killed, and the knowledge that it was not permanent didn't do much to make me feel that much better. Even if he woke up again in the Dream, I'd probably never connect with him ever again. I sank down to my knees on the ledge and hissed in frustration, waiting for the inevitable moment of disconnection from this world. But it didn't come. And didn't come. And still didn't -
"Hey!" a voice called faintly. "I'm down here!"
I looked down again, but still couldn't see him. Then I remembered - there was an old, half-broken bridge somewhere down there, wasn't there? I remembered going there and seeing an odd mark carved into its wood, a rune I didn't learn the significance of until I beat the Witches of Hemlock and found Caryll's corpse in their basement. But how had Sean managed to get all the way down there, and how in Yharnam was he still alive?
I ran back down into the house and slid down the ladder, exiting the way I came. I had to backtrack around the house to get to the bridge, but finally I reached him. Both of Sean's legs appeared to be broken, but other than that he didn't seem in any immediate danger of dying. "I'm out of blood vials," he said sheepishly, grimacing in pain as he tried to move. "Can you lend me one?"
"It's not exactly lending if you can't give it back," I grumbled, but it was already in my hand by the time he'd asked. I sat down on the wooden planks next to him and distracted him with the story of Caryll runes while his legs healed, and that only increased his anticipation about fighting the witches in order to get the workshop tool for himself.
From bridge, we turned a few corners and climbed a steep hill, mowing through the assorted old women and executioners that blocked our path. "Just hit the small ones," I instructed as we walked into the Witches' domain. "As much as possible, try to ignore the things they summon."
Sean nodded and crossed the invisible threshold into the room. I followed, glancing around warily to see where the first witch would appear.
There! Off to the left, a darting orb of red light. I got a hit in on the witch before she even fully materialized, slamming my axe down so hard that the wooden floorboards splintered underneath. The witch disappeared, but not before she managed to summon a Mad One on the other side of the room.
"Ignore them?" Sean yelped as a sickle swung over his head. "Are you crazy? This thing's gonna kill me!" Instead of running, he wasted precious seconds hacking the Mad One to pieces while I tracked the real witch up the stairs to a raised platform. Her next few manifestations were easy to eliminate, but it wasn't until I managed to kill her that the real fight began.
A second witch appeared in the room, resurrecting her friend with a single wave of a hand in her direction. Now that there were two of them, the witches were fighting at their full potential. They didn't hesitate to use magic, driving us away from them with explosions and sending loops of arcane energy to trap us while the Mad Ones did their dirty work.
At some point during the fight, Sean and I got separated, and I realized I hadn't seen him in nearly a minute. I darted around the room in a circuit, searching all the dark corners and stairwells. I found Sean in a corner of the room, held in the grasp of a containment spell cast by one of the witches. He thrashed around wildly, trying to slip out of its grasp, but the glowing blue lasso only tightened around him. That by itself wouldn't have been too bad, but all three Mad Ones in the room were drawn toward the sight of his struggle.
I sprinted toward him, extended poleaxe at the ready. I got there just as all the Mad Ones sliced at him simultaneously, tearing him open in a dozen places. The spell ended and Sean collapsed to the floor, easy prey for the evil spirits.
I approached from the back and sliced sideways with my axe, staggering all three Mad Ones with a single hit. I darted backwards, enticing them to leave Sean alone and follow me toward the center of the room. Another sideswipe, and the one closest to my axe dissolved into dust. The other two went for me, but I executed a neat little combo that ended by stabbing the spike at the tip of my axe straight through the torso of the closest enemy.
Sean was staggering to his feet at the edge of the room, swinging his sword drunkenly and missing the witch with every other swipe. I shoved him out of the way just before the witch shot out a blast of arcane magic. "You. Stay. Heal." I barked at him, throwing a few blood vials in his direction in case he was still low on supplies. Then I was off again, on the trail of the Witch's latest appearance.
This fight was a constant game of cat and mouse, and it was easy to run yourself ragged and make a stupid mistake from the sheer duration of it. I dodged the containment spell several times, then managed to get caught in one in a corner of the room. Luckily, the Mad Ones were all occupied chasing Sean at the moment, so I got out without any issues. I barely even noticed when the one of the witches fell for the final time, though some part of me acknowledged that the fight had suddenly gotten easier.
Then I realized that there was only one witch left, and Sean and I both converged on her at the same moment. Sean was the one to strike the final blow, and I had to be the one to rein him in when he kept stabbing her several times afterward. "You can stop now," I told him, placing a bloody gloved hand on his shoulder. "The fight is over, so stop before you turn into Gascoigne."
He flinched at the name of the beast-turned Hunter, then came out of his blood haze and looked down at me gratefully. "I'm telling you thanks this time. You really deserve it, I would've died like ten different times without you."
"It's no problem, really," I said bashfully. "I kind of like this fight, actually. One of my favorite ways to die in Yharnam."
Sean looked startled for a second until he realized I was joking. "I just never know with you," he said, shaking his head affectionately. "How much you're really crazy and how much you're just pretending."
I started to reply, but suddenly stopped short when I felt a familiar tingling sensation in my fingertips. It spread from the extremities, traveling up my arms and legs toward the core of my body.
"Sean," I said sharply, and the smile wiped itself off his face with the sudden tone of my voice. "I'm going."
"Damn!" He swore. "Why now? I only just met you! We could've gone into the Forest next, I think I've got the password now. Or we could look for more runes together. Or -" he suddenly grabbed my hand, which by this time had gone completely numb. "Think about me," he whispered urgently. "Ring again and think really hard."
Don't wait for me, I wanted to say. The odds are so low that we would ever manage to find each other. I'll awaken by Oedon Chapel, and you'll still be in Hemwick...
"I'll be okay, just finish your hunt," I managed to say as my body began to fade out completely. "But remember, you're never alone."
Right before my vision went, I saw Sean standing there looking hurt and bewildered, his hands clutching at the empty air where his first-ever cooperator had stood.
As expected, I awakened in Oedon Chapel under the gaze of the Amygdala overhead.
"What are you looking at," I asked it nastily before stepping back into the chapel. I knelt at the lamp and felt my body dissolve once again, this time reconstituting itself in the Hunter's dream. I took a single deep breath of the garden's fresh dewy scent but did not linger further, instead stepping over to the next gravestone and warping directly into the Witch's Abode in Hemwick.
In Sean's world, the corpses of the witches would be fresh and their torches still burning. In mine the room was dark, and the Witches lay in a corner being nibbled upon by rats. I lit my hand lantern and stepped back into the entryway, mindful of the way the bells only worked in certain locations.
I rang my small resonant bell and stepped into the contact position again, just for luck. I tried to remember Sean's face, his shaggy blonde hair, the way he smiled when I'd said something I hadn't meant to be funny. But the details of his appearance were already escaping me, fading back into the fog of dozens of cooperators I had met during this endless night. I berated myself for letting one random Hunter affect me so much more than the others. Was it was because I was with him longer than average, or because he was new and I felt protective? Maybe he reminded me of someone; someone I had known in my life before...
I meditated for a while longer, periodically shifting positions as the bell continued to ring. My arms started to ache from holding them up so long, and every little sound became amplified in the silence of the room. The wind blowing, the rats scurrying, the baby crying... No, that one wasn't real, I reminded myself. I'd been hearing it off and on since Rom, but there was no baby here.
And yet, the sound continued to grow louder. The wailing was angry, insistent somehow. It tugged at a half-forgotten instinct inside me, one that made me wonder if I could perhaps be a mother despite my young age. I had an ear for babies, certainly. This one was hungry, lonely, desperate for attention. It had been crying for a very long time.
"All right, I'm coming," I muttered, mentally preparing myself for what would likely be a gruesome task at hand. Whatever it was, I knew I would eventually handle it. The final shred of my heart had been hollowed out by this damn Hunt, replaced by something cold and slick that writhed in my chest cavity. It called out toward the lonely infant across space and time, leading me toward my final destination.
I silenced my bell and kneeled at the lamp once more. I was ready.
