The fact that I could read took a moment to parse. When it did, I felt relief flow from my shoulders to the rest of my body. I had been holding out… hope? I didn't want to consider a life without reading. It was… important, that I could read.
It would be a reminder. I put the paper in my pocket and looked around.
There were two doors out of this room. The first one I tried was locked. I tried the second one hoping that the rule of three would kick in, and was pleasantly surprised when it did. The staircase through the door was steeper than the one by the house, so I took my time with it. I passed the destroyed and empty room at the bottom before the first bugs reached me.
They were cockroaches, each about three inches long and varying in exact length. Their antennae were pointed, rather than feeling. It felt strange looking at them, but it was definitely a cockroach. I made one climb up my leg and come to a stop on the back of my hand. I looked more closely at it. There seemed to be… fur coming out of the gaps in its carapace.
I sent the cockroaches out, using the information I got from them to start mapping the room before me while I focused on the flies.
I made one fly in front of me and hover while I inspected it. Actually looking at it was tough, since the fly's wings meant it wasn't suiting for hovering and the constant drift it ended up doing to approximate hovering made the colours swim again. But I got a good look after a bit.
The fly was a cancer ridden thing. There were so many tumours and growths that I could see from a glance that the fly had swollen to twice its normal size. I could feel strength within the fly, strength that eclipsed what I recalled from-
Something snapped, demanding my attention. It sounded like a bone.
There was something moving in the room just ahead. It was a dark shape hunched over between two more empty operating tables. There were more sounds, like something was eating another something. My hand went for the saw cleaver. I would have pulled the gun if there were any bullets. When I loosened it from my belt I fumbled, dropping the weapon.
I focused on picking up the weapon while I watched the thing with my bugs. It came into focus, and I was immediately reminded of…
It wasn't nearly as scary.
It was a creature that kind of looked like a wolf, but messier and far larger. A beast. From what I could see it was larger than me. It's limbs were long and it held its body low to the ground. It turned in my direction, but I didn't have an angle on it's eyes with my bugs.
I got a good grip on the saw cleaver and looked with my eyes. Glowing yellow orbs glistened at me through the dimly lit room.
I killed you.
It charged, crossed the distance in a second and slashed at me with a claw. My stump arm and torso were torn apart as four scratch marks appeared in them. Blood sprayed out as I stood there, willing myself to move.
The bugs were more responsive than my body. The flies darted into the beast's eyes, buying me seconds as it clawed at its own eyes with its oversized and overly sharp claws. I pushed to move, felt pain erupt where I had been slashed, then started running.
I didn't even consider fighting back. I couldn't wield the saw cleaver correctly. Couldn't hit with the strength I needed to. Couldn't even aim properly.
When I ordered my bugs to attack I stopped getting navigational information from my cockroaches. I ran into an operating table and stumbled. That was all the beast needed to roar its frustration and pursue me into a corner. I wasn't facing it, but there was nothing I could do to dodge its next swipe.
I cried out as the pain registered. It took me to the floor.
The beast didn't wait. It bit at me, tearing my remaining hand to shreds.
It clawed at me again.
My guts spilled.
Again. My blood spattered.
I don't know when I died.
Dark mist welcomed me.
~Drip~
When I stopped screaming, I was looking at the moon again. I let time pass. Eventually I stopped hyperventilating.
I sat up to find I was back at the house, in the garden of tombstones. Nothing had changed, but everything was different. I wasn't as disoriented this time, I could feel myself beginning to get a grip on the situation.
I had died. Then come here.
Then I died and came here again.
I wasn't being allowed to rest. Of course I wasn't.
What did I need to do? The question hung in my mind, unanswered. There was something pulling at that question. It was an abstract thing, so it didn't make sense.
Then what could I do? I could explore this place, but there wasn't much left to explore. All that was left was a small part of the garden to the left of the house, and a larger garden at the other end of the path leading to the house. The world dropped into nothingness beyond that.
I considered the beast. I had reacted to its eyes, that had stopped me from reacting quickly. Why?
A bright impression.
There was more to that, but the information wasn't surrendering itself.
I put the distraction on the backburner and thought about the beast. If I distracted it using my bugs I could probably get past it. I just needed to gather enough bugs. If I bit it with enough bugs, it would eventually lose the will to fight.
That was if I could even return there, the little one wasn't in the gravestone anymore. As if responding to my thoughts, a grey mist spilled from the foot of the gravestone and a little one climbed halfway out. It may have been the same one. I couldn't tell with them.
I stood slowly and moved over. The little one reached for me and I let it grab hold of my finger. Soon, I was being pulled again.
~Drip~
My range is short. The realisation hit me more than I thought it would. It hit me harder than dying had. It wasn't even the first time I had followed that line of though, this was it hitting home. I chalked that one up to whatever was scattering my mind.
I could only sense bugs in the surrounding buildings. There was some variety in the bugs I could sense and my control over them was unquestionable, but the fact that I could only reach a building or two felt incredibly constricting. I had thought my range was farther reaching than that. My swarm wasn't going to as large as I thought it would be.
No matter, I would work with it.
I was sitting in the room with the lamp, one wall separating me from the beast that had killed me in seconds. While I was active, I made sure that I didn't move at all. I didn't want to make a noise and attract the beast's attention. It was happy to eat whatever had spilled that horrendously large blood spatter around it while I gathered the swarm around it.
After fifteen minutes I had gathered every bug in my range and there weren't any more bugs coming in. It was time to move.
The beast reacted at the last possible moment. Before the first of my bugs that I trusted to do any damage made it to the beast it jumped away, clearing an impressive distance in a single movement.
That just took it to more bugs. It had let me surround it, there was nowhere it could go. My cockroaches and beetles started climbing up its limbs while flies flew at its eyes and nose. The beast thrashed, killing a dozen bugs with every move. I wasn't worried, I already had cockroaches biting at places it couldn't easily reach.
It screeched, eliciting panic in the bugs that was ignored. I was unphased. That wouldn't work on me.
But I was beginning to worry that my bugs wouldn't work on it.
My swarm had already been reduced to a fifth of its size. Dozens of bugs being turned to splatters of blood with each passing second. My cockroaches were drawing blood, but the beast wasn't slowing down. I flew flies into the beast's nose, ears, and mouth, even had bugs biting all of them, and it just didn't seem to care.
Even someone invulnerable couldn't afford to ignore something like that.
The bugs inside vanished from my senses. It was time to consider something else.
My objective was really just to get past this thing. I knew there was another room beyond and after that was outside. I didn't know much of the layout outside the building, my range didn't cover it. I could sense dozens of feet away and I felt claustrophobic.
My mind was wandering again.
I needed to make it outside, that was it. All I needed to do was get out of this place, I could figure things out from there. The problem was that the beast had reduced my swarm by another fifth now and it had seemed to become stronger for it. It dashed across the room, dragging its claws along the floor, ripping up splinters and killing more bugs.
Half of my swarm, now.
It moved around so damn much. It's route was nigh unpredictable. My chances were fading, I needed to move. I waited until the beast launched itself to the side of the room farther from me and ran to cover around behind a corner. It didn't seem like the beast had noticed me yet.
Next I pulled some bugs away from my dwindling swarm and had them gather near where I had come from. They flapped their wings noisily and started buzzing with a thought. The reaction was near instantaneous. The beast practically flew past me, now with a purple light in its eye leaving a trail that I ignored as I started legging it to the exit.
I had the bugs start attacking the beast again, engaging in a melee that was quickly turning in the beast's favour. It swiped at my swarm once, twice, but not a third time.
I dodged to the side as the beast lunged at where I was. It collided with an operating table and knocked it into the wall. I tried to get my bearings, but I dodged into the blood spatter the beast had been eating from. There was something slippery there that I slipped on, and I hit my head on the way down.
I felt my face with my hand and found my glasses were lopsided, so I fixed them. I felt hot breath on my face before I could recognise what I was looking at. The beast was right in front of me, it's eyes, once gold or yellow, were now exuding a purple mist that highlighted the animal expression on the thing's face. It's fur was dark and matted. Matted with something that was a shade lighter than it's black or dark brown fur.
It was big up close. This was the first time I'd seen it so close. Apart from its breath, things were quiet. It had killed my swarm. Effectively killed the whole thing with its claws and strength.
That was new. Normally my enemies cheated at killing my minions.
Maybe that was why it had missed a few. I still had one or more cockroaches and bugs in each of its armpits, biting with abandon. The beast didn't care. It was focused on me. It's bloody maw was inches from my face, blood dripping from individual teeth, and its tongue flopping uselessly. It was slowly approaching. The colossal stature of the beast looming from behind its head.
It sniffed. I felt behind me for somewhere to retreat to. There was something beneath me. A corpse. Human. My breath caught, but I didn't act scared even though I was. That was something I was good at. I held onto that.
But I fumbled as I lifted myself off of the corpse and the beast unleashed fury upon me.
Dark mist welcomed me.
~Drip~
I was trapped, I knew that.
There was a lot I didn't know, and there was a lot, but not as much, that I should know. I recognised that. What I had wasn't much, but I had that much figured out.
Instead of going to the little one again when I woke up, I actually explored the area around the house. The garden area behind the house was just a little circle of bush, but there was something interesting there. A stump that had the same misty effect where the little people appeared from. There were no little people though.
That being said, one of the little ones had decided to make their home in the birdbath in the shadow of the building. They pulled themselves out of the marble as I approached and reached for me like they all had so far. I put my hand forward, and they held on like the little one in the gravestone, but they didn't take me anywhere.
I felt almost guilty as I pulled my hand back. They had held onto it with a fascination I couldn't sympathise with, almost as if mine was the hand of god. I couldn't even swing a knife properly with it.
The lower garden was closed, a locked gate was in the way. What I could see through the gate was beautiful. I could imagine wanting to stride through the tall grass and lie down surrounded by the beautiful flowers, just spending time basking in the moon.
I wouldn't, though. I was a woman of action, I didn't feel like myself when nothing was happening. Even now, I could feel the agitation rising despite the fact that I was doing something. I was exploring, damnit.
I passed by each tombstone to make sure there wasn't an errant little one waiting to pull me away somewhere else. There wasn't. Then I returned to the one I knew would be there and let him grasp my hand. I was considering what might be a good thing to say to them when the pull took me from there.
~Drip~
I appeared in the room with the lamp. I had last time as well, but hadn't focused on that because I was intent on getting past the beast. Now, I was still gathering a swarm since the bug population had thankfully replenished while I was deceased, but I couldn't help wonder why I hadn't appeared in the clinic room I had first found myself in.
I looked up the stairs and saw they were closed. I hadn't closed them, maybe someone was home. The handle didn't move when I tugged on it, telling me someone was. Built into the door were several frosted panes of glass, but some of them were cracked and parts had fallen out. I knocked on a pane that seemed to still be in a good state and listened.
Someone approached, I could see them through the gaps. My heart soared.
"Are you.. out on the hunt?" The person tentatively asked. She. It was a woman. Her voice was… controlled was my best approximation.
What? "-Tss." My mouth wasn't obeying me.
The woman seemed to take it as a yes. "Then I'm very sorry, but… I cannot open this door."
No! My hand hit the door. It was lame, and didn't even register with the woman.
"I am Iosefka." The woman continued. Iosefka. I repeated in my head. It was a name, remembering a name was good. Did I know any names like that? Why did I feel like I was about to think something foreboding?
She kept going, "The patients here in my clinic must not be exposed to infection."
I woke up here. "K-g, yr- ahh." You might know something. "O- llnn… ghu tsshg-."
Damn my mouth. I had been talking before waking up here, why couldn't I talk now?
Iosefka wasn't heeding my ramblings. "I know that you hunt for us, for our town," What town? "But I'm sorry."
She paused, fumbling with something from the other side of the door. "Please. This is all I can do." Iosefka extended her hand through a gap in the door. She was holding a vial of orange liquid. I didn't recognise it, but I was familiar with the smell that hung around it.
I stared at the thing. Why was she giving me blood?
"Take it." Iosefka told me. "It will assist you with your hunt."
What hunt? "A-ts, yrd?" I shook my head in frustration and placed my palm face up underneath Iosefka's.
She dropped the vial of blood into my hand and withdrew. "Now, go. And good hunting."
I listened to the sounds of her walking away and watched as the white haired woman disappeared further into the clinic. I hit the door with my stump. It was pathetic.
What the hell was I supposed to do with this? What 'hunt' was she going on about? Why did Iosefka have a beast in her clinic and not even address it? I had so many goddamn questions, and I couldn't ask any of them because of whatever was wrong with me.
I hit the door again, using my hand this time. The knocks were much more aggressive. Iosefka was quick to return.
"Are you still in need of something?" She asked when she was close enough.
I hit the door to interrupt her.
"But I have nothing more to offer."
I hit the door again.
"Please stop! It's beasts you hunt." Iosefka pleaded. I paused, listening. "Why are you behaving like one?"
I didn't like that, but I curled my hand into a fist and restrained myself. Hitting the door now would be deconstructive.
Keep talking. "A-ku ghr-e."
"Excuse me?"
Keep talking. "Pri-! k-hahk." I couldn't even repeat myself.
"I'm afraid… I cannot understand you."
"Yre." I wasn't even sure what I was trying to say as I held up the vial of blood she had given me and pointed at it with my stump.
"Are you still in need of something?" Iosefka asked. I nodded, and my heart plummeted when I saw concern etch onto her face. "But I have nothing more to offer. Please, try to underst-"
I hit the door again and pointed at the blood vail. Charades was only fun when you could tell what you were trying to say before it got frustrating.
"I will pray for your safety-"
I hit the door with a snarl, making Iosefka jump. It was good to know I could be an animal.
"What is it that you want?"
I pointed at the vial of blood.
"Do you want to know what that is?" Iosefka asked, almost in disbelief. I nodded. "You must not be from around here. That is a vial of healing blood, given to us by the Healing Church. It is a special vial, and is more potent than the stuff you'll find on the street. Use it wisely."
I had so many questions about that, but I knew that most of the answers could be explained by the word 'fuckery'. This Healing Church fellow had the ability to heal people by having them drink his or her blood, and had used that power to make a religion. Iosefka was clearly a tinker that had found a use for the stuff.
I tipped the vial towards my head experimentally.
"You want to drink it?" Iosefka asked and I nodded confirmation, sort of. "That is an ineffective method of administering the blood. Stay there, I have something for you." She left the door and I heard the sounds of her searching through equipment. Soon she was back and handing something through the door.
It was a needle attached to a contraption that it looked like I could put the blood vial into. I looked at Iosefka. I couldn't hold two things at once.
"Hand me the vial back. I'll do it for you." She told me after a moment and reached for the vial she gave me. I handed it over and she inserted the vial, then handed it back to me.
"Jab it into your leg." Iosefka instructed me. "Make sure to avoid the bone, otherwise the blood will be spent attempting to heal that instead of your other injuries. Make sure to wash the needle between each use. The blood burns out infections, but it doesn't do well to use contaminated equipment."
I nodded to communicate understanding. Injecting blood directly into the bloodstream made more sense than swallowing it.
"Now, I must tend to my patients. You should go, I pray for your safety." Iosefka curtsied through the door and left, leaving me with a blood vial ready to be administered.
I looked at it. The orange liquid splashing around the little thing. Maybe it would help rid me of this damn weakness that had overtaken me. I was supposed to be strong, damnit.
I jammed the needle into my leg.
