[Deficient]

I hit the corpse, spraying blood everywhere. The spatters joined the ones from the last twenty or so times I hit the corpse. Then I hit it again.

And again.

And again.

The buzzing of the insects around me changed. The sharp sound of approaching footsteps rang in my ears.

I hit the corpse, then dragged my axe out with a grunt. "Beasts all over the shop."

The footsteps stopped. I smelt blood and gunpowder. There was the scent of madness in the air, it assaulted my head and made me dizzy. I was familiar with the smell, the source was always a hunter. One about to go drunk on blood.

I swung my axe into the corpse one last time. That would have to be enough punishment for… The hunter needed to die.

"You'll be one of them," I turned to face… "Sooner…" It couldn't be. "Or later…" Taylor was standing before me. That was impossible.

~BLOOD~

"Gascoigne!" Taylor shouted. "Gascoigne, where are you!?"

I snickered to myself and clapped my hand over my mouth. Too late.

"Gascoigne!" A hand came over the roof and Taylor pulled herself over. She didn't look happy. My amusement vanished. "What are you doing up here? We need to go."

"I don't want to."

"Too bad." Taylor grabbed my arm, stopping me from going anywhere. "We're moving because mom was invited to Byrgenwerth. That's an honour."

"But dad's a priest. It's not going to work out." I pointed out.

"Oh my god, Gascoigne, weren't you listening?" Taylor pulled me closer to the edge. "Dad said the church has made his mission official. It's fine."

"Still."

"Gascoigne." Taylor cut me off. "We need to go."

I looked at the drop to the road below, then to where Taylor was holding me. "We gonna jump together?"

Taylor frowned, then released me. "You brat, go first. You better not look up when I'm coming down."

I grinned a wide grin and jumped, landing flawlessly. Then I made sure to look up at Taylor as she approached the edge.

"Stop that." She told me indignantly.

"No."

"Look away Gascoigne, you're being rude."

I shook my head, still looking.

"Why are you being such a brat?"

"Why are you lying to me?" I asked. Taylor's wide mouth pulled wider and thinned. "Yeah, I listen. Why are we really going?"

"I can tell you on the way." Taylor sighed. "Just look away so I can jump down."

"Nah."

"Gascoigne, you utter brat." She jumped, giving me a view of under her skirt. I blushed hard, I wasn't expecting her to actually do it. From the victorious look on her face, she knew I had been bluffing.

Then her delicate fingers skillfully reached forward and viciously pinched my ear, dragging me along.

"Taylor! Ow! Stop- Stop that!"

Taylor tutted. "You could have come quietly, but you had to make a thing out of it."

"Yeah, you lied to- Oooow!" I was cut off by Taylor giving my ear a sharp tug. "I'm going to walk! Just tell m- iii!" Another ruthless tug.

"Are you going to be good?" Taylor demanded.

I almost nodded despite the sharp pain in my ear. "Yes." I squeaked.

Taylor released me after pinching harder for a brief moment. I sighed in relief the moment the pain stopped.

"So why?" I demanded the moment I finished checking to see if my ear was bleeding. Taylor really needed to trim those nails.

Taylor sighed. "Mom got a letter from Master Willem. It said that he was impressed by the aptitude of the child tending to the tables of the Broken Saddle and wanted to further her education. There is a position for an assistant open at Byrgenwerth and so on and so forth."

"That was you?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"So you're the one that's going to be a scholar."

"No. Mom already had a letter of invitation to Byrgenwerth, but she didn't want to leave Dad. She thinks that she's the real reason the letter was sent. Because now that I've got a letter that is specifically inviting me to an assistant position, we've got two reasons to go."

"What did Dad think?"

"He was the one that suggested it. Mom was against it at first." Taylor sighed. "I didn't want to make a big deal about it, okay? I don't even remember talking to Willem and I'm leaving Emma behind to go."

"Oh no!" I gasped in shock, mockingly. "I'm so sad that I'm leaving my friends from the city I grew up in to go and work at one of the most famous places in the world!"

Taylor batted the back of my head. "Shut up, dork."

"Sing to me and I'll forgive you."

"When we're on the way." She told me.

~family~

Dad let me sit in the front of the carriage with him, but I wasn't allowed to move from there until we stopped for the day. It was worth it.

Annette and Taylor were in the back. They had talked about girl stuff like who they were leaving behind and scholar stuff like what we were going to Yharnam for. But that had ended ages ago.

Taylor, as usual, hadn't kept her promise to sing for me, but she was humming a tune that I had to strain my ears to hear over the sound of the horses and the carriage wheels.

I liked it when she sang.

~song~

Danny walked in, his church garb completely covered in blood. His axe was left next to the door, which would make Mom mad if she saw it there, dripping more blood on the floor. Taylor was mad as well looking at it, but it was hard to tell through all the shivering.

The two of us were huddled further into the house, each of us holding a weapon for protection. I had a fire poker. Taylor had a kitchen knife. Neither of us moved as Danny took his time to doff his gear and eventually move into the kitchen for food. He paused.

"Put those down, they're useless." Danny said, his voice taught.

The fire poker dropped from my hand and clattered to the floor. Taylor was more careful putting her weapon away.

"I've told you that conventional weapons barely work against them." Danny continued. "What on earth did you think you could do with those?"

"It wasn't the beasts we were worried about." Taylor said.

Danny looked at her, thinking.

"People were knocking on the door, yelling about outsiders." I said, earning Danny's attention. "We didn't tell them we were here, but with the incense…"

Danny sighed. Deafening silence fell upon us all.

"Annette is dead." Danny said.

"What?" Taylor and I demanded in unison.

"I think… I'm not sure." Danny's fists were clenched and he was looking at the floor. "She's definitely not here anymore. Furthermore, the path to Byrgenwerth is closed."

"What!?" Taylor demanded. "Repeat that!"

"The last I heard, the way to Byrgenwerth is to be closed. That it is not to be opened for any reason. I tried to tell Annette, but I couldn't find her in time. I've visited the gate. It's closed."

"But… But…" Taylor was looking at her feet. "Mom… Byrgenwerth…" She was crying.

Danny wasn't moving. I went to Taylor and pulled her into a hug. The blows against her were twofold compared to what I felt. She genuinely wanted to be a scholar, even if she didn't admit it. That the dream was torn away moments after learning about Mom… I needed to be strong for her. She didn't return the hug, but she did sink into the embrace.

"Gascoigne." Danny said. I looked at him without breaking the hug with Taylor. "I'm going to teach you to hunt."

I stared at the man. He was a shell now, just pure anger in human form. I could tell. It wasn't much different from how I felt.

"Good." I said.

~loss~

"You're quite good." An older man congratulated me as I ripped my axe out of a yharnamite with fur growing on his elongated arm. There were four more like him all around me.

"You could have helped." I told him as I started checking the blade of my axe. It had been Danny's once, it was my responsibility to look after it.

The older man was wearing yellow hunter garb, I hadn't seen anything like it. He had a trifold hat that was reminiscent of the hawklike ones that the hunters of the workshop used. There was a hunter pistol and a saw cleaver on his belt, marking the man as a hunter.

"I arrived too late, I'm afraid." He chuckled. "Not that you needed my help, of course. Call me Henryk." He extended a hand.

"Call me Father Gascoigne." I shook his hand.

Henryk seemed surprised, which was normal for me in introductions. "Father? That's not a title that's used in the Healing Church."

"It's a term from a far off land." I explained. "I'm not originally from Yharnam."

"Bold of you to say that so freely."

I chuckled and gave a wide, toothy smile. "Us Heberts are vicious folk. Both my sister and me can fight tooth and nail to protect ourselves."

"You have a sister? What's her name?"

"Taylor. She killed a beast that broke through the window once with nothing but a fire poker, a kitchen knife, and all the chairs in the house."

Henryk whistled approvingly. "You'll have to introduce her to my daughter, Viola. She's about your age, and could learn a thing or two from your sister."

I felt pride at his compliment. He was good, I was already warming to him. "And what will Taylor learn from Viola? My sister is something of a scholar and says that relationships need to have a push and a pull."

"Some manners, from how you describe it." He said.

I laughed. Taylor could use some manners. Maybe some friendship would give her a reason to start singing again.

"Say, Father, should we hunt as a pair?" Henryk proposed. "Sometimes beasts can get crafty. It's good to have someone watch your back."

I considered the offer. It made sense.

"Only if you can keep up." I decided.

Henryk gave a chuckle. "You say that now, but I'm going to make you eat those words before the night is out."

~friendship~

"Gascoigne." Henryk said, gaining my attention.

I looked at him. There was worry seeped into his eyes, more than usual. It was aging the man, there were already grey hairs in his dark hair. He was looking down the street. I followed his gaze and saw the Hebert house. The incense was still lit.

That was strange, Taylor should have put it away by now. No sense in leaving it burning past sunrise. Better to save it for the next night of the hunt. We approached and I put the incense out without looking at it. The door was open. No, there was no door. Something was wrong.

I gripped my axe and blunderbuss and cautiously walked in. Henryk followed after me.

I checked downstairs first and found bodies. They were all Yharnamites, and only some of them showed signs of transforming into beasts. The methods of death varied, with slash wounds just as common as piercings of the heart, with some bullet wounds in fatal places. There were five of them dead in the kitchen and dining room. There was a sixth with his head through the window and a kitchen knife in the back of his neck.

Already I was guessing at what happened. This wasn't a beast, even with some of the Yharnamites starting their transformations. Whatever happened here, these men were killed by an incarnation of the devil. One that had broken all the chairs. I was beginning to think that devil was my sister.

I couldn't think for the life of me why, though.

"Nothing but corpses down here." Henryk said.

I nodded. "None of them are Taylor."

"There's blood dripping down the stairs."

There was indeed blood dripping down the stairs. Not dripped, dripping. Whoever was bleeding up there might still be alive. I checked to make sure I had a blood vial as I slowly walked up, now cautious of a beast in my own home.

I saw what was upstairs and cried. My weapons clattered to the ground and Henryk swore as the blunderbuss impacted the floor, and then again when my axe tumbled past him. I wasn't focused on him, though. I was stepping past the seven other bodies that had fallen in our bedrooms to get to the one that mattered. Two of them were dead in Taylor's room. One had a cracked skull against the railing of the stairs and a bullet hole in his chest, and the remaining four were scattered around my room.

She was sitting near a window there. I rushed over and lifted her arm, pressing my fingers against her wrist to find it cold and with no pulse. With a cry, I pulled out the blood vial and jabbed it into Taylor's cold leg.

Nothing. She was dead.

There were dozens of spent vials in the room from blood ministration, and I knew what some of the vials had been used for. Taylor's dress was tattered, with large portions of it missing, and several cuts on the arms and chest that revealed the flawless skin beneath. The only explanation was that she had been attacked and managed to heal while fending the attackers off. After she had been overwhelmed, they tortured her.

Taylor liked to sing, so her neck was bruised and broken. She had been choked until she suffocated, then her neck had been snapped for good measure. Almost the entirety of her front was exposed. Someone had burned letters into her skin. I wasn't the greatest with them, but I knew the word that had been burned from her breast to her leg.

OUTSIDER

I held Taylor close and my body shook. Henryk placed a hand on my shoulder. Tears streamed down my face but I didn't scream or shout. I couldn't. The men that did this to her would know I was coming if I did.

~despair~

I roared my laughter at the night sky. This was utter madness.

"What's so funny?" Taylor demanded. It was like stepping back in time.

She couldn't see how insane this was. If I was seeing her, I was totally insane. Then I remembered the fact that tonight was a night of the hunt and snapped back to focus.

"I had a feeling this night was different… but this… Oh, this… tonight is a sickened hunt unlike any other..."

If the scene that still haunted my dreams was coming out to taunt me, then yes. Tonight was sickened. Diseased to the core.

"Why's that?" Taylor asked, her tone so familiar.

"Heh..." I chuckled. "Don't worry. I'll put you back in your grave."

~BLOOD SONG~

Henryk brought Viola to the burial. I didn't bring anyone. I said the words that my faith required of me and dropped the first clump of dirt onto my sister's coffin. Viola dropped the next. Henryk dropped the third. Then Henryk and I shoveled the rest of the dirt onto the grave.

We stood away and let Viola say her words to Taylor. The two of them were friends- had been friends. Viola had spoken to Taylor in a way that I never could. The two women had shared things I was never made aware of, and I was going to respect that privacy now that Taylor was dead.

After Viola was done I said my words. My personal ones, not influenced by teachings. I didn't say much. There was an apology in there, along with a promise to repay the deed to the ones that were responsible. Not much else.

Henryk didn't say any words, but he unveiled a music box that played Taylor's favourite song. He told Viola and I to get home before the hunt started. 'Home' meant something different now. The place where Taylor had been killed was haunted, and not only for me. It was sold for a pittance, and Henryk had offered his guest room until I could find my feet.

Viola spent most of her time at home as well, now that her friend was no longer inviting her out. She, like Taylor, hadn't spent much time courting men, and had spurned the men that chased after her. With Taylor, I credited that to her just being my weird older sister, but I couldn't tell why Viola acted that way.

Perhaps Henryk was interfering until he found someone that he approved of. I had, in the past, mused that he was trying to set me up with Viola. It had been a joke between Taylor and I.

That night I found that it wasn't actually that much of a joke.

~love~

"You killed Viola!" Taylor screamed at me.

"No!" I yelled, hitting something to vent my rage. I pointed my blunderbuss at the man I had hit thirty times. "They killed her. I found her, dead, with those crows congratulating themselves for killing an outsider. She's Yharnam born! They killed my wife, so I killed them!"

It was just like that time… I had found her already cold. I stared at Taylor, apologies racing through my mind.

"It's enough to drive a man mad…" I was mad. "Yes… I suppose this night is a mad one… I'm talking to you… aren't I?" Why is it you? Why so soon after Viola?

Taylor giggled. She was mad too.

I let out a sighing laugh. "Sing to me, Taylor." I asked for the child in me that wanted to hear her sing once more. I could almost hear it if I listened hard enough.

I gave myself to the song and the sweet blood sang along with it.

It smelled beautiful.

~MELODY OF BLOOD~

The notes of the song changed. Before they played to the tune of my axe bisecting beasts and Yharnamites too far gone to save. Now the melody reminded me of- NO I CAN'T REMEMBER THIS

MY MIND WILL TEAR ITSELF APART

STOP

PLEASE STOP

~melody OF family~

"What should we call her?" Viola asked me, cradling the little babe in her arms.

"Annette." I said instantly. I don't know why Viola asked that question, we had already discussed it until the sun came up several times. Danny if it was a boy, Annette if it was a girl.

"You're Annette." Viola cooed, tapping Annette's nose with her finger. Annette giggled happily. "Say hi to your dad."

I took Annette when she was offered to me, carefully holding her head with one hand. She was so small. I was overwhelmed as I stared at her happy face. Annette was incredibly cute now that she had stopped screaming. She had the Hebert mouth as well, I noticed.

~my mom~my daughter~

"Gascoigne!" Taylor yelled. PLEASE STOP TALKING "Think of your little girl!" I CAN'T LISTEN TO YOU "You have a little girl at home!" SING FOR ME PLEASE I CAN'T STAND THE SILENCE "She's still alive! She needs you!" DON'T TALK ABOUT HER I DON'T DESERVE THIS

~BLOODBLOODBLOODBLOOD~

"What did we decide on?" Viola asked me playfully.

"Danny if it's a boy," I answered reflexively. This wasn't the first time Viola had asked, she drew some kind of satisfaction from it. "Taylor if it's a girl."

~my sister reborn~she has the Hebert mouth~

"You can't lose yourself like this." WHAT DO YOU KNOW "More than you think." THEN LET ME SEE WHAT THEY DID TO YOU Taylor frowned. "What who did to me?"

Silence. There was no music anymore, but the silence wasn't deafening. It had all clicked. This wasn't Taylor. This was an imposter. It was wearing my sister's face to the end. She… it didn't even have both arms. The wound was wrong.

"Hah…" I laughed at myself. No reason to hold on anymore. "I see… Too proud to show your real face, eh…"

~AaAaAaRrRrRrRgGgGgG!~

Music assaulted me. Taylor's favourite melody tortured me while Taylor's imposter tore into me. I tried to kill her, honour my sister, but she was too fast. Music kept holding me back. Memories of SOMETHING I couldn't have anymore. Then Taylor's imposter vanished, she was too far away. Then I felt my skin break.

It broke in another spot moments later.

And then again.

And again.

And again.

So many times.

When I finally slipped away I reached for the moon. I asked for forgiveness, I think.