Chapter Two | O' Sweet Death
Screams the likes of which she'd never heard were what met her this time, looking out upon the distant sea.
A creature unrecognizable, its wet leathery skin resembling that of a whale - a beluga, she thought - covered in frills and empty spines, devoid of bone and hanging loose upon its corpse.
It lay upon the beach, yet somehow it seemed raw. Alive. She could feel her eyes sting, ears threatening to pop and leak out upon her cheeks. It almost shimmered, lain upon sharp sand and the pale nights sky reflected off its still body.
Impossible.
That was the only word to describe such a thing, so horribly wrong and so horribly right that she knew her mind would shear in two if she looked at it but a moment longer, let her gaze tarry for only a second at most.
And yet she still heard screams.
A mourning keen that echoed across the beach, raw and wild and so frenzied that she could feel it settle in her bones. It was a primal fear that ran jagged up her spine, causing thoughts of suicide, of anything to stop the noise, please, please, please-
The being that sobbed and cried out against the world was dead and not, trapped somewhere between. Catherine couldn't put a word to it, language incapable of capturing such a terrible existence.
But feeling could.
It lay deep inside her, sorrow the likes of which would shake the earth. An intrinsic sense of disgust, a miasma that seemed to cling to the air and corrupt all it touched, so much as brush against.
A child, how it sings, yes? Torn from my belly, poked and prodded until naught remained but a dull ember of what it was, of what it could be.
Catherine cried out in return, tears dripping from her chin and scattering to the wind. 'Why?' she howled, blistered, bare as the day she was born. 'Why?'
The plight of man, a curiosity bred in the face something beyond their ken. Greed, it seems, will always be your kinds downfall.
She collapsed to her knees as the world before her shifted, unnatural, wavering as if a mirage. The rocky cliffs that surrounded her were replaced by spires dotted in filigree and fine carvings that reached towards the sky. They were stacked precariously on top of one another, a city upon a city, buildings upon buildings that defied all reason. A dim sun shone down from above, quiet and hidden behind a thin veil of wispy clouds.
The city was a spit in the face of the most famed architects to have lived, and yet it looked as if they had succeeded.
The scripture of man given unto himself. A swamp, this place, not one of water and ash but instead, bone. Grass made of flesh. The trees - buildings that climb up, up, up - Laying roots upon their forebears below.
Catherine could see a long bridge in the distance, so expertly crafted it would have brought a tear to her eye if the rest of her view wasn't mired with coffins and bloodstains, tattered clothes left scattered upon the ground long forgotten. A horse lay next to her, ribs bared to the world and flies dancing over its rotten flesh.
"What is this place?" she found herself muttering, both disgusted and amazed.
The city named for its mother, a Pthumerian Queen touched by the Great Empty - a void, kind as though a lover.
Her dreams had never quite been like this before. "What do I call it?"
Yharnam.
She pinched her thigh, startling at the sudden sharp pain it brought. "This is a dream?"
It is what you make of it.
Her feet began to take her forward, down the steps toward the cavernous maw that opened out into the distance. The city lay above and below, seeming to stretch off into nothingness. A marvel, she thought, for something to be built with nothing but muscle and sweat.
Was it magical?
She didn't know, but there was a sense about it that led her to believe it was. It was in the way that one building turned to many, twisting in a way that made even Hogwarts look as though it were clay fashioned together by the clumsy hands of a child.
There was a madness about the city. In the buildings, in the padlocked coffins (something that scared her, dream or not), in the stench of burning hair and flesh that somehow she knew was human.
"Weird," Catherine murmured, unable to tear her gaze away from the city. I should ask Dumbledore if this means something. To dream so vividly. Lucid, isn't that the word?
She ignored the nagging voice in the back of her mind that screamed and screamed 'This is no dream!' She ignored how real the cast iron bannister felt beneath her hands - cold to the touch and scored with claw marks.
Catherine didn't ignore the steady footsteps that grew closer and closer, turning curiously at whatever creature her imagination had managed to conjure.
Nothing could have prepared her for the hideous being that stepped around the corner.
A man with arms much too long, elbow joining near the bottom of his thigh and a gnarled fist scraping against the dirt. He held a rusted cleaver in one hand and a torch in the other, ragged clothes stained in blood and fur matting his face. His eyes were wild, protuberant and so bloodshot she thought they were soon to burst.
They stood there for a second, eyes locked and bodies still, the only thing to move being the flames that danced atop his bloodied torch.
The man screamed, a hideous sound that quickly spun Catherine's dream into a nightmare. He lunged forward, slashing at her chest with the cleaver and spattering his grimy features in yet more blood.
Oh, she thought, collapsing to the ground and holding a hand to her chest, fingers pressed against her own ribs and bathed in red. This is real.
As suddenly as the attack began the man collapsed, a massive bang punctuating his fall and leaving her half-deaf, dizzy and nauseous as her blood poured out onto the stone.
Catherine raised her hand bloodied as it was to her face, scraping away the flecks of brain matter that had fallen upon her and clung to her cheeks. Vision wavering, she could barely make out the figure of a woman with stark white hair shuffling towards her, muttering quietly as she worried over her wounds.
"What- where am I?" She coughed violently, in so much pain she could hardly breathe. "I don't know- only, only Paleblood."
The woman took her into her arms, straining under the effort. "Quiet," she tutted, Catherine cried out as her wound opened further, ribs strained and flesh cracked. "You're hurt."
Her mind snapped with the understanding that she was dying, that whatever this was, it was real.
She was hauled up the steps, through what looked to be a graveyard. Into a building they went, its shadow cast over the tombstones. A low moan escaped her as she was laid upon a gurney, cold and tired, shivering as she grew closer and closer to death.
Oh god, she thought, groaning pitifully. Catherine could feel her heart flutter, beating up against her ribs, cold air settling across her bones.
She must have faded out, as a man suddenly appeared before her, cloth wrapped around his eyes and a wide brimmed top hat laying crookedly over his brow. He huffed, rolling over in his wheelchair, thin leather pads squealing against the floor.
"Where- where am I? Where's that woman gone?"
The man ignored her, somehow leering at Catherine through his bandages. "She said you were here for Paleblood. Well, you've come to the right place." He reached down, pawing at the inside of his ragged jacket before drawing out a slip of paper. "Easy enough, with a bit of Yharnam blood of your own."
"Blood? A t- transfusion?" she gasped, face pressed awkwardly against the gurney.
"Why, you catch on quick," he chuckled, holding the contract out to her. "Sign it, and we can begin."
"A- I need a p- pen."
"No pen, just like this." He snatched her hand, laying one bloodied finger across the paper.
Catherine coughed and spat, blood dribbling down her chin. Arm trembling, she swiped her finger across the contract, laying a crimson streak in its path.
"Good, good. Let's begin." The man reached up, taking a needle attached to a long, thin latex cord that hung from a vial, full to the brim with blood. He jammed it into her elbow without ceremony, Catherine howling in pain. "Don't you worry. When all this is over you'll think it a mere bad dream."
Her eyes fluttered shut as she felt the blood race through her veins, burning everything in its path.
-::-
"Ah, you've found yourself a hunter..."
-::-
Catherine woke to see a small ocean of blood pooling over the floorboards. She choked, moaning in fear as a massive clawed hand reached out of the pool, covered in fur and pointed wickedly.
A head came soon after - a werewolf, she realized, horror coursing through her veins. "Shit, shit shit shit," she muttered, trying to scramble away, one hand reached out as if to ward it off.
The wolf crawled closer, still submerged, poking out between slatted wood.
Suddenly, it howled, fur doused in flame and crying out in agony. Catherine's hand stung, burnt by her own magic. She fell back against the gurney, watching in almost animalistic relief as the creature continued to whimper, its skin and bones turning to ash beneath her flames.
It crumbled, scattered into nothingness, and Catherine let out a long, relieved sigh, lungs aching as she let herself relax.
That relief quickly turned to fear as small hands grasped at her clothes, a low, grating moan emanating from beneath the gurney.
She tried to scramble away, weakened as she was, but she could hardly move her head let alone her arms.
Creatures the likes of which she had never seen crept over her, missing eyes, missing mouths, some of them with their face hacked in two, a long line of gaping flesh running from chin to scalp.
The strain seemed too much, as her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell out of consciousness.
She would occasionally wake, just barely, to catch stray glimpses of that same white haired woman from before. Catherine watched in a drug-fueled haze as she puttered around the clinic, stopping by every so often to check her over, scrawling something on a hastily bound notebook and grumbling to herself as she went along.
Iosefka was her name, learned from errant comments and the questions of a few visitors - those of which were far and few between.
It seemed as if weeks had gone by before she rose, the sun no longer hanging in the sky but instead the moon, the pale glint of white shining in through the window and scattering across the floor. There was no sign of the wolf, no sign of the blood it came from, no sign of the woman that had nursed her back to health.
A sob broke through the quiet. Hers. It was loud and fragile, her pain carried out across the clinic and echoing off dark wood and vials packed full of offal.
Catherine cradled her head in her hands, shivering for no fault of the cold. "What's happening to me?" she gasped, fingering at the odd clothing she now wore.
It was old, victorian it seemed - dark brown cloth padded with leather and bearing a short cape that hardly covered her shoulder blades. "What's happening?" she asked again.
Seek the Paleblood, that same voice whispered, almost sultry as it tickled over her mind. Transcend the hunt.
"What hunt!" Catherine shouted, smashing her fists against the gurney. "Transcend? You're speaking in riddles!"
I'm dead, she thought, sobbing quietly. I'm insane. Hearing voices… this is hell.
Slowly, she stepped down from the gurney, the wooden soles of her new shoes clicking softly against the floor. Tears still running down her face, she crept towards the door that lay open, ignoring the one shuttered - imagining it to be locked. She hissed suddenly, nose twitching at the scent of blood.
How can I smell that?
It wasn't in the room, she knew, somewhere far away. It seemed to permeate the entire building - no - the city, a stench that hung from it as if the stone itself had bled.
She stepped slowly, down the stairs and into what looked to be a waiting room lined with cabinets. Catherine retched when she inspected them closer, each one stoppered with iron and holding a different organ inside.
Most were hearts, suffused in a mix of alcohol and blood, fermenting in their own juices. Some were topped full with eyes, some with fingers, another held a tongue cleanly shorn off at the hilt.
"I'm in hell." Catherine stepped back. "I'm definitely in hell."
A low snarl caught her ear, wet snaps and the wooden creak of claws scraping at the floor. Heart thundering, she looked around the corner, just barely stifling the frightened gasp that threatened to escape her as she set sights on another wolf.
It was bloodied, some of it from the man beneath it, his chest torn open and throat flayed. The man with the wheelchair, she realized, the tattered cloth around his eyes soaked through. The rest of the blood belonged to the wolf, its arms and chest bearing deep cuts, flesh ragged, as if it had been torn through rather than cut by any knife.
There was a door, just past it, but the wolf blocked her way - fenced in by cots topped with vials of blood and the mutilated corpse beneath its feet.
She had to try.
Taking a deep breath, she dashed out from behind cover, the wolf giving a startled bark as it leapt back from its meal.
Desperate, she grasped at the door handle and threw it open, running out to be met by a familiar graveyard. Frantically looking about, Catherine sprinted toward the rightmost gate, shouting in horror when it hardly budged against her weight.
"No, no," she panted, hands slipping as she tried to climb the iron rungs.
A loud shriek burst from her throat as claws tore through her spine, legs slumping uselessly beneath her as she collapsed. Her head slammed against the gate, blood trickling down her face as the wolf pressed its muzzle against her back, tongue flicking at the wound.
With a growl, it shredded her to pieces, Catherine howling as her flesh was torn asunder. Each snap, each bite, each rake of its claws lead her closer to death, and she could feel her life ebbing away.
A final gasp, and her eyes dulled, fingers wrapped tightly around cold metal rungs and her body nearly unrecognizable if only for her horrified guise - soaked in blood.
-::-
The corpse in the garden gasped and spluttered, slowly rising from the muck.
It patted itself down, mystified at the state of its body - namely, how it wasn't mulched and torn as if having been tossed through a shredder.
The wolf.
"How?" Catherine muttered, pressing her hand against the small of her back to feel knotted scar tissue.
She found herself among crooked graves and short iron fences, a building resting at the end of a short path. A tree larger than any she had ever seen towered over it, its branches reaching out overhead like a curtain.
It was an island, she realized. An impossible island.
The land she stood upon was surrounded by pillars so tall they seemed to stretch towards the sky, as if to rally at the moon itself. They poked out of a thick curtain of fog, the substance slowly shifting, though there was no wind to be found. Not a single gust of it, leaving the bushes that lined the graves as still as the bodies buried beneath, white flowers peering out at her silently.
"Ah, good hunter," a voice called, accent thick. "Welcome to the Dream."
Catherine shrieked, nearly falling over herself at the sheer size of the woman in front of her.
Maxine had been tall, but she was a giantess. Thick in arms and legs, with a face built for strength less so than beauty.
This woman was not quite as tall, but she came close to it. Dressed up in old clothes better suited for a maid than one who looked to keep the graves Catherine was surrounded by. She towered over her, hair a white so sheer as to be near that of milk, tucked behind her ear in a tight curl.
Even her eyelashes, long and cold, were colourless.
Was she an albino?
No, her eyes were blue, frigid as ice - and her hands, Catherine realized, they were…
"A doll?"
"Yes," the Doll echoed, offering her a neat curtsy. Her face was porcelain, joints visible between each knuckle - yet in place of bone, they instead bore a globe of shining silver. "I am here in this Dream to look after you."
"I'm not dead? What- I don't- this can't be real."
The Doll cocked her head to the side. "Real, good hunter?"
"I just- it's all…" she waved her hands wildly. "This can't be- it just- it doesn't make any sense! I just died! In a place that doesn't- it can't exist!"
"The waking world, good hunter? It is very real, just as this is." She spread her arms out, gesturing at the island they stood upon. "You have been brought to hunt beasts, and I shall be here for you. Although… you see me. You speak to me, though we have never met- " the Doll paused, her face impassive. There were no muscles to shift it, only a small hinge where one's jaw would be. "Strange."
Catherine's laugh rang out into the sky. It was a maddened, terrible thing, high pitched and lonely as the obelisks in the distance drank in her hysterical roar.
"That is certainly one way to react," the Doll murmured, cautiously stepping forward. "Good hunter, are you well?"
"Am I okay?" She pressed a hand to her chest, her laughter having devolved to a hacking fit. "How could I be okay? I don't even know how I got here, let alone what that monster was. Two of them! I almost died, and then I did! I died!" Her hands found their way upward, tangling in her hair. "Is this some sort of joke, huh? What is this place, hell? This- this is what I had to look forward to?"
"Good hunter, please…" the Doll extended her hand. "This is the dream. You are of Yharnam, no? Home of the Church?"
"I'm from England. Britain! Yharnam isn't- it's not real. It's just a part of my dream! This is all- this is all just a bad dream!" she crowed, frenzied laughter bubbling up inside her. "Right? Right?"
"I am afraid that I have heard of no place named England, good hunter… and, you are not dead. You are just inbetween. Here, in the dream. Please, good hunter. I- you are not well."
I'm insane. I've gone insane.
She pushed the Doll away, running headlong up the steps.
At least, she tried. Instead, Catherine found herself tripping, knocking her head against the stone and groaning pitifully.
Dazed, she looked over to see what had caught her feet, only to see a blade having risen from the earth. It was suspended on miniature hands with paper flesh. Those same creatures from before, from the sickroom, followed in their path, poking their heads out of a shimmering pool of smoke.
She found herself cackling at the sight, tears streaming down her face.
"Good hunter, please. You're scaring the little ones."
"Scaring them? Look at them! They're… they're hideous! Little ones?" She edged away, crawling along her back. "How could I possibly scare something like that?"
The creatures bowed their heads at her remark, letting out a low crooning wail.
Somehow, that seemed to spark something in her, a modicum of sanity that seemed hidden until then. "I… oh. I am, aren't I?"
"Yes, now… please, good hunter. I can answer any questions you may have, just do not hurt the little ones."
"Why are they holding a cleaver?" Catherine asked, studying the well-worn instrument.
It was rusted, caked in blood and wrapped from blade to hilt in strips of cloth. The edge itself held an array of wicked teeth, each one curled into a point and angled inward.
The intent was clear.
To tear. Rend. Flay.
It was not a kind weapon, not by any means, but above all else it looked effective. Too large, too terrible for anything but monsters.
This blade was not meant for man.
"It is a gift. For you. The Messengers - little ones - they wish you to have it."
"A gift?" Catherine eyed it dangerously, glancing between the blade and the Doll. "Why?"
"A hunter must hunt, what better than with a blade fashioned by Gehrman himself?"
She reached forward, trepidation in every flex of the muscle, fear in her bones as the joint of her elbow rolled open. The Messengers cooed happily as she took the blade from their grasp.
Catherine grunted, surprised by its weight. She watched as the Messengers disappeared for but a moment before resurfacing, now bearing an old flintlock pistol.
"You… want me to take that too?"
They nodded fervently, tiny heads bobbing back and forth as they raised the weapon even higher.
"I… okay." Catherine looked up at the doll as she took the pistol, hands slick with sweat and trying desperately to steel her grip.
She glanced down, finding a small holster already hanging from her belt.
Convenient.
Tucking the pistol away, she hefted the blade above her head, arm strained.
"It's heavy. Very heavy."
"You must be weak, good hunter."
Catherine snorted. "A witch, strong? You've obviously never met one before."
The Doll gasped quietly, hand placed over her mouth. "A witch?"
"What?" Catherine gestured around her. At the impossible pillars. At the tree that seemed to kiss the sky itself. "You live here, yet magic is somehow beyond you?"
"No true magic, no. Only- " she froze, eyes flickering towards the moon. "Never, have I heard of true magic."
Catherine sat up, back aching as she propped the blade up against the stairs, metal clinking against stone. She slung her arms over her knees, muddling over her situation.
Dementors. Prophecy. A man who wanted her dead before she had even been born.
Another dimension only seemed the next logical step.
She wasn't happy with this by any means. She was terrified, frozen and awestruck, yet she found herself resigned.
What was her life without madness? Without danger? Without monsters in the dark?
Her low chuckle broke the silence. Oh, but this was different, she knew. Something beyond herself.
Another world. Another time. A city trapped in the past, or maybe that was just its present? Something was wrong. Deeply, terribly wrong.
That beach. The voice that spoke to her in her dreams. It had been with her for so long. Not always the same, not always a beach - that beach - but the voice? It had followed her from childhood, only appearing when she slept.
She had thought it just a recurring nightmare, something all children, all people deal with.
Because who doesn't have nightmares? Who wouldn't wake up in a cold sweat after seeing what she had?
Post-traumatic stress disorder, she had learned. Shell shock. A little term hidden away in one of the books she had found in the Surrey library. Psychology interested her even at a young age, studies of the mind, studies of the soul. She didn't know much, if any, but that term stood out to her. It wasn't until years later before she realized what it meant, after too many sleepless nights and weeks spent with little to no food through no fault but her own.
Not the Dursleys, but her. She couldn't bear to eat. Not after Cedric. Not after the Dementors.
"How did I get here?"
The Doll seemed to waver, and though she didn't move, Catherine knew. Somehow, she knew.
"Countless hunters have visited this dream, though, I do not know exactly how." She crossed her hands in front of her lap, head bowing slightly. "I'm sorry, you must be confused. Terrified. You're not from Yharnam?"
"No… I- I was brought there. I don't know how, I was dreaming. Asleep. I just… didn't wake up."
"From where?"
"I'm… from an island country, called Britain. England is another one of its names. It's… nothing like Yharnam. Maybe long ago. I… it's Yharnam, right?"
The Doll hummed.
"Yharnam is… it's so far behind. This? This building?" She pointed at the one not ten feet away from her. "It's new?"
"I would say so." The Doll tilted her head. "Why?"
"Only very old buildings look like that where I'm from. Hundreds of years old, over half a millennium. The way you speak, it's as if… this is practically a medieval fantasy, yet, everythings all mixed up. You have guns, weapons like this- " she lifted the cleaver, pointing at the latch at the end of the haft. "We never had anything like this. It moves, doesn't it?"
Cathrine fiddled with it, looking for a button or lever. "How does it work?"
"Here," the Doll said, leaning forward and pointing at a groove in the handle. "Press and flick."
Catherine did as she was told, the cleaver snapping forward to reveal a smooth section of blade, no hooks or tines to be found. She winced, her wrist aching.
Rolling the weapon in her palm, she curled her bicep. It must have been near three stone.
She still couldn't believe how heavy the damned thing was. The Doll expected her to use it? How? And on what?
"This world is so different from my own. Is… is whatever this is permanent?"
Lest you fail to hunt, it shall be.
"Fuck!" Catherine shouted, batting at her head.
"Good hunter! What is it?"
"That voice! That fucking voice!"
The Doll rushed forward, taking her hand. "What voice?"
Catherine tore away from her - it, she told herself - shocked to find how warm the Doll was. "Something… some being, I don't know. It… it's followed me all my life, when I sleep. I think it brought me here."
"To the dream?" the Doll whispered. She glanced to the sky questioningly, nodding at nothing. "I… I only know of one thing that could bring you to Yharnam, and if what you say is true, something brought you here."
"What? What could have brought me here?"
"A god."
"A god…" she repeated, dumbstruck. "You're serious."
It made sense. To be torn from her world and brought into this, through a dream no less.
A dream to a dream.
She laughed, shaking her head.
It seemed so crazy. Insane. Impossible. Yet it made sense.
What else could possibly do such a thing, but a god? She only found out about the existence of magic five years ago, how much of a leap could it be for gods to exist?
"A god brought me here?"
"There are many gods. Some are faceless. Some are nameless. One, famous above all others, has no form to speak of. Each is quite unique." She fiddled with her thumb, sighing quietly. "I am sorry, good hunter, but any further knowledge is beyond me."
Catherine shut her eyes, fighting down the tears that threatened to resurface.
She'd done more crying today than she had in her entire life.
"So, what now? You keep calling me hunter, what does that mean?"
"A hunter must hunt," the Doll stated, echoing her own words. "The beasts, the ones that killed you. The hunt exists for them."
She blinked heavily, biting her lip. "It's always a fight, isn't it?" Catherine stood up, lifting the cleaver with some uncertainty. "You wouldn't happen to have a wand, would you?"
"A wand?"
"Yeah, so I can, you know, cast some spells?"
The Doll squeaked, glancing to her right. "The Messengers may have one, but I've never thought to ask."
Catherine stood up. "Where can I find them? They've disappeared."
She gestured towards a bird bath, nestled in a small crook next to a path leading up to the other side of the building. "They can be found in the basin, there."
Approaching the bath, she startled when Messengers flung themselves over the top, smoke leaking out of the bird bath and reminding her painfully of Dumbledore's pensieve.
"Hello," she said, feeling very unsure of herself. "Do you… do you have a wand?"
The Messengers looked at each other, heads bobbing and twisting. They turned back to her, all shoulders, looking almost dejected.
"I… yeah, okay." Catherine turned back to the Doll. "So, hunting, you said?"
"Yes! Of course." The Doll hurried forward, taking her hand once more.
Catherine did her best not to flinch, the sensation of warm porcelain unnerving. "What are you doing?"
"Strengthening you, of course. There is power to be found in blood. Think of it as a gift." The Dolls hands glowed, and Catherine could feel as her veins set alight, a sensation like she'd never felt before.
It was bright, hot, yet not even remotely painful. The feeling washed over her as if a soothing blanket of water, suffusing her being and fluttering through her belly.
"I… wow, I mean- what on earth?" She flexed her arm, the blade rising much easier. Lighter, smoother.
Amazing.
"There seems to be something about you, good hunter. You're steeped in the blood, yet, you say you've never stepped foot in Yharnam until this day. Curious…"
"Curious?"
"Nothing." The Doll shook her head. "Please, forgive me. If you would speak with Gehrman, in the Workshop, he can tell you what must be done."
"Gehrman?"
"The master of this dream."
Nodding awkwardly, Catherine looked toward the building - Workshop - she now knew. "Alright."