Hunter jumped as a sudden knocking sound filled the room, coming from the door to his bedroom. Him and Derilan had been given a small house to share, now that they had nowhere else to live. Derilan always made sure to knock when entering his father's presence, as Hunter had become very jumpy since Spyro's attack on the cheetah village. The yellow cheetah wasn't sure if the knock alerting him of Derilan's presence was better or not, considering the sudden sound still made him jump. It was better than seeing Derilan suddenly appear behind him.
"Come in," Hunter grunted, and Derilan opened the door, walking into his father's room.
The yellow cheetah noticed two strips of parchment in his son's paws, bearing thick black strokes of ink, forming strange symbols that he had never seen before. He furrowed his brow upon seeing them. "What are those?" he asked.
"They're spell tags, Father. They handed these out to everyone at Logron and Cynder's city-wide announcement that you refused to go to," Derilan explained.
"Well you went so that's all that matters; I didn't want to go and that's that," Hunter snapped. "Also why the hell would we need spell tags?"
"To protect ourselves from this so-called 'Ghoul Realm', which is a dimension that has opened up just recently and can cross over with our own realm. Its sole purpose is to harm us, so these spell tags should keep us safe from them."
Hunter blinked, before he stood and walked towards Derilan, still favouring his left leg as he limped on it. He took one of the spell tags from him studying the three symbols on it. "These are draconic runes," Hunter scoffed. "Are you saying that we need to be fending off draconic spirits as well?! We're already caught in draconic warfare; why do we need to get caught up in their spiritual affairs too?!"
"They never said it was dragon-specific. This has only happened to Cynder and another dragoness, and…"
"So it's only happened to dragons?"
"Yes, but they never said it couldn't happen to rodents or felines."
"Well I don't want it. I don't believe in the draconic spirits and I don't think they'd even bother interacting with a species that isn't their own."
"But nobody said this was a draconic thing! For all we know, cheetah ghouls could exist too! If dragons and cheetahs can live together in this realm, what's stopping them from living together in the Ghoul Realm? Logron said it was like a parallel to our world, so for all we know it could be that way."
Hunter rolled his eyes, turning his gaze away from the dark orange cheetah. There was a long, uncomfortable silence between the father and son, waiting for the other to speak. Hunter turned his gaze to the single spell tag he held in his paw, before tearing it in two. "I still don't want it," Hunter growled.
"Father! This could harm us!" Derilan screamed. "This was to ensure your own safety and you're just going to rip it up?!"
"I don't believe in the spirits anymore!" Hunter scowled, causing Derilan to flinch. "They don't exist. They wouldn't let such horrors like this happen. The Dark War was enough to go through. We didn't need to be betrayed by our saviour and thrown into turmoil again! We've seen enough war and suffering, but fate keeps giving us more!
"If the spirits do exist, then they don't look out for us. They only want to see us suffer and to laugh at us. So please, take your spell tag and go. I won't have any of this crap anymore."
Derilan's face portrayed all the heartbreak he was going through for his father. Hunter stood there, staring at his son with a scowl, before growling at him, "GO."
"Yes, Father…" Derilan muttered, and he turned and left.
Hunter didn't like yelling at Derilan. He was a good kid. But he was so emotionally destroyed after everything that had happened in the past few days that he felt like he shouldn't need to care anymore. He didn't have any room left to care. The only thing left in his heart was sorrow and hatred. His entire home had been destroyed, every cheetah but two having survived. Three, including Kassaan, but there was a chance she wouldn't even wake up from it.
Spyro was not the dragon Hunter thought he was. Spyro was a monster, and he needed to be killed and sent to hell. He didn't deserve a second chance, not after all the suffering he had caused.
The cheetah felt tears welling up in his eyes. He sat back down on his bed, trying to hold them back, sick of crying and showing emotion. The very thought of it made him feel ill. But the tears fought through with a strong vengeance, and finally won, as his walls burst and he wept, head in his paws.
He felt so alone. He had no mate, and he felt distanced from his son. Was it because he yelled at him and no longer shared the same beliefs as him? Maybe. At the same time though, he only just realised that he was unconsciously distancing himself over the past two days, rejecting his son's help. Was this so that he wouldn't feel as close to Derilan in preparation from when Derilan was taken from him too? Perhaps.
Hunter felt like he had nobody to help him out, but at the same time he felt he didn't need them. With so many people dying and being morbidly hurt, he was afraid that if he grew close to someone, they'd just be taken away from him and he'd have to experience each stage of grief all over again. It would add up on top of each other, and he'd fall into a state that he'd never return from.
He groaned, deciding to get into bed. He was still tired, and he didn't have anything better to do than sleep right now. It was night time anyway; he figured he might have an early night.
The cheetah noticed he was having a lot of trouble going to sleep. He lay there in bed, still awake, for a good two hours or so, tossing and turning and growling with frustration that he couldn't get to sleep. The night was quiet, only a smidge of green light from Zella shining through the window.
Eventually, he made it to sleep, but he did not enter it alone.
Hunter groaned as he opened his eyes, discomfort already flowing through his body. He came to his senses and immediately noticed he was in chains, tied up to a large post. Immediately he tried fighting angrily against the chains, thrusting his entire body forward angrily and making heavy ditches in the dirt where his paws dug at the ground.
A primitive rage overtook him as he collapsed to the ground, pulling against the chains with all his might, biting the cuffs around his wrists. Of course it did nothing, and trying to bite the cold metal ended up hurting his teeth, and his wrists began to get sore from all the rubbing and pulling he was doing on the chains.
With a defeated growl, he gave up, lying on his back and staring at the sky, which was pitch black. The smell of smoke wafted through his nostrils, and he sat up, starting to finally take in his surroundings.
He was in the cheetah village, tied up to the same place he had been eight years ago when Prowlus had chained him, Spyro and Cynder up. The cheetah village however, was decimated. Every hut was on fire, and debris lay everywhere. Hunter's heart broke seeing the decimated village once more, being reminded again of his failures and the fact that he had lost his whole village and its community.
What upset him even more was the cheetah that Hunter suddenly realised was standing in front of him. He looked horrible, his head broken and bleeding from a massive crack that ran along the top of his skull and down the front of his face. His neck was almost non-existent, his head squashed into it from force. More blood seeped out from under the head where the neck should be, and a few bones were visible. The head sat at an unnatural angle, being cracked out of proportion on top of the decimated neck.
The cheetah's eyes were blank, sclerae black and irises grey and dead, blood vessels snaking around the eye, glowing white. His ears, nose and mouth streamed with blood, giving him a hideous, blood-thirsty look.
This was a living corpse that Hunter was looking at, and Hunter knew exactly who this was. "P-P-Prowlus?" the yellow cheetah stammered.
Prowlus stepped forward, getting down on one knee to get to Hunter's level, staring him in the eyes. "You failed ussss," Prowlus hissed. "You failed the people you were meant to look after asssss chief."
"I know," Hunter murmured. "I know that. I was powerless to stop them. I was powerless to do anything to stop this from happening. I-I-I tried to talk to Spyro, but… but… he just…"
"Enough with the excussesss," Prowlus growled, swiping his claws over Hunter's face. "Asss chief you were meant to protect and keep the village in order. You were meant to keep it ssssafe from harm. By all meanssss necessary. Your people are the mosssst important thing, and you failed them. You let them all die. I don't know why I thought you would be a good ssssuccessssor. You failed."
"I did not foresee any of this happening! I did not know things would be like this! I had no way to prepare or get everybody to safety! By the time we tried to get everyone evacuated, they were all killed where they stood! I tried so hard to keep people alive."
"But that didn't work, did it? You let my own sssson die."
"I DIDN'T LET HIM DIE!" Hunter screamed, the tears starting to stream down his face. "I cared for him like he was my own. It hurt to learn that he had died. We went as quick as we could to Warfang to get him and Rasha and Kassaan to the infirmary."
"It wasssn't quick enough though, wasss it?" a higher pitched voice chastised.
Hunter looked down, his heart catching in his throat as he saw Mumblon standing beside Prowlus, his chest torn open and bleeding, exposing his ribcage and unbeating heart. "Mumblon… I…" Hunter stuttered, reaching out to touch the cheetah cub.
"Don't touch him!" Prowlus snarled, unsheathing his sword and thrusting it into Hunter's stomach. "You don't desssserve to touch him after you let him die."
"I didn't," Hunter pleaded again, wincing in pain as blood streamed from his belly. "I tried my hardest to get him to an infirmary."
"Well you didn't try hard enough, Uncle," Rasha deadpanned as she stepped out from behind the pole Hunter was chained to. Blood caked her head from where it had been split open from her fall, and her eyes were just as dead as Prowlus and Mumblon's.
"Rasha… I'm sorry…"
At this point, Hunter was weeping. He sat there in chains, a sword in his stomach, crying. Each sob was more painful than the last, the sword moving with the rest of his body as it heaved with each cry. He just stared at the three cheetahs in front of him, people he held close to him and people he had failed. They were all dead, and he felt at fault. Even for Prowlus, who had died while the world collapsed eight years ago.
Footsteps sounded to his side, and he turned around quickly to see two more cheetahs walk out in front of him. It was Meadow and Kassaan. Their wounds still plagued their bodies, their eyes dead and sinister.
Suddenly, out of the burning huts that surrounded them came a plethora of bloodied, broken, burned cheetahs. The whole village. Every single cheetah that had died to Spyro and the venomfangs, as the dragons called them. They all sported their dying wounds, their eyes staying focused on Hunter the entire time as they hobbled towards him. Adults and children alike made up the crowd of dead cheetahs that had come to torment him.
He suddenly noticed Ivy, the young cheetah cub that Spyro had eaten to 'send to the afterlife'. A massive, thick ring of blood circled her torso, marking the spot where she had been bitten in half, but the rest of her body was rotted and bloody, the fur on her body almost non-existent and her flesh contorted into a hideous, melted mess. It was a sign of digestion, her true ending.
"You failed all of usssss."
Every single cheetah spoke at once, throwing insults at Hunter and blaming him for everything. The multitude of voices that rose from the crowd was getting too much for the poor yellow cheetah, causing him to curl up in a ball to try and hide himself away.
"You failed usssss."
"I know that!" Hunter screamed. "I know I'm a failure and that I screwed up! I regret everything and wish I could've done better! It's all my mind has been on for the past few days because everything's just gone wrong and it's all out of my control! I feel like I'm to blame! Please stop telling me what I already know!"
"You… failed… usssss."
"STOP IT!"
At first Hunter thought he had silenced everyone. At first he thought this nightmare was over.
He opened his eyes however to see he was still in the same burning environment, every cheetah still surrounding him. There was one new cheetah that stood in front of him however, and his heart dropped.
It was Derilan. He didn't show any wounds apart from a few scars that were still left over from Spyro's attack, but he still had those same horrible eyes that wrought fear into Hunter's very form.
"Hey, Father," Derilan rasped, flashing him a wide smile, teeth large and jagged. "Want thissss back?"
The dark orange cheetah held out a balled fist towards him. When Derilan opened his paw, Hunter gasped at the sight of the ripped up spell tag. He suddenly realised this wasn't a nightmare. His son had been right; the Ghoul Realm did exist. And Hunter had been a damned idiot and tore up the one thing that could have stopped him from being here.
Ghoul-Derilan snarled and threw the spell tag at the ground, before stepping forward and punching Hunter in the jaw. Hunter fell to the ground with a heavy thud, groaning as he landed. The cheetah suddenly kicked Hunter in the snout, and then again, and then a third time. Hunter spat out blood, several of his teeth now wedged loose, and looked up at Derilan with a pained wince.
"I'm sorry…" he croaked.
Derilan snarled and kick Hunter in the eye, forcing a loud cry of pain from the yellow cheetah's jaws. It got worse when Derilan reached forward and pulled the sword out of Hunter's stomach. Almost immediately, Derilan shoved the sword back into Hunter, this time in the shoulder. He pulled it out and thrust it in again. Hunter's yellow fur quickly became matted with dark red liquid, his cheeks wet with heavy torrents of tears.
"Please forgive me, please! Please!" Hunter pleaded.
"You couldn't even try and accept your own sssson'sss help! You didn't desssserve anyone here!" Ghoul-Derilan growled, continuing to stab Hunter, moving closer to his chest. "You didn't dessserve to be chief! You let everyone die and everyone sssssuffer! And now your wife issss comatossse, the cubssss you sswore to protect are dead, and your sssson isss ssscared of you!"
"STOP IT PLEASE!" Hunter cried.
With a loud roar of anger, Ghoul-Derilan shoved the sword back into Hunter's torso, a bit above the wound in his stomach. Blood rushed out of his wounds in torrents, covering him with the red liquid. Hunter spat blood out of his mouth again, staring up at the cheetahs with wet, teary eyes. The ghouls of Derilan, Prowlus, Meadow, Kassaan, Mumblon and Rasha all stood over him, staring down at him with those hideous eyes.
"I'm sorry…" Hunter wept, losing all control of his emotions. "I tried to stop this all but I'm just… I'm just a powerless fool who can't do anything. I try and take care of a community, it gets destroyed and massacred. I try and built up a village and protect it, it gets burned down. I try and raise two kids like my own, and they get killed brutally. I try and find love, and it gets taken away from me. I try and stand up for what's right, and everything falls apart.
"I'm a damn failure and I know that. I don't even know why I'm still here. Why I still even bother to do good. Everything has been torn down. I'm powerless and I'm a fool to think otherwise."
The ghouls standing above him didn't react. They just stood there, staring at him, seemingly waiting for him to bleed out. Everything hurt, and his vision was getting hazy. He was scared he was going to die.
They just stared. Blankly.
Unmoving.
Hunter winced as he grabbed the dagger in his torso, pulling it out with another spurt of blood. He threw the dagger to the side, and began to sit himself up, attempting to move backwards, wanting nothing more than to get away from the ghouls. He moved only a few metres back before he collided with something big and scaly.
The cheetah froze, not wanting to look up at what loomed over him. The ghouls in front of him didn't move at all, still staring at him. Chances are this massive creature was a dragon. A ghoul dragon.
Fear paralysed Hunter as he made the conclusion. These cheetah ghouls were terrifying enough. Knowing how much bigger and more dangerous dragons were, he did not want to meet a ghoul version of one.
Looking down, he saw a large, scaled paw that he was sitting on, propped up against the rest of the leg. Each scale was painted in a sinister, dark indigo colour, and the claws were long and red with blood. The smell of the gore staining the claws was rancid. The sight and smell was bad enough, but the colour of the scales gave away which dragon he was in contact with, and he wanted to tear his own heart out.
Only one dragon had dark indigo scales, and that was Spyro.
Hunter keeled over, putting his head between his knees. With the cheetahs in front of him and Spyro behind him, he was cornered, trapped between his two worst enemies, with no escape. The tears flowed as he sobbed, fear suffocating him. Trembling arms wrapped around his knees as he rocked back and forth on the ground against Ghoul-Spyro's leg.
"You sssshould be dead," Ghoul-Spyro whispered, his voice low and smooth, sounding directly into his ear.
Hunter jumped and let out a scream, whirling around to see Spyro's bloodstained jaws right in front of his face. He staggered backwards as best as he could, lumbering over the dragon's large paw. He scrambled backwards even further, before he had to stop to cough up blood, the sudden movements of his scrabbling and the force exerted from his scream causing his body to revolt against him.
"You sssshould be dead, jussssst like the resssst of them," Ghoul-Spyro hissed again, before stepping closer to Hunter, gesturing briefly towards the cheetahs that stood around him.
"Get away! Get away from me, please!" Hunter pleaded pitifully. "Why are you here?!"
"I'm coming here to finisssssh my job," Spyro scowled, before his tailblade lashed out towards the only cheetah ghoul that wasn't covered in bloody lacerations.
Ghoul-Derilan's legs gave way underneath him as thick blood spurted out from his chest, his head slumping backwards, terrible eyes staring blankly at Hunter. The yellow cheetah let out another scream, long, loud and grating. Hunter had no clue if this carried over into the real world or not, but seeing Derilan die in front of him, ghoul or not, hurt his very soul. He hoped it wouldn't carry over. If Derilan was dead, then that was another thing that Hunter would put as a burden on his shoulders. It would be another thing that Hunter would use as a knife to stab into himself, waiting for his death to finally come.
Spyro just laughed devilishly at Hunter's misery, but a second voice joined in. Through Hunter's tears, he could notice Derilan laughing too, his body skewered on Spyro's nasty tailblade. The dragon kept moving forward as he laughed, causing Hunter to scramble backwards even more.
The cheetah lost track of how much ground he had made up, and before long he had placed his paw into the embers from one of the burning huts. He retreated his paw back with a yelp, staring at the pad which was now burned, swelling and peeling away, exposing bright red flesh underneath it.
He looked up again, only to be met with Spyro's jaws in his face again, the long snout getting in the way of seeing any other part of the dragon's face. The jaws opened as Spyro spoke, giving Hunter no other view but the fleshy abyss, stained red with blood, likely Ivy's.
"Oncccce more, you are a threat," the ghoulish dragon rumbled. "A threat to the world, and a threat to me."
"A th-th-threat?! How?! I'm just one cheetah! I have no power! How can I be a threat to the world, or you?!" Hunter exclaimed. "We used to be friends and allies, Spyro! What did I ever do to become a threat to you? What did I ever do to get you to hunt my kind, and burn my village to the ground?! To kill all its citizens, and to eat a child?! Does any of that sound wrong to you, Spyro?!"
"Don't try and reasssson with me. It won't work. You aren't in the real world anymore. You are in the Ghoul Realm, and in here, there issss no 'good moralsssss'. We exissst to hurt you."
"Well get me out of here then!"
"No. That'ssss not how it worksss," Spyro chuckled.
"You refussssed the ssspell tagss, Father," Ghoul-Derilan droned from Spyro's tailblade, blood spraying from his lips as he spoke. "You're here by no one elsssse'ss fault but yourssss. You allowed ussss free accessss to you now that Warfang isss ssafe. We took that chanccce."
"No! You're wrong!" Hunter denied, but deep down he knew Ghoul-Derilan was right. He refused the spell tags that he was offered, and he had no protection from this hellhole whatsoever. Of course he was going to get sent here now.
In retaliation to Hunter's denial, Spyro lashed out with his large claws and swiped them along Hunter's arm, cutting the flesh down to the bone. The pitiful cheetah didn't even have the energy to scream. At this point he was beginning to black out.
"Someone please," he slurred, to no one in particular. "Get me out of here!"
Spyro placed a firm paw on Hunter's chest, pinning him to the ground. The pressure being placed on his already broken, bloodied chest was insane, and the pain was unbearable. Hunter opened his mouth in a silent scream, his vocal chords refusing to let it out.
I know I said the spirits didn't exist but if they do, please get me out of here! Hunter thought, unable to speak the words aloud.
"No one isss coming to ssssave you," Spyro hissed, as if he was able to hear Hunter's thoughts. "Now, I'm going to be kind and let you choosssse how you want to die. You have many, many optionsss."
Hunter didn't answer. He couldn't. He didn't care at this point however. At this point, the cheetah knew he was dead. The pain was very much real and he hadn't seen or heard anything from the spirits yet. They weren't coming to save him.
He was going to die.
The world around him started to fade away, and Hunter knew he was falling into unconsciousness. The blood loss was getting to him. He would be left to the ghouls' wrath, likely to be killed in his unconscious state.
Blackness overtook him, and he lost all sense of feeling.
With a loud gasp, Hunter awoke, leaping up in his bed and clutching his chest. He was honestly surprised he woke up, let alone in his bed. Derilan and Cynder both stood beside him, worry and fear painting their faces. Blood was all over Cynder's neck and paws, and Derilan had the red liquid staining the fur on his paws too. Apart from the blood streaming from Derilan's nose, none of the blood seemed to be coming from them.
Hunter looked around him, noticing his bedsheets were thick with the dark red liquid. He looked himself over, noticing he was drenched in blood, all appearing to be from the wounds he had bore earlier. However, the wounds were non-existent. His chest was completely closed up, his shoulders bore no stab wounds, and his arm was completely free of the massive laceration Spyro had given him. His chest was bare as well, his tunic torn in pieces underneath him, dark with blood.
"What the… what the hell?" Hunter croaked. "What happened? Why am I in bed? Where's my wounds? Why… why… why am I alive?"
"Hunter, slow down," Cynder interrupted calmly. "You're okay."
"I am not okay! What the hell just happened to me?!"
"You were in the Ghoul Realm."
"I know that!"
"But you're safe now; you're back at home, in Warfang."
Hunter nodded, trying his best to slow his breathing. He put a paw to his chest, forgetting it was covered with blood before flinching at the touch of the thick liquid that matted his fur.
"It might do good to wash yourself up, Father," Derilan advised.
Hunter jumped at the sound of his son's voice, having grown somewhat used to it being so condescending and malevolent inside the Ghoul Realm. He quickly told himself that this was his son, not the ghoul that had tormented him earlier, and he tried to slow his heart once more.
"Y-y-yeah, good idea," Hunter stammered after a few seconds.
The yellow cheetah got out of bed, before turning back and looking at it. The sheets were dark red. "How much blood did I lose?" he asked. "And where… where are all my wounds? Why are you covered in blood?"
"You lost quite a lot of blood," Cynder explained. "This was the same with me and Apata when we ended up in the Ghoul Realm. Your wounds carry over from the Ghoul Realm into this one, but when you leave the Ghoul Realm, they all kinda… disappear here. Unfortunately though, you still lose a lot of blood and it still remains everywhere, so we're going to have to clean everything up.
"As for why we're covered in blood, any wounds that are opened in the Ghoul Realm are also opened up here, but it also creates these tendrils out of your blood in the real world to fight against anyone who gets near, which is why I have blood all over my neck; I was strangled trying to get to you and wake you up. I guess it worked in the end; never thought I'd be praying again but it worked last time so I tried this time."
Hunter's eyes widened. He prayed too… or more like pleading. Maybe there was a spiritual connection to this all. Maybe they did exist. He still had a lot of questions, but he wasn't sure he was ready to ask them, let alone have them answered. This whole thing honestly scared him.
But whose spirits answered? His or Cynder's?
"So, do you think you're alright to be left on your own you two?" Cynder asked.
"Yeah, I think we'll be fine," Derilan replied. "You think you'll be alright, Father?"
"Uh… yeah. I-I-I don't think I'm going back to sleep tonight after that," Hunter said, looking out the window and noticing it was still dark outside.
"Okay. Well, keep each other safe, and you'd better clean up," Cynder said, turning to leave. "I'll bring around an extra spell tag in the morning for you Hunter, if you still want it that is."
"Yes," Hunter answered quickly, avoiding both Cynder and Derilan as they stared at him.
"Alright," Cynder murmured slowly, after a few seconds of silence. "Well, goodbye then you two."
"See you, Cynder," Derilan farewelled, before Cynder left the house.
A pregnant silence overtook the room as Hunter stood there, covered in his own blood, some of which dripped onto the floor from the sheer amount that had run down his arms and chest. Hunter avoided looking at his son, knowing what he would say. Derilan's gaze bore into him nonetheless, and it felt like that dagger from the Ghoul Realm was stabbing into him again.
Derilan finally spoke, and Hunter winced at the immensely dry tone that his son spoke with. "Still believe ripping that spell tag up was a good idea?"
Hunter didn't reply. He just clenched his fists and took a deep breath, knowing Derilan was right.
"I tried to help you, Father, but you were stupid enough to reject it, knowing it could be very harmful to you."
"I'm sorry!" Hunter yelled, tears building in his eyes.
There was an uncomfortable silence, and Hunter's heart twisted in agony. He brought a paw to his head, slowly digging his claws in and drawing a few small beads of blood. He was yelling at Derilan again.
A deep, shaking breath ravaged his lungs, before he tried again, speaking softly. "I'm sorry. I just… didn't want to believe that everything was so caught up in all these draconic affairs and that we were involved in it, as well as spiritual affairs. I just refused to believe that more things could go wrong," he moaned through the tears which were slowly starting to spill faster and faster down his face. "I'm sorry I've been yelling at you and getting mad, and I wish I wasn't. I'm just really upset right now, and I don't know what to do."
"It's okay, Father," Derilan replied. "I get it. I think everybody does. With the whole world in turmoil, I think everybody's distressed to the point where they're snapping at each other. Cynder was yelling earlier when I went to get her, and while I know it wasn't directed at me, it was still rather scary."
"Yeah, well she's a dragon. Of course they're scary."
"Yeah, I remember you telling me that when I was seven, just before you left to find the Time Crystal. I wish I could've seen them when they were 'nice creatures'. I feel like the current events have taken that out of everyone. There isn't a lot of friendliness and lots of people are quick to anger, from what I've seen."
Hunter just nodded, mumbling incoherently. There was another uncomfortable silence that tore at the two cheetahs, before Hunter took a small step forward, almost hesitating to walk out of the door. "I'm, uh… I'm going to go… wash myself up," Hunter murmured, gesturing to his extremely bloodied chest, before walking awkwardly out of his room, leaving Derilan alone.
Upon entering the bathroom and closing the door behind him, he quickly stripped himself, before turning on the shower, letting the warm water pour out of the showerhead. He placed his pants on the bench beside the shower, noticing that it was stained with blood too, the immense amounts of blood on his torso having dripped down to his legs and into his pants. He was going to have to buy some more. Hunter was going to have to buy a completely new tunic as well, considering it was lying torn up on his bloodied bed. New bedsheets would also need to be bought, and Hunter groaned at the amount of things he'd need to replace.
Stepping into the shower, the yellow cheetah got to work at cleaning himself, scrubbing himself down violently to get the blood out of his fur, tempted to even pull a few strands of his fur out to help the process. By the time the water had streamed down his furry form and dropped onto the ground, the liquid was stained red from the particles of blood it had picked up.
Hunter growled as he scrubbed at his chest, the blood having started to dry while he stood around talking to Cynder and Derilan earlier, making it harder for him to get it out. He got as much blood out of his fur as he could, but there were still several clumps on his chest that refused to go away. Growling with frustration, he gave into his earlier temptation and tore out the clumps of fur that were still matted with the dry, crusty red liquid, wincing as he felt the individual strands of fur being yanked out from the skin.
After he finished his chest, he moved to scrubbing his bloodied arm and his shoulders clean. It was a lot easier since there wasn't as much blood clumping together as there had been on his chest, but it still got to the point where he did end up pulling some fur from his arm.
When Hunter was finally finished, he sighed, leaning against the wall as he felt the hot water pelting down on his back. Breathing slowly yet heavily, he tried to get his mind off his time in the Ghoul Realm. All while he had been cleaning himself free of his blood and pulling fur from his flesh his mind had only been able to focus on it, and the sheer weight of the events playing over and over in his head really began to put a burden on his shoulders.
Hunter closed his eyes tightly, hissing air through his gritted teeth, his head and fists against the wall. He was trying his hardest to get rid of the memories from the Ghoul Realm: the sight of everyone looking at him with those dead eyes, the disapproval from Prowlus, the hate from Derilan, and the terrifying, dark tone in Spyro's voice as he bore down on him with that evil smile, his jaws right in Hunter's face.
The dagger that Derilan bore, thrusting into his flesh.
The hundreds of tiny water droplets pattering on his back suddenly no longer felt like drops of water, but it started feeling like individual knives being stabbed into him, the pricking of the water drops getting more and more painful.
Hunter tried to shut the pain out, knowing it was his traumatised mind playing tricks on him, screwing his eyes shut and clenching his jaws tightly. It still wasn't working, and Hunter started slamming his fist into the wall he was leaning on, his body starting to tremble. His breath became rapid and laboured, small growls emanating from his throat.
Eventually the pain in his back became too much, the tiny little knives digging into him finally driving him insane. He let out a roar of pain, staggering backwards and out of the shower, colliding with the wall on the opposite side of the room. The pain in his back from the water droplets was gone, the only pain in his body being in his fist from punching the wall, and in his shoulder from the collision with the wall he now leaned against.
Tremors wracked the poor cheetah's form, not only from stress and fear, but now from cold too, as he leaned against the wall dripping wet, completely naked as his blood-stained pants lay on the bench on the other side of the room.
Hunter was ashamed to realise he was weeping once again, angry that he was showing such emotion. But his mind was no longer his own. Controlled by misery, fear, guilt, anger and trauma, he could not think clearly anymore. His emotions were all over the place. Just before he went to bed, he was angry and yelling at Derilan, but now he was reduced to a terrified, miserable wreck, exposed completely, both physically and emotionally. If Derilan was to walk in now, he would be completely unfiltered, a complete mess.
Luckily his son didn't walk in on him, but he knew he couldn't lie here, crying and naked, for any longer. Even if no one could see him, he was embarrassing himself.
Wiping his eyes, he slowly stood to his feet, before hobbling cautiously back to the shower and turning it off. He then reached to the towel rack, pulling down a towel and drying himself. Once he was dry, he put his dirty, blood-stained pants back on.
Hunter made his way out of the bathroom, to be greeted in the living room by Derilan, who had set up a makeshift bed on the couch for him. "I set this up for you, Father," Derilan said softly. "You need somewhere to sleep and I don't think a blood-stained bed is going to do you good if you tried to sleep in it."
"Yeah. Thanks," Hunter murmured quietly.
Derilan smiled softly, before going back into his own room and returning with his mattress being dragged behind him, his spell tag in his other paw. He set the mattress down beside Hunter's makeshift couch-bed, placing the spell tag between the two.
"I figured this might help, hopefully, if we're to return to sleep," Derilan said. "I know it's probably better and safer if we both had our own spell tag, but considering we only have one, I'd like us both to be as close as possible and in the same room, in hopes that this one spell tag will defend the both of us. I don't want you to return… there… and after what I saw from you, I'm not sure I want to go there myself."
"That's fair enough, son," Hunter replied. "You're right to not want to go there. It was literal hell."
Derilan just mumbled in agreement. Both cheetahs got themselves comfortable in their makeshift beds, Hunter's a couch, Derilan's a mattress on the floor. They bid each other good night and hoped that they would both be safe.
The dark orange cheetah was asleep long before his father was. Hunter lay on the couch underneath one of the spare towels, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. He was almost too scared to go to sleep, but he knew he had to. It was still the middle of the night, and he didn't want to spend it all lying awake and fearing for his life. Everyone needed sleep, and after some serious trauma like that, he needed it a lot.
After several more hours, Hunter finally managed to drift off to sleep, his body's needs overtaking his mind and will. He slept throughout most of the morning, and did not dream.
It's been a good long while hasn't it? Just in case you didn't see in my update on GEM, uni hit hard throughout October and stopped me from working on my fics all month lol, but I've finished my first year of uni so throughout the break I should be able to get a few more things done.
Anyway, let me know what you all think in the reviews, and hope you enjoyed!
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Dragon of Mystery: Freaky only just begins to describe this world; we're only just over halfway through the story at this point lol. And yes, Cynder's fun to write especially with those remarks against Spyro lol, especially since we almost always see them together so it's interesting to do something different at the same time. And glad to hear you slept good afterwards lol; hope you sleep well after yet another Ghoul Realm chapter lol.
And glad to hear you're excited for this series being long haha. I'm excited as well; there's a lot to explore and I'm having fun writing this series. I'm just hoping I can get to Book 2 soon, coz Demonised has been taking its sweet time. I've been writing it for three and a half years. It took me about a year and a half to write originally, but near the end of 2018/start of 2019, I did a full rewrite/replan of the second half of the story coz Spyro was insanely underdeveloped, so it's been a much slower journey to make sure his characterisation, as well as the rest of the story, is written to the best it can be. 2019 and 2020 have been slow years for writing as well, so I'm hoping I can pick it up a bit next year. I think I'll probably start making Demonised a priority coz I wanna move on and start the second book, so GEM might have a few more silent breaks here and there while I work on Demonised, although I will still try and update GEM as much as I possibly can lol.
AquillaPrime: Glad to hear you like the concept of the Ghoul Realm! And yeah, it's a bit sad at the moment with Cynder, but who can blame her really? Really good to hear that you're really engaged and invested emotionally into the story, which means that I'm doing something good here lol. Looking forward to hearing more from you. Also, I'll see what I can do about the comma thing.
Derick Lindsey: Yeah, hopefully Apata comes back to terms with Cynder lol, but she's gonna need a bit of time to herself to process and get through this. We'll be seeing a bit more of her here and there, don't you worry. Also GEM might be Broken Perceptions level of dark here and there, considering they're both T, but GEM isn't hugely focused on the darker scenes, although they will be present. Nowhere near Purple Legacy level of dark though (the entire series will be rated M so yeah it doesn't really end after Demonised, although Demonised is the most intense one imo). As for the Ghoul Realm, the idea is more to keep the victim in there for long enough that they loose enough blood in the real world to actually die; if the victim returns they're safe, physically of course. Mentally they're scarred, as evident with Apata.
Glad you liked the breather chapter, although we're back into it for this one haha. Glad you're enjoying the story so far though. Hope to hear more from you.
Guest: Regarding Spyro's corruption, remember he wanted to 'fix the dragon race', and believed the only way to do it was to kill bits of it off to scare everybody else into 'fixing themselves', and that tapping into his inner darkness was something he had to do. This was mentioned back in Chapter 27. For all your other questions, you'll have to just wait and see. More things are coming, and Spyro's son is going to appear later on, as he is still alive, also mentioned back in Chapter 27. In what way Forzen will appear in, you'll just have to wait and see. This is something I will not say anything about until it happens.
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Some pretty lengthy responses haha, but glad to see you all reviewing, and hope to see more reviews. I love to hear your thoughts on my fics. Lemme know what you think of this chapter, and I'll try and get the next chapter out as soon as I can. Have a good day!