"Two miles left to go..."
Alex looked up at the sky, not bothering to conceal his anxiety. The sun was setting, and the temperature was already dropping rapidly. At this rate, there was no way we'd get to Copper Cave in time. We were going to have to try to find it in the darkness... and it didn't help things that there wasn't a moon out tonight. Speaking of moons, that brings me to an interesting point. Despite the fact that Kuja trashed Terra beyond all comprehension, it still rises and sets over the skies of Gaia like it always did. If I hadn't been there, I wouldn't have known anything had changed. Alex's thoughts seemed to be running along a similar track, only without the whole knowing-people-actually-used-to-live-on-the-moon thing. I also noticed that he had started to shiver, which made me feel strangely guilty, since I didn't feel anything at all... Well, cold-wise, anyway. Once I got out of these mountain ranges and back to somewhere decent, I was gonna try to figure out what was happening to me - but there wasn't really time now.
It was silent.
The only sounds were our footsteps, the soft crunch they made every time we took a step in the snow.
...Remember what I said before, about it not being a good thing that no monsters had shown up? Well... as for the reason why they were so curiously absent from our surroundings...
I never heard it coming.
One minute I was walking along, then the next it felt like someone had swung a sledgehammer into the back of my head. I pitched forward, rolling across the snow and knocking into Alex. I was completely stunned; I couldn't see straight, or focus... Hell, I could barely even think, that damn thing had hit my head so hard. By the time my vision cleared up enough for me to be able to see without having a hundred fireworks exploding in my eyes, I saw Alex facing off against my attacker as I lay in the snow.
It was big, for starters - really big. It was completely white, blending in with the snow so well that I barely even saw it at first. It looked like a snow ogre of some kind, but with icicle-like ridges jutting out of its spine, and with a lizard-like tail trailing in the snow behind it. It also had very nasty looking claws. Most of them were clear, but - my eyes widened a little - on it's right hand, red crimson liquid was dripping off of them. And somehow, somehow I just knew that it was my friend's. I felt a strange rage building up inside me - not like any I had ever felt before. This one was... cold. Pure, unfiltered hate - clear and efficient. As I somehow raised myself off the ground, I could tell that my head was practically hemorrhaging and I probably had a major concussion. But somehow... I honestly couldn't give a shit.
As I slowly climbed to my feet, my hair fell in front of my face; the tie had probably been ripped off when the monster had slammed the back of my head. I stepped forward, my head bowed. In front of me, I could see Alex flinging a weak fire spell at it, but I ignored the sudden revelation that he could use black magic. Nothing mattered. Only the monster. As Alex noticed I had gotten up he gasped and was distracted for a moment. One moment was all it took for the snow monster to smash him in the forehead with it's tail. One... single moment... is all it took for me to change. I looked up at it, all sense of self gone besides a few basic emotions and simplistic thoughts.
I let out an animalistic scream, feeling something within me break. Light erupted around me - the light of trance - but this time... this time it was red. Cold, calculating fury. I existed solely to destroy my enemy... Everything else... was meaningless. I lunged at the fool who had dared touch anything of mine - I ripped into him with razor-sharp claws I had never had before, daggers long forgotten. I lost myself completely when I drew blood, tearing deep into it, ripping apart it's flesh. It lashed out at me; it's teeth burying themselves into my collarbone. I just laughed, and yanked myself out of its jaws, ignoring the blinding pain that should have come with shattered bones and shredded muscle. I delivered a high kick to it's head, knocking it back several feet, then following it up with a right hook to it's face. It slammed it's spiked-tail into my stomach, knocking the air out of my chest and impaling the white spikes deep with in me. It yanked them back out, letting the blood spurt out of the holes and out of my mouth, choking up the liquid from punctured organs. It moved to crush my head in it's claws, but I wrapped my tail around it's arm, swinging myself up onto it's back, then digging my claws into it. It let out a enraged roar, and tried to shake me off, forcing me to let go and jump away. I remembered my daggers now, and threw one, laughing as it smacked blade-first into it's throat. It swayed and grasped blindly at the knife, clawing itself up by accident - but before it was able to steady itself, I had slammed my entire arm through it's chest, the still beating heard pulsing in my hands. I laughed like a child with a new toy as it fell, my arm sliding out of it with a horrific squelching noise. I looked down at the heart with distain and slowly crushed it, blood running through my fingers like water. Dropping it carelessly on the ground, I stepped onto the monster's chest, and smiled down at it, running a tongue over razor-sharp teeth I hadn't had before.
"I win."
And then I crushed its head under my boot.
I let out a terrifying howl of triumph, filled with ecstasy over the kill... It echoed across the snow, trailing off into bloodlust-filled whops of laughter.
And then... raising a clawed, blood-covered hand to my forehead, I laughed hysterically one last time... Then I fell backwards, the world turning black before I hit the snow.
...Red all around me.
Red - everywhere red...
A nightmare.
And I liked it...