Written for the Witcher Monster MAYhem prompt: I hate monsters.
Chapter Text
The lantern is still burning on the other side of the cellar when he comes to. Cahir groans, opens his eyes and tries to move. Damn, something heavy is lying all across him. Everything is wet and sticky. And hurts. A lot. Like he has been trampled by a horse, or worse, a fucking elephant. Whose feet are still planted firmly on top of his prone body, pinning him to the ground. He groans again. What the fuck happened? The air reeks with the strong smell of cheap alcohol mixed with a strange, disgustingly sweet note of something he cannot pinpoint. He strains his swimming head. Right, the doppler with his face. He killed it, didn't he? With his silver knife. And then - damn, the shelf. And the glass jars with the floating body parts. Shit, that is what the sweetish smell comes from. He gags, bile rising to his mouth. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he needs to get out of here. But how? He turns his head to the side. The faint shine of the lantern reflects on a billion shards of glass. They are everywhere around him, on him. And among the glass an ear is lying right next to his hand, something that looks conspicuously like a severed penis close by. Cahir's stomach turns. He heaves and pukes all over the glass-sprinkled cellar floor.
"Gods, I hate monsters," he mutters when he does not feel like retching any second anymore. With closed eyes he takes a few deep, steadying breaths through his mouth. Then he carefully tries to get out from under the shelf. It is far too heavy to lift up as a whole but perhaps he can climb out between the boards? The shelf has no rear panel. It should work if he can somehow turn around and free his legs. If he can move his legs.
Fortunately, he can. It hurts and he curses and wheezes with the effort, but he manages to first wiggle unto his back and then pull himself out through one of the rack's compartments. Eventually he is standing upright between the boards. Panting and woozy and with at least a dozen glass splinters embedded in his skin in addition to as many cuts, but he is not buried under the shelf anymore. He gazes around in the semi-darkness. The entire floor in his immediate vicinity is covered in puddles of spilled liquid, glass shards, eyeballs and whatnot. The doppler's body is still trapped under the shelf. It does not move. The hilt of his silver knife is protruding from the dead monster's back hardly more than two arm's length away. Careful not to touch the floor and cut his bootless feet, Cahir climbs across the wobbly rack, pulls out the knife, turns around again and makes his way across the shaky wooden grid-like structure to its end. On the floor around it there are still plenty of shards and other stuff he prefers not to have too close a look at. Shit, how is he supposed to get through that mess unscathed? And then there is the glaringly open question of how to get out of the cellar without the ability of suddenly growing wings. Damn, why is it not enough to kill the monster to get a happy ending? He does not even want the princess and half the kingdom for his troubles, a nice dinner and a comfortable bed would be plenty enough. And a hot bath. Shit, his head is hurting too much to think. Perhaps he should just curl up in a mostly glass-free corner and postpone the issue? The new dawn might bring the one or other idea - hopefully.
That leaves the minor but more urgent matter of the glass shards. After all, he can hardly sleep sprawled across the rack. Only one feasible solution occurs to him, and it is not a pleasant one. But it cannot be helped. Grit your teeth and get to it, boy, Vesemir would surely say in a situation like this. So, that is what Cahir does. Precariously kneeling on the shelf he begins to clear a spot right in front of it off the bigger pieces of glass and any scattered organs by sweeping his forearm across the wet ground and pushing everything to the sides. He will just burn the shirt and pants as soon as he is back in Kaer Morhen. And, if possible, finally pay a visit to those legendary hot springs and soak there for hours. About the smaller glass splinters Cahir cannot do much at the moment but they won't cause any serious injuries, just some annoying superficial cuts he will simply ignore. He steps onto the mostly shard-free spot, gets down on his knees and clears the next patch. And the next. Eventually, the amount of shards, ears and eyeballs decreases markedly. The closer he gets to the opening in the ceiling and the lantern, the easier it becomes to avoid the debris and to simply sidestep it. The floor becomes drier, too, and the air is a lot better. Having fallen through the trapdoor together with him, the rug that has so deviously deceived Cahir is lying on the ground below the opening. He spreads it out on the stone floor. He then flops down on it, stretching out on the thin wool with a loud groan.
Gods, what an abysmally shitty evening! Compared to this hellhole, Kaer Morhen feels like a haven of luxury. And safety. Friendship. He misses it. Although he may not deserve any of it …
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Cahir wakes up from his exhausted sleep, bruised and cut in so many places he could not count them even if he wanted to, his muscles stiff, his head still hurting, and, on top of it all, dreadfully thirsty. Hungry, too, but a single look around is enough to spoil his appetite. The lantern has gone out by now, but the sunlight filtering in through the open trapdoor provides enough light to make out the distant wall and the shape of the fallen shelf on the ground in front of it. Cahir's first idea to get out of the cellar was to cut up the rug and fashion some kind of rope from it. However, he quickly discards the notion. Using a rope would require a means to fasten it to something in the ceiling or in the washroom. Without help from above, there is no way he can possibly do it. Which leaves the shelf as his only option for an escape. Unless a neighbour happens to come by accidentally, or some other sort of miracle happens. Which is more than unlikely.
So, the shelf. Using the intact structure as a ladder is out of the question, it is far too large and heavy to raise again and pull or push underneath the trapdoor. But maybe it is possible to break it apart? He will have to try, there is no alternative. Cahir rolls up the rug that has served as his mattress and utilises it as some kind of broom to sweep the floor in front of his feet where it is too dark for him to see the glass shards or fingers or other things he would definitely not want to step on on his way to the other end of the cellar.
Unfortunately, it soon turns out, whoever built the shelf was an excellent craftsman. It is one huge structure that has survived the fall without a single crack. The easiest way to gain something serviceable from it, Cahir concludes after thorough inspection, is to try to remove the top board. It could just be long enough to use it as a makeshift ladder. If it is not, he is fucked for good. Well, first he has to get the bloody thing off. Which will be extremely difficult with only his hands, his slender, rather delicate silver knife and kicks from his naked feet. He gazes around again. And fortune smiles upon him for once. In the twilight he suddenly spots the tip of his dagger which is lying on the floor under the rack half buried under something that looks ominously like a cut off breast and, of course, the inevitable glass splinters.
It is more than disgusting and Cahir is close to retching again when he pulls the dagger out from under the wobbly female organ, but it is worth the trouble. Even with the dagger, loosening the board is hard and annoyingly slow work, however, without it, he would never have been able to do it at all. After what must have been hours and with a last vicious kick, the board finally breaks free. It is heavy and unwieldy and not easy to handle without help but, eventually, Cahir manages to place the board not against the opening, it is too short for that, but against the wooden lid of the trapdoor. It is a shaky construction, he has to admit it, and would never be approved of by any craft guild. Still, it will have to do. Grabbing its sides with both his hands as high up as he can reach, he puts one bare foot onto the board and pulls himself up. The trapdoor creaks in its hinges, when, with cat-like swiftness, Cahir climbs up his makeshift ladder. He catches hold of the opening with both hands just in time before the hinges give way and the board falls to the ground with a thud. With one last big effort, he heaves himself over the rim of the trapdoor.
Rays of late morning sunshine fall through the window and bathe the narrow washroom in pleasantly bright light. Except for the gaping hole in the floor, it looks completely inconspicuous. Nothing at all would give away the horrors lurking underneath it, the dark things that waited in that house that have finally come to an end. Cahir struggles to his feet and walks over to the washstand. The water is, of course, cold by now, but he feels so disgustingly dirty, he would even scrub himself clean with ice water if he had to. When he has washed the worst of the blood and gore off of himself, he looks for his boots, cloak and swords. Everything is where he left it the evening before. For a moment Cahir is tempted to go into the kitchen to find something to drink, however, he abstains from doing so. Who knows what other horrors he would find inside the room? He has seen more than enough parts of dead bodies during the last couple of hours. Better get out of the house right away and without delay.
When Cahir enters the stables, Thunder greets him with a happy whinny. Looks like he is alright. Cahir sighs with relief. He feeds and saddles his horse before he leads him into the yard. From his saddlebag he gets a little metal box. One thing left to do before he will leave and never return to this accursed place. He enters the house for one last time. Stepping over the open trapdoor, he walks up to the chest of drawers. With practised strokes of the firesteel from his tinderbox, he lights all the candles he can find. Then he throws them down the trapdoor in the direction of the wooden shelf, one after the other. They roll across the floor. The remaining puddles of strong alcohol catch fire immediately. So does the woolen rug and the alcohol-soaked wooden rack as soon as the first flames start licking at its boards. The last candle he uses to set the curtains in the washroom on fire. Then Cahir leaves, this time for good.
Burn, doppler, burn.