Chapter 2

-For the Record-

"Day seven." Came the voice of the survivor, as the video opened up with the familiar view of the magic chair seated in front of the thick woods. It was very early in the morning, to the point that the sky was still dark from the night previous, and Aldric's breath still fogged up the air. Aldric walked onto frame, a large backpack hanging from his back, a new pair of glasses resting on his nose, a bow strung over his shoulders, a knife strapped to his hip, and a pick-head fire axe secured in the hangar loop of the backpack. "Spent the last two days resting up and testing out my bow. It shoots pretty good, and I land an average of seven out of every ten shots I fire, from a distance of about thirty feet. The arrows are sturdy, and sharp enough that they sink far enough into the trees that I'm feeling more confident in their ability to shoot Cubone dead." He explained, as he reached up above his left shoulder and flicked at one of the arrows he had sticking out of the backpack.

"I've got food and water packed for five days, and some medical supplies should I need it... And the oxycodone should I need it." The dark-haired survivor said, as he pulled a rubber band off of his wrist, and used it to bind his hair into a loose pony-tail. "Oh yeah, and in case you're wondering, I looted some of the luggage and found a few pairs of glasses. They all aren't my prescription, but I was able to improvise a pair that doesn't suck that bad, so now I'm not functionally blind anymore." He explained, as he pushed up the new pair of glasses that rested on the ridge of his nose.

"Now, my plan is to get to the castle, find its highest point, and try out my radio. If, on the off chance that a rescue chopper lands here, I left a note next to the manifest, explaining who I am and where I went, and I've got the flare gun, so I'll likely see or hear them, and they'll see or hear it... Hopefully it doesn't rain." He explained, as he leaned over and tapped on his chair, the sound of a hand slapping paper filled the air for a moment. "Hopefully... If all goes to plan, Cubone will follow me to this castle, and we'll have a neutral grounds in which to fight. It's got the strength and speed advantage, but I'm hoping I can find a place to get a height advantage on it, so I can drop down and chop its neck off with the axe, or stab the crap out of it with the knife... Or, you know, shoot it with the bow, provided it stands up to combat." He took a few steps forward, picked up the camera, and began walking towards the woods.

"I'm taking a few phones and a tablet along with me so I've got spare recording devices... Though, uh, you know, in case I survive, or take some bad hits, not mine. So if they break, and all. But, they're all wrapped up in clothes in case of sudden or unexpected impact... And if the worst case happens and I kill it, but I'm too injured to fix myself up... Well, I've got something to record my last moments." He sighed.

"'Till next time." The gunmetal gray eyed teen spoke, before the camera shook as he manipulated it, and shut it off.

It was easy to get lost in these dense, thick woods. Were one to not have a compass with which to follow the directions, or a knife with which to mark a path, it would be even easier to lose one's way and never get it back, but fortunately for Aldric, he had a compass and a heading he'd looted from the plane, and a knife with which to mark the path he walked, so he could follow it back. Aldric walked with one hand clenching a torch, and the other firmly resting on his knife's hilt. The warmth of the torch he held in his right hand helped to dispel the chill of the dark, early morning air, though it also had the unintended side effect of masking the white noise of the forest surrounding him, so if he was being followed by a certain wolf-bear, he may not know until it's too late.

The ground he walked over got increasingly uneven as he went further and further, to the point where he found hills and dirt-dunes to be common features, with tree roots sticking out like an infectious growth. While he had adjusted to the constant ache in his chest, the survivor had decided to take a few pills to alleviate the pain he was generating with all of the activity, though he was very glad his arm was healing up faster, and he had a much more free and wide range of motion with it than he had with his chest, it made him feel better about his chances in a fight. The early morning air, dark as it was, was only lit by the warm orange light of his torch, as the light of the moon and stars above was blocked out by the trees.

After about an hour of traveling, Aldric heard a pleasant sound start to come in over the crackle of his torch. Marking his path every few paces, he followed the sound until he found its source: A stream in the center of a small clearing in the blanket of trees. It was a small one, with a weak current, but it was lively and didn't appear to be stagnant, making Aldric smile as he pulled out his phone. It was deep enough that it would likely come up to his knees if he waded through it, and with its position in a small clearing of trees, it reflected the stars brilliantly and shone into the early morning fog, giving the entire area a pale white glow. As Aldric unlocked his phone and took a few steps closer to the stream, he noticed something peculiar reflecting off of the knee-high water: Several large, paper white objects that looked as if they were floating in the sky.

Staring at the stream for a moment, Aldric eventually turned his eyes to the sky and started looking for these objects, wondering if he were seeing shooting stars, or perhaps satellites reflecting light from the sun. What he found, however, was something completely different.

-For the Record-

The video opened up shakily, obviously held in the hand of the recorder. "Okay, so, not even an hour into this trip, and I've already found some weird shit." He steadied the camera, "found myself a small little stream, which is good, now I don't have to worry about water..." He said, pointing it at a lazily flowing stream that was about a foot deep, and reflecting the pale white light of the moon in its ripples. "But, uh... Then I found this." He pulled the camera up and pointed it to the sky. The camera auto-adjusted for a moment, before it finally focused on the moon.

The image of the pale white moon in the sky filled the camera, but instead of being a pale white disk shining high in the sky, it looked as if it had been partially shattered, almost as if someone had taken a hammer and smashed half of it off. The pieces were caught in the stellar object's orbit and gave it a look of a broken stone floating in the sky, though these 'stones' were so incomprehensibly large that they would qualify as meteors in their own right. The intact piece of the moon held a vague, if jagged, crescent shape, 'filled in' almost, by the fragments that orbited the main body. It was due to this oddity that the moon seemed to reflect more light from the sun, and cast the sky into a brighter pale glow.

"What the fuck?" Cursed the survivor, as the sound of crackling flames picked up. "Now, I know for a fact it wasn't like that last night - er, day six. But how in the hell does this happen in less than twenty four hours? What did I miss? It can't be the moon turning around, it's tidally locked, always showing the same side. And if something hit the damn thing hard enough to do that, then I should be dead right now, because the moon wouldn't have stopped it. Or, at the very least, I should have gotten a freakin' show, an impact that titanic should have lit up the sky like the Fourth of July." He explained, as he kept the camera on the shattered crescent moon.

"Buuuuuut... It could explain why I haven't gotten any radio signals... If something hit the moon like that, then it either knocked out our satellites, or slammed into the planet... But no, wait... No. If it's the former, that would just knock out wifi and satellite communications, not radio waves... And if it was the latter, I'd be dead seven times over by now." There was several moments of silence, broken only by the sound of the torch burning itself down. "Where the fuck am I?" Aldric asked, before he cut the video.

"Okay...Faster pace time, now." Aldric muttered to himself, as he shoved the phone back in his pocket, and pulled out the thumb-sized compass. He found his previous heading, and began walking, now at a much brisker pace than before.

As he walked through the forest, and time continued to pass, Aldric kept sneaking glances up to the sky, as if to make sure he hadn't been seeing things, and that the moon really was broken. He can't have just missed that, he had been unconscious only for a short time, following the crash, given that everything was still smoldering and on fire when he got there, and it can't have happened during his efforts to survive, there was no, possible way he would have missed something that undeniably massive, right above his head. The tides must have gotten screwed by whatever happened, he reasoned, and if it happened during the flight, it could potentially explain why they crashed, perhaps the gravitic pull of whatever object hit the moon disrupted the orbit of the GPS satellites, just enough that the plane went off course and into territory with trade winds and turbulence it wasn't rated for.

"But... No." Murmured the teen, from beneath the warm glow of the torch, as he marked more trees and kept walking through the forest.

If something had hit the moon so damn hard that it just broke, it would explain why it suddenly had a axial rotation - something doesn't get hit by something that big and not flip around like a drunk idiot in a comedy movie - but if it did happen, then Aldric just plain shouldn't be alive. There would be debris from both the moon and the asteroid, which at least had to be the size of the moon or just a bit smaller, and that much debris would either slam into the ground or into the ocean, and it would be like a game of chance with a shotgun: Either hit the ocean enough times to create a tidal wave, or hit the earth in such a wide or tight spread that it smashes apart cities, and god help them if it hit a volcano like Yellowstone. So if the moon was hit, then it should stand to reason that the whole planet was screwed and Aldric should be long since dead, and since he wasn't, this had to be a pre-existing condition.

The sun began to climb into the sky, turning the thick woods from jet black and lit only by the wandering survivor's torch, to a dull gray and lit by the sun and the torch. Then there was the problem of the moon having a rotation in the first place - it just being there had an intrinsic effect on the tides, but it being there and spinning around? Aldric wasn't an oceanographer, but he could make an educated guess and say that it wasn't good. The strangest part of all of it, however, was that its visage, the partial crescent and the shattered, orbiting fragments, it looked familiar somehow. Had he seen it in a painting, or something the like? Maybe a TV show, or a manga? Then why was it in the sky?

Aldric swallowed thickly through his dry throat, as he ambled up a steep incline, using exposed tree roots as a method of climbing. He was starting to worry that he might have gotten hit on the head, first he was seeing odd demonic wolf-bears, and now broken moons. Was he tripping on pain meds? Or had the Cubone hit him on the head harder than he'd thought? Was his brain swelling up? Or was it truly a case of the unthinkable - was he even home anymore? The dark haired teen shook his head, causing his pony-tail to flip around in every direction. No, there was no way he had just hopped dimensions and gone to a new planet, things like that just don't happen at random, and if they did, it would have happened before, people would know about it, and if scientists hadn't already found a way to prevent or fix it, they would be working on it day in and day out. It would be like the next moon landing: Being able to predictably open up wormholes to other planets, it would literally solve the lightspeed problem. No more needing to build up massive rockets, just figure out the coordinates of the planet you want to go to, plug it in, and bam! Interstellar!

I must be having a bad reaction to the pain pills. Reasoned the teen, as he pressed at the back of his head, where it was tender and still slightly swollen.

He continued his hike through the woods for several hours, his feet very sore, his lungs burning, and his entire body covered in a thin film of sweat by the time he stopped for his first dedicated water break. The light had long since broken now, leading Aldric to put out the torch, though he still carried it, just in case. The sweaty survivor leaned up against a large, towering tree and took a deep swig of water, about to think over the moon for the umpteenth time, when he saw something that immediately caught his eye. Though he wasn't the biggest fan of the movie, or the franchise in general, one thing that had stuck with him since he'd seen Prometheus was a quote near the beginning: God doesn't build in straight lines.

In the corner of his vision, nearly hidden in its entirety by the nearby trees, was what looked like a stone column, with clearly drawn creases in between the thick bricks of concrete. Aldric tilted his head and shoved off of the tree, he topped the water bottle and shoved it back in his bag, before picking up the doused torch and making his way towards the column. Upon arriving, he saw that it was essentially a fish out of water, the only column like it in the immediate area, but on a hunch, Aldric leaned down and started brushing at the forest floor. He found that, while dense and thick with grass and vines, and packed in with a thin layer of dirt, when he pulled hard enough and brushed enough aside, it revealed stone a few inches beneath the dirt and the grass. Now thoroughly intrigued, Aldric stood up and went about marking a few trees on the path he had taken, before returning to the ancient, dilapidated road, picking the direction closest to reflecting his heading, and following it.

Not even five minutes passed before he found something even more promising: At one end of this path was a large stone rotunda, clearly ancient and in a state of disrepair, but still standing despite its clear exposure to the elements. Half of the rotunda had been destroyed and was missing, but the ground, half of the wall, and its open top were still standing, the deep, dark gray stones covered in layers of moss, vines, and some tall grass.

"Well... At least I know I'm definitely not the first person on this island..." Aldric drawled aloud, as he walked to the rotunda and stepped into its center, turning on his heel as he took in the house-sized stone construct. Lining its walls were over a dozen small stands, that he noticed were much cleaner than their surroundings, indicative of recent use, though none of them had anything resting upon them. "Eat your heart out, stonehenge... But this isn't nearly big enough to be seen by the plane, it doesn't even crest... Over... Whoa." Aldric trailed off when he made a full ninety degree turn, and saw a long, stretching, wide path laid out before him, flanked on both sides by enormous pillars that jutted out of the ground like stone trees.

The pillars that flanked both sides of the clearly marked path bore a similar design to that of ancient Roman aqueducts, but were a deep gray and made of concrete as opposed to whatever it was the Romans used. Not one to ignore such an obvious invitation, Aldric walked down the long, wide path, looking from side to side as he took in the towering aqueducts. They had to be at least one or two stories high, and even though they were broken and clearly unable to properly perform their function, it made Aldric doubt his 'island' theory, because no island in the universe, unless it was made of factories and concrete, had enough resources to build the rotunda, pave a rode, and make these aqueducts as well. However, wherever there were aqueducts, there had to be a place to ship the water to, and as Aldric kept walking, he found that place.

"Ho... Ho-ho-ho holy fffffuuck!" Chuckled Aldric, as he reached the height of the path laid by the aqueducts, and was given a huge, sweeping view of the gigantic stone city laid out before him.

He had long since left the thick forests, though if that was natural or because the trees had all been chopped down centuries ago, he dared not say, but the thick, dense forest had been replaced by hundreds - no, thousands of towering, titanic stone structures. There were hundreds of large, sweeping bridges connecting dozens of enormous, stone castles and towering buildings with dome tops and more stone rotundas. There were scores of enormous, building-sized towers that lined the whole city, resting just inside the enormous natural quarry that the path led into. Many of the buildings were built into the surrounding mountains and were stretching dozens, if not, hundreds of meters up from ground level - truly, as Aldric looked, the lowest point of the stone city's quarry was so deep down, that he couldn't see it through the rolling morning fog. It was as if someone had told Rome to make Venice on dry land, and to make it as absolutely mind-bogglingly massive as possible. Just on what he could see alone, Aldric was completely confident in saying that this place could fit a few hundred thousand people, at least.

It was damn clear that he hadn't crashed out on some island in the ocean, but that had to mean he was on the mainland, the North and South American landmass. Though that begged the repetition of the question: Where was he? Some kind of Aztec ruins? If that were true, then why all of the Roman inspired architecture?

"Jesus Christ..." Muttered Aldric, as he nervously ran his hand through his hair, and began descending the path, still following the aqueducts, now making his way to the stone bridge at the end of the path. "Where do I even begin? Where the hell am I?" He asked aloud, as he took in the sheer enormity of the stone city that he had stumbled upon.

Aldric pulled out his phone.

-For the Record-

The first thing seen when the video began playing was the enormous, fog-filled stone city. Dozens of towers, thousands of pillars, hundreds of massive bridges and dozens more buildings, all built into the face of the massive mountains surrounding the city, and jutting out from the natural quarry that was so far down the morning fog shrouded it from view. The camera bobbed up and down and shuffled about as the sound of grass crunching underfoot reached its microphone.

"So...Obviously, the Romans and the Aztecs had babies. That is literally the only explanation that makes sense." Came Aldric's southern drawl, as he slowly approached the stone city, the camera bobbing up and down in time with the sound of grass crunching underfoot. "The standards for my weird-shit-o'-meter just keep getting bigger, though I can't tell if this beats out the broken -" As he spoke, the sound of loud, throaty pants, a drum-like beat against the ground, and dirt being torn apart under the intense assault by a multiple legged creature picked up in volume, before finally reaching a crescendo and breaking Aldric mid-sentence. The camera whipped around in a blur of motion, and there was only a second of steady video, if slightly blurry as the camera attempted to refocus, in which a massive, bear-sized animal with heavily burned fur and skin charged towards the camera.

"OH!" Roared the survivor, who dived to the side as the animal came within range. The enormous beast charged straight past Aldric and attempted to skid to a halt, the sound of something made of meat colliding heavily with stone filled the air as Aldric hit the ground and scrambled back to his feet, cutting the camera in the process.

"I swear to god, someone out there is fucking with me!" Roared out Aldric, as he dead-sprinted towards the aqueducts, scrambling to amble the bow off of his shoulders.

The crash survivor made it to the giant stone pillars and swerved around one of the corners just in time to dodge Cubone's next charge. Aldric whipped around and nocked an arrow, the muscles in his arms bulging as he pulled on the drawstring. The creature reacted much faster this time than the first, as instead of being carried by its momentum into one of the pillars, it slammed into one of the hills of the incredibly uneven terrain that surrounded him. It had already gotten back to its feet and turned towards Aldric by the time the human had drawn and readied his weapon, and was charging, full-tilt, when Aldric let the arrow fly through the air with a loud hum and a twang of the drawstring.

The arrow spun slightly unevenly through the air, but as Aldric started backpedaling and retrieving another arrow, it slammed into the beast's left shoulder and sank in a few inches, instantly drawing up thick streams of blood as the beast stumbled forward and lost its balance. It slid forward on the ground several feet, and Aldric halted his attempts to draw another arrow, instead hooking the bow back around his shoulders and grabbing his knife, an idea forming in his head as he sprinted directly towards the Cubone.

The angry wolf-bear was just starting to recover when Aldric launched himself forward and into the air, his foot slamming onto the thing's skeletal head and providing him a springboard to leap onto its back. He pivoted on his foot and rotated in mid-air, now facing the creature's front as his momentum carried him backwards. Into the wolf-bear's shoulder Aldric's knife went, as he grabbed a thick bundle of singed fur with his other, now holding onto the animal for dear life.

Immediately, the creature went ballistic, bucking, leaping forward and back, slamming into the aqueduct's pillars, but Aldric was high on adrenaline and his own stupidity, and his grip was strong enough that he could have broken someone's hand. The creature howled out in pain as Aldric stabbed it again and again, practically shanking the monster with the speed and intensity he stabbed it. After a moment of this relentless dual-sided assault, the creature decided it had had enough, and instead of attempting to throw Aldric off, it instead vaulted forward, intent upon taking the damned human on a ride.

"SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" Yelled Aldric, as he was launched up and down on the back of the creature.

It was running so fast that Aldric truly considered it could outrun some cars, it cleared the aqueducts and was halfway across the bridge at the end of the path in the same time it took Aldric to blink. His grip on his knife had been ripped free, and the same could nearly have been said about his grip on the beast itself, due to its sudden acceleration, but he managed to hold on and steady himself long enough to reach forward to the hilt sticking out of its shoulder. Just as he grabbed it, however, the beast made a harsh left turn and nearly threw Aldric off of its back. The terrified crash survivor ripped his knife out from the wolf-bear's shoulder and stabbed down twice more with harsh downward motions, before he yanked the blade from side to side and dragged it along the creature's back, cursing the Cubone as he did so.

"Yeah! Come on!" Aldric roared, his accent in full display as he stabbed again and again, covering his knife-hand in the creature's dark red blood. "This the best you've got?!" He stabbed down again, the creature howled out in pain. "I've taken engineering tests harder than - SHIIIIT!" The creature literally stopped on a dime by full-on sprinting to one of the edges of the bridges it ran across, and slamming both hands into its raised ledge. Aldric, not nearly strong enough to hold on after an impact like that, was thrown off of the creature like an inexperienced bull rider, his knife still in its back.

Aldric unabashedly screamed in terror as he flew through the air at dozens of miles per hour, a plethora of curse words fighting for usage of his vocal chords, but eventually all coming out at once in a deep, terror-filled roar. The ground was hundreds of meters below him and covered in a dense fog, and thanks to physics, no matter how fast he was moving forward, he was moving down just as fast. Fortunately for him, however, there was an overabundance of stone bridges in the area, and Aldric managed to hit one of them and slide across it and into its ledge, fracturing several bones and rubbing off more than a few layers of skin in the process.

His forearms now rubbed raw and bloody, his face covered in a few bleeding cuts and bruises, and his entire core sore from the impact, Aldric bit through the pain and focused on the endorphin rush, forcing himself back to his feet. He grabbed at the axe, and turned in the direction of the wolf-bear, which he saw was simply waiting on its bridge, as if watching to see if Aldric had died or if it got to continue to play its deadly game.

Breathing heavily, Aldric raised the axe in a threatening, Viking like fashion, pumping it up and down in the air as he shouted out into the air, his deep, southern voice echoing throughout the desolate, empty stone city. "Come on! I'm not dead yet!" He roared from behind blood stained teeth and aching arms.

The wolf-bear, in response, took two steps back, before launching itself into the air. Aldric lost a lot of steam as he saw the creature fly through the air and right towards his bridge, all under its own power. It hurtled through the air like a cannonball, before reaching its arc and crashing down onto the bridge, sliding to its ledge and colliding with it like Aldric, but unlike him, who was streaming blood from multiple limbs and was almost certainly suffering from some kind of head trauma, it was no worse for the wear, aside from the injuries he had inflicted upon it.

"Uh..." Aldric took one step back, and just like at the campsight, the Cubone took one threatening step forward. "Listen, dude... Um..." He looked around quickly, but it was just them and the bridge, the only ways were forward and backward, though he could of course try down, he really, really didn't want to. "All that stuff I said..." The wolf-bear took another step forward, snarling as it did so. "About... Uh... Fuck." Aldric turned tail and ran, but the creature overtook him in a second, and was blocking his way forward a second later, Aldric slowed to a halt, and stared at it with a wide-eyed expression, his lips pressed tightly together and his heart hammering in his chest.

"So..." He clenched his pick-head axe with both hands, white-knuckle gripping its haft. "Fuck it." He charged forward, bellowing out loudly as the creature met his challenge by sprinting forward itself.

When the two came within range, Aldric swung as had and heavily as he could with his axe, banking on the fact that it, like an animal, wouldn't dodge the attack and would instead just tank it in the hopes of grabbing him. His hopes were realized when he buried the axe deep into the creature's neck, but it still managed to tackle him, burying him under its two massive, clawed paws and crushing him against the bridge. With blood crawling up his throat, and the feeling of his hair spilling out beneath him due to the rubber band snapping from the strain, Aldric bared his teeth and reached up, just barely able to grab the grip of his knife; he ripped it out of the creature's shoulder. He stabbed repeatedly into the Cubone's neck, causing its blood to pour over him in thick streams, but this only angered the beast, and it raised its hand for one mighty slash. Aldric buried his knife into the paw still keeping him pinned to the ground, stunning the creature just enough such that the slash that would have torn Aldric's face off instead tore two deep chunks out of his chest.

Aldric cried out in pain as his chest felt like it was set aflame, but he didn't stop trying to kill this thing. He reached forward with his free hand and ripped the axe out of its neck, freeing up its deep wound to gush out blood unabated. This was the final straw in forcing the wolf-bear to retreat, it leapt over Aldric, back towards the woods, the human's knife falling out of its leg as it soared through the air. It didn't evacuate, however, as upon landing it stumbled forward and slowed itself to a halt, before turning back to face Aldric, blood pouring out of its many wounds and matting down its fur. Aldric struggled for a moment to get up, fortunate that his thickly packed backpack had kept his spine from being crushed. He forced himself to his feet, one hand clenching the haft of his axe, and the other snatching the knife off of the ground. Aldric took two steps to slowly revolve around to face the Cubone, blood oozing from his chest, and a look that could kill in his wide, wild eyes.

He slid his grip on the axe down to a more actionable position, his hair splayed over his shoulders and plastered across his sweaty, bloody forehead. "Come on!" He yelled, rearing the hand with the axe and raising the hand holding the knife.

The wolf-bear charged forward, but before the two could even blink, the air shook with under the volume and force of a loud caw, and the two were covered by a large, blanketing shadow. Aldric's head whipped up to the sky, and the wolf-bear ceased its assault, as they quickly located what was causing the disturbance in their fight: A bird, itself the size of several large buildings, with massive claws on its wings, talons the size of trucks, and its head covered in a similar exoskeleton as the Cubone. In less than a second, the enormous bird crossed the distance between it and the two predators, and it slammed its talons into the bridge. Aldric dived out of the way of its grip, but the Cubone wasn't so lucky, being ripped off of the ground and carried away with a loud, pained howl. Aldric didn't even get a second to rest, however, as the impact with the bridge caused the whole thing to destabilize, and when he took a look behind him, he saw it crumbling to pieces.

Without even the energy to curse, Aldric hauled himself back to his feet and sprinted forward, tightly clenching his axe and his knife as he traveled down the bridge and deeper into the stone city, the bridge crumbling behind him, hot on his heels. Aldric ran faster than he had ever in his life, fight or flight being the beautiful instinct it was, giving him heretofore untapped amounts of adrenaline and ATP with which to fuel this temporary exodus. He crossed the long bridge in just forty seconds, barely making it to one of the enormous towers by the time the bridge had collapsed behind him, but he still had no time to rest, as he dodged to the right to avoid another hit and run from the titanic avian. Aldric circled around the tower, intent on getting to another bridge and continuing his plight, until he saw an archway that led inside. He lost his balance and stumbled as he tried to change directions on a dime, but he managed to make it inside the tower just as the bird came in for another pass. It slammed into the tower when it missed Aldric by inches, but unlike the bridge, the tower withstood the impact, albeit with a terrifying quake and a great deal of dust and debris falling from the walls and ceiling.

Aldric collapsed to his hands and legs inside the dark and stuffy tower and vomited out everything in his stomach, gasping and laughing in abject, hysteric fear.

"Sixty lien." The gray-haired teen held out his hand, reaching around his raven-haired leader and holding it out towards his lime-haired companion. "He's dead. The Nevermore's got him. Case closed. Shouldn't have experimented with the ancient aura sources."

The green haired woman shook her head, "he's still alive." She said, "Nevermore or no, it still counts. I think it dropped off the Beowolf, actually. When it missed him. It may still be there, too."

"Then he's even deader." Said the man, "pay up."

"Double or nothing he makes it past the hour."

"Both of you be quiet." Said their leader, harshly. "He made it to the ruins. He took damage, but his heart still beats. His fear and terror may simply have attracted a larger prey than we had predicted, but it changes nothing."

"Cinder... He's not going to survive that. Some Huntsman can't kill Nevermore. And they've got Aura. If he's got any sense, he's going to just lay down and take an easy way out."

Cinder didn't even turn to her companions, she simply continued watching the battle in silence, noting how, despite - or perhaps, in spite - of the futility of the situation, the man chose not to simply resurface and face death, but make a retreat and stay hidden. Though she could not see him, she could most definitely sense his aura, so tightly bottled up within him as it was, ready to burst like a balloon with only the slightest pinprick. What she noted most, however, was the sheer amounts of fear that tinged his monumental aura, it would shine as a beacon for any grimm in the area. If he didn't hurry, it was very possible that he would have to deal with more than just one nevermore and one beowolf.

But he has survived thus far... Thought the raven-haired woman, with a small grin stretching across her face. I wonder what he thinks now...

-For the Record-

"Ah Jesus Christ I'm gonna die!" Was shouted at an intense volume not a second after the camera flared into existence and revealed Aldric, his shirt removed and his chest pouring blood from multiple thick gashes. Barely a second after he finished speaking, the survivor took an entire bottle of antiseptic, and upended it on his chest, screaming so loud and so long that he briefly overloaded the camera's microphone, as it was forced to watch as his wounds were covered in the disinfectign substance, beginning to be covered in pure white bubbles as it cascaded down his chest, visibly steaming up as it did its job and burned at his chest. "AAAAAH FUCK!" He screamed out, "I fucking hope Cubone is dead, because I've got a much bigger problem on my hands now!

"Goddamn Mothra decided to show up! Gigantic enormous raven bird, I know it's not an insect but fuck you I'm deciding the names!" He shouted out, as his gaze back and forth between a bundle of bandages and his sewing materials. "God damn it I don't even know if I have time to at least partially un-fuck myself -" He turned his wide-eyed, mad gaze to the camera and pointed at it directly, "- and if you've got a problem with the cursing, you come fight these things!" He turned back to his medical supplies, and cursed again before he grabbed the sewing supplies. The gashes on his chest were as wide as two fingers, and though he didn't know if he was even helping himself in doing it, all he knew was that he couldn't leave them gaping open like this.

"I'm going to fucking die if I keep opening and ripping these wounds!" He cursed, as he squeezed the first gash on his chest as shut as he could, and hurriedly began sewing up, his hands shaking from the adrenaline rush and the pain. "And I'm really considering at least popping one Oxycodone, if at least to get the good shit in to deal with this GODDAMNPAINJESUSFUCK!" He screamed out.

"And how am I going to kill Mothra without opening up these chest wounds? Or Cubone if he's still alive! That freak jumped eighty feet in the freaking air, and I stabbed the crap out of it and hit it in the throat with an axe and it didn't budge! I would not be surprised if - AAH GOD! -" He jabbed his thumb with the bloody needle, but shook his head and kept going, stitching up the jagged hunks of flesh that had once been his chest. "- DAMN IT! I would not be surprised if..." He was breathing heavily, and shaking his head. "Don't fall asleep... Don't fall asleep. I've lost too much blood, fuck!" He cursed, as he finished sewing up the first gash.

"Why am I doing this? I am clearly in some kind of demonic hellhole, and I am not Doomguy! I don't even have a gun! How can I kill Cubone and Mothra with two flares?!" He demanded, the struggle to continue sewing himself up clearly shown on his face, which was scrunched up in rage and getting paler with each passing moment. "Mothra might be doable with the axe, birds have hollow bones, and I don't care how big its muscles are, those bones must be paper-freakin' thin for that thing to be able to take off like that. Or... Comparatively, given its size... I dunno, there's not a lot of blood to go to my brain at the moment and I'm barely holding on as it is..." As if to showcase the point, he was starting to slur his words and sway from side to side. "God... Damn it." He breathed, as he tied off the stitches and went for the final gash, his hands covered in his own blood.

"But that thing won't ever land if it doesn't have to... So I'd have to pull a Shadow of the Colossus and jump on the goddamn thing if I ever wanted to get at its spine... But that would be so outrageously impossible I don't even want to think about it. And that's all hoping that Cubone isn't still alive!" He shouted, turning his gaze beyond the camera.

"'Cause if that fucker's still alive we've got a lot of problems. I can't fight anymore - literally cannot. I'll die. But I don't have time to try and heal up, replace even a little bit of blood... FUCK!" He shouted, his hands shaking so much that he had to try three times before he successfully started sewing the last bit of his chest together. "Which means I literally have to stay away from them... But my arrows may work on Cubone, even though it clearly doesn't care about height advantages given it can jump eighty feet in the air... And I'm pretty certain Mothra's plumage is so thick that even if I hit its skin, they would have lost so much force and power that they wouldn't even penetrate!" Despair began showing in Aldric's blue-gray eyes as he took several breaths in quick succession, trying to forcefully shock his body to keep himself conscious, as his slurring gradually became worse as time and his rage and despair grew.

"So... Fuck, so that means all I have is my flare gun. But I only have two flares. And I'm pretty certain it will take two just to hurt Mothra, and one to kill Cubone, so I am... God damn it..." He shook his head, clenching his eyes tight as he paused in his attempts. "I'm gonna fucking die." He looked down at his chest, visibly struggling with the decision to keep sewing or not. He shook his head and kept going, "okay... Okay, this tower... I see a doorway over that way." He nodded to his right, "I hope it will take me down... Maybe to some kind of... I dunno, tunnel, or ground level, or something. This place was a city, so it had to have weapons. Given the level of advancement, or lack thereof, what I'm hoping I can do is find a sword, or some kind of armor... No, no, a ballista. That would fuck Cubone up, and could definitely hurt Mothra, but I'd need a clear shot on both... And god help me if they aren't on wheels." He finished up his chest, which, while still oozing some blood, was at least sealed shut once again.

"I can... Not... Get in another fight. I will die..." His voice shook and his eyes fluttered, but he shook his head again. "Can't fall asleep... Can't take the oxy..." He uncapped a water bottle and, while he smeared blood on the plastic, poured some of the water out to wash his hands, and then took up the antiseptic and washed himself with it one more time, groaning loudly in pain as his wounds began to bubble and hiss.

"Ballista. I find one of those, if it still works... I might... Might... Might have a chance... I fucking hope these were Aztec Romans." He didn't even bother wrapping himself up in bandages, instead he threw his tattered, blood-soaked shirt back on and threw his sweat-slicked, clumped hair back behind his ears. Aldric groaned loudly as he got to his feet and stole his bag and weapons from the ground, and soon after, the camera.

"And I hope there's a next time." The camera was switched off.