fingering gesture, and then pointed to a nearby alleyway. The group he pointed to began to move, and the soldier giving the orders motioned for the rest to head towards the place Vincent was hiding. As the rain beat against their weathered armour, little splashes leaped away from them like tiny explosions, resulting in dull thudding sounds. The sound of being in the next room, and hearing marbles dropping on a hardwood floor.

  As the dark armoured men with pale skin came towards the boy, he ran, not looking back, and tripped over another broken crate hidden in the mud. The old wooden boards of the crate made loud cracking sounds as the boy’s legs tangled into them, and then piercing snaps as he broke through. The sound threw off his balance. Startled him so badly he almost screamed. He flew forwards, hands scraping out at the air in front of him, and plummeted into a deep pool of mud, a sloppy splash following the awkward landing. The mud tasted horrible. He pulled himself from the hole, gasping and choking. The boy was drenched, his grey-green eyes glowing out from his new sticky layer of skin in a hollow panic, the look of a mouse caught in a trap, knowing there was no way out.

  The soldiers had stopped at the edge of the alleyway when another scream lit their surroundings, questioning murmurs coming from tired mouths, words the boy couldn‘t hear under the downpour, couldn‘t hear through the mud in his ears.

  The boy began running again, and the mud washed away quickly, fled swiftly from the cruel rain. The splashing of his maddened footsteps pitter-pattered in a steady rhythm, like the beating of a punctured drum. Fractured windows and mangled doorways smeared by in a blur. He was a fast runner, faster than most his age, and once he got going he felt the panic slip away a little, felt it hide within him like a monster climbing back into a dark corner.

  He stopped once he saw the blind woman, her white dress clenching her pale skin as if meaning to choke and bruise her, her long black hair still partially dry. She stood at the far end of the alleyway–Vincent’s destination–letting the rain unleash itself upon her like the hands of a mad drunk.

  Vincent froze completely.

  There was another like him, another pale-skinned person. What was going on? Where did they come from?

  Her blank-white eyes were wide, and on the verge of trembling, her lips blood red and strangely calm. The rain quickly drenched her, flattening her long hair, and giving her an utterly fragile appearance, like a crystal glass about to fall and shatter into a million jagged teardrops. It took the boy’s breath away.

  The soldiers must have seen her too, because they almost trampled the boy to get to her. They didn’t care about another muddy orphan child, only cared about the exotic woman standing at the edge of a narrow alleyway on that rainy day, only cared of the red-lipped woman with haunted eyes.

  “We found her!” the deep voiced soldier bellowed.

  She fled like a candle blown out by a windstorm, vanished into the nearby street’s archway like a ghost in search of its own shadow.

  And that was when the bloodshed began.

  That was when the guilt had been planted in seeds of carnage: black, red, and unstoppable.

  10

  The old man Stood wide eyed and unbelieving, gawking out at the sea like a child trapped inside an old man‘s skin, a curious trance echoing out from those large dark eyes. There was a figure by the water, one he remembered with great fascination. One he remembered with both dread and enthrallment. After all these years, all these long lonely years of rotting in frustration and regret, decades of wallowing in self-pity, the old man was reborn by one single image, resurrected from the ashes of failure and set ablaze by the light of purpose and fulfillment, set anew by one single monster.

  The beast was still alive, here at the edge of the Fellekon sea. Akied, the old one. The follower of the dead.

  After a lifetime of hiding from the world, hiding from himself even, the old man now gave witness to the very thing which had been haunting him all this time. A joyful panic swelled in his heart. Made it ache. Made it want to laugh and dance. He almost choked when a scream of triumph inched its way up his throat; but he didn’t let it out, instead swallowed and let his mouth hang open, uneven teeth peering out from peeling lips. It was still alive, here at the edge of the Fellekon sea. The thing which had taken everything was right here before him like a forgotten promise come back to say hello, come back to say howdy doody. A dream turned to reality.

  It was that damn girl that ruined everything.

  We almost had you!

  Almost finished you!

  The monster by the water crept closer, blind eyes blank and soulless, black hairless skin rippled in wide slabs of muscle. Its teeth were like bleached daggers, its tongue the colour of fresh apples. It had no scent, no shadow. It made no sound. Gave no warning. It came from nowhere, just as it had fled into so many years ago, and it was back, here at the very edge of this tired world. It was here, face to face with the last hunter from Bahnn, the last warrior who had dared go after such a creature.

  He and a few select others had been hunting this beast for decades. In times before the old hermit had taken up his life of solitude, Akied had been devouring living people in his homeland–unheard of for such a creature, the followers of the dead were not known to eat the flesh of the living–and the old man had accompanied those who had lost their loved ones, starting at the edges of Bahnn, following through Vellanon up to the snowy Gallanock mountaintops, over the Ickalace falls, across the smooth Betien mountains, down to Fellekose, and into an abandoned city where he saw the creature slaughter a whole platoon of Vellonian soldiers along with his kin.

  The old man had no children of his own, but family was important in those days. He had felt a strong sense of responsibility to accompany his four brothers, three sisters, and the array of others who wanted to put a stop to the monster. He had felt as if he could make a difference, as if he could protect his younger siblings from what the world had to offer–but as time slipped by, his purpose also slipped. Back then he hadn‘t cared much for finding the monster, let alone killing it. He was there for his family, not the animal. Now the beast was all he had left from a time only he remembered. He and his family had been the last, and they had almost ended the hunt that day, almost tipped their destiny the other way, almost tipped it towards the light.

  But that girl.

  That blind girl changed everything.

  The hunters had been tracking the creature through the flooded streets in the abandoned city. They had set traps, and were finally getting close to capturing and destroying the beast. But that girl. She appeared out of nowhere, and Akied went after her. Ruined their moment of triumph. The hunters chased the blind woman and the beast, but were ambushed by a throng of black armoured Vellonian soldiers. Carnage followed. Like Akied, the black armoured soldiers seemed crazed and desperate for the blind woman, and had attacked both the hunters and Akied almost mindlessly. The hermit and his kind hadn’t stood a chance; they were so few after the years searching for the beast–only himself, two brothers, and three others.

  Yes, they had tracked the monster to that single city, but failed completely in their attempts to set things right. Had their victory snatched away by a pale-skinned blind woman and a handful of black armoured soldiers.

  And oh how Akied would scream, how a sound coming from a single creature could rattle your bones and make your fingernails want to flake away and hide. The Vellonian soldiers had underestimated the situation, and the beast slaughtered all of them, as well as the hermit's friends and family.

  Yes, that girl had ruined everything, and so he had killed her. He found her before the beast could get to her, hiding in an unfinished prison, the ceiling only partially completed. He had killed her in there, pushing his sword though her belly. The boy had tried to stop him, jabbing at him with a rusty dagger–the same dagger the hermit kept throughout his life afterwards–but the hermit evaded the attack, tore the dagger from the boy's hand, and slapped him so hard that the kid fell into a brick wall, knocking him out. In a numb sort of panic, the hermit locked the boy in that room with the dead woman and his old katana.

  By that time the beast was gone, entered another world perhaps. It was too late.

  But it’s not too late, he thought.

  The beast was here, on all fours, watching him.

  “Have I been given a second chance?” he asked.

  Of course there was no reply.

  Monsters couldn’t speak; they could only shed tears.

  He had his sword back now, something he hadn’t had for a very long time, and he had not one but three torches with him. He knew the creature's fear of fire. Knew it well. Why was everything working out so perfectly? He had failed his purpose in life, so how and why did he deserve this?

  His smile was so broad his cheeks hurt. What a perfect day.

  “I just can’t–”

  Howls came from the distance. Too close.

  “No!” he screeched.

  They weren’t supposed to come so soon! He turned the torch towards the cliff and then back to the shores in an uncontrollable panic.

  He screamed again.

  The beast was gone.

  Perhaps never there.

  But the howls remained, mocking him and his predictability, laughing at him. And he hated that. Hated to be laughed at, despised it beyond all else, even more than the monster, more than the thing that had slaughtered

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