Sylvie
I wander for days, with only a few clothes that I managed to find, riding clothes belonging to Sam's unofficial wife, Lisa. They fit a little loosely, and it's just a shirt, some blue jeans, and an old pair of boots. I couldn't find a belt or chaps or a holster, though that part doesn't matter, since I have no revolver to speak of.
It would appear that William and whoever he was working with, for there were multiple footprints that I didn't recognize, had cleared us out. Our money, valuables, weapons and ammunition. I was able to find a decent hunting knife, but it wouldn't do much for me.
Still, I know I have to live. I refuse to die before getting my revenge. I will make William suffer.
After the first day, I leave the abundantly grassy landscape and enter a more rocky terrain, with patches of grass only appearing here and there. The spattering of trees is replaced with cacti and tumbleweeds, and the cool breeze is replaced with intense heat.
Midway through day two, I start to notice the lack of any wildlife, and realize I've wandered into a monster's territory. There is a canyon before me, a path leading through two enormous cliff faces, with holes in the walls large enough for fully grown men.
I haven't eaten or slept since I've woken up, though not for a lack of trying the latter, so I realize my mind isn't in the best spot. Surely, I should try to hide, leave the area and try a different route to civilization.
But inside, something calls that cowardly bullshit. Nothing will kill me, no, rather I feel nothing can. Not until my quest is over. Besides that, if I can bring proof of kill to a town, I can earn some cash for some new equipment.
I find myself smiling as I venture further in, though I do keep my guard up. My blood feels…
My thoughts are interrupted by the cackling, laughter-like howls of the monsters. I look around, and I grimace. In the crevices are hyemanas, humanoid hyena men intelligent enough to wear modest clothing and create rudimentary weapons, but also smart enough to learn how to use ours.
I hear them chip and chitter at each other in what might be a language, but I feel absolutely no danger when looking upon them. I don't know why, but they just feel… beneath me.
I don't break my stride for even a second, and when the chittering turns to growls and howls, I find that my knife is already in my hand.
A rock flies at me, and I move my head with plenty of time to evade it. It is effortless, the rock seems so impossibly slow to me. Again, I can feel something about me has changed, though what that change is, I can't really identify.
Another rock sails through the air towards me, and I step to the side. Another rock, another simple dodge, again, and repeat.
Finally, they smarten up, and try going all at once. I try to move and spin, but I am clipped by multiple. I look down, and to my surprise, find that though my clothes have torn, my skin is still unscathed. It hadn't even hurt.
I look calmly at one of the crevices, and despite the distance and shadow of the cave, I can see the hyemana quite clearly. I flip my knife, catching the blade between my index and middle fingers, and with a flick of the wrist send it soaring fifty feet and impale the monster between the eyes. It collapses to the ground, dead.
"Interesting. That would have been impossible a week ago…" I look at my hands, looking them over. They look the same, but my body feels different, almost foreign.
I look back up when I hear the scrambling of clawed feet on rock, watching as at least twenty or more of the beasts come scurrying out of their little nests, like roaches swarming.
Despite being unarmed, my nerves are completely calm. Instinct takes over, and as the first of the dog creatures reaches me, a shitty spear made of twigs, twine, and stone in its disgusting canine-man hands, I simply step close while turning, grabbing the spear with one hand and punching the beast in its throat with the other.
It collapses to the ground, choking on blood that froths out of its mouth as I stand there with the weapon. I push my questions about how strong that punch was aside, plunging the rock spearhead into its heart to put it out of its misery.
I pull it out to face the rest when I am lassoed from behind, the rope going taut quickly as rocks are slung straight at my head. They hit me square on, but I am still unphased. They are like gnats more than anything else..
I turn around to face the small group that has tried to catch me off guard. One is clearly the leader of these beasts, the lasso wielding one being a scarred, one eyed and grey creature, the only one not sporting tan or brown fur. Besides the rope, it has another human weapon, a sickle, hanging from its loincloth. The ones around it have slings, made of cloth and sticks.
I pull against the rope, and the simple jerking movement is enough to send the grey hyemana flying towards me, loosening the rope for me to throw my arms up, duck out, and then impale the beast through the shoulder with the spear. I use my sudden insane strength and momentum to drive the creature into the ground, pinning it there.
I feel something rising in me. It is a hunger that I can no longer endure or ignore. However, with that hunger, comes something else. Something more instinctual and primal. I'll call it the thrill of a hunt!
I rush the beasts empty handed, throwing away all sense of self preservation. These gremlins can't hurt me! All they've done is provide me dinner!
I tear them apart, using my hands, nails, and teeth. They think they have a chance during my first six kills, even as they watch me devour their flesh raw, quenching my parched throat with their blood. At the moment, it seems so natural, like I've always done this.
However, after I hold down what is clearly one of their pups, biting and tearing out its tongue, they turn and start to run. This fills me with an emotion that I haven't felt since waking up. It isn't joy, happiness, or anything like that. No, rather it is a thankfulness. I truly appreciate them for entertaining me a little bit more.
I chase them down with speed I never once possessed, catching them and throwing them into the canyon walls to daze them, at which point I rip their throats out.
It takes a little less than twenty minutes, and when it's over, I'm sitting on the ground leaning against the stone amidst the carnage. My emotions die down as I ponder what happened, until I am empty and focused on my revenge yet again.
"Am I a monster?" I ask the universe as I look at my blood-caked hands and clothes. "Increased durability, strength, speed, sight. Maybe I did die, would that mean I'm some sort of revenant? I've never heard of one in the Highlands…"
I stand up, noticing as I do so the grey beast still lives. I walk over to it, feeling no pity. "I can't be human, can I?" I pull out the spear, before plunging it into its neck as a mercy. I then wipe it off, take the now bloody rope from the puddle it landed in, and then retrieve the sickle.
After collecting an ear from each of the fallen, I start walking again, the hot sun beating down on me. I note the heat, and it seems far more bearable than it would have a month ago. However, as the midday sun rises higher, the heat becomes much worse. Strangely, and mercifully, as soon as the thought crosses my mind that I am starting to get too hot, a very nice breeze suddenly starts.
My feet never seem to ache. My breathing doesn't get heavy. I keep a nice, steady pace all day, killing any and all predators with ease with the sickle and spear. I stop and consider taking some of their corpses for food, but my appetite is still satiated, even after hours of extraneous exercise. Thinking back, I hadn't felt hungry at all before the hyemanas attack.
As night begins to fall, I take a moment to decide whether or not to sleep. I had tried the night before, but had just laid on the ground for hours on end until the sun rose. I certainly don't feel sleepy, and haven't since I woke up.
So I keep walking, thinking that surely a settlement must be nearby. I wonder if it would have been smarter to just head to Small Springs again, but I was sure it wouldn't have been safer. I have a bounty on my head as one half of the Black Hill Valentines, a bounty of three hundred bucks.
Going there so soon after a heist I was directly involved in was practically suicide. Then again, is it?
As the night reaches its midpoint, I start to find it hard to ignore the crusted blood on me, and I find myself wishing for another rain shower. Then, as if God himself hears me, the sky obliges. "There wasn't any clouds a second ago," I say, observing the umpteenth unexplainable event.
I scrub the blood from my hands, arms, and face, and just in time for the rain to stop and the clouds to dissipate. I look down, seeing the blood has stained my shirt red. It doesn't bother me, though I wish I were at least dry.
A wind suddenly blasts me in the face. I stand there against the wind, but as soon as I try to take a step, I am lifted off my feet and sent flying twenty yards. I hit the ground and slide, until my back slams into a rock. The wind stops.
I stand shakily, wondering what kind of bullshit that was, but I realize I am now completely dry, if not a little dirty. Brushing myself off I decide that this is good enough, worried my thoughts might be heard by some trickster spirit again.
It is morning when I finally spot the dots of buildings on the horizon, the sun just barely finished rising behind me. I lick my dry lips, and hasten my pace.
I slow only when I hear a young girl scream the name Arthur.
Morgan
"Oh, wow!" I exclaim as I pick the purple coneflower, marveling at how the spiny, dark brown center looks like a puffy ball. I reach out to touch it, but it is sharper than I expect, and I prick my finger. "Ouchie!"
I put my finger in my mouth until the bleeding stops, and then keep picking the thin-petaled flowers, placing them gently in bundles before placing them in my picnic basket.
After ten bundles of twenty flowers each, my tote is full, and I smile and stand. I turn to head home to sell my goods to the town doctor, when I walk headfirst into someone.
"Oof!" I go as I stumble back onto my behind. I stand and brush the dirt from my green dress, and then remember how I fell. I turn to the big man in front of me and smile apologetically. "Oh, I'm sorry mister. I didn't see you there!" I giggle at my clumsiness, when I notice the two other men with him.
I then see how scary they are. They all have sun-weathered faces, large beefy arms, and guns on their belts. The man I bumped into wears a dark duster and gambler hat, and has a thick goatee to match. On his right is a taller man, with bright orange mangly hair and chin curtain, and a crimson vest over a grey shirt. On the left is an older man, with a bald head and grey mutton chops, and a navy vest over a white shirt. I can see the two men on either side of the main one have brass knuckles on their fists, and the man in front of me has a machete on his hip.
"Are you Morgan Knox?" The first man says, his voice deep and gravelly, and I can smell his breath from here. It smells of fish and booze, and no one in town sells fish.
I nod nervously. "Uh, yes sir? Are you looking for my brother, Arthur?"
He shakes his head, eyeing me up and down in a way that makes me feel funny in a bad way. "Nah. I was just checking out the collateral on the debt my boss just took over."
The redhead chuckles, his voice shrill and gross. "Maybe we should test her out, huh, Bill?"
The older man nods, spitting out a dark wad of tobacco juice. "Can't know if it's worth it otherwise, I say, Richard."
I feel a hard lump forming in my gut as the first guy looks around and starts unbuckling his belt buckle. "Too bad, girlie. Looks like no one is around. Especially not that brother of yours."
I turn to run, but the red-haired man grabs me and throws me to the ground. He looks over me, undoing his pants as well. My eyes go wide, and fear fills me. My eyes burn as tears flood them. I scream, calling out for my brother. "Arthur!"
They laugh wickedly, grabbing at my dress and trying to pull. I resist, hearing a tear in the fabric, when suddenly the laughing stops, replaced by a choking sound. I open my eyes, realizing I had shut them tight in my fear.
I see a woman in a simple white, though stained with something red, shirt tucked into jeans tucked into boots. On her back, tied with rope is a dinky looking spear, but in her hands, dripping with the red-haired man's fresh blood, is a sickle.
He clutches his throat and falls to his knees, and even as the other two are turning to see what happened, she is hooking the oldest man in his groin, jerking the sickle and hacking off something fleshy, short, and fat. She kicks him over as blood starts pooling in the trousers around his ankles, and he screams and cries like a pig.
The man in black draws his gun, firing at her.
I blink. For a second, I could have sworn he had hit her right in the chest, but she rushes him unfazed, slicing his head in two at the eyes.
I scream in terror, closing my eyes and curling into a ball. I start sobbing, but when I feel a soft hand on my shoulder, I hush up and peek out.
The woman is kneeling before me,staring at me with strange, amethyst eyes. They aren't mean, but they certainly aren't bursting with kindness. Her skin is sun tanned and beautifully warm, her hair a lovely silver, reflecting the light in a dazzling way, and despite her not looking any older than my brother. She looks at me with a similar expression the man had when he was "checking out the merchandise", though I don't feel the same uneasy feeling.
She looks me up and down, but not in a creepy way like them, but rather like she's looking for any damage. When she is satisfied, she nods, and then hands me my basket.
"You're okay now, sweety," she says, her voice cool and even. "Can I take you home? Is Arthur your daddy?" She tilts her head, though her hard expression doesn't change.
I nod slowly, deciding that she isn't going to hurt me. I look at her shirt, noting the red stains, and then spotting a small hole in the center of her chest, just above her small, perky breasts.
"He shot you, miss," I say, pointing at the hole. "Are you hurt? That looks like a lot of blood."
She looks down, then back at me. "I'm fine," she says bluntly. "I got attacked by some monsters out by that canyon yesterday. But this isn't mine. Sorry, these are the only clothes I have right now."
I look at her, and she looks away with the apology. It makes me smile, seeing this scary lady say sorry. "It's okay! Thanks for helping me, miss! I'm Morgan. Morgan Knox!"
She gives a chuckle, but only one. She pats my head, saying her name. "I'm Sylvie. Uh, Sylvie Draco. Nice to meet you Morgan. I'm glad to have helped such a polite young girl."
I beam, standing up. She does as well, and I feel my dress droop slightly. I look down, seeing the left shoulder strap is torn. I frown.
"Hey, Miss Sylvie?"
"Yes?" She wipes the blood off her sickle on the older man's shirt, putting it through a loop on her belt. She then walks over and takes the black duster off the first man, putting it on to hide her shirt.
"My brother, Arthur, he's at work right now, but he'll be home around noon for lunch. You can come wash up at our place! My mommy has some old clothes that might fit you!"
She tilts her head and looks off. After a moment she turns back to me, kneeling down and tying the torn strap together so it stays in place. "Will your brother be okay with me there?"
I nod eagerly. "Oh yeah! He's all big and strong, but he's a real softie underneath it all! The whole town loves him!"
She perks up. "What town is that, if I might ask?" She leans down. Picking up the gun thenman shot her with, and after a quick look over she tucks it into the back of her pants.
"Oh, we're in Dodge. It's a small town, but we are known for our famous Brute Brawling Bar!"
She nods, putting a finger beneath her chin in thought. "Yes, I've heard of it. Never been before, though. Alright, Morgan. I'd love to walk you home, if the offer is still available."
I beam again, taking her hand and pulling her along. "Of course!"