Chapter 2: A Grudge for the Living

This forest is a nightmare. I hate this place. I've only been living in this Estrangello for a couple weeks, but I would readily call this cursed zone the most dangerous little streak known to man. It was dark, wet, and dreary all day everyday, and only got a lot worse at night.

“...God.” I muttered under breath, scanning the infinitely dense underbrush that shrouded everything around us. “Where the hell are we?”

It was the creepiest environment I could ever hope to imagine. We were submerged up to our waists in all sorts of horribly uncomfortable vestiges of flora. There was no ground to be seen in any direction, only the incessant swaying of the sea of grasses we decided to wade into. There was no comfort from the sky, either. The canopy blotted out everything from above, forming a rotten green ceiling which only helped to exacerbate the intense claustrophobia that my brain was injecting into my blood stream. It was an absolutely alien environment. Hell, the trees didn't even have the proper decency to look familiar. Well, there might have been trees at one point, but as far as I could see, the disgusting canopy was held together by millions of these pale coils of long, thick vines. The way they seemed to wrap around each other to reach into the air suggested that these ghostly, tentacle-esque tendrils just grew around the bodies of normal trees until they could poke into the sky. Lord, this entire forest is a mean-spirited bastard. Oh, and there was one more thing that just made this hellish package complete. Throughout the forest, no matter where you happened to be, your ears are introduced to a constant buzzing whisper, no matter where you are. It wasn't like a bug's trill or something normal like that...just a scratchy, quiet voice that would never, ever shut up. Oh yes, and one last thing. It was pitch black.

While thinking about all of this, my courage broke a little, and I picked up my pace so I could walk directly behind Sasha, following her step for step.

“Which is it, Sasha? Is it the megalomania or the misanthropic tendencies?” I blurted out suddenly, in response to the silent, self-satisfied smile she surely bore as I flaunted my fear with no regard to subtlety. “...and are people really so bad that you'd choose...choose to live in fucking Estrangello...”

She had been leading us onwards into the forest by the light of a single, meager lamp she suspended in her grasp before her. At first, I thought we were just wandering blindly in a general direction, but as time passed, I realized that the turns we were making were way too precise and that I should probably just trust that Sasha knows what she's doing. However, just then, I was able to tear her attention away from cutting a path through this black and green nightmare, her head turning just enough to set one tired gray eye on me.

“Neither...you jerk.” She grumbled back to me, her head tilted just enough for me to see a mildly displeased frown. “I could ask the same of you if that is how you always treat your comrades. You're probably an exile, thrown out of Imperial lands for being a cunt.”

“Hey, hey...” Did I touch a nerve or something? Why did she get so fired up about that? Maybe she's really just that sleepy. “I'm sorry, alright? Look at me, I didn't mean it.”

She turned to me more, peering at me with both eyes as I shrugged my shoulders, trying to look as sincere as I could. Her eyes softened as I smiled, and she finally turned back to the road, the lamp hanging from her hand jingling a little as she adjusted her grasp on the bulky thing. With that, I let out a little sigh of relief, although I really wasn't too worried she'd bear a grudge against me. She was soft at heart, like me, the type that would forgive a man of any crime so long as he had a chance to plead directly to her face. She let off a gritty, manly aura, but after doing her accounting and helping her with her workshop, I feel like I got to know her some.

“Hugo? Were you listening to me?” I heard her say after that little bout of introspection. “Geh...in your own little world, eh? That's just like you...” She said, shaking her head a little, her dull gaze back upon me.

“Er...yeah, pretty much. Sorry...” I replied simply, rubbing my gloved hands together. “It's taking everything I got to keep myself from just running...”

“Right...yeah. Well, anyway, I just asked why you're going through here? I...know...” She continued, as if she were expecting me to say something. “I know, I said I wouldn't bother you about it...but I just can't help it You're leaving now anyway, so why not ask?”

The pause after that bit of dialog seemed to bear a hell of a lot of weight despite her off-hand, almost flippant query. I could almost feel an atmosphere of tension around us, as if my answer could be of any great significance to her. It was an odd sensation, staring back into her curious face, her eyes serious all of a sudden. It was perplexing, but hell, I had nothing to hide. I lay it out.

“Well, damn, you make such a big deal about it. I would have told you at any time.” I finally replied. “I'm just heading north from here, towards the desert. I want to go to the ice fields.”

Oh god, the pause after my statement was even more stifling. Although I pushed out that answer pretty effortlessly, when I looked back at her face, that air of tension just seemed to increase. My, was it ever an oppressive atmosphere, the space between our eyes positively electrified, her gaze growing more and more like a glare with each passing second. Then, when turning away from me at the high point of the drama, she stifled a little laugh, shrugging her shoulders in a failed attempt at absorbing the giggle.

That made me feel dumb.

“What? What?! What the hell is so funny?” I spoke up as the tense air lifted, picking up my pace a little so I could wade alongside Sasha.

That was a strange anticlimax, although a welcome one. It still left me a little edgy, which explained my outburst. When I could properly look Sasha in the eye, I would ask again about what humor she would derive from imagining me braving the deadly ice storms of the northern plains. That sounded more along the lines of impressive to me. Geh, she beat me to the point though. While I contemplated a proper response, her jovial tone chimed again.

“Hah...oh man, you're serious then, aren't you? Holy crap...” She finally said, guising her chortle with one raised hand. “First you wander COMPLETELY ALONE into the forest...AT NIGHT. Then, you want to go that forsaken ice...thing?” She went on, emphasizing her point that I was a bad decision-maker. “Lord...you're either a hell of a lot more hard core than you let off, or an idiot with an incredible lucky streak. Let me tell ya, though. I haven't been too impressed with your bravado yet, so I'm leaning to the latter.”

“Peh, whatever you want to say...” I said, sending a smoldering glance in her direction as she fired up the taunt machine once again.

“Sorry, sorry...but seriously, I would never have taken you for the adventurous type. No offense, but you know what I mean, right?”

Yes, I definitely knew what she meant, but I wouldn't admit it right to her face, though. I just turned away, grumbling a bit as we strode through this tightly woven tapestry of untamed grasses and shrubs. Though I concentrated on just scanning the limited range of what I could see around us, I couldn't help but feel the grin she bore in my direction. It made the back of my neck tingle.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I finally responded, humoring her. “It's personal, alright? I really don't want to talk about it anymore if you're just gonna make fun of me.” I huffed, glancing back at her. “Quit goofing off...let's just get the fuck out of here.”

“Hah, I'd never though I'd hear that out of you.” She said, acknowledging my request with a nod and a yawn. “Hoo...yeah. Alright, just keep close to me. We're making good time, but don't forget your torch, okay?” She said in a rather bossy tone, like we were already at work. “This place looks pretty hardy, but nothing here can handle a good dousing of fire.” She said with a wink, gesturing over her shoulder to the tank of fuel hooked up to her backpack.

And with that, she picked up the pace, even leaning forward into her stride. She cut through the thick foliage in an effortless manner, I had to step it up to make sure I wasn't gonna be left behind.

“Aw...come on! Don't mess with me, man.” I said.

About then, I gave up trying to yank my body through this massive, miserable heap of green alone, and resigned myself to keeping behind Sasha. I reached ahead with both hands to dig my fingers into her backpack so I knew I wouldn't be stranded out here. Ugh, I could feel the smug look that surely spread over her face as I did this. However, despite what you may think, I wasn't really that concerned with my self-esteem. Let Sasha believe what she wanted, I just wanted to get out of here with all my fingers and most of my organs. I could make this allowance, at least just once.

“Heh, did your manliness break, Hugo?” She said while keeping her gaze forward, not slowing in the slightest.

Oh crap, here it comes. I figured she would make me pay for my cowardice. I didn't want any more flak, man, but hell, Sasha was doing a good enough job of keeping me in one piece. No complaints from me...I just hoped she'd get tired of teasing me soon.

“...Don't worry, we're almost there. I won't fuck you over, man.” She said.

Huh, that really wasn't what I was expecting. Looking forward through the translucent gloom, I expected to see her head turned about to cast an acidic sneer in my direction. However, she just concentrated on the unseen path somewhere beneath the rolling sea of grass. Eyes fixed forward with the lamp dangling before her, she strode on without preoccupation. With both hands viciously gripping her heavily-laden backpack, I breathed a soft sigh of relief. My appreciation of her finally taking in the seriousness of the situation was nearly palpable.

And so we walked onwards into the infinitely black depths of this dense wood, surrounded on all sides by darkness so overwhelming, it felt as if the entire world had suddenly stopped existing. We could only see as far as our meager light would shine before the luminous rays were cut short. Normally, a single speck of light in such perfect darkness would have shone like an intensely bright star, but it was like the shadows here had a little more substance to them than one would expect. It was like an opaque shroud of mist hanging over us, and our lamp provided us a little bubble of sanctuary through which we could ford this alien wilderness.

Of course, this meant that there was very little for me to do beyond staring at the back of Sasha's head while she led me on a wildly convoluted hike through this averse region. God, was she weird. Like I said before, it was so strange that she decided to set up shop way out here, far away from large Imperial cities. It was utterly retarded from a business standpoint. However, only after an hour or so of living with her, it became apparent to me that Sasha was one not terribly concerned with money. I was not exaggerating back there when I mentioned her tendencies to misanthropy and megalomania, too. Well, maybe they were pretty general observations, but she definitely didn't want much to do with society beyond tinkering with its toys. She had customers, mainly from nearby villages requesting repairs to their old-ass tanks and motorcycles, but sometimes I wonder if she even wanted to fix other people's stuff. I bet she would do anything just to be left alone to fiddle with her tools instead of having people show up at her door with their hulking, broken heaps.

“What about you?” I suddenly said, breaking the silence after that little bout of thinking.

“Eh? What about me?” She said in reply, lacking the magical telepathic abilities that she needed to know what the hell I was thinking about.

Without slowing her pace one bit, she turned her head about to look back at me. One gray eye, alight with exhaustion, settled on me.

“Oh eh...I mean.” I started, thinking about where I should start in this conversation. “Sorry, I was still thinking about why you wanted to stay in this damn forest. You know, you never did answer my question...just jumped straight to filleting my confidence.” I pointed out with a nod.

“Mm.” She grumbled simply, turning her head back to the vague path as she shifted her grasp on the lamp. “...You got it right, Hugo. I really just don't like people too terribly much.” She said finally, after having a moment to organize her thoughts. “I guess you could blame my general disdain for mankind.”

“Heh, you do let that off hint of that attitude...” I said, a smile growing over my face as the conversation turned a little more pleasant than expected. ”Hey, but you're pretty nice to me, you know? I'm just another drifter.” I said. “You like me, right? I mean...you don't act like you want to gut me or something. We got along pretty well.”

“It's pretty easy to like one person, Hugo.” She said right after I made my observations. I was kinda expecting her to get all defensive, but she just responded as simply as always. “I can talk to you and you'll listen, and vice versa. The average guy on the road usually isn't a cunt, but one person is different from a whole population.”

“Hm...” I began wandering in thought again. “Maybe. Maybe you have a point, but still, I still can't believe you'd prefer hanging out in such a hazardous, danger-infested zone when you could just be mildly annoyed by stupid neighbors.” I paused a moment just to digest a little of what she was telling me. Meh, I guess it did make sense.

“Shh!” She suddenly shushed me, cutting off whatever I was going to say next.

She came to a very sudden stop in an instant, causing me to nearly plow my nose right into the back of her skull. Stunned for a second, I was about to complain to her about remembering I was right behind her and totally relying on her not to freak me out, but she cut me off again just as I opened my mouth.

“Shh...god, just be quiet!” She said, turning herself completely around and looking at me with a most stern expression.

And that was the last thing I saw before I was submerged in complete and utter darkness. Sasha had plopped a heavily gloved hand right over the exposed flame of her lamp, smothering it instantly. And with that, I was introduced to one of the strangest observational experiences I've come to live through. I was completely deprived of sight, and the incessant, whispering buzz that permeated the air only seemed more intense now that there was absolutely nothing to pay attention to.

“S...Sasha? What...what are you doing?” Gah, I couldn't help it. My nerves were already pretty stressed just by walking about in this gigantic verdant death trap, I just had to talk and try to alleviate some of this tension.

“God dammit, Hugo...shove it!” She hissed right into my face with such a terrible fervor it gave me a chill. “Do what I tell you, and we get out of here in one piece, remember? Do what I tell you, you idiot.”

She was right in my face, her breath rolling off my nose, and I still couldn't see her. However, on the impulse to pull my hands up in front of me, I felt my fingers catch on Sasha's heavy white coat, a most welcome sensation in the sudden shit storm we found ourselves submerged in. As my hands brushed up against her, I instinctively grabbed onto the reinforced fabric of her loose coat, clutching onto it for dear life.

I saw it just then. Sasha must have as well, because she froze up, too, her breath catching in her lungs as she held perfectly still. It was a bizarre sight made even more curious because it was visible. Somehow, without generating any light of its own to illuminate its surroundings, a ghost drifted into view. It was a creature unlike anything I had ever seen before. I just stood there, completely frozen, staring blankly through the whispering sea of shadows at a tall, thin...thing. A shimmering head hovered several meters above the ground, swaying idly in the stagnant forest air. Trailing down from it was a long, thin appendage, reminiscent of a tentacle, which arched gently down and into the tall grasses. It looked like someone was carrying an impaled head on the tip of a long pig pole under the concealment of the overgrowing vegetation. That thin thing moved in such a strange manner, too. For the most part, it seemed to glide idly through the underbrush, but it kept freezing up after every few feet, as if it were paying very close attention to its surroundings.

“Oh...fuck.” Sasha said, stooping low to the ground as she gazed upon that erratically moving creature. “Guh, just try not to make too much noise, then. Stay low, too...do not let one notice you...”

“Ah!” I felt Sasha's coat pull on me as she crouched, encouraging me to do the same if I wanted to maintain my grip on her. “W...wait! Wait, Sasha...Why are these things here?! I thought you said...you know.” I hissed into the darkness, hopefully into Sasha's direction.

She didn't stop moving to answer my question. Again, I felt the coarse clothe of her armored coat tug at my fingers. Of course, I kept up, staying as low as I could while negotiating the incredibly thick, waist-high foliage. It was considerably more difficult to do this while crouching.

“Sasha...Sasha, answer me. Why are those things out?...Jeez...” I whispered to her while watching the luminous, gently-swaying head bob in the distance. “It's close to sunrise...why are they here?!”

“Shh! God!...” She sputtered, almost raising her voice in frustration. “It doesn't matter why they're out. They're here now, so just deal with it.” She said, never slowing down as we stumbled about in the thicket, keeping ourselves as low as possible.

I didn't have a response for that, as she made a pretty good point. However, even if I could make an argument, I sure as hell wouldn't have. The tension hanging in the air was absolutely overwhelming, and I couldn't help but to stare in utter unease at the swaying creature lurching only meters away. Through the gaps in the tall grass, I could see it as I stooped, relying completely on the hope that Sasha knew where she was going. I shivered, letting one hand fall away from her coat to touch the stamped steel of the torch hanging at my side, unsure if I even had any insurance against something like that in case a chase sequence starts up.

More came. The black field enveloping the entirety of the forest was dotted with the mutilated heads of ghosts, hanging grotesquely from their featureless, cylindrical bodies like ragged paper lanterns. I could make them out from the brush, occasionally checking where they were as I kept behind Sasha. God, it was such a weird sight. They all moved in a curious manner, perfectly in tandem with one another. Walking in every direction at the same speed, the sluggish beasts kept stopping at seemingly random points. They were completely motionless during that time, even the dangling head holding its position. It was as if they were listening for something. Hell, probably idiots like us who decided to wander into the woods at night. Ugh, I hated this place.

Sasha had briefed me about these kinds of creatures before, but I hadn't seen them until now. That was mainly because I liked staying alive and stayed way the hell away from the forest at all times when living with her. She told me about them though. Supposedly, they were akin to elementals, kind of like fairies, but instead of being attracted to life, they flock close to bad karma. The unfulfilled dreams of the dead, profuse blood-spilling, or just the frequent presence of demons is enough to attract a cadre of these things, and they do their best to manifest more curses. Beyond that, I know nothing, which is definitely a fortunate thing. I didn't ask Sasha about them any further.

“More...” Sasha muttered up ahead, her exasperated tone floating softly to me through the hissing and whispering of the woods. “Just stay in the grass. We're alright, Hugo.”

There were even more lights ahead, floating and bobbing in the pitch black air ahead. I couldn't see the details of their faces through the grass, but I really didn't feel like popping up and out of our cover just to satiate my curiosity. There was a strange, morbid satisfaction watching the face of that ghost. It was like watching a train ram into an unassuming truck.

“Woah!” Came a voice from somewhere up ahead. Well, I guess you could call it a voice if you really wanted to, but it was barely distinguishable from a growl or roar. “What?!”

Oh god, everything was dark. I froze up, my eyes widening as I heard that awkward-sounding voice. Sasha must have heard it, too, because I think she stopped moving. Her coat didn't tug at the coarse, rounded fingers of my gloves, and I definitely would have noticed if she had kept moving because I would not have been able to keep a good grip on her. Of course, she would have opened up a can of her frustrations on me for slowing her down and being annoying.

Then something landed on me.

“Yargh!” I cried out as I felt a rather solid plate of steel punch the crown of my skull “What the...wah!”

At first it felt like something had just fallen from somewhere and landed on me. However, almost immediately afterwards, a decent weight also bore down upon my neck, changing my center of balance and effectively pushing me back down into the thorny bramble that I had been slogging through. Someone had fallen on me.

“Get...get the hell off!” I shouted, not even thinking about being quiet as I felt another pair of hands scratch at my shoulders and face, as if trying to find the ground.

He probably wanted to push his ass up, and considering my position with my head being pierced by the gnarled roots reaching up from the earth here, I rolled that weight off, throwing whoever it was to the side. I looked over to it, but, of course, everything was veiled in a half-inch shell of solid black so I couldn't see him worth anything. Oh yeah, I could hear things, though.

Before even realizing it, I was on my feet and looking back and forth across the infinitely dark expanse that stretched in every direction. Ghosts. I suddenly remembered that I really shouldn't be standing up. To one side, I could see the first apparition we came across, now a distance away, although its light was still easily seen. However, to my other side, I could see the line of gleaming white spots dotting the opaque curtain of the atmosphere. They just seemed to sit in place though. I imagined such blood-thirsty creatures to be a little more aggressive than...well, just standing there and watching me.

I was just about to quietly dip back below the tall, rolling grasses when the sound of splintering wood and a violent clap of thunder rammed into my ears. The air became saturated with light wooden splinters. Pain shot right through my head, as if that sound had cut my skull apart as it came in one ear and left the other. Immediately, I pulled my hands up and crammed them as hard as I could into the sides of my head, trying to fill my ears with as much finger as possible. That was tremendously loud. A gigantic, rolling roar emanated from somewhere nearby, nearly deafening me as I heard it. Lord, I thought I had lost my hearing as I couldn't even make out the sound of my own breath over the ringing in my ears..

Disoriented from whatever blast that was, I felt my feet wander away, stumbling in a stupor without knowing what I was doing, so I guess I might have put myself in a bad situation without really even knowing it. It came from the front, a large chunk of metal or something, it was not wood, collided into my chest with a dull thud. I didn't really feel anything beyond that. I looked down impulsively, still not quite used to the fact that it was impossible to see anything in this particular region.

But I could see.

I could make out a tree, a hollow shell of vines like the other ones, with a huge chunk of its uneven trunk torn off like someone had taken a gigantic bit out of it. All around it, a hungry flame had begun to feast on the dense concentration of rotting wood and foliage. It was a light finally intense enough to spray the flickering orange-yellow glare over just a small segment of the forest. It doused the overwhelming hue of the blackened, sun-starved canopy with dancing shadows, projecting long bars of undulating darkness over the distance.

I turned my head, suddenly curious as to where Sasha was, and definitely interested in what direction we should run to now that we had made a decent amount of noise. When I tried to turn my body, there was a strange resistance in my left shoulder right before I felt a stabbing pain shoot up and down my spine with such vividness that I couldn't help but call out.

“Ah! God...what is this?” I said, freezing up as I reached up to my shoulder with my other hand.

A long bar of wrought iron extended up and out from the thick, clumpy grass had been jabbed right into my chest, inflicting a wound so clean that I hadn't even started bleeding around the pole. My good hand shot up, grabbing hold of the long bar at the point at which it was buried into me. For what reason? I dunno, it was just the first thing my brain told me to do.

“...What?! What happened?” I said, trying to push the shaft out of my chest, as it was jabbed into me at an extreme angle, like the metal spear had been forced through the earth at my feet just to stick me..

“Pathetic...little rats, you are not going...to live.” I heard someone spit in a really strange accent, his voice more of a guttural growl than any tone that I've ever heard.

With that, the coarse metal rod was pushed much further into the side of me, generating a little carnival of agony just for me. It had to have punched right through me now, impaling me upon it.

“Stop! Stop, please! Gyah!” Shut up. I am desperately afraid of pain. “Just stop, I give up!”

When I opened my eyes again, I saw him. He had been right in front of me the entire time. Looking a little bit unsteady, shaking quite a bit as he yanked himself up, he had both shivering hands wrapped around that metal pole. He didn't look like anything special, though. Actually, he kind of looked like an engineer, a pretty young one at that. He looked just a little older than me. Of course, that was extremely confusing. I made note of this to him.

“What the hell are you...Let me go-ah!” I was cut short though. Apparently, he didn't like my complaints, and had far less patience than Sasha.

“SHUT IT, YOU SHIT STAIN! You think you can leave...just because you will not fight?!” His face was twisting, his grimace winding into a vicious smile. “NO. NO! How about that then, eh?! Did I raise your spirit a...LITTLE?!”

He emphasized the last bit of his taunt, pulling up on the spear, using it like a lever to tear the flesh from my chest. Oh, I didn't agree with that very well, and I told him about it immediately.

“Oh god! Stop it, motherfucker...! I...let me go!” I wasn't sure if I was crying at this point or not, so I'm just going to say I demanded to be released. “Leave me alone! I...I..”

I noticed it just then. I hadn't been paying attention at all because, well, I had been impaled. However, in retrospect, I can't believe I didn't notice it right away. It was his eyes. Half-hidden behind unkempt, messy brown hair, two points of vicious, spinning points stared right back into me with incredible venom. I've seen those kinds of eyes before.

I must have made a face when I realized it, because his twisted smile disappeared as I stared into his own face. Suddenly, he grimaced and began violently swinging the pole back and forth, tearing the whole in my chest wider with every second.

“AGH! LET...LET ME GO, YOU FUCK!” I said, unable to brace myself for the back and forth movement of the spike driven through me.

He was a demon, the eternal bane of man, his red eyes telegraph that to me. Only monsters have eyes like that, that seem to spin in their sockets and glimmer in the light, shining blood red. I hated demons. They are worthless animals born for the sheer purpose of destroying mankind. They cause curses, start wars, inflict famine, and instigate plagues of incalculable magnitude wherever they go for the sheer enjoyment of watching men like me wither away. They are why weapons exist. Demons are the reason death exists.

I was swung left and right, picked up off of my feet a little bit. It was just enough to introduce me to great deal of agony.

“DEMON! I'M...I'M NOT AFRAID OF YOU.” I was somehow able to holler in between my yelps, trying to push myself up on the spike a little more with my free hand to alleviate some of the pain.

I opened my eyes in the silence I created between us. I shot a glare his way, a rebellious stare accented with my desperate grimace. However, when my eyes searched for his, he had already donned this odd white mask. It was completely smooth, free of any details like a nose or holes for eyes. A white, lustrous shell shielded his face from view. However, he was still able to comment on me.

“Never...never never never! NEVER!” I started shrieking into the night, shaking his head violently before his clawed hands steeled themselves on the pole once more. “I'm going to TEAR YOU APART.”

The fuck didn't realize how lucky he was. If he had struck me from any other angle, my coat would have absorbed a great deal of the impact of his weapon. I sneered in spite of his near-hysterical threat, and that expression was frozen as he hurled me back into the swaying depths of thick grass. I couldn't regain my balance with the way he pushed me, and after stumbling desperately, I fell onto my back, the awful feeling of that metal shaft shifting inside of me consuming my thoughts as I landed right on it.

“YAAGH! HELP!!” I started screaming, my courage melting the instant I hit the dirt, pulling both arms up to my shoulder where the bolt stabbed right under my collar bone.

I didn't even have a moment to try and free myself of that heavy spear. He was back upon me immediately, looking down on me with a wild smile. Then he dropped a foot down into the center of my stomach, stabbing the toe of his ragged shoe into me with a great glint of satisfaction in his face.

“You'll pay. I'll make you pay for everything...EVERYTHING!” He announced to me in a very final way as he settled both hands on the end of that pole I was stuck on.

It was when he held my torso down to the ground with that foot that I realize what he was imagining. He was going to try and twist off my shoulders and head from the rest of my body. God, that wasn't going to work, but jeez, I wouldn't be in great shape even if he didn't pop my head open. I was picturing my ribcage as a soup bowl of finely churned organs and spilled gore.

I opened my mouth half a second too late. He reared the pole to his right before quickly yanking back left as hard as he could, his arms shuddering as he groaned, putting his weight into twisting the bar of iron.

“AAARGH!” The pain was overwhelming, the sound of bones straining filling my head. God, I could just imagine what I was going to look like in half a second. “STOP...STOP!” I continued screaming, trying to vent some of the pain.

He stopped, leaning forward to put his weight on the pole, looking like he was resting on it. His chest heaved, and he gasped for breath while he tried to stare ferociously down to me. Wow, I couldn't believe it. What the hell happened?

“I will...I wind this out...you monster.” He gasped, trying to grin at me despite how exhausted he sounded. “I...have to kill...you.”

It looked like he regained enough strength to try again because he stood tall again, readying his arms back on the steel length, eager to try and tear me in half again. I could see his face from under the mask, and I saw the desperately grim look spread over his face, his eyes tightly shut as he wound the iron bar back to the right, readying to try and snap my spine free from my ribs again.

“GUH AH...ACH...” He coughed out, his back arching just as he was about to push that bar back into my body.

A fine mist of black showered me, as one of the demon's arms was suddenly torn clean away from his shoulder. Something had crashed into the back of his shoulder with such force that it had shaved his arm clean off his body, sending it spiraling up into the air to spread a cloud of vile, black blood everywhere. I had shielded my eyes from that disgusting spray, but when I looked back up to him again, there was a hole punched straight through his shoulder. Whatever had struck him had not just severed an arm, it completely annihilated a chunk of his shoulder. The arm had only been launched because nothing connected it to his body anymore. I know that...there's only one kind of weapon that can do that: a tank gun.

“Hegh...hegh...no...no no no NO!” He screamed, his monstrous shriek starting to crackle, his voice blowing out as he put all his remaining weight back onto the bar I was impaled upon.

The next few seconds, I watched the murderous expression on his face soften, his eyes clamping shut as he wheezed with utter desperation, trying to kill me no matter what. His entire body shuddered, every ounce of muscle he had left devoted to turning that spike and shredding me up. Lord, I couldn't even feel his effort over the dull, pulsing pain of just having that massive iron chunk stabbed into me.

“Please help me...please, god...help me kill.” He muttered out, as if he knew this was his last chance.

When he started straining against the iron bar sticking me to the earth, you could hear the curious gulping sound of a highly viscous liquid being forced through a narrow hose. It was a smelting torch. He heard it, too. I know he did. I saw the look that his face twisted into as he heard the deep sound of pressurized fuel solution being forced into a torch. And that was the last I saw of his face.

He exploded into flame a second later, the entirety of his form engulfed in an all-consuming fuel fire. I heard the torch spraying the thick liquid behind that beast, the slopping splatter of one of humanity's greatest weapons vomiting a constant stream of volatile justice over the back of what was left of his body. The heat of the fire was incredible, the reaction of that fuel solution to the air outside causing a wonderfully dramatic incendiary explosion that singed my hair while I was still on the ground.

Finally, my assailant let go of his weapon in lieu of screaming while flailing his single arm and trying to stumble away. His voice had ground itself into nothing by now, and it was impossible to hear his muted howling over the sound of the flames hungrily devouring his body, charring his flesh and boiling his blood. He was a walking lamp, the flames gnawing away at him vibrantly illuminating the forest around him as he moved. I guess he was trying to escape, it was the only reason I would imagine he would go back to the forest.

I caught the hint of movement out of the corner of my eye, from the direction in which that small burst of liquid fire came from. I rolled my head over so I could see a bit better, scanning back and forth across the yellow-tainted jungle.

Sasha strode leisurely across the burning forest, bearing a small smelting torch in both hands, wielding it like a sword. There was something funny, though. In one hand, she was tightly clutching the small rubber tube that connected the torch to her back pack. I could see something slowly dripping from between her fingers, the slow leaking of fuel solution spilling over her gloves. The fuel ignited immediately as it came in contact with the air, rolling off her hand like a streak of vivid light and dropping to the hidden forest floor, incinerating the grass instantly as it fell. I watched her back as she came up behind the quickly burning beast that had jumped us. As she confidently strode up behind that walking mess of flames, she slowly slipped her back pack off one her shoulders, being careful to keep pressure around the hemorrhaging in the torch's hose. Pulling it off her back, she came to hold it in one steady hand, suspending the heavy bag as its fiery innards slowly bled out around her hands. It was only moments later that she caught up with that thing, the vicious forest hunter now reduced to a pathetic lump of silently wailing cinders. All she did was rear back, lifting up one foot as high as she could, before she shoved that heavy, fire-retardant boot into the demon's back, pushing it forward with all of her might. Instantly off-balance, she had thrown that once monstrous beast face first into the hard ground, his smoldering body falling out of sight as he was engulfed by the burning patches of thick shrubs he had left in his wake.

“Is...is that him? Oh, well, I guess there wouldn't be...sweet lord almighty...” I suddenly heard another voice, the deep tone of another man as he ran in my direction. “What a mess..”

They came closer, and I could hear quite a number of footsteps complimented by the sound of a couple bodies pushing themselves through the thick underbrush. I could see faces pop up above me, staring down and pointing at me while a hurried conversation shot back and forth between their blurry heads. They would come to stand over me, gingerly touching the long, metal spike tacking me to the ground, waving their hands in my face, and talking to me as if I cared. However, I was still watching Sasha, pulling my head up as far as I could to try and see her from between the numerous, uniform-clad legs that crowded around me.

I lost sight of her for a moment, but all I had to do was move a bit to set my eyes on her again. She had just turned around, begin to stride back to me at an increased pace, almost jogging back. She wasn't holding her bag anymore, and I couldn't see the torch dangling at her side. What had she done with it? With a leak like that, she had to protect her tools. On an impulse, I tried to reach around with one hand to my torch, still hooked safely to the right side of my pack. I could touch it, the cheap stamped metal and the rubbery surface of the long connecting tube.

Another explosion tore through the area, a brilliant, blinding flash of light reaching even me, who was shielded by the numerous strangers poking and prodding me as well as the thick forest underbrush. The deafening clash, the crunch of tough wood being torn asunder and falling against as a hail of sawdust and coin-sized particles, it was like that explosion from earlier that had first brought light to this forsaken forest. I tried to crane my head, cupping one hand over my brow to shield my eyes from the light sprinkling of woodland debris that rained down upon me, trying to catch a glimpse of Sasha. I finally saw her, past the crouched forms of these men, all of them bracing themselves from that eruption. She, too, was cramming her hands into her ears so hard that her arms shook. However, unlike the other uniformed men around me, instead of a surprised grimace, she bore a smile. A soft, slight smile curved across her blood-spattered face, one side of her head doused in the vivid red of her own blood. Still, she just smiled, her white face the only detail I could make of her as she strode away from a raging fire-storm, silhouette against the riot of uncontrollable fire gorging itself on the now brightly-lit and helpless-looking forest.

“Take him and patch his shit up.” She said suddenly, yelling this command in a tone I had never heard from her before. “We move now. All this noise will attract a horde of ghosts.”

The others surrounding me pulled themselves up straight and turned to look at her. I imagined they didn't quite take to that attitude she fed them. They didn't move for a bit. One out of the corner of my eye I saw the shape of a particularly surly figure cross his arms, stepping forward to meet Sasha as she approached.

“Geh, put a sock in it, alright? You're our guests, so you fucking leave things to me.” An exasperated, tired tone called out to her. “None of your shit today, okay? None of it!” He said with a flourish.

Sasha only smiled, suddenly flashing a glance towards me before looking over the others. In that split second, I saw something in her that I had never seen before. It was a vibrancy that she had never exhibited before me in the weeks that I had goofed off at her house. Her eyes were ablaze like the forest behind her, the grin cut over her face wide...as if she reveled in the incineration of her foes.

I sighed, closing my eyes, just not wanting to look at her any more. “What the fuck is wrong with her?...” I grumbled under breath, trying not to notice when they started trying to yank that metal bar out of my chest.

“You know, if you wanted to come early, you should have made mention of it.” The well-worn voice called out to Sasha again. I didn't care to look, but I kept an ear open anyway. What did he mean “early”? “I kinda like that you never quite do things last minute, but god, girl, we might not have been at this check-in yet...and then what would have happened to you and your little friend over there?” I heard him sigh and scratch the top of his head violently. “Five hours early? God, I was looking forward to a nap...but now you fucking stir up the hive and...ugh. We'll leave. You're right. We can't stay here covered in fire and blood. Come-”

Oh, but I had stopped listening at that point. One part of that conversation stuck in my head, causing my eyes to fly open and my brain to come to a complete stop. We arrived five hours early? Five hours? When were we supposed to leave, near sun-up right? But the sun never came up...surely...

“...You bitch.” I muttered as the other uniformed men hanging over me were trying to wriggle the iron bar loose from whatever it had stabbed into through my chest. “Sasha...Sasha!”

Oh god, we had left just after midnight. We had been walking around in the forest at the peak of monster activity.

“SASHA! YOU...YOU FUCK. YOU LIED TO ME!” I screamed out suddenly, causing the guys around me to jump, yanking the long chunk of solid iron right out of me with a jerk. That didn't feel nice. “AAARGH! OH MY GOD, WHERE ARE YOU?! I'LL KILL YOU.”

I tried to push myself up so I could scan the are for Sasha, but my shoulder didn't really agree with that. After another moment of blinding pain and not using my left arm, I just craned my head up and off the ground, looking towards that jackass of a girl as the tense engineers around me held me down, mumbling something about severe bleeding between each other.

“YOU...you...you knew.”

I wasn't sure if she heard me. I'm pretty sure it didn't even matter, though. All she did was cast me another glance, another strange smile right before she disappeared into the shadows again, where the fire was unable to cast its light.

“...I hate you so much.”

I said, sighing in a defeated manner.