My heart was pounding, matched in ferocity by that of my head, which was filled with mind numbing hallucinations. I couldn’t make sense of where I was, how I got there, or where I had been before. My clothes were ripped to shreds and my body marked with strange symbols and lacerations. All I knew for sure was that something was chasing me, something best left to imagination and nightmares.
I had traveled through a forest as best as my muddled mind allowed, tumbled over a fallen tree and slid face first down a muddy hill. Yet, whatever path I chose to take, the monster trailed close behind. I could hear the monster in my mind, shrieking at me and urging me onward. It was as if the monster was sharing my thoughts, my fears. I could feel the creature enjoying the chase, almost as much as the inevitable conclusion.
Its claws shredded the ground behind me as it snarled. It was goading me, pushing me in a direction of its pleasing before finally bringing me to my end. I wasn’t sure of the game the beast was trying to play, but I knew that I wouldn’t want to stick around and find out.
I wasn’t sure if it was drugs or if my sanity had finally shattered. I suddenly emerged from the forest and into a meadow that overlooked a small village, nothing more than a backwater shanty town. I didn’t want to bring my problems to their doorstep, but I had little choice in the matter and continued towards the bright fires in front of me.
I wasn’t of sound mind, but I could’ve sworn the beast that hunted me was becoming more distant with each passing step as I passed into the village square. It was a good thing, too, because it was at that moment my legs gave out on me and I crashed to the ground my senses dulled.
“Hey there pal, what ya doing on the ground?” a man asked, standing over me and prodding me with some type of stick. “Ya; ya don’ look so good, do ya?”
He rolled me over, gave me the once over and helped ease me up. I didn’t know who the man was, but by the looks of him, he was nothing more than a simple villager; a yokel with no thoughts towards the divine, or the demonic.
“We got to get ya to the doctor,” he grumbled. “Don’ worry… we’ll get ya fixed up real good—.”
The villager screamed in horror and dropped me to the ground in a hurry at the sight of the fiend that hunted me. There was nothing that could’ve prepared him for this moment or what saving my life entailed. The beast let out a deafening shriek as bile and blood spewed forth.
“I-I don’t know what the hell ya are,” the villager said with wavering conviction, “but around these parts, we dun leave one o’ our kind alone. Dun matter what kind o’ beast it is that hunts ‘im—.”
The man’s defiant and barely understandable speech was cut short and he was thrown to the ground by the monster’s ungodly strength. I could barely see the beast from my prone and motionless body bleeding all over the cobblestones. It was just a looming shadow that would get to me any moment now. For the villager, however, it was almost over.
I could hear the sound of teeth ripping into flesh and bone. He was being torn asunder, until there was nothing left except a pool of blood and gore.
The beast’s shadow crept into my vision and threatened to end my life. Thunder crashed inside my head and it was getting darker and darker. I was ready to give up, relinquish my sworn oath and surrender to the inevitable.
Good thing they weren’t so eager to accept defeat.
“Get away from ‘im, ya fiend!” another villager shouted. He was rebellious and filled with boldness. There were dozens of them, they carried a wide range of crude weapons, but they stood strong together.
“One o’ ya against a hundred o’ us!” a woman screamed, raising a pitchfork high above her head. “Go back to Hell and tell yer maker that there’s no place for ‘im here!”
The mob charged straight towards the beast with little regard for their own safety. I could see only a small fraction of the battle from my position, in the middle of the square, but even that small sample of the carnage was more than I wanted to witness. Bodies were tossed aside one by one, some dead upon impact, and the others left to bleed out on the ground.
The demon let out a tormented scream and flew off into the sky. I could hear its massive wings flap and see its shadow diminish as it took off into the night. The villagers had won, but at what cost?
My eyes were getting very heavy. So heavy that I soon gave in and allowed myself the peace oblivion brings