Asterion steadied himself with the wall so that he wouldn’t plunge down the stairs at the dreadful scene in front of him.

  An unsurpassable lump was emerging in the depths of his throat, forcing him to hold back the tide of a mounting gag.

  ‘That’s horrifying.’

  Bellarus, who was standing just in front of him, turned his head slightly, acknowledging his presence, and then dismissed the sharp projection, allowing it to turn into radiant light once more.

  He expected him to have something to say about the horrifying scene, but instead, he just sighed, a forlorn smile playing against his lips, and moved next to Alfred, kneeling beside him.

  Well… what was left of him, anyway.

  The guard who helped Asterion escape, Alfred, was almost unrecognizable as he lay sprawled on the floor. Fresh red blood played through his glazed eyes in the form of false tears, still actively flowing down to the stone below. More blood covered his chin, painting a cruel smile on his face as he lay facing up.

  It was undeniable he was dead, however.

  The corpse’s complexion was a sickly contrast of pale white skin and grey veins exposed around his dented plate armor, reaching up into his neck. Puddles of red formed around the man’s exposed forearms, slowly draining the corpse of its lifeblood.

  One of his wrists was mangled, bearing obvious bite wounds. His other, more recognizable wrist — his left — was vertically cut by some sharp object from his elbow to his fingers.

  Asterion moved his eyes to the right of the corpse, to the crimson-soaked sword that lay forlorn next to it.

  Asterion didn’t need to know what happened. It was obvious… it was sickening.

  Bellarus held a hand over his face, closing his eyes, and reaching to grab the pommel of the short sword, before weakly tossing it at Asterion’s feet.

  “Take it, it’s yours now.” He said flatly.

  It bounced heavily on the stone before it came to a stop, looking solid.

  Asterion had no intention of touching the blade, however. He was more focused on the corpse.

  “W-why?”

  Bellarus looked down at the body for a moment.

  Looking back to meet Asterion’s gaze he opened his mouth,

  “He gave it his all. Do not blame him for his choice to do this. We may have gotten away from that abomination, but some things aren’t easy to defend against…”

  He faltered, then continued.

  “Like I said before… some of them possess inhuman abilities like us. He was strong, and he faced the beast with equal bravery as the two who perished in its ambush outside of the ruins… however, he was also a victim to the beast’s abominable power in the process, and it followed him inside… he was perfectly mundane. He didn’t stand a chance.” He finished.

  Asterion, forgetting to breathe, just blinked. If the beasts out here are so deadly, what chance did he have? What chance did any of them have?

  “How did Brandon survive, then?”

  Bellarus, still looking at him indifferently, shrugged his shoulders and answered.

  “It affects everyone differently.” He sighed, “Perhaps he just has more mental resilience.”

  Then, he got up, taking Alfred’s sword sheath off his belt before reaching for the sword, too. Moving toward Asterion, he offered him them in each hand. He took the items, their combined weight dropping his body lower as he suffered their gravity.

  He didn’t let the struggle show on his face, though.

  “Let’s go, I have to notify the others and figure out what we are going to do now that we are down three experienced men for the rest of the journey.”

  With that, he brushed past Asterion, walking back down the sketchy stairs with a hardened expression. Left in the mournful company of the body, Asterion gave it one last look before putting the bloody blade back in its sheath and turning back, following him down slowly. He wanted to take his time and process reality.

  Life was cruel. He knew. The window he was looking out of was simply a different shade of glass.

  He sighed.

  ‘Rest in peace…’

  Burial was not given to people in Hope. There was no easy ground to dig a hole, much less pierce the stone to make one. That said, leaving a body to rot drew a bad feeling in Asterion. Typically, bodies were cremated, with only the wealthy having the ability to own a tomb space where they could put them in a sudo burial, instead.

  But… like the ones left in the gathering hall of the ruin and outside for the beast to feast on, this one would only be a drain on resources if they tried to make a fire hot enough to do any real cremating, not that they would succeed even if they tried. It would likely stay there until it drew the ire of some wandering scavenger.

  When Asterion made it back down, he noticed that Aaron, Peter, and Daren had moved out of the bedroom and into the more spacious neighboring room Bellarus was hosting just in case anything happened during the investigation.

  Passing Brandon with a short nod, he entered the room. The atmosphere was rather tense and somber — presumably due to Bellarus explaining what had happened. It was never good to hear of another person’s death, but it was worse than that to hear that the person died to protect you. The best everyone could do was mourn his fate, and grieve in silence.

  They did it out of basic respect, Asterion suspected. Nobody knew the man that well, after all. They had only just met recently. He moved toward the group, hauling the heavy blade on his waste in its scabbard.

  The campfire in the center, fueled by the now broken wooden furniture, cast deep shadows against the wall, each flickering in tandem with the chaos of its flames.

  Looking around, Asterion counted everyone that remained.

  ‘One, two, three, four…’

  ‘…sixteen.’ he finished counting.

  Including himself, along with Bellarus and Brandon— who was still in the hallway, sixteen people remained of the twenty-one who left Hope together. The thought was horrifying. Never in his life was death too close and rampant. It was in the same building, plaguing everyone’s similar thoughts. What was more jarring was that now, only two of sixteen posed any real resistance to an attack…

  He looked at his sword’s bloody handle, frowning.

  A stomach growled somewhere, distracting him. He wasn’t sure if it was his own…

  ‘It’s going to be a long night…’ he sighed.

  Clearing another place to sleep, Asterion set his head down and turned away from the fire, using his arms as pillows, before closing his eyes so that he could fall asleep before the hunger stopped him from being able to…

  ***

  Asterion woke with a startled gasp and rapid breathing. He examined his surroundings for anything immediately out of the ordinary hastily. The spacious room was left dimmer as the fire’s fuel was nearly exhausted, leaving the flames to a bitter slow, and silent death. It crackled now and then, shooting fiery sparks into the air.

  The wonderful dream he experienced during his sleep was fading, too…

  or maybe it was a nightmare?

  He had already forgotten, moving up to his elbows.

  Looking around, nothing was amiss. People were strewn about the floor of the room in different contortions sleeping, some sitting against the wall, and others laying on the cold stone, using what clothing they had on them to separate their skin from making bare contact. It was impossible to tell what time it was in the isolated room, but from his internal clock, he felt completely rested.

  It seemed he was the only one awake, too.

  The wooden door of the room—and the only exit—was ajar and led into the pitch-black hallway, where Brandon was supposed to still be keeping watch for everyone, ensuring nothing could break down their makeshift fortifications while they slept. He did a quick scan of the sleepers, counting fourteen others, and noting he wasn’t in the room, so Asterion assumed he would still be in the hall.

  His breathing slowed down, relaxing.

  Confused and unable to pinpoint why he woke up so afraid, he was left to only assume he was okay.

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  ‘There’s nothing.’ He took a deep breath and exhaled.

  Well… he knew that wasn’t exactly true. He was stuck with fifteen people in the middle of a ruin somewhere in Eden… in the aftermath of a deadly encounter with a horrifying creature…. and he was starving…which he had no idea how to get for himself.

  Still, he wasn’t in immediate danger.

  Chalking it up to a nightmare he couldn’t remember, he pushed himself up from his elbows to his feet, careful not to wake the people around him.

  As he stood, he decided to throw some more debris into the fire to give it more life. Quietly moving from his spot to a pile of debris, he heard a voice from the hall outside. It sounded vaguely distorted and unintelligible, and hard to hear over the snoring of the people around him. Even when straining his ears, he couldn’t understand what it was saying at all.

  ‘Must be Brandon talking to himself. Dude has to be bored.’

  Asterion imagined that staying awake was hard, but doing it all alone in the dark would be nearly impossible to do if he had to do it himself. That was an admirable trait about him, he believed. He was one of the toughest people he had ever met.

  He grimaced.

  The thought was not appealing, considering he very well may have to, eventually at least. He was a pathfinder now. If Alfred’s death was to teach him anything, it was that weakness was death out here, and that went for both physical and mental weakness.

  Tossing a few pieces of broken wood gently into the fire, he watched as the fire eagerly consumed it and regrew its hungry fervor. Once its flames grew enough to be okay left alone for another hour, he turned his attention toward the hallway, to where the noise was still resounding from.

  Walking to the sound of the voice, he approached the slightly opened door and pulled it open some more, letting a casting glow from the room’s fire assault the darkness of the hallway.

  He looked at Brandon, whose tall standing figure leaned back against the stone table-turned-brace on the door just across from him. One hand rested on his sword pommel, while the other strapped his chest’s armor plate, grasping its upper edge near his neck. His head was dipped down, hiding most of his features. He made no obvious movements to acknowledge Asterion’s arrival.

  He was asleep.

  ‘Huh?’ Asterion thought, immediately perplexed.

  Asterion’s hand went to his own blade’s grip, grasping it protectively. It was foolish since he had never practiced with a blade, and he was sure to struggle even holding it up. But it was better than nothing.

  The voice, now slightly more clear sounded like an echo of the darkness that suffocated his either side, extending into the black hallway and toward both the stairs.

  ‘What the hell…?’

  He was sure he counted right… sixteen total recruits left Hope, including himself… then there was Brandon and Bellarus, along with the three guards… that was twenty-one… five were now gone…

  He stood there, starting to think he was going crazy. Auditory hallucinations are odd enough, and he hadn’t heard it being a symptom of starvation. Nor had he ever experienced it himself before from his uncountable encounters with hunger.

  Alas, the voice was still vaguely present.

  If anything, it got a little louder in his moment of confusion, from what he imagined a normal speech tone was, to a harsher and more chaotic one.

  He looked over at Brandon again and decided it was probably for the better to wake him up.

  He tapped him lightly, but firmly, as if weary to wake him too harshly.

  Nothing.

  Brandon’s shallow breathing didn’t change.

  ‘He must be a deep sleeper.’ He thought.

  Harder, he pushed against Brandon, avoiding his hard armor in preference for exposed flesh.

  “Hey, wake up. Something’s off.”

  Still nothing.

  He pushed harder, getting a bit worried.

  Brandon leaned to the left, eyes still closed, and crumpled to the ground like a ragdoll with its strings cut. He stayed that way, lying on the ground in an awkward position.

  The distant voice sounded a bit rushed and started drawing closer. Still unrecognizable of any meaningful speech he could understand.

  Asterion’s heart started to rise.

  “What the hell?” He muttered raggedly.

  Something was wrong. He just didn’t know what it was. Sure, Brandon could be a really deep sleeper. But he just couldn’t comprehend how someone could fall onto their face and not wake up.

  He made sure he was still breathing, which he was, before looking toward the source of the noise. The impenetrable darkness on either side of him echoed the sound equally, making it hard to do. But he could vaguely hear it ever so slightly louder on his right.

  It was getting louder, more clear.

  ‘Shit.’ He thought, starting to try to drag Brandon’s unconscious body into the room with everyone.

  Unfortunately for him, Asterion was much smaller and did not have the strength to succeed. Hunger had plagued him for years, eating away at any real development of muscle.

  So he did the only thing he could think of doing…

  He moved back into the room, loudly announcing for everyone to hear.

  “Guys wake up. Something's wrong with Brandon!”

  Nothing. Nobody woke from his shout.

  ‘Huh…? What the hell is going on!’

  He failed to notice the voice draw even closer. So close, that it was vividly clear and loud. Just enough to be vaguely understandable. It sounded off, panicked, angry, and in some dialect his mind could understand, but couldn’t quite grasp. He looked back to the door fearfully.

  But what was more terrifying than that, was the rising sound of beating against the hard stone floor quickly approaching.

  ‘Footsteps…’

  He stood, frozen in fear as whatever it was that was making the noise approached. There was nowhere to run. He was with his entire group in the room, the best he could do was close the door, trapping themselves inside.

  It was worthless though.

  Before he could gather the mental fortitude to break through his fearful paralysis, a glowing light was slowly carving a path through the dark hallway from his stance inside the room, passing the open doorway with rushed speed.

  The noise began to sound like angry muttering…

  The light, held just in front of its caretaker, shone upon an older man with a grey beard a step behind it, wearing a strange grey gown— something religious, from the odd hat he had on and the golden embroidery on the apparel. In his hand was an ember trapped in a lantern, swaying as he moved with speed to the other side of the doorway. The man was facing down in front of him, as if completely oblivious to the bright light shining from the room, and ignoring Brandon, whose unconscious body was illuminated as it lay slumped just outside his footpath.

  He passed, not giving a second look to anything around him.

  Asterion, meanwhile was internally screaming. He was too frightened to do anything but stare agape at the door.

  ‘Auditory… and Visual hallucinations? Wait… is this a hallucination? What counts as a hallucination? It’s not real! This place must be haunted!’

  He prayed it wasn’t real. If it was, that would mean the strange old man entered the ruins after they closed it… which would mean the beast likely did too… which would mean that it isn’t real because it killed everyone in their sleep.

  He paused.

  ‘That, actually… wouldn’t be a bad way to go.’

  If he was dead, he would have died painlessly in his sleep.

  ‘This heaven kind of terrifying, though.’ He grimaced.

  He imaged he would be taken to a place much nicer and less dusty… less ruined… and less horrifyingly haunted. Alas, he was rather unsure, and that meant he could still be alive.

  Which meant he also had to make sure he wouldn’t die soon.

  Refocusing on the doorway, where the light from the small lantern was now fading to the usable stair side. The footsteps rang farther now, with the noise becoming more distant and less understandable.

  ‘This is absolutely f—’ He thought, cutting himself off.

  Asterion moved toward the doorway and peeked out to his left, where he could see down the long hallway that the remnants of the radiant light were nearly finished ascending the stairs, making heavier footfall echo against walls.

  He laughed nervously.

  ‘It’s only a ghost… it can’t hurt you.’

  Can it?

  He moved into the hallway, following after the old man’s nearly evaporated light. It was well on the second floor, with only its dimmed reflection beaming off the stone wall that rose behind the stairway. He carefully avoided Brandon as he stepped over him to investigate the strange and alarming phenomenon.

  Making his way to the shifty stairs, he ascended just behind. The light was now gone, too far ahead to cast a strong glow against the staircase and leaving Asterion in the dark.

  As he rose above the top of the stairs and peaked to the second floor in search of the old man, all that he saw was Alfred’s hazy corpse in the shadows of the lightless hall, left alone and forlorn. Distantly down the hallway and coming from one of the slightly ajar doors, the light was now casting a gleaming brightness in a door shape against the opposite wall.

  He sighed, his breath shaky. His heart rate rose a bit, somehow feeling like it was in his stomach. He looked back behind him, ensuring nothing was creeping behind.

  ‘… okay.’

  At a snail's pace, he approached the open door, carefully stepping around the pools of blood drying around the corpse’s hands. The voice of the old man was becoming more and more vivid, its deformity reducing as he got closer.

  Slowly but surely, he peeked inside, revealing only a fraction of his head to anyone who may be inside.

  The old man had his back turned from Asterion as he stood at a table inside the room. His lantern was set off to the side, casting a lengthy shadow on a far wall. There was nobody else but the man in the room, but the man seemed to be mumbling something, making erratic gestures at something in front of him.

  Asterion strained his ears to hear what he was saying. It was hard, and the mumbling sounded like the man was just frustrated or crazy, only understanding every few words…

  That’s when the man yelled out louder.

  “Ah! You abandon us and yet you demand our faith?”

  After a moment of silence, the man looked up.

  “Your people are scared. And you leave me alone to deal with them? Coward! What kind of God are you to leave us?”

  He sighed heavily, emotion bleeding into his shaky voice.

  “I’m scared, my Lord. Your light which has guided us has disappeared. The world you built is crumbling. Please, guide us out of this darkness. I’m so scared…”

  The man looked to his right, toward the lantern that sat on the table, remaining quiet. His pause was long, thoughtful.

  “You forsake us…” he whispered angrily, moving toward the lantern and smashing it against a wall.

  Asterion stumbled back and fell as the light of the lantern’s small flame flashed and extinguished in the shattering, leaving the room dark and silent.

  Inside the darkness of the hallway, he heard the man yell again, not shouting anything in particular. The scream was intense and long, transitioning from a natural furious bellow to an eerie beastial roar.

  Then… silence.

  Asterion laid wide eyes on his elbows, staring at the door's pitch-black opening. His eyes, which were adapted to the brightness of the lantern could not adapt quickly enough to the sudden darkness.

  It lay in the doorway, acting as a curtain of pure darkness. He could see around him, albeit shadowy, it was not as dark as the curtain. But the room inside was somehow even darker.

  Then, a low exhale answered his questionable gaze inside the room, causing him to drag himself back a little.

  His blood iced. The room turned colder than he had ever experienced before.

  Emerging from the darkness, four incredibly long indexes, each tipped in short curved claws—each in strange directions— grasped the upper edge of the doorframe, marking the wood in the process.

  The fingers curled, making a scratch.

  A deathly thin limb followed elsewhere, marking a joint of the horrifying creature. It uncurled, revealing another, similar hand to the first. Grabbing the other side of the doorframe, it seemed to pull itself out of the room.

  Asterion could not move, frozen by the sight before him. He wanted to move so desperately, but fear was keeping him from using his legs. He tried to drag himself back more, but only hit the other side of the hallway and its wall.

  There was no escape…

  A strangely humanoid head peaked through the middle of the doorway at an angle, twisting to right itself with gravity rather than from its mangled limbs. The head was horrifying, somehow a much lighter shade than its hands, obvious even in the lightless environment. Its eyes were nothing but black holes with jagged tears running down its bony cheeks like it clawed its own eyes out to the bone.

  The being was tall. It was sickly thin. It was like fear itself had manifested in reality. The being stopped suddenly, before manipulating its lengthy neck to look down on Asterion.

  A low groan reverberated from its slowly opening mouth.

  ‘S-shit…’ was the only thought he could come up with. He couldn’t even begin to unsheathe his sword.

  The beast exploded with movement, covering the gap in the span of a second… its lithe fingers were suddenly in his side, digging into his stomach. While dimmed by adrenaline, it could not hide the immeasurable pain that suddenly radiated out of his stomach as he stared at the beast, unable to look away from the frightening abomination’s face as it came closer to his own.

  Fear overwhelmed the adrenaline, his heart beat out of his chest.

  The pain in his stomach got even worse…