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To be honest, you’ve been plagued by the doubts ever since the beginning. You haven’t seen much of the world, and yet you know, you damn well know that this little ‘game’, as the Principal put, is too much. Who the hell can endure seeing their friends bleeding out, sliced open and hung through their chests? Who can stay sane enough not to lose themselves in this cacophony of broken bones and slurping guts, metals clashing and heavy panting?!
Not you, that’s for sure. Definitely, most definitely.
And it’s going to be over soon, it’s gotta be over: this bloodthirsty monster is staring at you. You, whose legs tremble and want to give out. You, who is tasting the last bits of safety on the second floor of this rotten shack, as if its floorboards are sturdy enough to handle any kind of impact. They creak and whimper under your faintest movements. They are not like concrete just a hundred meters away from this thing. They are not like earth, of which you’ve had enough taste in last hour: after all, you can’t even properly run or use your hands.
Ah, yes, that’s right. You still have these damn useless hands. You were forbidden from being in your actual form, instead… Instead… You’re stuck with this. Even pulling a pallet down is challenging, since your fingers refuse to grab onto it. You can’t hold anything. You can’t even work on these ‘ciphers’.
You have been a burden to your team this whole time, haven’t you?
All you’ve done was pull the exit gate’s switch down, and keep it that way — before this Thing chased you off of it.
You are the reason Naib died… No, he lost. He surely lost, didn’t he? The Principal, he promised you all that no matter what, it will go back to how it was. He has never failed you before, nor he seemed to harbor any kind of grudge: you’re one of his liked students.
But at this point, all you have to do is believe that Naib survived, even if he’s been hooked right before your eyes — blood splattered on you as you stood in shock, unable to move or utter a word.
And you could have helped him, right?
Instead, fear paralyzed you, and only luck saved you from the hunter’s blade piercing through your stomach: it only grazed you slightly, tearing these fancy clothes you decided to wear. I have to look presentable, you thought, I have to replicate my plumage.
‘Presentable’ is hardly a word for someone who watches his friend be tortured.
It is the same as then: this monster, this hunter, this Thing is looking straight at you, and all you can do is drop to your knees, almost weeping. How its head turns, how, even with eyes cloaked, you still sense bloodlust from under that dark hood — how its whole body slowly moves towards your location.
You really have to run, you know. You have to get out, you have to get away, or you’ll get stabbed. Slashed. Dragged. Hooked, and you will dribble to death as your lungs fill with blood, reddish foam at mouth.
That’s how Naib ceased, after all.
The pure white of your pants is stained with dirt from all the cowardly crawling and hiding, tophat lost, and the glass in your fancy monocle is shattered: and the green of your jacket is covered in brown dried specks. You want to mutter something out, but words just won’t come out. With every step it takes, your heart sinks more and more into your stomach, cold drops of sweat running down your spine.
This is it, you think.
You want to delay it, you really, really want to escape the cruel fate. But the only way your body moves is crawling away from the window, hands slipping: and you fall face first onto these moldy floorboards. They crack, — or is that the door of the shack creaking?
What happened to your agility, to your flexibility? You used to pride yourself on these qualities; and yet, as soon as you turn your body into this human one, they are lost — you are nothing but a clumsy person who can barely stand — let alone run. Then why, just why…
Why are you the last one?
And to top it all off, you have to escape no matter what. It’s a draw if you do, and a loss if you don’t. Stakes are high — too high for you to reasonably think and plan accordingly. The exit gate… It’s blocked by the hunter: that Thing is between you and the opened path to freedom, an escape from this hell. But there’s just no way possible to get through that monster: you’ve seen it, you know too well this thing will decimate you the moment it sees an opening — and you just so happen to be full of them.
You want to give up, to let your life be claimed by the silver blade it wields — but do you really want to fail your friends? You all were so happy before this mess, this violent ‘game’, you really planned on winning: Naib, who so enthusiastically rallied you up, ended up passing first, a victim to the hunter’s trap of false security. You won’t ever forget how his voice echoed through the area the first time the hook pierced his chest; how he struggled to get himself off as the hunter left him to find another unfortunate soul.
What would they say if you just gave up?.. Weren’t you the cheerful one always? Weren’t you the one who always consoled them, begged them to look at life brighter? Perhaps, you went a bit overboard sometimes, but you always believed in the best that could happen, and you never let misfortunes drag you down.
Then why? Why, you ask yourself, why do you want to give up?
It’s because there’s no way I can escape, you think, and your thoughts are all jumbled. This can’t be it! There has to be another way! There is always one! — that’s what you always loved telling yourself whenever confronted with a problem. Isn’t it how you’ve lived your life?
Ah!
You carefully sit up, weak trembling hands propping your torso as you try moving your legs in a position from which you can get up without helping yourself with a wall. Wasn’t there a hatch… A hatch... It’s… It’s near the place Eli ceased. Bled out, carelessly left by the hunter in the pursuit of others. You can’t help but take a deep breath, and you have to, you gotta focus on your objective: mourning can wait! … Even if this tugging, gnawing hollow pain in your chest is telling you to cry and weep for Naib and Eli’s souls.
If it’s near the place of Eli’s… Then there should be a massive bloodstain! That’s it, that’s how you find it! Although, finding it is one thing, but reaching and escaping with that monster tailing you is another. Is it even worth a gamble, you wonder for a second or two, before shaking your head to clear the doubts: it makes you dizzy for a moment, and you’re not even sure why you did it — you’ve seen characters always do it in those human ‘series’, as they call them.
‘All harpies are sadistic, Norton.’ You clearly remember these words written by Aesop. ‘They tend to be hyperactive and extremely clever.’
Extremely clever, he ‘said’, and yet you just spent a good minute trembling like a leaf under strong wind. Norton has seen these words — you can’t really throw it all so his efforts are for nothing, can you? He managed to crawl out of the gate after being hit by the hunter — he escaped, so now it’s your duty to make it count.
You can hear the footsteps below the floor, it is near — you don’t have much time to act. The first logical thing to do would be to survey the location from the second floor to see if you can spot that bloodstain: you get up as quickly as you can, almost falling over in the process — but now you can stand! Carefully, you move closer to the opening and try to make anything of value out in this damned darkness as the stairs creak louder and louder; there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, squinting doesn’t help at all and as the sound of breathing grazes your ear you see it — you lean towards it, and the blade hits the air just above your head as you fall down.
“Think of it as landing after the flight,” is what Norton used to say to you whenever (that being always) you failed to successfully land even from the smallest height with these human legs. He has it easy, you always thought, being born with a human body and all. How can he even know how you land after the flight, you pouted. It’s completely different!
But it is not.
You land with precision and grace you are used to, even after accidentally flipping in the air.
…
It takes you a moment to realize this, and when you do — you’re beaming, you’re radiating happiness: you almost tear up. But this is no time to stall, or pride yourself for too long, and you dart before that monster even manages to make a move.
That’s a small win for you, but the advantage it gives you is tremendous—
Or so you thought, when your legs start giving out after a few seconds of running. No, this can’t be… This is… There is still a considerable distance, and. And that Thing. It’s coming, it’s really really really coming!
And some blood is coming up too — you cough, red staining the dirty white gloves you’re wearing, a small bit trickling down your chin. Damn, this hook wound isn’t healed yet, even after you’ve found some supplies in a chest in that shack...
It’s hard, it’s painful, and you want to cry, you want to collapse and clutch the earth just so it would stop — but you can’t give up, not now, when it’s so close, you almost hear the wind coming out of it. Just a bit more, let this body last a tiny bit more, you beg internally as you clench the teeth and try to focus on getting closer and closer to that… window...
No…
You have to vault a window.
But you can’t.
Naib jumped over them with ease, but even his werewolf agility didn’t save him. Norton wasn’t as good, but the sheer ability of his to effectively conserve the energy he spent vaulting one always amazed you. Eli, as a fellow avian, had quite some trouble at first, but has managed to get over them — maybe not as quickly as two others, but fast enough to escape the hunter’s grasp.
Only you never could.
Is it these hands that are to blame, or is it your stubbornness? Did you really not want to learn? You can do it, you did it moments ago — you can learn this new body if you really wanted to, but instead you chose not to.
Can you really make it in time? Is it really there? You let these questions plague your mind to dull the aching pain in your chest and legs and the stench of Eli’s blood: it’s not as appealing as human’s, it’s nauseating and corroding, and you cover your nose up — not that it would help…
A sharp sound echoes next to you — there is a dagger stabbed right in the stone wall. It missed, that Thing missed — you’re grateful for this opportunity. What remains is to cross that damned window at full speed.
“You want to tuck your legs under you.” And then Norton would show you how he always jumps over such obstacles. It always looked so effortless, but whenever you tried it you always tripped and fell, or your hands would slip from the railing, or you would fall even before reaching the obstacle… Naib’s example, there’s no way you could follow that: he had enough strength to literally jump over it; and Eli… he’d vault sideways, and twice — if not thrice slower than Norton…
You almost want to ask yourself, what are you supposed to do now? Get through that thing for sure, but how… How can you do it when you can barely feel your arms and legs, and a roaring pain engulfs your chest?!
But you do it anyway: you try to support yourself with your arms, to ‘let the inertia guide you’, and you make it! You’re on the other side and you see the hatch, all open and ready for you to jump in! Truly, you did it, you won!
...
—And you collapse on the ground, your back slashed open. It got you, huh…
…
Thinking about it, you don’t even know what it is, let alone its motives to make your lives hell. You happened to fall on your side, and you can’t help but to look up, to satisfy your curiosity: even if it has that dark cloak covering its figure…
The hatch is near, and you try to slowly pull yourself towards it, coughing up blood on your clothes. And you really liked them too, damn… Then, your gaze shifts towards it: and you see a glint of silver hair beneath that fabric, the sword in the left hand and peculiar cracks all over the figure, and — you fall down.
You escaped.
You did it, but…
What about others? How are you going to live with this glaring wound?
—Wait.
What wound? You feel nothing, if a bit sore. The lights come on, and you look over yourself: there is no trace you suffered any kind of damage, and your precious clothes look brand new! Even the tophat returned!
Footsteps echo in the bright hallway, and you see them all: Norton, Eli, Naib, all alive and without any wounds — and you cannot help it but throw yourself at them, smothering them in your grip, albeit, a faint one. There’s also the Principal too, with his usual smile and… a slightly wagging tail?
“Monsieur Morton, you have exceeded my expectations,” he begins, looking at you — you didn’t even get a chance to ask your friends… You can’t help but glance at him: and the fact that he is holding his cane in the left hand instantly makes you recall the dreadful moment that happened seconds ago — you shiver a bit, leaning against a wall.
“That was amazing, Mike!”
“I didn’t know you had it in you!”
“You did a great job!”
Of course you did, you chuckle to yourself, before thanking your concerned friends and exchanging even more hugs — perhaps, an unnecessary gesture, given how the Principal himself is waiting for you.
“Sir, I have a question,” you begin in a joyful tone, a happy smile back on your face — yet you still hold your hand over the hook wound (or the place where it was), “where did the wounds go? And what exactly what that thing, you know, that chased us?”
All he does is chuckle. “Shouldn’t you rest? What matters is the experience, after all.” With these words, he leaves you and your friends alone, with parting words: “You are excused from any classes for a week.”
“Man, he’s weird.” You definitely agree with Naib on this.
It doesn’t take long for your party of four to get back to your house: and you instantly tear the clothes off your body and switch back to your original, and much, much better form — you proceed to spend the rest of the day sleeping, as that ordeal drained you of all of your energy and will to do even basic tasks.
You can’t help but wonder, what was that thing that overpowered even an experienced werewolf and outsmarted Eli… And why did Aesop seem too tired when you passed him on the stairs — although, you recall, he hasn’t slept during that night.