Side-Write: Night Patrol

Well, I don't consider Project Wild One a scary game really, but it's true there's plenty about the setting and atmosphere of the game's design so far that lends itself to having spooky bits. I'd been debating writing more interviews with the other gods or the like, but I feel like if I'm writing this on Halloween, I might as well make it a spooky story. So here's a little peek into an aspect of the world I've been meaning to get to sometime anyway, turned into something appropriate for the holiday.

As always, this isn't strictly canon, so much as an exploration of what may be. I hope you enjoy!

~~~

Wind whispered through the branches above, and clattered through the dead leaves below. The trees swayed, naked fingers grabbing at the full moon above, casting countless writhing shadows over trunks and underbrush below. Every time a breeze came through, the forest seemed to come alive, taking a single deep, scratchy breath... then sighing, settling into deafening stillness. It was enough to set anyone on edge.

The Ranger was used to patrolling the dark hours. His good night vision had earned him the job, as much as he resented it. A man needed a little sunlight in his life.

But tonight, he couldn't shake that feeling something was stalking him. Even if it was just the rattling of leaves creeping up behind him, it could hide the sound of someone approaching. He hadn't made it three years beating back the monsters trying to creep into the city without learning to trust his instincts, and tonight, his instincts had his fur bristling and his claws flexing. Calm. He had to stay calm.

But ready.

It was almost a relief when he finally found some tracks to follow. Just another kobold, trying to sneak in by cover of darkness. It hardly took half an hour to track it down and harry it back out into the wilds. He didn't like hurting the harmless ones, but they'd just be back tomorrow if he didn't scare them off proper. Better to give them a scar to remember not to go this way, than to have to drag them to the killing grounds.

They called them something else these days. Threat neutralization facilities, or something. But that's all it was. If you wanted a monster to die for good, you took it there. No more problem, no more interloper. At least they were mostly less... cruel, these days. A little poison in some water, and they'd go to sleep and never wake up. It was much faster like that, too. Didn't need a huge, ugly building anymore.

Like the one on his patrol tonight. Practically a fortress all its own, with the insides devoted to mass-producing slow, agonizing deaths. The old killing lodge, now abandoned. He was glad they didn't use it anymore... but there were a lot of strange rumors about why it had been abandoned. They'd still been cleaning out the last of its supplies when he'd signed on, and now it was decrepit... but sometimes creatures liked to hide out in there, trying to avoid detection. So he had to check it out thoroughly every time he had this route, and he hated it every time. They should just burn the damn thing down, if they weren't going to use it.

Chasing off the kobold felt normal enough he'd managed to shake off that sour feeling a while, but as the last echoes of the little bugger's cackling faded from his ears, that silence descended again, and... he almost felt lonely. It was always a lonely job, of course, but tonight, somehow, he felt even more alone... even as that sense that someone, something, might be stalking him rose again, making his hackles tingle and ever so slowly rise.

Twisting, he checked over his shoulder as he crept through the darkness. That time it almost sounded like footsteps, rushing toward him. But... there was nothing there. His paw ached from gripping the hilt of his dagger. This was foolish. He was a veteran Ranger. He'd trained others to face the worst this forest could throw at them. Turned cocksure brats into hardened soldiers. If they saw him twitching and jumping at shadows out here, they'd surely laugh all night at him. He didn't know why he felt like something was... wrong... but he couldn't let it distract him. Calm, steady. Get the work done. If there were something out there, he'd know. He'd know.

But his steps were slowing down, his feet growing heavier as the dirt took on the ugly black of old sins. He was getting close. Just up ahead... Peeking through a web of branches, moonlight gleamed off metal bars. It took what seemed a great many steps to come face to face with the building, to take it in once more. The old, metal gate hung open, useless since a tree had broken the perimeter wall a year or two ago. Built of stone, wood, and metal, the building had a misshapen, patchwork look to it after its many expansions and modifications. Two stories tall, but he knew that still more was hidden below...

The Ranger twisted without thinking to slip through the gate without touching the rust-tinged metal. He was inside now, and it was little surprise that this sense of... dread, of anticipation, only deepened the instant he crossed over. One door was missing from the front entryway, and the black inside the building seemed much deeper than the forest, untouched by even the full moon's shine.

In the courtyard, the Ranger paused. He knew what he needed to do, but for some reason, his feet were not moving. He stared into that darkness ahead of him, but his ears were swiveling constantly, trying to take in everything. From behind? From the side? From above? His body knew well the feeling of unexpected claws plunging into his back, or fangs closing in his neck, when he'd failed to pay attention, to listen for the smallest hint, to trust his instincts when he felt he might somehow be in danger. But he'd been feeling that way for hours now, and nothing had come. Still, he could not escape the feeling that if he took one more step, he would come apart in ribbons, watching his guts spill out before him. His teeth ached for grinding together.

He pried his fingers from his dagger and stooped for a fallen branch. Just a moment's work, a few sparks... and he had a basic torch. He held it behind him, trying not to completely ruin his night vision, and while his shadow jerked wildly at his feet like it too had ideas about creeping up on him... he found he could breathe again. His feet could move. Damn. Maybe it was time to start looking for a new job.

Leaking a low sigh, the Ranger moved forward. The darkness inside the slaughterhouse finally retreated, and he stepped through, leaving the rustling clatter of the forest behind in favor of the rumbling, cramped silence of a forsaken shrine to agony. His every breath, once silent, suddenly seemed loud bouncing off these walls, and he could hear the tight rasp in his throat. The fire crackled behind him, casting his shadow in strange shapes twisted over the walls and through open doorways.

It was just a building. A terrible old building, where people did terrible things, but it was only a thing now, a collection of walls and floors, with some bits of old furniture not worth salvaging. He leaned into the first room, and there was nothing there. The shadows trembled, but they did not jump out at him. The walls mocked his breath with flat imitations, but they did not close in on him or try to draw him in. There was nothing to fear here. Even if some monster had made itself a burrow here, he'd dealt with plenty of those before. There was no reason to...

In the back of his head, he wrestled to hold it down. To smother it. Don't think about it. The stupid rumors, about this place. That people had died, for good, but nobody could explain why. That something lingered here, that could not be killed. Because it was already dead.

That after decades of chaining beasts to the walls and letting them die slowly of thirst, or casting them into pits and letting them beg and waste away, or surrounding them with knives and letting them bleed themselves to death at their leisure... That after so many years, only the kind of man that relished suffering would keep working here, and they'd begun to work to make the creatures suffer even more, to ruin them and use them up, to pour all their hatred into the bodies of those unfortunate enough to be caught going where they shouldn't...

That there was a resentment in this place, a hatred, that lived on even after death. That the men that should not kill but let die, had managed to kill something so precious, so important, that it alone lived on after all the rest had wasted away.

He refused to think about the claims that something was still here, something nobody could explain or understand, that only came out on certain dark, cruel nights. He wouldn't think about it. Because he had finally escaped the rustling outside, the sense that something might attack him at any moment, and he wasn't going to... He wasn't fool enough to...

Motion. His imagination?

His mouth hung open, but he had to struggle to drag in a slow breath after a few silent seconds. He'd do it room by room. Steady. He was steady, and not letting dancing shadows get to him. Every room, he stepped in to make sure nothing was hiding in the corners. He tried not to look at the shackles, or the old, rust-rotten blades.

He paused at the stairs. Had it been here? That flicker of motion? He peered up... then down. Did the fire seem to... not reach so far, down there? The floor still seemed dark, on the landing below... His fingers flexed around the torch, and he... moved for the other stairs.

A clatter. Metal on stone. So soft, most others couldn't have heard it, but his ears were straining for the tiniest noise... and this was unmistakable. Something had just moved. In the basement. A stone tomb, where even these creatures, these so-called men, had done things they knew should be hidden from prying eyes. There was no wind down there. Nothing moved, anymore. Something was down there.

For just a moment, the Ranger closed his eyes. ...Fine. Something was down there. That's what he was here for. Probably another fucking kobold. Maybe he'd give it what it wanted and fuck it stupid just to blow off some steam. By all the gods, he needed it right now, even if it meant he'd have to scare it off again in another two days. Just... Just another kobold.

The stone steps were worn smooth, but the walls bore marks. Gouges from metal, and claws. He could almost hear the desperate struggles of the creatures hauled down here, never seen again. The incinerator was down there, too. Sometimes he imagined the air still tasted like ash, below ground.

Thankfully, the landing finally grew brighter as he descended... but turning to the next flight of stairs, the basement still seemed solid black below. He almost thought for a moment it must have flooded or something, but as his eyes adjusted, he could just make out the floor below. Every step was an effort, but he descended. ...Whatever he found down here was in for a hell of a night. Dammit.

The silence was crushing, down here. He almost choked on the sound of his own breathing, casting the fire down the hallway one way, then the other, searching for any tracks, any sign. Nothing. Well... he'd find it. Room by room, then.

These rooms were the worst. Tables too stained with blood to be worth salvaging. Bones lying around like decoration, or... mementos. Some of them had played at being scientists, with books and rough diagrams of anatomy, but some of the tools he saw lying swept into the corners had never been used for learning. Only for... personal satisfaction.

Nothing in this one. No kobold. He'd even take a damn werewolf, honestly. He just might overpower one out of sheer frustration with himself, he was wound so tight.

In here... nothing. Just a skull that looked a little too much like his might, on the verge of falling off a shelf.

And in this one... fucking nothing. No tracks, no movement, besides the shadows shivering in the light of his torch.

At the very end of the hall, he reached the last room. Well... on this side. For all he knew, whatever was down here had been on the other side, and crept up and out while he was in a room. He was screaming his presence, going around with a light. Stupid. But if it was gone, then at least... there was nothing in here with him.

The door on this one was nearly rusted shut, the hinge was so bad. He didn't even know why anyone had closed it, but he was careful about pushing it open, gritting his teeth against the tortured squealing of rust vibrating and flaking off. Inside...

Nothing. Some fucking whips and stupid shit like that. No eager little cock-gobblers or hungry lunks, or sneaky lizards or anything. The only one disturbing this tomb was him.

He stepped into the hall again, pausing to rub at his head. His head was pounding with his heartbeat, and it was starting to ache. Trying to make out shadows like this was a strain on his eyes, too. He never should have--

The flame guttered and died, silently. In the space of a breath, absolute darkness descended, and the Ranger stood at the bottom of a well of blood, struggling to breathe, eyes and ears searching but finding only his own panicked pants, struggling not to sound like whimpers. Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCKing fuck! His fur bristled as he scrubbed at his face a moment, dropping the torch to just... Okay. Stop it. You can do this. Even this far down, you can still see, if you just...

He was going to be okay. He opened his eyes again, blinking and focusing them, struggling to catch the tiniest motes of light. He grasped the wall to steady himself, even though the stone almost seemed to burn under his touch, caked with the sin of this place.

It was then that he knew he wasn't alone. He heard nothing, he saw nothing, but somehow, he knew. He felt something... someone... as though they were looking over his shoulder, or casting a shadow over him even in this lightless place. He felt like someone was talking to him, but he was too distracted to process it, to hear the words, so it was creeping into his consciousness from the bottom up. Angry. Frustrated. Lonely. Pleading. He looked around, as if he could somehow see someone beside him, in a solid wall. What? Who...?

He felt emotions, feelings that weren't his, crawling up in his throat. His mouth drew in a hateful snarl even as he searched the darkness in confusion. Finally, in desperation, his eyes settled on the only thing he could make out in this terrible darkness. The distant staircase... where once, his torch couldn't even seem to cast any light, he could now see a shallow pool of moonlight, a dozen times reflected, just below where the stairs must be. Except... as he dragged his feet in that direction, focusing on this one precious, distant spot of light, something seemed... wrong about it.

She just... she'd never wanted to hurt anyone.

The light was... bent, it was wrong. Even as he stared at it, drinking in this tiny remnant of light in all-encompassing darkness, it seemed to shrink and fade. The edges to either side dwindled to nothing, leaving in the center, a shape, long and slender. Shoulders, elbows, hips.

At first, she'd thought... maybe she'd find someone. Someone that wanted to be happy with her. Anyone.

He stopped. There was someone in front of him... between him and the way out. Except... there wasn't. There was... a shadow, except... it wasn't. It was moving, though he couldn't make out how, and where it was, he could see the light. Where it wasn't, the darkness was absolute, like it drank that light into itself. The moonlight on scarred stone was shaping into... a woman.

And when she came here... she'd been frightened, but at least they touched her. ...Until they figured out that she liked it.

His throat was so dry it scraped across itself as he swallowed. He clutched at the wall, staring at the impossible, blurred figure of a woman made of moonlight, some sort of impossible illusion cast across the stone of this dead place. He couldn't hear her sobs, but he could see her shoulders quivering inward, and he could feel the anguish, curling tighter and tighter around his spine.

She didn't know why they wanted her to die. But in the end, she just... she didn't want to die alone. Please. She just wanted someone to touch her.

He'd stopped, but she was... coming closer. The edges disappeared into darkness, but her body was growing larger. Her arms were... reaching out.

Was that so wrong? Even if they gave her no water, they could have at least let her know the warmth of another living being. One more time. Something besides cold metal and stone.

Close. Too close. His body was pulling taut, trembling, every muscle flexing, but he couldn't move, eyes wide, taking in the impossible sight of a woman, hollow and silent, reaching out for him.

Please. A little warmth. A caring touch. One more time, just one more time...

Something passed through his brow, a chill, like a puff of mist billowing through the inside of his skull. The world rocked, and his thoughts, his very self was scattered, what he thought a stone fortress now reduced to leaves on the wind. A terrible noise boiled out of his mouth, a gurgling screech.

Why won't you touch me... Why won't you love me... Lie to me even, just touch me! I need to be warm, I need to feel something, anything but this cold metal!

He was a panicked animal. He bolted straight through her, through this impossible image, and for a second he almost lost something passing through, like a sheet of icy rain tugging him out of his body in passing, but he was stumbling down the stone corridor a second later, nearly tumbling head over heel but scrambling on all fours up the stairs in a mindless rush, steps disappearing in the space between his thoughts.

Don't leave me alone!

That single cry, soundless but shrieking furiously through his mind, drowned out all thought as he mounted the top step. He could see the outside world. Real moonlight. Another reality, through that gaping rectangle... shrinking now into the shape of a woman as he stumbled toward it, barely aware of his feet moving under him. He skidded to a stop, but she was lurching closer, distance almost seeming meaningless between them. She was already frothing fury and tortured fear behind his eyes, between his ears. And the louder that silent keening rose, the more he heard... other voices rising.

--Let me go!
--What did I do?
--Do you know who I am?!
--I'll kill you! I'll KILL you! I'll kill every one of you!
--Just end it. Just let it end. Please.
--Momma! Momma, I'm sorry! Momma!!
--You will suffer. I will never forgive you. I will never forgive you.
--Not me. I can't die here. I can't let them down. I can't!
--Just make the hurting stop. You could make it stop. Why don't you make it stop?
--They said I'd be safe. They said I'd see you again...
--I hate you I hate you I hate you I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU
--Don't leave me! Don't leave me alone again! You can't! Not this time!

She was one babbling voice among many, dozens, hundreds. They were boiling up out of the earth, out of that damned place beneath his feet. Surrounding him. He could feel the snare closing around his neck. He bolted for the door, ready to bull through her again, but she was ready this time.

YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME ALONE!

A sheet of cold, and his body crumpled to the floor like a doll tossed aside.

Unseen, unheard, she descended, groping at his still-warm body. She still couldn't feel it. Not the warmth, not the flesh, not anything but this terrible cold. But for just a second that time, when she caught him, she'd almost felt... warm. Almost. Next time... next time, she'd catch one for sure. She wouldn't be alone forever.