Fear the Old Blood

A Monster Becoming: Part 2

Ludwig

Auna awoke with a wave of adrenaline, causing a strong inhale to pull her upright. She shook slightly, looking around and seeing that she wasn't in the dream any longer. She was in a room on a feathered bed. The room showed remnants of being lavish in its time, but the gold on the walls had now tarnished and the wallpaper had started to peel. Looking down, she saw that she had been tucked into the soft bed and wore a white linen gown.

"Oh, your awake," a voice from the doorway beyond called. It was a man dressed in church garb. He carried a silver tray that held a single cup. "How are you feeling?"

"Where am I?" Auna frantically climbed from the bed, not feeling the comfort of the dream anymore and remembering her near-death experience stronger than before. She felt as though the hammer was still falling towards her.

"You're safe for now," he said, approaching with such swiftness it scared her to feel him so close. He pushed her down onto the bed. "You're at the Healing Church, just outside the Cathedral Ward. My name is Ludwig."

Auna took a deep breath while her hectic mind grasped her reality. "The Healing Church?" From behind, she heard a sound that shook the windows. It was the sound that those giant creatures made when she and her fellow hunter approached. "What were those things?"

"Chapel Giant. They smell the infection and protect the innocents from it. They were just doing their duty for the church." He showed her clothes that were once covered in the blood of beasts, now cleaned and hanging over the folding screen in the corner. They must have smelled the decaying blood and assumed they were beasts.

"Ector, where is Ector?" Auna realized that her hunter friend was not around.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save your friend," Ludwig said, calmly taking a seat next to her on the bed. "He was taken by a snatcher that has been lurking around here for a while. I, unfortunately, couldn't help you both."

"A snatcher? That means that he will be taken to Hypogean Gaol. I need to help him," Auna was about to rush to her clothes in an attempt to save her friend.

"Why?" the man said grabbing her arm gently. "He was wounded, and you both were low on vials. I'm sure he bled out before he even got there." His words left a strange calm between them. He didn't even seem to regret the death of her friend, which made her mirror his reaction. "You're training to be a hunter?"

Auna nodded, sitting back onto the bed in defeat.

"Then here is a lesson for you: you cannot be tethered to anyone. Ector knew what he was getting into when he went on the first hunt, just as you knew that is the price you pay."

"He was just a boy," she half-whispered, remembering his face and how much like a child he was. Brave and reckless but terrified of the end. She could see her final glance before everything went dark; a shocked visage smeared in blood.

"And you, I see, are a girl. We don't see many of those in our ranks," Ludwig said with a brightened tone. "I was honestly shocked by what I found beneath those blood-stained clothes."

Auna felt herself close off, embarrassed that he might have seen her naked body. Her eyes fell on his clothing once again. He was a man of the church — a scientist, as it were. They were the ones that discovered the cure to the infection and the ones that healed many, putting their own lives at risk. Her embarrassment turned to guilt thinking such thoughts about her savior.

"Thank you, sir, I didn't mean any offense," she said, looking into his green eyes with respect. "I am Auna."

"And none is taken, Lady Auna, but please call me Ludwig," he replied with a warm smile. "Only my apprentices call me sir, though I have none to speak of right now."

"Are you a hunter then? I would have mistaken you for a cleric."

"Yes, the first to come from the Healing Church," he handed her the cup that was on the tray and left her side. "Drink that it will help build your strength."

Auna looked at the thick, dark liquid in the small cup. Taking a small drink, she tasted the sting of metal in her mouth and nearly retched when she realized what it was.

"The taste of blood can be difficult to get used to," Ludwig chuckled, "but it will make you feel better. Now I assume you were headed towards Byrgenwerth."

Auna swallowed down the first drink and looked at the cup with a lingering concern, but convinced herself to continue. "Yes, there is a master hunter who is training new hunters. I was told he is near Byrgenwerth."

"Of course Valtr," Ludwig spoke with a lace of disdain on his tongue. "He is a cocky hunter, that is for sure. Last I met with him, he was creating an army of hunters, sending hunters out in teams."

"You seem to look down on such things. Did you say you trained hunters?"

Ludwig turned back with a solemn and distant expression. "Yes, the hunters I train can survive alone. But I'm sure there is a use for a hunter army."

Once Auna's drink was finished, he encouraged her to move around a bit. All of her wounds had healed, but she still felt the ache of soreness. They had exited the room and the kind hunter took her on a tour of the healing church workshop.

Auna could tell that it was once a thriving hospital and church by the remnants of strange equipment and beautiful artifacts. But now, the halls were dusty and the walls were faded by the sun.

"Do you live here alone?" Auna asked, curiously. The man had made it clear that he hunted alone, but she thought it odd that he would live and work here alone, being the closest hospital to Yharnam. She thought the man odd-looking but still held a tragic beauty if you looked hard enough. Clearly, his appearance didn't reflect his age, as the years of hunting had waned on his features.

"For now. It is a difficult time and most healers have moved onto the Research Hall's, where much of the work is being done to cure those that need it. I have considered moving on, but there are some things I need to finish here. Yharnam isn't the city it used to be."

"My mother is still in Yharnam," Auna replied, feeling the pain of homesickness for the first time.

"You left her behind?"

"She just cowers in fear, unwilling to do anything to fix it," she started choking back a tear. While she loved her mother, she could no longer watch her be driven mad by the loss of her husband and two children to the plague. In her mind, her mother had died years ago and what was left was just a shell.

"And you want to fix it?"

"If I can, just as my father did. He was a hunter," Auna admitted.

"Ah, I was wondering why you wore such ill-fitting hunter's garb," Ludwig joked with a smile that warmed her heart.

"It is so quiet," Auna said as they walked out onto the balcony of the church. The city of Yharnam could be seen in the distance, a haze always looming above it. A fog of death and sickness.

"Is it?" he asked, leaning his back against the banister not amused by the vast view from the top of the church. "I hear many things, but perhaps it is because I have lived here so long."

"And you don't get afraid or lonely." Auna didn't think she could bear to be in such a dreary place alone.

"Afraid, no. I have faced things that you will probably never live to see. Lonely, perhaps. I have never had anyone willing to share this life with me. My life has been killing beasts and healing the sick. I know nothing else."

Auna looked at his sharp features and large eyes as he stared aimlessly at the stone wall. She pitied him and began to worry that she would lose hope, just like him and her mother. However, her father never gave in to despair and fought hard to free his family of these terrors until his death.

"Your skills would be appreciated elsewhere. There would be no reason to be so lonely," she offered.

"No, the church and I do not agree on how this disease should be handled. They are not all that, they seem just like most of us hunters, I suppose."

The phrase echoed through her head. The doll had warned of her the same thing. Nothing is as it seems. She could understand why he would feel that way. The disease only showed signs when it had completely consumed its host. Most of the time, you wouldn't know until it was too late to save them.

"You seem like a kind and generous person who saved me. You saved a stranger. The church just needs more men like you to make it better."

His large eyes locked onto her unblinking, sending a shudder down her spine. "Men?" he asked, his focus unwavering. "I'm not a man anymore. My humanity is shattered. I am... a hunter." His pause left her wondering what he meant as if being a human and a hunter were two separate things.

"I still see a man before me." It was her natural response to comfort, just like she had done for her mother.

"But you do not see what is inside," his eyes darkened and he moved closer to her, making her step back in fear. "You do not see the thousands of lives I haven't saved, the hundreds of hunters I have sent to slaughter the patients I couldn't cure and had to kill with my own hands. All of that is hidden inside. Do you truly want to be a hunter? Truly want to live in such sorrow?"

Their faces were nearly touching from his closeness and she could feel his chest pressing against hers. She slid her hand up to his cheek, cautiously brushing the scars on his face. She didn't want him to suffer any longer. She wanted to stop the pain, even if just for a moment.

"I'm already living in sorrow, but at least I can try to do something about it," she pulled herself up and brushed her lips against his. Auna felt his body freeze like a statue but did not relent. She could not save this world, but perhaps she could save him from himself.

"Hello, good hunter. What do you desire?" Auna's eyes opened again and found herself looking at the same familiar gray sky. Sitting up, she found the doll kneeling at a tombstone nearby, placing a bundle of wildflowers in front of it.

"Will I come here every time I sleep?" Auna asked. She was just in Ludwig's room, exhausted from their night in each other's embrace and now she was dressed in her hunter's garb.

"Yes, if you wish it. Many hunters cannot sleep and are lost from their path. They live in an endless nightmare that sends them mad."

Auna was growing tired of the vague answers from the doll and approached as she pulled herself to her feet. "Is Gehrman here?"

"Yes, but you are not ready to see him."

"You said I was a hunter, what will make me ready to see him."

"Yes, I see it in you, but Gehrman only speaks to true hunters that have fought beasts so terrible. You will fight one soon," the doll replied, sweetly tracing the names on the tombstone with her glass fingers. "But your spirit is sickly. Let the echoes become..."

"Wait, I have been healed by Ludwig. I'm not ill any longer," Auna replied, still confused by the doll's words.

"Ludwig?" she paused in her scribing and looked down at the grassy ground below her. "That is a name I haven't heard for a long time." The doll then stared at the tombstone again and touched her finger to the names on it. Auna tried to see what it said, but the stone was worn over the years and was nearly illegible. The doll left the stone and approached Auna with the same frozen face. "Take this. You will need it for your journey."

Auna felt something form in her hand and looked down to see a blood vial very different from the ones she had been using. Beneath it was a folded paper. She was about to ask what these items were for, but the doll was already raising her hand to her face.

"Farewell, good hunter. May you find your worth in the waking world. Now shut your eyes."