Fear the Old Blood

At Nightmare's End: Part 3

Epilogue 

"Good hunter, Gehrman awaits you."

Fog swallowed her. She could see nothing. Feel nothing. Just the echo of the Doll.

"Gehrman awaits you."

Her head lay in a bed of wildflowers though she could not smell their sweet scent. Not even the petrichor of the earth could she sense. Rolling over she looked to see the workshop in the distance. The dream. I am not dead.

Her eyes drifted over to the iron gate that blocked her path to the workshop. By the path stood the Doll. Her head hung low on her shoulder as if in deep prayer.

"Ah, you must be Hunter Auna," a cackling voice called. Auna turned to see a man sitting in a wheelchair atop the hill. A worn hat covered his face with long stringy white hair protruding from it. She climbed to her feet, the world spinning around her as if she floated in a fish bowl.

"Who are you?" Auna asked.

"I am..." the man paused as if trying to remember his name. "Gehrman, a friend."

"Gehrman. I have been trying to find you. Am I a true hunter?" She limped towards him, her body felt as though it were being dragged into the ground. So tired.

He laughed. "You always have been a hunter, since you picked up your father's spear."

"Then why haven't I been able to see you. The Doll said that I needed to prove myself."

"And so you have, I have been waiting for you," he said, a bony finger reaching out to her.

Auna sat on her knees and gave her hand to the old hunter. It trembled at her touch but then surrounded her hand. She could feel it. The warmth.

"I don't understand. I had to defeat a terrible beast but I didn't kill Ludwig," she began. Her mind tossed into the chaos of green lights. The moonlight sword falling down onto her, splitting her into a million shards of glass.

"Ah Ludwig. Accursed to live in the nightmare. But he is not yours to defeat," Gehrman said. "But I think you are ready for your final task. You've done well. The night is near its end. Will you give up that which you have coveted?"

"I don't understand," she said.

"Ah, dear child, you have known all along. This was never about the hunt, the blood, your father." His fingers tightened around her hand, willing her to think.

"I wanted to save my people," she began but her hand was jerked forward pulling her close to him.

"No, no, no," he grumbled. "This wasn't about them."

"My mother..." she tried again.

"NO," he yelled. "This is not about her. This is about you. You fought all this time. Killing, slaughtering, mutilating. For what?"

"I WANTED TO LIVE," she screamed at him.

"What did you covet?" he asked again.

"My life," Auna began, setting her head on his knee. "I had lived in fear all my life. I thought my father would save us. I thought he would make the monsters go away. But he didn't. I left because living in fear wasn't living at all, it was choosing death. Allowing it to consume you before the end. I needed to know all the death and destruction was worth it just to live."

"And was it...worth it?" he whispered, a hand stroking her hair.

"Yes," she said simply.

"Will you give up that which you have coveted?" he said.

"What will happen to me?"

"You must accept your death. Forget the dream, wake up to the morning. Be freed from the night."

Auna laughed through her tears. "It sounds like heaven."

"Sit up, my child," he said after a long pause. Auna sat back, looking at Gehrman with weeping eyes. "Do you accept your fate?"

"What will happen to you?" she asked.

"I will stay here. Ferryman to the hunters that come after you. The hunters that will end the cycle, end the night for good. Sleep now." He stood from his wheelchair, legs wobbling and creaking. From his back he pulled a scythe, stretching it out above his head. He looked at Auna, holding the weapon close to his chest, waiting.

"Please end this dream."