Remnant's 'Monster'

Chapter 1 - The Young Man

A shadow leapt from treetop to treetop under moonlight. The air was calm and cool in this dense forest, with not a cloud in the sky. The forest was lively for this time of night, insects and predatory birds making themselves be known through their chirping and soft beating of wings. The only thing out of place in this forest among its nightly sounds was the almost inaudible, occasional thump of wood, a light weight delicately, but quickly, being applied to each tree, the sound disappearing from one, to be heard from the next some metres ahead.

A series of miniature breaths of mist were left behind between each tree, a quiet exhale heard as the aforementioned shadow continued on its way, pausing only a moment to watch a murder of crows scatter into the night sky from a small, elevated clearing amidst the wood, the carcasses of several deer discarded near its outer rim, where they had gathered.
The stars were out, the only thing unsightly this night, in this moment, being the shattered moon that loomed above, the remnants of its body permanently fixed on its right side, an incomplete waning gibbous.

A sharp inhale was taken, followed by the much louder shake of a branch, the old oak from which the sound emitted creaking in response to the force exerted. The shadow leapt, revealing a young man. His figure was illuminated by the moon behind him, of which, his body blocked. From the brief display of him, he was lean, yet muscular, wearing the bottom piece of classical martial arts gi along with black slip-ons, the soles of them a dull grey from their once bright white. Something peculiar was the condition the gi was in. While wrinkled, it remained spotless from any dirt or stains.

The figure of the young man disappeared as quickly as it came, the leap he took enough to clear the opening in the forest. He fell down into the other side, landing on a branch, sparing a glimpse back before continuing forward, doing as he had before, moving from one oak to the next. It wouldn't be for a time that he would stop, the minutes, hours, spent until that point used to almost mindlessly travel through the forest. The only thing that separated him from one aimlessly drifting across the wood being the straight line he faithfully travelled in. He had an end goal to this, one to be discovered only if he were to continue pushing forward.

-

The young man did, in the end, stop. His stop was an abrupt one, but not one unplanned. As he leapt from the last branch in this forest, he did not feel another beneath his feet, in fact, he felt nothing, the reason for this being that, he was falling. Rapidly, too. Wind blew his gi upward, as well as his hair. His face, for the first time was seen clearly, sharp features and yellow eyes, shining as moonlight reflected off of them, long, spiked grey hair shaped into two large prongs and an open grin of glee spread across his face, almost perverted.

The young man continued in his fall, doing so in the open. He was a metre or so from the face of the cliff he had leapt from, quickly growing closer as he persisted in his descent. He reached out his left arm, separating the fingers of his hand before jabbing them into the hard rock, penetrating it in an instant. This wasn't without some cuts and bleeding, of which was only of a minor amount, not that he minded, he had long since gotten used to pain, be that because of his training or the task that was survival in the wilderness.

He anchored himself to the rock, turning his head to face it. He examined its texture and appearance for a while, looking over it to see if it would hold him. Satisfied that it would, he turned his head back to it, lifting himself up higher into the air. He closed his eyes, nose audibly taking in the air around him.

It wasn't a few seconds later that he kicked off from his position and dropped downward, his eyes set on a spot to the right of him on the horizon, where dim, artificial lights were seen emitting from, the cliff face having previously obscured it from his vision but no longer as his descent through the air now revealed it.