MereHuman

Chapter 4

Time passed, but none of us could tell how much. The light quality never changed, it was always somewhere before dusk. The apothecary discovered the lichen in the cave was edible, if just barely, but it was also the only water source. The parched air of this area whisked away the sweat from our brow as soon as the heat created it. We discovered there were more than beasts and the monstrosity living in the area, but I would scarce call these twisted creatures animals. It was the crafty lion that tried to eat the flesh of one first. It was impossible to cook and only kept for a brief time after the kill, but when eaten raw we found it juicy and refreshing as a flask of water.

Eventually we figured out a little on how to tell time. The women's time of the month was our only measure. It was also the most dangerous for the blood drew in the thinking beasts as we called them. Fighting the shadows of one or two at a time was doable. We had to abandon three separate caves due to the crafty lion hiding her woman hood. We also developed ways to hide our human stink. Three months passed in this way and we stumbled upon ruins of some sort. Larger than any city we had heard of, the black stone the ruins where carved out of stretched further than the eye could see. On many surfaces there was a scrawling script, sometimes it had it's own light, a sickly green, and sometimes naught. Staring at it for to long caused your stomach to turn. 

We spent another few months exploring those ruins, it seemed the beasts avoided them for some reason. We found out why too late. Our bear came down with an illness and though his frame had suffered in the months here, he began to drastically waste away. The apothecary identified the cause to be the words themselves. The bear had deciphered some of the markings and written down their meanings in his own journal, modeled after the apothecary's, whom he had taken a fancy to. The writings in the journal were less sickening, but the more you understood the writing in the stone the more it affected you. The power of the glowing words was taken directly from those that read it. We all now understood more than we could stand and were forced to leave the ruins.

We crossed the ruins coming out in a different area. It was ever so slightly cooler and more moist. Patches of brown plant life existed here, while I'm not sure if I had become accustomed to the taste of the lichen or not, this brown plant was far tastier in my opinion. A year passed on that plain. We fought and hid and our clothes became tattered and worn so much so that they no longer served any purpose. I was able to learn a bit about crafting with the hides of the creatures we killed for food. It dried just quickly enough to make a sturdy outer wear and the brown plant was tough enough to serve as string to bind it together. For a time it was almost peaceful or the routine of it all gave a semblance of order and balance.

Two years into our survival I noticed my sword felt small in my hand and it caused me to slip up during a fight. The crafty lion paid for my mistake with her life. After the kill we feasted, but I realized then that we never buried the bear. A finger fell from my mouth and I looked into the apothecary's eyes and she had realized the same. We had become beasts somehow. With nothing, but survival on our minds any fresh kill was needed to sustain us. It was more than the apothecary could bear and she wandered off into the wastes leaving behind the two journals, hers and the bear's. 

I continued on for an amount of time I cannot fathom. The stinging air no longer bothered me and I killed when hunger or thirst took me. I carried the books and added to them as I could, a word here, a new plant or creature there. I looked and was struck dumb by a color I never thought to see again. Green stretched out before me, it was dirt and rock, but it was green. The surface reacted to my presence and would light where I stepped. I feared for the same death as the bear, but looking back I had been stepping in these new wastes for further than I could see. It must have been the words themselves that had the deadly power. 

I bent forward and picked up some dirt, it glowed softly in my hand. All the words in the book spoke of death and suffering. I had no words for life and prosperity. I packed some of the dirt into a bag I had made. When did I make it, I couldn't remember. On I travelled, killing in these wastes was treacherous as life seeped out of your kill the ground would seep life from anything living that touched the dying body. I learned to carve meat off with the killing blow so that my spoils never touched the ground. I had to hunt more, but it was the only way to stay alive. I had no purpose other than to live.

I found myself in a scorching white waste next, but it mattered little. I moved forward, I killed, I ate. I couldn't remember the last time I had slept. Something pushed me on without rest and it was there in the white that I saw it. Pillars of black barely taller than my head standing on a rounded dais. In the base were inscribed words in the script of this area. I read them aloud, but understood nothing. The words it turns out were easy to speak as the bear had discovered. I stood there reading them until I needed to hunt again. I chased my kill far, but found myself drawn back toward the black pillars by some unknown force. Any way I turned and walked after a while I would end up back there.

I looked through both books, all the entries made by all of us and finally hit on something. The green dirt and the green words in the great ruin. I filled each rune with as much dirt as I could, going back and forth to make sure and even amount was in each piece. I finished my work and waited for something to happen. I waited for long enough to grow frustrated, I threw the bear's book in between the pillars and shouted into the sky my hoarse dry voice barely passing my mouth. I thought to myself, this is the end and went to pick up the bear's book. I sat and wept for all I could the tears immediately dried on my face making it crusty with salt. Through my dry eyes I looked once more at the etching of the words and once more I read them aloud.

The words began to glow and the green dirt seemed to burn out of them. I felt it at my back first, wetness and a cool breeze, were those things that had always existed? I jumped to my feet and looked, behind me was a ring of fire perfectly suspended between the pillars and through the fire darkness. I stepped through without a second thought and darkness consumed the world. There was no light in this place, but I heard what sounded like the trickling of blood over stone. I made my way to the sound thinking to myself, what a waste the heat would rob that of all its moisture soon enough. I approached it in the darkness and reached for it. This blood was cold and not just cold, but a barely remembered word of my past crept out of the depths of my brain. It was freezing. I yelped in surprise at this new sensation, but my skin seemed to immediately need more of this cold blood. My mouth begged to taste it and as it did my body went into shock from its touch. I was paralyzed on the floor with half of my face in a pool of. . . Water.