Amusements; or, a Winter Novel

Chapter 5 - Fast Times

Chapter 5 - Fast Times

I hang out with Hunter in front a bar-style kitchen area drinking light brandy and low-alcohol beer. We're both lightweights, ok???

"I... umm..." I said: "she accidentally stabbed herself while weeding the lawn and stuff. She nearly died bleeding out, and because I couldn't call an ambulance, I acted instinctively. Ok? I'm sorry. Know that I will never, never - never - take your wife and happy life away from you. I'm not that kind of person. Scumbag, if I'm being honest."

"Well, you said it." Hunter said. "But no worries. That ship has sailed. You didn't do anything wrong - I was the one who acted instinctively. You see, we were friends for... I don't fucking know. Years? I was 19 when I proposed to her. When she said yes, you couldn't possibly imagine my glee. We've been married ever since."

"You really love your wife that much, huh?" I asked.

"I never thought of her as anything less than amazing." Hunter said.

It was at this point that the alcohol settled in, and we started becoming more honest with each other over a drink at the "bar".

"It must be nice... you know?" I said. "When Belos enacted the Day of Unity, I lost everything. My parents, my brothers and sisters, my home village burnt to a crisp to the ground... when that happened, I became a wanderer. When Belos fell, I created my own one-way portal out of there, and here is where I ended up. I wandered for hours, and I found some clothes nearby a pool of water nearby a waterfall of some sort inhabited by skinny dippers, and stole them and wore 'em for myself. Then I found Kuma, my cat that I mentioned earlier. He's not a person, but he's been the only company I've ever had since coming here 3 years ago.

That's when I found Gravesfield.

I tried to fit in by acting like the humans, hiding my ears, thinking like the humans, being like the humans. I worked odd jobs and I say "odd" with a capital "O", because these were jobs I had never even known existed in the Boiling Isles.

Then I eventually "made" it. Became a certified American citizen, got my own job, my own place where I stay and sleep and shit and eat and play video games, where I write essays and blogs, still got Kuma, but the damage that I took when Belos took my home, my family, away from me, as nothing short of a petty despite against witch and wizardkind, I feel it everywhere. In the nightmares I wake up from. In the flashes in my mind I get attacked by. It sickens me like a never-ending poison drip.

I thought about ending it once or twice, but I'm too full of myself for that, so I just push forth, shrug it off, and power through it.

People like Belos, I'd give up friends and family and even precious things to denounce and prevent the rising of. All of them are redeemable. Because people like Belos, are nothing more, and nothing less, than irredeemable."

"That sounds rough." Hunter said. "I'm sorry for that.

You know? When the information that I was a Grimwalker, another one of Belos' pets to use and dispose was disclosed, I thought I would get persecuted. But I had friends, still do, who tell me often even to this day that it's not my fault that Belos did those things, it's his. And I'm not just his pet, or the Golden Guard - I'm my own person. And because of that, I'm able to wake up in the morning and not think of offing myself. Because, in a weird way, existing still as a person Belos despised is kind of a rebellion against him, even though that clergyman-wannabe has been long gone for years. And because of that, I wake up still.

Hey, wait. You said that Belos had planned the Day of Unity as an attack on people like us. How do you know about that?"

"Enchantment magic." I explained. "Something I dabbled in in my younger years. I enchanted my cat with a power to where only he can travel between this world and the Boiling Isles. When he got me the news that the Day of Unity had all been his devious plan to resentfully disregard and doom and damn and persecute people like us, I was enraged. Then when Belos fell, and Kuma gave me word of his passing, I nearly cried a public tear of joyfulness. Believe me, while his somehow-faithful witch and wizard followers grieved his death and his slandering deplored, I was holding a celebration for myself. A personal one with Kuma, where we both drank wine that was designated to only be consumed for new years. Funny, right? Light doth but shame disclose the damnation of darkness, the poets said."