The Messengers of Sanctuary

21 - Benjamin

Benjamin stared down the Canid several days after it marked him for death.

The last three days had been absolute heck and he really needed some way to vent. So he'd called his Reapers to go for a run of the surrounding area, trying to lure the thing out.

They'd succeeded.

Now, everyone else was gone.

Part of Ben kind of wanted to just go out here, it was a noble way to die. Perhaps the Canid would leave everyone alone after he was gone, or perhaps he could manage to take it down with him. It wasn't like he had anything better to do. He was marked for death, might as well have something to brag about in the afterlife.

Ben was oddly calm as he faced the creature across from him, it was the calm of a man who had nothing left to lose. The calm of a man who knew that if things ended as they should, he could protect his camp one last time.

He held up his sword.

Somehow from the beginning, Ben had known that using anything more was cheating. Somehow this beast, the Canid, was a being of honor. Even as it sought to consume him. It wanted to fight this battle the right way. And Ben could tell that, somehow. So he left his bag with his other weapons off to the side.

For the first time, Ben didn't charge first, he held his sword at the ready, calmly circling the space across from the Canid. It seemed confused about that tactic at first, which proved once more that it was capable of learning.

But eventually, after several minutes, the Canid charged at him. Teeth bared, clearly wanting more of his blood. Ben didn't dodge, last time the only opening he'd gotten was as the Canid bit him. He was still wounded, but the creature easily tore through the bandages at his side, it seemed to have some sort of obsession with that spot.

Ben winced slightly but besides that he didn't hesitate, he brought the sword down near the thing's neck, it didn't go through, but it bit deep with the force behind it. With that, the Canid retreated, seemingly confused once more as Ben continued to stand, holding his sword at the ready.

Then he felt something...that was distinctly off.

The blood that was seeping down his side changed somehow, he felt almost aware of it, as if it was still a part of him, beating with the thrum of his heart. He didn't have much time to figure that out, the Canid charged again, sensing that he was weakened.

Ben brought his hand up, a stupid move since it wasn't even his sword arm. But the Canid made a pained noise and halted, snarling at him. Somehow Ben got the sense that it was calling him a cheater.

A cheater? What had he even done?

Ben glanced down at his wounds, still getting some strange sense from it, he blinked only to see that it had stopped bleeding, the blood was hugging his side like some kind of messed up armor. Okay maybe I've lost more blood than I thought...perhaps he was hallucinating? That could do it. It wasn't like blood acted like that, it was against the laws of physics or something.

He gripped his sword harder, looking back up at the Canid. It was a bad idea to look away from an opponent anyway.

The Canid was in the middle of charging at him again, Ben cringed and held up his sword, ready for an attack. He attempted to step to the side once he realized what was happening, but the creature tackled him to the ground. Ben felt the air violently leave him as his sword fell from his hands. Claws dug into his flesh, and the thing snarled in his face.

With each prick of the claws, Ben felt blood well to the surface, and then that strange awareness bubbled outward. At this point, he was definitely starting to notice the pain, plus as he'd been tackled to the ground, he currently couldn't breathe, and the Canid was on top of him so he sorely doubted he would live much longer to regret the lack of oxygen. The Canid growled lowly, as if saying 'See? This is what happens when you cheat, I cheat back.'

Ben's only response was a half-dead wheeze.

The undead Dingo on steroids huffed and licked his wound. As if trying to cement the fact that he would be turning into a zombie in the next four days.

Ben attempted to shove it off of him since it hadn't quite mauled him yet, and getting it off him was really his only chance at survival, but the thing was easily twice his size and it only looked down at him contemptuously.

Entirely out of options, Ben focused on his blood, it was still doing some weird crap so perhaps it was the answer. Plus it wasn't like he had anything else up his sleeves. As he focused on that strange awareness, the Canid sat on him harder, as if noticing what he was doing.

What was he doing anyway? Ben had no idea.

But as he focused on his blood, it changed. A large part of it left his side, unsticking with ease.

After that, it began to float and Ben decided that this was just getting too weird. But well, clearly he was controlling it, so he tried to make it attack the beast on top of him, and...it did so, moving quick enough to slice flesh as it bit into the Canid.

At this point, Ben was just glad that he had some type of weapon.

The Canid looked at him for a long moment after that and fled.

---

Chrissy bandaged him up again, clicking her tongue at his wounds. He'd shown her the weird blood thing and she'd just shrugged it off as some type of strange infected person thing. It probably was, and in reality, Ben knew he didn't have time to appreciate it, but Chrissy did remark that it helped a great deal with not losing blood. But there were plenty of downsides.

"Dear, blood moving around outside your body and then going back in? You'll get all kinds of diseases." Chrissy shook her head at him.

"It's not like I'll live long enough to regret it." The solemn answer quickly ended all conversation.

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I know what you're thinking, 'What the heck, Repeat! there wasn't any magic in the original works this is based on! what you doooooiiinnnn!?!??'

and to that, I have but one response. 

...artistic liberty.

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