Wander

// Survival Instinct //

Wander closed his eyes, feeling a whimper rising in his throat. Despite praying that the sound had come from something of this world, deep down, he knew that the nightmare would never end. He had escaped the damn castle. He had survived the injuries and the insanity that the castle had poisoned his mind with. What else could he have done? What more did these monsters want from him?

He felt tears well up in his eyes, and instead of fighting them, he let them flow freely. He couldn't do it any more. It had won, and he had lost, and now he would die alone. He couldn't go any further - he couldn't fight any longer - he couldn't resist any harder.

Yet at the deepest points of his failure and the heart of his consciousness, Wander could feel something stirring inside of him. It was a peculiar feeling, one that words couldn't describe. Among the thunder and lightning, the mud and muck, the fear and terror, Wander felt something...different. Something, some little voice in his head, whispering to him and telling him that giving up would make him the one thing he absolutely refused to be - a coward.

An odd sort of calm settled over him as he struggled to get to his feet, trying the best that he could to avoid use of his damaged hands. His movement launched another chorus of hissing from the darkness, which puzzled Wander. Why hadn't it already attacked him? It could have easily picked him off by now. Was it...playing with him?

He faced the darkness as if the lack of light itself was his enemy, trying his best to snarl. "Do it. Do it now, you monster. Do it now and we can end this once and for all. Do it and get it over with, eat my face like all the other, throw me away once you've had your fun, but just kill me already."

He was met by the same low hiss from before, droning on for a few moments before tapering off. But something about it was...different. New. Strange. Similar, but not quite like it had been before. Almost as if their wasn't just one hiss, but many, many more...but that couldn't be right. That would be insane.

Wander stared into the darkness, swelling his chest up as if intimidation would somehow play a part in this. The house went still, the sounds of the downpour outside filling the empty void that would have otherwise been deathly quite.

Why wasn't it attacking him? It could easily kill him now if it wished to do so, but instead it was hesitating. Was it...scared? No, that wouldn't make sense - what could scare a demon like that?

At this point, all common sense had now abandoned Wander, instead being replaced with a newfound sense of calm. For some reason, at this point, he didn't care any more. He had done the best that he could to escape, but he was too hurt, to exhausted to keep going.

He took another step into the house, and then another, and then another - each step accompanied by louder and louder hissing. Wander was sure now that something was scaring that thing - all he had to do was figure out what it was.

He quickly ran down a (very) short list of what it could be. It couldn't be him, that thing had actively hunted him from the moment he woke up in the castle. He doubted it was something within the house he had stumbled upon, or else the monster's wouldn't have hidden here in the first place. Loud noises maybe? It was pretty noisy from the downpour that was ravaging the poor seaside settlement at the moment. 

Wait - the downpour. He frowned to himself, glancing back at the door. Was it possible...that those things where afraid of water? Come to think of it, he hadn't managed to find water anywhere within the confines of that hellish castle he had escaped from...

Figuring that it was worth a try, Wander slid his coat off, kneeling down slowly, eyes glued to the darkness around him. He wrung out what was remaining of his torn and tattered coat, cupping some of the water in one of his ravished hands. Pausing for a moment to steel his nerves, he whipped his hand out into the light deprived space, sending the small amount of water he had everywhere.