Another Dreary Hunt: Forbidden Studies

1 O'Clock: It Hurts

Rom stood behind me, her robes stained a little by dirty water and the blood which was dripping down her cheek from the corners of her eyes. Her hair was in its signature ponytail, yet she looked strangely...off. The way she stood, her slight hunch as opposed to the prim and proper demeanour she usually had. For someone so young she looked tired, her eyes sporting faint bags under them as she trudged forward. Laurence turned to her with narrow eyes, the corpse he still clutched at slumped in its chair. There was a metallic clang as her blade dropped to the ground before deafening silence. No one dared to move, or even breathe, as Rom approached the vicar. She eventually spoke, "Laurence, First Vicar of the Healing Church and murderer of the innocent." He looked shocked, his previously calm eyes becoming strangely panicked. "What are you talking about?"
"Killer." She stepped forward.
"Blasted girl, explain yourself!"
"Monster." Another step.
"You've lost your mind, scholar, perhaps you should return to Byrgen-"

"Beast." She stopped, watching his face contort from confused panic to burning rage.

His hand dropped the body before sliding down his form to the pommel of his blade. "How dare you..."
"Rom," I moved to her, pulling her away from the clearly irked Laurence, "what are you talking about?"
"They're nothing but animals, Chess. I felt it all, how they wrenched people from their homes as they wailed and begged. I could smell the lingering iron as I sulked through red streets, alleys blocked by their corpses."
"Ludwig!" the vicar cried, his lapdog quickly walked to Rom and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck. "Take her away, throw her to the Hunt!"
"That's just it, isn't it! The Healing Church, a Bastion of Knowledge!" Rom struggled, a chilling grin creeping across her face. "It sits on pillars of blood and iron, able to fill canyons with those who died for their so called 'insight'! And what about that which you do not understand? Out of sight, out of mind. As long as the Old Blood sits in your precious little vials or running through your veins of dirt you can rest easy in your beds."

I took a step back, still not able to comprehend what was happening. She was speaking nonsense, attacking them with gibberish yet her words cut like daggers. I saw the usually composed Laurence grow mad with anger, his eye beginning to twitch as under Rom's ravings I heard the grinding of his teeth. Ludwig was struggling to hold her, she slipped from his grip and pulled the book from her holster. Out of instinct I rushed to grab her wrist, moving in front of her as the book dropped from her hand. "Rom, calm down." I reassured her. "I'm here, it's me. It's Chester."
"They use the innocent like stepping stones across the lakes of blood they forged. Look inside, Chester, you'll see it too..." She muttered with a giggle.

This was not her.

I remembered when she first came to Byrgenwerth, bags filled with books and frazzled hair as she tried to carry it all herself. I offered to help, only to be met with a puffed out cheek as she walked past. She promptly tripped and dropped everything before I swooped in to help her pick it all up. That was when we first got talking, about where she came from and why she came. It was the stars which drew her, astronomy. She wished to learn more about the vast cosmos we lived in; track constellations and study the illustrious moon which hung over Yharnam like a sentinel of the night. Arcane knowledge hidden behind distant questions, the stars were unreachable but she was determined. Oh, her determination! She sat night after night in her dorm with a beautiful black telescope, watching those sparkling holes in the night's veil. Once I found her asleep on her notes, so close to the answers she was looking for yet her mortal frame kept her back. It was cute, in a way. I tidied her things away and put her to bed. I did that a lot. I guess that was because I loved her.

But this? I did not love this. A crazed loon struggling in Ludwig's arms, screaming so loud she probably woke the citizens of the city over the hills. When I thought about it, however, it scared me more. She had to be right, why else would Laurence react this way? Her constricted pupils flicked frantically from Laurence, to the corpse, to the students all holding their blades up towards her. I looked at my friend, who met my eyes for the first time in a few hours, before I saw whatever was possessing her vanish. Just for a second. She did not look in pain, she was not suffering. She welcomed it.

I turned to Laurence, hand on my pick. "Sir, what is she talking about? Who have you killed?"
"Nothing but beasts, she's gone mad. It seems the blood has finally gotten to her."
"But you look so scared, what is wrong Vicar Laurence?" I stood in between the two, eyes narrowed. "What aren't you telling us? We came to this clock tower for you while the hunt is raging out there. People are dying, Laurence!"
"People will keep dying unless we achieve greatness! Can't you see the cycle, you dim-witted fool!?" He drew his pistol, a lovely wooden creation with an engraved iron barrel. "We started this, when we found the Old Blood. It's healing properties were...Extraordinary yet it unleashed something darker, an ancient evil which won't stop consuming us. Our minds can't comprehend them, but they're there. Watching. Always watching. Even now." He looked at his hands, twitching. "One took pity on us. Offered us salvation from this hell. We must find her."
"You missed out the experiments, holy man! The pillaging of our people!" Rom screamed, wrenching free from Ludwig's grasp. "They belonged to that thing, that monster!" He retorted. "I did it for us! We would become as gods!"
"But to do so you had to become beasts..." I concluded.

I failed to hear anything after that. My vision blurred into a mess of dark colours, like a whirlpool in my eyes. I saw slow moving shapes, bright lights whizzing around me yet none of it made a sound. It was peaceful, like the library on a quiet night. I swore I could see it for a second before my vision began to return to me. I was on the ground, looking at the sanguine pools forming in my cloak, an especially dark one around my chest as the previously unfelt pain immediately shot back to me. Burning, stinging, the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. I felt the scream rise in my throat, but the panic prevented it from releasing. The smell of gunpowder still lingered in the air.