Another Dreary Hunt: Forbidden Studies

3 O'Clock: The Small Print

Rom's POV

It took me a while to realise I was screaming, hitting the cold chest of my friend. I was expecting him to jolt up, push me away with a jovial smile as he complained about the noise - I wanted to hear that wit, but it never came. The raw, animalistic cries that were deafening my own ears echoed across the forest, the trees appeared to recoil in fear. I hoped the hunters believed it was the mindless beasts, rather than my mindless despair. Eventually I became silent, my eyes bolted on Chester's corpse.

This could not be real, I repeated to myself. I am asleep at my desk, I will wake up with paper stuck to my face and ink on my hands. To make sure I pulled out a small penknife and stuck it into my thigh, it sank about an inch and spurted blood onto the grass around me. I did not feel it, but I could see it was not working. I pulled the knife back out and let it fall from my grasp. What was I to do? I was alone in those cursed woods, with beasts hiding in the shadows waiting for a time to strike.

Suddenly, I felt my heart tense and my arms begin to shake. "You idiot..." I muttered, glaring at his body. "You idiot!" I picked up a rock and threw it at his chest with a soft thud as he did not react. "Why did you have to push him!? That was my job! You should have just let Ludwig drag me away, I could handle it! But no, no no no NO! That's not good enough for Chester, always has to get in the last word!" My eyes began to glaze over, it was getting hard to see him through the tears. I heard the pulse of blood through my ears as I began to sob, burying my face into his torso. "Please come back...I can't do this by myself. I want to go home, I want to leave this cursed place. I want to leave with you." My mumbled begs failed to reach him. "Please. You're all I have, you're all I want." I was lost, truly empty. The truths I was shown meant nothing anymore, what good is knowledge when my heart has been shattered. Why live in a world of monsters when my only anchor to sanity has been wrenched from my grasp. A world like this should fester, those tiny creatures running around worrying about their hunt do not know the horrors hanging all around them. Gods within their fingertips, a whole cosmos against heir insignificant lives. Rot, rot, ROT! Burn away and never come back! I wanted the world to break around me, fall apart like me...

Then, a thought. It did not matter. I have nothing to lose. With Chester gone everything I cared about was now moot, thus I could do whatever I wanted. I fell to my knees and faced the moon, her gaze like a calming blanket washing over me. Clasping my hands, I began to mutter. "Dear Kos, wonderful purveyor of knowledge. I ask you this. I have seen your power, I have seen what is left of it, and although I am nought compared to you I ask...Bring him back. I cannot go on without him, if he is not with me I will surely waste away in this cruel place. Kos, Kos! Hear my prayer! Answer me! Give me back the love these animals so brutally took from me!"

Silence...Nothing. My heart sank as all I heard was the fading wind, until suddenly those ghostly wails turned into roaring waves. Her lullaby of salt. "Dear Rom," her maternal voice comforted me, "you have been through much. Seen more than anyone can in one lifetime. You are special to me, for you are a witness to my tragedy - My murder. Your pains are my pains, when you mourn the sea softens in sorrow. To save you from such misery, I will help you." I was ecstatic yet I could not move, my body was locked in place. "My sweet, vacuous Rom. I will twice fill the void in your heart. Bring back the one you hold so dear...And give you a purpose in this putrid world."

She stopped for a moment, a pain crawling up my arm. I did not scream, no matter how much I wanted to. This would save him. "You shall be the sentinel of a most glorious moon-filled lake."