How much time has passed? I can't tell at all. The sky is constantly covered by thick sea of nearly black clouds, and neither sun nor moons are visible.

I continue to to be fixed in my position as if a frozen statue. The falling snow covered my whole body with a thick layer of frozen crust a long time ago, and the only thing that is still open is the area around my face, but that is only because my breathing is melting down the snow.

I am breathing.

Dead do not breath. But that makes no sense. How can one stay alive without drinking or eating in this frozen hell for so long?

Maybe I am dead, and this is afterlife, I don't know any other way to explain it. There is also the thing that I can feel my heart beating, moving warm blood around what can be called body, which is pinned to this frozen altar for who knows how long.

I am alive.

I survived.

[Why?]

[Answer me. Why?]

[Why are you still trying? Why do you relentlessly continue to torture us?]

[Why can't you let us die?]

Because that is the only thing I know.

How to survive against all odds, how to continue standing after every fail, how to continue grasping the last straw when all has been lost.

What about you? Why do you care? After everything you said, after everything we did, after everything I did, you are still here, in my head.

Why?

[I don't know.]

[You made me that way.]

[At some point we took our roles, and never let them go. Those roles became part of us, maybe they are more us that we are ourselves.]

[You, the undying creature that know no rest, and me the immortal tormentor which questions everything you do and think.]

[And I will never leave you, even when all will be lost, even when everyone will either die or betray us.]

[I will be there, because no one else will, because no one is left except me.]

[No one...]

We both become quite as the same name comes to our minds, and we silently let the precious liquid flow out of our eyes.

...

I don't know how long I have been here. There is no day or night, no past or present, only now, only time.

And I have not been idle, the whole time was spent on rethinking every step of my life, every decision I made, every word I said. At first it slowly trickled down drop by drop, but quite quickly the waterfall of memories burried me under them. I am not sure if there exists a point in my life, which I still remember, and did not rethink.

And the more I thought, the more the mosaic grew. And the mosaic grew, the more it started taking solid form, and making sense.

It was all a god damn play.

Pathetic, second rate theater play.

And HE orchestrated it all.

A boy just happened to be born with too much mana and no affinities at all in the middle of nowhere.

A boy just happened to read enough books to get into mage academy.

A boy just happened to lose everyone and everything he cared about, and decide to drown himself in his studies about magic and mana circulation.

A boy just happened to survive long enough to understand that he was going to be used as mana stone and escape.

A boy just happened to find sanctuary at Blood Brotherhood, group which is specialized in hunting down dark and magic creatures.

A boy just happened to survive thousands of life and death encountered and come out tempered and alive.

A boy just happened to end up in the temple of the original fallen and get cursed by an ancient ritual.

A boy just happened to escape the best hunters of the empire and live several years in north where the curse did not kill him, but festered enough.

A boy just happened to find a tiny light, during his travel to his final grave, and be revived by it.

A boy just happened to lose..... her.

A boy just happened to fail in a simple task, which was reaching lower floors of a dungeon.

A boy just happened to die in the perfectly right moment, at the perfectly right time.

How could the boy be so blind, so oblivious to what was happening?

How could the boy be so weak not to stand strong and try to solve the issues, rather than evade them?

That could have been also part of the plan.

It is hard to accept that all the happy and sad events in your life, every single encounter, every connection and loss was planned with a single purpose, to prepare you as a perfect vessel. So that in the very end, you can be killed as a fat pig on an open feast.

Was my life really mine?

What would you say if tomorrow you learned that every important point in your life was planned beforehand, and you never really had a choice in it? As if you were sitting in a chair and someone was reading you a story where you are the main character, but only in the end, when the story was about to end, you would understand you had no control over it, that the story was written even before it began.

But there are also few things that became apparent. I am not dead. I was, but more likely am not anymore.

I am more likely on south pole. Polar lights appeared through the nearly black skies some time ago. It was not the same as the one in the north, the colors and waves looked a bit different.

And the last thing, there is no one else here, I am absolutely alone.

How did I end up on south pole? Who brought me here? Why am I alive?

It does not matter.

If I really am alive, and this is south pole, HE should not be able to get me here, or at least I believed so. But after reviewing my whole life, I started questioning everything I knew, every fact, every book, every person.

What if HE actually can reach me at the poles, and was simply faking it, making me believe that I was safe?

It does not matter, because I saw what is on other side.

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

There was a moment where I saw things, and those things were not human. There was also that strange living painting. Soon after HE fell, the painting disappeared, leaving me alone in the white nothingness.

The time there felt different.

I was calm and... content.

There was neither hate nor regret, as if everything that happened before was forgiven and forgotten.

If felt as if centuries, millenniums passed there.

Lifetime of silence, absolute silence, with no one there expect me...

I can think of only two reasons to that.

First, that for whatever reason, I was not allowed into the afterlife, hell or whatever alternative there possibly exits.

And second one, there is no afterlife.

Is there even a soul? Is it really immortal? Maybe we really are just bags of meat as the Rejected said? Their beliefs contradicted all the holy teachings and they were simply labeled apostates and heretics.

Maybe they are the only ones who are right.

One way or another it doesn't matter, I will not meet them, I will never see them, hug them, tell them how much they mattered to me, how much I missed them.

Mom, Dad, Kilan, my brothers.... Luna.....

Everyone may have actually disappeared, as ash in the wind.

But I will never know that.

It does not matter.....

...

Despair.

I heard about it, read about it, even believed that I knew what that feeling is.

But I was wrong.

Another day would always come, always.

Maybe somewhere in the back of my head I still believed that there is a chance that after millenniums of damnation in hell I would see them.

But not anymore.

There was only white space and time. Is this what will be awaiting me?

Peace in solitude.

Would I have made different decision if I knew that I would not be punished for anything I did?

Were my actions, decisions and choices made because I believed that in the end, every evil person would be punished, that everything would sort out itself?

I don't know.

But the creature like me, the one who ended countless amount of lives, the one who killed men, women and children alike, was simply..... left alone.

I will never be punished.

There would be no retribution.

No saving for innocent.

No damnation for the sinners.

Nothing.

Not just for me, but for every evil person that exits.

Only life, only people.

What about this hate, this wrath, this thing, that is boiling inside of me?

Forgive them.

Really?

They torture and kill, they condemn those that they deem to be lesser, to living hell on earth, with no possibility of salvation.

And in the end what, you simply forgive them?

Forgive everything as if harmless joke and give them peace and serenity?!

No.

No.

I will not.

...

I have been evading one question the whole time.

What now?

There was never future for me, never. But I simply can not think about it now, because there is one single feeling boiling inside of me as if magma inside of the volcano.

He is the reason for everything that happened to them.

He did it, because of him, my family, my friends, my..... Luna.

He was not a passive hand which observed and hoped for better outcome as I previously thought. He planed it all, every single step, every single event, every single life and death, as if pawns on chess board.

And we are just pawn, nothing more....

Everything was for a single purpose, for me to be in the right time, in the right place.

I was but a simple puppet on strings. A stupid, blind puppet, who didn't confront anything, didn't question anything, didn't even try. Just survived, only to see another day.

Fucking trash.

Spineless maggot.

You let them die.

You let them be tortured.

You stood for nothing.

There are only two things I can do about that.

I can accept it and disappear.

Accept the fate the gods planed for me and disappear......like some pathetic, worthless worm.

no [no]

NO [NO]

NO [NO]

WE [WE] WILL [WILL] NOT [NOT]

NOT [NOT] LIKE [LIKE] THIS [THIS]

...

Soul.

What exactly is soul? Is there even such a thing as soul? Maybe the whole soul and 'mana bridges' thing is pure bullshit. What if it is all a lie? It was commonly known that if you modify your body you may desynchronize it with the soul, which would cause it to corrupt.

And the corrupted become demons.

Is that even truth?

I never felt or saw what ambient mana or affinity is, so the only thing I was left to do, is to believe whatever was written in the books. People tended to evade describing their achievements and understanding of the subject, so there was not much on the subject except the philosophical part.

No healing works on HIS mark. By my orders, mages removed my right eye, the scar, and the whole area around it several times, but the mark still returned.

What if the mark exists not in the scar? What if it not part of the body?

What if it is much deeper? What if the curse is the body itself?

Then I should remove it, destroy it, make it disappear.

And replace it with something else, something different.

So what if I may become corrupted, so what if my souls may be damaged or destroyed.

I will die. Everyone will die.

I will disappear. Everyone will disappear.

And there is nothing waiting for everyone in the afterlife.

Nothing.

And some will continue to exist, to enjoy this world, bending the lives and fates of countless with a simple whim.

Because there would be no one to stop them.

I will crawl through the deepest pits of hell, again and again and again just to see HIM regret even looking in my direction, at us.

Not just him.

Every single one of them.

The Kings, the lords, the corrupted, the evil, the knights that serve them, the guards that protect them, all the people who follow and obey them, every single little shit that has any relationship to them.

The world itself.

I will make them all scream and beg for mercy.

"SPARE US"

'No' will be my answer.

...

I am repeating myself, but is it the air? I have neither eaten nor drank for so long. How am I alive? Where does the energy come from? What about nutritions?

But I swat away those thought as I continue to guide mana to heal one organ after another. Except the heart and a single lung, the left one, the one which was destroyed several times since my travel from north, everything else was.... dead.... rotting slowly inside of me.

The javelins, which passed through the mess of rotten organs, broken flesh and bones, blocked the healing process, but not for long.

Break apart, consume, reuse, restore. Again and again.

It took some time, but all the internal organs started working the way they should, or at least reminded something similar. Dead do not have a luxury of comparing to the ideals of the living.

There are many question. How is that even possible? How am I alive? How was the brain and heart functioning at all? How did I even succeed?

Doesn't [Doesn't] matter [matter].

I want to heal my legs and single left arm, make them hale and healthy, or something close to that, but there are simply no resources available. Breathing keeps me alive, but I don't think that if I breathed for century non-stop, the gathered resources would be enough to heal even one limb.

Scarcity of supplies is nothing new. I start slowly healing my left arm, taking the resources from other areas, hollowing the bones and eating the muscle mass away.

Only death awaits those that do not move.

Healing my left hand enough I try to break through the snow crust around me, but it is much harder than I thought. The muscles are not working properly at all. After several attempt, the snow crust finally cracks and I fall out of it. I instantly regret my decision, as the freezing cold ground and ice wind, is like nothing I ever felt before. The snow cap was protecting me from the winds, but now I am defenseless and vulnerable as a newborn.

On my stomach I start slowly crawling to the nearest pillar, trying to hide from the freezing blizzard. Reaching the pillar, my body moves on it own, to position me in any way possible for the cold crosswind to stop slamming me straight in the face. My back rests upon the snow covered pillar, as I try to bury myself in it, but the wind from sides notifies me about the futility of the effort. Changing strategy I start digging, trying to create a tiny cave big enough to fit at least part of me. The whole process takes quite some time as a single, barely functioning limb won't take you far.

I reach much further than I anticipated at first, nearly a meter in depth, but right after that point, I hit something solid. Clearing the snow out the small cave with my freezing hand, revealed something yellowish sticking out of solid block of ice. I continued to remove the snow, ignoring the the thought about what the yellow object is, as the snow started already covering my legs.

When the space became large enough for me to fit in, I turned around and put my back against the object and ice block. Not wasting even a moment I start constructing a makeshift wall out of snow to block the freezing wind.

Only when the freezing cold no longer is blowing directly in my face I calm down and try to gather energy and breath, but I royally fail as all the energy I had few minutes ago disappeared without trace.

My eyes begin to slowly close as the darkness starts to crawl around my sight. I try to swat it away as I know that if I close my eyes they more likely won't open again. My head start to tilt forward as strength escapes my neck. I try to breath deeper and regain any energy possible, but it is futile, as darkness continues to creep.

I slowly turn back and look at the yellowish object.

The very idea that came to my mind is abhorrent.

But I will not die.

I may become something different, and if I do...

SO [SO] BE [BE] IT [IT].

Gripping the object I try to rip if off, but it is so frozen that is won't even budge. Abandoning the attempt I move closer and make my jaws close around the yellow solid object. It takes a bit more effort as there is barely any strength in my jaw muscle, but hunger and desperation make unbelievable thing happen.

I finally rip out a piece out, and my jaws start to move mechanically, trying to chew through the solid, yellow strips.

I will survive.

Not to see the next day.

No. It holds no meaning, not anymore.

...

After eating all the yellowish object, which was sticking out of the ice block, the darkness around my eyes started receding and clarity returned to my sight. But the clarity is there only for short period of time until more nutritions will be required.

I turn my thought process not on the reason and culprit of why I ended up here, or what exactly this place is, but how do I get out of here, and only after that will I be able to do what I desire.

First of all, it still may be still be north pole, though the there were never such black clouds over that region. One way or another getting from here won't be easy, and I will need every bit of strength and luck I can get.

The other columns should contain the same thing as this one.

I already took the path. And nothing should stop me.

Nothing.

It takes some time, but the blizzard weakens and I crawl back to the place I came from and start looking in the snow for an object that should help me get our of this frozen hell. Under half a meter of snow my hand finally finds the metal spearhead.

Not waiting for even a moment I put the spearhead into my mouth and start crawling on my stomach back to the column I was before. Reaching it I place the spearhead near me and start removing more snow around the ice block. After some work the ice block falls down on the ground, sending the snow around as if a tree cut down. Taking the spearhead I start chipping away the ice, trying to get the yellow object out of it. But I do not wait until the whole thing is out of the ice and start cutting the yellowish flesh and eating it slowly. The taste is absolutely disgusting but it does not stop me, quite the opposite, it makes the hate boil in me with much more intensity.

Anyone else would be ashamed or mortified on this experience, but I am not.

I stare at the empty sockets of the yellow object skull with determination.

You died.

BUT [BUT] WE [WE] SHALL [SHALL] NOT [NOT].

...

One by one I went through each column and consumed what was inside of them. There was barely any flesh on the the yellowish objects, but enough for me, at least for now.

I also checked the bigger columns. They are much further than I expected and much bigger, but under the snow there was nothing but green marble columns.

How do you even construct columns made of such rare material in the middle of nowhere?

How did the yellow object even get frozen?

Why were they here? What for?

Why were there metal chains on them...

Many question, but none of them will be answered.

They are dead.

But I am not.

I need to move, and for that reason, I started spending the valuable resources on healing my legs. Crawling out of south pole on your stomach with one working hand is not.... realistic.

Slowly I start revitalizing the bones and muscles on legs, they don't move yet, but it is a still a big step over when my fingers were deep black, rotting from gangrene. I cut the black and yellow fingers on my foot, and commanded the flesh around the cut to close and stop bleeding.

I will survive.

The sun did not come out even once, it felt as if the the world's day and night cycle was stopped by someone on a endless winter night. This would usually make people feel... terrified, as darkness is the domain of predators, but I have not gotten out of darkness in decades, even when I was outside during bright day, darkness was still with me.

Maybe for a moment the darkness retreated when I found myself a small light source, a tiny candle, which reminded me that there is still light in this world.

But my candle was take away.

She is dead and will never return.

Grinding my teeth I increase the intensity of healing, ignoring the throbbing pain in my head more likely caused by the fact that I have not slept or rested at all.

Only dead need res-

No.

They don't.

They are simply dead.

...

I have consumed more than half of pillars and strength slowly returned to me. And I already started walking, slowly, but still, walking. After who knows how long of crawling through the thick snow, walking again makes me feel as if I am moving forward, as if I made one step closer to what I want.

With every bit of strength regained hate started growing in me stronger, as if fire over spilled oil. Growing, consuming anything it meets.

I will need it.

I will need everything I have for what is to come, because there is another, much bigger issue that I did not think at first.

Just surviving is not enough.

Just living is not enough.

And I will have to solve it here.

...

People can not absorb ambient mana actively. The bodies naturally regain internal mana when you breath, or consume something that contains mana, which is usually mana potions, or anything else with high content of mana.

Blood is good example.

Monsters do not need that.

Many religions say that it was punishment from their gods for the way people live, that monsters were sent after the sinned.

Fancy religious lie as many others.

A single old book deep in Library of the Damned had a bit different story.

A story about Ancients, which rivaled gods in power, which could take lives with a single thought. They lived in pursuit of knowledge, and for millenniums they prospered. They build empires which spanned through several continents, they created structure which can not be replicated even now, they reached control over the mana to such degree that the scholars still have problems deciphering the depth of their knowledge.

But, with time, as everything in this world, they changed. Some of them abandoned their pursuit and started believing themselves to be gods. They started calling themselves the Enlightened.

There were also others, which in response began calling themselves Seekers. They started pursuing darker, forbidden knowledge, they broke all rules that were established even before their history began. They started experimenting with those that were alive, slaves, or any they deemed as lesser life form.

They wanted to create life itself.

In the book it is claimed that this was how demi-humans came to existence.

After a huge crack in ideologies people divided, and moved to different continents. They believed that that was the only way to co-exist, they were right, at least for some time. But two super powers can not ideologically exists, because there can be only one supreme, and in the end the unofficial 'cold war' started. The undercover jabs, that they exchanged during the whole time, were an accepted alternative form to inter-continental war. Which some time later they could not evade, and that war would come, and it would quickly grow out of control of everyone into what is known as the World War.

The Seekers, that created the demi-humans, lost. They ceased to exists and their homeland, is still known as dead continent.

In the aftermath of the World War, the perfect mana flow of the planet was damaged. Some area began to have more mana rich air and soil, others the opposite, nearly lost all mana.

Much later the first dungeon came to existence together with the creatures that inhabited them.

To the horror of everyone, those creatures could absorb ambient mana, and grow stronger every day, which would cause the people to call them 'monsters'. There were only two thought on everyone's mind, "These beings should be eradicated" and "We need to replicate their ability".

Those who would achieve those goals would become the new leader not only of the kingdom, but the world itself. In pursuit of that, those in power held back neither their money nor influence. They failed again, and again, and again, until once they succeeded, but that, what was created was not....... what could be called a success.

The few decades of peace after the World War were ended by the start of a very long period, which would come to be know as "Age of the Corrupted".

'Monsters' are somehow able to evolve, change their bodies, while not being corrupted. People believed that the answer lied in demi-humans and the way Seekers created them. But the knowledge was lost, together with all the Seekers.

Many tried to replicate that knowledge, with varying degree of success. The Enlightened, got the furthest of them all.

Well, nowadays they have new name, Sun Empire, Blood Empire, or just simply, the Empire.

The blizzard stopped.

I am in the artificial cave that I dug up after I appeared in the center of the huge altar. There are half a dozen yellowish bodies lying near me and at the entrace.

I prepared as much as I can, there is no more reason to postpone it anymore,

If I become corrupt, so be it.

If I cease to exist, so be it.

If I become his vessel, so be it.

But if I survive...

Every single living being should pray that I won't.

I start breathing deeper, as mana circulation speed increases. In this freezing cold my body starts to produce steam.

Not yet.

I continue to increase the intensity of mana flow, and blood pressure increases sharply.

Not yet.

The whistling in my ears replaces all sound as breathing becomes hard.

Not yet.

More.

More.

More!

MORE!!

I split my consciousness and flesh into two parts, and give a single order to each one.

Destroy everything.

Restore everything.

Darkness nearly instantly consumes me.

...

I am not dead, some part of me wishes I was, but I am not.

How do I know that?

Pain.

Pain is nothing new to me. I would even go as far to claim that we are very close acquaintances. But the pain I feel right now is not that old friend. There is no part of the body that is not in pain. It as if every fiber of my body in constantly dipped into pits which are filled with something out of someone's twisted nightmare, blazing inferno, all consuming acid, after which my body is penetrated by razor sharp needles, then the cycle repeats.

At the beginning I howled in pain, but soon after my throat simply stopped working. I have lost count on how many times I awoke and lost consciousness.

There is no light, no sound, no feeling.

Just pain.

There is part of myself that it pleading to let me go.

No.

NO.

NOT YET.

The pain starts becoming distant, as my thought process slows down.

NOT YET.

I command the body, that I stopped feeling long ago, to survive whatever it takes, to not die, but I do not know if the command will be fulfilled or even understood.

The darkness consumes me again, and maybe the last time.

...

I awoke.

I am alive.

There is no white space, only darkness. But there is one more thing present.

Pain.

And that means that it is not over.

I command my body to do something, to restore the sight at least in a single eye, but it does not yield result. I repeated that command again and again, as if mantra, and eternity later I saw a light.

A tiny white light, in absolute darkness. As my mantra continued, the light continued to grow bigger and bigger, until the blinding light encompassed everything. Soon after colors appeared, grayish and yellowish.

I recognized what is in front of me.

The same small cave and yellowish bodies.

Few hours later, alongside pain, another, new feeling appeared, a chilling cold. Several minutes after I start hearing the sound of blizzard, which later is followed by smell of rotting flesh somewhere near me. Attempting to make another step I try to move, but fail, as if every single limb ceased to exist.

I resume my mantra, but this time the target is left hand. Quite soon I hear as muscles on my right thigh start twitching against the snow on ground. Not understanding what is happening I try to focus on the thigh muscles, but the result is that my neck starts slowly rotating. I begin cycling through every single muscle and limb I can, and none of them are where they should be, as if someone ripped apart doll and put the parts into wrong place. My lungs move to inhale and exhale air only when I try to move my right foot, moving my left index finger causes muscles to twitch.

Hunger starts cutting my stomach and I stop my experiments. Someone twitching muscles in random I am able to move closer to the yellow body. Reorienting my head, I try to bite a piece, but I have not found the muscle responsible for it. Iterating through every possible action I finally find the correct one, it is the wrist of my missing right hand.

The chewing is mechanical and it takes another iteration to find the way to trigger swallowing.

After many test I somehow compiled the list of movements, and started acquainting myself with the new way to move.

Even after many hours of testing and adjusting, the limbs are not moving the way they should. I thought that either limbs or nerves were damaged, but sending mana to them several times, to get the damage, returns nothing, as if there are no issue at all. Not understanding what is happening, I start probing the whole body for anything strange, the result is ridiculous.

The muscles are there, all the bones and tendons too, but most of them are either deformed, wrong size or rotation. The body is sure that everything is fine, and there are no issues with it.

What the hell?

I started checking the body status more and more, but the feeling is incredibly strange, and I finally find the reason for the feeling. There is no longer pressure of something looking at me from behind, as if I am alone, as if huge weight was taken off my shoulders.

Is it like what it feel to not have curse?

It has been so long that I don't even remember how it felt like before the event.

Am I really free?

I feel somehow more... alive.

I...

No.

No.

Alan died.

There is no longer Alan.

For what is to come, Alan would never agree, he would reject it, he would try to stop it.

But Alan is dead.

He was pathetic.

He was weak.

He was... wrong.

I will neither forget nor forgive.

This anger should not calm down, it should not disappear.

I should not let it calm down, I should not let it disappear.

Forget and forgive.

Ha.

No.

Commanding my body I crawl closer to the yellowish bodies and resume ripping them apart, consuming them one after another, until only their bones and skin is left.

Alan is dead.

...

Pathetic.

It took me many hours of trial and error to simply learn how to walk again. Even after that, they still stubbornly refused to follow my commands, but there is only one person to blame, me.

I don't have enough resources to repair this disfigured body, but sending minimal amount of resources to make sure my legs move, and my only working hand to move is unavoidable.

Weak will not succeed.

Slow will not reach.

Soft will not survive

It took another hour to make a thin coat and shoes out of the yellow skin, alas they barely protect against the freezing cold. My uneven legs start moving slowly, one by one, carrying me in the same direction where wind blows. North pole winds blow south, therefore south ones should blow north.

I look around the huge altar one last time for anything that could help me, but it is useless. The snow is so thick that even if there is something, I won't find it. Checking one last time that the spearheads are with me I start the travel.

One leg after another.

Move and breathe.

Never stop.

...

I am not sure how many days have passed, but I continue walking. The feeling in legs has been lost long time ago, but that does not stop me at all, nothing should.

Until 'nothing' unexpectedly happened.

A pack of wolves.

They appeared out of nowhere and surrounded me into a tight circle. Several of them start growling from different side, which is a common way to make their prey lose focus and make a mistake. The circle slowly shrinks and I can hear their ecstatic breathing as if they found gift of gods themselves in the middle of nowhere.

But they are wrong.

I am not gift, I am curse. And I am hungry.

Silently I leap at the closest wolf, and my hand burst in motion, plunging spearhead through the foe's skull.

Not enough.

More.

Not waiting even a second I leap at another, taking his life in nearly the same manner.

More.

The next one leaps at me and reorienting myself, spearhead pierces his throat.

MORE.

Crushing the skull of next one with bare hand, I do not stop.

MORE!

MORE[MORE]!!

I come to stop when I find myself alone, surrounded by dozen corpses of what is left of pack of wolves, which are forming some kind of chaotic painting of dark red on crystal white snow. My eyes follow the retreating remnants of the pack, which are running away.

Pathetic.

My hungry lungs move non-stop, inhaling the sharp freezing cold air, after which a burning hot air is exhaled.

It takes some time to calm down, but only because another feeling appeared.

Hunger.

I find the spearhead still embedded in the skull in one of the wolves. Ripping it out I start dissecting the bodies. Their warm internals returns feeling to my nearly frozen hand. Looking at the spearhead I chuckle.

"The one which nearly killed me, saved my life"

Weapon work this way. They take one life and save another.

Only after eating the third wolf I stop and understand that there is something wrong. Where did everything go?

This hunger is not normal....

Normal huh. Normal people would not survive, they would curl into ball and cry, begging for someone to come and help them.

Pathetic.

It took several attempts but I was able to make a more or less good coat out of the dead wolves. Also shoes, pants, and more. After finishing the task, I ate more, trying to fill myself to brim, as I don't know when next meal will happen. Only when I feel that no more will fit into me I stop. Cutting more meat I place some of it into bag which I made out of failed coats. Some part of me tells me that I should take more, but that will only slow me down. Andy carrying anything more than handful through this thick snow could cause a problem.

...

I saw a tree, after who knows how long, it was far away, but still, a tree. The snow grew a bit more shallow but still, at least several meters in depth. My legs move through the thick snow, one step after another, until I arrive before the lone tree in the middle of nowhere.

My hand automatically reaches to it, to check that it is not an illusion, and it isn't. There are neither leaves, nor even a hint of green or brown, just nearly black trunk, and the the hard texture is cold. Still, a tree, after the endless snow, rocks and mountains, anything else feels as if luxury. I place my face against it just to make one last check and instantly feel the sharp smell of forest.

Opening my eyes I notice a blackish line on the horizon.

I spend several long minutes to check that is not simply illusion caused by the nearly black clouds, and it looks like it is not. It is not that far, should be about three hours on foot. Sadly, or thankfully there is no day and night cycle.

Seeing the rows of dead, black trees is strange. At the same time they are happy change to endless snow desert, but on the other, they are dead. Walking into the ominous forest I continue traveling in the direction wind blows. The more I walk the more wind becomes colder, and the more tired I become. The black trees are so tightly packed that I no longer can see any silhouette of the local mountains. Walking much deeper into the forest I find a place, with many fallen trees, which create a makeshift protection from the freezing wind. I decide to take a small rest. Burying myself in a corner, I try to find a way to keep myself warm.

The moment my body stopped moving, the hunger returned again. I have been keeping it at bay using the stored fat from the wolf meat, but those resources are coming to end too.

The exhaustion finally won and my eyes closed soon after.

...

An unbearable hunger broke me out of the slumber, as if there was a burning pit of acid inside.

Breathing heavily I try to retake control over the body, and subdue the hunger, but that is not as easy as it sounds. After few minutes of breathing and uselessly producing valuable warm steam in this freezing cold, my body calms down.

Looking around I realize that the whole place, looks somehow foreign. Checking few milestone I confirm that it is the same place, but at the same time it feels strange. It is as if no time passed at all and I simply closed my eyes for a few minutes, and woke up in wrong place.

I can't be sure, maybe the whole place is affecting me, but it does not matter.

I am alive, and I need to keep it that way.

I stand up and start walking in the direction the wind blows. But turning in that direction I feel as the cold wind, which is blowing into my back, steals the warmth that I gathered while bundled together, even through the thick wolf fur that is on me.

Same black trees, same white floor, and the same dark gray clouds. Maybe it is my imagination but, it feels as if the sky went few tones brighter. But crippling hunger is not imagination. It got so bad that I started ripping tiny trees out of ground and chewing their roots.

My eyes notice some kind of small hill in the middle of flat forest, and I start walking in it's direction. I find what looks like a tiny opening to someone's den.

My hands instantly start clearing the snow and opening path inside.

What I find inside is huge white bear and two small cubs, sleeping quietly in a deep burrow. But it looks like my entrance has started awakening of the big one, as it starts slowly shifting and sniffing the air.

They are innocent animals.

And they simply want to survive.

But so do I.

On starving stomach the bear meat tasted as sweet as a nectar.

I am no different than anyone I despised. I attacked a family of animals, and took their lives. From their perspective I am incarnation of evil.

I am the same as everyone else.

But I will survive, whatever it takes.

...

This time I ate much more, and with the abundant resources I was able start healing. But it is not actually healing, not anymore. The body truly believes that the deformed state with missing right hand is the original one, and that there are no issues with it.

So the only thing left is to go against what it believes and desires, and change it. I do not know of a way to restore a whole limb, that usually was the task of healers, but I will need to learn that, and what better practice target than the missing toes. Thankfully I have enough meat near me for task, but before that I need to repair the tendons, muscles and bones to the actual original state.

And while my body is healing and changing I am making new coat out of the mother bear, the big white one.

I stayed in the hole for quite some time eating and 'healing' myself, but also because the warmth inside held me back. Alas, the amount of meat is limited and the hunger will start returning again quite soon, and I need to be careful with my supplies, there is still a long way ahead, and staying here will not accomplish anything.

As I am about to start resume my travel, I hear distant heavy footsteps. They are quickly getting louder and closer until I hear them stop near the burrow entrance. I hear loud sniffing and few seconds later with a roar the entrance is ripped out. With spearhead in my hand I leap out evading the falling mix of snow and dirt.

Only when I am at least dozen meters away I stop and turn around to look at what attacked me. A deep cynical laugh escapes me as I stare at seven meters tall bipedal muscle creature with extremely long moose legs and antlers, with burning red eyes looking back at me.

Wendigo. Protector of forest. Corrupted spirit. Cannibal turned hunter.

All of it is a lie, a simple corrupted moose, nothing more.

As if hearing my thoughts the creature roars and rips out huge tree near it, and throws it at me as if is but a small wooden stick. I evade the incoming log by hairs width.

How did it find me in the middle of nowhere? Did it smell the blood? Maybe it tracked me from the wolves.

Doesn't matter.

You are food and I am the hunter.

And oh boy am I hungry.

...

Finishing cleaning the skull and fur of the Wendigo I scowl and throw it at ground, wincing in the process, as the fractured bones in my body did not heal fully.

Damned fucker, nearly killed me. And of course the moment I needed a long weapon, there was only a single, rusty spearhead. And the worst part is that this shit destroyed the burrow, leaving me to fend against the freezing cold by myself.

Spending days lying on freezing ground, bleeding with half-broken body, with no possibility to hide from the fucking cold. But at least it's fur looked warm, and out of it I was able to carve quite good coat. The skull became a nice head protector, the only thing I had to do was to break the huge antlers that still had my blood and guts on them.

I resume my travel, with quite some meat on the makeshift sled made out of fur, which I am dragging behind myself through the snow.

To my astonishment quite soon I came into huge clearing. What stood before me was an endless sea of frozen ice. This would be beautiful view if it would not be covered by thick gray fog, which moved quickly because of the freezing cold wind that blew around. Looking around I notice that the area looks like peninsula, but I can not be sure because nothing is visible after about hundred meters. Is the land, I am standing on simply cutting deeper into the water body, or am I standing on island?

This huge ice body can be either a huge lake, sea or ocean.

If I go around the shore, I will either make a small detour, make a huge circle, or make enormous circle.

If I go straight through the ice, I will either make a small shortcut, make a huge shortcut, or end up in ocean water.

Straight it is.

I slowly step on the ice and looking down estimate that ice is at least three meters in thickness, with the water under it not visible at all. Looking on the other side of the huge ice platform I see nothing but endless ice and white fog covering it.

If I end up in ocean, that mean that I am fucked.

If not, well, there is only one way to find that, and the wind blows in the same direction.

...

This is not ocean for sure, ocean can not be frozen so much. It also is not a lake too, something this enormous is even hard to categorize.

My feet continue dragging me, together with makeshift sled made out of Wendigo fur. It became much lighter, and I don't know how long I will last.

One thing is for sure, I won't be able to return back. I have consumed more than half of my meat supply during the travel through this endless ice hell, and whichever way I look there is only white fog.

There is only one path, forward.

My feet continue dragging me until I see a small black spot far away, in the middle of nowhere. How can I see so far? Did the fog clear up a bit? If yes, what would be a very good news. For few long seconds I stare at the spot believing it to disappear as if a trick caused by my exhausted mind, but it doesn't.

Whatever it is, I can't ignore it.

It took about an hour until I came closer, and the small spot grew much bigger. I walk closer to it and find an dark conical structure no bigger than two meters in height. Dropping the sled I walk around the cone to look at it from all angles, but in the end I still don't understand what it is, some parts of it stand out as if bones on starved creature, there are few areas that have different color shade, as if they made out of different materials. I extend my hand and carefully touch it with my fingers, and find it soft, as if some kind of cloth.

Something burst out of it and I jump back taking out the spearhead and pointing it at new foe.

The foe is actually a person, human, with wild blond hair and beard. He is pointing his spear at me with terrified eyes, until they meet mine and the fear is slowly replaced with confusion.

I slowly remove Wendigo's skull from my head, which protects me from the cold wind. Few long seconds he stares at me then at the skull, after which he slowly lowers his spear and starts rambling in incoherently in some language, but I do not understand him at all.

A human, a living one.

I need him.

I raise my hand my hand in a form of non-aggression, and slowly walk to my sled. Slowly removing the bear fur from it I take out meat and offer it to him, in sign of good will.

His eyes sharply increase in size as his Adam' apple visibly moves.

Peaking into the black cone I find fishing utensils there. Looking back at him, closer this time, one thing becomes apparent, he is severely malnutritioned. Not as strongly, as me, but still.

I slowly place the meat on floor and with hand encourage him to take it. The long seconds of him moving his eyes between me and meat are ended, when he leaps at the meat and checked whenever it is real.

Smile breaks across his face.

With hurried actions he starts disassembling the cone structure and turns it into a sled. He makes gesture for me to follow him and together we start walking is direction different of which wind is blowing.

It takes several hours of walking through the endless fog, but a silhouette of a mountain starts slowly appearing. Happily he increase the travel speed and I follow. After some more walking we arrive to what looks like a small house in the middle of nowhere, with a boat near it. He puts his sled near the house and start shouting something loudly while walking into the house, gesturing for me to follow him.

I cautiously enter the house and find him near another person, a woman with red hair in fur clothing saying something enthusiastically. She looks at me and with a smile bows, after which she takes the meat and starts to move around in what looks like a kitchen.

The man gestures me to sit in what I believe to be a low table and I calmly follow. He starts saying something again but I gesture back that I don't understand. He starts gesturing more, to mouth, kitchen and empty plate on table, which I assume means foot is coming. Then he points to clouds and something moving up and down, what I assume may mean days.

I am not the only one who was starving.

With hand gesture I try to ask him if he has a map, or if he can draw one. It takes few minutes, and moving of object on table an pointing at the house for him to get it, but in the end he starts enthusiastically nodding. He walks somewhere into the corner and takes out a small piece of yellowish cloth. Bringing it back, he opens it flat on table. On the cloth there are small black drawings made more likely with coal.

An actual map. It shows a many big mountains, a strange area, which I believe to be water and several dots. The man starts gesturing at the point near that strange area, which I assume is the current location. He starts pointing at the other dots and shows gesture for big.

More people? So a village or a city.

But the dots are very far away from the current location. If I try to build the terrain map in my head, and take into account the distance it took for me to reach here from other side the sea. It would take from three to five times more time to reach the closest dot.

And I needed more than half of all my meat supply from, bears and Wendigo just barely reach here...

Smell of meat and herbs quickly fills the room.

Suddenly something moves in corner and appears from under several blankets.

A tiny face.

A child.

The child says something, to which man and woman respond something back. A child with short hair removes the blankets and crawls to the man on his hands, dragging his body behind as anchor.

The boy comes closer to the man and starts saying something enthusiastically. His sleepy eyes notice me after which, he crawls behind the man and stares at me curiously.

The man looks at the child sadly and says something. The boy slowly walks out from behind his fathers back and says something, which I think is greeting.

I say hello back.

His eyes move around me curiously as if he found the most fascinating thing in the world.

Soon the woman brings three small bowls and pours soup into them. The man gestures me to try the soup, while the woman says something to the boy, after which he crawls to her on his hands.

She looks away from him in a strange blend of sadness and...... shame.

Hot soup after who know how long of cold, raw.... meat..... feels as if the best meal I ever tried. I slowly drink the soup with contains small bits and pieces of meat and herbs, while the woman shares her with the child. The woman walks back and forth filling the empty bowls with more soup.

Soon everyone is sated and the man starts talking to woman, more likely explaining something.

The child continues to stare at me in fascination, and bit by bit crawls closer. Looking at the boy again, I notice that his skull is slightly deformed and burnt, with area missing his bright blond hair. The boy's eyes are like green shining jewels staring at me and the place where my right arm should be.

The man and woman look down in sadness and shame.

The child crawls closer looking at my face and body. Few minutes later his tiny hand start stretching to my stump. His parents say something and he quickly crawls back to them, but still continues to stare at me in undisguised fascination and curiosity.

A bit later child crawls to corner, and coming back brings his toys made out of wood and animal bone, showing it to me, as if asking me to play. He starts talking about something, maybe story, maybe just nonsense. He knows that I don't understand but, that does not stop him. He continues his story with huge smile and the same shining eyes, while I sit in silence.

This is the happiest he will even be.

He doesn't know it. He doesn't understand it yet.

But people......... they never let each other forget.

Cripples do not survive this long. They are usually abandoned. He breaths only because his parents either really love him or can not take life of their only child.

But I saw pity, I saw shame.

Weak die, strong live.

Thats the law of life.

Right?

I slowly stand up and opening the wooden door walk outside, into the freezing cold. Sitting with my legs crossed I breath deeply and try to restore whatever I can. The freezing cold cuts deep into my bones, reminding me that I am alive. I start probing the body with mana. There must be something to heal, there always is, something to focus my thoughts on, but I fail.

I am alone.

She died. Some part of me still tried to deny it, fight it. Her life would be hard, even harder than this boy's, it would be filled with pain and suffering, but it would still be a life. Who says that there won't be small bits and pieces that would be worth all of it? But even that was denied to her. She is dead. And there is nothing I can do.

I will never look at her curious eyes, never caress her soft hair, never see that innocent smile.

Never.

They did it.

They-

[It is useless.]

[You try to make us angry, to make us hate. But, it is useless.]

[Empty talk.]

[All the words about revenge and destruction, all the words about... No, that pure bullshit. We don't change.]

[Using that hate you can't become the heartless demon you want, and you can neither kill nor destroy that.]

[You won't change.]

[And so will I.]

Says who?

...

I gave more than half of the meat that was left to the family. In return I asked for them to cook my part, give me clothes and decent shoes.

I rested for about a day and started traveling in the direction of the closest village. They tried repeatedly to tell me that I will die, that I will not make it, that there are several months before the ice breaks. But it didn't matter.

They had many questions. Who am I? Where did I come from? Why was I dressed like that in the middle of this snow hell?

Thankfully, they were too polite, or too afraid to ask.

After saying goodbyes to the family I resumed my travel with new shoes, pants and shirt. The Wendigo hide and skull stayed with me. I continue to walk through the frozen hell in the direction that I was showed, through a narrow trail that goes between huge mountains.

Walking, moving and surviving are the only things I know, the only things that kept me alive.

But that is not enough.

Not anymore.

Yes, I am not like them.

They are blind and weak.

But I am not, not anymore.

...

Some part of me is screaming at myself for not listening to the advice from that family, not waiting. That can't be changed anymore. It has been more than two weeks since then, or at least I believe so. This body is alive only because of two events. First, when my leg ended up in hare burrow, when I was walking through snow covered trail. And second time, when I came up to a frozen river, where I found few fishes in solid block of ice.

But I continued walking.

And soon my stubbornness was rewarded. I saw a dark circular formation on the horizon, down at the base of the mountain. Not wasting even a second I started traveling there.

When I came close to the village a big group, of at least three dozen people, with bows and spears stopped me. They pointed their arrows and spearheads, while shouting something, but I did not understand what they were saying at all. They came closer and removed the Wendigo hide from me, and when they saw my stump in place of my right hand, they started laughing and jeering at each other.

Cripple is not a danger.

Slowly I am escorted to the center of the village, where I see several wooden poles with naked men and women, tied to them, who have arrows and hatchets embedded in them.

A huge guy with missing eye appears and by reaction of others I understand that he is the leader. A person comes closer to him and gives him my Wendigo coat. He smiles toothily and starts saying something, but I ignore it.

I know that smile.

I know people like that.

I can feel them with my very bones.

And as if all the chains are let go, I act.

Before I know it, there is chunk of the leader's neck in my teeth, and his crushed skull is my left hand. Not wasting even a second I rip apart anyone who is holding any weapon.

Soon I stand in the center alone, except the lying dead bodies. A minute later women and children start appearing out of the houses with barely any clothes on them, and visibly abused.

Before I would try to go through it quietly, only respond when I was attacked, or threatened.

Maybe I am simply tired, or maybe, I changed...

'The only thing necessary for the triumph of Evil is that good men do nothing'

Ha. Now I am quoting that carefree idiot Richard.

Are you even alive friend? Summoned are not allowed to live long.