How much time has passed? I can't tell. The sky is constantly covered by a thick sea of nearly black clouds, neither the sun nor moons are visible. I'm fixed to my position, as if I was a statue. The falling snow covered my whole body, forming a thick layer of ice, the only thing still exposed to the air is my face, but that's only because my breathing is melting the snow.

I'm breathing.

The dead don't breathe, 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, maybe this is the afterlife. I don't know how else to explain it. There's also the fact that I can fell my heart beating, moving warm blood around my 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? Who do you relentlessly continue to torture us?]

[Why can't you let us die?]

Because that's the only thing I know.

How to survive against all odds.

How to continue standing up after every fall.

How to continue to grasp at 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're 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 a part of us, maybe they are more us than we are ourselves.]

[You, the undying creature that knows no rest. 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 has died or betrayed us.]

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

[No one...]

We both became quiet as the same name comes to our minds, and we silently let the precious liquid flow from our eyes.

...

I don't know how long I've been here. There's no day or night, no past or present, only now, only time. And I haven't been idle, I spent that time 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 buried me beneath them. I'm not sure if there exists a point in my life, which I still remember, that I haven't rethought. And the more I thought, the more the mosaic grew. And the more it grew, the more it started taking form, making sense.

It was all a god damn play.

A pathetic, second rate theater play.

And HE orchestrated it all.

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

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

A boy just happened to lose everyone and everything he cared about, and decided 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 a mana stone and escape.

A boy just happened to find sanctuary in the Blood Brotherhood, a group which specialized in hunting down dark and magical creatures.

A boy just happened to survive thousands of life and death encounters to 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 in the Empire and live in the north for several years where the curse didn't kill him, but festered just 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, to reach the lowest floor of a dungeon.

A boy just happened to die at the perfect moment, at the perfect time.

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

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

That also could've been part of the plan.

It's hard to accept that all of the happy and sad events in your life, every single encounter, every single connection and loss was planned with a single purpose. To prepare you as a perfect vessel. So that in the very end, you could be killed like a fat pig the night before a 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 that 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're the main character, but only in the end, when the story was about to end, would you understand that you had no control over it, that the story was written before it even began.

But there are also a few things that became apparent. I'm not dead. I was, but most likely, I'm not anymore. I am likely on the South Pole. The polar lights appeared through the nearly black skies some time ago. It wasn't the same as the ones in the north, the colours and waves looked a bit different. And the last thing, there is no one else here, I am alone.

How did I end up on the South Pole?

Who brought me here?

Why am I alive?

It doesn't matter.

If I really am alive, and this is the South Pole, HE shouldn't be able to get me here, or at least I believed so. But after reviewing my whole life, I started to question everything I knew, every fact, every book, every person.

What if HE actually can reach me at the poles, and was simply faking that he couldn't, making me

believe that I was safe?

It doesn't matter, because I saw what's on the other side.

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

There was a moment where I saw things, and those things weren't 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.

It felt as if centuries, millenniums, passed there.

A lifetime of silence, absolute silence, with no one there except me...

I can think of only two reasons for that.

First, that for whatever reason, I wasn't allowed into the afterlife, hell, or whatever alternative possibly exists.

And the 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 contradict all of the holy teachings and they were simply labeled as apostates and heretics.

Maybe they're the only ones who are right.

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

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

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

But I will never know.

It doesn't 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's 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 and solitude.

Would I've made different decisions if I knew that I wouldn't 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 itself out?

I don't know.

But the creature like me, the one who ended a 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 salvation for the innocent.

No damnation for the sinners.

Nothing.

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

Only life, only people.

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

Forgive them.

Really?

They torture and kill, they condemn those that they deem to be lesser to a living hell on earth, without the possibility of salvation.

And in the end, what, you simply forgive them?

Forgive everything as if it's a harmless joke and give them peace and serenity?!

No.

No.

I. Will. Not.

...

I've been evading one question the whole time.

What now?

There never was a future for me, never. But I simply can't not think about it now, because there's one feeling boiling inside of me, as the 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 wasn't a passive hand that observed and hoped for a better outcome as I previously thought. HE planned it all, every single step, every single event, every single life and death, as if pawns of a chess board.

And we're just pawns, nothing more....

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

I was but a simple puppet on strings, a stupid, blind puppet. Who never confronted 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 all and disappear.

Accept the fate the gods planned 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 a soul?

Is there even such a thing as a soul?

Maybe the whole soul and "mana bridges" thing is pure bullshit.

What if it's all a lie?

It was commonly knows that if you modify your body, you may de-synchronize with the soul, which would cause it corrupt. And the corrupted become demons.

Is that even the 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 wasn't much on the subject except for the philosophical part.

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

What if the mark doesn't exist in the scar?

What if it's not part of the body?

What if it's much deeper?

What if the curse is the body itself?

Then I should remove it.

Destroy it.

Make it disappear.

And replace it. Replace it with something else, something different.

I will die.

Everyone will die.

I will disappear.

Everyone will disappear.

And there's 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 others 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 them 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'm repeating myself, but is it the air? I haven't eaten or drank for so long.

How am I alive?

Where does the energy come from?

What about nutrition?

But I swat those thoughts away as I continue to guide mana to heal one organ after anoter. Except for my heart and left lung, everything else was...dead...slowly rotting 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 me of something similar. The dead don't have the luxury of comparing with the ideals of the living. There are so many questions.

How is that even possible?

How am I alive?

How were the brain and heart functioning at all?

How did I succeed?

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

I want to heal my legs and left arm, to make them hale and healthy, or something close to that, but there aren't any resources available. Breathing keeps me alive, but I don't think that even if I breathed nonstop for a century, the gathered resources would be enough to heal even one limb. Scarcity of supplies is nothing new.I slowly start 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's harder than I thought. The muscles aren't working properly. After several attempts, the snow crust finally cracks and I fall out of it. I instantly regret my decision, the freezing cold ground, and the icy wind are like nothing I've ever felt before. The snow cap was protecting me from the winds, but now I'm as defenseless and vulnerable as a newborn.

On my stomach I start slowly crawling towards the nearest pillar, trying to hide from the freezing blizzard. Reaching the pillar, my body moves on its own, positioning me in any possible way to stop the cold crosswind 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 the side tells me about the futility of the effort. Changing strategy, I start digging, trying to create a tiny cave, big enough to at least fit part of me. The whole process takes quite some time as a single, barely functioning limb won't take you far.

I reach much farther than I anticipated at first, nearly a meter in depth, but right after I reach that point I hit something solid. Clearing the snow out of the small cave with my freezing hand, revealed something yellowish sticking out of a solid block of ice. I continued to remove the snow, ignoring the thought about what the yellow object is, as the snow already started to cover 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 the snow to block the freezing wind. Only when the freezing cold wind is no longer blowing directly in my face do I calm down and try to gather energy and breathe, but I royally fail as all the energy I had a few minutes ago disappeared without a 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, most likely, they'll never open again. Me head starts to tilt forward as strength escapes my neck. I try to breathe deeper and regain any possible energy, but it's futile, as the darkness continues to creep closer. I slowly turn back and look at the yellowish object, The very idea that came to 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 it out, but it's so frozen that it won't even budge. Abandoning the attempt, I move closer and make my jaws close around the yellow object. It takes a bit more effort as there's barely any strength in my jaw muscle, but hunger and desperation can make unbelievable things happen. I finally rip a piece off 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 the yellowish object sticking out of the ice block, the darkness around my eyes started to recede and clarity returned to my sight. But the clarity is only there for a short time, more nutrition will be required. I turn my thought process, not on the reason nor culprit of how 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 the North Pole, though there were never such black clouds over that region. One way or another, getting out of 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 can 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 out of this frozen hell. Under half a meter of snow my hand finally finds a metal spearhead.

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

Anyone else would be ashamed or mortified about this experience, but I'm not.

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

You died.

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

...

One by one, I went through each of the columns and consumed what was inside of them. There was barely any flesh on the yellowish objects, but it was enough for me, for now at least. I also checked the bigger columns. They're 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 objects even get frozen?

Why were they here?

What for?

Why were there metal chains on them.....

Many questions, but none of them will be answered.

They're dead.

But I am not.

I need to move, and for that reason, I started spending valuable resources on healing my legs. Crawling out of the South Pole on your stomach with one working hand isn't....realistic. Slowly, I start revitalizing the bones and muscles on my legs, they can't move yet, but it's still a big step up from when my fingers were deep black, rotting from gangrene. I cut the black and yellow fingers on my foot, commanding the flesh around the cut to close and stop bleeding.

I will survive.

The sun didn't come out even once, it felt as if the world's day and night cycle was stopped by someone during an endless winter night. This would usually make people feel...terrified, as darkness is the domain of predators, but I haven't gotten out of the darkness in decades, even when I was outside during the bright day, the darkness was always 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 taken away.

She's dead and will never return.

Grinding my teeth, I increase the intensity if the healing, ignoring the throbbing pain in my head, most likely caused by the fact that I haven't slept or rested at all.

Only the dead need res-

No.

They don't.

They're simply dead.

...

I've consumed more than half of the pillars, and strength is slowly returning to me. I already started walking, slowly, but still walking. After who knows how long crawling through the thick snow, walking again makes me feel as if I'm moving forward, as if I made one step closer to what I want. With every bit of strength regained, hate starts growing stronger in me, as if fire taking to 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 didn't think of at first.

Just surviving isn't enough.

Just living isn't enough.

And I will have to solve it here.

...

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

Blood is a good example.

Monsters don't need that.

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

A fancy religious lie, as many others.

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

A story about the Ancients, which rivaled gods in their power, which could takes likes with a single thought. They lived in pursuit of knowledge, and for millenniums they prospered. They built empires which spanned several continents, they created structures which can't be replicated, even now. They had such masterful control over the mana to such a 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 the 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 forms.

They wanted to create life itself.

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

After a huge split in ideologies, people divided and moved to different continents. They believed that was the only was to co-exist, they were right, at least for some time. But two ideologically different super powers cannot exist together, 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 thing, were an accepted alternative to inter-continental war. Which later they couldn't evade, and it quickly spiraled out of everyone's control into what is known as the World War.

The Seekers that created the demi-humans, lost. They ceased to exist and their homeland is still known as the Dead Continent. In the aftermath of the World War, the planet's perfect mana flow was damaged. Some areas began to have air and soil that had richer mana content that before, and others lost nearly all of their mana. Much later, the first dungeon came into existence, together with the creatures that inhabited them.

To the horror of everyone, those creatures could absorb ambient mana, and they grew stronger every day, which lead to people calling them "monsters". There were only two thoughts on everyone's mind,

"These creatures should be eradicated."

or

"We need to replicate their ability."

Those who would achieve those goals would become the new leader of not only their kingdom, but the world itself. In pursuit of that, those in power held back neither their money nor influence. They failed again and again, until once, they succeeded, but what was created wasn't what would be called a......success. The few decades of peace after the World War were ended by the start of a period which would come to be known as the "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 the Seekers created them. Many tried to replicate that knowledge, with varying degrees of success. The Enlightened, got the furthest of them all. Well, nowadays they have a new name, Sun Empire, Blood Empire, or just simply, the Empire.

The blizzard stopped.

I'm in the artificial cave that I dug after I appeared in the center of the huge altar. There are half a dozen yellowish bodies lying near me at the entrance. I prepared as much as I could, there's no 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 the mana circulation speed increases. In this freezing cold, my body starts to produce steam.

Not yet.

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

Not yet.

The whistling in my ears replaces all sound as my 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'm not dead, some part of me wishes I was, but I'm not.

How do I know that?

Pain.

Pain is nothing new to me. I would even go as far as to clain that we're very close acquaintances. But the pain I feel right now is not that old friend. There's no part of the body that isn't in pain. It's as if every fiber of my body is constantly being dipped into pits which are filled with something out of someone's twisted nightmares, blazing infernos, 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've lost count on how many times I awoke and lost consciousness.

There's no light.

No sound.

No feeling.

Just pain.

There's a part of my body that's 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 don't know if the command will be fulfilled or even understood.

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

...

I awoke.

I'm alive.

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

Pain.

And that means it's not over.

I command my body to do something, to restore the sight in a single eye, but it doesn't yield any results. I repeated that command again and again, as if it was a mantra, and an 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 colours appeared, greyish and yellowish. I recognized what was in front of me.

The same small cave and yellowish bodies.

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

I resume my mantra, but this time the target is my left hand. Quite soon afterwords, I feel the muscles on my right thigh start twitching against the snow on the ground. Not understanding what was happening, I try to focus on my 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 a doll apart and put the parts into the 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 my muscles to twitch.

Hunger starts cutting my stomach and I stop my experiments. Somehow my twitching muscles at random, I'm able to move closer to the yellow body. Reorienting my head, I try to bite a piece, but I haven't found the muscle responsible for it yet. Reiterating my previous actions I finally find the correct one, it's the wrist of my missing right hand. The chewing is mechanical and it takes another iteration to find out how to trigger swallowing. After many tests I somehow complied the list of movements, and I started acquainting myself with the new way to move.

Even after many hours of testing and adjusting, the limbs still aren't moving the way they should. I thought that either the limbs or nerves were damaged, but sending mana to them several times to try and assess the damage, it shows that there are no issues with them. Not understanding what's happening, I start probing my 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, the wrong size, or rotated. The body is sure everything is fine, and that there's no issues with it.

What the hell?

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

Is this what it feels like to not have a curse?

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

Am I really free?

I feel more alive....somehow.

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 shouldn't calm down, it shouldn't disappear.

I shouldn't let it calm down, I shouldn't let it disappear.

Forget and forgive.

Ha.

No.

Commanding my body, I crawl closer to the yellowish body and resume ripping them apart, consuming them one after another, until only they're only skin and bones.

Alan is dead.

...

Pathetic.

It took me many hours of trial and error to simply learn how to walk again. Even after that, they sill stubbornly refused to follow my commands, but there's only one person to blame, me. I don't have enough resources to repair this disfigured body, but sending minimal amounts of resources to make sure my legs and my only working hand can move is unavoidable.

The weak will not succeed.

The slow will not reach.

The 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 the wind blows. In the North Pole the winds blow south, therefore in the South Pole the winds should blow north. I look around the huge altar one last time for anything that could help me, but it's useless. The snow is so thick that even if there is something, I won't find it. Checking one last time that the spearhead is with me, I start to travel.

One leg after another.

Move and breathe.

Never stop.

...

I'm not sure how many days have passed, but I've continued walking. The feeling in my legs was lost a long time ago, but that doesn't stop me, nothing should. Until "nothing" unexpectedly happened.

A pack of wolves.

They appeared out of nowhere and surrounded me in a tight circle. Several of them start growling from different sides, 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 a gift from the gods themselves in the middle of nowhere.

Nut they're wrong.

I am not a gift, I am a curse.

And I'm hungry.

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

Not enough.

More.

Not waiting for 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, the spearhead pierces his throat.

MORE.

I don't stop, I crush the skull of the next one with my bare hands.

MORE!

MORE[MORE]!!

I come to a stop when I find myself alone, surrounded by a dozen corpses of what's left of the pack of wolves, their blood forming some kind of chaotic painting dark red crystals on the white snow. My eyes follow the retreating remnants of the pack.

Pathetic.

My hungry lungs move non-stop, inhaling the sharp, freezing air, after which I exhale burning hot air. 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 viscera returns feeling to my nearly frozen hand. Looking at the spearhead I chuckle.

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

Weapons work this way.

They take one life and save another.

Only after eating the third wolf do I stop and understand that something is wrong.

Where did everything go?

This hunger isn't normal....

Normal huh. Normal people wouldn't survive, they would crawl into a 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, along with shoes, pants, and more. After finishing the task, I ate more, trying to fill myself to the brim, since I don't know when the next meal will be. Only when I feel that no more will fit into me do I stop. Cutting more meat, I place some of it into the 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. And carrying anything more than a handful through this thick snow could cause problems.

...

I saw a tree, after who knows how long, it was far away but it was still a tree. The snow grew a bit more shallow, but it was still several feet 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's not an illusion, and it isn't. There are neither leaves, nor even a hint of green or brown, just a nearly black trunk, and the cold hard texture. Still, a tree, and after all the endless snow, rocks, and mountains, anything else feels like a luxury. I place my face against it, just to make one last check and I instantly notice the sharp smell of a forest. Opening my eyes I notice a blackish line on the horizon. I spend several long minutes to check that it's not simply an illusion caused by the nearly black clouds, and it looks like it isn't. It's not that far, it should be about three hours on foot. Sadly, or thankfully, there isn't a day/night cycle.

Seeing the endless rows of dead, black trees is strange. At the same time, they're happy to move to an endless snow desert, but on the other hand, they're dead. Walking into the ominous forest, I continue travelling in the direction of the wind. The more I walk, the colder the wind becomes, and the more tired I become. The black trees are so tightly packed that I no longer can see the silhouettes of the local mountains. Walking deeper into the forest, I find a place with many fallen trees, which creates a makeshift shelter from the freezing wind. I decide to take a small rest, burying myself in a corner, trying to find a way to keep myself warm. The moment my body stopped moving, the hunger returned. I've been keeping it at bay using the stored fat from the wolf meat, but those resources are coming to an end too.

The exhaustion finally wins and my eyes closed soon after.

...

An unbearable hunger broke me out of my slumber, as if there was a burning pit of acid inside my stomach. Breathing heavily, I try to retake control over my body and subdue the hunger, but it's not as easy as it sounds. After a 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 a few milestones, I confirm that it's the same place, but at the same time it feels strange. It's as if no time passed at all, as if I simply closed my eyes for a few minutes and woke up in the wrong place. I can't be sure, maybe the whole place is affecting me, but it doesn't matter.

I'm 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 as I feel the cold wind, which is blowing into my back, steals the warmth that I gathered while bundled together, even through the thick wolf fur I'm wearing.

The same black trees, same white snow, and the same dark grey clouds. Maybe it's my imagination, but it feels as if the sky was a few tones brighter. But the crippling hunger isn't a illusion. It got so bad that I started ripping tiny tress out of the ground and chewing the roots. My eyes notice some kind of small hill in the middle of the flat forest, and I start walking in it's direction. I find what looks like a tiny opening to someone's den. My hands start clearing the snow and open a path inside. What I find inside is a huge white bear and two small cubs, sleeping quietly in a deep burrow. But it looks like my entrance has awakened the big one, as it slowly starts shifting and sniffing the air.

They're innocent animals.

And they simply want to survive.

But so do I.

On a starving stomach, the bear meat taste as sweet as nectar.

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

I'm the same as everyone else.

But I will survive, whatever it takes.

...

This time I ate even more than I did last time, and with the abundant resources I was able to start healing. But it's not actually healing, not anymore. The body truly believes that the deformed state with a missing right hand is the original one, and that there's no issues with it.

So the only think left is to against what it believes and desires, and change it. I don't know of a way to restore a whole limb, that usually was a healer's task, but I'm going to have to learn, and what better practice target than the missing toes. Thankfully, I have enough meat near me for the task, but before that I need to repair the tendons, muscles, and bones to their original state. While my body is healing and changing, I'm making a new coat out of the mother bear, a 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 quite limited and the hunger will start returning again quite soon, and I need to be careful with my supplies, there's still a long way ahead of me and staying here won't accomplish anything.

As I'm about to resume my travel, I hear distant, heavy footsteps. They're quickly getting louder and closer until I hear them stop near the burrow entrance. I hear loud sniffing and a 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'm at least a dozen meters away do I stop and turn around to look at what attacked me. A deep cynical laugh escapes me as I stare at a seven-meter tall bipedal muscled creature with extremely long moose legs and antlers and burning red eyes looking back at me.

Wendigo.

Protector of the forest.

Corrupted spirit.

Cannibal turned hunter.

All of it's a lie, simply a corrupted moose, nothing more.

As if hearing my thoughts, the creature roars and rips a huge tree out of the ground near it, and throws it at me like a stick. I evade the incoming log by a hairs breadth.

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're food and I'm the hunter.

And on boy am I hungry.

...

Finishing cleaning the skull and fur of the Wendigo, I scowl and throw it at the ground, wincing in the process as the fractured bones in my body didn't 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 the freezing ground, bleeding with a half-broken body, with no possibility of hiding from the fucking cold. But at least it's fur looked warm, and I was able to carve quite a good coat out of it. The skull became a nice head protector, the only thing I had to do was break the huge antlers, that still had my blood and guts on them, off. I resume my travel, with quite a bit of meat on the makeshift sled made of fur which I'm dragging behind myself through the snow.

To my astonishment, I came to a clearing quite soon. What stood before me was an endless sea of frozen ice. This would be a beautiful view if it wasn't covered by a thick grey fog, which was moving quickly because of the wind that was blowing around. Looking around I notice that the area looks like a peninsula, but I can't be sure because nothing is visible after around a hundred meters. Is the land I'm standing on, simply cutting deeper into the body of water or am I standing on an island? This huge ice body could be either a huge lake, sea, or ocean. If I go around the shore I will either make a small detour, a huge circle, or an enormous circle. If I go straight across the ice I will either make a small shortcut, a huge shortcut, or end up in ocean water.

Straight it is.

I slowly step onto the ice, and looking down estimate that it's at least three meters in thickness, while the water underneath it isn't 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 the ocean, that means I'm fucked.

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

...

This isn't an ocean for sure, ocean can't freeze this much. It's also not a lake, something this enormous is even hard to categorize. My feet continue dragging me, together with the makeshift sled behind me. It has 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. I've consumed more than half of my meat supply as I've travelled across this endless icy hell, and whichever way I look there's only white fog.

There's only one path, forward.

My feet continue to drag 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, that would be very good news. For a few long seconds I stare at the spot, believing it would disappear, a trick played on me 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 a 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, like bones on a starved creature. There are a few areas that have a different colour shade, as if they were made out of different materials. I extend my hand and carefully touch it with my fingers, and I find it soft, as if it was some kind of cloth. Something burst out of it and I jump back, taking out the spearhead and pointing it at the new foe.

The foe is actually a person, human, with wild blond hair and beard. He's pointing his spear at me with terrified eyes, until they meet mine and the fear is slowly replaced with confusion. I slowly remove the Wendigo's skull from my head, which was protecting me from the cold wind. He stares at me for a few long seconds, then at the skull, after which he slowly lowers his spear and starts rambling incoherently in some language that I don't understand at all.

A human, a living one.

I need him.

I raise my hand in a sign 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 a sign of good will. His eyes sharply increase in size as his Adam's apple visibly moves. Peaking into the black cone, i find fishing utensils there. Looking back at him, closer this time, one thing become apparent, he's severely malnutritioned. Not as strongly as me, but still.

I slowly place the meat onto the ice and encourage him to take it. The long seconds of him moving his eyes between me and the meat end when he leaps at the meat and checking whether it's real or not. A smile breaks across his face. With hurried actions, he start disassembling the cone structure and it turns into a sled. He makes a gesture for me to follow him and together we start walking in a direction away from the wind.

It takes several hours of walking through the endless fog, but a silhouette of a mountain starts to slowly appear. Happily, he increases 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 starts loudly shouting something 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 smiles with a bow, after which she takes the meat and starts to move around in what looks like a kitchen. The man gestures to me to sit at 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, from his mouth, to the kitchen, and then the empty plate on the table, which I assume means food is coming. Then he points to the clouds and something moving up and down, what I assume may mean days.

I'm not the only one who was starving.

With a hand gesture I try to ask him if he has a map, or if he can draw one. It takes a few minutes, and moving an object on the table and 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 lays it flat on the table. On the cloth there are small black drawings made with coal most likely. An actual map. It shows many big mountains, a strange area, which I believe to be water and several dots. The man starts gesturing at the point near the strange area, which I assume is our current location. He starts pointing at the other dots and shows a gesture for big.

More people? So a village or city.

But the dots are very far away from here. 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 the other side of the sea, it would take from three to five times longer to reach the closest dot. And I needed more than half of my meat supply to just barely reach here. The smell of meat and herbs quickly fills the room.

Suddenly, something moves in the corner and appears from under several blankets. A tiny face.

A child.

The child says something, to which the man and woman respond back. A child with short hair removes the blankets and crawls to the man on his hands, dragging his body behind him like an anchor. The boy comes closer to the man and starts enthusiastically saying something. 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 crawls out from behind his father's back and says something, which I think is a 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 to 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 knows how long of cold, raw....meat.....feels like the best meal I ever tried. I slowly drink the soup which contains small bits of meat and herbs, while the woman shares her soup 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 the woman, explaining something most likely.

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, an area of his bright blond hair is missing. They boy's eyes are like shining green 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. A few minutes later his tiny hand starts stretching towards my stump. His parents says something and he quickly crawls back to them, but still continues to stare at me in undisguised fascination and curiosity.

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

This is the happiest he will ever be.

He doesn't know it.

He doesn't understand it yet.

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

Cripples don't survive this long, they're usually abandoned. He breathes only because his parents either really love him, or they can't take the life of their only child.

But I saw pity.

I saw shame.

The weak die, the strong live.

That's 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 into my bones, reminding me that I'm 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'm 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's dead. And there's 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 to, and you can neither kill nor destroy that.]

[You will not 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 them to cook my part, give me clothes, and decent shoes. I rested for about a day and started travelling in the direction of the closest village. They repeatedly tried to tell me that I will die, that I won't 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 snowy hell?

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

After saying my 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 between the huge mountains. Walking, moving, and surviving are the only things I know, the only things that kept me alive.

But that's 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 a hare burrow when I walking through the snow covered trail. And the second time, when I came up to a frozen river, where I found a few fishes in a 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 towards it.

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 weapons at me while shouting something at me, but I still couldn't understand what they were saying at all. They came closer and removed the Wendigo hide from me, and when they saw my stump where my right hand should be, they started laughing and jeering at each other.

The cripple isn't a danger.

Slowly, I'm escorted to the center of the village, where I see several wooden poles with naked man and women tied to them, with hatchets and arrows embedded in them. A huge guy with a missing eye appears and by the other's reactions I understand that he's 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 released, I act.

Before I know it, there's a chunk of the leader's neck in my teeth, and his crushed skull is in my left hand. Not wasting even a second, I rip apart anyone who's holding a weapon. Soon I stand in the center alone, except for the dead bodies on the ground. A minute later a woman and children start appearing out of the houses with barely any clothes on them, visibly abused.

Before, I would try to go through it quietly, only responding when I was attacked or threatened. Maybe I'm simply tired, or maybe, I changed...

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing"

Ha, now I'm quoting that carefree idiot Richard.

Are you even alive friend?

Summoned aren't allowed to live for long.