I feel so cold, why won't the breeze stop blowing, why can't I see anything?.............. my feet's gettin wet, what is this?Water.......................no.........this is too thin to be water and why does it smell metallic.................blood?

"--------------" he attempted to speak but his body refused to allow the words to even be formed.

My voice won't come out.... WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS

The strange cold liquid could be felt rising along his body and within the surroundings slowly making it's way up to his face.

STOP........ STOP............... ANY FURTHER AND I'LL DROWN

The liquid entered his mouth and began to fill his lungs, it had no distinctive taste and kept pouring into his body without any resistance, he couldn't breathe anymore at this point.

*HUFF HUFF

He woke up with the sun blistering through his window hitting him on the forehead and he began taking deep breaths gasping for breath as if he was almost suffocated.

"AHHHHHHHHHH" he screamed as a gut wrenching pain overcame his body forcing him to curl in a ball and scream in agony, the pain was sudden and unexpected which caused him to lose the composure he normally had.

"WHATS WRONG, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?" she shouted twisting the doorknob trying to enter his room desperately to see what was happening.

*COUGH *COUGH *COUGH

He began to cough his lungs out with each cough draining every bit of air he had in his lungs.

"TELL ME WHATS GOING ON" she shouted with her voice being panic-stricken.

Quickly pulling off every piece of clothing he was wearing on, he jumped into the wooden tub filled with water and submerged his head under the ice cold water, closing his eyes letting the coldness take the pain away, numbing his body.

It was the second time this had happened.

After around 2 minutes in basking in the cold water, regaining his composure and ignoring Miranda's shouting, he got up and threw a long-sleeved white tunic and black pants along with his boots, picked up the money bag and opened the door.

Miranda was standing in front of the door with a look of distraught on her face.

"What's wrong?" he asked as if nothing was happening.

Is he serious?

"...................Don't fuck with me, what was happening in that room?" she asked him seriously with a slight look of agitation on her face due to him acting the way he was.

"Doesn't matter, don't study it" he said as he began to walk off heading towards the staircase.

He thinks I'm a fool or something

"FI-"

"Let's head to the settlement and get some stuff Miranda, by the way, you look nice" he told her as he turned around noticing the yellow A-line dress she was wearing.

"You really think that paying me a compliment will stop me from getting angrier?" she asked him with her arms folded.

"What if I pay you two?" he said sarcastically.

"I'm in a bad mood now, go by yourse-"

*GROWLLLLL

"You're hungry?" he asked upon hearing her stomach growling.

"Doesn't matter, don't study it" she replied angrily.

It wasn't even their first day alone together and they were already arguing over shit that was pointless to him.

This doesn't even concern her, why the fuck is she so angry.................I should apologize I guess

"Miranda, I'm sorry for being the way I was before but there's nothing wrong, here's what, if you come with me to the settlement to get some stuff I'll cook for you when we get back, or you can just stay here, up to you, I already apologized there, do what you want" he responded, telling her with a straight face.

She began to ponder and realized she may have been overreacting and she might have gotten a little overemotional.

"Sorry............I'll come with you" she said with a depressing tone.

She's calmed down it seems

"Cheer up, let's go" he told her grabbing her hand spontaneously, leading her down the stairs and she followed without hesitation.

They quickly exited the house and locked the doors and he stood outside for a second taking in the air before moving out to reach the settlement.

They began to make their way through the grassy plains to reach the settlement.

As they walked in silence the boy could hear something.

*KNOCK.........................*KNOCK

It was faint but something was knocking in the distance.

Where's it coming from?

He stopped in his tracks and began to look in all directions for the source of the sound.

"What's wrong?" Miranda asked him as she saw him standing looking all over the place.

"..........You don't hear that?" he asked her.

"Hear what?" she asked getting confused as to what he was talking about.

There was nothing that could be heard besides the breeze blowing through the trees of the forest and both of their feet pattering throughout the grass.

*KNOCK.........................*KNOCK.......................*KNOCK.....................*KNOCK

"Do you really not hear that knocking sound?" he asked her, getting worried.

"It must be your imagination" she replied.

The sound was similar to that of knocking a hand on a piece of hardwood.

He was able to pinpoint the sound, although Miranda could not hear it, he could and it was as clear as day.

It's coming from the forest..........................yea I can hear it coming from there

He turned and faced the forest and the knocking sound he was hearing immediately stopped, although it was daylight and the trees of the forest could be seen clearly, there was nothing which was knocking on the trees.

"It must be my imagination for real Miranda," he told her with a look of paranoia on his face.

"Everythings fine, let's go," she told him as she grabbed his hand and led him through the plain.

*SOBBING

As they were directly outside of the settlement entering the main road, a woman could be heard crying loudly and she began to scream.

"WHYYYYYYYY MUST YOU TAKE HIM GODS, WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY" she bawled.

Walking into the main road to enter the settlement, a crowd of the villagers of the settlement could be seen gathered around the woman who was the source of the crying and screaming.

Miranda and the boy stood there looking at the sight for around 20 minutes before the crowd began to dissipate and everyone returned to normal as if nothing had ever happened.

Next to the screaming woman on the ground was a wooden cart with 2 horses and a man at the helm. At the back of the cart was something covered in black cloth.

"Stay here Miranda," the boy told Miranda as he walked off towards the woman.

Miranda paid no heed and followed him nonetheless.

As he made his way in front of the woman, he could see the that the dirt where the woman was, was moist from her tears as compared to the rest.

The boy took a knee and looked at the woman face to face, she looked lifeless as if her soul was ripped out.

"What happened here?" he asked the woman.

She began to cry upon him asking the question.

"M-M-My b-b-brother" she said crying.

The boy glanced to the cart and everything fell into place, what was covered in black cloth was the woman on the ground's brother.

Her brother?

He grabbed her and started hugging her and stroking her hair. The woman had no idea who he was but she understood what he was trying to do.

What's he doing?

"Tell me what happened" he said in a soft tone.

"H-He w-e-ent in the forest o-o-n a jo-b-b and they found his body t-t-this m-m-morning" she stuttered crying in his arms.

He was a merc probably

The boy took his hands and wiped the tears of the grieving sister's face.

"I won't hit you some bullshit and tell you everything'll be fine, that would be an insult, what you must do now............is persevere, your brother wouldn't have liked to see you in this state, you must pick up the pieces and live on, if not for yourself then for him" he told her sadly stroking her hair.

She began to look at him and as she looked into his eyes, she could see the pain he was experiencing at the same time, although she was mourning the loss of her brother, looking into those eyes of his made her feel as if the problem she was suffering from right now paled nothing in comparison to him.

"I understand w-what you-u are saying" she told him wiping the tears off her face as she got up and moved to the back of the cart.

"Tha-a-ank you" she told him.

The cart began to move as she entered and that was the end of it, she soon disappeared with the cart that was heading into Mephisto from their sights.

"Why did you go to her, it doesn't concern you," Miranda told him as she looked at him sitting on the ground.

"If you saw someone suffering and it was within your power to ease their suffering, would you stand there and let them suffer alone or at least try to be at their side and help ease them of their suffering, everyone in that crowd stood there looking at her as a spectacle, not one of them thought of the fact that she was someone who lost an important person in their life" he replied.

He's so kindhearted

"I understand what you're saying but if that's your mentality, in the end, you'll become the one that's suffering" she responded putting her hand on his shoulder.

He thought about what she had said as he got up from the ground but he couldn't think of anything to tell her.

They made their way deeper into the settlement following the main road and came upon a small square area with a lot of people separated from the housing where merchants were present selling merchandise of various nature. A mixed scent permeated the air, fresh fish on salt, boiling chickens being plucked and raw beef all in one.

The scent of the fish made him so nauseous, they had to buy everything soon and get out of there quickly.

Forcing their way in between people to reach different merchants, they purchased various spices, peppers, potatoes, carrots, cassava, sugarcane molasses in a bottle, cows milk, sugar, salt, herbs and fruits etc all of which were put into a cloth bag.

When it was time to buy meats, he could see that Miranda was eyeing the fish but she could notice that it was making him upset and they chose to buy a fresh chicken instead which was plucked, cleaned and wrapped in paper.

At the end of purchasing goods, they quickly headed back to the house and put the goods on the table.

The day was hectic navigating through that maze which was called a market and the boy took a seat on the couch.

"So what're you gonna cook for me for lunch, I remember you clearly said you were gonna cook for me" Miranda notified the boy whilst laughing.

"A deal's a deal, I need water" the boy told Miranda.

"Behind the stairs has a tap next to the washroom" she responded pointing at it.

The boy made his way across the room to the cabinet and took out a large metal bowl and he made his way to the tap and filled it with water and headed back.

Opening the tinder box, he put some tinder into some wood within the circular brick stove and caught the tinder using the firestrikers.

As the fire caught itself he put the netted piece of metal over it and then placed a black metal pot on it.

He took a butcher knife and parted the chicken, separating it into two batches, he pressed dry salt into pieces of meat from the first batch then he reused the paper and wrapped it for preservation. He then coated the other batch with molasses and finely chopped culantro and put it into the pot.

As the meat began to sizzle he filled the pot with water and then he added some sugar, a pinch of salt and a whole pepper into the stew and then he put the lid over the pot and left it to simmer.

He realized that the stove could hold two pots and he put a rice pot next to the other pot and filled it with water and began to boil the rice.

After around 30 minutes he was finished with all the cooking.

Within that time he had taken out plates and silverware and he made freshly squeezed orange juice into two glasses, it was time to eat.

"Miranda, I'm done," he said as he walked to the couch and saw her lying down.

She got up immediately and walked to the kitchen.

"What is this?" she asked looking at the chicken.

"It's a stew" he responded.

"It smells different from the stew I'm used to and there are no vegetables," she told him with a look of confusion on her face.

"Just eat the food, I'm sure you'll be surprised," he told her, getting angry at her comments.

They took out some food into two plates and headed to the living room where the couches were and took a seat.

He began to force himself to eat however she still seemed to be skeptical of the food, then she took a spoonful of the chicken and rice.

Her face lit up like a bulb.

"What is this taste in the chicken?" she queried out of amazement as she kept eating.

"Molasses, it sweetens the meat and I added pepper and some salt for spiciness and a tad bit of saltiness" he replied.

She stared at him as he made that comment.

"What?" he asked upon seeing the look on her face.

"Nothing, just surprised, I thought you were gonna make some bad tasting food" she proclaimed.

"Nah, I picked it up from Su-" he said as he choked upon trying to say her name.

Su?

What the......

*Faint tapping in the distance

Miranda didn't seem to hear it.

"Do you not hear that?" he asked as he got up and looked through the window into the forest.

"What do you keep hearing so, I don't hear a thing" she responded confused.

I'm getting paranoid

"It's nothing, I made a mistake there," he said as he took a seat and continued eating.

They ate in silence after that, the day passed by in a fly and Miranda washed the wares and clothes and put them to dry on the grass outside and he helped her out and night soon fell.

"What do you want to eat?" Miranda asked him asked him as he began lighting the candles to illuminate the house.

"You're gonna cook?" he asked.

"Well yes," she replied as she walked into the kitchen.

"Roast chicken and vegetables fine?" she asked him.

I really don't wanna fuckin eat again for the day

"Yea, sure," he told her.

After around 40 minutes she was done and she prepared two plates of food with cooked, seasoned, chopped up potatoes and roasted chicken on a stick. It smelled good and would make any normal person's mouth water.

She finished pretty quick

She sat there staring at him waiting for him to take the first bite and tell her how it tasted.

He took a forkful of potatoes and put it into his mouth.

"It tastes good Miranda" he complimented her.

"Thank you, this is my first time coo-"

*COUGH *COUGH

He began coughing as he took his first bite into the chicken.

The fuck is this saltiness

"WHAT'S WRONG?" she shouted handing him a glass of water.

"You didn't get rid of the saltiness in the meat" he told her as he gulped down water to wash the taste out of his mouth.

"I washed the meat to get rid of the salt though" she said as she took a bite of the meat.

*COUGH *COUGH *COUGH

"I see what you were talking about, I'm so sorry" she said apologizing.

"You want me to show you how to remove the saltiness from the meat?" he asked.

"Yes please, I don't know what went wrong," she told him with a bewildered look on her face.

"Let's go to the kitchen," he told her as he got up and began to walk.

She followed him into the kitchen where he could see the wares were washed and lying on the kitchen counter.

"How many times did you wash the chicken?" he enquired

"Once, to get the salt off" she replied.

"Ah, that's your problem there," he said as he unwrapped the paper filled with chicken and placed some within a bowl.

Then he grabbed a huge metal bowl and walked over to the tap and filled it with water and then he came back.

He poured the majority of the water into 5 bowls and threw the chicken he separated into the first bowl.

"See, washing doesn't get it out, you gotta soak it to get it out because the salt penetrates deep into the meat" he informed her.

"I understand" she replied.

They waited 10 minutes then he removed the chicken from the first bowl and moved it to the second and kept repeating this action taking almost an hour.

"You have to repeatedly soak it within different bowls of clean water to ensure the salt comes out, if you leave it within one bowl too long, the water will become concentrated with salt and the saltiness will remain, but if you do it like this, most of the salt will come out" he told her pointing at the bowls.

Then he walked over to the stove, lit it and placed a pot on it and filled it with milk.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Soaking gets out most of the saltiness, but in the end, the meat will always have a highly salty taste which is bearable..........that's what most people think........... but if you boil the meat in milk for a short period of time it completely gets rid of that taste and you can do so much more with the meat. The salt used for preserving meat limits cooking in so many ways but with this, the meat becomes as it was previous to adding the salt giving you so many possibilities, the only thing this doesn't work for is fish I think" he replied, educating her.

After around 5 minutes of boiling the meat in the milk, he removed it from the pot and placed it into a bowl and rinsed it free of the milk.

He then reached for some of the spices within the bag such as ginger, turmeric, dried hot peppers, and garlic within the bag. He then finely chopped them up, added some water with a pinch of salt for some flavor and made a paste and began to rub it into the meat.

Picking up a piece of wood on the ground he quickly split it into long pieces and skewered the meat and removed the netted metal over the stove and began to roast the meat.

She couldn't help but stare at him in amazement, all of his actions were efficient and he looked elegant whilst preparing the meat and chopping up the spices for the seasoning.

After around 5 minutes he took the skewers off the stove, put it on a plate and outed the stove.

"Try it" he instructed her, passing a skewer to her.

She took it from him and began to bite the meat of the stick.

"This is soooo good and there's no saltiness what so ever," she told him praising him as she stuffed her face full of meat.

"Thanks" he replied.

"Aren't you going to eat it too?" she told him with her mouth filled with food.

"No, I made this for you, the potatoes are good enough for me, they were satisfying, thank you" he told her, thanking her for the meal as he walked over to the couch where the plate filled with the potatoes were.

She returned with the plate filled with the skewers and sat next to him eating.

As he turned and looked at her, he could see she was gloomy.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I feel so bad for serving you that, in all honesty it wa-"

"Was your first time cooking? You told me that already, don't feel bad, after all, it was your first time trying this and your potatoes came out great" he told her trying to comfort her.

"Do you think that I dunno.....you could probably...........teach me? It's just you're so good at this" she asked with a look of embarrassment on her face.

I feel so bad for asking him this, these are things I should know how to do at this point

He looked at her and could see that she was ashamed to ask him that.

"It isn't a problem, you can tag along with me in the kitchen when I'm cooking then," he told her without hesitation.

"Thank you so much," she told him with gratitude.

After they were finished eating, they disposed of the bones by throwing it outside and they washed the wares together, outed the candles and they both headed upstairs to their rooms.

He sat on his bed for around an hour looking at the moon through his window, then he exited the room with his xiphos in his hand and headed downstairs without making a sound.

Walking out into the field in front of him with the forest directly ahead of him and the strong cold breeze blowing making his body getting chills along with the moonlight illuminating all in front of him, he began to train.

It had been months since he had done this, he began to practice strikes of different angles repeatedly working at a rhythm and setting a pace, intensifying the speed and strength of his strikes and as the time went by, the fatigue began to take its toll and he took a break.

He began to do pushups, squats, and situps to develop the strength of his body and he set two marks of about 50 meters apart in line and began to run shuttles to build his endurance and speed. He fought through the pain and kept going on and on.

At the end of training, he was drenched in sweat and every fiber of his being was in pain and he headed upstairs and soaked his body in the cold water of the tub.

Surprisingly, although he was extremely tired, he didn't feel the urge to sleep and he just stared at the moon until the sun rose.

A month passed by with both of their lives following that typical day.

In the time that passed, he came to get an understanding of who Miranda was as a person, she was impulsive, brash at times,overly emotional and she stuck to him like glue.

While she was awake, she would go by him and spend it all with him, all day, every day except for that once in a blue moon when he would head to the city for about 2 hours to talk to Zerbia about the whereabouts of the slave traders and in that time she felt as if she would die without his company.

It wasn't that they did anything special, it was just that his presence and being with him made time seem to fly and she wished to be with him at all times, on the days when she would be even all emotional thinking about the things that happened before, he would always be at her side and try to comfort her.

He wasn't very vocal but he would always try in many different ways to comfort her, cooking, taking her out to the settlement, a hug once in a while etc but at this point, it seemed as if she had come to terms of accepting what had happened and was alright.

She had tried to talk to him about where he came from on numerous occasions but he never responded and the atmosphere would get silent. He was an enigma to her, she never had any idea of what was going through his head and had no idea of who he was although he basically knew everything about her.

Within that month, there were things that had changed which she knew nothing of, he realized that every time he would sleep, he would have nightmares and wake up in an unbearable amount of pain, feeling as if he was being stabbed repeatedly along with a feeling of being burned and as a result he slept once every 2-3 days, only out of necessity and not for the pleasure of it.

Although this was happening, the pain was slowly leeching into his body throughout the day, it wasn't limited to just the minutes after waking up, it would hit him suddenly at any point throughout the day.

One day as he and Miranda were on their way to the market to stock up on food, a couple of city guards could be seen around 200 meters away from the house near the forest by the path to reach the main road to enter the settlement with blood being visible on the grass.

"Miranda, head to the settlement, I'll be with you soon" he ordered her.

She could tell he was extremely serious and didn't wish to make him feel uncomfortable with her presence at this time.

He waited until she walked off and approached the guards.

"Sorry to disturb you, but what happened here?" he asked looking at the blood smeared on the grass.

One of the guards who was crouched staring at the stain got up and looked at him.

"Earlier today was like something you would see in a nightmare, bodies were found in a trail, ripped to pieces and scattered from the village leading to here, it's been happening more frequently with each passing day" the man responded

"More frequently?" the boy asked confused.

"Before this would only happen maybe once a day but now its become multiple times throughout the day, and we have no idea if the culprit is a someone from the human race or a monster but a monster wouldn't have been able to breach the barrier so we think it's a human" the man answered the boy.

The boy began to think about it.

"It started from the village and it's reached this far? How long ago did this start happening?" he enquired

"In the beginning, mutilated bodies were found directly outside of the settlement on the road leading to where Kólasi was, then they began to appear near the settlement and they slowly moved along this path leading to here also if we assume that the killings that were found before were done by the same person, then that would mean it started around a month ago" the man informed the boy.

The path of the bodies has been getting closer and closer to the house with each passing day................A month, a whole fuckin month, how the fuck have I not noticed this

"Here's gotten pretty dangerous huh, thanks for telling me," he said as he thanked the man and headed to the settlement thinking about what the man had said.

How can I have been so fuckin dumb, the man said "bodies" so that means there must be more, I gotta hurry to the settlement and see for myself.

He began to run towards the settlement to see the bodies, hoping he was in time and there Miranda could be seen directly outside waiting for him along the main road.

"What's the matter?" she asked as she saw him running towards her.

He ran past her and gave no response, sprinting into the village.

Where's he going?

He had made it in time, a cart filled with bodies covered was now exiting the settlement and heading to Mephisto.

"STOP" the boy shouted signaling the man at the helm commanding the horse to stop moving.

Running to the back of the cart he pulled the white covering sheet stained with blood off.

There laid around 5 bodies torn up and mutilated, men and women, all parts bare naked covered in blood with a foul smell emanating from it as the bodies showed signs of rotting, it would make anyone gag.

Sorry for this........

He picked up what he presumed to be a female's arm with the fingers missing and began to inspect it.

There was a clear liquid coating the knuckle region where they were ripped off and chills began to run down his spine, he put the hand back on the cart and placed the covers back and signaled the man to go, he had found what he was looking for.

Seems it didn't forget about me

Miranda approached him, as he stood there watching the cart filled with bodies enter Mephisto, the air around him was tense and his face looked extremely serious.

"What happened?" she asked upon looking at the state he was in.

"We need to have a talk when we get back home," he told her as his face returned to his expressionless self with the tension disappearing and him clenching his fists.