The creature before them was like the thing in Daniel’s memories the only difference being that I couldn't see any sign of that unseen presence. Rosary looked horrified as if understanding its true nature, a beast that shouldn’t be, a monster. I felt like I was going to piss myself, I could feel myself shake. We were lambs to the slaughter, my only hope for Rosary and I to survive this was by running away again. Something that I was neither great at, nor especially well-suited to doing at the moment, but something that I had gotten a lot of practice with lately.

The first thing the creature did was a flail, spikes, tentacles, and other parts of it of that which I could not try to think of names for dragging, slashing, pummeling everything around it all lights nearby going out as it flailed. "Fuck, I can't see," a voice yelled. The light of the moon gave enough light for me to see its silhouette.

Three of the demi-humans faced it, one with a shield and mace ready to strike in practiced co-ordination. The human in their group stayed aloof pulling out a large crossbow from behind his back pulling out a long thick bolt. I looked back at Lizz, she stood behind, fist clenched. She watched the fight between the group with fiddling with the quiver and bow on her back looking unsure about what to do.

One demi-human had already taken an injury; his arm sliced from the shoulder having tried to block one of the slices with a small shield only to have it wriggle around the guard mid-swing bits of skin and bone hanging where his arm had been like some macabre decoration. This wasn’t a mindless creature; its movements were too calculating, its attacks too precise. It seemed to predict certain changes.

“I can’t just sit here and watch Regar!"

Lizz screamed right before running over to the fight to help. This was our opportunity. I looked around when the creature had attacked, they had dropped some supplies, but unfortunately nothing of any real use. “Rosary let's go!” I yelled. She gave me an uncertain look as if unsure. She gave one last look to where the fighting was happening then nodded. Taking the opportunity we ran out the exit, following along a route that I couldn't understand why I could remember. The sound of yelling in screaming fading into the background.

Something deep inside me started to gnaw at me though — a feeling of guilt, a sense that I had sentenced these people to death. I remembered the dead bodies in that room. Their bloodshot eyes and torn limbs pointing, pointing to me, accusing me of their deaths. I imagined as I was running, those dead bodies were their dead bodies. Stop! Stop, no matter how much I pleaded with myself I couldn’t stop the self-doubt, the guilt.

How was I supposed to help them? All I am is some fucking deluded crazy art student. I can draw, I ’m not a fighter. That thing would rip me apart. I remembered the me that I had seen from vision, from memory. That person in my vision, it couldn't be me, I can't fight monsters. The me that I knew couldn’t risk himself fighting things like that.

I stopped for a moment, breathing labored, heart pounding, my chest on fire, stomach flopping, bile threatening to exit from my mouth. I didn’t know which was worse right now, that burning or the exhaustion from all the running around I had been doing. “Fuck!” I yelled out in frustration. Rosary looked over at me, looked back towards the direction that we had come then back at me.

“Daniel, I’m going back, get out of here please,” Rosary pleaded. The guilt pierced my heart like a psychotic doctor, stabbing me at me with needles filled with ice, no care at where those needles pierced. What could she do?

“No, Rosary why would you help them? You’ll die for people that wanted nothing more than to make sure we never left here.” I had asked myself that same question. She smiled a brave bittersweet smile, a look of quiet resolve in her face. “I don’t feel right leaving them, Daniel. They may not have been nice, but I don’t think it would be right to leave them.”

“What could you do? Just run away with me. We’ll try and find help.” She shook her head, denying it, “I’ll try to distract it, that thing isn’t something that we should ignore. I think that if it stays here Daniel, its influence will bring about the same thing that happened to my home. Keep going Daniel; I’ll be behind you once I’ve done all I can do.

A few tears dripped from her eyes, something that I don’t think she even noticed as she smiled at me again, a heartbreaking smile, a smile that said "Goodbye." She turned and sped back. I watched her leave, my heart feeling like an abyss of negative self-loathing, eating away at what made me human the whispering of insidious things betraying everything.

I stopped running. I changed to a walk still going in the opposite direction away from the fighting. Was this who I wanted to be? Was this the right decision to make? Not only was I now turning away from strangers, but now leaving Rosary to die, what could little Rosary do against that thing? Be a pest at most. So why did she have to make that choice? She should have known that she was walking back into death’s embrace.

I stopped. I started thinking again about that other me, the one that I didn’t remember, the one that I felt at this moment had to be fake. What would that other me do? I thought to myself. Could I let Rosary go like that? No... I turned back, and something about it felt right. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I couldn’t leave things as they were, if a younger me could face these things then why couldn’t an older me?

I started running, this time running back; no more running away if I wanted to be the person that I remembered I had to have the bravery to be that person. I wouldn’t run anymore; I couldn’t. My feet seemed lighter than they had ever been before, my ears clearly could hear the sounds of battle, my mind felt clear and my chest no longer felt any pain as my body moved with a speed that felt faster than I had ever run before I was certain now of what to do.