Dweller

My body felt more refreshed, I had been able to get around three hours of sleep before not being able to go back into my slumber. It was better than nothing.

I had woken up multiple times throughout the night before I finally just gave up. I slowly start to trail the mountain edge trying to look for an easy way to enter in between them. So far I haven't found anything.

The sun had started to rise and I had still not found an easy way to go through. My belly was now starting to rumble, demanding something to eat. I had eaten my last bar the previous night, and no longer had any sort of food left. I was not planning on being gone for this long.

I now had a problem to face. Do I find some sort of berries and hope they aren't poisonous, or do I go hunt. I was more inclined to just hope the berries weren't going to kill me, as I had never actually killed another animal before, I felt guilty just thinking about it.

Just thinking about the dead vampire and werewolf hurt me enough, but it was killed or be killed. I squatted down, taking off my bag. I looked through it to see how many small knives and daggers I brought along with me.

I have 7 daggers and 3 small knife's. I was hoping just to kill a small bunny. However my luck was not here today. My options were either a deer which I doubted I could take on or a wolf, which was an even worse option.

I decided to continue on the trail hoping to find something else to eat. By mid day, I had found nothing. The once lush grass was now gone and was only sharp stones. I was now trailing along the base of the mountains slowly going up. A few goats could be found, but I had no idea how to eat one and decided against it.

That night I ate nothing and went to sleep hungry. Underneath the twinkling stars.

I had a dream that night, something I hadn't had since I started this journey. There were a lot of people whispering, really loudly. My head was throbbing. Until everything went quiet.

I was not standing in a cave. Vines and moss covered the outside, however, mysteriously enough the inside was clean. There wasn’t a single stray leaf in sight. My body started to walk without my permission. I started panicking, realizing I couldn't speak.

At the back of the cave layed a person. It was too dark to see. The smell of blood and strong bones littered the ground. Human bones, elf bones, goblin bones. It was horrible.

All of a sudden the area changed to a forest. It was dark, the thumping of paws could be heard in the distance, I turned around staring behind me. Trying to pick up this unfamiliar sound. It sounded so close but for some reason I understood that it was actually far away.

All of a sudden running figures started to pass by, it was too dark to see what was running, but I was going to stay around. Lucky this time I had control over my body and started sprinting. I weaved through the trees and finally slowly came to a stop panting hard. That was the fastest I had ever run before and it felt great.

I slowly walked forward. Walking through the forest, taking in all of its beautiful sights and smells. The forest thinned out and came to a stop at a ledge. The bright moon shone, staring right at me. My head tilted up to the sky quickly losing all control over my actions, and howled.

A wolf.

I woke up panting sweating coming off my forehead. It was a weird and terrible dream but yet it felt familiar, that only seemed to freak me out even more. I wasn't sure if this was because of the lack of food. But I was too terrified to string together any rational thoughts.

The moon was still in the sky. Not too much different when I last saw it. I slept for 2-3 hours. But that dream gave me enough motivation to go and hunt something at this point. I wanted to get my mind off of everything.

I lurked through the pointed stones, using the shadows to slither around undetected. I came upon a goat that was eating some shrub that had somehow ended up living here. It sat on the edge hanging it neck out over, trying to reach it.

I pounced on it. Digging my dagger as far as I could down its side. Instantly killing it. The blood trickled out of it, seeping over the cold hard stone floor. The light white and gray coat was soon covered in blood.

As if it were second nature, I looked around grabbing two stones nearby. I pulled up some of the remaining grass that the goat was previously snaking on and striking the two stones together above it. Sparks flew out shocking me.

I didn’t understand what I was doing or how I knew what to do, but all I was concerned with was the fact that it did work. I repeated this action multiple times until the ferns and grass ignited. Bursting into flames it creates a small fire. The fire wouldn’t last long; the small blades of grass would quickly burn out.

I grabbed one of my small knives and slowly started to skin and carve away at the goat. Soon enough I heard chunks of meat layed out and was prepared to put it over the fire. I had nothing to hold it with some I held it above watching it thinking over the last couple of minutes.

I had actually killed a goat, set a fire and then skinned it. This was weird. I had never learned how to do this. I never even read books about it. How on earth did I know how to do this? Should I even question it at this point? Whatever is happening is going to save me from starving to death so why should I care?

I looked back over to the meat, I was so hungry I didn't have any more patience to wait. I chowed down on the partially raw meat. Not even caring about what could happen.

What if this was because I hit my head many days ago? I know that was a while ago but could that be the cause? I did hit it multiple times throughout my journey, what if the head injury is only just now showing signs?

I set out the fire, grabbed my bag and headed out leaving my mess. I slowly started to walk again. Not even stopping to take a break when the sun had risen. I continued that night all the way into the late evening of the next day. I aimlessly walked, not even paying attention to where I was walking. Finally the path ahead of me started to clear out.

I picked up my pace, jolts of energy slowly started to sprout from me. If it was what I think it was, my long and externally boring journey would soon come to an end. I came to the small flat clearing that had no protruding rocks or boulders, and literally shouted with joy.

Ahead of me was a slow winding path that was patted down. The ground smoothed out while in some places left deep tracks of signs of horse drawn carriages. It was a trading route that went up into the mountain. It seemed like it went into a small cave above, but if there was a path leading up to it I would take it. It didn't seem too far up; it would probably only take 3 hours to get there.

I rested at the bottom of the path, writing down my weird phenomenons in my diary and filling it with stories and adventures that had happened throughout my walk. Before I settled in too much for the night. I went to hunt.

I came across a small bunny. I threw a couple of my knives at it, missing it and scared it off. I continued looking and wouldn't give up until I found something to eat. I came across a bunch of rabbits and killed two of them before heading back to my small camp.

I cooked it up similar to how I cut up the goat. I cooked and enjoyed watching the stars. Ever since that last nightmare I swore never to sleep again.

I had so far kept up to that but I knew I would eventually succumb to my heavy eyelids. I watched the bright stars in the sky and thought over all the events that had happened. I thought about my family and what happened to them. Marking the end to another long night.