Monster Hunter

The bleak, moonless night sky was canvassed by a strange array of dark clouds. A storm was gathering around the area that had previously been host to an extraordinary and bloody battle, now an empty space full of decrepit trees and secret-kept snow.

Long, howling gales blew throughout the frozen wasteland, which was followed by the increasingly loud crunch of snow under large, lupine feet. A lanky, hairy figure with leathery skin and a steer-like head was shuffling among the dead trees of the forest. From his crown grew a mass of large, silver antlers that gnarled upward and inward. There was a lone piece of hide taken from some unknown beast covering his naked, anthropoid body, the hide’s purpose serving as one of modesty rather than any protection from the elements. An ill-matching, sinister shadow reverberated haphazardly behind him, while a perpetual stench of rotting meat encased him. In the shadow above his long, prodigious snout were tiny, gleaming white beads that vibrated wildly as they tracked invisible prints in the snow. Markings left by creatures unknown that seemed to radiate alien signatures not visible to the human eye.

As he shuffled on, mighty blizzards filled with bone-chilling winds followed in his wake. Falling leaves and flying pests freezing almost instantly as they entered within close proximity of his being, leaving behind only cold reminders of death. The stranger's monstrous nostrils flared, his widening maw gradually revealing several rows of crooked, black fangs—a flehmen reaction to an otherworldly scent. He began scanning the recesses of his caliginous mind trying to identify which creature it belonged to.

The inhuman hunter traveled deeper through the frozen remains of fallen trees, pursuing the strange, interdimensional source of fluctuations that he had felt the previous day. His gait quickening, finally spotting a trail of glimmering blood of an indescribable shade oozing from the half-buried, iridescent remains of something akin to a large arthropod. He knelt down to examine the lifeless creature further, his head cocking side to side in studious motion like a machine. Extending an arm, his hand shook and twitched, forming miniature spikes of glacial energy around it that shot from his grasp and landed roughly on the snow around the fallen creature. The small objects invaded its insides, examining the multitude of scratches and wounds, revealing some untold intelligence that only he understood.

Many hours later, having felt his investigation sufficient, he ended his grim autopsy of the chthonae. Squeezing his clawed hand into a fist, the small, icy invaders crumbled silently into snow. His piercing, alien eyes narrowed as he opened his mouth to speak in a harsh, guttural tone, the writhing tongue in his mouth struggling to form words.

"FOUND. YOU."

The stranger smiled a wicked smile, his arm shooting forward and piercing the insides of the creature. Out came the warm, slimy entrails of the chthonae in his hands, which he then proceeded to shovel into his mouth.

************************************************

There was a soft knocking at the door accompanied by a tender voice belonging to Alma's sister Zulema.

"Alma, I heard about what happened. Can we talk?"

In response to her voice came a dejected groaning from the other side of the door.

Zulema pulled out the spare key she had on hand for emergencies and unlocked the door to her family’s home. As she stepped inside, the elder sister was immediately struck with a dreary, depressed atmosphere. Sprawled out on the floor was a short woman, her younger sister, shabbily dressed in the white and gold colors of her country. Disheveled raven hair spread out, like a dark halo around her head. There was a long bandage wrapped around her forehead. Strewn out clothes and sheets surrounded her—Dirty laundry that hadn’t been washed in days. The remnants of a few broken appliances also littered the edges of the room, leading one to easily guess the kind of mental state the poor girl was in.

The young priestess jokingly asked if a natural disaster had chosen the home as its vacation spot of choice. Naturally, the only disaster on her mind was her younger sister.

"Leave me alone, Zula," Alma kept her gaze fixed to the ceiling. "Can't you see I'm busy being a miserable outcast who ruined her dream and no longer has any available prospects for the future?"

"I'm sorry about what happened, Alma. I know how much joining the princess's army meant to you."

Zulema's sweet voice did nothing to soothe Alma's melancholy. She set down the bag she was carrying, filled with a few things she had bought earlier and decided to start picking up the mess that her sister had left piling up around her.

"How on Sarracas could you miss your first day on duty?" There was a stern sisterly tone in her voice. "What could possibly have been more important than that? And what happened to your forehead?"

Alma kept silent, listening numbly to the continuous ruffling of clothes being picked up around her.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Her voice was deadpan. She raised her head. "Listen, don't worry about me. Just go light a candle for me, I'll figure something out."

Alma was on the verge of tears, her voice breaking.

"Zula… T-They took my Esme…” she muttered. “…Maybe I'll go live with the elfwin for a while like grandhag."

"Alma, you know I have the utmost faith in you,” stated Zulema. “Now please pull yourself together. I would believe you even if you had said you'd seen Macha herself."

"Not exactly," said Alma, standing up. Her body shambled to the other side of the room and began picking up the pieces of her radio receiver. "I met someone—something out in the woods yesterday. A woman. I think."

Despite, in her honest opinion, giving off an aura akin to divinity, Alma decided to refrain from calling that woman a goddess.

Zulema nodded, indicating for her sister to go on.

"She said some things to me—“ Alma paused and thought for a moment. “You know the weird shit I’m constantly seeing that I'm always complaining to you about? Yeah. There were tons of them out there."

"And she could see them," continued Alma, throwing a big pile of scattered junk into the trash.

"What kind of woman?” Her sister’s story did nothing to abate Zula’s worries. “What did she say exactly?"

There was something about the way the young priestess carried herself that always resonated with the people around her, and it always made them want to open up to her—especially her sister. It was a useful trait to have in her line of work.

"Uh… I'm not sure." Alma shook her head. She tried recalling all the strange details about the woman named Qu'l-Nia.

"Even remembering now, it’s hard to describe. She was weirdly pale and had this shiny… silvery-purple hair. And the tips of her hair," She pulled a few strands of her own hair forward, trying to get a visualization going. "I-It— They glowed! It was so weird! There was another woman with her too, actually. A Hecatian elf, her features were unmistakable.”

Alma hooked a finger into her mouth, revealing her incisors. "No tail, but you should've seen the fangs on her."

"Hecatian?" Zulema asked, surprised. "You don't see many way out in these parts."

"Yeah." Alma nodded. "She could detect them too. Except these creatures were slightly different to the ones I’m used to. Way different, actually.”

And they were a lot more fucking dangerous.

Alma gently touched a bruise on her abdomen, a painful reminder of the monstrous encounter.

Zulema had already finished picking up all the clothing on the floor and was halfway through folding them.

Alma continued, "When I first ran into Hwalín—"

"Hwalín?"

"The elf!” Alma pulled up on her ears. “When I first saw her, she was being surrounded by those things. I couldn't just let her die, so… I shot first and asked questions later."

Alma continued, sharing her experience about the ensuing melee of that morning and the resulting fall that had injured her. Right before she was going to try to explain the strange singing, Alma remembered what Qu'l-Nia had told her about the powers trying to end their world and decided to keep quiet so as to not get her sister any further involved in the machinations of that crazed alien.

"She called them chthonae? I'm not familiar.” Zulema had begun throwing the dirty laundry into their washer. “And then what happened?"

Alma peered into the room her sister had moved to and looked at her back worriedly. "…And then I blacked out. It was a long fall. I must've hit something on the way down."

She swept her bangs back before letting them fall back onto her forehead. "I'm pretty sure that fall killed the monster I was wrestling with too."

A lie.

Zulema gasped. "You're lucky you didn't get a concussion from that fall! Macha must have been watching over you that morning."

"Yeah," said Alma, chuckling. "I guess so."

She fixed her hair up into her usual top knot. The short-lived soldier took more pride in her hair than she was willing to admit.

"Well, when I woke up, Hwalín had already gone to sleep so it was just me and the woman. She mentioned the creatures we fought—the chthonae—were..." She trailed off.

"Were what?" Zulema had stopped folding clothes and was listening more intently.

"You’re not gonna believe me! She said they were from another dimension!" Alma stared at her sister, waiting for her take in her response before letting out a burst of laughter.

"What?" asked the young priestess, chuckling nervously. "Were you joking?"

Zulema began to laugh along with her sister.

"No," said Alma, still laughing. "But it all sounds so crazy when I say it out loud now."

As Alma’s laughter died down, Zulema noticed her sister's gaze following something around the room. There seemed to be a slight look of horror in her eyes.

"Are you sure everything's alright, Alma? Should I stay over for a while?" she asked, semi-pleadingly. Zulema began to grow increasingly worried over her sister's mental state. Being a woman of the church of madness often involved helping the chance vagrant that wandered the streets—poor souls afflicted with mental delusions that caused them endless grief. Zulema sincerely believed her sister for the most part, but she wondered if maybe Alma hadn't hit her head harder than she thought.

Alma let out a sigh.

"Please, Zula. Don't turn me into another one of your charity cases." Throwing an old, burgundy scarf around her neck, she walked towards the door. The chilly, afternoon air struck her face the moment it opened. "Thanks for helping me clean up. Now if you need me, I'll be off at Nemeth's getting a drink." .

"Alright, Alma," said Zulema. "Then I'll go and call old Fog and let him know you're coming."

Zula giggled inappropriately. It seemed her sister was resolved in drinking her problems away. Something she herself could at least relate to.

“By the way.” Alma had taken a step out the door before turning back to her sister. The bag Zulema had brought with her had caught her eye. “What’s in the bag?”

“Mmm. Just a couple of things for this stray gatin I found the other day. You know I have a weakness for cute things that mewl at me.” Zulema giggled. “He’s a bit of a hefty boy, but I couldn’t find any sort of identification on him. I named him Brawny for now. He seems to come and go from my place as he pleases.”

“Oh. Cool,” Alma said without a shred of interest. “Okay, Zula. See you.”

She bolted out the door, leaving her sister smiling and waving.

The sky was a very annoying shade of gray, thought Alma, as another headache began to surface. While she walked through the snow-laden streets, the events of the morning began to resurface in her mind...

************************************************

It was earlier that day that Alma had awoken to an intense, dull pain in her stomach. A rising lump in her throat signaled a familiar feeling. There was barely any time for her to admire the paradoxically bright and dreary skies that filled the landscape of her home country before rushing back into the forest. Finding a suitable spot behind a tree, a large amount of bile mixed with chunks of days-old food spewed violently out of her mouth. A trembling arm was wrapped around the trunk of the tree, while the other was on shaking knee. She had an intense hatred of vomiting. There was a fear there, whenever she knew it was coming, of the severe abdomen pain that accompanied it. It was the only thing that kept her unabashed drinking in check.

She did her best not to cry.

She leaned against the tree—relief spreading through her as the worst part of it was over. She found herself squinting and staring at the nasty mess she left on the snow for a good while.

After a short bout of What did I do to deserve this? racing through her mind multiple times, Alma kicked some snow over her half-digested meal and slowly walked back to where she had woken up. She tried to shake away the feeling that she had just slept through another nightmare after seeing her blankets scattered about and the sleeping bag she had been using tossed several feet away. With the sun out, she could finally get a good look at the encampment. An extinguished bonfire stood in the center, surrounded by long logs where one could sit and warm themselves up. A standard, makeshift campsite, by any means—except that not a drop of snow had covered the area they had been sleeping in. It was almost as if the snow had consciously made a decision to fall everywhere except in this one spot.

Looking around, she noticed no sign of Hwalín or that mysterious woman she had spoken to the previous night. She grabbed her sleeping bag, placed it down and sat back on it, but before she could do anything else, voices had started coming from beyond the trees. Alma quickly laid herself back down and closed her eyes, pretending to sleep while focusing her ears to listen in.

“It is pointless to keep searching, Hwalín. We must prioritize our focus on the mission.”

“She almost died because of me. The least I could do is find it for her.”

“You must realize we are pressed for time—”

Hwalín narrowed her eyes at the woman.

“—but if you are so inclined, I suppose we can scan the grounds of the battlefield once more.”

“Thanks,” Hwalín seemed satisfied. “We can go check it out later today. But right now, I don’t want the poor girl waking up to an empty campsite and sneaking off on us.”

Hwalín propped herself down on a nearby log, sitting with her legs crossed, and carefully began polishing one of the exotic blades she carried. Any hint of extradimensional blood seemed to have been wiped completely off.

Qu'l-Nia was hovering over her while she worked. It seemed she had taken an interest in the maintenance work of the lesser beings she had found herself with.

Alma continued to listen stealthily to the conversation they were having, hoping they didn’t notice she had woken up.

"I’m glad she’s still here, at least.” Hwalín let out a small sigh of relief. “Nia, didn't I tell you not to blurt out your story to every person we meet? Now she thinks you’re insane and me even worse for having followed you."

"In my attempt to find the answers to my inquiries, I consider every possibility. Revealing a few things that I deem necessary expedites that process. And as you stated, she did risk her life for us,” Qu’l-Nia explained, stone-faced. “Therefore, it would have been quite disingenuous of me to keep silent about what she had just experienced."

"Besides, there is also something about her that feels so strangely familiar to me." The alien woman focused on an empty spot on the ground, trying to track a memory that had long since been forgotten.

Hwalín sneered.

"You know, sometimes you say things… And those things come off sounding very diabolical. Fine, I suppose she can at least give us the lay of the land."

"My thoughts exactly." Qu'l-Nia said with a smile. "Being a local, I am sure Alma has heard at least one or two stories about Derleth."

Alma, who was still watching silently from afar, began to think that smiling was the only kind of expression this woman knew how to make. She decided there was no further reason to continue eavesdropping.

"I'm sorry. That name doesn't ring any bells," Alma stated, interrupting their conversation. She had begun putting away her things.

Alma had slept on the outer rim of the campsite, in a sleeping bag covered with multiple blankets to make up for a lack of a tent.

"Alma! Good morning!" Qu'l-Nia gave her a saccharine smile. "I hope you slept well."

"Not especially," said Alma wearily. "I'm pretty sure I had three nightmares in a row last night."

Her stomach rumbled fiercely. It struck her now that she hadn't eaten anything since the previous morning, not to mention she had also just gotten done ridding her body of any excess food she might have eaten before that. Her lips pursed inwards.

"Um, would you guys happen to have made any breakfast?"

"Naw. Not just yet, anyway," Hwalín answered, eying and inspecting her blade closely.

The glow Alma thought it had exuded was now gone, perhaps it had just been an illusion caused by the adrenaline she was feeling that day.

"Actually, I set me some traps a few klicks from here after you passed out yesterday. Figured we'd not get far lugging your body around." She cackled obnoxiously. "Mind tagging along while I search 'em? Maybe if we're lucky, I'll have snared us a chthonae!"

Hwalín slapped her thigh repeatedly while cackling again. She seemed like the type of imbecile to be amused by her own jokes, thought Alma.

"Wouldn't mind frying one up, reckon they taste outta this world." She deftly sheathed her blade and stood up, grinning.

"Sure, why the fuck not?” agreed Alma, scratching her chin in barely-processed thought. “Nothing better to relieve the nonstop pain in my aching body than a long hike through one awful frozen-over forest!"

Hwalín nodded happily, agreeing genuinely with that sentiment.