CHAPTER 3 - PART I

[VIOLENT CONTENT WARNING]

At the violet hour...

The axe and knife are in my hands before the beastman can take another step, stopping him in his tracks.

The goblin, seeing my weapons, freezes mid aim, rock still in hand. Even a few dozen feet away I can see his eyes bulging with fear and uncertainty. Greasy globules of sweat forming on and falling from its brow.

I stand my ground.

Planting my feet in a wide stance so I can react in any direction. Blood boiling in my veins. Like battery acid.

My stomach leaps wildly, a little reflux reaching my throat. The adrenaline has kicked in hard, but I’m keeping it channelled on fight today.

Chittering from the ridge indicates the goblin is losing its nerve.

The beastman growls back and the chatter reduces to a quiet grumble.

He paces the width of the street in front of me a couple of times - tigers and cages - casing the terrain. Trying to work out whether there is a way past me, maybe, or just the best angle of attack.

He stops as far to one side as he can, without stepping off the road and budging up against the wall of the building there. I assume to try and circle toward me, keeping enough space around himself to be responsive and mobile.

His attention shifts and I realise the beastman went to the left to bypass my presence. He’s talking directly to the beastgirl.

Howls and whimpers fly back and forth.

Why is she simpering to him?

They beat you.

They did that to your face. For what? Leaving the house? Giving me some food? Why would you give him the time of day?

An image flashes through my mind.

A dark cloud on a clear sky.

She has internal bleeding. They’ve already beaten her so badly that she could be dying on her feet. The yellowing at the edge implying that it was probably from before we bumped into each other. They hurt her anyway, regardless of my involvement, so why does she bow and scrape?

My grip on the weapons tightens.

I feel like I could throw up.

Their conversation getting more heated and frantic.

The beastman, whether he meant to or not, takes a slight step forward while gesturing with increasing agitation.

I need to do something with this adrenaline before my fight turns to flight.

The goblin, its morale restored from the parlé below, seems ready to throw that second rock.

It takes flight - simultaneously to me.

It lands where I had been standing, skidding through the dust.

Frenzied cries take up all around.

The beastman is slow to turn.

I have him.

The knife in my left comes up - a lick slow.

His arm slips just out of the way.

A smirk creeps across my face.

He fell for it.

I pivot.

The axe comes down in my right, the full rotation of my body behind it.

I have him!

…

The hatchet bites deep.

…

I HAVE HIM!

…

Lower than I expected.

WHAT?!.

I raise my head to see it buried in the road.

THE HELL?!.

My eyes swivel in my skull.

I feel like a chameleon trying to take in the full 360 around me to grasp what happened.

He fell for my faint. I actually manage to do one for starters, and he moved right into the path of my other weapon. Just as I’d hoped. I should have cracked his skull. I should have snapped his shoulder, or spine, or ribs…

How did he dodg-

The beastgirl is lying on top of the beastman. Pinning both of them to the floor. A hair’s breadth lower than the arc of the axe head.

Why?

WHY WOULD SHE SAVE HIM?!.

He’s one of her abusers!

He hurt her, terribly, and she saves him?

I don’t get it…

Dumbfounded. Aghast. Enraged.

I leave the hand axe impaled in the ground and scrabble over to the pair.

I lift the beastgirl bodily from her kin and stamp the beastman back to the earth as he tries to rise.

She yowls and scratches at me.

I swap the knife to my right hand, keeping it pointed at my supine foe, and try to grab my party member’s wrist before she blinds me.

“Stop that, please! Come on, calm down!”

I repeat combinations to that effect over and over.

Her panic only increasing as seconds slip by.

The beastman stays quiet at my feet. Hot breath almost visible in plumes.

Cries and squeals from the hill let me know the goblin is basically paralysed with fear, otherwise it would have bolted already.

How do I get a hold of the situation here?

I need her on my side right now.

Why doesn’t she see I was trying to protect her?

This is for both of us. After everything they’ve done. Why would she protect them?

Is this a kind of beaten wife scenario? Stockholm Syndrome do they call it?

My thoughts and split attention collide, she wrenches from my grip, lashing out at my face again. The tip of one claw embedding below my eye before I catch her again, pushing her out of striking distance, keeping a firmer hold.

“FUCKING QUIT IT!!!”

I lose my composure. Out of frustration I yell. Pure venom in my voice.

If tones could kill. I have become a killing word.

Another rock cracks into the same side of my head as before.

Thankfully not in the exact same sport, at least. A little higher, causing it to glance upward, slicing open my scalp.

I don’t notice at first, my vision cutting out for a second on impact. Only when a warm pools and cools on my collarbone does it dawn on me.

The goblin got its shit together.

I’m almost impressed for a millisecond before the anger breaks to viciousness.

The beastgirl’s a good shot, so is the goblin, maybe they’re a family of hunters, that would be a problem.

Fire raging in my chest, the locomotion of my limbs a little out of time, making my actions awkward, I manage to keep the beastgirl at arms length, defending myself from being clawed as her caterwauling continues.

I switch my stance to press the beastman back down under my heel, and raise the knife at the god damn grot.

I want to fly on ferocious wings and stick that filthy pig.

Just a few short bounds up the hill and I could gut it…

The trickle of blood from the gouge below my eye finally drips from my cheek. My senses so heightened I hear it land on my shoe.

Drip.

It reverberates through my foot.

Drip.

It is enough to ground me.

Drip.

It is enough to reign me in from attacking, what? A child sticking up for it’s older sibling… or however these monster family ties work. Pack-mate, maybe?

Was I about to shank a kid?

If my party member is this worked up over having one of her abusers knocked down, then she’d probably turn on me completely if I hurt that damn thing.

Standing there, bleeding from the face and head, two beastpersons brought to heel, blade still in hand… I must be a terrifying visage.

At least enough of one to give the goblin pause for thought, but I get the feeling it will find courage again soon, if I don’t deal with it or finish things her-

Why am I on an angle?

Thud.

Thump.

I had to toss the knife to brace myself while falling.

My left hand still tangled up with my companion, inadvertently tugged her into the dog pile with me.

The beastman on the bottom having twisted under foot, rolling my leg to the side, and causing our landslide.

Our scrabbling, writhing mess becomes a tug of war on every purchase. A fur covered forearm crashes into my jaw and rakes across my face, forcing my mouth into the dirt. I kick and squirm. Feeling toe and knee, shin and heel, flail between the air and flesh and ground. As the adrenaline ascends, it becomes impossible to work out who is hitting who, eyes clumped with thick sweat, squinting to keep out the muck. Every time I get free of one clamped hand, anchoring me to the ground, my momentary bid for freedom is impinged by another limpet clinging to me. Dragging us back to the depths. I become frantic.

Frustration upon frustration.

Nothing I do is working.

Panic descends.

I’m not screaming, but my breaths are high pitched, hysterical whaling.

Moments of laughter cut through cries.

The barking and yowling of the beastpersons entwining into a cacophony of animal horror.

It’s just a wall of noise.

My brain, frantic for a solution to being pinned and restrained and fighting to be released, cannot process the sounds into anything distinct. I can barely discern my own voice in the din. Like a fox and and ally cat scrapping over territory. Screeching to the death.

…

Suddenly I’m standing.

The beastman a bloody pulp at my feet.

The beastgirl cowering from me - over him.

The goblin nowhere to be seen or heard.

Did I win?

What happened?!.

I don’t remember anything!

I must have blanked out.

Like when you see a fighter go all ultra instinct and they glide past their opponent’s blows with minimal motion. In interviews they say it’s like a fugue state. You’re detached. A lone audience member in a theatre watching the POV of your body’s actions. No control, just pure id.

I don’t claim to be a fighter.

The few fights from my past always resulted in more of a beat down, so I just learned to lie there and take it. Do not react until they’re bored and leave you alone, like you’re meant to during a bear attack.

Guess I must have… hulked out?

Uninhibited survival mode.

No thought, only reaction.

My body too stressed at the risk of danger, short circuiting consciousness to find a neuron that might spark a solution.

The solution was to beat my opponent so bad I can hear the wet of his breathing.

His lips torn and bloody.

I don’t know what his teeth or fangs looked like before hand, but in the mulched flesh of his face there are clear white protrusions of bone…

Did I break some of his teeth?

Don’t say I snapped his jaw?!.

The numbness of rage subsides, the panic underneath pushes to the fore.

I drop to my knees to check the beastman is ok.

The fuck did I do?!.

This isn’t me!

I don’t want to hurt people…

I don’t want to do this to anyone… I didn’t mean it.

“Shit. Please? I’m sorry!”

Horrified at my own capacity for, and the real consequences of violence, my throat starts closing up and I sob apologies while shaking with unspent rage and newfound remorse.

My body wanting to run, to puke, to make everything ok as soon as possible…

How is there so much blood?

While lifting the beastman’s arm to try and check his pulse, my eyes refocus on my own gaping knuckles, then the pooling black on the road around his head.

What have I done?!.

“Hey! Are you ok? You’re ok, right? Right?!.”

I can’t do this.

“Ok, ok. Just breath. In, out. You got this…”

How could I do that to someone?

“Look at me! Don’t close your eyes!”

I’m a monster.

“Come on! Focus!”

I’m the monster here.

“Wake up! WAKE UP!”

Did I just kill someone?!.