The man who lost it all

The Hunter swayed. Adjusting his footing so as to not fall, looking like he’d spent the last few hours drowning in fire water. It was a wild stance. Ready for his target to lunge in hoping to catch him off guard, only to find a bolt between the eyes.

His cracked lips curled up into a twisted smirk. “Perhaps you’d like me to start?” He asked, giving me no time to try and reason. Without a wasted motion a blade hidden behind his cloak flashed by my face, taking a few hairs with it. The cloak moved with the swing and covered his false arm, blinding me of the crossbow that had fired through the fabric and into my shoulder.

He swung violently again as I recoiled from the pain, only just able to kick off the ground in time, landing hard on the rocks below. I tried to get back up but as I put my weight on my arms the bolt sent shockwaves through my body and made me lose my strength. Before I knew it he was towering over, his rusted blade held high, ready to cut straight through me.

Before it did, thunder illuminated the sky and I got a close look at the Headhunter’s face. A haunted face, that felt oddly nostalgic.

The blade stopped just before my skin. He was toying with me, instead of slicing me clean in half he turned the blade and hammered it into my face. “That’s one.”

After that he backed off, letting me stand again. “Come on, get up. You’ve died once so far, I’ll make sure you feel true hell!”

Each time he “killed”, he would pull the punch and keep me alive. Each time he held my life in his hand, thunder would light up the sky and show me that face I was so sure I’d seen before.

I stopped being able to move properly after the 10th death. The Headhunter dug his blade into my neck, only deep enough to leave a mark and draw a few drops of blood. The 11th death was a biting sting into my calf that rendered my leg useless, followed by the back of the blade hammered into my forehead. The twelfth was an arrow to the other leg and a knee to the nose.

The pain was seething, I was slipping in and out of consciousness. He was laughing like a child. “Lucky 13 I guess.”

He left himself open, reading a wide swing that would take my head clean off. Everything he had done, all the pain, all the laughing, it was all child’s play to him. If I was going to die, I wanted nothing more than to take him with me!

I had just enough strength to push myself off the ground. My vampiric blood boiled, gifting me a small amount of strength. His blade kissed my skin, and I dug into his abdomen.

Our clash was lit by the thunder above, man vs monster…

And I finally realised why I recognised him. 10 years ago, Lucian Hawthorne and his wife Sofia joined a holy army to assault a lair of monsters. Sofia left in a casket, and all they found of Lucian, was fragments, and a severed arm.

“…father?”

*-*-*

The sudden revelation stopped me digging too deep into him, and once I landed again I realised that it must have had the same effect on him. The headhunter stood before me, wearing a withered version of a face I once knew. He was a walking corpse…

“Father” I called out to him again. The thunder flashed again and the man I recognised as my father had seen a ghost. All of a sudden he dropped to a knee, shaking weakly as he tried to get back to his feet. He was searching his memory of his son, and the last time they had seen each other. He was hesitant, “Aster?” He called out weakly.

All those years I believed my parents dead and yet here he was, I was like a child again, crying uncontrollably. “I, you… you were dead. We buried you, your arm…”

“It was cut off in the fight. After Sofia passed away I managed to escape.” There was no emotion in his voice, it was as if he was speaking to a complete stranger. He also hadn’t lowered his guard at all, in fact he looked more focussed than he had done before.

I was overcome with emotion, but there was a question ringing in my mind. “Why didn’t you come back? Gramps, Myra, we saw your caskets and lived thinking you’d died. Why didn’t you come home?”

“I watched her, your mother, bleed out. I saw her grow cold and lifeless, all because of them. I thought about going home, I really did. But, the thought of her not being there made me so angry I couldn’t even stand.”

Suddenly he dropped to a knee, lowering his guard slightly. “You know me, Sofia, and Myra. You really are Aster. You must forgive this old man, you’ve grown so much I didn’t recognise you. “

He’d become two sides a man. I saw love, loss and hope in one eye. The other was completely empty of emotion, a dark void.

One hand held his son, cherishing me. The other held close to my ear, an arrow digging into my skin.

“My son, now what are you?”

“Father?”

“Because of those monsters, my Sofia is dead. What right did they have to take her from me?” His rage was so heavy you could see it, almost like a red miasma. “They made me this way, gave birth to the headhunter. I’m not the same anymore Aster, and I can’t let a single one live on. They took my Sofia… now they’ve taken my boy.” His words were filled with hatred, less a statement, more a threat.

“Father, I-I’m still me, I-. I get I’m not a human anymore but we’re working to find a cure, we can go back home. See gramps and Myra, live like we did when I was a kid. Isn’t that what you want?” I desperately reasoned with him but his dead eyes didn’t even twitch.

“Of course it is.” He wept. “Every second I’ve spent away from our home, from our family has been torture.”

“Then help me. With your experience and our research we can find a cure! We can be a family again.” I said softly, reaching out my hand. Aiyana had turned back, visible to both of us further up the mountain and father focussed on her. Aiyana was paralysed, and I saw my father revert back to the Headhunter.

He rejected me, “No Aster, we can’t. Your mother is dead. Without her we will never be a family. And it is all because of them.” He gestured to Aiyana.

“I’ve lived with one, father, a vampire. And I blamed her for everything, but it won’t change what’s happened. She isn’t the reason mother died. Maybe we were wrong to attack them, maybe we should have listened to them. It’s only after I became this way that I realised just how many people died because of ignorant hatred.”

Without missing a beat he turned back to me with a completely lifeless smile. “What? Don’t be silly, they are wild animals that need to be slaughtered.”

A darkness formed between us. A bond between child and parent, it seemed to twist and snap in the middle. He reloaded a fresh crossbow bolt into his false arm and lowered it to his side.

“You know, I think I’ve come to the conclusion of all of this. You aren’t my Aster.”

I couldn’t even respond to him.

“You’re using his face to taunt me, to mess with my emotions. You’re just one of them! Ever since my Sofia was taken from me, I’ve been Lucian Hawthorne and the Headhunter. Lucian cannot spill your blood.”

“Father, I-“

“My son is dead. He was murdered like his mother was, by the creature knelt before me. But heed my words, monster. I will kill my past and I will get my vengeance. I would suggest you use this time to run, because the next time we see each other I will not be a father meeting his son. I will be a Hunter ending his prey.”

“I will no longer be human.”