Winter Touched

     His consciousness came to him in brief flashes. Something large had approached him, judging by its thunderous footsteps. Then he was a few feet off the ground but still moving somehow. The ground changed from grass to a dirt road. And that was the last thing he remembered.

Haetia sluggishly hauled himself up, slowly rubbing the lingering exhaustion from his multicolored eyes. Only now did he realize the drastic change in scenery that had magically occurred while he was unconscious. He was in a bedroom. In a bed. And a large one at that. When was the last time he’d been in a bed? More importantly, how did he get here?

In the past his first instinct would’ve been to panic but now he was more cautious and alert than anything else.

He patted himself down.

Nothing was removed and he wasn’t really cleaned up either since he still reeked of dried up blood and the wild.

A sudden weighty rustle attracted his attention and his eyes followed the sound…only to be met with a manticore in the bedroom with him.

His hand immediately went towards the dagger on his hip then he stopped. It was asleep, and strangely, completely white and covered in scars. He doubted it was common for manticores to wield so many battle scars until he caught sight of one in particular. An enormous scar right beneath its jaw.

“But that’s-” impossible. He finished to himself to avoid stirring it awake.

Not only was he at least hundreds of miles away but he knew for a fact that it was shredded beyond repair. Its first reappearance he chalked up to somehow living the ordeal when he was younger, and even if manticores were immortal there’s no possible way that it could’ve pieced its body together after what the locket had done to it.

Then there was its pale white fur. It maintained the same shade of blood orange the two previous times, so why had it changed now?

Seemingly hearing his raging and clamorous thoughts, the manticore awoke with an extensive yawn.

…Its eyes were completely red, scleras included. Like…Elena, the innkeepers’ daughter.

That made him only more convinced that it would attack him so when it rose and came over he readied himself to make a firm and decisive blow, only for it to lick the dried blood from his arms.

“H-Hey stop!”

The manticore stopped and backed away.

It…listened to me?

Haetia waited to see if it would do anything else, but it merely returned his stare.

“...Sit?”

The manticore sat.

“...Speak.”

The manticore roared loud enough for spit to fly out of its jaws.

He wiped his face with a tinge of disgust. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked that.”

Haetia continued to stare at the manticore as if looking long enough would somehow answer the questions he had. But he had to set them aside for now.

It was just as strange to him that he was in a normal looking bedroom and he knew for a fact that absolutely no one would be eager to let a manticore into their home. Not to mention how uncanny the silence was for what he assumed to be a town.

As much as his body bade him to sleep just a few more minutes, Haetia slid out of the bed and made for the bedroom door, the manticore following him the whole way.

It was nothing like Mitsuyo’s complex in Bevolia but it was still a large home nonetheless. Judging by its layout he assumed it was a fat cat of sorts, or at least mildly wealthy person. In that case there’d most definitely be plenty of staff about, yet every corner he turned and hall he went down was empty. Even all of the rooms.

Most of it was in disarray: things left unclean, food left out to rot, activities unfinished. Part of it reminded him of when they’d come across Revi’s village but in this case he felt that it was more due to neglect than out of a sudden abandonment.

It took him forever to find but eventually he descended down the main stairwell and finally was able to leave the building and still the manticore followed close behind, not that it bothered him all too much since it loosely reminded him of a certain someone.

Yet the moment he stepped outside his eyes dropped.

He’d found the staff and the residents of the home. All dyed white with sheets of red encapsulating their eyes. Standing and sitting in various places out in the open.

That same repulsion he’d felt when he laid upon Elena for the first time reignited within him and flooded his senses. His heart rate leapt to a gallop and his breaths clung to his throat. Unconsciously his hand found its way to his retainer’s locket around his neck, and then he swallowed and after a long held blink reaffirmed his gaze.

Elena was tied to him somehow. And so were these people, and the manticore too. He knew that. He couldn’t look away anymore.

Cautiously, Haetia stepped between the crowd of white, occasionally stopping in front of one to wave his hand and see if they’d respond. The most he’d get out of them is eye movement that trailed him, but other than that nothing. Even when he’d speak or shout they wouldn’t give him a response. What he noticed, however, was that the only ones who were at least a little aware of their surroundings had streaks of blood around their mouths – too dark and runny to be a human’s so he imagined it was animal blood.

“Well, if the manticore can do it, then maybe you can too.” He said to one. “Speak.”

Immediately the crowd shouted in unison including the manticore, forcing him to muffle his ears.

“OW-Shit-! No not all of you just this guy.”

The man shouted alone.

“Okay…So that works. Although I wish it made you actually talk.”

Haetia glanced around on the ends of his toes to help see over their heads. It was quite a substantial amount of people–at least fifty if he had to take a guess.

“Elena was given some drink of sorts by a cloaked person right? It could’ve been the same person and they all fell for the bait, or they snuck in and sprinkled it in all the food or drinks since it’d be hard to keep track of things with that many staff. There’s also the chance it’s a different person altogether but that would make things a lot harder for us then to figure out and stop this–at least I’d like to this is just sick…” He observed them more closely. “They seem less fragile compared to Elena. Maybe it’s blood based..? I wouldn’t be surprised considering whatever takes over them seems like it takes their blood too since it takes root in their organs, assuming they’re the same internally like Elena….I’m starting to sound like him now.”

Sighing, Haetia looked back at the manticore with intrigue. “You though, I didn’t even tell you to follow me and you did but these guys haven’t really done the same. I’m assuming you brought me here too, which leads me to believe you’re more sentient than the others. If it really is based on blood consumption, then I could see you having the most in that regard being a predator by nature so then it makes sense. The Seronites call you guys Shells, which I’m guessing is meant to mean something about their lack of basic traits of a sentient being. These are all just theories though. Still, it’d feel weird to leave these guys here but it’d feel weird to take them with me too…”

From what he remembered of Elena, there was the threat that whatever infliction fell upon them could spread like a disease unless otherwise burned, and it was completely possible that the staff and the residents of the manor became ridden with the unknown illness from a case zero, that is they necessarily didn’t have to all have had consumed whatever the cloaked figure gave them. Hence, the safest thing to do would be to burn them all here, yet, part of him wasn’t inclined to do that.

In their own right they could be useful. If he was anywhere close to finding Linias he could use them to overrun the Seronites, but that might mean that they would get infected too, although that wasn’t entirely a bad thing since that would lessen their numbers but he’d hate it if an innocent person got infected.

“Hmm…I’ll…take you with me. If it seems like any of you are about to go feral or crack into spores I’ll burn you then. Ugh…it’d be a lot easier if Revi was here actually, then again a lot of things would be easier if any of them were here.”

Right when he was about to sigh away his forlornness, the manticore knelt down beside him and gestured with its eyes to its back.

Haetia understood the signal enough and climbed on albeit after a brief moment of hesitation. Then once the manticore began to move, so did the rest of the Shells.

It felt significantly more disquieting to be accompanied by human beings void of basic communication skills rather than being alone, but if they could help that would possibly solve the main issue he was bound to have. How to go about rescuing Linias.