'Why couldn't I have attended a survival class or something?'
Michael was currently trying to figure out how to skin the fallen Nightmare Creatures, but his inexperience was clearly showing.
On one of the beasts, it was simply impossible to use its fur as some sort of container, as there were no sections that were large enough to make anything of it. Nothing was left intact thanks to his consumption.
And on the other... he still wasn't very good with a dagger. Previously, there were portions that were good enough size to make a pouch of sorts, but not anymore. All of his cuts were jagged and uneven, resulting in pieces of skin that were utterly unusable.
"Its meant to rip and tear, not slice like a butter knife!"
Michael suddenly felt wistful for a few moments and accidentally botched another section of fur.
Even if he had successfully skinned one of the beasts, it wasn't like he knew how to prevent it from rotting or how he would tie it all together. He doubted a blade of grass would suffice.
'Damn all of this...'
Michael reluctantly stood up from the mauled carcass while coalescing his helmet from crimson. He had unsummoned his cloak before, knowing full well he would get splattered with blood, and even though it would just appear clean like nothing happened, it still irked him nonetheless.
He allowed the tan cloak to embrace his body with a fleeting warmth as he continued down the path, leaving the carcasses behind for whatever horrifying creatures hid beneath the ashen petals.
After a while, Michael passed the point where the monsters originally were before they spotted him and found an unearthed grave with a mauled, rotted corpse. With just a glance, he hurried his steps to leave the gruesome scene behind, lest more hounds appear and decide to eat him instead.
=====
Michael had lost count of how many steps he took, but he believed it would've been a very staggering amount. He was extremely tired, and his eyes have turned more blurry to the point he could barely make out the city in the distance.
'It it even a city, or just a mirage?'
It was just a dark shape with all the wretched spires merging into one. Michael wasn't even sure if it was real anymore, or if it was just his imagination playing ghastly tricks on him. He still had doubts if it would be his key to escape, even if his instinct said otherwise.
As he took a heavy step on the dirt, his leg went limp for a moment, forcing him to lower his body to catch himself. After a few seconds of empty breathing, Michael tried to straighten his body, but it was simply too hard. It felt as if he held the entire world on his back, and his body was fighting with everything it had to move.
He needed sleep.
"Michael, why don't you just rest for a while? You look like a corpse."
'Says the corpse...'
Michael let out a husky chuckle before straining his lungs to speak in a drowsy, almost incomprehensible voice.
"You're really... chatty, you know that?"
His mother smiled with a beaming, horrid grin.
"Of course I am! Who did you think you got that from? Your dad? Gods no, how would that work? You've never met him before."
She disappeared behind him before reappearing on his other side.
"Or did you get that from all those stories I told you? Oh, Michael, you know that's all propaganda, right?"
Michael shook his head slightly with a subdued, exasperated tone.
"So all those stories... you told me... were fake? All of them?"
She walked ahead, escaping his hazy vision. As she spoke, her voice grew quieter and quieter.
"Who knows? He could've lied to both of us..."
'Shut up, shut up, shut up...'
Michael placed his lower lip between his teeth and bit down firmly, causing a thin stream of blood to flow down his chin and a sharp sting to enter his mind. The soothing fragrance was soon replaced with an iron scent.
His muscles were tensing as he pushed with all his might. Michael took a few seconds to stabilize himself against the slight breeze that felt like a blizzard, and he took a step forward.
He lifted his head.
'Huh, would you look at that, a bunch of priests.'
Michael continued walking down the path, making way for the group of priests passing him, seemingly walking to where he just came from. They were dressed in hooded, religious rags stained from an eternity of use, with their hands clasped together for earnest prayer. Their heads faced slightly down, and an ethereal lantern held from a ramshackle belt of rope and cloth, swinging slightly with a loud creak each step.
They were silent, with no acknowledgment of Michael's existence.
He tiredly swung up his hand to wave and spoke.
"Watch out for the Nightmare Creatures up ahead."
They didn't respond and resumed their pious pilgrimage. Michael didn't bother and carried on with his own cursed journey.
Michael looked up at the abnormally foggy night sky, letting the light from the burning stars to fall upon his emerald eyes shrouded in bloodied steel.
'Huh? Priests?'
He quickly looked behind him and saw the vague silhouettes of people moving further and further away from him.
'Its just my imagination...'
Michael picked up his steps before abruptly stopping and turning around again.
'No, no, no... they were definitely real.'
He squinted his eyes and strained his foggy eyesight to see the indistinct figures in more detail, yet it was fruitless.
'I c-can't... I can't tell.'
'I'm going crazy.'
'Are they monsters or humans?'
'Maybe I should really rest...'
Michael looked down at his hands, shaking from exhaustion. His shoulders were stiff and sore from the armor's weight, and his knees ached from so much movement. Michael's gauntlets and his constantly tight grip on his dagger made his fingers numb, and he could vividly feel the blisters on his feet.
He struggled to focus his eyes, they kept burning and twitching. Michael could tell his mind was getting slow and dull by the second, growing less resilient to the calming aroma and resentful whispers.
'I'll be fine for a little longer, just need to find someplace safe first.'
=====
Michael stretched out his hand and brushed his gauntlet along the ghostly flowers while he sluggishly took step after step.
'Step, step, step, step.'
The scenery never changed, the insidious whispers never faltered, the terrible pain never subsided, yet the fatigue only grew. It was always a step, and never anything else.
'Must've been more than a day since I've entered this cave by now...'
'I wonder how Joel is doing? Is he working hard?'
Michael's face unknowingly contorted into a faint, bittersweet smile, wishing he could be with his brother. Its been so many years, he wondered how much Joel had changed. How would he react if he knew his little brother was lost in the Dream Realm, fighting for his life and suffering for such a desire?
How would he react if he knew that his little brother was the reason for all of their misfortunes and tragedies?
While Michael was lost in his fuzzy thoughts, his mother's oddly gentle voice entered his ears.
"Pay attention."
He jumped in fright as he somberly stared at the corpse of his mother.
"What? Pay attention to what?"
She frowned and muttered in exasperation.
"Michael, I'm your imagination, I perceive what you do."
Michael warily looked around, trying to figure out what his mother was talking about. And then he heard it, noises amongst the insistent murmurs.
He heard disgusting crunches of bone and the violent tears of flesh near him, from one of the graves hidden behind the thick shrub. The entire reason he even knew what that peculiar sound was, was because he was all to familiar with it by now.
Michael instantly prepared a defensive stance when the thick odor of vile blood pierced his nostrils. He commanded some of his mantle to disperse into ancient crimson and created a small wound with his dagger, willing his blood to flow outwards to quickly enlarge his blood sense.
'How much of an idiot can I be? I should've been more careful and prepared earlier.'
After a few moments of resisting the sensory overload, he discerned a collection of shapes crouching at a grave within the dense meadows. As soon as Michael locked onto the strangely shaped figure, it seemed it locked onto him as well.
The figure moved through the shrubbery, parting the ivory flowers before slowly revealing itself from the canopy.
It was a horrific creature that looked uncomfortably humanoid. It's abnormally long body crawled on four lengthy, scrawny legs, and its head...
'Oh gods...'
It had four heads revolving around a gaping maw like a flower's petal. Vile sores and bulbs of ooze littered the abominations pale skin, and in its maws... was the entire lower half of a corpse, slowly being crushed and swallowed into the loathsome stomach of this feral creature.
'Fucking monsters...'
Michael didn't care to let this monster finish its last meal properly and stumbled forward, quickly stabling himself before rushing towards the Nightmare Creature.
'It looks quite big... Awakened... the skin looks frail... if it bleeds, it dies.'
As the beast enjoyed the final taste of the corpse, Michael was already upon it. He went for the gaunt legs first, aiming to immobilize it before anything else. The abomination looked at him with murky eyes before spitting what remained of the carcass, causing a whirlwind of rotten blood to splatter him.
'Smart... Monster?'
He stretched his hand to cover his face, preventing him from getting blinded, and withdrew from attacking. This abomination wasn't one that was smarter than him, but it was definitely stronger. He couldn't be careless and rush in, especially when his reaction time was much slower from the exhaustion.
Michael prepared to defend as the monster moved at an abnormally fast speed towards him, expanding its circular maw to reveal thousands of stained teeth in its repulsive depths. It attempted to push off its hind legs and lunge at him. Michael would've normally been taken by surprise as his vision was dangerously cloudy, but he had his blood sense. Even though he still wasn't that proficient at sensing through his blood, it was better than his current condition. At the very least, Michael could discern more shapes than with his present eyesight.
He swerved the pouncing creature attempting to devour him whole, slipped on the dirt a little, and stabbed while the opponent was open. He managed to slice open a large portion of its long, deformed build, but not exactly where he wanted. Although the wound was large, it didn't look fatal at all.
As the abomination crashed into the ground and immediately charged in his direction, Michael began to desperately think.
'I need to make this as quick as possible, I won't be able to hold out long.'
He had no idea what the Nightmare Creature could and couldn't do, and a direct battle while he was basically blind and incredibly exhausted wouldn't work in his favor.
Remaining on the dirt path was worthless as there were no obstacles or anything to use to his advantage. Michael could fling dirt at the monster's eyes, but he doubted it would care much. He could retreat into one of the several villages of tombs and mausoleums, but they were simply too dangerous and too far away for him to feasibly survive.
There was only one option left.
'I have to fall back into the meadows...'