Day 3, things happen

[Bodster]

Day 3:

At one point I remember that my dreams in this nightmare were significant to the turmoil in my own brain. Considering that only part of my skull remains, I am confused as to the nature of such nocturnal visions.

We were fighting, by 'we' I mean that my two former selves were busy kicking seven shades of shit out of each other with fire axes. Ducking and diving they traded chops, slices and swings with no give or take in determination for killing the other one. What is more strange about their combat is that neither of them landed a single blow. The display went on for hours, or at least it seemed like hours given that time seems to speed up when dreaming. It could have been as little as a few minutes or even seconds, yet the battle they fought equalled and surpassed any and every fight I have had to date.

That is quite a number too.

When daylight began seeping back into the horizon, the two faded away, still duelling and trying to do the impossible task of killing each other. Neither of them were anything less than unstoppable when they were alive. Perhaps it is that I am mourning for my old existence and that this grief has taken on such manifestation? I doubt it, I am more inclined to believe that my brain will never fully recover and this is just one of possibly thousands of drawbacks of having only a part of a skull for a head.

The departure of my sleep allowed me to continue on my way to the South West. I only the direction in which I have to head, by following the route of the motorways. It takes a painstaking long amount of time to get from just one junction to another and with each junction I arrive at, it become slightly more difficult to remember just where I am in this country. Geography was never a strong point for me and just remembering the names of different towns is a chore and a half, having to pin-point them on an imaginary map is like putting the tail of the donkey on it's head. I just don't know.

I would have grabbed a map, but I have yet to see another service station that had any left. It seems I am, or was not, the only one needing such a guide in this new world. I wonder how many panicked people purchased these maps to guide them through a world of testing survival and gruesome death? Too many, since they didn't leave me any at all. The selfish bastards.

One sign of beauty, that brought not only happiness but with it a faint glimmer of hope, was the morning sunrise.

It came while I was walking my usual pace through the dawn of this insanity. Almost shyly at first, with delicate care and precision it cracked over the skyline and began an almost slow and wary ascent into the sky. It was enough to make me realise that not everything in this world has been lost forever, that the most basic of things will have survived and that one the survivors have gone back to the basics, they will eventually get onto dealing with the complicated things we all used to live alongside.

But lets not forget the problems too, but maybe they will remember the mistakes of the past and not be doomed to repeat them. I myself, will most likely not be with them. Given my physical state, I will most likely be hunted down and killed. This time for good, without any chance of being reanimated into this body again. It doesn't sadden me to know that my death will be coming soon, in one or another. I only hope that I do not die by the hands of a rampaging army of hellish creatures. For that to come to pass, humanity will almost certainly be on the brink of extinction.

Then it happened.

So engrossed was I in the daybreak, that I barely noticed the sound of a car engine in the distance. When it was almost on top of me I could feel my remaining ear prick up as the sound forced me to make a split-second decision. Whether to turn and face this approaching vehicle, or to take cover and watch it from afar. The decision was made easier upon the detection of other engines, indicating that several more of the vehicles were approaching. I turned towards the side of the road and dived for the embankment, where upon I hid until they drove past.

The grass on the embankment felt refreshing to the touch, mostly due to the settled dew-drops from the night before. I also realised that this was not something I normally would have noticed in the ordinary course of things, but I have to remember that I am no longer normal, nor that I ever truly was in the first place. Just before the newcomers arrived, I touched the handle of the fire axe, making sure that it was still there although I could feel the axe head still buried in the small of my back.

As the motors roared past, I instantly recognised the humans contained within them as Crusaders. The logic behind my decision was enforced by the fact they were not in their customary robes, they were armed with some very powerful and deadly looking weapons. Swords, scythes, even some shields and rudimentary forms of armour were being worn by a select few, most likely the higher acolytes. It was when I saw the lizard-esque forms of the Masters riding with them that I knew instantly they were Crusaders. For only they are permitted to see those monsters in their natural image, instead of being clothed and masked in disguise.

After the cars had raced past my place of hiding, I waited. Forcing myself to remain patient until I knew it was safe to reveal myself to the world once again. Stepping out slowly, I returned to my path on the motorway and continued on my route, heading towards the now disappearing Crusaders. My mind found itself turning towards the blades and armour they had managed to get their claws upon. Could it be they are preparing themselves for something larger than just the "Unwashed" ?

Initially I considered them to be readying for my arrival. But it has to be remembered that no human has laid eyes upon me and lived to tell the tale since my rebirth. Those that attacked me soon after my emergence from the chasm were greeted with my frustration at being confronted in such a manner by those believing themselves to be greater in strength and skill just for simply being greater in number. How the weak hide themselves so well behind their own bravado, their downfall comes when they begin to believe it.

The second thought to strike my incomplete brain, was that they were gearing up for Lanky. If the Master had managed to re-integrate itself into another cult, or even start another, he would know that Lanky could still be alive, even if I had perished. Lanky was nothing less than stubborn about tracking me down, but I was not the only one to have fought and survived it. Lanky, if nothing less than being horrific in many ways, was dedicated and meticulous in carrying out the complete extermination of everything it came across.

But would armour and such dedicated weapons of death not be a classic example of overkill? The fact that there are so many of them and each armed in such a fashion should be more than enough to take down at least several Lanky creatures. Logic follows on from that point to indicate they are maybe planning something on a larger scale, something epic. But what situation could arise that would require so much dealing with death?

Survival? No.
Conquering? Possibly.
Eradication? Most likely.

Eventually my path took me past a scene of utter devastation. Several people laid strewn by the roadside, the streaks of flesh and blood indicated that they had been dragged there, and the smell of the gore was that slightly metallic odour of fresh blood. Whatever had happened, had happened recently, soon enough that the blood could still be smeared even further where it had gathered in small pools on the tarmac. Knowing that there was nothing anyone could do for them, let alone me, I carried on.

Unfortunately I could have walked and tried to make sense of such things all day and night long, had it not been for the second interruption of the day. While I did hear the cars approaching, I did not bother to remove myself from their path. Instead, I remained to make my presence known and if possible, pry a little further into their dealings and also to further test the extent of my own body. They did not disappoint me, which would probably be a first.

My first plan was to charge straight at them, fire axe drawn, and begin lopping heads left and right. But the thought occurred to me that these people were unaware of who/what I was and had become. The plan then changed to become a sort of experiment. In which I would use these fanatics to further test the extents of my body. So I resolved to try walking past them, looking as if I couldn't tell who or what they were.

It worked, after a fashion.

The group that had "caught" me, if you want to use such an inappropriate term for the truth, were not armed with such weapons as the previous bunch. A gathering formed around me as four of them tried to calculate what I was.
"Is this the 'Tenax'?" one voiced came through, raised above the others.
"But what happened to it? It should still look almost perfect." another voice.
"Look, in it's back, is that a fire axe?" the first voice again.
From the rest of their little conversation, it became apparent that they thought I was a severely damaged Lanky that had been in a fight with my former self. What concerned me more was not that they had used the Latin for the Lanky, but that they knew about me. Especially since most of the fanatics I had ever seen ended up dead in one way or another.

"He wants it dead though, doesn't look too tough despite what has been said." The first voice declared with a sudden urgency, probably looking for another promotion towards the Halls of the Gods, or whatever it used to be. As soon as he had finished speaking, the other drew their weapons and surrounded me, I carried on walking as if they didn't exist. That was when the fight began.

I allowed them several strikes, knowing that in my current state I was more than match for all of them. Hell, even in my previous body I had been more than a match for them all. This time I could afford to be lazy about how I went about killing them and this exactly what I did.

The first impact came from my right and struck deep into my ribcage, the blade of which I could feel finding a way between two of my ribs as the weapon that I couldn't quite see embedded itself into my chest. I continued walking, feeling the foreign body, but not being hurt by it. If anything it was uncomfortable but not unbearable. Is this how Lanky feels injuries? It would certainly explain several things, although not the fight by the river, but I guess that compounded with the burns, anything would hurt after that.

The second attack I only noticed after it burst through my chest. A spear of sorts simply extended outwards from beside my nipple (I found out later) slick with my blood and with enough force to make me stagger forwards slightly. Whoever had left the lance there had also relinquished the weapon as there was no attempt to withdraw the article from my torso. After taking a few more strides, I stopped and turned slowly towards them, observing them completely for the first time with my remaining eyeball.

All four of them stood frozen to the spot, as I grabbed the spear and wrenched it out of my body, tearing apart a good portion of my chest as it was dragged completely through, finishing the initial job. Nobody moved, probably because they believed that they had just infuriated Lanky. Instead they had done something far worse, they had pissed me off and I intended to do nothing less than return the injuries I had received. Despite which, were already healing before I had dropped the spear to the floor and begun advancing towards them.

The fanatic that had left his spear in my chest reached behind himself and pulled out two curving daggers, his shoulders dropped slightly as he rushed in and swung wildly, arms flailing madly while I simple reached out and grabbed the idiot by his skull. Applying slight pressure, I could feel his head fracturing and splintering under my grip. His screams began to follow, piercing, shrill noises that drained the colour from the other three but only made me enjoy my work further. His final scream was drowned by his own brain as I crushed his skull completely and left his body standing, before it collapsed under its own accord.

As the second moved in, swinging with a machete, I stepped backwards and brought up my lame arm. The blade buried into the limb and went as far as to touch the bone, but it never moved after that until I dragged it out personally. It was too far into my arm to be removed and allowed me to reach back and extract my fire axe from my back. The two others made to rush forwards, in a possible attempt to assist their comrade but I will never know, since I brought the axe down, splitting his body apart in a single slice from the right of his neck to just under his left armpit. The small eruption of blood signalling his departure from this world as I turned to face the remaining two.

"GET HIM!" one of them screamed. I didn't see which one but I would guess it wasn't the one who attacked. Rather it was more likely that the one that dived into the car and sped off had screamed the order, leaving his 'mate' (to use the term loosely) to fight me alone with his hatchet.

So much for the "brotherhood".

As the car raced away, I could hear the driver mention something that sounded like "It has to be him, but what the hell happened?". I may have been mistaken but this is such a trivial matter, now more so than it was at the time since I still had one more partner with which to dance. Hatchet in his hand, a machete buried in mine and a fire axe in my remaining fist, we circled each other. If I could have done, I would have laughed out loud at the bleakness of his situation.

Instead I stepped forward and brought the fire axe upwards in an almost lazy but heavy-handed swing. He tried to parry it and looked shocked for a brief second when the attack knocked his hatchet aside without any difficulty. The shock lasted until the axe head buried itself into his throat, splitting his jaw apart and chopping out several of his lower teeth in an explosion of blood, bone and enamel. I watched him drop to the floor, where he died trying to draw breath through his neck but choking on his own life as it poured away from him.

No sympathy.

The days events finally over, I resumed walking towards the direction I knew my brother and the Master had taken. It was also the direction that the fleeing fanatic had driven towards. I have no doubt in my mind that we will meet up again, also that he will alert any and all he comes into contact with to my presence. I have to assume now that they know I am still alive, and much more of a threat than before. Let them know, I will break through anything they try to do and then continue after my quarry.

These are just minor setbacks. I hope.

[Helios]

That was pretty badass.