Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 49
49
Dull pain, deep inside his head, throbbing behind his empty eye socket. It was always there, never waning, just like his anger. It boiled inside him, red hot and smoking, as he stepped through the shattered gates.
There were too many simply too many they were everywhere crawling like ants too much open space nowhere to hide too many scents too many footprints in the snow all that empty white space but I was so close so close they were right there I know it they were right there somewhere in one of those houses I could feel her but there were TOO MANY!!
Something inside his head stung like a wasp, stopping Banno dead in his tracks. For a moment, his memory seemed to merge with real life, transforming awestruck Wolves into smiling Foxes, snowy footpaths into roads paved with stone, and tents into houses of wood. He had crept along the outskirts of that village for hours, limping through the snow, coming as close as he could possibly get without risk of being seen, which, as it turned out, wasn't very close at all. The entire village was out in the open, down in the middle of a valley, surrounded by open fields and massive tracks of pure white snow. Several times he thought about throwing caution to the wind and just sprinting full out from house to house, slaughtering anyone who got in his way, but there were just too many. Standing up on that hill, looking down at all the twinkling lights, Banno had known the valley would be full to bursting with Foxes, but even those initial estimations turned out to be far too conservative. There must have been thousands of them - children, adults, elders - coming and going, playing in the gardens, heaping piles of snow into vaguely Fox-like shapes, tending to animals, walking the roads, hauling tools and building materials on their backs, just standing around talking to each other over fences, and all that before sunup. And those were just the ones he could see. Who knew how many were still inside the buildings, sleeping late, preparing food, doing whatever it was that Foxes did?
He had stared at them from the edge of the tree line, visualising himself just walking right in there and tearing them all limb from limb, ripping their throats wide open, gorging himself on their flesh even as they gasped for mercy. He could definitely do it, of that he had no doubt. They were fake and he was real. They were already dead and he was alive. But they were many and he was one. Just one.
If he wanted to save Valery, he would need to fix that. He would need to balance the scales. He would need to find a way to get past thousands of Foxes who only existed to drain all the life and colour out of this world. He would need...
The pain in his head faded (just a bit), and reality slowly bled back into his eye, the reality of home.
Everything was familiar, almost exactly as he had left it. A thousand Wolves, 'friends and family', all staring at him with their mouths agape. He remembered those stares, the looks of respect and admiration, no different from before. Even their fear was the same, a steady undertow beneath it all. Their faces were all bleeding together, forming a single entity of lifeless meat. Whether it was a single body or a thousand, without life, they might as well not even be here. But he needed them now, and that meant things were different. Very different.
Banno started forward. He lurched with every step because his fake foot had come loose and was clopping along the snow like a flapping tongue. On some level he was aware that his stump must be smacking into the cold, frozen ground, but he couldn't feel any of it.
They shrunk away at his approach, clinging to each other in fear, and another flash of anger and pain tore through Banno's skull. How were they any different from headless squirrels? How were they any different from mice with their stomachs split open by merciless claws? How were they any different from rabbits hanging suspended, kicking fruitlessly as the snare tightened around their necks, cutting off their last sip of precious air?
They were all dead, every last one of them. Seeing them like this again, all huddled together in a giant pile, was the most disgusting thing Banno had ever endured. He used to live here? Among these... these things? These things that walked and talked like they were actually aware of what was going on around them? The thought alone made him want to dry-heave.
They wouldn't 'exist' for much longer, though. There was that to be grateful for.
One of the meats broke free from the huddled clump of bone and fur, approaching him one tiny step at a time, its tail tucked neatly between its legs.
Banno did not remember its name.
"B- Banno?" it stammered. "Is- Is that you? Is it- I mean, are you... real?"
Why did they have to talk like that? Why did they have to go out of their way to create an illusion of life? It may have been enough back then, back when he still cared, but now...
Now it was just an insult.
"I am real," Banno growled. "More real than you."
"Y- You?" It came closer, reaching out to him with a trembling hand, but also leaning back at the same time, like someone trying to break off a piece of honey comb from a furious hive, buzzing with the sound of thousands of wings and the promise of venomous stingers.
Don't you dare come any closer. Don't you dare breathe on me. Don't you dare touch me with that dead finger.
The others stared in disbelief, silently urging him on, until...
It touched his side with a filthy, bony finger, lightly dragging a claw along one of his many wounds, actually pushing it in. It jumped back, staring at the crimson liquid covering its finger, probably the first real thing it's ever experienced in its tiny unlife, and a massive grin spread across its idiotic face.
"He's real..." it whispered, completely awestruck. "He's really real... It's really him! It's Banno! Everyone, it's Banno! It's -"
It got no further than that. Bright pain flashed through Banno's eye in pulses of red and black. He drew back his arm and lashed out, striking the back of the cretin's head with a vicious, backhanded blow. He held himself back at the last second, but the unfortunate Wolf still ploughed facefirst into the snow, completely limp and silent, like a child's doll.
There came a sharp intake of breath from the crowd and they all took a hurried step back. Then the whispers began.
I shouldn't have done that, Banno thought, opening and closing his hand, slowly taking in the stink of his old village. It was a hard thought, though. He could barely hear it above the throbbing in his head and the thousands of whispers invading his ears. They carried the sound of real voices, but they might as well be nothing but empty air, because what was a whisper when it came from dead lips? What was breath when it came out of a dead throat? It wasn't real. None of it was real.
I hate them. I hate them all. I should just kill them. I don't care if I don't get any satisfaction out of it. Even an empty world would be better than a fake one.
No! I need them! They may be dead, but I can still use them... I just need to... stay in control...
Banno rubbed his face, grinding the heel of his palm against the sharp ridge of bone above his missing eye, where the pain was concentrated the sharpest. It wasn't the pain itself that bothered him, but rather the way it caused him to lose sight of the bigger picture, and he hated that. He hated not being in total control, especially of himself, and it's been happening more and more frequently.
The Wolf -
Just a piece of meat a piece of rotting meat moving and talking but not really alive just dead flesh crawling in the snow.
- groaned and laboriously got up on one elbow. There was a bright splash of blood across the back of its head, slowly seeping into its hair and dripping down its face. "Urrr..." it said, perhaps the closest it could come to a plea for help, but its fellows merely gawped. It tried one last time, "Ur..." reaching out with trembling fingers, and then its head dropped back into the snow with a sad little puff.
A short silence, and then: "By the Cora, Banno just decked the hell out of Somaht!"
"It really is him!"
They poured in like a swarm of spider babies after that, yelling and pushing and shoving, smiling and laughing, so happy and excited to get their big black Wolf back from the dead. Banno could smell their stink invading his nostrils. He could taste them on the wind, and they were disgusting. Even the copious scent of blood, an aroma he normally relished, was no more than a momentary distraction now.
"Banno, is it really you?"
"By the Cora, what happened!?"
"Stop shoving!"
"How are you still alive!?"
"By my oath, he's hurt!"
"Who did this to you!?"
"It's a miracle! A miracle!"
"Is Somaht okay? Somebody check on him!"
"Banno! By the Cora! It's Banno! It really is!"
Just a milling sea of fur and eyeballs. He could 'kill' a whole slew of them with a single swipe of his claws, and would they even notice? He doubted it.
"Get away from me," Banno growled, but they kept coming closer, swirling around and around like an eddy, reaching out to him with dead, festering hands. Did they not see what he just did to their friend!?
"Banno! Where have you been!?"
"Banno! You've come back to us!"
"Flavour of Death! Praise be to the Cora!"
Closing in, a thousand corpses, dead fingers like spiderlegs, pumping dead air with lungs as dry as leather bags. He could see lice and fleas crawling through their mangy fur, tiny black dots jumping from body to body, feasting on rotten blood.
"Banno! Are you -"
"Banno! When did -"
"Banno! How did you -"
"Banno! Why are -"
"Banno!"
"Banno?"
"Banno!?"
"Banno!!"
"Banno!"
Flashes of red in his eyes, bolts of pain in his head. They pulsed through his skull every time they said his name. He couldn't take it anymore.
A new hand, the dark grey of dead ashes, attached to an arm attached to a body attached to a face, the eyes wide, the mouth hanging open in fascination, a dead Wolf pretending to be a alive, reaching out to him with dead hands...
Banno lashed out, swiping his claws across the corpse's face, and this time he did _not_hold back. The entirety of its lower jawbone lurched to the left with a sickening crack and blood and teeth burst out of its mouth in a fine spray. It stumbled back, reaching for the fountain of blood gushing from its broken maw, and then collapsed into a pathetic, motionless heap.
"Touch me and I'll KILL YOU!!" Banno roared. An explosive burst of pain ripped through his head, but it got the job done. They recoiled at his voice like insects fleeing before a rush of water, tripping all over each other and falling on their tails in a panic, not sparing their stricken friends a second glance. Normally, the sight of their fearful faces would have warmed his heart, but what was the point? If they were all fake, if they were just lumps of meat acting afraid in response to a stimulus (following the rules, in other words), then what did any of it matter? It was like throwing a stone in the air and watching it come back down. It was all the same thing. "Don't talk to me, or I'll kill you," Banno whispered, seething at the unfairness of it all. "Don't even breathe on me, or I'll kill you..."
The meat finally began to retreat in earnest, pushing back against its many parts.
"Just back away, give him some room," they said.
"By the Cora, what is wrong with him? He's gone crazy!"
"You'd be crazy, too, if half your face was gone!"
"Shut it!"
"No, wait! Wasn't he the one who killed Vallah?"
That name froze Banno even more effectively than the frequent flashes of pain in his head. A name as beautiful as that should never pass over such repulsive lips. It was like watching a delicate butterfly emerging from the mouth of a dead and decomposing boar.
"That's a big crock and you know it!"
"But Ander said -"
"Ander was a filthy liar! He would have said anything to give himself even half a chance!"
Another name that stuck out from their inane banter, but this one had a profoundly different effect. Banno's anger flared up like coals in a high wind, throwing off sparks and stuttering flames, igniting the pain in his head; deep, throbbing, piercing, stabbing pain. He curled his fingers into fists, struggling to keep his temper under control.
"But just look at what he did to Somaht and Nepper! They're all messed up!"
"Banno used to throttle Wolves just for getting in his way, this doesn't prove anything!"
"He's not right in the head!"
"He's hurt, he needs help!"
"You go help him, then!"
"Are you insane!?"
All this noise, so many dead voices overlapping with each other, bickering and arguing in a panic.
Ander told on me, he thought. A pale red halo was starting pulse around the edge of his vision, throbbing in time with his pain. That little bastard told on me like some pup...
Banno lurched forward and a path started to open through the crowd. The way they moved, retreating back into themselves, reminded him of those hairy caterpillars that sometimes crawled around on the forest floor in summertime, just fat ugly brown lines undulating without cause.
"Ander!" Banno shouted, making everyone jump. "Are you here? Where are you, little brother?" I'll teach you for telling on me. I'll make you eat your words. I'll force you to admit to the entire tribe what a sneaky little liar you are, and then I'll rip your face off... I'll get back at you for everything you've done to me. Everything...
The world rose and fell with every step, sometimes tilting at an angle and then straightening out again.
A Wolf without name, a scrawny bag of bones, stepped forward. Its 'friends' whispered for it to get back, that it was putting itself in danger, that there was clearly something very wrong here. It was just another elaborate set of rules, though. Something to make it seem more real.
"B- Banno-Sai? I'm very sorry, but... Ander is not here. Anymore, I mean."
"Where is he?"
The piece of meat trembled beneath his gaze. "He, um... is probably in the woods. He is... he is dead, Sai. Executed. For your... for your murder."
"Dead?"
"Y- Ye- Y- Ye-"
"Executed?"
"H- He was Thrown to the Wolves, Sai. It was- We thought you were dead! Your brother, Ander, h- he even confessed! He said he killed you! We- We're sorry! We didn't know! We-"
"What else did he say?"
"S- Sai?"
"What else did he say!?"
Its tail curled between its legs so fast it practically whipped himself in the stomach. "H- He said that you killed Vallah! Th- That little girl that went missing all those years ago. He said that you- that you murdered her, Sai."
Banno felt the far reaches of his shredded cheek twist into a lopsided grin, bringing both pain and pleasure. A snigger bubbled out of his bloody mouth and quickly grew into dark laughter.
"S- Sai?"
"He actually said that?" Banno asked between fits of giggles. "After everything that freak did, after he basically murdered me, he actually had the gall to accuse me of killing a child? That is so like him."
"Y- Yes." It was backing away, trying to fuse back into the dead multitudes.
"Where is Father? I need to speak to him."
It stopped dead, but did not answer. It wouldn't even look at him.
Banno frowned. It wasn't just that single speck of meat, but all of them. All those faces, glancing at each other. The silence. The smells. Something was indeed wrong here.
"Where is Father?" Banno asked again. "Is he sleeping? Answer me!"
The meat yelped and scurried back into the safety of the crowd like a frightened little mouse, and any semblance of mirth Banno might have felt at the news of his brother's torture (Not death, though. Oh no. Banno didn't want Ander to be dead just yet, so that meant he must be alive somewhere.) quickly evaporated.
"What happened?" Banno asked, sweeping his eye across the crowd, but no one would give him an answer. All was quiet, until...
"Get out of my way! Move! What's going on!? Let me through! Let me through!"
Banno groaned on the inside. He'd know that voice anywhere, but how was he supposed to react in a situation like this? Should he act happy? Sad? Respectful? He was so tired of pretending to be one of these dead sacks of blood and organs. It had come so naturally before, back when he thought it was important to fit in, but now... what was the point? Why should he bother? Why should he care?
She can be useful, though, and I don't have to keep it up for long. Just until I get what I want. That's the most important thing right now.
"Get out of my way! Let me -" She stumbled into the empty space that had grown around him, but then again, all of it was empty space, wasn't it?
"Hello, Mother," he said, settling for the kind of smile Ander probably would have worn - not too big, but not too small. He had no idea how it actually looked on his face, but he didn't really care all that much.
He was so tired of keeping up appearances.
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