Heartworm

“What do we do?!”

“Tell the Council!”

“Straea! Baehevar is at the southern gate! We have him surrounded!”

The guard in question was speaking into his gauntlet, which glowed a soft light from the underside of his wrist. I am not Baehevar, I am S T A R V I N G. I wasted no time at all launching myself at the guard that spoke into his gauntlet. With my teeth latched between the gaps in the armor, his metallic protection peeled away at the force of my maw, leaving an unprotected and tender arm for me to relish in. I sunk my teeth into the appendage, and ripped it clean from the rest of his body, the anguished scream that followed was like a garnish to the flavors in my mouth.

“SHIT!”

“KILL IT!”

It seemed that the circle of guards were no longer engendered with hesitation, and were now closing in around me with weapons raised to strike. They looked to be well trained, but they were prey nonetheless. Ducking underneath the stabbing motion of a spear, I sunk my shadowed claws deep into the sides of a guard, shearing the metal with a blissful screech of my claws piercing the material. Once my two claws were deep inside of the midsection of the guards, I pulled forwards to spill the macabre feast of organs from his stomach. Oh how I wished to stop the fight to eat more of the tantalizing pile of gore. I only managed to thrust one claw-ful of the dripping meat into my mouth before two more guards were coming down on top of me. The first of which, I was able to avoid the attacks deftly, sending the sword flying up into the air when I blocked the final swing. The second guard had made a well-timed swing, bringing his mace down squarely into my right forearm to snap the bone in half with brutal efficiency. He would die next. Like I had been blessed with an entirely new and versatile weapon, I spun around and used the protruding bone of my forearm to my advantage. I plunged the shattered bone that stuck out of my arm directly between the gap between his chest plate and his helmet, expunging the life in his eyes with a ruthless smile on my face. Before the first guard that attacked me could scramble to his dropped sword, I pounced on his back, savoring the cracking and creaking resonating from his strained bones as my weight distributed across his legs and his back. My teeth sunk into the flesh on the nape of his neck, tearing and chewing to satisfy the unending desire for more food.

When the sounds of more shuffling from behind reached my ears, I raised the body up with me as I stood. I could see the filthy adventurers from the barn that had caused me pain. They were watching. They made me hurt. I would hurt them back. I put as much strength behind throwing the body as I could manage without losing my balance. I hurled the corpse towards the man with the electricity before I turned to face the remaining guards.

There were so many. So much food. So much prey. Ridding myself of the remaining five guards was difficult. Not that they posed much of a threat on their own, but through sheer numbers, I was given no time for retaliation of any kind. Whenever I would avoid an attack of theirs, I would inevitably be caught by the next that overlaid with the previous guards' swings. This was not a dance that I could afford to continue. After only a couple of rotations through my attempts at dodging, I could tell that I would die of a thousand cuts before I could gain an opening to press the offensive. If avoiding their slashes and strikes was impossible, then I would embrace them. I would make my own opening wherever I pleased. I was the predator.

Setting aside any concern for injury, I plunged myself into the fray directly, aiming to slice apart the guard that wielded a spear. My change in strategy had clearly taken them off-guard enough for me to easily rip a claw from the guard’s stomach all the way through their neck. The sudden gush of blood into the swirling fray of weapons gave them all a moment’s pause as they attempted to identify whose blood exactly was now bereft of their body. In that hesitation, I cleaved into yet another guard, letting a sword plunge clean through my stomach to make the distance towards the guard. Once I had done so, I realized that the sword I had just willingly impaled myself with to reach my prey was enchanted. It seared with the light of holy magic, unlike any of the other weapons that the guards had been using. I was suddenly very grateful that only one of the guards that had surrounded me was gifted with such a weapon.

The next guard paid the penance of my pain. I had severed his head from the rest of his body as the final two guards brought their weapons down on my head. I reeled back from the blunt impact of both weapons and backed away from them on all fours. I licked my claws clean of the skin that had been trapped on the tips of my razor sharp talons. It was delicious, the nourishment I had received from all of these humans.

‘Come back to me, little morsel.’

Who is that?!

‘You’ve had enough food, fledgling.’

Lilith? Where did Vyra go? I was just with her, where did she go?!

‘Calm down, little morsel. You need to focus on the threats at hand.’

Threats?! Threats made a lot more sense once a sword had sunken into the flesh just beneath my shoulder on my right arm. A guard was attacking me. Two, actually. They both wore the crest of Varenthell on their armor. Had I been taken to Varenthell? No. Looking around, this was definitely not Varenthell. The capital guard must have made it here when the Council did, which was not a good sign of things to come. I needed to focus on the fight that I had suddenly be thrusted into. The cobblestone around me was slick from the blood of many different guards. Had that been me?

‘For fuck’s sake, little morsel, think later and kill now.’

Right. Think later and… defend myself now. I pushed myself to the side to avoid the oncoming swing of a warhammer towards my head. The hammer shattered the smooth cobble of the road, and seemingly sent a horrible impact back through the handle of the weapon as the guard winced at the impact. I stopped my foot on the end of the hammer to prevent the man from picking it back up, throwing a punch squarely into his chest while he struggled to pry the warhammer from under my weight. The guard was thrown onto his back on the ground, the metal sliding against the cobblestone with a hair-raising scraping sound. I wrapped my hands around the end of the hammer to utilize the large weapon myself. I had never been trained to use such a weapon, but in this instance, I figured the idea was relatively simple. Leverage the momentum of the hammer to plant the end right into the man’s chest. I’d read enough books on the concepts of the-

‘It’s a fucking hammer, fledgling, swing the damn thing hard and be silent.’

I swung the hammer down onto the guard, and sure enough, I had made a disgusting mess of the already gory street. The final guard had decided that finding a different weapon would be smarter than retrieving the sword that was still stuck in my arm. Along with another sword that was currently in my stomach, and sending searing pain through my senses. How the fuck did that get there?

I ripped the holy sword from my gut as the last guard picked up a dropped spear from a gushing, collapsed guard nearby. Hm, blood. Maybe I could…?

‘How creative, you little bookworm.’

Lilith knew my plan the moment I thought of it. The question was if I could manage to execute the plan that rumbled around in my mind. Only one way to find out. I reached out to the blood in the same way that I had in the dojo, feeling how the blood of the guard reeked of familiarity, as if it was a part of myself long lost. There was a kinship with the red ichor, and much like before, I was able to ‘feel’ it like it was a third arm, or a sixth sense. A part of my body that was not connected to me, nor had ever been.

I used that feeling to swirl the blood that pooled underneath the feet of the guard into a miniature vortex that quickly congealed into a crystalized form, much in the same way I had with my own blood in the dojo. The crystalized blood pierced the guard all across his body as it surrounded him. The spears of blood impaled the man in a sort of upright spike trap, holding him upright as if on display even after he had stopped writhing in pain.

“Holy shit! Bandit just shish kebabed that guard!” I heard Phern yell from behind me, which caused me to turn around to see that Cecelia, Phern, Sebil, and Lucas were all a short distance away, looking different degrees of concern. Lucas, unsurprisingly, had a look of disgust on his face where others showed concern.

“What the fuck are you guys doing?! Did you just watch me kill all of those guards without lifting a finger?” I yelled, despite moving towards the four of them to voice my frustrations and confusions without having to continue to yell.

“It seems he’s back to consciousness.” Sebil spoke towards the rest of the group. I had still heard his words, regardless, which only served to inject more questions into the discombobulated soup of thoughts that was my mind. Consciousness? Clearly I was conscious in order to have killed so many guards before they killed me. He must have meant that I was feral. That made sense, I was starting to remember the conversation I had with Phern before she had killed me. We were in prison, I would have gone feral. Clearly we had escaped in the time that I was dead, and though it was not through the method that I wished, the guard seemed to provide enough sustenance for me to regain my unclouded mind.

“They relayed our location to Straea before Bandit killed them. We need to move, now.” Straea. A member of the Council, and clearly one of the members that was sent to Thrieve. Cecelia moved towards me and swiftly clutched my left hand with her right to pull me along. It was a very firm grasp, one that based on her voice, was not out of annoyance, and instead out of fear.

“Where are we going? Are you all okay? I feel like I’m so fucking behind on everything!” I pleaded as I followed Cecelia to the gate, which was currently unguarded, most likely thanks to me having just gotten rid of said guards.

“Enough of a brain to senselessly maul a handful of guards, but not enough to avoid being confused about why we’d run away.” Lucas scoffed, but was still curiously following our group with a noticeable lack of the magical restraints I had last seen him in. Gods only knows why he was still intent on following us right now.

“Give me a fuckin’ break, I’m still recovering from being dead a few minutes ago!” I had only just become aware of this shitshow that I had awoken into. It felt like even though Phern and I had been separated from the rest of the group, she had managed to catch up with whatever situation we were in during the ten minutes I was dead. The last thing that I remembered was-

Vyra.

‘Cute. You had another dream about your dead girlfriend.’

It wasn’t a dream. I don’t think so at least. It felt real. She felt real.

‘I saw glimpses of your memories in isolation, little morsel. Vyra was nowhere to be seen.’

It was after that memory. We spoke. Did you not see any of that?

‘No. Perhaps you are simply losing your mind, darling.’

With you in my head, I wouldn’t put it past me,

“We’re heading west. Are you okay, Bandit? Are you still hungry? Did they do anything to you?” Cecelia was still pulling me along by my hand. The tenderness with which she spoke to me made me question if I was still dreaming about Vyra. If Lilith didn’t remember it, it’s possible I imagined it. It felt far too real to truly ignore, however.

“I’m okay, yeah. Are you okay? You don’t normally sound this scared.” I responded to Cecelia, a smile finding its way to my face despite the deadly situation that we found ourselves in. To think that the last moment that we had together in peace was such a tender one. Until I had made it awkward by suggesting we work as a ‘team’. I wasn’t sure if there was a way to dig myself out of that hole, but if we didn’t make it out of Thrieve, it would become a six foot deep hole we would need to dig ourselves out of.

“No I’m not okay! I thought I fuckin’ lost you!”

“I’m sorry. I was just so afraid that something was going to happen to Phern I-”

“No apologies. I was terrified for Phern, I’m not going to hold your reckless decision against you. I’d have done the same thing if you hadn’t moved first.”

I wish that peace was easy to come by in my new life as a Deathless. I felt like I had been ferried from one disaster to the next without so much as a chance to breathe. Compared to the sluggish pace of isolation and the classes I returned to once I regained my freedom, it was a blistering pace. I used to have multiple days pass without so much as realizing in my zombie-like state. Now, it felt like I was either almost dying, or actually dying each day that passed.

We had been scampering through the brush along the outside of the city wall in order to get towards the western side of the city. It was somewhat miserable to be running through completely unmanaged foliage, the scant scrapes and cuts from running past branches began to add up. Eventually, with Cecelia still leading the group, we slowed our pace. There was no sign that people were actively on our tail, and each one of us was dying for even a slight pause in our sprint. Sebil was the first to stop, with Lucas and Phern following after, and Cecelia and I decided now was as good a time as any to collect ourselves before we headed west, as Cecelia had said.

Sebil moved some of the heavy looking equipment from his back onto the ground to rest for a moment, and I saw Lucas move towards him as he leaned over to examine his inventions.

“Need a hand?”

“With what, love?”

“Carrying it. You’re hauling quite the workshop of tools on your back. It’d be better if you split the weight.”

“You’re right, but I hadn’t planned to offload that burden on to anyone else.”

“Too bad, then. Tell me what things you want me to hold.”

I wasn’t sure if Cecelia could hear their conversation. If I had to guess, I was only hearing it with my enhanced senses since Cecelia made no indication that she had picked up on their words. I was just about to move towards them to join their conversation before Cecelia turned me around with a hand on my shoulder.

“I thought you were gonna die before I even got answers.”

“Answers to what?” I replied, attempting to think back to the last conversation that we had before we were swept away into the chaos at the estate.

“What we are! Who you are! I’ve been wondering about those two questions the whole time I looked for you, and I thought I’d never get to know.”

What we are? Who I am? Those were tough questions. What I wanted was in constant competition with what I thought was best. Sure I wanted us to be… more than a team. But she was a Life Hunter, and I was a Deathless, and I’d only been surrounded by misery since I woke up in the church. Was it a good idea to try to get involved with someone else? Not to mention I had only ever dated one other person, and it didn’t exactly have a cathartic ending. As for who I was? I know that I want to be Ester. But was now the time to be worrying about such things? I’m being hunted, I have a demon in my head, my body is changing more by the day, and no matter how much I desire to be someone new, Xavier claws at me whenever I try to leave him behind.

I could die any day with the Council and the Empire of Kistram seeking me out. If I was going to die, I was not going to do so with lingering regrets. I would not let a Heartworm writhe inside of me until the moment my heart stops beating. Did making stupid decisions even matter if any day could be my last? Everyone deserves to be a little stupid sometimes, as a treat.

I pulled Cecelia into a kiss, my arms slipping beneath hers to wrap around her waist and rest comfortably on her hips. I could tell she was surprised by the sudden move, yet her arms immediately wrapped around me, her fingers tendering intertwining with the strands of my hair that trailed down my back further than they ever had before.

Hot metal was the flavor that set fire to my mind as our lips locked. The cozy campfire scent that always lingered on her combined with the dried blood on my lips to give me a tantalizing, yet odd taste. I tried not to think too much about the fact that I must have torn into some of the guards with my teeth, something I found out while licking the strange bits of meat out of my teeth as we ran from the city. If she minded, she certainly didn’t show it. What I had intended to make a short kiss stretched out into its own miniature dance of tongues. I had only ever kissed one person before, and Vyra was never one to use her tongue much at all. Instinct told me to lead, but those instincts were quickly quelled by Cecelia’s firm domination of the muscle in my mouth. It sent an electric tingle down my spin for the precious seconds that we kissed until she pulled away slowly, leaving me momentarily struggling to compose myself.

“YES! FUCK YEAH THAT’S WHAT I WAS WAITING FOR!” The two of us glanced to our side to see a grinning Phern that had apparently just been waiting for something of the sort to happen. Rolling her eyes at Phern’s antics, Cecelia turned to me and spoke in a soft, playful tone.

“So… was that a kiss between teammates… or…”

“Oh fuck off. If I had to kiss every teammate like that I’d kill myself before I reached Lucas.”

“So… more than teammates?”

I smiled at the woman. We had yet to let go of each other, our arms firmly wrapped around one another. I remembered sitting on the edge of Vyra’s bed as a similar scene played out. It would be different this time. I’d make sure it ends differently. It had to.

“...how about girlfriends?”