Chapter 10: Last Night
Another week had passed. One more in this hellish routine that had imposed itself on us. Each day, each hour, each battle blended into a spiral of violence and fatigue, the end of which we never saw.
The group lived with a dull, omnipresent fear. It didn't always manifest in screams or visible tremors, but rather in long silences, evasive glances, restless nights where no one really slept.
It wasn't just the fear of the monsters lurking in the dark, nor the fear of being devoured or pierced by an unknown creature. No, it was something more insidious. The fear of the unknown, of what we were becoming.
Each day, we changed. Our instincts took over, our humanity crumbled, slowly but surely. We were no longer mere survivors; we were warriors shaped by a world that left no room for weakness.
But then, where was the limit? When would we stop being men and become nothing but beasts, driven by the sole desire to live one more day?
No one dared to ask the question out loud. But I knew we were all thinking about it.
The Xylorath... These evil, cruel creatures were no longer a surprise to us. We knew almost all of them by now. Each species, each mutation, each horror inspired by earthly beasts we had already faced. They had become our daily reality. Their howl, their putrid smell, the feeling of their flesh giving way under our weapons... all of it was part of us now.
But it wasn't without consequence.
I felt the weight of this rhythm. My body was heavy, every muscle burning under the relentless effort. My mind, confused, wavered between exhaustion and the cold clarity imposed by the necessity of survival. The pain, the constant stress, the poorly treated wounds... and yet, I kept going. Because it had to be done. Because there was no other choice. Not here. Not in this world.
The group had become my only lifeline. An anchor I clung to desperately, even though I knew that, in time, I risked dragging them down with me in my fall. Each of them carried their own pain, their own fears, and yet, they were there. They had accepted me. They had supported me. And as the days passed, the more I feared I had become a burden. A weight they carried with as much resignation as I did.
On the battlefield, I was indispensable. A key piece of our survival. But outside of it... I was nothing but an empty shell, a broken spirit. A man who no longer knew what to do with himself once the adrenaline faded. I held on because of them. Because of our conversations, those stolen moments between battles, that fragile camaraderie that kept us all standing.