Everything was fuzzy and strange. Task stumbled through the trees, terrified for his life, running with desperation once again. He had lost control of everything, the Knights under his control scattering to the winds, fleeing from the devastating power that En-Maer had demonstrated.

All sense of his commanding presence and responsibility to the Kingdom vanished from his mind and he was only left with fear and failure in his heart. He scrambled up over hills and tripped over exposed roots on the forest floor, not sure if he was headed in the correct direction back to the fortress -- if he was, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to return there.

The sun had begun to fall shortly after their battle. How… How did he continue to fail the Gods? First with the young Cursed girl whose name he dared not repeat in his mind… something about it filled him with pain and terror. Now with his hunt for En-Maer, a powerful Cursed being that the High Priest himself wanted disposed of. Failure after failure. Task fell against a tree and felt the cold of the darkening world around him and the chill of his internal emptiness overcome and sap away at the motivations he had left.

He hugged it and trembled, heaving for breath, the duality of hot sweat and cold, dry air making him tense up, every muscle of his body tightening and refusing to move another inch until he could take in proper breaths… until he could figure something out in his head.

But everything was weighing down on his mind now and his thoughts were widely scattered throughout his own wilderness of uncertainty and nightmares. Task had only witnessed the High Priest a single time… and he knew he never wanted to again. The height of the man… those eyes.

There was a cage closing in around him. The High Priest owned him. The powerful Cursed slave under the powerful man’s command, Burden, observed Task’s progress in repentance. And even if he could escape those two there were still the Gods, the Kings of the entire world whose eyes did not falter and whose judgement could find anyone... even if they hid away in the deepest caves or among the thickest trees.

Task felt his breaths come in faster and faster. It was so dark now. He wanted to pray and beg forgiveness but he was afraid to confront the Gods within his soul. His Devotion had crumbled away and died. He took a step -- his mind went back to the flash of purple light and heat that emerged from En-Maer -- being in the presence of such a demon. He feared death. The way those eyes looked down at him. This truly felt like his final failure.

He took another step and his knees buckled. A sound like a twig snapping startled him and he leapt, scrambling and crawling to his feet, throwing his head back to look, straining his only eye to see through the lack of moonlight.

“N-no! Please! Gods, I beg you, please, I --” He dug at the dirt, got a good sprint going but only for a second before sprawling out onto the forest floor, face first, losing air and sight for a moment. He involuntarily let out a scream and backed away, kicking at the dirt until his back found a sturdy tree to lean against. His hand went for his weapon but didn’t find it. Must have lost it in his panic.

His eye darted about, his lungs wheezed… He tried to get up but clearly had injured his knee and it was too much weight to put on it. He fell back down against the tree, shaking. Task felt tears coming to him.

“C-Cure…” he started, feeling like a coward. He didn’t want to be alone out here. Actually, worst of all was that he wasn’t alone. The Gods were ever present and he could feel their eyes burning down upon him through the deep blackness above. He needed a friend to stand by him in his time of failure.

Task had no friends. Still, he called for the one person who was appointed by his side, the one who took care of the injury to his eye. He called meekly, in desperation and shame.

“Cure…!” A near whisper. “Cure!” That one more of a pathetic whimper for the man.

Of course, no answer came.

“Oh no,” he whispered, his heart racing, his teeth chattering. “Oh no, oh no.” He had never felt such fear in her life. There was nothing left… besides more punishment. No, he had felt such fear, though. When he saw the High Priest before his very eyes. When he saw that Cursed woman come to save that… girl… from the harm of his blade. He had felt it again in the face of the unstoppable En-Maer, the woman who could not die.

In the face of so many people with such raw possibility and strength, Task was a lone coward who could not live up to his name. This was a worse kind of darkness than those encounters however. This was a deep isolation and agony. Knowing he was forsaken, and that he lost everything, he felt truly alone and beyond help. But still, he pleaded.

“Somebody help me,” he cried into his arms. “Somebody…”

All was silent.

“Do not cry, my lost soul."

Task’s head shot up, his entire system pumped with adrenaline and shock. He let out an involuntary scream, whipping his head about, looking for the enemy in the darkness. It was right next to him. It was strange -- yet familiar -- yet tainted him to his core.

“G-get away!! Get away from me you demon!!” Spit coated his lips and his voice was reaching the peak of his chest as it escaped his throat. It was a woman’s voice that came to him. It was En-Maer without a doubt, taunting him.

He had to run. He had to gather himself and get back to the fortress -- he had to do something to recover what little he had left. He growled and grunted, pushing off against trees to prevent himself from falling, biting his teeth together to push back against the pain in his knee and the burning in his lungs. He ran forward, knowing he would exit the forest eventually. From there he could find his way back without a doubt.

The fields that surrounded those woods were like a dark ocean that barely carried his weight. He stripped his armor down as he ran, hoping he had outrun En-Maer or whoever it was that followed him.

Granted, his jog had become quite pathetic and slow. So if someone was following him, they were having a game at his expense. Task shed tears from his eye and shuddered, taking in loud, high-pitched breaths. Where was his mother? His father? Who were they?

Did he truly lack a family to go home to?

“Please,” he sobbed quietly. “Please forgive me…” He spoke to the Gods. He spoke to his pursuer. He spoke to himself.

And, damn the Gods, he spoke to all he had harmed even if they could not hear. Even if he was not worthy of asking forgiveness.

As Task ran he thought back to that night with the Cursed girl he and his Knights had captured. In his moment of knowing it was time to kill her there was hesitation. Hesitation that haunted him to this very day. Looking into her sad eyes, there was something there that told him not to attack. It was clarity -- of course it was wrong. And it was a strange familiarity that stayed his hand. It was the deep knowledge that it would be in service to the Gods, yes, but a great disservice to himself.

He attacked, driving the sword into her far from her heart. He hoped striking her elsewhere might give her a chance to live. Perhaps they could leave the girl and she would find her way back to the village and Burden and the High Priest wouldn’t know of his failure to deliver the death they desired.

But none of that mattered. His actions were devilish and he didn’t know how to confront that realization. It was wrong to think violent actions against the Cursed to be wrong. Of course it was. So why did he feel so damned awful and dreadful about it? The Cursed dared walk like the Gods. They had to be punished. It was his task to deliver that punishment.

The thoughts tired him more than his actual running did. His mind was torn between ideas and ideals and he opted to simply move his feet and make progress across the landscape.

Task approached buildings and he was desperate for water. He hoped they would have some he could drink, his lips dry, his saliva thick and sticking to the back of his throat. The sign for the village was knocked over, face down in the dirt. He stopped and listened.

All was so quiet. People must have been asleep… but no distant murmurs of conversation? No barking dogs or the sounds of farm animals?

He approached the fallen sign which was a mess of dried mud, the wood cracked and old. He bent over slowly to pick it up, confused, uncertain of where he was, desperate to know.

When he turned the piece of wood over and gradually made out what it said he gasped and dropped it.

Gnosh, is what the sign read. The village of Gnosh. He looked up, quickly, back to the empty spaces between buildings and noticed the bodies in the distance. He stumbled forward, trembling, breathing in to call out but then became too afraid to fill the deathly silence with his own voice. He didn’t dare announce himself as alive, lest whatever force killed these people return to keep everything dead.

He had sent his Knights out to search for the Cursed girl. They must have inevitably come here. He neared one of the pale bodies, just a simple-clothed woman, halfway out the front door of a house. It wasn’t long until Task recognized her face -- the face of the woman he and his Knights took the Cursed girl away from on a day that felt so far away.

Had his soldiers… killed all of these people? Could it have been simple thieves or bloodthirsty travelers? He backed away and felt something rise up in his throat but nothing arrived to be purged. He… wouldn’t have wanted these people to die. No, that wouldn’t have been his command. However, he had the horrible feeling that the Knights under his watch had committed this atrocity.

But who was Task to speak of atrocities.

He wobbled in desired tears or vomit but remained in a simple melancholy. Alongside it, a depressing hunger and thirst. He slowly stepped over the bodies that scattered the grassy paths between buildings and carried on his way. If this was Gnosh, he knew his way back to the fortress.

But he wandered the village, his eye falling upon the corpses. He did not feel anything about them, only because he lacked the energy. He did not think anything of them. He simply neared each one and looked into their empty eyes. He glanced over and found another corpse leaned up against a window inside of a house.

Task neared it. And he noticed that it was merely his own reflection beneath the growing moonlight.