[ Acquired Lore: The Wailing Wretch ]

Claws pierce the flesh of my chest.

I hear the rending of the wet, and can feel its hot burn as I am opened. I wish to cry out, but my tongue remains stoic, in quiet rebellion of my plight. Pain. Untold pain. Ripping into me with glee, the Wretch continues its newborn wail, caught halfway in laughter and sorrow.

The reek. A pungent smell that forces its way into my nostrils, raising the hackles of my bile. I can liken the malodorous stench of this beast to that of the hill in my fever dream, and of the Curse Walker.

I am afraid.

The monster’s tongue flickers out, elongated and grotesque, to taste the dew of its harvest. It laps at the issuing blood as it continues its slaughter, striking again with its nails. They are as the talons of a hawk, and they are true. The attack finds my collar. The jab sinks in, more blood gurgling out, and the Esper continues to twist and tear. The agony is everything, and I can do naught but struggle under the venom duress.

I see the broken, sopping bone of my collar, in the corner of my eye. It is bared raw in the dim light, pushed through the shred of my neck, and exposed to the creature.

The Esper bores of using its claws, and instead begins to wrench the bone, jerking at it in delight, laugh-cries escaping its open maw. All the while its proboscis tongue tastes the fountain of my life. I cannot bear it. It is too much. I would have preferred to die by hive on the black hill, than feel any moment of this violating misery.

How much of this can the body withstand? What weight of suffering and sear can I still endure? I know not the answer to this, but a small voice in the recesses of my awareness seems to.

Surely, more than this.

[ Scrupulous ]

The Esper’s mouth is wide. Too much so. Its teeth do not reach to the edges of its grin, naked are the gums at the end. Its inert eyes so far back in its brow, behind the slope of it nose that it cannot see. An opening too sure, makes itself available. The creature is base and primal. It yanks again at my bone, attempting, I think, to elicit a cry from me as well. But it will not be. So focused on that task, it becomes frustrated, and its attacks more vicious with each moment passing. It no longer laughs. It grumbles. It sighes. It howls. Intent only on its deed most vile, it does not even continue in its ravenous hunger.

The moment is nigh.

I bear the anguish for a moment longer, and strike. My hand, more powerful than before my change, flashes out and I crash into the side of its face, digging my fingers under the ridge of the roof of its mouth. I squeeze, drawing its features to me by way of force. I control it like a fisherman with a sturgeon, hooking into the flesh that is softer than I thought. I feel give, allowing my grasp to strengthen, and I seize the moment as the Esper seems to awaken to my resolve.

I strike again, this time with my right.

So closely spaced its eyes, and flat against the crown of its nose, that its fate was an unfortunate eventuality. I dig my fingers into the beast’s pupils, easy enough to do, puncturing them. I am greeted by screams. I feel the facial bones through the viscera and I tear deeper into the sockets and grasp on to them. The structure is soft. The Esper’s cries are now a song of agony. And fear.

It fails to disengage, its ruptured hollows belching black blood into my hands as it thrashes against my hold. It tries. The Wretch leverages one claw against my chest, the other slashing at my face with its razors. I feel the hot sting of an open connect, and my own blood mists the air. It presses into my torso, but cannot escape the snare I have forged. A feral beast caught in a hunters trap. I feel it stress its muscle and push.

Its talons continue to mangle my chest, and it returns to my face as well, grabbing my jaw and clenching. It is near unbearable. I hear a crack beneath my gums. The beast is strong.

But I am stronger.

[ Unrelenting ]

Incensed by its refusal to die, I remove my hand from the crevice in the joint of its smile. I grasp the bottom jaw with iron, and shove down hard. The Wretch’s rounded teeth feel as polished stones, but still I shove, my found fingers under the chin, and my thumb and its base grind against the flat incisors.

The Wretch bites down.

It is not enough to sever, but enough to maim and this fuels me. I grasp the face bone behind its roiling eyes and wrench.

All of my strength is fed into this motion, and I feel a give. The Wretch screams more wildly than I’d yet heard, biting down hard enough to pierce through the flesh of my thumb and palm, crushing the bones beneath. But still I wrench. I feel my strength growing as I do, and finally, the apex of my might nearly diminished, I tear the bones free.

With an explosion of blood and ichor, the soft foundation of the beast’s face relinquishes its precious gift, and shards of the bones pepper the air. There is a final, silenced scream from the Wretch, but its body was now slack, crumpling.

I inhale.

It is a precious breath, and I find that I must continue taking air into my lungs or I risk my own livelihood. I stay like this a moment, gasping, until the deferred pain of the experience strikes, and I do fall.

I writhe about in the muck of the creature carnage, smashing my balled fists silently, as the mortal torment cascades along my nerves. I am bloodied. I am blood.

The candle.

I inch in a miserly crawl toward the still burning, resplendent glow. When I reach it, I lift it, shakily, with my unwounded hand. I slide on my side, unable to stand longer. The arm of my crippled hand is an oar. I pilot myself with sluggish cadence in the direction I believe the sword to be.

I discern it, the copper catching light in the dark, and I slide toward it. I am slick with my body’s grievance, and I worry I will not reach my mark before the rapture of the bleak whisks me into the ether. But the First are kind, and I bless the smooth metal as it finds home with me again.

My mind is chaos. I must mend or I will die here, a mere maiden in my task. I place quivering wax to stoic floor and born the blade up, angled, holding stout the metal over the flame of the burning wick.

I know not alchemy, but I have learned now of fire.

It takes time. I watch the candle’s meager tongue take its minor fury out on the flat of the sword’s blade. It grows hot. It becomes a glow, and then a cherry. It is ready.

I fear my life is past lost, but I must do this. It must be a dauntless endeavor. I press the heat to my flesh.

It hisses. I recoil.

Burnt flesh and hair eek an awful stench. Worse still, is the Esper’s shucked coil. The conquered ghoul does not stir, cold and still it remains. These powerful scents in congress with the pain, cause the juice of my belly to lurch, and I purge onto the stone. Though it causes me grief to do so, I cannot spare a wrist for wiping, so I leave the strings of vomit and saliva trailing.

I set about to continue my work. Once more. Twice more. Thrice more.

Ten times in all I heat the metal of the blade and press it to the wounds on my skin, searing them closed. I am thankful in this moment that I cannot use my voice, for I fear I’d have brought the whole of the Burrow down atop me. My thumb hangs loosely from my palm, and I seal it too, hoping that perhaps muscle and tendon may knit together,and strengthen, allowing use of it once more.

Eventually, it is done. I cease to melt mine own flesh anymore, and instead I stagger to a stand.

The face had spoken true. I was only protected so far as the door to the Sanctum, and only just. I would receive no help in these passages that did not originate from within myself. I am sure the face in the wall had heard the creature’s peal.

I slump to the wall and slowly crouch to scoop the candle. I will need to carry it in my damaged left hand so that I can still make use of the sword. It is a long trial to ease, but it would work. I clutch it firm enough with four digits, and draw the sword again. This time, in my right.

It is not a moment before there are more sounds of movement.

I curse the First, and the Second for good measure. It is time. Flight is the only offer I could accept. I am once more a wretched beast. The candle cannot guide them to me in this state, and so I snuff it, and remember again the fear of the void.

I begin a haggard way, and fainter grow the sounds of the Espers in the black.