- The Flames of Reason, The Fires of Destruction [pt.2]

Arnold didn't bother to wait around for Lia to snap out of her awing gaze at the surrounding fires that tore through the town. He picked up his spear from off the ground, slapped out of his hand by the Bulette, and charged for another monster.

Abigail followed close behind him, riding Bluey as he charged forward into battle, his claws ripping through many monsters in his way. But Lia just stood there, staring at the carcasses of men, women and children, her gaze never leaving the pools of blood that formed around their half eaten and torn bodies.

"Lia? Lia, we need to get going."

Lukali grabbed her arm, lightly pulling it back as he removed his mask, eyeing her empty and emotionless face.

"Lia?"

She couldn't say anything, she could hardly find air in her own lungs, her mind too swarmed with screams and fire and monster's raging around her to dull it all out.

It took Rian's rough and large hand slapping on her shoulder to wake her from this trance, a trance she only realized she had just been in.

"Lia? Is everything all right?"

She had trouble finding the words in her mind, the air in her lungs and the voice she needed to speak. It took several failed attempts, her open mouth closing and opening again with each attempt until the words finally came crashing out of her throat like a stifled sob.

"...the bodies. There…there are so many."

She clutched her stomach and placed hand over her mouth, the slick blood on her hands leaving the smell of iron and the stain of red on her pale skin, her blade falling with a clang to the floor. She silently began to shake, a feeling she had not known up until now.

There was an army of them, and she was the only one. How could she? How could she defeat them?"

Rian gripped his hands hard on Lia's shoulders, leaving her eyes so that they peered deep within his dull brown ones.

"Lia, listen to me. This is nothing new to us, alright. We've seen this before and we've always gotten out of it alive. Have confidence that you can save these people."

Her blood soaked hands were rubbing against her face now, trying to wipe away the wet tears that flowed down her cheeks, only to smear the blood deeper into and across her skin.

"Lia."

He placed two hands on either side of her head, holding her steady to keep her from shaking.

"We've seen this before. We can handle ourselves just like we did back then."

Lia stiffed a sob, her own emotions flooding her like a cool bucket of water that had just been dumped on her head.

'We have…? When did we-'

Her mind flashed past the screams of men and women, the cries of children screaming for their parents only to alert the monsters of their presence. They were living beacons and they died just as quickly, just as quickly as their parents had, just as quickly as any man and woman had.

They were all dying around her and their screams, the fire raging, the monsters roaring - it all suffocated her. Memories poured into her head, distant obese from the many battles hse had.

The goblins - she would have cowered in fear. The Grockil's, she would have been trampled to death. Even the spiders in Neverdark, the city filled with fire and darkness, all in harmony together.

She should have died in all of them, yet she was calm, steady, composed and compelled to complete her mission.

It was nothing like her.

She would have fought - yet, but to be so calm about the deaths of all these people, the deaths of all those in the Outpost, in Neverdark and now here. She could never be the same if she saw all that. So how? How could she have been so composed?

The memoirs of deaths after death after death after death all flooded her mind like a freshly opened and cracked dam. It didn't feel right. It didn't feel human, for all she felt in those moments was an emptiness.

'An inhuman feeling, caused by something in human.'

This was the last thing she thought about, her mind flooded and suffocating under the intense pressure of all those memories, all those pain filled tortuous days when she watched people - real people get torn to shreds - only to stare on like some empty husk.

Tears, hot and red with her eyes, mixing with the blood that ran down her cheeks, she cried. It was the last thing she felt before her vision turned black.

***

The blood was easy to wash off of his skin, after all water was a key ingredient in cover ups. It did wonders with a little bit of soap that the house had spare to wash off all the blood and grime that got under his fingernails.

Cain eyed himself in the mirror, his red eyes glowing with a fiery intensity. It was less like a burning blaze now and more like a glowing, haunting ghost that outshines the paleness to his skin.

'Creepy…I wonder why?'

He shook his head, too preoccupied with the small task of clearing his hands. He had already done it nearly a dozen times yet the blood he saw stained on his skin would not go away.

'Why won't it just -'

He flicked off the water that clung to his skin and turned off the sink. He eyed himself in the mirror, the small patches of blood on his face from the dead farmer were still there, despite having wiped away the blood with a towel some minutes before.

'I can see the damn towel myself and its f*cking red! So why…?'

He clenched his fist, upset with himself over something so little, he hardly bothered to catch himself as he smashed his fist against the side of the sink, breaking the metal bowl in two as it smashed to the floor.

'I'm done with this, what's the point anyways, they'll just get dirty again…'

He was two steps out the door, watching the moon's pale light shine through the open window with its curtains drawn back, the cool night air soothing his skin, when he finally realized it.

The cool night air had chilled his skin to the point of goosebumps, but instead of a prickly cold chill, Cain only felt pain in his hand as the air brushed against his skin. Taking a moment to look down, he brought his hands up and with a deep sigh realized what he had done.

'So my hands were never bloodied to begin with…I just thought they were.'

And in his attempt at scrubbing the blood away, blood that was never there to begin with, he had torn open his own flesh and spit his own blood across his skin. Now his hands had little patches of blood and pink flesh, parts of him where he had peeled away the skin due to his intense scrubbing.

'I did it again, didn't I?'

He sighed deeply, using his magic to steal his own hands as he blinded them with some first aid cloth he found in the cabinets. He didn't bother to pay attention to the broken bits of plates on the floor, or the pool of blood that was steadily making its way into the kitchen.

He took his time, careful and calculating as he slowly wrapped his healing hands in the cloth, gripping hard against his own muscle strength to test the bonds.

Shockingly enough, they held together, and again showed no emotion when his mind passed over the farmer's words once more, turning them over in his head.

"If you've come or the monsters, they're gone! I set them loose in your city, so run and find them!"

His own mind was compelled into the Hunt, as was his heart. But Cain listened and leaned more towards his soul and its voice than he did his mind and heart.

And right now, it said nothing.

Suddenly, a dark shadow passed him on his left, just outside the open window. He couldn't see anything out there, but he already knew what most likely awaited him.

'He made an army, it's only fair he kept some on the side for protection - hm?'

It was then that Cain saw something small on a nearby table, the candles that stood upright on the candle holder had been long blown out, but the picture was still clear.

One man, one woman. The man's age was far beyond that of the woman's so Cain's mind immediately wrote off the possibility of marriage. Daughter?

'...yes. He did say he had one.'

He felt a spark in his hands like the spark that started the flame, the picture bursting into a small explosion of fire and smoke as it fell from his hands, sending the fire across the floor as it spread over the hard wood like kindling.

'I just didn't believe him.'

The fire spread quickly over things like cloth and baskets woven from straw and reeds. The house was homey, the type of place one would expect a beautiful couple of grandparents would live. The flames burned fast over the leather armchair, its wooden frame and tough leather burned like oil, while the wooden floors spread the sashes and coals across the empty rooms.

'Such a lively house this must have been. A father, a mother and a lovely daughter running these halls. Golem mother, psycho father…I wonder what the daughter will be like?'

The house was set ablaze in mere moments, the glass windows shattering from the heat, the paintings hung on the wall smoked heavily as the oils and dried colors burned. The fire feasted on wood, cloth, oils and leather - even the flesh of the dead as it lit their corpses alight with a burning red flame.

It matters little to him however, as he waltzed his way out of the home, the smoke pillaring through the windows and the now burning holes in the roof.

"Apologies for the wait…"

His eyes adjusted the brightly lit surroundings, a mix of pale moonlight and the warm red glow of the fire casting the shadows of the many creatures that dotted the landscape in numerous colors. Some hid in the forest, some stood on top of wagons and stables, some that Cain must have mistaken for horses when he got here, bared their teeth at him like he was a walking feast.

But they all were angry, and they all were drenched in their own bloodlust.

He eyed them all with one long and imposing look of red murderous intent.

"...who's first?"

***

Her vision was black, darker than any shade of black that Lia had ever seen. It was a while before her mind returned to her and she realized then that she must have passed out.

'This will be an odd conversation to have with them.'

She thought, referring to Lukali and Rian who must be busy ensuring that she was alright, while also making sure that no monster decided to have an evening snack on her flesh. The thought however didn't bring her much comfort.

'They're always saving me from danger, and they always get into danger because of me.'

Her mind flashes between distant thoughts and choices, decisions that had always put the group in danger. It as her choice to go after Voln in the first place, it was her choice to deal with the goblins, it was her choice to lead an onslaught against the spiders - nearly turning Lukali into spiderlet food.

To her, it all appeared to be her fault.

'How worthless can I be…'

The deaths that were on her head, the blood on her hands and the feeling of defeat all weighed heavily on her like a thousand pound weight that threatened to crush her into the ground, unless she found the courage to push back.

'Courage?'

But she had little of that.

'What courage do I even have…'

She gripped her legs and held them to her chest, her head resting against her knees as her breath became heavy and rough. She didn't like the chill that tickled her skin, nor did she like the feeling of loneliness this darkness offered her.

Alone with her own thoughts and self loathing.

'How? How could I have been so calm during those moments…how could I be so…'

Inhuman.

The word echoed across the darkness like the very word it just described. An inhuman voice that filled her head like the sound of a banging gong, echoing inside her mind.

"Why? Why was I so - emotionless? I'm not like that, those people, they deserved to be grieved."

'Did they?'

"Yes! They deserved to be cried over, buried in fresh soil not in the acid of some monster's guts! How could I just leave them like that?"

'Because you had to.'

"No!"

The inhuman voice echoed like some beast given words and speech. It was demonic, monstrous.

Human.

'You left them because you had to. You cannot protect the world from death, only those you can reach in time.'

"They'll blame me…if I had just been a little faster, I could have saved them. If I hadn't been playing that damn game and kept watch-"

'How could you have known? What happens when you would grow tired and need sleep, then who would take your place? Who would save the thousands of lives that were in those cities? You?'

"I could have done something?!"

The chilling ari spread around her like the cold was enveloping her, like it touched only her and nothing else, freeing her to stone.

'You could do nothing.'

"How? How could I have done nothing for them?! How could I have-"

A thought crossed her mind then, like the chill settling around her had awakened a thought deep within her.

'Cain…he-he did this.'

The voice was closer now, empty and imposing like the weight that sat on her chest, crushing her heart and lungs with raspy breaths. And suddenly, Lia realized just how similar their voices were.

'Be satisfied with the ones you can save, rather than the ones you can't.'

His eyes were there again, like glowing rubies that jumped from the darkness enveloping her as they drew closer and closer to her.

She was taken in by them, enveloped by them like a pebble dropped in water, and the darkness was chased away.

***

"Lia?"

Rian looked deeper into her eyes, her gaze glossing over for a split moment before the color returned to her cheeks like a flushing fire. Her warm red lips and face regained their color, the blood that mixed with tears stopped flowing as her eyes dried up.

She was back.

"Lia?"

Lia carefully brushed Rian's hands off her face, holding on to them tightly as she looked between him and Lukali.

"Help your dad Lukali. You help him, Rian."

"But what about you?"

She didn't answer, her eyes only drifted from them, past their faces and into the distance where a monster was tearing apart a home. Lia could hear the scream of the people inside, she could hear the cries of the little boys and girls clutched in their parents arms.

The two of them used to look over their shoulders and past their eyes ofer the large and gigantic dire wolf who's teeth looked longer than Lia's sword, blood and bits of flesh dripping from its maw.

It looked threatening. It looked impossible.

"I'll Hunt."

The two of the men didn't bother to hide their own fear for her, but kept their mouths shut. Until now they had seen the things she had done, and though it was her fault for many of their feats and failures , the two of them could not doubt her ability.

She was great, but they hoped that this greatness wouldn't go to her head and instead to her sword. They wanted her back.

The two of them nodded at her once before taking off after Arnold who was in the midst of battling against a giant spider, its long legs being chopped to bits by his long and dangerously sharp lance.

Lia drew her blade from the ground, its steel glinting in the fire light as she could see the small impassive reflection of her face. Only, instead of a feminine and warm looking face, Lia only saw the hard and cold facial features of Cain looking back at her.

The only thing they shared was the red glow of raging in their eyes.

She was fueled by rage, ruled by contempt, fear, hatred and sadness. But she was filled with one emotion triumphing over all others like a ruler or king leading his men into battle against the most unlikely of foes, destined to die.

Purpose.