CHPT 86: Slumber?....or Torture?

Claude dug and dug in the cold rain until the light sting in his arms and back became a searing flame of agony all over— it almost matched what he felt internally.

After digging up 5 graves, he began the grisly and traumatic process of hauling their bodies to their new place of eternal slumber. Frosty sat at the head of the graves with sadness and rage written all over him.

Claude had to fight not to simply shut down as he brought the bodies of his old—new, teammates to their poorly made wet graves. Each one he carried to their graves felt like it took years, years he spent handling them in death— like the process was brutally being burned into his brain where it would fester and torment him for years.

He stopped midway on his journey to bring the second to last body to its grave. It was Brenda. Even so far along in death, she still smiled, she still glowed.

He forced himself to look away and gently set her in her grave.

Now left with only their Hero tags, he studied them. They were low quality even before they were beaten and chipped, but they held an immeasurable level of importance to him now.

With a slow and lifeless turn, he looked over the grass field of madness to find the fifth body. He couldn't find her— much to his confusion.

"Where is she? Why can't I find her?!" He thought.

"You can't find me because you didn't kill me, Carter!"

Claude spun around and found Rikah standing in front of him with a wicked grin on her face.

Sqsh!!

"Ugh!"

Claude felt a stabbing pain in his stomach. His pained grunt satisfied Rikah, causing him to feel sick. He looked down and noticed she ran him through with a serrated sword.

His attention was taken by the sound of movement in front of him, he looked up and saw something unreal. Behind Rikah, all the dead raiders seemingly came back to life. Their wounds ripped further and spewed more blood with every exaggerated movement they made to get up. All across the field, the dead were being reanimated in front of his very eyes.

"Wh—What the hell is this?" He panicked.

The raiders laughed and talked in hushed jumbled groups while they grouped up behind Rikah.

Claude snapped into action a few moments later, he used his adrenaline filled strength and tried to shove Rikah away from him.

She didn't move an inch, it felt like he was gripping steel as he squeezed her shoulders.

"Shit!" He thought before saying, "Frosty get ou—"

Before he could finish, he realized Frosty wasn't where he previously sat. He was completely gone, no tracks anywhere.

He didn't have much time to wonder about the PitWolfs whereabouts due to another event unfolding that ripped at his insides and battered him mentally to the point of insanity.

Hands shot out of the graves he just filled. They were covered in dirt and blood as they clawed and ripped at the dirt covering their bodies.

"They're alive???"

Suddenly, his acute senses kicked in and he began to hear them beneath the dirt, snarling and grunting like mindless animals.

"Hey! Look at me." Rikah said finally.

Claude fought to peel his eyes away from the graves. His eyes fell on the raiders behind her, they looked at the graves with an insatiable hunger, causing him to slowly understand what was happening.

"No....no...." he said quietly.

Rikah's eyes lit up as if she realized Claude figured out her plan.

"Yep! Tonight's just not your night is it? First you let the very Heroes that gave you a chance, die. Then you failed to get revenge and kill me, and now you have to watch the people you buried come back to life....pfhahahaha!!!!"

Rikah burst into a laughing fit for a moment, causing Claude to groan in pain from the shaking of the sword in his stomach.

The humor left her face as quickly as it came the next time she spoke.

"Now. They're going to crawl out of their shitty graves and we're going to kill them— again, and there's nothing you can do about it. You won't be able to save them. Your going to fail again."

Rikah then pushed Claude with her free hand into the grave he dug up for her.

He fell into the darkness for what felt like ever. All he saw was his own blood spilling out of his stomach like a wet red string and Rikah's smiling face looking down at him.

"NOOOOO!!!—"

***

"NOO—..."

Claude stopped after realizing he wasn't where he thought he was.

He sat in the grass facing a familiar forest. He knew if he turned around, the cabin would be off in the distance behind him— looking nothing like the home it used to be.

"Fucking nightmares." He said while reaching up and pulling the band out of his hair.

As his dark hair fell down around his face, he saw flashes—memories, of what really happened and led to him waking up back at the cabin.

He remembered the painful stun device Rikah used in her final moments to knock him and Frosty out and escape. The pain of losing track of her hit him like a knife being plunged into his heart. Sometime after, he woke up and Arne told him what he had to do.

The only option he was left with was burying them near the forest entrance and telling the people in the SkyLigjt guildhall that they died inside the Tangent, since large scale raider attacks that result in death usually call the attention of the Detection Corps. That would be bad news for him if he ended up with a certain blonde haired violent Detective.

But, he left the bodies of the raiders out on purpose. He wanted to send a message.

The memory of it all made him sick. Burying them, killing so many people, walking back through SkyHaven—alone. A failure.

He suddenly turned over on all fours and dry heaved aggressively for a few minutes. His mind fought to relieve him of his sick feelings but his body was perfectly content with holding everything he had.

After he was done, he felt a wet squishy substance bump his ear repeatedly.

"Hey.." Claude grumbled before reaching up and scratching Frosty's— now visible, head.

The sun was now beginning to set and a cool breeze came and went through the forest. The sun was setting, night was coming.

Claude got up and noticed he must've fallen asleep in his armor. It all clung to his skin, damp and heavy from the rain... and blood.

The smell hit his nose and immediately caused him to panic. He quickly took it all off like it was life or death.

***

"[Claude....]"

"..."

"[Claude..]"

".....We'll talk later." He replied while he washed his clothing and armor in a stream within the forest.

Frosty played around in the water upstream trying to stomp and snatch fish out of the water.

Claude watched with disgust as the blood came out of his clothing and mixed with the water before flowing downstream where it faded out of his sight. There was so much, too much.

After he washed his clothes and armor, he hung it over a tree branch and let his swords lean on the base of it. The bronze tags hung around the handle of his shortsword.

He stood in the field with Frosty thinking about nothing at all. Simply standing and trying to gain a portion of peace that never came. He must've looked like a wild man as he stood naked in the grass with a large heavily muscled wolf at his side.

Once he realized there was no point in wallowing in his misery, he grunted at Frosty and flicked his head towards the forest, indicating that they were about to run.

Frosty yipped excitedly before they took off.

"[Claude.....what are you doing?]" Arne finally asked.

"I'm running." He replied dryly.

"[Well yes— I see that. What I meant is why aren't you letting yourself grieve?]"

Claude stayed silent for a moment as he hopped over a large tree root sticking out of the ground.

"I don't need to grieve. What I need is progress."

"[Claude, you can take a day off. I know how much yo—]"

"STOP!" Claude yelled with a shake of his head.

He finished out his run accompanied by the sound of his own breathing and Frosty padding through the forest next to him.

Once he finished his run, Arne spoke again.

"[So, what's the plan for tonight?]"

Claude thought about his short list of options while he did his weighted pull ups.

The thought of going back into a Tangent sent chills down his spine and made him sick, but he still needed to get stronger so he had to do something. He was left with one option— that also scared the hell out of him...but it wasn't as scary as the first.

"We're going into an Infested Area tonight."