The Sinner's path

"Do you think there is life after death?" those were the words of a little girl that kept repeating inside of my head, echoing through my whole body, until the razor sharp ringing sound cut it off.

Ugh my head...

Where... Where the hell am I?

He said with the ringing still stuck inside of his head and numbness spread around his body, unable to move even a centimeter of his being. With a little bit of time of sitting in the dark that surrounded the room he was in, his eyes adjusted to its darkness. Trying to recollect what actually happened to him, he started to look around the room, glaring at everything he could see in that room.

"Broken furniture, metal pipes instead of one wall, dim light and... body?"

It seems like he wasn't the only here in that cell room. He tried to shout, trying to wake up whoever that might be lying, but it was useless effort. His breath was not strong enough to push a single word out from his mouth but on the good side his feeling in limbs was coming back and he could feel again with his hand.

Wet, his hand was sunken in something when he was leaning against the wall. He risen hid hand up enough for him to see and saw his hand covered in ruby colored liquid. "Blood?" he thought. He moved his head and looked down on the floor. It was his own blood coming from the wounds in his body, that would explain why he felt like a rock thrown into river.

He took a look at the sources of pain and saw few bullet wounds, luckily they weren't deep enough to hit any vital spots. He checked every one of his coat pockets and found a pack of matches, a hip flask, and a small blade hidden inside. To his surprise, his weapon holster still had a revolver in it and there was a machete lying beside him.

Slowly he gained even more strength to move, using this opportunity he tried to get up firstly crawling to the bars of the cell and using them as a support when he will try to get on his feet. The struggle was real as he keept crawling through the cold floor of this room, leaving deep red path behind him. Finally, he reached his destination, he grabbed the flimsy looking bar with his one hand and started to get up on his shaking legs but the bars weren't as sturdy as they looked and one of the bars broke, making his effort futile as he fallen back on ground. Filled with frustration and anger he grabbed the broken bar near him and used it to get on his weak legs. Now he can go and check if the person that lies across the room is even breathing. Step by step he carefully crossed the room falling couple of times on his knees and pressing against the wounds to stop the bleeding for a little bit longer.

He reached to the person throat and pressed his fingers against the voice box. Nothing, not even a slight moment. He sighted and leaned against the wall near the dead body. Slowly losing his strength again. "I need to patch myself up before I bleed out." he thought as he pressed his wound on the side of his belly.

"I am sorry but you won't need that as much as I need it now" he said with really tired voice, slowly tearing the parts clothing from the body. Making them into makeshift bandages. Now, he only needs something to sterilize them. He grabbed the flash from his coat and took a big sip from it. That may be one of his not so smart decisions as the burning sensation filled his throat and started to cough.

"Whiskey eh? That should do" as he poured some on his hand to clean the hand out of blood and proceeded to dip the small knife from his pocket, inside the flask for few minutes before he took the torn pieces of clothing and put it on broken wooden board nearby, pouring whole content of the container on them.

All that was left is to wait, wait in this dark room, holding your own wounds to not bleed out, quality spend time spent I say. However the exhaustion was getting best of him as he slowly started to fell asleep.

"That's not a time to sleep now" said man as he hit himself in the wound. The pain was immeasurable, quickly regretting he have done this as he curled up on the floor.

Meanwhile he waited for bandages to sterilize he grabbed the small he dipped before in alcohol and decided to get out the bullets before he patches himself up. First one was stuck in his shoulder, he took deep breath and sunk the blade against the bullet and flesh and with few twitches of blade he managed to get it out. Two more to go, another was stuck in his belly but it was too dark to mess with that one so he passed it and proceed to get one out of his leg. He gritted his teeth as he was trying to get it out, the bullet must have sunk deep inside the flesh. After few more tries he got it out, almost passing out from the pain of doing it.

"They should be around done now" said to himself as he grabbed the ragged cloths and started to cover his wounds stopping the flow of blood from his body. This digging took a major toll on him as the exhaustion took over and shortly fell asleep after he bandaged himself up.

After some time he woke up again, feeling strong enough to walk on his own. With no point of wasting time he went outside the cell and found himself in something like an abandoned mining shaft. The tunnel was filled with the smell of blood and rotten meat. He took out the revolver from his holster and checks how many bullets he had inside the chamber.

"6 chances, eh? Not too shabby", he said as he ignited some of the matches and went deeper inside the cave, without making any sudden noises to not give out his position to someone or something that could be still there.

The further he went in, the smell of blood got more and more intense until he found one of the corpses. The first thing he noticed was the wound the corpse had, it was similar to a bite, a really big bite. Something that killed him wasn't a human or a normal animal. The second thing he noticed was the unusual clothing the man was wearing, it was nothing close to modern clothes.

"Just where the fuck am I?", said Varren as he scratched the back of his head.

Suddenly he felt something breathing on the back of his neck. He violently turned around, pointing his revolver at the face of the monster that probably killed the miners. Before he could shoot the monster, it grabbed his arm holding the gun and threw him on the ground with its body mass. The monster's face got closer and closer to his face and made a loud roar, covering his face in saliva and god knows what more.

After that monster made a swift attack going for his neck, his second arm, luckily, wasn't being held by the monster, so he went for the knife he still had in his pocket and plunged it inside the monster's eye.

The monster backed off from him lying on floor as it started to roar in pain, covering its face. That opportunity won't happen again if he doesn't take it now so he grabbed the pistol out of the ground and started running as fast as his legs allowed him.

The head start he bought himself to run away, especially with the wounded leg of his, wasn't enough. He could hear that the monster was chasing him and it getting closer by every second.

Suddenly, he heard an ominous, silent voice coming out of the different cave shaft saying "Come here..."

With nothing to lose, he ran to that direction with the last drop of stamina he had until the shocking truth hit him in the face. It was so dark that he didn't see the dead end, he smashed his face on the wall, and fell on the ground.

"Are you fuckin kidding me?! Damn my nose...", he said loudly as he tried to get up.

But when he was getting up, he noticed that the monster is a couple of meters away from him, looking exceptionally angry.

"Guess I am fuc-", before he could finish his sentence, he heard the ground under him crumbling, starting to fall apart under his weight.

As the ground shattered in front of his very eyes, he grabbed onto one of the wood logs that was supporting the walls of the mining shaft.

However, the beast didn't give up on its revenge, it started to pick up nearby rocks lying around and began to throw them at him with exceptional ferocity.

"Ouch, What the hell is wrong with you?!", he screamed at the beast that continuously threw rocks at him.

Suddenly, the monster stopped throwing the rocks. When he took a glance over, he saw the beast lifting a boulder.

"You know what? Fuck this shit, I ain't getting stoned, I would rather just die. ", he shouted at the monster with an angry tone. Before the beast could throw the boulder, he let it go and fell deeper into the hole beneath him.

'The hell is this place anyway? It doesn't look like a normal mining facility at all', he thought as he fell deeper and deeper inside the hole.

"I wonder when I will-", before he could finish his sentence, he fell into the underground river.

When he emerged from the water, he was met with a strange view. There was something bright at the end of the river. With nothing left to lose, he started to swim towards the light. The closer he got, the more he could see of what the glowing thing is. It looked like some broken temple, completely forgotten by people. After some time, he finally made it out of the water and sat on the floor, exhausted.

"Damn, I hope this water was clean because this wound will become really nasty quickly if it wasn't"

He let out a big sigh and stood up. The glowing thing was on the top of some broken walls and pillars. He started to climb it, but he could tell that he wouldn't last long with his leg. Some time passed, but he made it, he crawled on top and saw a stone hand stuck between all these broken walls. It was holding a strange black crystal shard, glowing in a red colour. When he touched it, it instantly lost its shine.

"Well, shit, I hope I didn't break it. It might be worth something, who knows?", he said as he grabbed the crystal and hid it inside his pocket.

From the point he was standing on, he could see that there was something looking like a gate.

As cautiously as he could, he went down the rubble.

"I swear to the God that probably doesn't exist, if something jumps on me again I will gladly shoot myself", he said to himself, as he continued descending. He was completely worn out by what happened barely 15 minutes ago.

Nonetheless he made it to the bottom of the wreckage and after a few steps, he was in front of the gate he saw from above. Sadly, it was also blocked by rubble.

"God damnit... Oh well, guess I have nothing better to do now", he said as he sat on the ground.

However, while he was sitting, he saw a hole inside the wall. He quickly hid his flask and started climbing up to his only hope of getting out of here.

He got on top of the wall and took a look inside the hole, he could sense fresh air from outside. A spark of hope ignited inside him and, without second thought, he went through the hole.

He dropped on both of his legs, which resulted in immense pain from the wounded leg and side of his belly that began to bleed anew. He tightened the rag around the wound and started limping towards the exit of the tunnel.

"I am so fed up with this, what else could go wrong?", he said with an annoyed voice. He knew that something could and would pop out at any moment.

As he was marching through the cave he began feel something squishy under his feet. He tried to ignore it, but this thing was everywhere.

"Please don't be shit, please don't be shit", he repeated to himself as he reached to the floor to touch the thing he was stepping on.

To his surprise, it wasn't any sort of manure. It was some kind of heavily liquefied meat. He smeared it on the wall as he started running as quickly as he could before the thing that sits here comes back.

He could almost feel fresh air on his face. So close, yet so far. He made a final turn and saw it. He saw a bunch of smaller versions of the monster from before, sleeping outside the exit cave.

He almost lost his shit when he saw all of them just chilling near the exit.

He tried his best to not make any noise as he passed through them, but one of them woke up as he practically escaped the cave. It immediately began to scream as soon it saw him, waking up the rest of its own kind.

"Damn it all..."

The scream of the young one woke up the rest of the sleeping monsters that were lying nearby. As soon as he heard the scream, he only had one option to choose if he wanted to survive. He sprinted past the waking monsters. However, one of them that was laying outside of the cave saw him and immediately stood up, blocking half of the way.

"Get out of my way, shit head!", Varren screamed with a frustrated voice. He used the last drip of strength in his legs to run even faster before the monster could attack. As he got close enough, he proceeded to drop kick the monster out of the cave when it tried to stop him.

The echo of the screaming monster that fell out of the cave inside the mountain filled animals in terror in the nearby forest, scarring birds and other, smaller animals. Animals weren't the only ones in the forest, though. A young woman was collecting herbs and medical plants when this happened.

"Somebody is nearby the Karavaz nest," said the woman as she stood up and faced the direction of the echo.

"This isn't good...but I need to keep a promise to my father", she said as she picked up a knife and ran towards the echo

After running for a minute or two, she noticed a man with wounds near his ribs and leg, running as fast as he can in her direction. When he was close enough, she tried to talk to him, but before she could let a word from her mouth, he grabbed her by the waist and threw her over his shoulder.

"Wha... What are you doing!", screamed woman with an embarrassed voice.

"Look behind", replied the man, visibly exhausted.

She raised her head and saw a couple of Karavaz.

"I killed one but the other one behind me caught up and got me really good, shouldn't make this fancy kick and just run instead", continued man.

"What did you even do to make them chase you?! They don't attack people unless someone enters their territory!", said angry woman.

"No clue. Oh wait no, I remember. I might or not might have stabbed their mother in the eye with knife", said man with a grin on his face.

"What are you laughing for?! This is a serious matter!", said the woman as she hit the man's back with her fist.

"Don't blame me, I have no clue what's even happened in the past months or more and everything feels like an acid trip to me. I still can't believe I am being chased by monsters, and being a centimeter away from bleeding out", replied the man as he started to laugh.

"I can patch you up, just let me down on my legs!", said the woman

"Really?", he replied

"Yeah, really, I promise", replied the woman with an annoyed voice

"Do you maybe have a knife? I lost mine in some monster's eye." he asked.

"Ugh, here", she said as she passed the knife to him.

"That's a fancy knife you have here!", he said with an excited voice. "Too bad it will be stained with blood", said the man as he suddenly stopped and dropped woman on her bottom.

"Could you be more gentle next time?", said woman as she swiped dirt from her dress.

"I ain't sure if there will be another time", The man replied back, standing ready to fight.

The bunch of monster stopped as they saw him coming towards them with the knife in his hand.

"C'mon fuckers, who wants to be first", after he said that, the familiar roar filled the forest. It was the same monster from the mine that tried to kill him.

"You really do hold a grudge againt me, don't you?"

The monster rushed towards him, head on without any second of thought, and pushed the man to a nearby tree, as he didn't had any strength left. The force of the impact was so great that the tree slightly broke like the man's ribs.

"W-What are you doing! Weren't you supposed to fight it!?", screamed the woman in the back with a worrying voice.

Monster didn't hestitate to kill him for a moment and quickly went for a finish move to end him, but he couldn't have any of that. He grabbed the knife that was still inside monster eye and pulled it out with its eye and dropped it on the floor, using this brief moment, when the monster lost its tight grip on him, he stabbed it again in second eye with the knife he got from the girl. The monster backed off as it started to scream in pain. Meanwhile, he fell on his knees and started to cough up blood.

Woman that was before arrogant to him quickly changed her attitude and came to him help him to get back on his feet.

"Just leave..", said the man as she was wrapping his arms around her neck.

"I can't just leave you here!", replied the woman with an angry voice. "You risked your-", but before she could finish her sentence, she got pushed away by him and fell on the ground.

"What's your problem?!", screamed the woman as she was turning towards the man, but she didn't expected the sight she did.

The monster jaw sunk deep inside the man's right arm as he was struggling to keep it at bay. She wanted to help him, but he quickly reached to his coat and whipped out something similar to one of the expensive weapons used by high ranked knights. The noise of three shots filled the smaller monsters with fear and they ran away, leaving their own mother. The monster fell on the ground with a head filled with 3 lead bullets.

She quickly pushed away the monster's body and kneeled in front of the heavy breathing man. "Oh god, the blood... The blood is everywhere...", said the woman as she was trying to move him.

"The name... ", whispered man

"W-What?", replied woman

"Tell me your name..."

"Its Annabelle... Hey! Dont fall asleep!", shouted the woman as she saw that he was losing his consciousness. "Don't die on me, you hear?! I told you I am gonna patch you up!", she cried, with tears filling eyes.

"What a weird day" he thought as his sight was failing him, slowly closing his eyelids with a crying woman as the last thing he saw.