The Hunter: Chapter 6

     CHAPTER 6

                             

         " If you were to be stranded on a foreign world with no hope of survival and only confusion in your heart, then you would be mistaken for a bloodthirsty beast by the locals as well. "

                                                                                                           -Lady Vilga of the house of the hound

                     The beggar led them below the Town hall and the sight that they saw there made Helianthus sick, very sick. It was a pile of corpses of people, half charred and half barely recognizable . Their skin was mauled off of their skin. What was worse was that he could make out a few animals, children and even babies amongst the pile. "What sick beast would do such a thing!" said Helianthus as he barfed over the stairs. "The worst kind of monsters, humans." answered the beggar. The stench of the bodies filled the basement. On a closer look the hunter saw the terrified face of a mother and the crying face of her child, the now dead eyes of a boy who had ambitions bright and filled with fortitude rolled across to his feet.

 There were footsteps heading down the basement .The figure came into view and it was the botchling. He could be seen now. He was nervous yet somehow words came out from his mouth."Twis no baddy mans?" he asked them to which the beggar assured him no harm. He could be seen clearly now. His long shabby hair and a tiny scar on his lips. His blue and bulging eyes and a tiara of a sort made of  twigs.

  

                                    "Meet Tybur, I met him a long time ago when poor Tina was murdered, which brings me to revealing the final piece of this puzzle for you." said the beggar. He lit a torch and trudged through the corpses. The hunter followed leaving Helianthus behind puking. Tybur followed them. The beggar stopped after he came across a corpse that was in a sitting posture. Tybur stopped dead in his tracks. Tears rolled from his eyes. As he ran and embraced the corpse. "Hunter, meet Tina", the hunter was held stupefied! Her skin was charred. She was barely recognizable. Her face was ash grey and her visage a nightmare. Her spine was poking out of her spines and the hunter could make out an expression, one of fear and sorrow and despair.

"The elder lied to you. The truth is that they found the body alive and breathing. But still they brought her down here and burned her alive and snatched her baby from her. I could never forgot her face as she burned and lost the only thing she loved taken away from her. She struggled so much that the pyre almost broke. The splinters would pierce her skin yet she still cried out to her baby." The hunter had heard dark tales in his line of work yet listening to this he couldn't help but feel pity for Tybur. With  a smile on his face Tybur gently said,"Goodsy people are here to help you momsy!"

                          These villagers have brought everything down on themselves. The wrath of the Wood spirits, the death of many of their men, all because of their carnal beasts within. Who was the real monster here? The hunter looked at Tybur, an innocent boy robbed of a family, who was snatched from his mother's burning corpse, and the only family he knew was a cripple. The same cripple who was shunned by the village due to his visage. 

Was Tybur truly the monster? Or was it the men who slaughtered everyone he knew. Tom who scorned his wife and threw her down here, Aldrin who was willing to kill the love of his life just so he could live to see another day amongst debauchery .The elder who threw women, children and innocent animals down here to burn and serve as kindling for the flames that kept them warm at night, kept them safe from the beasts, it was almost ironic that the worst beats drove off animals thinking they were the true monsters.It was almost laughable yet the Hunters mouth wouldn't contort to a smile or even anything resembling it.Was the happy and peaceful village all but an illusion? Just a happy image of the warm bread being made in the taverns. Hot chicken made fresh from the kitchen curtained the kindling they used below the basement. An image so abhorrent that a meat eating monster would avoid eating for weeks to come just by the thought of it.

                         They made their way back to the entrance and that's when the beggar said something that would shock Helianthus. "I confess that I was the one who started this curse. I engaged in a ritual to make the villagers pay for what they did. I'm truly sorry." The words came out like heavy stones from his mouth. Each word causing splinters

The hunter was not surprised. After all, he had all reasons to hate them. They made it out of the basement and it was already night. The hunter set up camp. "Tell me all about it. How did this happen?" asked the hunter." I have no intention of ending this curse, in fact it's better if they suffer more. Wood spirits only do justice and that's what I think should be carried out now although I don't place my belief in the lesser evil. The beggar was happy, someone who finally shared his ideals. That's when he saw that beneath the Hunter's dark, menacing mask hid a face of his messiah of the genesis of his ideals, for who would deliver justice if not the messenger of  God.  He took a deep breath and started his story. The campfire crackled melodiously mixing with the cold ambiance of the reflecting moonlight shining through the cheddar trees. The embers burned high and would spark a revelation about to come following through like a rising phoenix from the ashes.