Fauna pt. 1

Yes, I recall the day you're talking about. Quite vividly, in fact. You've come to know me better than most- I told you how days tend to blur into an indistinguishable jumble for me. Well not so for that day. Clear as when I lived it. I've never let myself forget.

By way of explaination, let me say that I did not live alone, obviously. However, custom and circumstance had given me a solitary life. When I woke, my housemates had already left for work. By the time they got back, I was usually consumed in reading or writing, insensible to hunger or social mandates. When, at last, I went to take my dinner, my housemates had generally gone to bed.

It is at this time, in the depth of the night, that I find myself most creative, most aware of the world around me. I have heard that creative people are more sensitive to the external world than the masses, giving them greater appreciation for its wonders even as it puts them at a greater risk...

Now, understand that when I say I went for a walk that night, it was nothing unusual. I find a little fresh air clears the mind and awakens the sluggish blood. Nor should you think it odd that I chose to walk on a night so oppressively bleak- utter cloud cover, torrential rains, unpredictable winds. I know it seems odd, but I always used to love rain, especially storms like that one. Gives us a not-so-subtle reminder that for all our science and rationality, there are forces that can batter and destoy us just around the corner- brooding in the darkened skies and lying behind shadows.

Never-the-less, of the several paths my usual excursions take me down, owing to the severity of the storm, I opted for the shortest route. Keeping my umbrella aloft in the onslaught was effort enough, and before I was half-finished, I was mostly soaked through.

It was at around this point in my walk that I began to become aware of the dull sensation of dread that had been building since I set foot outside. What was most curious was that the feeling was utterly without a source. The night was no more terrifying than I was accustomed to, and no special incident had hitherto aroused in me the seed of fear. I began to look behind my shoulder at first, but the remarkable oppression strenghed until I no longer dared to glance behind, for fear of what I might see. My pace had become all but an out-right run when a light caught and transfixed my eye.

On this particular path, I pass by the home of a man I never took an especial liking to. The man was old and unpleasant, scowling into his jowels at passer-bys. And, while I had not formed a favorable opinion of him, I never suspected him of any unnatural character. In his front yard, you see, there are a great many very old trees, gnarled with age. Quite unlike any other night, I saw that the man had installed a light at the base of one of the trees. And, while the rain seemed to push down the illumination, I could not help but notice that the light, shining up the trunk of that partiular tree seemed to cast strange shadows across the bark. Despite the rain, I found myself staring at a tree that seemed riven with screaming, shadow-cast faces.

Horrifed by this morbid observation, I tried to trace out the lines and curves of the knotted wood, and by dissecting its components, excise the illusion. However, the longer I looked, the more faces seemed to rise to the surface. Screaming, howling, moaning, cursing- I could almost imagine I heard the voices carried on the wind. When, at last, I regained my presence of mind and turned from that demention of my nerve-addled mind, I found with a start that the rain had stopped with me noticing it.

Shaking off the parade of anxiety that marched through my gut, I resolved to end my sojourn quickly and quit the night before another shock manifested. In this desire, I was quite twarted, for it was not long before I stopped dead in my tracks, skin quivering with unsummoned flush even as a shiver fell down my spine. In the middle of my path, there was a small, black animal. A fox, I guessed by the tail it flicked back and forth. In the meger few beams of light that creapt down from the slowly parting clouds, I could see that this animal was lean, its coat of black fur faintly pulled into contrast by the misty fog that clung around the beast like a luminescent aura. The creature's eyes did not gleam or glow, but seemed to smoulder, like dying coals; the moonlight twisted into a dull, deep red.

Here, at last, the source of my fearful ire seemed manifest. Though the fox made no movement toward me even when I passed it (with a wide berth to the side), the night-dweller seemed to radiate a sense of lazy hostility. It was not until I began to walk away that I heard soft, lupine foot-falls behind me. It seemed to be following me- at a distance, at first, and faster as I approached my home. The sense of isolation in the black of the night, as well as the many strange starts I had recieved quickened my heartbeat and I began to run when I imagined I could hear the fox nearly upon me.

I gained the entry and slammed the stout wood rather louder than I had intended. Catching my breath, feeling my pounding heart return to normal, I began to feel rather foolish. To run from a fictional antagonist like that simple fox... it seemed very silly of me.

Dear Friends...

... I can not explain it very well, but it feels like I am losing myself.

Not my mind, though I am unsure how sane I am any more. No, I can feel my identity slipping through my fingers. Some terrible thing is happening to me, and I can not stop it.

Every night, when exhaustion over takes me and my eye lids droop, some thing happens to me. When I awaken, I am no longer me. I am some one else. And it happens every night. It is like I am being replaced. Like there are rows of dolls that form my conciousness. As one gets discarded another is opened, exactly like the old one in every way but originality.

I am not sure if I can call my self an original any more. I have been sundered and reconstituted so often, there may not be an original piece left to me. What sort of awareness is that? To be pulled down, torn apart, and sewn up over and over again?

Memories are indistinct and blurred to me. I can no longer be certain they were real- it may be that they were dreams. I dare not share them with others, lest I discover the awful truth of their manufacture. Regard less, it is not the me that speaks to you now in those memories. It is another, more distant I. One who I can hardly relate to, or empathize with. In many ways, I have come to hate and resent those past selves- they lived bliss fully unaware of my somniphorious multiplicity.

Even as I silently mouth these words to cold walls that rise up into unfeeling corners, I can feel the tendrils of slumber writhing under my muscles. Fear can propel action for only so long- sooner or later, we all fall under that dark rest of essential oblivion.

Do I resist its inevitability? Do I struggle fruitlessly in the face of insurmountable opposition, like the tragic Greeks of old? Can I conquer the terminal prophesy- the phoenixian cycle of death and rebirth? Or shall I surrender to that mindless, animalistic embrace and usher in another soul-less clone to fill the role that my late self so wastefully squandered?

I no longer hope for myself- the hallucinations that signal the onset of my destruction have already begun to swim through my eyes. The best I can hope for is that the next one will be my last. That the next self that fills my body and suffers under the weight of a hundred thousand past selves will find permenancy.

I fear the dreams of my infinite self-condemnation.

Character Concept- Sir Owen

Sorry about that, stranger. I'm well and truely sorry for your injuries. Our city has more than its fair share of vicious folk, though judging my your wounds, I'd guess you tangled with Sir Owen. If that is the case, more's the shame you didn't finish him.

Sir Owen is something of a local legend, around here. Very tragic, really. A good man tormented by the shackles of an evil oath. If you're interested...?

Alright, stranger. The first thing you should know is that Sir Owen is not a wicked man. He's not holy or anything, just dutiful to a fault. One of the King's Guardsmen, Sir Owen was a man who never took an oath lightly and never broke his word. For him to break his word... why, it'd be like you or I reaching up and plucking the moon from the sky.

Sir Owen frequently aided the City Guard in rooting out demonist cults at the King's request, and noone was a fiercer enemy of the black arts than he. For ten years, he protected this city from insurections and invasions, facing horrors that would turn a normal man's hair white. But, for each cult he shattered, another sprung up. It was as if the tide would never turn.

Then, one day, Sir Owen and a unit of hardy veterans broke into the private quarters of one of this city's noblemen, to find a Demon Lord sitting there in all his wickedness, waiting for them. At the Demon Lord's side, a great steel cage, drapped with black satin.

The battle was fierce and every strike that the Demon Lord landed was returned tenfold. But it was not enough. One by one, Owen's men died around him, until only he was left. Arms broken, bleeding from a dozen wounds, Sir Owen waited for his end with an unwavering glare of defiance. But the final blow was never struck.

Instead, the Demon Lord said that he had been watching Sir Owen for some time. That he respected Sir Owen as an adversary, and that he would strike a bargin with the mortal. Pulling the satin from the cage, the Demon Lord revealed Sir Owen's wife and children, held in thrall by the Demon's foul magics.

Sir Owen, the Demon said, must die. His family, in turn, would suffer for an age and a half, never to know peace until death finally claimed them. The city would be razed by an infernal host, its people put to the sword or claimed to satiate the dark hungers of the Demon Lord's minions. But, the infernal Lord explained, all that might be avoided.

There was no need for such destruction, the Demon coaxed. Sir Owen had the power to prevent the whole catastrophe. And all that it would take was a word. A simple pledge of loyalty. The Demon Lord did not want bloodshed or revenge for his broken cults- he wanted a protegee.

But he could not MAKE Sir Owen obey him. And so, he presented Sir Owen with the choice: Save your family, country, and King by pledging everlasting servitude. Or, refuse him, and by refusing, doom all that he loved.

And, with a word, Sir Owen made his choice.

The Demon etched the terms of their contract onto Sir Owen's very sword, as a constant reminder of what he must do, and returned to the fiery netherworld with a subtle smile. From that day on, Sir Owen's word compelled him to do the evil wishes of his Master. There was no magical compulsion or threat of punishment- but as I have said, Sir Owen could no more break his word than he could grow a third arm.

Thirty years have passed since that day. Sir Owen's wife has passed on, his children have grown, his country has largely forgotten the terrible duty he took on to protect it. Yet, in thirty years of acting on behalf of that Demon Lord, never once has Sir Owen killed a single man he did not have to. He obeys the letter of his oath, but he has never accepted the spirt of it.

Those few of us who still remember the Sir Owen of old look on him now with pity. Pity that stays our swords and keeps us from giving him that release that he has surely earned. And that is why I say it is a shame that you did not kill him before, when you thought him a mere villainous dark knight. Because...

Because, in thirty years, Sir Owen has not aged even a single day. Unless he is killed, his service to that Demon Lord will last until the end of time. And a man like Sir Owen does not deserve that.