#poor choice

Johnn’s hands burned with the sensation of biting cold, and he buried them in his sullied long coat’s pockets. He wished for a bath and a warm hearth to rest by and reminisced about the recent days he had spent at the cozy hut of good witch Agnes, well outside of Crimsonport.

The miserable looking fellow by the fire looked up at Johnn once he had wandered close enough and nodded in silent greeting to the new arrival. Johnn returned the gesture and tipped his tricorne hat. Then he caught a whiff of foul-smelling air from the man and cringed from the stench.

“Can I help ya?”

Johnn shrugged, “Depends on what you can tell me.”

“Oy, aren’t you—“

“I get that a lot, but I am of no import myself,” Johnn cut him off before he could utter his name out loud. He smiled with a disarming honesty. Though the scarf covered his mouth, the smile reached his eyes. It only faded when he asked, “Tell me, what is this I’ve been hearing about the children of the Outwall going missing?”

The other man’s filthy forehead creased to the point of looking like a roadmap. He shot Johnn a grim glance.

“So it is you,” he said.

Johnn remained silent and waited. The man by the fire sighed and cast a glance around himself before spitting into the flames.

“After the first few disappeared, it became a spooky story that parents told the rascals to keep ‘em from going out by night.”

The man stared into the fire during the long pause that followed.

“O’ course, some o’ the kids started going out on dares or went on thinking it was just a load o’ hogwash. Until after another ten’r so went missing. Then—“

He waved a hand around himself.

“This is how it is outside the walls now.”

Johnn knew exactly what he meant. He had never seen the outer city so deserted, not even by the time of early dusk. People huddled inside their homes, nervously peering out, shuttering their windows shut at the sound of every passersby. Like the Blight had returned.

After a few breaths-long of silence between the two men, Johnn asked, “And nobody has ever seen or heard anything specific?”

“Nothing that makes any sense,” the man said. He groaned, “You’ll think I’ve lost it if I give you Crazy Carl’s account in all earnest.”

“Humor me, please.” Johnn sighed, and his breath condensed into a small cloud in front of him.

The man nodded and gears grinded behind his forehead. When he spoke again, his words spilled out slowly, with a great deal of reverence in his tone. Or fear. Either way, it sounded honest.

“A swarm of creepy crawlers that towers in the shape o’ one, hiding underneath a robe. A colony o’ insect-critters that pass as a person. It looks like a lone wanderer until y’get too close, then ya see the vermin jittering about, and then it’s too late. Snatches people right up and whisks ‘em away.”

Johnn nodded and asked, “Did he see where the insect-man came from or where he went?”

“Said he saw him—it—dragging a lad into the city, to the harbor district. Followed them because some part o’ him wanted to do the right thing. Said they disappeared into a large warehouse. Said he heard soft singing.”

Johnn nodded again. He dug around in one of his coat’s inner pockets and produced five copper coins. Approaching the man by the fire, he dropped the meager handful of money into the man’s open palm. The man gave him a smile revealing a number of missing teeth. The smile did not reach his eyes.

“I could show ya which place Carl meant,” he said.

Johnn shook his head and turned to leave.

“Not even askin’ for money, Johnn von Brandt.”

Hearing his name spoken out loud caused the benevolent bandit to freeze in his tracks. He peered back over his shoulder to look at the old vagrant before dismissing him, “Wouldn’t want to put you in harm’s way, you old fogy. This is going to be dangerous.”

The old man reached into his coat and pulled out a filthy old meat cleaver.

“Can take care o’ meself, I can.” He waved the cleaver twice and then hid it again.

“Alright, but stay behind me at all times, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Johnn left with swift steps, and the old man followed. In these foggy wintry evenings, dusk soon turned into night. The darkness enveloped them while they marched through the large arch of the city’s gate and walked along the cobblestone roads. At least the city retained more livelihood. If only they knew what monsters haunted the region come nightfall, they would never leave their homes. Johnn belonged to the few who knew better.

“I heard you used to help out the common folk with the riches you stole from the king,” the old man said. Johnn heard the criticism hidden in the man’s use of past tense. “Lotta people going hungry these days. Lotta people could use yer charity.”

Johnn remained silent.

“Somethin’ change?”

“Not really, but you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

The old man chuckled, “Humor me, mister von Brandt.”

“After a botched job trying to plunder the king’s coffers, a fair folk queen killed all my merry compatriots, and I was put under her spell. She cursed me to sleep for almost a year until good witch Agnes ended her and rescued me. I only recently returned to Crimsonport.”

Now was the old man’s turn to remain silent.

“I thought so,” Johnn said.

“There’s a first time fer everythin’,” the old man muttered.

They remained silent for the rest of the way. By the time two bells rang, Johnn and the old man had reached the harbor district. A fog had draped itself over the streets and drowned out the light shed by street lamps. The mists rendered the sprawling port area as claustrophobic as the narrowest alleyways. Torches and lights on docked boats and ships bobbed up and down due to the sea’s waves. Despite the darkness deepening as evening turned to night, the city still bustled with life. The cold made Johnn’s eyes water. He squinted and looked out for anything unusual as they walked.

The old man took the lead and Johnn let himself be guided.

A group of singing drunks wobbled down one street. Some watchmen encircled a crook who shouted obscenities at the top of his lungs till they beat him senseless.

Only after turning a few corners into more narrow streets did they arrive in a quieter part of the harbor area. There, the old man stopped. A tall warehouse loomed above them like a dark tower. No lights shone inside of it, weather and time made it look completely dead and abandoned. Freight from neighboring storage buildings had been stacked around it and obstructed most of its possible entrances.

If some creature of the night was hiding out in the district, this place would make an ideal lair. Easily overlooked, large interior, and ideally situated for people to not hear any noise—or not care if they did.

Although Johnn had never found the time to read through Nora’s entire collection of journals and bestiaries, he did not recall a single entity that even remotely sounded like a swarm of insects mimicking humans and abducting people.

Nora. Oh, Nora. She had been so despondent when he visited her. Barely said a word to him, just sitting there in those prison rags with matted hair and grime all over. She had stared at a wall the entire time and not once did she deign to look at him through the bars that separated them. He had promised to find a way to get her out, but it rang hollow and haunted him—short of a suicidal assault on the prison tower, there was nothing he could do about it. Knowing she was rotting away for a crime she did not deserve punishment for, knowing that this happened in his absence while he had been gallivanting about and playing noble bandit—the guilt ate away at him.

He must have been lost in thought for too long while he stared at the door on the side of the building, for the old man nudged him with an elbow.

Johnn snapped out of it and approached the door. Within an arm’s length of its handle, he had to fight the urge to suddenly throw up. Even through the scarf over his face, a horrible stench from beyond that door hit his nose. It stank like a fishmonger’s market stand mixed with rotten meat. Johnn gasped and suppressed the urge to cough.

Then the voice of a little girl shushed him. It came from the shadows to his right. When he looked, it took him a moment to register that he knew her. He asked, “Magdalene?”

The girl of fourteen winters looked at him through her large sorrowful eyes. Her hands were folded and wrapped in a dark purple scarf to stay warm, and her garb was unfamiliar to Johnn—all parts of a dress mostly comprised of black and dark blue tones, with a laced veil and brimmed casting a long shadow over her face. Her attire looked like she had just attended a funeral. The black rings under her eyes and her complexion being more pale than unusual unsettled Johnn. The girl looked like she was sick.

Like the Blight was taking her.

“What are you doing here?” Then the disbelief in his voice made way for concern. “You shouldn’t be out at night. You should be at home.”

The old man asked, “Y’alright?”

Johnn glared at him, but when he turned to look at Magdalene again, she was gone. Johnn blinked.

“Losin’ yer mind’r somethin’?”

Johnn said nothing. He shook his head and focused on the door again. Without facing the old man, he said, “Alright. This is your last chance to back out of this unscathed. No hard feelings if you let me go at this alone.”

The old man chortled. “Nah, I’ll take me chances and follow you in.”

Johnn’s shoulders tensed up, and he took a deep breath. The awful stench remained, and there was no getting used to it. Whatever was behind that door was likely to be awful. He opened the door and entered, making each step he took a careful and silent one. He heard nothing but the shuffling of the old man following him inside.

The horrible stench got worse. It made Johnn sick to his stomach.

He scraped up every last ounce of strength to brave the smell. He advanced through a dark hallway, passed through a large open double door, and reached a huge open space. Remnants of light from street lamps outside entered through cracks in the walls and a few windows that had not been boarded up.

That was when he spotted other people. They noticed the intruders and sprung into motion, shuffling away from Johnn in fear.

“Please, do not hurt us,” an elderly man’s voice whimpered.

“Hide. Hide!”

“We will leave if you want,” someone else said, while moving towards Johnn with cautious steps.

The figure knelt down in front of Johnn with hands clasped together and raised before him as if in prayer or pleading.

Ragged. Filthy. It was not easy to see in the dim light here, but Johnn could see enough in the outlines. His mind filled in the blanks.

He swept his gaze over a group of homeless vagrants squatting in the warehouse.

What in the blazes did this mean? And where for heaven’s sake was that awful stench emanating from? He had imagined all manner of horrifying creatures like the ones Nora had documented in her stacks of journals—demons, vampires, were-creatures—but not this. The weight of his loaded crossbow hanging from his shoulder and the sheathed daggers distributed across his body felt out of place now.

He started to pinpoint where the stench was coming from. A barrel in the center of the room, just in front of some strange construction.

Johnn brought out the old steel lighter Nora’s father had given him a few years ago. His thumb flicked it open and struck the flint to produce its tiny flame. The squatters cringed and ducked away from the light as if they were allergic to it.

When he turned and guided the burning flame around, it flickered. Yet the people gathered there recoiled from its warm orange glow.

“Please, put that out.”

“My eyes—they hurt.”

“Oh, by Yoggoth, no light, you might start a fire.”

It would take Johnn some time till the name he just heard truly sank in. For now, it swam in his subconscious mind, and the stinking barrel absorbed all his attention.

Uncaring of the ragged vagrants dispersing and shuffling away from him, he approached the barrel with cautious steps. His heart raced, fueled by dread. Somehow, he knew what to expect.

As he leaned over the edge of the barrel and lowered the lighter, a murky reflection of his own terrified visage greeted him. Some soup sloshed around inside the round wooden vessel, disturbed by the impact of his footsteps shaking the floorboards when he had approached the waist-high container.

Then he saw a child’s hand surface. And a human eyeball that rose to the top of the brackish sludge. Only now did he realize that bowls and wooden spoons were stacked on the floor by a bizarre altar, standing just beyond the barrel. The altar, a pile of driftwood stacked up, showed stains of dried blood. A strange totem of sorts loomed high above the makeshift altar. The dim light cast weird reflections upon the totem-statue and made it impossible to discern the material it had been shaped from. Neither stone nor metal nor wood, it looked like it did not belong in this world. And whatever had been carved into it, it did not look like it depicted any human or creature Johnn had ever seen—neither real nor from any imaginable nightmares. Just eyes, dozens of spider-like legs, tentacles—

“Thank you so much for caring enough to investigate,” said the old man. Even before turning around to see the dirty face that belonged to it, Johnn knew what the old man would say next. “We’re so hungry.”

Johnn finally turned and steeled himself, ready to sling out his crossbow and shoot the old man. The other vagrants had crept up on him, but recoiled once more from the tiny flame that his lighter emitted.

Now Johnn saw the hunger in their eyes.

“Woulda never’ve expected a haul like you,” the old vagrant said, then breaking out into a high-pitched snigger. “Yer a bit sinewy but there’s more meat to ya than a li'l lad or lassie. Yoggoth must be pleased!”

Unlike the others, he did not shy away from the light in Johnn’s hand. Instead, a reflection of the flame danced in his eyes, an eerie glint that only added to the madness Johnn saw in them. The old madman took a step forward and ran a thumb across the the cleaver’s edge, which looked to be either rusty or caked in dried blood—or both.

The old man’s wrapped foot almost set down for another step towards Johnn when the lighter went flying at his chest. He instinctively swatted the small object away as if to not catch fire. Instead, he caught a silvered crossbow bolt in the chest and pawed at it—with a look of incredulity in his saucer-wide eyes. Falling to the ground, the lighter’s flame extinguished.

With feeble motions, the old man launched multiple feeble attempts at pulling the bolt out, but the hooks in its razor-sharp tip kept it lodged in place while he stumbled backwards from the altar. The old man collapsed and writhed on the floor while he began coughing up blood.

Johnn furiously reloaded his crossbow, but now that the light had gone out, he heard the human growls and howls and hisses from the other homeless people encircling him.

There was no way he could do anything if they attacked all at once. He would have to resort to the knives. Never before had he hesitated to fight for his life, or against the monsters that had beset his homelands. But even should these vagrants be eating human flesh, some part of him wished there had been some way to help them. To avoid what bloodshed was bound to follow. Some part of him wondered if this was all his fault.

However, they all hesitated, looking upon Johnn with a mixture of anger and fear in their pale faces. They all kept their distance and shot glances at the reloaded crossbow as he swiveled and pointed it at each of them. They were not attacking, unlike what he had expected. Then again, their victims probably never fought back.

At first, he turned on his heel while swerving the crossbow around to point it at each of them. Then he noticed that they looked not upon him with fear, but through him. Or past him. To something behind him.

Johnn dared not turn to see for himself. Whatever it was, its presence was something he had felt earlier, but not seen. Something old.

Something dark.

When he finally mustered the courage to look over his shoulder, he froze with fear once more. There stood Magdalene. And someone else next to her. A figure, at least a head taller than Johnn. Neither the shadowy apparition nor Magdalene had been there before, and at the same time, they had been there all along. The giant wore black armor from a bygone era. It looked at Johnn from underneath a hood—or past him, or through him—he could not say, for an impenetrable darkness pooled underneath the hood instead of revealing any features.

Then Johnn saw the sickles the figure held. Two farming sickles jutted out of the steely vice of blackened iron gauntlets, resting by the stranger’s sides.

The figure looked around, and the vagrants stared back at him with unspeakable dread spreading across their faces.

“Yoggoth help us,” an elderly woman whimpered. She was so emaciated that a gust of wind could have snapped her in two. She crawled away from the altar—away from the dreadful hooded being.

The old man gurgled from where he lied on the ground, suffocating on his own blood. While the crossbow bolt slowly tore him up from the inside the more he struggled to pull it out, it dawned on Johnn that he had killed a man, not some unholy creature. A crazy man who probably deserved to die for murders he had committed, but a man nonetheless.

Whatever stood behind him and next to Magdalene was no man. It stood upright and wore things like humans would, but it emanated a deathly cold and air from another world. Colder than the wintry air outside.

Magdalene uttered words in a tongue Johnn had never heard before. Speech that should not be heard, guttural sounds that did not fit the cadence and melody that one would expect to flow from a young girl’s lips. Something so deeply wrong that it made Johnn shiver. The blood drained from his face.

“Take them,” Magdalene whispered once the unspeakable had been spoken.

With deep baritone thumps caused by its weight, each followed by a jingling sound stemming from its suit of medieval armor, the creature carrying sickles strode forth from Magdalene’s side. A chorus of ominous and unintelligible whispers emanated from it while it walked past Johnn and raised its sickles.

The screams of the vagrants grew to a volume that drowned out the unholy whispers. Johnn could only watch, paralyzed with fear, as this harbinger of doom cut and sliced through the cult of old vagrants without pausing, without displaying any semblance of human remorse.

Those that tried to flee screamed the loudest for help. The door they sought to escape through slammed shut in their faces, moved by some unseen, ghostly hand while the reaper calmly walked after them until it silenced their shrieks. Blood sprayed, the inhuman force wielding those sickles severed limbs, and some victims even died of fright when the reaper got too close to them. They did not even try to put up a fight.

One by one, the agent of death slew these people, and the cries for mercy stopped, for no one remaining lived to emit them. Within little over a minute, the hooded figure had turned this deranged shrine into a slaughterhouse. It had butchered every last one of the crazed cannibals.

It now approached Magdalene and Johnn and crossed its sickles in front of itself, as if performing a gesture of sacred reverence.

Acting on instinct, Johnn readied a knife hidden in his coat’s sleeve, but he had seen this thing move. It was not human and possessed the strength of a giant.

He had no chance against it.

The figure stopped just in front of him, just within arm’s reach. As Johnn stared into the unfathomable darkness of the hood, it stared back at him. It stared through him once more. A burning sensation filled Johnn—an overwhelming feeling of some alien power gazing into the depths of his very soul.

“That is all,” Magdalene said, following up with unintelligible sounds—or words in a language so foreign to Johnn’s ears that it might as well have hailed from another world. He shot her a glance, refusing to believe that she had authored this massacre and controlled this thing.

When he dared to look at it again, it had vanished. Dizziness overcame Johnn and he stumbled.

A brief shock jolted through his body when he was grabbed. To his surprise, Magdalene braced him, holding his hand. The cold, clammy touch of her slender fingers centered him and shook him at the same time, for it was colder than icicles caressing his skin.

“You—“

“Yes,” she replied before he could even finish thinking out loud.

“You summoned that—that thing,” he muttered. Her eyes carried an inexplicable sadness. They always did, but it felt different to Johnn now. Deeper.

“Why? Why kill all th—“

“They did not deserve to live any longer. Did you not see what they had in that barrel?”

He had no answer. He had seen very well. Deep down, he knew that their deaths marked the end of something terrible. Something at least as sinister as whatever Magdalene had conjured into this world.

She stared at him all the while, unperturbed by the awkward silence. Blood dripped from mutilated bodies and splatters on the walls all around them. Finally, the fog in Johnn’s mind cleared.

“How,” he asked without the inclining tone of a question. More as if making a statement.

She did not respond, but the strange statue behind the altar caught fire out of nowhere. It burned brightly, shedding light and revealing the full extent of the carnage Magdalene and her reaper had wrought.

Squinting and raising a hand to shield his eyes from the bright light flaring up, he pushed Magdalene behind himself to protect her. His mind reeled, still trying to fathom what exactly the statue depicted.

“Sometimes, some of us choose to pay tribute to old ones, and those gods of past eons sometimes shower us with their favor in return,” she whispered behind him.

The whole situation overwhelmed Johnn and rendered him speechless, and the fire fully engulfing the statue made it even harder to discern what it might represent.

“They chose poorly,” Magdalene said. The words sent chills down Johnn’s spine.

He swiveled to look at her, to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, and get straight answers. But she too had vanished.

“Go home and rest, Johnn,” her whispers circled around him, and he spun around to see where they came from. Nowhere to be found, they continued in his thoughts, “You will need to be prepared for what comes next.”

Johnn shouted out in despair, “What have you done?”

The fire from the burning statue began to spread. The whispers had ceased. The flames roared and the wood crackled as it turned to coal and embers in the growing inferno. There was something strangely pleasant about the fire’s warmth, dispelling the cold that had seeped into his bones.

He cursed and left. He ran from the warehouse, from the harbor district. Not only for fear of being caught by the city’s constables, but to reach Magdalene’s home.

He would have none of this, he thought. He would have answers, he swore.

And about it all, he would be wrong.