Everything seemed to slow to a crawl as my vision was engulfed by the water. My mind refused to process what I'd just witnessed because it couldn't have been true, it just couldn't. Vio couldn't be dead.
But then it all started up again.
I burst to the surface, sitting up and breaking down into a hacking cough as I tore my goggles away to release the water that had been trapped in them. Even with my blurred vision, I could see that the Orb Piercer had gone. It'd run into the fray, where screams of horror and terror from both sides began to erupt. But all I could focus on then was the bloody body lying half-submerged in the water.
I scrambled through the water, desperate to reach him. When I did, I could tell in seconds he was already gone. Though from how the quills had stabbed through so much of him, it would have been worse if he was still alive. Still, it didn't stop me from screaming his name, from trying to shake him.
Tears sprung to my eyes, washing down my face as I let out an anguished cry. Blood filled the water, the scent thick and nauseating. Gore never bothered me, but the sight of the man who I'd come to see as my second father, brutally impaled and discarded like a broken doll, made me violently empty my stomach. I continued to retch into the water as I sobbed, the sounds ugly and gut-wrenching. I couldn't believe it. He was gone, he was actually gone.
I eventually managed to tear myself from my sickness and misery for long enough to do something I should have done when I first came upon him. With a shaking hand, I closed his eyes, unable to bear their dead stare, their lively gold hue having become dull. How was I going to tell Melva, Lissy, Syele? But then my heart wrenched. Melva. I stared down at Vio, wanting to sob yet again. I couldn't leave him like this, but I had to find Melva. With the heaviest weight in my chest, I tore his whistle away from his neck before bolting. I couldn't look back. If I did, I would want to return to him.
Goodbye, Vio. And thank you.
The fight had been broken up since, the few survivors frantically running as the Piercer pursued them. There were so many bodies, killed by the Piercer or each other. I'd never been so horrified by a sight the Abyss had to offer, but here it was, displaying itself in all its brutal glory.
I then spotted Melva, trying to run but tripping into the water. I heard her curse loudly, and I was about to run for her when the roar of the Piercer rang out again. The creature had given up on chasing the other survivors and had instead turned its attention to... Melva. I could see her going stiff when she saw the Piercer face her, surely gripped with the same terror that had gripped Vio.
No... No, no, no, no! Not Melva, I couldn't lose her either! I grabbed my whistle and blew it with all the air in my lungs. Both my mentor and the Piercer looked in my direction, and I screamed out, "Run, Melva!" as the Piercer charged at me.
Through my terror, an odd focus had come to settle over me. I shouldn't run, because it would chase me. I again had to do what I'd done six years ago.
Mere feet away from me, I launched myself backwards, dodging the hundreds of quills that drove down into the water at my feet. I stumbled but caught myself, straightening up as the Piercer lifted its head. When our "gazes" met, I sharply turned my head to the left, the opposite direction of where Melva was now running. The Piercer looked, and I wound up and smashed my pickaxe directly into its face.
The Piercer emitted a shrieking wail of a roar, throwing its head back and almost tearing my pick from my grasp. But I managed to rip it free. Once I did, I ran. I ran for my life, blitzing through the carnage and across the flat-creeper to the one we had come from originally. Even though I didn't hear any sounds of pursuit, I continued running, beginning my frenzied ascent up the flat-creepers. The curse meant nothing to me, I had to run.
It didn't take long for somebody to blindside me, but I knew it was Melva. She embraced me tightly, clutching me in a way I never thought she could.
"Ya damn idiot, what the hell were ya thinkin'?'' she cried angrily. I could feel her shaking violently against me, like a leaf about to be swept away from a branch. "Ya could've gotten yourself killed!"
"But I didn't!" I retorted, hugging her back. "I-I didn't!"
"Ya better have smashed that bastard in the face," she spat. She pulled away from me and looked at me sternly. "I saw Gwynden run when the Piercer burst in, but I didn't see the shrimp. Where the hell is he? He'd better not have have gotten 'imself lost."
At that, my heart wrenched, my teeth gritting as it all hit me again painfully. "V-Vio, he..." I couldn't bring myself to say it, even though I knew I had to. Melva grew confused, her brow furrowing. I could see her trying to figure out what I was trying to say, so I just burst out and said it. "He's dead!"
Melva stared at me blankly, like she hadn't heard what I said. "What did ya just say?"
I held up his whistle, and Melva looked at it. "He's dead!" I repeated. "He was killed by the Piercer, he died right in front of me! He pushed me out of the way, and he got skewered, j-just completely torn up!" I broke down into sobs again, clutching a hand to my side as each jerking sob made my wound flare with pain.
The blank look on Melva's began to shift into disbelief. "Shrimp? Th-the shrimp, he's..." She looked in the direction of the carnage we'd left behind. "Vio?"
"I had a chance to distract that thing, but I didn't!" I continued sobbing, unable to help myself. "I-I was too scared, I'm a damn coward!"
"No, don't ya start this!" Melva shouted, turning back to face me. Tears were welling in her eyes now as she waged a war of anger and sadness on her face.
"But it's true!" I shouted back. "I knew what I could've done, but I didn't!"
Melva threw herself at me again, clutching me so hard I thought my ribs would bruise. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" she hissed, struggling to keep her words from shaking through her own tears. "Don't ya fuckin' dare place any of this on yourself, 'cause it's not your fault! If anythin', it's my damn fault for wantin' to go back to that flower field. I-it's my fault..!"
"No, it's not!" I exclaimed. "We all agreed, it wasn't your decision alone!"
She shook her head. "But I proposed it! If ya wanna blame anyone, blame me!"
"No, stop it!" I cried, my voice cracking. We both broke then, falling against each other as we cried and sobbed. I never thought I'd see the day where Melva would cry, and I hoped I never would. But that day had come to pass.
I didn't know how long we stood there like that, but it must not have been very long. I then noticed that Melva was silent.
"Melva?" I asked, looking down at her. Her gaze was aimed at our feet, and she had gone completely rigid.
"Len, your foot..." she said, her voice taking on a frightening new sense of shock. I became confused. What was wrong with my foot? I looked down as well, and my heart plummeted into my stomach. There was a puncture hole in my right boot, halfway down my foot. Blood welled up from the hole, forcing its way up around... a broken quill.
Now I was the one in disbelief. When I realized it was there, the pain finally registered. Deep and burning, the feeling filling my whole foot. I went cold then, every part of me filling with a frigid ice that made me shudder uncontrollably. I hadn't completely dodged the Piercer's attack back there, I'd gotten stuck without my knowing.
I was poisoned.
I looked up at Melva, my mouth falling open as I wanted to say a million things. But all I could get out was, "M-Melva..." Weak, fear-choked, sounding like a lost child. That was what I felt like then. A new wave of tears spilled down my cheeks. What was I supposed to do?
Something seemed to snap in Melva then. Her shock and sadness was erased in favor of a grim determination. She dropped to her knees, grabbing hold of the quill and ripping it from my foot. I let out a small cry, but she grabbed hold of my ankle and shoved my pant leg up. "We're goin' back to camp. Bite your lip an' don't give in," she muttered.
"But taking out the quill does nothing, I-I'm still—"
"No, ya ain't dyin', not you too," she snapped sharply.
She pulled a cloth from her pocket along with a pen, one of the few non-survival items she carried with her. In seconds, she had the cloth wrapped around my leg a couple inches or so below my knee and jammed the pen into the knot she tied—a makeshift tourniquet. I did my best to not squirm as she twisted the cloth tighter and tighter around my leg; it had to be painfully tight to cut off circulation. The numbness quickly began to spread through my leg, making it difficult to stand, but Melva supported me.
"C'mon, we're goin'," she said. I didn't know why I didn't want to move for a moment. It wasn't like I wanted to lay down right there and die, but the sheer shock and hopelessness of it all wouldn't let my feet move. We had antitoxins, though they surely weren't for Orb Piercers, and the only other alternative was... My stomach tightened as I forced myself to avoid the thought. I just had to focus on getting back to camp now.
Our progress was disgustingly slow, with me barely being able to put weight on my injured foot. If I didn't have the tourniquet, I could likely walk fine for a time, but that wasn't an option. Melva forced me to move as fast as I could, and I just bit my tongue and tried to keep up with her pace. But we were of course halted by the curse.
Melva tried to keep us moving, but I couldn't. The new pain filling me seemed to set my wounds on fire, especially the one in my foot. I looked down at it, only for my heart to drop in disgusted horror as a green-brown liquid began to ooze up from the puncture and out of my foot, soon followed by more blood. Was that some of the poison? Did it have to be expelled from me before the blood did? If only all the poison could have left me, but there was only blood. I gagged on the rank taste as it rose in my throat.
As I continued to bleed, I began to feel lightheaded. My footing faltered, and Melva tightened her grip on me. "St-steady there, klutz," she joked weakly, almost completely holding me up now.
My mind seemed to be working more sluggishly now. Had I really lost that much blood? I took my hand away from my side, numbly staring at the blood that soaked my glove and was spreading out in a black stain on my undershirt and jacket. The wound on my arm was bleeding harder as well, beginning to trickle down into my glove.
"Shit!" Melva swore when she saw this, both angered and alarmed. "You're bleedin' elsewhere?" She reached around me and clamped a hand to my side as I leaned against her, just trying to stay upright as blood spilled from my lips and turned my vision red. My leg up to the tourniquet was burning fiercely, and traces of that feeling stung throughout the rest of me as well. Or was that just the curse? "C'mon, don't already be goin' down. We're almost there, just another few yards!" The treeline along the cliffs was visible above us now, but it seemed so far away.
"Melva, Len!"
I was slower to respond, but Melva looked up instantly. "Stick!" Sure enough, there was Llyr descending the flat-creepers joined by four other members from the resource-gathering group. I'd never been so happy to see him, and I wanted to cry from relief knowing he was safe.
"Gwynden and a couple others came running to the camp, th-they said there was an attack by illegal Delvers, a-and then a—"
"Forget that, help Len!" Melva exclaimed. "He's been poisoned, we halfta do somethin'!"
Llyr's eyes widened, his face going white. "L-Len?" He looked at my bloodstained self, then down to my leg. He seemed to go into shock, but the Delvers he'd brought along picked up the slack and grabbed hold of me, lifting me off my feet. I couldn't help but gasp when one of them touched my leg, but my protest was ignored.
There was so much noise around me now. People shouting over each other, the splashing of water, my own thoughts screaming out just how dire things were. I hardly even realized I was back in camp until I was being laid down on a bedroll, trying not to cry out as my soaked jacket and shirt were stripped away so my wounds could be attended to. Llyr was at my side in seconds, terrified tears streaking his cheeks.
"Gwynden, his arm's bleeding too!" Llyr cried. The shaken widower hurried over with some bandages along with rubbing alcohol. He had acquired a long gash across his forehead, which had been hastily stitched.
"W-we have Silkfang antivenom," Gwynden said shakily. "I've heard Orb Piercer venom is as corrosive, so maybe it could—"
"Wait, stop!" a Black Whistle from the resources group said before anything could be done. "He's been poisoned, why should we waste our resources on him when he's going to die?"
Melva turned on the Black Whistle in seconds, looking like she was about to throttle him. "Shut the hell up! We're gonna do all we can to save 'im! Ya ain't the leader, so ya can't do shit to stop us!"
"Well, Shiro isn't back yet!" the Black Whistle retorted. "One of us has to stand up and take over the group until he does, and it'll be me since I'm the oldest Delver here."
"Ya sure as hell ain't the oldest, not with Gwynden 'ere!" Melva said. Gwynden didn't take any offense to this, just looked more shocked by what she said as a whole. "If we're goin' by age, so experience, Gwynden has it over all of us!" Mutters started up around the group, hesitance among worry. I felt so useless laying there, but what could I say?
"Stop talking and do something!" Llyr's voice pierced the mutters then, even as it was choked by a sob. "Len's going to die! We need to try something!" More hesitance, struggling to come to a consensus.
Melva let out an angry shout, her head snapping to a pale-faced Gwynden, who didn't seem happy at all with the sudden influx of attention. "Gwynden, you're the leader now! What the hell do we do?"
Gwynden choked on his words for a few moments as eight pairs of eyes bore into him. But then he glanced down at me, and his brow furrowed with rare determination. "Check the leg, w-we need to see what its state is."
The Black Whistle who had opposed Melva dropped to his knees, grabbing my foot and yanking up my pant leg. His touch was like a stab to my foot that radiated out like a spreading ripple in a pond, even though all he did was grab my boot. It only became stronger as it was pulled off. A scream tore itself from me, and Melva pinned me down by my shoulders before I could instinctively thrash. It felt as if my boot was far too tight, which didn't make sense since my boots were always just snug.
"What's wrong with it?" another group member asked when he surely saw my foot, disgust in his voice.
"That's definitely not good..."
"Why's it purple?"
I gagged when I heard that last comment, and Melva moved into my line of sight before I could look down at my leg. "Y-ya don't need to see, kid. It's better ya don't." And I agreed with her, even though my morbid curiosity screamed otherwise.
"I've seen this before," a woman said. "When a poisoned limb swells up like this, you either cut it off or let the person die. It's hell either way, but the first way is a quicker death." I heard Melva choke when the Black Whistle mentioned the thing I didn't want to think about, and a chill rushed through me.
"Who said he would die if it gets cut off?" Llyr exclaimed, almost hysterical by this point. "He could still live!"
Gwynden burst in after that, trying to be as forceful as he could. "That's not our decision to make!" he said before looking at me. "We can either try the Silkfang antivenom, or we can cut off your leg. I-it's up to you, Len."
I stared at Gywnden and the others for a few vital seconds, feeling like hours. There really was no alternative to this. A Silkfang's antivenom wouldn't work for another creature, so I either had to choose the alternative or die. Through the lump in my throat, I stated as firmly as I could, "C-cut it off, if it's my best chance." Then everything seemed to be happening too fast, as if my words had accelerated the passage of time. Gwynden began giving orders.
"You three, um, hold him down. S-somebody make a gag, and somebody else start sterilizing a knife and an axe! We need enough force to break the bone, a-and we need to cauterize it right after. He'll bleed out in minutes if we're not quick enough."
My bravado vaporized in a heartbeat, cold, raw terror taking its place again. I couldn't believe I'd said that, I couldn't believe this was going to happen. I was going to lose my leg. My heart was in my throat, my stomach writhing as the tips of my fingers went numb. I looked up at Melva, who was doing something with her hands I couldn't see as Llyr was trying not to sob.
"M-Melva?" I choked out, and she looked at me with fear-filled eyes. "I..." What was I going to say? To stop them? I couldn't, I'd chosen this, and she knew I was terrified beyond belief. "I-I wish Addy were here."
Her lips pursed, and she nodded slightly. "I wish she were too, kid," she said in a trembling voice. She held something out to me, a small bundle of cloth no larger than her hand. I stared at it dumbly, my racing mind unable to comprehend what it was. But then her gaze darted up and away from me, her body stiffening. Before I could ask, she shoved the cloth in my mouth and firmly pinned my arm to the ground. At the same time, I felt Llyr's grip strengthen on my other arm.
"Y-you're going to be okay, Len," he tried to reassure, though it came out as more of a whimper. I stared at him, unable to speak and cursing the fact I couldn't. I couldn't stop the tears from pouring down my face like a bursting dam as he gently kissed my cheek. I didn't have the strength to look at what was happening at my feet. What was I thinking, choosing this? Why did I ever think—!
Words were unable to describe what I experienced next. Shocking wasn't sudden enough, bone-shattering was an understatement, excruciating was too kind! My mind went completely blank, unable to comprehend anything except how much agony I was in and that I had to escape it. But my fighting was met with tightened grasps, no matter how much I thrashed. I could do nothing but scream, and scream I did. I screamed and screamed, more vomiting up the sounds than willingly producing them. They were muffled by the gag, turning them into garbled mush.
And then the axe struck again.
Another wail ripped itself from me. My back arched, my stomach wrenched, and my bladder released. Vomit scorched my throat, and I was barely able to choke it back down. My mind grew hazy, my vision gaining black spots, but I clung to consciousness. Why was I still conscious? Why was I still experiencing this? Let me go, let me go! I begged internally. Through the fraying threads of my sanity, I heard somebody say something.
"Another—"
There was a third strike, and finally I was released. My mind gave out, and I fled into darkness. If it meant I wouldn't have to feel this torture ever again, I was happy to never return.