The Infection

John Rowland

HP: N/A MP: N/A

John crawled through the desert dirt as he heard the bandits laughing and nonchalantly conversing. He was dying, he knew that, if his missing arm and torrent of blood was anything to go by. They thought it would have been funny to chop him up in front of his parents, though, it's not as if his parents really got to suffer with that knowledge for long as the bandits killed them with a bullet to the forehead after looting their family home. It was hard for one to accept their death, but in that moment John was ready for it. He was ready for it because there was nothing left for him to live for anymore, not his family, his village, or anything else really. He couldn't get out of this desert himself, he didn't have any water, and it's not like he could ride a horse with only one arm. And yet, the gunslinger crawled, crawled through the arid desert floor as the gritty sand and dirt combination exfoliated his skin.

He was cutting himself up doing this, but he didn't care, he wasn't just going to lay down an die. And then men weren't too concerned with his tenacious escape, they didn't think he'd live anyway. John was hungry, and he wanted his father, he wanted to hug his mother. Tears stung at his eyes at the thought, sliding down his cheeks and down into the sand to form a trail of wet spots behind his bleeding mangled corpse. They had really done a number to him, bullet wounds, lacerations, and the stub of his arm. The fact that he hadn't gone into shock already was the most surprising thing for him. It should have kicked in hours ago, but yet here he was, crawling his way out of the desert that spanned for kilometers.

The sounds of the campfire were only murmurs at this distance, and yet he could hear their jovial sounds in contrast with his tortured moans and whimpers of pain. And he yearned for it all, yearned to have his family back, his friends back, his arm back, all of it, he just wanted to survive at this point, and so he kept crawling. Through the sand he left a trail of blood and tears, he wouldn't stop until he was free. Mom always said that there were dangerous animals out at night, and that he should never go out without protection. That wasn't an option though, and in the evening's darkness, he could hear the caw of a vulture ready to circle around his body. But something caught John's eye, glinting orange eyes in the distance. A wolf to finish him off? Regardless, it woke him from the sleepiness that would have carried him off to death.

Reaching out for the wolf's eyes, he pleaded silently for help from a creature who's ability to help fell short of what the gunslinger really needed. And yet he didn't fear the thing, much like how he felt no fear for death. His life was over already, he had nothing left to lose trying to pet a feral wolf.

John Rowland

HP: N/A MP: N/A

Except, the wolf wasn't a wolf. If not for his near-death bliss, John would have surely gone insane at the mere sight of the thing. it was no normal wolf, unless a wolf had teeth for fur, eyes around and inside its head, and tentacles for legs and tails that seemingly taunted him with how they warped and defied basic geometry with their undulated shapes. It's teeth smiled at him with their impossible faces as it writhing tongue reached through geometry and extended out into itself in order to pierce the air between them and slowly lap at the gunslinger's arm in an attempt to rouse him. The creature's saliva burned in an excruciatingly indescribable way, as if it was testing the limited of this dimension's laws and rules with sheer force of will. And yet, John knew the creature was comforting him, or at least trying to comfort him anyway with its low whines and sad-sounding cries.

And as John's eyes closed in his final act of life, the creature's tongue pierced his soul as it took a bit and took hold into his body. John could feel his soul being rendered by the creature, not devoured but rendered in a way that would let it latch on and cling not unlike an alligator doing a death roll underwater. It was painful in a way he felt at his birth and both his future death, everywhere at once it hurt in his being as his soul was pierced with the mark of the Serpent-Wolf. He didn't know its name, but it now knew his name, his age, and every memory and once living thought that John had ever had. In that moment, the Serpent-Wolf knew what its new host wanted to do and would lend its aid in return for sustenance. John had no choice in the matter, it's not as if he was given a pact, agreement, or anything of the sort. In that moment, John's body was rejuvenated  as he regrew limbs, clotted blood, and recovered lost bone mass. And suddenly, John wasn't dying anymore, but he was no longer John. It was like he could see all around him at once. His left eye was hyper-motile, able to look around independently of his right, and it latched onto the camp firelight in the distance. John couldn't stop his body from bounding towards the light like a wild animal. And as he neared the group of bandits, he started growling with hunger as he could see their souls at the core of their bodies. And in that moment, John could feel the Serpent-Wolf's eternal hunger. And when John could feel the Serpent's hunger, he knew what was going to happen. It's not as if he didn't try to stop the thing controlling his body, he fought quite hard in-fact, not wanting to know the taste of human flesh himself, but part of him didn't want to fight back. Didn't want to fight back because the voice in his head was calming him, telling him that it would take care of everything and to leave it all to him. And so John did, left it all for the Serpent to take care of.

John Rowland

HP: N/A MP: N/A

John woke up in his parents bed. His skin was cold, but not from the stuffy hot weather. His skin was cold at the surface, as if he was wet. Rousing himself from sleep, John quickly jumped out of bed at the realization that he was covered in some type of fluid. Immediately thinking it to be urine or something of the sort, he quickly ran to where he remembered the washroom to be before looking down at his hands. They were stained and dripping with crimson red blood, blood that had not yet began to scab or clot between his fingers or under his fingernails. Staring down at his hands in shock, the weight of his memories and the sudden impact of them made him cry out in tortured anguish. His family was dead, the bandits had killed them. His village was dead, the bandits had killed him. All of his friends, gone. Everyone he had ever gotten close to, gone. There was nothing left for him, and yet, he still hand both arms, and he felt no pain. It was odd, his memory of the event was murky. He could remember a glowing pair of orange eyes but thinking about anything else he saw that night was just simply far too painful for him to focus more on. Maybe it was for the best, then, that he didn't remember what possessed those orange eyes. And then he remembered the feelings that came afterwards, and his eternal hunger. But it wasn't his own hunger, it was the hunger of something else- specifically the orange-eyed creture. It was the Serpent-Wolf's hunger for human flesh that had caused him to bound inhumanely towards the campfire set up by his would-be murderers. Staring into the mirror of his bathroom, John shrieked like the child he had just grown up from not long ago.

His mouth was dripping with blood as bits of flesh and bone were plastered on his chin. Red smeared up across his cheek and dripped from his nose in gory horror. John could only blank at the sight before him, the sight of somebody else's blood and viscera all over his face as if he had- as if he had eaten them alive. And suddenly, the gunslinger could taste and smell the heady presence of iron in his mouth as his digestive system suddenly became aware of the meaty gore in his system. The feeling of this much iron in his mouth was disgusting and yet it didn't bother him. The shock, though, and his own personal disgust at the dreafully heavy feeling of fullness in his stomach, made him gag and look down into the toilet bowl before bringing up the red-tinged sludge into the bowl. Not wanting to look at what he ejected from his body, he quickly flushed the toilet and wiped his mouth onto his filthy slacks before sobbing to himself. This was the type of sin that would forever follow him to the grave, once one tasted human flesh their soul would always be marked by that fact. John had truly been marked by the Serpent-Wolf and it would never let him go as long as his heart still beat.