Admiration of men

The disappearance of that nightmare reminded me of how short human lives may be… I knew Flora for two days actually and in those two days, I felt love, care, sadness, anger, disgust. All of those intertwined with her. Then? After those two days? She died. She died two days after remeeting her and befriending her once more, she just died… I couldn't even say a word before her death. How quickly someone can die and how fast that memory can spread inside one's body and manifest a nightmare. Her dead body became a dark tree surrounding a large area, an area around me. All the pain that she's suffered, all the sad moments with no one around, loneliness… All because of me. A very deep gasp from my side. I looked back at Marcus, his face still sleepy but eyes already seem bored. What a man…

The demon stood up and cut a small piece of the boar's body in the corner of the room. How was all of that just a dream? It felt as if I really was to die again… I don't know which time. If the thing that the psycho did to me, that time I did more than a hundred times. Maybe even a thousand, without me realizing it. Not at all. Was that even real though? I don't know… The pain felt real afterward. Why is everything so confusing… Why are things so fast that I don't even realize. It's the sixth day in this hellish prison and I already died… I think of it as a normal thing at this point? That's something really weird, who in the world thinks of death as a regular thing? The pain doesn't even feel real at this point. What is reality… I need to stop asking questions! The more I ask the more my sanity will freaking fall. I need to think about survival.

"Can you make some of it as well?" I asked Marcus, still standing by the boar with the flint knife in the hand.

"Sure, what part do you want?" This surely isn't a question that matters a lot since all the parts will provide a good amount of protein. But today is a good day to eat ribs once again, there aren't many of them left so it's better to eat it before anyone else. Selfish, but sensible since I really like it.

"The ribs." A sure and quick answer left my mouth. The still sleepy Marcus yawned and cut the meat. An image has overridden the one right now, a dirty face and destroyed clothing from the cave compared to his still somewhat normal clothes and almost pure face.

The fire at its last breath but still a very little fire right on the wood almost burnt to ashes. I grabbed a stick from another corner of the room and put some inside of the fire. Marcus took the meat close to the flames but since they weren't very hot yet, he just put it next to it. Since the fire was almost out, it was cold. I just realized it and my body felt like freezing. A couple of minutes later, in that very cold inside the fire started scorching and got cozy. The others also seemed to have felt the heat appearing in the now nice lit cave. Marcus put the meat on a stick and then hung it over the fire, the fat falling down on the fire started making the fire louder.

We both just sat in the cave looking into the fire and at the food cooking. A drool slowly flowed down my face and Marcus smiled in my direction as he saw it. The nightmare made me very hungry, completely emptying my stomach. So the feeling of hunger from the night was now strengthened by the food still cooking. It was in my mind as the sun in the plant world, the most important thing now.

"Did you have a weird dream tonight?" I asked the demon doing the same thing that I do. Staring at the flames.

"I don't know why but I had a dream about me being tortured by my father. This memory came back to me completely out of nowhere… The pain, loss of my 'inheritance'." He pointed at the cut of horns. "That was a very weird thing. Now I'm not much different from you, only the color of skin. What's a demon without either wings nor horns…" He stood up and kicked a pebble. "God damn it…" Marcus is really pissed but he doesn��t want to show it, he is trying to keep that emotion inside of himself. Somewhere very, very deep…

We sat for another couple of minutes still looking at the fire and cooking meat. The others were still sleeping, when I looked at Bog… He seemed to completely disappear each time I reopened my eyes again. Like vanishing out of nowhere, a fog not a man. Is that a bad omen? Or is it just the image or rather lack of it from my nightmare now overriding the reality? What the hell is going on inside my mind, I don't feel like the owner of my own head now… Is it being taken over by something? Am I losing sanity?

"Yes." A voice, a different voice answered.

"Yes." Once more just as if a wind blew behind my ear, it also was the voice that said something right before.

Who is that? And why is he answering the questions, what's the point?

"I'm you." This same voice answered again. He is… Me? Does he know me from the inside? Is he really myself… Who am I at this point? Am I two persons at the same time? Or just who the hell is the one behind this voice? Is this the third of me? Fourth? Or more...

Marcus was looking at me suspiciously as I just again came to a realization that I was wiggling to the left and right relentlessly.

"Are you okay?" A question came in my direction and shattered the zone of thoughts I sank into.

"Thank you…" The answer made his face look very weird. Something that looked more or less like 'what are you talking about'.

"Why are you thanking me? I didn't do anything." His right eyebrow rose and the other stood down.

"You did something very important now. It may sound dumb, but you actually saved me from my own mind…" When he heard what I said he smiled at me, stood up, and gave me the freshly cooked ribs.

"I see! Glad I helped you." He winked at me and started eating the tenderloin that was also freshly cooked. Breakfast, a very heavy breakfast with nothing by protein. Not very healthy but we need to survive and hopefully… Take some of it back down for us to have a little 'luxury' inside of that hole. I really am done with this place, I want to leave! "We are close Hayden…" He added afterward and that also changed the way of my thoughts. The thought about this place being bad, disgusting, frustrating, almost killing.

"Do you think we can run away? I mean really run away? Forget about this place…" Another question pointed at the demon that is now devouring the piece of freshly cooked, tender, meat.

"For you forgetting will be very easy. You aren't here for too long… How do you think Estel will feel? How will I feel… We have been here a long time, especially Estel. He probably won't be able to come back to the normal world, even trying to live a normal life could be harder than learning any martial art. Any new technic, even learning mana would prove easier than living a normal life. Two years here? No. It's almost impossible, what he said back in the cell. Before we came here, that insane scream. I was scared, very afraid of that. But now I understand something… I would lose myself faster than him, I am not as strong. It's incredible how long he was able to stay normal…" This monologue. He was looking at the sleeping elf the entire time, his torn apart long ears, destroyed hair, dirty face. "At least for the time I've been here, but from Marcus's reaction back then he also never saw him like that." He stopped staring at him and continued eating, I only followed and was close to finishing the dish.

Marcus is also an interesting person. He really admires Estel for how long he stood 'normal' without any problem, his face is showing it all. The passion, the admiration that comes from his direction. Like a guardian angel that would do anything to protect him if he had any ideals, he would want to fulfill. Since he doesn't have those, he can only follow him. Do what needs to be done to help him even at the cost of his own health. An interesting man, a man whose heart was ripped away by his father now trying to restore itself by helping someone else. What a shame that he can never get that one part of himself back… Just like me. We all here share the same burden, loss.