Blood Moon

Chapter 3: He Who Was Calm

I hated violence as a kid.

I don't mean to brag but I was always a smart kid. I had good grades, had never ever failed a test, and had never lost a chess match to someone of my age group.

And, because of that, because I was smart, I had the gall to think that I wouldn't ever need to consider violence as a solution to any problem.

Because I was smart, I had become stupid.

By the time this incident happened, I had obviously matured enough to realize that, realistically, it's not possible to solve every problem with smarts alone. And to be honest, it's not like I was some super-smart mad scientist either. 

But, for some reason, when I think back to this incident, the moment I first saw that man with a shotgun aimed at my face, I always end up remembering this little thing about my childhood, this little proof of the fact that even I - was once innocent.

*****

"You will DIE!"

And with that scream, the one who that voice belonged to showed himself, appearing out of thin air in front of me as he aimed a shotgun at me and looked to be ready to fire any second.

And, in the face of that, uncannily, I felt a strange urge to laugh.

"Rat! You will-"

"I heard you already." I said with a sardonic laugh.

"...!"

The man went silent. But not only that, his face lost all color. It was as if he had seen something impossible happen. 

Well, according to him, he actually had.

"T-the rat ... can talk?!" He gulped as he questioned.

I didn't know why he thought I was a rat. I didn't know if he was under some illusion or hypnosis or if he had a screw loose in his brain. I didn't know anything at all. But, despite all that,

"If you plan to shoot me, you better make sure you don't miss." 

I said calmly as I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

The guy I had said it too, the guy carrying the shotgun was actually freaked out by that point, while I, the one whose life could end in the next moment, was as calm as ever. 

I did realize how strange that was. But, since I could, I just blamed that on the place, telling myself that the weirdness of that world was causing me to act strangely like that and probably was the reason why that man was acting strangely too.

But,

"Y-you aren't a rat! You are a freak ... a freak of nature! A monster! A demon! A hellspawn!" 

'So which one of those am I? Make up your mind already!" I thought but didn't say as I sighed.

"Fair enough, I guess." Instead, for some reason, that is what I ended up saying, "Being called a demon doesn't necessarily displease me, I guess. I won't hold it against you."

"Y-y-you ..." He was shivering, probably with fear, but I didn't care.

"In any case, if you aren't planning to kill me now," I asked as I saw him lowering his shotgun, "you mind answering a few questions of mine?"

By "a few", I meant, like, a hundred. But, he didn't need to know that right off the bat.

"S-stay away f-from me!" He screamed and dropped his shotgun as he tried to run away but with his very first step back, tripped and fell.

I didn't care for his pain or for what he said as I asked while approaching him, "You okay?"

He immediately turned towards me, saw me approaching, and hurried to get up and run away. 

I could try to catch him and stop him. In fact, I maybe should have. But, I didn't as I argued with myself if it would even be worth it to try to talk to a guy who looked at my very human face and called me a rat and then freaked out when I talked as if I really was a rat and talking should have been beyond my capabilities.

So, he got the chance to run, and he used it as if his life depended on it.

Thinking back on it now, in the darkness and the weirdness, I never really got the time to make out his key features; I never really got the time to memorize his face.

The memory of his face I had in my mind was little more than the memory I would have of someone I pass by on the street and never see again. 

All I remembered about his appearance after his face was no longer visible to me was that he looked slightly old, like in the early or middle 40s, and that he was at least 6 feet tall but probably had no muscles considering the fact that he looked pretty lean.

Well, after he vanished from my view, I congratulated myself for scaring off a fully grown man by merely talking and started heading back to the earlier crossroad, the 4-way lane, so I could pick a different lane this time.

While that encounter had not given me any answers or anything else that could be considered fruitful, I felt calmer than I did before, much calmer in fact, which was definitely a good thing when exploring an unknown and potentially dangerous place.

*****

He ran. He ran away.

He had seen something so bizarre as a rat talking in a human's language; of course, he mustered up all the strength he had and ran away.

Who knew what kind of monster it was? Who even wanted to know?

After all, that man had already lost his daughter, his only family in the world. So, when he thought about it, he realized that there was absolutely no reason that he had to continue living in that place with that rat around.

He could just pack his luggage and run away from there.

No. 

What if that rat was following him?

He had no time to go and pack his luggage. He had to just grab what he could and run. Run and never look back. Never look back and never come back.

That was all he could do.

And, so, that was what he decided to do.

He ran, he ran, and he ran away.

He ran away from that neighborhood, from that city, from that district, from that state, and from that nation.

But, even as he was running away, he wasn't completely selfish. He did try his best to warn as many people as he could that -

"A HELLSPAWN HAS COME! HE WILL EAT YOU UP! TEAR YOU APART! EAT YOUR BONES! FEAST ON YOUR FLESH! TORTURE YOUR SOULS"

In his path, he had left warnings to as many people as he could.

And, everyone who had heard it, whether they took it seriously or not, they at least knew that something had happened, something had happened that could make a grown man like with his tail between his legs.

Some of them were scared because of it, some of them just dismissed it, some of them became cautious, some became curious, and some became -

"How dare a hellspawn step into my territory!"

Enraged.

"He will pay!"

Said a doll with ivory skin, covered from head-to-toe in white robes and white wimple and white blindfolds on her eyes.

 He will pay with his life!"