Oh Hunter My Hunter

Amais stared at the shadow, grinning widely. He looked down at the red river. He saw many limbs, but he reached for one thing in particular, a bone, having to pull it out as it was lodged in flesh. It was a bone but specifically a forearm bone from some unfortunate soul taken by this shadow. Right now, it was his weapon of choice or really the best weapon he had the choice of. It was sharp. He could use it.

Amais had an idea. He wasn't sure if it would work, but it didn't matter. The uncertainty made him laugh before he looked back at the shadow, ready to play.

"This cause of you?" Amais teased, holding the bone; his voice slurred, sounding drunken from the trauma of being thrown around like a ragdoll just a few moments ago. He wasn't right in the head, but had fight in him.

The shadow, meanwhile, simply stood there, grinning. It moved along the walls, acting like some character from a cartoon and relishing in Amais's descent into madness.

"Why wait? I'll be dead by nightfall," he chuckled, his steps uneven. A bizarre dance of injury and the high of his adrenaline override his rationality.

It was his last day on earth, so he'd celebrate by killing that shadow bastard. He ran towards, the shadow, which had been fully manifested into reality but suddenly the shadow, sensing his coming, melted into the ground, causing Amais to stumble into the blood.

Amais laughed. "That, That was good," he admitted, turning his bloodied face, grinning ear to ear. He was soaked in scarlet, looking like some serial killer. Most would think he's the cause of the corpses; he did fit the role. And yet, even then, nothing compared to that shadow, the way it grinned with that wide, uncanny smile, its static-like eyes warping reality itself. It was a creature of nightmares.

"Jeez, you know you're an asshole," Amais said casually as he wiped at his blood-soaked shirt and shook out his equally blood-soaked hair. "You know I look like a mess because of you," Amais accused, looking at the shadow with mock anger.

The shadow merely shrugged, grinning innocently, which only made Amais laugh harder.

His head still rang, but he ran forward once more. This time, he stopped just short, having anticipated the shadow's disappearance before it decided to reappear. The moment it appeared, he stabbed it over and over with the bone. The shadow grinned as always, reaching for him but Amais had predicted this. This had been his plan from the very beginning. He grabbed the shadow's hand, yanking it forward with all his strength and manoeuvred himself behind it. With one arm wrapped around its neck, he leaped, and coiled his legs around its waist. His free hand drove the jagged bone straight into the shadow's eye over and over.

The shadow didn't react; it didn't even move. It hadn't expected this.

"Can't move? What are you doing? You still there, Shadow?" Amais mocked, laughing wickedly, driving the bone deeper and deeper, again and again.

The shadow simply stood still until, finally, it grabbed Amais and hurled him away.

The impact was devastating. Amais crashed against the wall, his body crumpled as he could hear the cracks. Everything broke, his bones snapping like twigs. He fell face-first into the blood, the thick liquid invading his nose and his mouth and started to drown. He squirmed, trying to move, to get out but he couldn't.

This is it, he thought. This would be his final moment.

Meanwhile, the shadow loomed over him, inspecting the bone embedded in its eye. Thick, black liquid oozed from the wound, dripping into the crimson below, darkening the blood further. And then it grinned wickedly so wide the corners of the smile reached up to its eyes.

Instead of finishing him, the shadow reached down. Carefully, Gently, It lifted him from the blood, carrying him away from the drowning depths, placing him on a dry section of the maze. Then, without a word, it pulled something from the darkness. A vial, filled with a radiant, golden liquid, which it placed into Amais's hand.

Then, it waved playfully before vanishing in the shadows below.

Amais stared dazed in confusion. What… did you do? His thoughts barely formed. His vision darkened at the edges, the world threatening to fade entirely and caving in around him. But through the haze, he saw it: the shattered remains of the shadow's eye, leaking black ichor, and he smiled; he had damaged it; he accomplished hurting the thing.

But why? Why had it saved him?

His fingers curled weakly around the vial. He felt something…familiar. The pull. The presence the same as that tree. His breath hitched as he felt hope.

W-Was this…?

Ambrosia.

The thing he had been searching for all along. It was here, in his hands.

A wide grin split his face. He laughed pure, unrestrained joy. Everything up until this moment was to get this but even as the sound left him, tears followed. It was too much. All of it. Everything, everything, had been too much. The corpses, the river of blood, the nightmare of it all. He couldn't take it. He just couldn't...

No. No, no, no, no, no. Not now. He had the Ambrosia. Not here, Not yet. He wouldn't die. He really wouldn't die. He refused to die; he just needed to drink it. He just needed to hold the vial up and drink it fully.

Summoning the last shreds of his strength in his broken bones, he brought the vial to his mouth, clamping his teeth around the cap and yanking it off before opening his mouth and letting it fall to the blood. Then, without hesitation, he gulped the contents down.

His eyes widened. A scream ripped from his throat as agony overtook him.

Pain unlike anything he had ever known. His body convulsed violently, writhing in pain, every nerve igniting in sheer torment. His muscles locked, his bones seared, his very soul felt as if it were being torn apart by this liquid.

His mind fractured as his world collapsed into nothingness.

Darkness took him whole and he felt the sweet embrace of death.