Chapter Text
Look. I’ve never been the best at making friends and when adulthood came creeping upon me, I was even more at loss. So when some of my colleagues started talking about a communal trip together, well- Okay, at first I wasn’t really paying attention. It seemed more like a friend group thing and I didn’t know them very well. However, it all changed when one of them decided it would be a good idea to invite me.
That’s also when I made the worst decision in my entire life and said eloquently: “ Uh… Yeah. Okay. ”
A small trip with some colleagues from work. Seems innocent enough, right?
At first, I didn’t worry too much, thinking it would be one of those things that you discuss with your friends, never actually intending to follow through with it. However, one of them turned out to be quite good at making things come together and planned a whole-ass trip to Romania. The said miracle planner, Debra, seemed to know where to get cheap plane tickets, cheap lodging and cheap… Well, everything. Maybe she had family and friends in Romania or something.
Our workplace had a pretty familial vibe and the boss was pretty loose, so the five of us were able to score a week of vacation together. The dream, right?
Right?
A few months later, we all embarked into a plane –squeezed in economy of course– then landed in the country of Romania. Honestly, I didn’t know a lot about the place. I did read a few pamphlets distributed by Debra and I even looked up a few things on the internet, but in the end, I came to this trip quite blindsided. Anxiety had made me procrastinate and I was going to pay the price. The friend group seemed confident in their own understanding of the place so I followed them like a lost puppy.
At first, the novelty of the trip was quite refreshing, but very rapidly, I noticed just how out of place I was. I came there to make friends, but they were here to have fun together. I felt like the odd one out. The places we would visit were beautiful, but I couldn’t really appreciate it when the others were goofing around without me.
I had a feeling that, perhaps, I had only been invited out of politeness.
At some point during the trip, the group planned –well, mostly Debra– to go on a hike in a more remote part of the area. The prospect was exciting to me since I liked nature and it seemed like a good way to finally enjoy myself during this awkward vacation. We all went to a store selling sports equipment and I ended up buying a hiking stick and a pair of sturdy boots. After our shopping spree, we all went back to the place we were staying at, tired from the full day we just had.
During dinner however, something seemed off. I wasn’t sure when it all started, but two people in our group were in a pretty gloomy mood. I tried to ignore that uneasy feeling in my stomach, hoping to enjoy the food in front of me, but it was clear that a storm was brewing. We went to bed, more quietly than the other days, and I tried to sleep and forget the weird atmosphere.
When we all finally woke up the next day, the stormy clouds were right on top of us. It started with angry whispers between the two parties concerned but then, it blew up into a full on group argument. Obviously, it wasn't about me. I couldn’t really understand what they were all arguing about anyway. It was a friend group thing and I was… the coworker.
Was there something more awkward than witnessing an angry shouting match that you had no control over?
When the yelling finally stopped, it was clear that the hiking trip was a no-go. Everyone retreated to their own corner, clearly planning a round two of angry rebuttals. The atmosphere was so thick that I couldn’t bear being around them any longer.
That’s when I made the second worst decision in my entire life: I took my hiking gear and went out the door to go on our trek… alone.
Okay, okay, I know what you’re saying. That was bound to go to shit no matter what, right? Why the fuck would you even decide to do this in the first place? A woman with anxiety, alone in a strange place where she barely knew the language, utterly helpless and perhaps missing a few brain cells; I was definitely going to encounter trouble.
Well, my friend, if there’s one thing you need to know about me is that in stressful situations, I‘m not a great decision maker. You know in horror movies, when the killer comes and that one character is just standing there, watching everything unfold without moving a muscle, and you’re screaming at the screen, telling them to just run already? Well… I’m that character. Bonus point if they do something that would clearly fuck them over like running up the stairs instead of leaving the house. Am I just an idiot? Maybe. In school, I had decent grades, but school doesn't really prepare you for that sort of thing, does it?
I took the bus we were supposed to take alone, muttering internally the whole time about how I should enjoy myself for once and about how I was really looking forward to this, so why wouldn’t I do it? Clearly the thoughts of a fool.
When I got off of the bus, I have to admit, I did forget all about my problems for a few moments. The trail was beautiful. The weather was ideal. The air was pure. Everything seemed to fall into place. For a while, there was a small family who had gotten off the bus at the same time hiking with me. However, they had two young kids slowing them down quite a bit, so I ended up losing track of them.
In the trees, where the leaves gently rustled in the wind, were birds chirping enthusiastically, the melodies soothing to my ears. I watched them gracefully take flight against the clear blue sky and I sigh with contentment. I wished I could identify them, but I didn’t know much about birds. Although, I had seen a crow… or was it a raven? I could never remember the difference. That wasn’t important in the end because the sun was making me feel alive and I could finally forget about the group’s stupid argument.
Oh, what a fool, I was. What a stupid motherfucking fool .
Suddenly, after at least an hour into my trek, I heard rustling in the bushes. I looked around, a puzzled look on my face, but the movement had already stopped. At this point in the trail, the trees were getting closer together, the path was getting murkier and murkier, but I was pressing on, determined to enjoy nature to its fullest.
In hindsight, I probably should have noticed that I was completely lost, but like I established earlier, I was probably an idiot. No, okay– I knew I was lost, but I was deep in denial. That’s still an idiotic behaviour. No redeeming here.
The rustling started up again. I watched the bushes, fully anticipating to see some sort of animal, maybe a squirrel, a hare or something, but to my surprise, a man came out in front of me. Something about him was strange. First, he was crouching like he was roleplaying as Tarzan, almost walking on all fours. Secondly, his pale face looked a little deformed, like it was shaped to be in a perpetual angry snarl. His hair was all over the place and his clothes were in even worse shape, as if he had been living in the woods for months.
I took a step back, intimidated by the strange figure. For a few seconds, we just looked at each other, not sure of our next move. Then, the man stood up and ran in my direction in full sprint. All I had time to do was to brandish my hiking stick like a lance.
The man growled like an animal and completely ignored my makeshift weapon, bearing his strangely sharp teeth. I hit him on the head twice, making a very elegant grimace while doing so. The figure shook his head, confused, but my rebuttal didn’t seem to have hurt him in the slightest.
I bared my own teeth and made an aggressive motion with the stick clutched in my hands, hoping to make him back off. The man just snarled and threw a hand toward me. I took a step back, almost tripping on my own feet. At the end of his fingers, his nails almost looked like… claws? That couldn’t be possible. Nothing about this situation made sense but I didn’t have time to dwell on it.
I took a few steps back, my hiking stick pointed toward the tattered man. He looked at me almost hungrily, all the while walking back and forth as if he was analyzing me like a prey. A shiver ran down my spine. I could try to run but I knew I was slow. Damn me and my hatred of exercise! I would probably end up on my stomach, tackled from the back by this beastly man. My best option was to stand my ground for now. I just had to imagine him as a big insect and maybe I could bring myself to stab him in the stomach. I grimaced at the thought but it was probably my only chance of survival.
The man looked like he was going to jump on me and I braced myself accordingly, but he never had the chance to get closer. Something big ran into him in a blur and he flew toward the nearest tree. Blood exploded from his battered form and I flinched at the violent sight. The giant hammer that was pinning him above the ground trembled, then started to move again, the body of my assailant simply falling to the ground at the base of the tree, broken. I followed the movement of the hammer with my eyes and that’s when I saw him .
A man with grey hair, dressed in a trench coat and an old hat, was standing not too far from me. The hammer flew to his outstretched hand and all I could do was stare, bewildered. I couldn’t quite make out his expression behind his round sunglasses but all my nerves were screaming at me to beware.
“How the fuck did you get so far out-”, he started, muttering to himself, but his face, pointed towards the weapon in his hand, finally looked up at me, and he stopped in his track.
All of the sudden, I felt my walking stick slip out of my hand. A little too late, I tried to hold on to it, but it was already flying toward the man at a dizzying speed. It finally landed on the ground, well behind him.
“And you definitely shouldn’t have seen this”, he said with a cruel twist of his lips.
I wanted to scream for help or maybe even run, but I was completely paralyzed. Remember what I said about horror movies? Well, there you have it.
I felt a sharp tug on my belt and I started moving toward the new figure. I gasped at the strange sensation, but my feet dragged uselessly on the ground.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you before”, he said, unperturbed. “I mean, you certainly don’t dress like them.”
My body was getting closer and closer to him but I couldn’t seem to be able to do anything about it.
“What’s your name?” he asked, rolling absentmindedly his hammer in his gloved hand, a smirk on his scarred lips.
Fear was making me unable to respond.
He sighed. “Tell me, at least, what exactly did you see?”
My vocal cords were unable to work. Maybe a very quiet whimper escaped my throat, but nothing more.
I finally stopped a foot or two in front of him and I watched his hands play with the hammer covered in dark blood. He was wielding it as if it weighed nothing at all. I felt my stomach tie up in knots. This was bad. This was so, so bad .
“Not much of a talker, are you?” he said. “Maybe I could find a way to loosen that tongue of yours.”
The man tapped his fingers on his hammer and I could only watch the careless movement, completely paralyzed. Was he going to kill me? He didn’t hesitate to kill the other strange man. What was he waiting for? If only I could bring myself to say something. Anything. Plead for my life at least.
“I’m sure Mother Miranda would know what to do with you,” he continued.
I watched as his hand traced the handle of his weapon, the gloves going over the smears of blood that had splashed all the way there during the impact. I saw again the beastly man being smashed like a poor bird against a window. There had been so much blood.
“Are you even listening to me?” The man suddenly snapped and I felt my belt buckle turn my hips sharply. I finally looked up at his face. My eyes were wide open with terror.
How did he keep doing that?
“Are you deaf or something?” he grumbled, his furrowing eyebrows disappearing behind his sunglasses.
Now, that simple sentence, that seemingly simple, simple sentence is what really started this debacle. He probably intended for this to be a poorly thought through jab to get a rise of me, to get me to say something, anything, but alas I was still completely tongue tied. I watched his expression change slightly and even though his eyes were hidden by his sunglasses, I saw his eyebrows raise a little, as if he was starting to understand something. At this, my own thoughts started to spin wildly. Did he actually think that I could be..? No… That would be a crazy assumption, right?
Then I thought… I didn’t have any advantage in this situation. If I could just create one, even if it was as small as this…
God. This was really stupid. Could I use sign language? I had learned it a few years ago and it was probably a little rusty, but I knew I could still manage to sign coherently. However, if he didn’t know sign language, would he see it as a threat? Like reaching for a weapon or something?
This was crazy. Sooooo crazy. And would it be problematic to pretend I was deaf? I mean, this was a life or death situation, maybe I could worry about the moral implications of this later.
Also, he had been the one to bring it up. What a prick, am I right?..
Jesus, I was going to hell.
As my mind was reeling with these thoughts, I saw him raise his free hand ever so slightly and I don't know what sort of flash of genius came over me at this very moment, but I knew he was about to test his theory. A split second later, the screeching sound of metal resonated behind me. It was really loud. Anyone would have flinched at this, but my teeth were grinding painfully together, my jaw hurting like a bitch. I stared hard at the man in front of me, my body so winded up that not even a hurricane would have made me move.
The sound finally stopped and the man cocked his head to the side, thoughtful.
“Huh. Would you look at that”, he said, a smile forming on his lips. “Too bad you still have your eyesight.”
At this, I almost broke character, but an invisible force swept me off the ground, my belt painfully digging into me. I flew right toward the man and I felt him grab me by the waist. He then threw me over his shoulder like a potato sack. I didn’t scream, but an embarrassing breathy sound came out of my mouth.
The man, with his ridiculously large hammer in one hand and my body on the opposite shoulder, started walking at a brisk pace, as if he wasn’t supporting a considerable amount of weight.
“You better not start squirming on me or I’ll knock you out,” he told me, the sound of leaves crunching under his boots. Then, not hearing any response, he sighed. “Right. You’re not gonna be very entertaining, are you?”
I still didn’t say anything. I didn’t squirm either, keeping his warning in mind, but I didn’t think I would have tried anything anyway. What could I possibly do at this point? He seemed to have some kind of telepathic power and no qualm at murdering people, as strange as they could be. I mean, who had been that other guy anyway? The more I would think about our encounter, the more he didn’t seem human. There had been something animalistic about him, something wolf-like. Could he have been..? No. He couldn’t have been a werewolf, right? But then again, this man, transporting me to who knows where, was not quite normal either.
After what felt like an eternity, the forest made way to a clearer dirt path and I awkwardly stretched my neck to watch my surroundings. I was welcomed by the bloody sight of a dead crow hanging from a tree and it took all of my willpower to not jolt in disgust or fear. Where the fuck were we going?
I was finally able to see some man-made constructions a few minutes later. Most of them seemed dilapidated at first, but the longer the man walked, the more they would look like simple wood habitations. This village made me feel like we were in the Dark Ages. I even saw a chicken run between some of the houses.
The man holding me didn’t falter at any point, walking through the village like he owned the place. I saw a few people walking by, but upon seeing him, they quickly stepped out of his way, eyeing me with an unfriendly expression on their faces.
Forget about being saved.
“Almost there”, he said, then grunted, clearly annoyed at himself for having forgotten about my supposed condition. He walked toward a church constructed against the rocks, the roof of the building caved-in in some places.
Was this a cult? Were they gonna sacrifice me? From my weird angle, slump against the man's shoulder, the church was imposing despite its crumbled state. A dark aura seemed to emanate from it.
The man entered the church, his heavy boots echoing against the old stone floor. He finally put me down, but my respite was short-lived. I heard a rattling sound and what seemed like a chain wrapped around my wrist, binding me to the floor.
“Now, be nice, hmm?” said the man, an amused expression on his face. From where I was kneeling, he seemed even more intimidating than before, standing at all his height with his hammer nonchalantly perched on his shoulder.
He snaked his free hand inside his coat and got out a cigar.
“I’ll be back soon, sweetheart, don’t miss me,” he added, waving his cigar to punctuate his words.
I forced myself to not cringe at his jab. He may forget about my deafness, but I couldn't afford to.
The man walked away, leaving me alone in the old church, so I took the time to analyze my situation. The chain around my wrist was heavy and very sturdy. I spotted the loop planted inside the floor that was holding the chain, hoping it would be less sturdy, but pulling on it did nothing. Maybe if I kicked it? I squirmed around, trying to get a good angle to hit the thing, but I was bound way too close to have any kind of leverage.
Sighing, I examined the dusty floor. The building would have seemed to be abandoned if the ground didn’t indicate that people were still walking around these parts. Multiple footprints created a path around the fallen debris. Some church benches were scattered around the floor, including one that seemed way bigger than the others for some reason. Then, I let my eyes trail toward the stone walls and I estimated the building to be at least three stories tall. The inside of the church looked even more battered than the exterior. A giant hole in the roof was letting streaks of pale light into the room, dust dancing slowly in the stale air. I could see the wooden infrastructure peak out of the broken stone, like a rotting mouth with missing teeth.
What in the world did I get myself into?