Flesh, real meat. Not the bugs and small creatures of the world below. A taste he had once known well, something he used to eat at least once a week, now wholly forgotten, for only ash remained.
He felt like a Wildkin, crouching over the carcass, cutting and ripping pieces of flesh with his knife, then forming a fire to cook it, biting into the meat, devouring it as if it were his only purpose.
It was much more difficult than he had remembered. The first few tries were either burned or raw on the inside. Only by the tenth or eleventh bite did he find the correct level of heat to output.
He devoured it for an entire hour, only tasting ash. The next hour, he spent ripping pieces of it and testing methods of drying the meat so that it would last at least a little longer; by the third hour, he had managed to create strips of dried meat that he packaged into the blanket that he had brought with him, giving it a much more important use than potential warmth during the night.
After he was done, he was left alone with the disgraced body. Sliced and brutalized. A thing of beauty, left unhonored by the beast that had hunted it down, then feasted on its flesh. It reminded him of the other bodies he had left behind.
He would leave it here as it was.
There was no point in digging it a cold grave, nor was there a point in burning it into ash -- he had seen too much of it. The winter would come, and keep it intact until summer would allow its rot. And maybe some scavenging feline or canid would bite their sharp teeth into the frozen flesh and survive.
Maybe, just maybe, what was left would not feel so wasteful and senseless; and, instead, there'd be no regret associated with what was left, when such meaning was given to it.
Now, with the bundle of dried meat strapped to his side by a makeshift rope, he left behind the forest clearing, letting it become a grave for an innocent creature and a shrine for its memory.
The world would neither know nor care that the beast had died, or what had been done to its corpse. It would only thank Kanrel for the sustenance he had provided, though with someone else's life. And only he would care about this disgrace. This one he would keep to himself.
The rest of the day, he just walked, still choosing to believe that the direction was correct.
He went over streams, past hills, through clearings, not once seeing another living thing. Not another deer, not a wolf or a bird. Only the forest and he reflected on the surface of a stream.
The forest remained the same, as if it were repeating itself, though not in such a way that made it seem that he'd be going in circles. He only went forward; there was no other direction. Again, such a thing had lost all its meaning. There was only going forward.
Too quickly, the evening descended upon the forest, and so, Kanrel was forced to form another code so as to light his way through the coming dark. He traversed until he could only crawl. And when he was forced to finally stop, he made a small campfire from fallen branches and cuddled close to it, hoping it would last long enough that he wouldn't wake frozen.
Screaming from a figure who stands near but always far enough to not be recognizable. Everything else is just the dark. He walked through such existence, surrounded by the same figure, always standing just around the corner, just behind the next tree, just over the coming creek, awaiting by the place where he'd rest. Awaiting, wherever the notion of home might be. Awaiting, at the end of every possible conclusion, he might arrive at.
He wasn't being followed. Only watched.
The dreams that he could remember the next morning had become like that. This was just the first observation of such a dream, followed by the absence of something long gone, and the coldness that the world around had set itself into.
The campfire had gone out, leaving behind a pile of half-burned branches and sticks and ashes. He sat and stared at what was left of it as he consumed another strip of dried meat. He reactivated the codes that kept him warm throughout the day, got up from the bed of moss touched by the creeping frost. None of it was yet white, but it all twinkled at the touch of the little red light that cast itself onto the forest floor.
Such a sight had inherent magic to it; how the world was allowed to sparkle just because it was cold enough to care to do so. The darkest months riddled with death and famine, why were they so beautiful, so innocent, when the white would cover the earth?
Maybe its pure surface was there to further illuminate the sorrow of each life lost.
Another thing that Kanrel had missed. The seasons. No matter how many difficulties they could bring a farmer or a richer man down in Lo'Gran. Too bad it hadn't yet snowed, but he was sure that it would if it just rained on one of these days.
Foot after the next, he kept on moving; his body still aching, but less so than yesterday, and much better than the day before that. Perhaps tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, there'd be no more physical pain. He would've conquered all the ails that could physically manifest themselves on him, such as hunger, the numbness caused by the cold, or the ache pained by the ascent.
Only the other kind of torment would remain. But such was his existence. He knew that there'd be more of it tomorrow, the week after tomorrow, and even years to come until his bitter death, be it by a rope at the gallows, or of sickness graced to him by whichever incurable disease that cared enough to allow his departure.
Whatever it may be, he still had to cling to the idea that there was much he had to pay for; many crimes that he had to confess. If only there were someone gracious enough to allow him such a possibility. If only his mother would let him place his head onto her warm lap a final time; if only she could whisper to him a judgment, one complete enough to never absolve him of what he had become.
Let there be love without forgiveness.
Steps went by, turning into trees that he passed; more hills that he climbed, more creeks that he crossed; more light that touched him, only to fade into darkness as another evening came by, turning into the night. Still, he had no wish of stopping just yet. Tonight, he would go further than yesterday. He didn't want to stay in this forest a day longer than he had to.
His faux-lights brightened the way for him, and he could see more clearly how the world became colder again. How moss and branches froze just a little, but not yet enough to be wholly covered. The air around him was at least warm; his magic still made sure that cold would not numb him unless he so desired.
Tonight, he felt that he could just walk. As if he didn't need to crawl any longer, even if it suited him better than standing upright. He trudged along a creek, only stepping away from it when it began noticeably curving to the left, where he assumed further north to be.
At first, Kanrel had thought that he could go on until dawn, but when he came across a large hill, he decided that after reaching the other side of it, he would set up camp and sleep. His eyes felt heavy, and his thoughts had turned against him. He did not wish to go on, not another day, not another moment. He hoped that another dawn would give him another reason to keep walking.
Supported by the first few birch trees he had come across, Kanrel climbed the hill. He reached its top and peeked over, past the birch trees that covered it.
It seemed like there'd be just more hills and trees ahead, more birch, more pine, and more spruce. Kanrel frowned. There was something familiar about the sight ahead; he just could not see it quite yet.
He moved his light forth, and as it moved, what he saw became clearer. More unsettling...
Beneath a veil of green, a familiar-looking collection of shapes, something he knew all too well, though not for reasons he wanted to. Beneath the veil of green, of trees and moss, of that which was like a hill, it was made clear that there remained a building or many.
He could feel his heart race. The rest that he had wanted became a memory forgotten; he was all awake now. And dread piled onto him, almost collapsing him to his knees at the sight of ruins he did not wish to see again.
The forest was so still and silent, and the reasons for its silence had become known to him so long ago. He had found something, but he now wished that he hadn't.
He stood looking down at it. He hadn't seen it from this angle. Ahead, he even saw the hill that he had descended years ago. The memory now resurfaced, everything that had gone wrong that day, the feelings that had made him first enter the forest, then almost aimlessly travel through to set upon that hill, to go down it, to find the camp and meet the three hunters... The rest of it was too painful to face; too much regret had been attached to everything else that had happened.
He swallowed his hesitation and carefully went down the hill as the memory repeated itself within him ad nauseam. He felt sick; he felt disgust toward the self of that day; disgust toward the self that was now.
He did not prepare any codes to strike at any creature, man or bear, that might strike him from the dark. The thought had not crossed his mind, even though he saw himself releasing spikes of ice at the two men carrying the deer; even though he saw himself setting the man who tortured him ablaze. He, too, had burned someone like that. Just like Ignar had. Just like Kalma had.
Just like Kanrel had.
He reached the ruins and looked around. The marble walls and pillars were still covered by the moss. He knew the way inside, where he might find rooms and the place where their campfire had been. He went forth; he needed to see if there was anything left of that.
Something cracked beneath his feet.
He looked down and saw a shape, something round. He brought his light closer and saw the figure clad in moss. Beneath his feet was a skull. Startled, he took a step back, only to fall over something else.
His chest rose as he stared up. Around the ruins was a clearing, and he could see the sky above. There were no stars around, no light that came from above. Only the vast, endless darkness.
Carefully, he turned his head. A pair of empty eyes stared at him, another skull partly covered by the moss. They stared at each other. The killed and the killer. He knew who these two were.
He hadn't even burned them, just left them there. They must've been defiled by whichever creature had come by, if any predator would ever desire to come close to a place like this.
Kanrel got up and looked much closer. He now saw the moss-covered bones of the deer that they had hunted, even the poor deer he had just left behind. For a moment, he wondered if this was what would become of the deer that he had slaughtered. Would its resting place become just like this, not any different from the open grave of the two men and their deer?
He stood staring at them for a while. The memory no longer played itself in his head, but the dread remained. He didn't want to be here even a moment longer. He didn't want to know or see what there might be inside those ruins; whether things that he had left behind would be as he had left them; whether the man he burned still remained at the bottom of the ladder.
He ripped his gaze from the moss-covered remains. He looked around and retraced in his mind the actions he had done before the killings. The ruins would become not a grave and a place of great guilt and regret, but instead it would turn into a compass, a point of navigation, a way to find his way home.
He locked his eyes with the other hill, the one he had come down perhaps fifteen or so years ago, and walked toward it. He climbed it and now looked at the forest ahead. If he were to now go only forward, he would in the end come across his own markings, perhaps covered by moss or ruined by nature through other means, but they would be there either way, and with their help, he would find his way back home.
He would return to Jersten and live, again, among humans as nothing more than an insect.
Darkness subsided as he traversed with his light; shadows of trees around him loomed closer and grander than the trees themselves. Each step produced a crunch as the nearly frozen moss gave way under his weight. Though fatigue and tiredness weighed on him more and more, that which was behind forced him to keep walking. No matter how far he got from a memory from so long ago, it seemed to reach from behind greater than the shadows ahead. One cannot run away from their past, for it surely would wait for him, like an old friend, sipping tea in your home, at your table, using your cutlery, screaming and reminding of the things that had happened; the wrongs, the rights, the regrets and the guilt; never is there a man who can hide from who he was yesterday.
He himself was the figure from his dreams.
Yet he went on. And surely it would find him ten miles from here or a hundred. It did not matter. It was his stone to carry—one among many. This one wasn't as heavy as the rest. This one at least had some justifications to it; some judicial and moral explanations, arguments, and excuses which would give him just enough to not collapse and wither from the memory's touch.
The three hunters were murderers. They had done deeds more evil than most men could ever even imagine. They had drugged him, and one of them had tortured him.
Regarding them, the only sense of guilt came from the fact that it had been himself who had done it. He had skipped all steps regarding justice and law. He had become not only the victim of them, but also the judge and the executioner.
He ought to have captured them and marched back to Jersten, even if it would've taken weeks.
But that regret paled in comparison to him entering the labyrinthine corridors of the temple; the levels below it all. It was his original sin. Everything that came before it could be justified and tolerated, even the ritual and what it had done to him.
Taking entrance, being lulled by its call... it had only led him to know what was better left unknown.
Murder could be excused as justice or as self-defense, but the things done after are without a good enough reason. Curiosity had become a form of foolishness. It had granted him knowledge beyond his capacity to understand and contend with. It had marked him a murderer.
Kanrel stopped and scoffed at himself. This forest gave him only more time to look within... and to think there are people who say that a good, long walk might clear the mind. He shook his head at the thought and kept walking, now looking at the nearby trees more closely and trying to find and identify markings done by humans. Anything would do. He was sure that there'd be some just ahead. He must've etched something on one of these trees; he was just unsure which one out of the thousands upon thousands of trees ahead.
He halted, again. His brows were furrowed. He felt earlier disgust return, more potent than before, all of it pointed at him and his thoughts just moments before.
He knew that, despite every wrong that had come afterwards, he ought still be thankful for some of the things that his wrongdoings allowed him to experience. He had met the Atheians, and among them he had found himself like-minded individuals whom he could consider to be his friends.
Y'Kraun and Gor, even Vaur'Kou'n... they didn't deserve to be attached to this guilt of his. They didn't deserve to be belittled into beings whom he somehow regretted meeting. They had been the only thing that was surely good about his life the past ten or so years. The fact that he could not feel the necessary feelings to confirm this bothered him. If he could, then what his true crime would be is not this; not taking entrance into the temple, but rather, stepping into the Veil, and discarding their friendship, love, disregarding all the things that they had done for him. All because he was incapable. Emotionally impotent, and clearly, not good enough for the friendship they had given him without a reason to give it.
He gritted his teeth and pushed forth. Anger rooted itself into him; he couldn't stand himself and what he had done; what he had caused. A fool indeed, it was all that he had been decades ago, and even now. It must have been an inherent part of his existence; the core of who he is.
The regret that had prompted him to leave the City of Last Light, too, was a form of foolishness. When had men done good things for the sake of their own regrets?
He walked past the dead of night, finding himself in the first lights of the next morrow. His mind desolate once more, capable of only two things: walking and upholding his codes to keep himself warm.
Ahead of him was a tree, a tall pine. He placed his hand on it and, with its support, went around it. Only to stop at the glance of something. He turned his head and investigated the tree and its bark. His eyes widened. There are burn marks beneath the moss. Hurriedly, he scraped the moss away, revealing a cross that had been burned onto the tree. He stared at it for a while, then collapsed against it. He could feel his eyes burn.
He needed to sleep. And this is where he would rest. With great effort, he made a campfire from whatever he could find. He huddled closer to it, and slowly, his eyes came to a close. In the dream, he was met again by the screaming figure. It had found his campfire and sat across from him; his face covered by the glare of flames and the shadow of its existence.