There were bodies everywhere. Bloody, tattered, beaten bodies. Young bodies and old bodies. About twenty in total. And standing in the middle of them was a hideous monster, weeping in realisation at what it had done.
Elkay had only wanted help. As he’d climbed the mountain, the pain had trickled back into his system, his medication slowly wearing off. By the time he had reached the cave systems, their homes, he could barely talk. Pained grunts were his only method of communication, one that the creatures there didn’t understand.
Upon seeing the strange being, the skinstealers had all instantly attacked. In his pain and confusion, Elkay had attacked them back. He didn’t even recognise what they were. Temthans maybe? They looked a bit like small Temthans with weird patches of flesh. But they were not like him. Maybe that was why they attacked him.
Not that it mattered any more. They were all dead. Every single one of them. Were they vicious creatures? Yes, but guilt still burnt Elkay’s thoughts. He shouldn’t have killed them back. He didn’t have a choice. Or did he? Couldn’t he have just knocked them out? Or run away instead of trying to fight?
It was all in the past now. Elkay had done what he had done, there was no taking it back. While the cuts and scratches the creatures had inflicted had healed up already, their blood still stained Elkay’s hands. Or rather, his claws. He didn’t have normal hands any more. Elkay didn’t have… anything normal any more. All he had was pain and guilt.
Something squeaked behind Elkay. One of the skinstealers was still alive. A youngling, Elkay assumed. Small and deformed. Clearly a runt. Also clearly dying. Elkay tried approaching the little skinstealer, but it instantly tried to claw and tear at him. Elkay didn’t blame it. He had just murdered its entire family after all. He wanted to pick the kid up and look after it, nurse it back to health. It was the least Elkay could to for the orphan.
The skinstealer though was having none of it. It continued to lash out, screeching and squealing until it could do so no more.
Elkay whimpered to himself as he heard the skinstealer’s heart stop beating. This was all his fault. The Rethans back at the village were right, he was a monster. A monster in a huge amount of pain.
No. Elkay was less than a monster. Elkay was a murderer. Unredeemable.
Tears began to blossom in Elkay’s eyes. They slowly dripped down his face, catching on patches of scales, sliding down patches of fur, mingling with the drops of slime that coated the rest of his body. An amalgamation of hideousness, weeping like a lost child or a trapped animal.
Through his tears, Elkay began to move the bodies. They may have attacked him, they may have stripped him of his sense of belonging and purpose, but they at least deserved to be put to rest properly. He pulled each body into the centre of the cave, heaping them on top of each other, before covering them with the sticks and piles of hay these creatures used for bedding.
Finally, Elkay created a small fire and used it to ignite the heap.
As the bodies burned, Elkay gazed off into the sky. The sun had set and the clouds had dispersed, leaving an otherwise rather clear sky. Scattered stars could be seen, far more than one would normally be able to see in a city. A myriad of thoughts drifted in and out of Elkay’s mind, each one undercut by a ceaseless agony. The fire continued to burn brightly, illuminating the cave mouth.
Maybe someone would see the fire, Elkay thought. Maybe someone would see the fire and come and see what it was. Maybe Elkay could be… rescued. Maybe he could be saved.
“But I do not deserve to be saved…” Elkay muttered as he stood up.
He gazed up at the sky one last time, then started to make his way back down the mountain, away from the flaming beacon behind him.
“I never deserved to be saved…”