The air cracked, forcing my eyes closed. It echoed off the trees, fading away like the side effects of this children's blood.

Did I just kill—a helpless man?

I opened my eyes to see an unfired gun, and then into Nigel's watering eyes.

Blood dripped from his fingertips as his middle finger and thumb were ripped off, lying on the grass. They hissed and popped, burning the vegetation into purple smoke. The vapor manifested itself into odd symbols and forms, familiar. But—.

"Behind you!" Nigel shouted, but I ignored him.

My attention switched to the sides of the cabin where the cultists appeared in my vision. Nigel, however, charged towards me.

He pulled out his knife and darted towards my right. I panicked and shot at his shoulder, but blood splattered from somewhere on his chest. He collapsed, feet before me and I turned to see a figure moving at me from behind. A blade swiped at my throat. I instinctively pulled back the hammer and blindly shot them. Skull fragments and brain matter sprayed and bounced across the grass. I fucking just killed someone for sure. The first soul I had taken from this plane, and to this God damn moment, I—feel—nothing.

Before I could turn further, another knife stabbed me in the thigh. The pain shot up my body causing me to fall to my knee. There was another person.

"Billy! No! Fuck no! I'll kill you, wanker!" The perpetrator screamed in agony. A voice I recognized.

The Brit bitch, Brittany. She went to pull the knife out of my leg, but through the pain, I gripped it, stopping her from stabbing me further.

I was sick and fucking tired of the stabbing bullshit. In a rage, I hit Brittany's head with the butt of my gun, knocking her down. A crunch came from the blow while she collapsed into the ground. Footsteps came from the distance.

Two more people charged along from the bank of the pond. As soon as I could see their blades glimmer, I opened fire, unloading what I had left in my gun. Three shots fired before my chamber clicked empty.

One dropped dead, while the other kept running, while the Brit lashed at me with her hands. She dug her fingers into my wound. I kicked her off of me and stumbled back. The pop of her jaw felt—pleasurable until the sickness returned when the other cultist arrived.

He was a bulky man, more prominent than Billy, and swung at me with what looked like a large Bowie knife. I held my arms up, the blade cutting to the bone.

Crack.

Flesh dangled. Blood poured. Pain burned.

Before it got worse, I heard loud shouts towards the cabin. Nigel was covered in mud and fuck did he run. It could have been the end, but, he charged past me, panting in pain.

Nigel dug the blade into the man's ribs, managing to push him back a few feet, but the man seemed unfazed and punched the Nigel down. Brittany grabbed my ankle and dug her nails into my leg reaching for the knife. I could feel a couple of her fingers snapping as they dug deeper into my calf. The pain intensified my nausea, and the world started to fade in and out once more.

Three people stood before me one second and the next, a fourth. The new figure remained a blur, pulling Brittany back by the hair as a knife slit her throat.

Blood sprayed as her jugular was sliced cleanly and the taste iron stained my tongue. The Britt collapsed to the floor, blood gushing from her neck. Dead.

My Aussie friend, however, got a few stabs in the bulky cultist before the man gored him in the side and the chest. Nigel collapsed, his life liquid draining from his body.

Blackness faded in before I could make out the figure that saved me, and when reality faded back, they and Nigel were on the floor, and me, my fellow friends, had a knife stabbed in my gut while a hand was wrapped around my throat. I was also two feet off the ground and could hear water splashing with each step, the cabin and my companions fading off in the distance.

'Save me,' I kept thinking to my Whisper, but it just whimpered, like it was cornered by something.

The man chuckled as he pulled out the blade. He was at least seven feet tall and looked and felt like a bodybuilder. A sharp sting pierced between my ribs and into my lung. A foul pop turned my breathing into wheezing.

"I hear you have trouble dying. Let me help with that. Our lady sends her regards," the sick bastard gave a crooked smiled and stabbed me three more times in the side. The pain and lack of oxygen led me to a fade in and out of darkness again. This darkness felt different. Plaguing. Real. Horrifying. Death must have been closing in, but the man wasn't done.

He threw me backward. Water enveloped my stinging soon to be a fucking corpse, and then water filled my one functional lung.

Bvoz-kik spoke nothing. I begged for a sound. A whisper. A whimper, but nothing.

I fucked up.

Silence is terrifying, my fellow friends.

Silence and the taste of blood mixed with pond water.

-----------

It felt like an alluring light, but it was a disguise of something the opposite. A demising black.

A voice came as shadows grasped my core.

My whisper burrowed into my soul, speaking tongues I could not articulate. Like a feeling of a vast sea of unknown, bending and warping in on itself. In on myself. In on darkness. In on an empty void.

Bvoz-kik was pulling me away from the point of no return.

For I was in Death's domain, and it had a taste here. A smell, a sensation, a draining enigma that chills me always. Now. Then. It was peaceful. Don't get me wrong, my fellow friends, death did not wish to harm me, but to extinguish all suffering. All suffering and happiness.

It would be a world of no longer knowing. The knowledge my companion had to offer would be meaningless in the abyss. Hell, everything would be meaningless, even misery.

But the whispering voice grew, loud enough for two. It begged me to reach out of the void.

Insanity is brought by this recollection, but you need to know, the great beyond surpasses death but not as one would expect nor desire as everything has a price. One's rationality being up for grabs for sure. This was the case until a third option came.

Two voices, a man and a woman. Nigel and Samantha.

Death, delirium, or humanity.

I should've picked the first. I know I had a choice, as the scope of the void approached infinity, but I can't remember choosing. But I do remember the ability to decide.

When that point came, and finally did—something colossal dragged me out of the darkness. Death must have grown weary of its attempts on me. We shall not see each other for millennia to come. I'll be waiting.

Rising up from the depths of an ocean of black, towards a faintly lit body. I rocketed back exponentially, having chosen to live, unfortunately.

-----------

As for what came next, it started with my lungs. A burn that needed to be expelled. My diaphragm spasmed until the blaze traveled up and out of my throat. Then—fresh air. It felt like my first breath in fucking ages. Sensation. Vision. Smell. It all returned. Followed by a lot of coughing and stinging.

But the voices felt sweet.

"Liam, you're back," Samantha smiled down at me. "The elixir worked."

She and I were near the entrance of the cabin. The door was opened, and next to it was Nigel. His eye was swollen purple, and his green shirt was soaked in blood and sweat. Gentle gasps with dribbling blood alarmed Samantha and I. The smell of shit and iron led my eyes to the pond. Near us were the bodies of four cultists. Brit and Billy, dead. The third one I shot, dead. And the large one lying in the pool of water. Dead. A trail of excessive amounts of blood leading from the bodies to me raised questions.

"Take it slow, Liam, your body and mind are still healing."

"Is—he alright?" I asked with a sense of clarity blanketing me. The delirium was gone. Then, not now. It worsens now, my fellow friends. Like the condition of Nigel, then.

"No, he's chosen this fate. Just like you've chosen yours." She looked at her feet.

The short Aussie looked me in the eyes and smiled. He opened his jaw to speak, but vibrant red poured out instead. Oddly, his hulking whisper was nowhere in sight. He was just a bloody, dying man.

"Nigel—I'm so sorry," I scooted towards him, the pain in my side and arm had me fall over slamming my face on the wooden planks of the deck. Samantha helped me sit up against the wood frame, next to Nigel.

He coughed up more sticky crimson and turned to Samantha. "Le-," he coughed, pointing at her. "Le-" he coughed again, softer this time. "Le," Nigel wheezed one more time until he panted gently. His head slowly tilted down as a stream of blood dropped to the wood, eyes still opened. And then he was no more.

Nigel was gone.

I looked at Samantha. We stared at each other, and she looked back at the cabin entrance, the darkness within.

"We need to keep moving," she sighed.

"What's in there?" I asked.

"Answers," a new voice responded, but more clear than before. Raspy, but sweet. Concise, but dreadful. Samantha turned as if she could hear the sound too. It came from my side. I peered over to Bvoz-kik...

But it was something entirely new. Attached to my back was a monstrosity.

It was Nigel's Whisper—and my own—but—they were one.

And now, they were mine.