Arthur ran through the streets, dragging his aching legs forth, breathing in the air tainted with the smell of rubble, burning flesh, and blood. It pained him to look at the pyres where bodies laid lifeless, charring unto ash.
'Damn it!' he yelled inwardly, gritting his teeth as he dreaded the thought of meeting a similar fate, approaching a house still intact, directly across the demesne. 'I'm not gonna die tonight, even if I have to fight another one of those damn monsters! I've been working to hard to stay alive, I'm not dying now!'
He knocked on the rough, wooden door, to which he was met with a scratchy, male voice saying:
"Oh? Outside on the dawn of the scourge, are we? Well you're bound to find no help 'round 'ere."
"Please, sir, this is Arthur, the page who worked for Sir Bertrand! Please help me!"
"Oh? Arthur? Well it don't matter who, ya know? Once the Black Sun arrives, no one knows each other."
"Please, sir!" Arthur begged with his quivering voice once more, on the verge of tears, but the man would not reply, not even upon the knock of his door. 'How could you do that?'
He gave up and ran to the next house that was still decently intact, trekking large debris along the way, before knocking on the wooden door.
"Who at this hour could be knocking on my door?" a muffled feminine voice responded. "Art thou a pilgrim?"
"I am no pilgrim. I am Arthur, the page. The one who worked for Sir Bertrand. Please, you must help me! I've been forsaken by—"
"If you're not a pilgrim, then I have no reason to keep speaking with you on the day of Totalis. The Black Sun may have brought some friends for you, though. Trot along now."
"Why won't you people help me?" he yelled, met with a blaring silence, along with his echo.
Again he travelled to another house, asking if he could be let in, only to be met with the same response. Again he tried and again he failed. No matter who he asked, people would either pretend that they didn't know him or they would simply ignore his call for help.
"A visitor on a day like this?" a woman replied to Arthur's knocks. "Well, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that you won't find any… services today. You'll just have to deal with yourself."
"Missis Wright, please could you let me in?" Arthur asked in a monotonous voice, sitting on the stairs with his back turned to the door, almost ready to give up, despite being so determined earlier. He watched what little was left of the day turn into night, as stars revealed themselves, watching the young man's misfortune. "Everyone else refuses to help me."
"Oh, Arthur? You came by earlier, didn't you?"
"Yes, madame. I did."
"Oh what a shame! You've been left outside by the bastard noble?"
"Yes, can you please help me?"
He waited for a response. He waited long, letting his heart beat fill the silence, but was met with nothing. Confused, he looked back at the door to find that nothing had changed. Even the people who he helped were willing to abandon him without any second thoughts. He shed a singular tear and ran off.
'How could they all leave me like this?' he wondered, running down the street for the third time today. 'Haven't I done everything I could to help these people?'
Emma's offer rose to the tip of his mind, replaying the memory of her delicate hand, covered in a pristine glove, reaching out for him, only for him to decline. He truly regretted it. He could've been with a rich and beautiful woman, but he just had to be awkward and decline.
'The only person who cared is now gone... I hope I can find Mister Ulger down this path.'
His mind raced with any idea for safety just as quickly as he travelled through the corpse piled streets, reeking of blood. He stopped only to knock on some doors and test his luck.
But of course, fate would not have it so kind and easy for Arthur, as everyone would end up refusing to let him in—whether it be by the silent treatment or being outright told off.
And unfortunately, there would be no sight of Ulger, who Arthur could only fear the worst had befallen upon. But after seeing how many people were quick to turn their backs on him, he wondered if Ulger even really cared.
Were his words genuine back then?
'No, stop thinking like that,' Arthur told himself, ashamed that he would see Ulger in that way... but he couldn't exactly do so for the others. 'They don't deserve my help.'
Soon, he found himself back at the now destroyed great bridge, watching as the creature he fought earlier still remained in place as he thought:
'Even after all this time it's staying like that?'
Arthur studied the creature from its hideously deformed and murky green feet that looked as though they were rotting, all the way up to its head—releasing a pungent and thick mucus from the mouth, taking on a strange mixture of pink and dark green.
He turned his gaze to Wendell's door and quickly approached it as the loud screeches of monsters off in the distance blared through the streets, like a loud horn signalling war.
Arthur pulled the handle, but to no avail. His adrenaline pumped harder as the grating screeches of monsters. They were like nails dragging against a chalkboard, layered in a chorus of a million voices of all octaves, while some yelled like a violin playing conflicting notes on high octaves. He pulled the handle as hard as he could again, only to be met with failure.
'I'm really going to die out here,' he thought, slamming the rough wooden door with his fist, clenching his jaws as tears stained his face. His sniffles interrupted the cacophony of screeches marking death's arrival.
"There's nothing I can do."
"Oi!" an elderly voice called out.
Arthur wiped his eyes and frantically looked around, unable to locate the source of the voice. Again, the voice called out to him, and he looked past the frozen eldritch creature to find an elderly woman peering through a cracked window.
"Come 'ere!" the crone said, gesturing with her hands. "I'll help ya, young'un."
Arthur stared at the crone, with eyes struggling to not fall out of their sockets and a loose jaw, enthralled by the words, but also speculative of whether the old woman was messing around with him or not.
His trance and speculations didn't last long, however, for the low rumble of footsteps—accommodated by none other than the screeches he was hearing in the distance—forced him to run over to the house.
As soon as he entered, the crone shut the door and ushered him to the back of the dark room. Thin streams of light poured through the small gaps of the drapes, but even so the dim light offered no sight in the darkness.
The low rumble of footsteps soon turned into loud stomps that sent subtle earthquakes throughout the land, while loud sniffs made the hair on Arthur's arms stand.
"Follow me," the crone whispered, tightly gripping Arthur's shirt, dragging him to a set of a 'U' shaped stairwell that led underground. "The further we head down, the safer we are."
"Why are you helping me?" asked Arthur, confused as to what reason she had when no one else would help, wondering if the old woman harboured some ulterior motives. "Everyone else kept ignoring me or telling me they wouldn't help."
"I saw ya kill the big'un," she replied, carefully treading down the stairs as she tightly held onto both a wooden railing and Arthur's shirt. "Brilliant work ya did, and you're not even a pilgrim! Now imagine had ye been trained! I'm sure ye'd be an incredible venator, eh?"