Streamer in the Omniverse

Interlude (10): [Title at the end.] (2)

The Remnant Arc (RWBY) concludes in the next chapter, in (P)(A)(T).

[WARNING! THE TEXT BELOW MAY CAUSE DISCOMFORT FOR SOME READERS DUE TO GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS!]

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The storm's roar swallowed everything for a moment. Then came the cold, almost cutting wind, followed by the nauseating stench that filled both their nostrils. Rotten flesh, Simon instinctively knew. It was the same smell as that eye...

Simon looked around. He could barely see a few meters ahead, but for now, it was enough. There were no enemies in sight. The old angler signaled to the left and began walking, with Charles following closely.

Simon’s house was in the northwest part of the village, a bit removed from the sea, but not too far. He had chosen this location to be able to take morning walks, an exercise that helped stretch his muscles. Located on the outskirts of the village, it was surrounded by only a few small houses—just three or four.

Before they could advance a few more meters, their feet cautiously touching the white wooden road covered with wet sand and something red, something aggressively leaped from behind one of the nearest houses. Simon's left ear started to tremble violently, and he attacked without hesitation, reacting with equal ferocity, without even trying to identify the enemy.

He pulled Charles back and wielded his fishing rod like a spear. The first strike pierced whatever it was. Only then did Simon stop to see: a man... or at least, what should have been a man, with his chest impaled by the rod’s tip.

The creature’s skin was a dark, sickly green, rotting and stinking worse than dozens of fish left in the sun for days. It snarled, trying to attack with its claws—not nails, but yellowed, opaque claws, as if made of pus. The growls coming from its mouth were bestial, as was the hungry expression on its face.

Two things caught Simon’s attention. First: the man—or rather, the thing that had once been a man—had no eyes. His eye sockets were empty, leaking an abnormally dark and thick blood. It looked as though his eyes had been torn out from the inside.

The second thing was even worse: Simon recognized the man, even in his bestial and decayed state. He was the fishmonger’s assistant, a young adult Simon used to tease, always joking about the young man’s infatuation with the fishmonger’s daughter.

For a brief moment, sadness overtook Simon, but he quickly drowned out those feelings and moved again. Twisting the fishing rod inside the creature’s chest, he felt the resistance as the being continued to try reaching him with trembling claws. Simon pulled the rod hard, making the brown, rotting blood spurt from the open wound before striking again.

With a quick flick of his wrist, he made the line of the fishing rod loosen, and in a fluid motion, wrapped it around the neck of what had once been the assistant. Channeling his mana into the thread, he saw it glow with a subtle green hue as he struck sideways, tightening the line around the creature's neck.

The fishmonger’s assistant’s neck was easily sliced, his head separating from his body and flying away as the fishing rod struck it. The body fell lifeless into the sand, soaked with a red, bloody liquid. So much blood...

Tears! It’s not blood, just tears! Simon mentally screamed once more, repeating the words identically, like a desperate prayer...

“Is he...?” Simon heard Charles’s murmured question. It was faint.

“Dead. Something happened to him, I don’t know what, but don’t let anything like that touch you,” Simon replied, shouting against the wind. Something told him that getting injured by those things wouldn’t end well. “Don’t hesitate to attack as well. They’re no longer people... they’re monsters.”

Without waiting for a response, Simon pulled Charles toward the north side of the village, away from the rest of the houses. Something terrible had happened while they were asleep, and as heavy as his heart was, he would not be the hero risking his life to find out what it was or to save anyone.

He was too old for that. Saving Charles and himself was more than enough.

They moved quickly through the storm, with Simon leading the way. The fishing rod in his right hand, while his restless eyes scanned the surroundings for anything resembling that ‘non-assistant’ or the eye from before. Charles followed close behind, clutching the bluish dagger with trembling hands, both from the cold and the fear.

Simon stopped abruptly upon spotting yet another one of those creatures with dark green skin and a putrid odor emerging from behind one of the houses. He recognized who the thing had once been, just as he had recognized the assistant before. It was a woman—the wife of one of the dock vendors. Simon had bought some bait from him a few days ago.

The moment the creature noticed him, it charged toward him, which shouldn’t have been possible since it had no eyes. Yet, its head turned violently in their direction, as if it could sense them. Right behind her, another monster appeared, this time a man—her husband.

Simon reacted swiftly. Channeling his mana into the fishing rod, he made a cut close to the ground, then a precise thrust higher up. The line severed the woman’s legs, and the thrust pierced her head, the fragile, decayed skull yielding easily.

Simon twisted his arm to the side before raising it and delivering a downward blow with the fishing rod. The line followed the motion, wrapping around and lifting the woman’s body into the air as Simon grunted with effort. The body collided violently with the ground, hitting the second creature running toward him—the husband.

The old angler spun the fishing rod one last time, pulling it out. The woman lay still, but the man still moved until he was finished off with a quick stab at the base of his neck. He fell, lifeless. Simon turned the reel, pulling the line back, and resumed moving without saying a word, with Charles following him, mumbling something that was lost in the rain before Simon could hear.

“That damned crying noise won’t stop...”

The following minutes were a cruel repetition. More and more creatures emerged. Even walking through a more remote part of the village, those things seemed to sniff them out, and Simon recognized each one of them—residents of Blue Harbor, people he knew. The fishmonger and his young daughter, the fishermen he drank with, the restaurant owner... The children from the orphanage he visited every other day...

With a heavy heart, he killed them all, as his thoughts sank deeper into sorrow. The relentless rain and the putrid smell it seemed to carry didn’t help; it was as if he were wading through a sea of blood, surrounded by dead and decomposing bodies.

He was almost sure he saw Charles crying behind his glasses. The boy trembled like a thin twig and barely lifted his gaze from the sand, on the brink of collapse. Simon was not far from that state himself. His thoughts were erratic, there was a bitter taste in his mouth, but the worst was the exhaustion. His body, though fit, was no longer that of his youth.

He wanted to collapse and stay like that, motionless, until he woke from this damned nightmare... This red storm...

Look at the moon, it will end, just sleep, child of the sea...

Simon shook his head desperately, drowning out these thoughts in the same blood falling from the sky. Not now, stop this nonsense, Simon! he mentally growled. He was not alone there and needed to stay alert, if not for himself, then for Charles.

He still hadn’t seen another eye like that, which worried him deeply. His right ear was trembling so much it was starting to hurt, with no sign of stopping...

The worst happened when one of those things emerged from the forest, far from the village. He only noticed by sheer luck when a lightning bolt briefly illuminated the scene, staining everything with a blood-red color. Simon didn’t recognize the creature’s face, which was both horrible and a relief.

Relief, because he didn’t know if he could bear killing someone else he knew. Horrible, because he knew everyone in Blue Harbor, at least by sight. The fact that he didn’t recognize that thing could only mean one thing...

“Run to the beach! Now! Stay close to the sea!” Simon growled, keeping his voice low for Charles. He still didn’t know if those creatures could hear and didn’t want to risk it.

... That this was not just happening in Blue Harbor.

Charles didn’t even ask why; he just ran in panic toward the direction Simon had indicated. The old angler followed him, panting and exhausted. His arms and legs shaking from the effort of previous battles.

If it weren’t for his years of fishing, Simon felt his arms would have given out and fallen from his shoulders by now.

He grunted as he forced his body to keep going, until he suddenly stopped, nearly colliding with Charles, who had frozen in place. Simon understood why as soon as he followed the boy’s gaze toward the forest, where dozens—perhaps even hundreds—of those creatures were emerging.

But what made Simon’s panic reach its peak was not the creatures. It was the Terrarians among them. Hooded figures, wearing long red cloaks dragging on the ground, completely concealing their bodies.

“That’s what I feared...” Simon murmured, disgust and revulsion in his voice, before spitting out the leaves he had been chewing onto the ground. “This isn’t a disease... at least, not a natural one. Someone... completely deranged created this thing.”

Simon threw three more reddish leaves into his mouth, staring at the hooded figures from a distance. One of them, who seemed to be the leader, kept his arm raised, pointing directly at where they were. One by one, the other hooded figures also turned in their direction as lightning illuminated the scene, almost as if they wanted the two of them to see everything clearly.

Charles took a trembling step backward, almost falling on his rear in the wet sand. Simon grabbed him by the shoulder, steadying him. The boy seemed on the verge of collapsing. Simon didn’t blame him; it would be a good way to escape from this red night.

The thought made him stop. He raised his hand to his head and touched strands of wet, sticky, tangled hair stained with blood. He looked around desperately. — Where is the boy’s hat?... He can’t lose it, it’s important!

Everything around him was red, the purest crimson. From the sand beneath his feet to the houses and the port in the distance. Everything was blood-red... Everything was strangely visible, bright, as if it were day.

A movement in the distance made Simon turn his head, which made his neck ache — everything hurt. The green-skinned monsters had started to move, trembling in silence, as if they could barely wait to tear him apart right there.

The hooded figures, one by one, also began to move. Not in his direction, nor in any specific direction, but staying in the same place. Each one swayed back and forth, like the pendulum of an old, fancy wall clock.

The movement made Simon’s already throbbing head ache even more. His eyes seemed too large for their sockets, and his blood too fierce for such an old and tired body... He couldn’t hold it back and vomited...

Simon wanted to sleep, but knew the pain wouldn’t leave. Nor the fear, the terror, or the blood... The sound of tears falling from the sky was cruel...

In a disordered manner, without coordination, the hooded figures swayed back and forth. Some faster, some slower, but all had one thing in common: their arms outstretched, almost in prayer.

They didn’t sing, they didn’t pray, but it seemed like they did. Their movement slowly began to synchronize, everyone moving as one being, following the same rhythm. Simon could somehow feel the joy that seemed to emanate from their bodies, an euphoria that filled the air.

With each sway, the air felt heavier, laden with a foul and malevolent presence, something cruel and nauseating. Simon tried to move, despite the fear and terror he felt, a last instinct, his body moving on its own in an attempt to stop whatever the hooded figures were doing.

A final and fragile attempt at survival... A thin and fragile thread of light that lasted only a short while before being swallowed by a cruel and dark storm of blood.

On his first step, Simon’s legs gave out. His feet sank partially into the wet sand, almost as if it were trying to consume him. The blood seemed to stick to his body, viscous like sap. He would have fallen face-first into the sand if not for his reflex to use the fishing rod as an improvised crutch, holding him up on his knees.

Simon looked with trembling, swollen eyes from crying, red and fearful, at the scene before him.

One by one, each of those green-skinned monsters extended their arms forward and cupped their hands together, which quickly filled with the blood falling from the sky. As their hands began to overflow, the warm, thick liquid spilled through their fingers and down the sides of their wrists, and they brought their hands to their heads.

All at once, they began to pour the blood they had collected into their empty eye sockets, only stopping when the blood started to flow from the corners of their eyes like red, distorted tears.

It was like a macabre painting, and in a completely twisted way, beautiful in a sickening manner. Painted in blood, with blood, on a canvas already drenched in blood.

Then, as one, they moved again, extending their hands forward in a similar but different gesture. All of them intertwined their fingers in a strangely gentle way for monsters Simon had seen act so beastly.

At the same time, once more, they brought their hands to their faces, covering their blood-dripping eye sockets as if they were blindfolds. They trembled, Simon realized with the little sanity he had left, not in haste to tear him apart, but in fear.

... Those things were as terrified as Simon himself.

Then they fell to their knees, their bodies bending into a frightened position, almost as if begging for mercy. They pressed their faces to the ground, their bodies completely folded like servants. None lifted their heads, none moved, except for the slight and terrified tremors in their bodies...

They did not dare.

At the same time, the hooded figures stopped their slow swaying, standing straight like arrows, motionless as statues. As one being, they brought their hands to the hoods covering their heads, gently removing them, slowly and methodically, as if fearing to hurt themselves for some reason...

Simon began to cry at the sight that followed, his face trembling and twisted into an expression of sadness and terror, the face of an old man who was sure he wasn’t dreaming, so only one option remained...

... He was in hell.

Underneath the hoods of the hooded figures, their faces were no longer faces. Gigantic and nauseating eyes covered their entire faces. Some, the smaller ones, were the size of apples, distorting bones and skin, noses and mouths, like growing fungi, cross-eyed and crooked.

Others were large enough to begin touching and merging. Two eyes became one, two pupils fused into one, exuding a dizzying happiness. They were all joyful. They were all in celebration.

Finally, the leader, or what seemed to be the leader, the figure at the front. There was nothing above their neck; their entire head had disappeared completely. It was impossible to tell, from the face, whether that Terrarian had been a man or a woman... If they had been anything at all...

Only a single massive eyeball existed there, pulsating joyfully. Its red pupil somehow seemed almost to curve upward in a gentle and ecstatic smile...

They brought their hands together in front of their chests, the left covered by the right, as if representing a single being, a single eye, in a gesture of prayer. All fell to their knees and turned what was above their necks upward... Then, they prayed.

There was no sound, no words, nothing. But to any observer, anyone who was there to witness this macabre, sickening, distorted, and repugnant scene, it would be clear that they were praying with fervor...

... And Simon did the same.

The old man turned, dragging his body and arms slowly, until he faced the sea. The waters were no longer blue; the blood had taken over everything... Everything and everyone... As was his right.

The rain continued to fall, while the tens of thousands of eyes above, in the clouds, wept with joy, as one. The dark clouds covered almost everything above... Except for a single gap, where the full and bright moon was visible... Completely red.

Simon smiled, a relieved and joyful smile, finally understanding why his right ear had stopped twitching. There was no danger. There never had been... There never had been...

He just needed to step outside and take a long, soothing bath in the red moonlight...

The old man bowed, his hands joined in the same gesture as the hooded figures. He did not speak, for words were unnecessary. Just his gaze was enough, his eyes... which now floated beside his head, swaying rhythmically, like two pendulums, which one day, with blessing, might become one.

The blood moon shone... A tear of blood, streaming down as a sign of joy for all those who were there with it, slowly descending, as if it were the immense eye of the sky...

'Drip...'

Then, a second and final tear, a gentle farewell, meant for all who, unfortunately, could not witness its grace...

'Drop...'

And then, everything fell silent... Everyone continued praying...

...

...

...

[Simon, The Angler was slain...]