Chapter Text
After a while of wandering aimlessly through the village, ducking in and out of abandoned houses, Ethan and Eveline eventually came across a house with a lit fire outside. At this point, it was just wishful thinking, but Ethan still headed inside in the hopes of finding a survivor.
Like every other house they had been through, this house had a cluttered interior. Ethan carefully walked around broken bits of glass and ceramic on the ground; he’d rather avoid any unnecessary injuries, after all. Nearby was a knife jammed into the wood of an end table of sorts, and Ethan grabbed it. Just in case.
“You don’t even need that.” Eveline said, crossing her arms.
Ethan took a good look down at his very human hands that were threatening to burst into gnarled claws the moment he started to accept that this was real, then sighed in defeat.
“You’re right.” Instead of haphazardly tossing the knife through a window or something, which was probably what Eveline was expecting, he handed the weapon to her. “You need it more than I do.”
Eveline looked confused for a moment before her expression bled into one of frustration, dropping the knife onto the ground. “I don’t need this. I can fight by myself!”
Ethan sighed. “Evie, we’re in a dangerous place right now. I know you can defend yourself, but right now you don’t have your... er, powers.” He knelt down, handing the knife back to her. “You don’t have to use this, but I’d feel better knowing you had it on you.”
Eveline gave the weapon a distasteful look, but she didn’t toss it to the side. “You’re lame.” She replied lamely, and Ethan huffed.
“I wish I was.”
The next room was a kitchen that was in about as much disarray as everywhere else. A pot of still-hot soup sat on a nearby stovetop, and Ethan worried he’d have to steer Eveline away from it before she tugged on his jacket.
“Somebody’s here.” She whispered as he looked down to her, and immediately Ethan hopped onto the defensive, ushering the girl behind him (much to her chagrin). A cursory scan of the room revealed nowhere for a person to hide except for a drawn curtain at the other end, and Ethan slowly made his way toward the spot.
“Hello?”
Nothing replied, and he was ready to go on the offensive at a moment’s notice. Eveline seemed rather unconcerned with the situation, but she remained quiet as he pulled back the curtains--
“Don’t take another step.” An unknown man leveled the barrel of his shotgun at Ethan’s face. Cocking it, he continued. “Who sent you?”
Ethan was, understandably, more than a little startled, but he did his best to keep his stress checked out of fear of slipping right in front of the man.
“Nobody sent us, dummy.” Eveline snarked, and Ethan bit back a snarl as the man whipped his aim down to her.
Deep breaths, Ethan. Deep breaths.
“There was an accident down the road, we’ve been--”
Ethan was cut off when an inhuman shriek pierced the air outside the house, and the mystery man immediately lost all interest in threatening the Winterses. He stepped out of the shadows, panic evident in his features as he looked around wildly for the source of the sound. Even Eveline seemed uncomfortable now, looking out a window with certain disdain.
The man hobbled over to the window, peering outside for a few moments. Apparently, he saw something, because he began rushing back, his grip on his shotgun tightened.
“They’re coming!” His voice was hushed and airy, and Ethan didn’t have to guess what the man was talking about to know what he was saying.
“Do you have a gun?” The man suddenly asked, turning towards him and Evie, and Ethan nearly laughed at how the conversation had taken a drastic turn in such a short amount of time.
“No, I don’t.”
Banging began to sound from the roof, and the man rushed back behind the curtain he had emerged from. Eveline let out a low growl, and Ethan knew that the creature from before was getting closer with every second. It took everything in him to keep his teeth at a manageable length; any longer and he knew the man would notice, and Ethan preferred to not be full of lead at the moment.
The man re-emerged from the darkness, a pistol in hand, and Ethan took it, using the weight of it to keep his hands from morphing into claws.
“It’s all I can spare.” The man almost apologized, and Ethan huffed in disappointment. All he could spare, huh?
“Stay close, Evie.” He muttered to Eveline, ushering her to himself, and this time she didn’t protest. He checked the pistol’s clip to gauge how many shots he’d have, and decided that ten rounds would have to be enough for now. Holding it at the ready, he stayed alert of his surroundings as the man ran to the nearby table and began reloading his shotgun.
This brief moment of respite lasted for only a few moments; before he could blink, something burst through the ceiling and grabbed the old man, dragging him through the splintered wood. Ethan hardly registered that his human guise had fallen apart in that split second as he reached up to try and help the man, but he was gone before the Winters could do anything. His choked screams rang out for a brief moment before they were silenced; sanguine rivulets of blood dripped down from above, taunting Ethan’s growing hunger while also feeding his horror.
Suddenly, the flooring beneath Ethan burst, and a bloodied gray hand reached up from below to grab his foot. He roared, trying to rip away from the creature’s grip, but it held firm and dragged him below the ground.
It took a few seconds for Ethan to regain his bearings, surrounded by the aroma of death; eventually, he registered Eveline yelling for him from the top of the hole.
“I’m alive.” He called back up, and a few moments later she plopped down next to him, her fall cushioned by a-- a...
“A dead body?” Oh god, he was surrounded by them; no wonder the smell was so strong.
“No, Daddy, he’s alive.” Eveline sassed at him, kicking the body’s head, and Ethan resisted the urge to just scream right then and there.
“Now isn’t the time, Evie.”
She wisely quieted down after that, and the two of them pushed through the bodies. At this point, Ethan had given up on trying to keep any semblance of calm; if a normal person saw him romping around as a grotesque monster and decided to shoot him full of holes, so be it! He was just about at his wit’s end---he needed to find Rose and get the hell out of here.
“It’s too quiet.” Eveline whispered, probably trying to scare him. He was about to snap at her to knock it off, but a slight creaking caught his ear and he froze to listen.
Something lunged out of the dark at him, its fangs digging into his left hand, and Ethan snarled, snapping back at it. It was the same kind of creature that he had encountered earlier; gray skin, gray hair, long black claws and sharpened teeth. It growled as it bit down on his hand harder; Ethan could feel his bones (or whatever equivalent he had, anyway) begin to crack under the pressure, and in a last ditch effort to save his hand he yanked it out.
This did not, in fact, save his hand, and Ethan suddenly found himself two fingers short.
“FUCK!”
He made to grab the creature, half-determined to give it a taste of its own medicine, but it hurled him through the wall and back into the cold outside. Pink-black blood stained the snow as he tumbled out, though miraculously all his spikes managed to stay intact. Ethan was perfectly content to spend the rest of his life on the ground right there, but Eveline’s scream pierced the air and in a second he was back on his feet.
The creature was targeting Eveline, who now sported a gaping wound in her leg; she was doing the best she could to scurry away from it, but it was unhindered and light on its feet. Ethan barreled into the beast with a roar and cast them both deeper into the corpse-ridden house; the beast scrabbled at his chest, tearing gouges into his clothes and flesh, and he returned the favor, eventually slitting its throat with a clean swipe of his claws. As the beast lay dying on the floor, Ethan abandoned it in favor of rushing to Eveline’s side.
“Evie, Evie, are you okay?” He grabbed her shoulder, making sure to keep the gesture gentle.
Eveline nodded numbly as she mumbled her reply. “Hurts.”
He pushed down the urge to hunker down and guard her; they were both in bad shape, and Ethan’s personal experience with weird shit like this had taught him to always be on the move.
“I’m going to carry you, is that alright?”
She nodded again and he carefully lifted her to his back, letting her head rest against his shoulder.
“Hang on tight for me, okay?” All he got in response was her head burrowing into the crook of his neck, and with that he set off. It was uncomfortable to walk around like this; his left hand, though injured, was forced to keep Eveline steady on his back as his right was occupied with holding the gun. He was pretty sure that if shit went down and he had to run, he’d be forced to drop the gun and run on all fours, which wasn’t all that reassuring.
He searched through the area for anything that could possibly help them, luckily finding an herb and a bottle of chem fluid nearby. Setting Eveline and the gun down, he got to work mixing the herb into the liquid, pouring the resulting first aid meds onto Eveline’s leg. The gashes on her leg began to mend the moment the first aid made contact with them, and soon enough there was nothing left to signify that there had been an injury.
“Okay?” He asked breathily, trying to keep his voice down. Eveline rubbed her leg a bit before nodding, and he poured the rest of the medication onto his injured hand to staunch the bleeding.
“We need to get going. Think you can walk?”
Eveline snorted, standing up defiantly. “Of course I can.”
Ethan would have cracked a smile at that, but all he could do was crinkle his eyes upwards a little. “Alright then, let’s go.”
There was a locked gate outside, but instead of trying to find something to break the locks like normal people, they both ended up jumping over it (Eveline had some help from Ethan, of course). On the other side was a home with a lit lamp, and the two quickly ducked inside.
A strange noise was permeating the interior, though when they entered it was quick to cease; Ethan identified the source as an old radio. He snagged a packet of ammo for his pistol just as Eveline snarled, and when he turned around a cascade of blood dripped down from the ceiling.
Not good, nope.
“Stay close, Evie, and don’t forget your knife.” He gently reminded her, padding over to the stairs cautiously. A floorboard snapped under his weight as they ascended, giving Ethan quite the scare, though thankfully Eveline knew that now wasn’t the time to laugh at him.
The second floor was void of anything that the blood could have come from; all that was there was a massive bloodstain and a bottle of chem fluid. He grabbed the dubious bottle and moved for a box of ammo on a nearby shelf. As he was reaching out, however, one of the creatures smashed through the glass of the boarded-up window behind, scrabbling at the planks in an attempt to snag Ethan in its grasp. Backing up with a snarl of his own, he watched as the beast fled upwards; the sound of pattering feet on the rooftop was the only warning the duo got before the ceiling behind them crumbled.
“Shit.” Ethan cursed, heading back downstairs only to find more of the animal-like men clawing at the windows and doors outside. Throughout the entire ordeal, Eveline was uncharacteristically silent, watching the beasts with a distasteful look.
“Shit, shit, shit...”
The door suddenly burst open, releasing a torrent of bloody-mawed monsters into the building. Ethan reeled in the urge to charge at them, instead opting to shoot them as they came in; any that got too close were met with a bloody end, courtesy of his claws.
Eventually, the snarling outside faded, and all he could hear were the sound of his own breathing and the angry screaming of Eveline.
Wait.
Ethan practically gave himself whiplash as he spun around, terrified to see Eveline fighting with one of those creatures again. Instead, what he saw was an almost amusing, one-sided beatdown as Eveline kept stabbing it in the throat.
“Evie?”
She immediately stopped, looking up at him with a grinning, bloodied face.
“Did I do good, Daddy?” She asked, clearly happy with what she had done to the poor thing. Ethan grimaced, inhaling sharply as he responded.
“Uh, yeah. Let’s just... get going before they come back.”
She practically skipped back to his side, and Ethan had to repress the urge to scold her for her violent dispatching of the monster---that conversation could be had at another time, preferably when they were safe with Rose.
“Hello?” The nearby radio suddenly crackled to life, startling him out of his thoughts. “If there are any survivors out there, come to my--” The woman on the radio paused, as if to correct a statement. “...to Luiza’s house near the fields.”
Soon afterwards, the radio fell silent, and Ethan stood there, shocked.
More survivors?
“We should head there.” Ethan huffed to Eveline, who cackled.
“And then they’ll all run away, and we could chase them--”
“We’re not going to scare them away, Evie.”
She pouted, then stuck her tongue out at him. The action was so unexpected that Ethan let out a sudden snort before shaking his head.
“Let’s go.”
The next house the duo headed into had the creatures perched on the roof. Though Ethan had been hesitant, he was eventually forced to go inside, where he found himself a nice little shotgun and another raid from the things. Unlike last time, the beasts didn’t seem to want to give up, and Ethan ended up barrelling through the crowd to get out of the house after it was set on fire.
“SHIT!” He cursed the moment he saw everything waiting outside for them. Not only were there dozens of the monsters around, but now there was a larger one, too. As soon as it saw him and Eveline, it roared in challenge and began to lumber towards them. Ethan heard Eveline practically hiss beside him and, thinking quickly, scooped her up and began to run. He might be able to take a bit of a beating, but he also didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that hammer.
Luckily, both of his newly-acquired guns had been holstered before they had moved out, so Ethan wasn’t forced to abandon any of his weapons. He was chased deeper into the village as he went, following the small stream that ran through. His path was cut off at the end, however, and when he prepared to jump he was suddenly shot in the knee by an arrow. Eveline fell out of his arms with a yelp as he stumbled, catching himself on his arms and spinning around on all fours with a feral snarl.
The creatures chasing him seemed to hesitate for a brief moment; they probably weren’t expecting him to keep fighting. Despite this apparent show of fear, they continued forwards, and Ethan was forced to back up as he hovered protectively over Eveline.
“Stay away!” His words were laced with a vicious growl, but more of the creatures arrived on horseback, and he knew he was pretty much shit out of luck.
One of the things had the gall to snarl right at his face, and out of pure desperation he snapped at it with his jaws. It pulled away before he could sink his teeth into its flesh, which partially relieved him; he really didn’t want a mouth full of monster meat right now, anyway.
A sudden roar boomed through the air, making Ethan and Eveline look upwards. On the roof of a dilapidated house emerged the hulking silhouette of the larger creature, and it raised its hammer, readying itself for the final blow.
Before it could hop down, however, the distant ringing of a bell sounded, and all the monsters immediately looked over to the source. Ethan himself couldn’t see anything, but apparently the creatures could; as if some order had been issued to all of them, they all began to flow out of the area, leaving Ethan and Eveline in the snow alone.
The two of them remained there for a little while, shocked, but eventually Eveline crawled out from beneath Ethan’s defensive crouch to pat the snow off of her body. He finally let himself relax after that, shifting his stance around until he was sitting down. Then, with a little bit of bracing, he ripped the arrow free from his leg, spattering his blood across the pure-white snow.
The sudden sound of jingling startled Ethan from his pain-induced haze, and Eveline whipped around to face the source with a snarl drawn across her face. Ethan looked soon after, suddenly hyper aware of his inhuman form.
“Huh??” Between two nearby houses stood an old woman garbed in all black. She clutched a staff adorned with antlers, and as soon as the two made eye contact she turned from him and began to hobble away.
“Wait!” Ethan reached out, but the elderly woman paid him no mind, disappearing behind the buildings.
“She’s bad.” Eveline growled as Ethan struggled to his feet. “I don’t like her.”
Ethan didn’t take Eveline’s words to heart; she didn’t really like anybody, and the old lady was obviously human in contrast to the monsters they had just encountered. He didn’t entertain Eveline with an answer, instead taking the time to channel his relief that the monsters were gone into going back into a more human form before limping through the gates.
The woman was ominously muttering to herself when Ethan caught up to her, and he could make out what she was saying
“In life and in death, we give glory...” She didn’t turn to look at him as she spoke, carving something into the dirt road. Ethan, though a little bit freaked out by this, was ultimately more concerned that this woman was still out, and hesitantly reached for her shoulder.
“Uh, hello? You shouldn’t be out here, it’s not safe.” Then Ethan caught sight of the human skulls on her staff, and immediately he took a few steps back. “What the hell??”
Eveline, sensing Ethan’s hesitation, immediately jumped on the opportunity to yell at the woman.
“Go away, ugly!” She snarled, but all the little girl received in return was a rasping laugh.
“You’re here.” The hag croaked, looking up at them with big, blind eyes. “The child’s father and the false daughter.”
Ethan perked up, curiosity piqued. “Child? You mean Rose?”
“I’m not fake!” Eveline snarled at the same time, spittle practically flying out of her mouth.
The woman laughed madly at both of their reactions. “False child, yes!” Ethan had to physically restrain Eveline at this point to stop her from stabbing the old lady to death, though he admitted that he didn’t appreciate the hag’s words much, either.
“And Rose, Rose!” Her maddened expression slipped away into something more grave. “She is in great danger.”
Ethan’s grasp on Eveline tightened to something borderline painful (though the little girl didn’t so much as whimper in pain), his heart dropping to his feet.
“What?”
His words were hardly a whisper, and the old lady solemnly continued.
“Yes, since Mother Miranda brought her to the village, we have fallen into darkness!” The distant sounds of the church bell rang once more, prompting the Winterses to look up at the distance.
“The castle bell heralds danger. They’re coming!” The old lady cackled, walking away as Ethan beheld the colossal castle once more, its dreaded spires easily surpassing the trees and lowly cottages that attempted to obscure the looming structure. He managed to snap out of his stupor when Eveline bit his uninjured hand, forcing him to let go of her with a yelp. The moment she was free, Eveline made a beeline to the woman only to get a gate shut in her face.
“Stupid bitch!” Eveline snarled, kicking the metal gates as the woman’s laughter faded.
“Language.” Ethan automatically warned, dragging the little girl away from the gate kicking and screaming. “We need to find Rose.”
Eveline muttered something under her breath, no doubt about his own hypocrisy, but Ethan couldn’t care less at the moment.
He needed to find Rose.
There was a church further in the village, and going inside revealed a small map with two buildings circled.
“‘Should disaster fall upon the village, seek out the crests. One is in the care of the church. The other is at Luiza’s house.’” Ethan read aloud for the both of them. “There’s that ‘Luiza’ again.”
“Are we gonna scare them?” Eveline asked with all the innocence a murderous child like her could conjure.
“No.” Ethan shot down Eveline’s insistence immediately, earning a pout from the girl. “But we should definitely check in with any survivors. If that old lady knew about Rose, maybe the others can tell us more.” He set down the paper, guiding Eveline with him as he moved towards a door at the back of the room.
“Then we can scare them.”
“We aren’t scaring them, Evie.”
The fields to Luiza’s house were comparatively small to the ones Ethan had seen in America; despite this, however, they were made infinitely more terrifying by the creatures lurking within the dead grass. Ethan managed to keep his cool enough to not immediately revert into a monstrous beast as he shot them down, though at this point he was obviously not human.
Placing his three-fingered hand onto the gate at the other end, he attempted to open the hefty metal doors. Unfortunately, they refused to budge, even when Eveline joined in, and the two were forced to admit defeat.
“Shi-- shoot.” Ethan quickly corrected himself before Eveline could call him out on his swearing, nearly cutting his tongue on his way-too-long teeth. Before he could continue, he heard a hushed whisper from his right.
“Papa, there’s someone--!”
Eveline laughed as Ethan flailed, trying to hide his face while also looking in the direction the voice had come from. Luckily, he couldn’t see anybody outside, and he relaxed a little while letting his hands fall from his face.
“You were so scared!” Eveline giggled at him, and he rolled his eyes.
“I’ll be sure to let the monsters get you next time.” He held up his half-clawed hands and bared his teeth teasingly, making fake monster noises to accompany his little display. Eveline laughed even harder, and Ethan focused on her levity to calm down. Once he was certain that everything was as close to human as possible, he nodded to the door.
“Alright, Evie, let’s go.”
Eveline followed him to the door, carefree and yet still cautious. Creaking it open slightly, he was met with the stench of blood and the sight of a disheveled young woman beckoning him over.
“Close the door! Please!” She whispered urgently, and Ethan obediently closed the door. He was about to ask the woman why she was out here, but Eveline beat him to the punch.
“What are you doing here? Hiding from the monsters?”
The woman grimaced, but instead of saying anything she stepped aside to reveal an older man sprawled on the floor, blood caking his face.
“Stay back!” The man---likely the woman’s father, if the earlier comment was to be believed---hissed, clutching his gut with one hand whilst pointing a machete at the Winterses with the other. Eveline giddily laughed at the man’s display of terror, clearly unsettling the two.
“Please, don’t hurt us!” The woman pleaded, hand outstretched in an attempt to keep the two back should they prove to be unfriendly.
“No promises.” Eveline smiled sinisterly, and the way the strangers tensed at her words immediately made Ethan fly into a panic.
“It’s okay, we won’t hurt you.” Ethan tried to placate them, making sure to keep an eye on Eveline as he spoke. “We’re just-- it’s good to see normal people here for once.” He let out a nervous chuckle, hoping to lighten the tension in the room. “Do you know how to get to Luiza’s house?”
The woman’s panic obviously spiked, her eyes widening. “How do you know her?”
“We--” Ethan tried to backtrack, but Eveline interrupted him.
“You don’t need to know.” She sniggered at the woman’s panicked expression, and Ethan quickly inserted himself between them in an attempt to keep things from escalating further.
“Eveline, stop it.” He warned, turning back to the woman. “I’m sorry about her---we heard Luiza on a radio nearby, and we figured she could help us.”
The woman regarded him cautiously, as if he would suddenly attack them, and Ethan nearly checked himself to see if he had partially reverted during the conversation. An abrupt, vicious cry in the distance made all four of them freeze, and when it died down into silence once more the woman seemed even more panicked.
“We’re sitting ducks in here, we have to get to her house. Can he walk?” Ethan made sure to keep a chokehold on his fear, doing his best not to let it seep through his skin, his teeth, his eyes.
“No! The lycans cut him, he’s lost a lot of blood!” The woman shook her head, voice rising with her fear, and the old man on the ground managed to hack out a weak shush.
“They’ll hear you.” Her father’s words seemed to make the woman more aware of her own actions, and when she continued she was quieter.
“The gate to Luiza’s place is locked, and nobody will answer.”
“Then we’ll find a way in.” Ethan said. “My daughter and I will head out and check for a way in---you two should stay in here, keep quiet until we get back.” He moved for the door, Eveline behind him, but the woman stopped him.
“Are you sure you want to take your daughter out there?” She said, and though she seemed wary she was obviously worried for their safety. “She could stay in here with us, in case...” She trailed off, but they all knew what she was trying to say. Ethan looked down to Eveline, who vehemently shook her head.
“I know.” He met the woman’s gaze once more. “She can defend herself...” That was already proven in the second house, when she brutally stabbed one of those things---lycans?---to death. “...so I think she’ll come with me.”
The young woman didn’t seem to agree with him but she relented nonetheless. She gave them a curt nod, and he took that as their signal to head out.