Ichor And Steel

Chapter One; His Lord's Snare

ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ-ꜱʜᴀᴘᴇᴅ ʙᴏx, ɴɪʀᴠᴀɴᴀ

Where the fuck am I?

Again, in this place—this shitty, wretched snow-scape of hell!

He woke and then he was running, leading a hotfooted chase against the pursuers. You know, the usual misfits. Ethan Winters understood them; he unfortunately felt all too familiar with them. The vivid tones and accents etched themselves in the tunnels of his ears and their strong bodies scarred the surface of his eyes. The Lady's scent stained his nose and the Lord's grasp on his arm left red hot finger dents in his flesh.

That was so long ago...but how long?

Ethan's mind had dissolved and felt like liquid, sloshing inside his skull. It made him spin and crash into dead-ends, collapse fences and their small splinters impaled his skin. It was as though his body was waking but from a night's rough sleep, his limbs still slowly uncurling and bones cracking uncomfortably. His jaw felt too tight to unhinge and yawn but somehow, screams were allowed out. Ethan wailed and flailed, seemingly heading a pointless attempt of escape.

Remember, you killed them once, you can do it again! Rememberyoukilledthemonceyoucandoitagain!

"I can do it again," he breathed, hands gripping his knees. In the light of dusk, his frosty breath performed wispy dances. "Icandoit. Icandoit."

An intrusive agony dug between his ribs and prod at his heart, and a skittling tremble ran his thighs and knees, quivering in the cold and aftermath of his wakening. Spasms pulsed at his temples, Ethan fighting through the barriers of grogginess to just grasp a weak understanding of how he came to be here.

Daughter...daughter, your daughter...dead? Man, umbrella, daughterdaughter not here—

He forgot about the hunters stepping on his heels, startled when the fence he slumped against erupted and a thick coat barrelled along the ground. Ethan gasped, quick on his feet and vaulted into a hut, long abandoned with scattered plates and strong mists of dusts. He inhaled the dense cloud and gagged, spluttering, and waving his arms. His hand found a sill and the other a table, hauling himself up.

Think, Ethan. Think. How did you get here?

"I woke up," he wheezed, hitting his chest, and kicking open a backdoor. He escaped through an alley, hearing whoever was close shout. "I woke up. FUCK, is that all?!"

The connections linking, desperately gripping on to sanity snapped and tears sprung free. Like snowflakes grazing his cheeks, the tears fell slowly and touched him coldly. The clustering of the village residentials got tighter and smaller, shoulders to the walls, chest dragging through the smaller crevices. Snagged and snatched, grabbed and hooked, things from the ground came and rose with gargles and shrieks. Ethan's jacket became a hazard and he almost wriggled it free, revealing a small pistol in his holster, pressed hard against his hip. He drew it when his body yanked towards the ground with a thump!

"Got you!" they cawed with arrogance and delight.

Face down with a mouthful of dirt, Ethan heard their smirk, sharp at the corners with a slight bearing of canine teeth. In their lustrous tone, like the texture of velvet and sand—impossibly so—they declared Ethan's fate. Ethan screamed against the ground, his hot breath flushing up into his eyes and the ice stinging all the smaller scratches on his face. Fear propelled him, without failure, into a wild pinwheel away from the crashing of a hammer; he could hear the weight and bone crushing damage he would have sustained had he been unmoving for a second longer.

Curiosity made Ethan turn, pivoting and glimpsing the glint of flare in the man's eye, as his hair fell and hammer came down again and he swung with the immense strength carried in the muscle of his arms, clothed in material that ruffled and snapped with each movement. Ethan gasped and his legs bent, halving his height before the hammer nicked the tip of his red nose.

"Stay still!" The man cried. Ethan remembered the keepsake he'd dredged from Karl Heisenberg's dispersed corpse and, several moments ago, this had strengthened Ethan's composure. Yet presently, he witnessed all that manifested anger well to the surface of Heisenberg's skin, tinting it scarlet. A scarlet wraith, the hysterical type.

"I'd rather not," Ethan hissed, careening right and firing three bullets into the head of a lycan. "I'd never stand still for you enough to strike me—"

Heisenberg grunted, wielding the hammer above his head, pulverizing acres of land beneath his boots. Ethan was shaken, losing his grip, and wrenched from his footing by wire. Snared—shit. It cut into his ankle, little slithers of blood hitting Ethan's chin whilst the blood inside him rushed from his heart and gathered in his head. The grey lycans were walking on the sky and Heisenberg strutted, pacing with a broad chest and angled chin, teeth glimmering like fresh snow. Ethan realised how wrong what he saw was; everything was upside down. Anything below his waist became weightless, his feet paling and cold in their shoes, and shirt slipping up his chest.

"I never expected you to stand still for me, Ethan Winters," Heisenberg laughed, the lycans mimicked in their piercing cackles. "I simply make you."

The blond winced, eyes shutting as Heisenberg's hand approached his face. The lightest touch, although leather, felt strange; he was a dead man, but breathing with a heart—

No, he held no heart within the cage of his chest.

"Now, shall I escort you with ease or might I bound you with metal again?" the man said as he lightly shoved Ethan, sending him gently spinning. "I am on specific orders not to impale you, that is with metal, so I suppose—"

"Please spare me the monologuing," Ethan whined, pulling himself slightly upright. "It's tiring enough running from you."

Heisenberg only ripped him down again, seizing his chin in his large grip and licking his lips. Head tilted, Heisenberg's discoloured stare trailed up and down Ethan, a light crinkle forming between his eyebrows that peered just above his glasses.

"Very well," he drawled.

He took a small knife-like object from seemingly thin air and slashed for Ethan's leg. Ethan cried out in protest, but it was only to cut him down, into the crook of Heisenberg's arm which wrapped around his waist before hauling him up on to his shoulder. The arrest rendered Ethan's thrashing pointless, although he bucked and buckled, slammed and kicked. The lycans circled Heisenberg, their backs hunched and smile split ear-to-ear in a greedful demeanour. Ethan was carried above them all, like a trophy. What the fuck had he gotten himself into?