Nightsea Outlaw

Erick walked down the street with only one thought on his mind. He would find his spear from where he had dropped it and get back to base before the night was over. Then, he could get a well-deserved nap and hope that everything would blow over before his next patrol.

No book. No Captain Hawkins fuming at him. No problems. Just everyday patrol life.

"Wouldn't you like that?" Again, Agnes's ghost whispered in his ear, and he shrugged it off.

"Not now," he told himself as he walked toward the hill at the edge of town.

Above, the faint light of the moon was fading. It wouldn't be long before his night shift ended, and the fog was gone for the night. Even Cragg Hollow had a sunrise, and not even a blanketing nightly fog could get rid of that.

The problem was that due to his night guard duties, Erick rarely saw it.

So, he continued down the cobblestone streets as the crows cawed above him, and Agnes's words tried to distract him. Erick didn't have much to keep an eye out for. Even the most raucous partyers wouldn't be out this late at night. All that was out in the fog was Erick and his spear, wherever that was.

He followed along his path from the docks back up to the hill when he finally spotted his spear resting in the alley next to a house's wall. He walked over and bent to pick it up. The heavy weight felt comfortable in his hands.

As he turned to walk back toward the docks and end his nightly patrol, he noticed the problem. A shadow flitted by a nearby building and down an alley. Something was moving on the periphery of his vision, and it was trying to keep quiet about it. Erick stopped moving and listened to the world around him.

Patter. Patter. Patter.

Should he leave it be and get back to the ship? Yes. Should he not run off on his own down alleys where he might be attacked? Basic training also said yes. Was he a soldier in the Empyrean, a member of the Military Police, and duty-bound to check out that noise? He believed so.

Erick tiptoed over to the alley and peered down it. At the end of the alley, he saw a shadowy figure pushing a crate before disappearing behind it. Erick followed after, holding his spear at this side as he snuck down the alley. He didn't want to spook whatever it was. Perhaps it was benign. However, every one of his instincts doubted that conclusion.

He stopped at the crate and looked down over it. He could barely see what was in those shadows in the darkness of the alley, far away from the streetlamps. He would have to get close to take a look or light up a torch, which he didn't have.

Erick made his decision and knelt to see inside.

A hole in the wall was roughly formed with rocks cutting through it. If Erick had to guess, it was broken through from the house on the other side. He could make his way through the hole if he left his spear.

He sat his spear against the wall and started to crawl.

Some voice in the back of his mind told him he was being stupid. He was disarming himself to go into a creepy hole, and he didn't know what was inside. He was also going to do it anyway. He wasn't weak. He could handle whatever small thing had scurried through that hole.

It might even have been the wolf that had eluded him for three months.

"I'm going to get you this time," he whispered as he shimmied his way through the hole and into the building beyond.

He stood in darkness on the other side. The room around him was devoid of light, save for a sliver of muted moonlight that shone through a window on the far side. Erick took in a slow, deep breath to calm his heartbeat. Already, it was tapping a fast beat in his chest.

He knew he was in danger, but he wouldn't let that stop him.

Creak.

On his first step into the house, the first floorboard betrayed him, splitting the air with a deafening creak as he placed his foot down. Erick stopped, his eyes darting around the room. Nothing in the house reacted to him.

Creak.

He made his way to the window, creaking plank by creaking plank. He winced at each one, but he needed to open the window and let in as much light as possible. Right now, it was simply too dark in that room. Too many things could hide in the shadows.

When he came to the windows, he noticed the glass was broken on all of them. He pulled back the drawn curtains, and the entire room was filled with the muted moonlight. He had a moment to see the room, and it set his nerves on edge.

The entire place was ransacked. Chairs lay broken and on their sides next to a split table. A stove lay in pieces, broken off from the chimney pipe that led up to the ceiling. A small bookshelf lay on top of books, crushing them against the ground. If the destruction had looked more orderly, Erick would have thought that it was a burglary. However, this was more like a beast had been let loose in the room.

"Scions above," Erick whispered as he looked over the destruction.

He thought about his patrol route through the town, and it didn't take him long to guess where he was. When he had first arrived in town, there was one abandoned home. The outside door was boarded closed, and the entire place looked condemned each time he patrolled past it. That was this house. He never thought about it on patrol, but it was the only one he could think of.

Pat. Pat.

Something moved in one of the rooms beyond the one he was in, and Erick's eyes immediately started jumping between the two doors in the house. He reached for his spear, but it wasn't there. In his mind, the ghost of Agnes chided him.

"You're going to get yourself killed," she whispered in a sing-song voice.

"You're a private in the Military Police," he whispered to himself, closing his eyes and clenching his fist. "You don't need a spear. You serve justice."

He opened his eyes again and started toward the nearest door. He wasn't going to be afraid of any sounds. He wasn't a child. He reached up and opened the door, surprised to see a faint orange light on the other side.

It was like the roots of a tree were growing across the floorboards. That was his first thought. A tree's roots grew from the ground and focused on one point in the room. The center point was almost like a platform, and a person's prone form rested on it. Erick could see the roots entangled in that person's body, and on the person's face was one of the porcelain masks.

He held his breath.

A child sat next to the platform, a young boy in rags. Beside him was the shadow wolf Erick had been chasing for the last three months. Its eyes glowed bright as he looked up to Erick. Erick again reached for his spear out of habit, but it wasn't there.

Grrr.

The wolf's tail pricked up, and it separated itself from the boy. It began to circle the door, its back stretching upward as it leaned forward. Erick looked between the boy and the wolf for a moment as he started putting the pieces together.

"Wait," he said, holding up his hands. "I'm not here to hurt anybody."

The wolf stopped in its circling, but it didn't relax at all.

"You've been protecting this kid, right?" Erick said. "Anytime I got close to here, you led me away. That's why you always wanted me to chase after you."

Again, the wolf couldn't say anything, but it didn't advance.

"I'm a good guy," Erick said, pointing to himself and then to the boy. "I can get him some help. We can go to the base and get him some proper clothes. We can even help him get placed with a foster family."

The wolf's spine relaxed down, but it still watched Erick. Erick took that as a sign and began to walk into the room. As he did so, he got a better look at the figure on the platform.

The mask on the figure's face was cracked, and the body beneath the mask was like a dry husk. Pink tendrils extended from the roots around the body and into the white mask. Black goo seeped out from the body and down the platform. Erick had no idea what any of that meant, but the black goo looked a lot like what the wolf was made out of.

He knelt beside the kid and saw that he was asleep, which was why he hadn't reacted at all. Erick reached out and shook the boy's shoulder, and he could feel the wolf approaching him from behind.

"Hey, kid, wake up," he whispered.

"Brother?" The kid opened his eyes, and as they focused, he jumped back into the platform.

"It's okay," Erick said, bringing his hands back and looking between the kid and the wolf. "I'm not going to hurt you."

The kid was breathing in short bursts, gasping in and out as he looked between Erick and the wolf. After a moment of looking at Erick, he seemed to calm down. He slumped down against the platform and curled up a little to make himself smaller.

"You're the second person to say that to me today," the boy whispered.

"Did the other person hurt you?" Erick asked.

"No," the boy said.

"I'm not either. I'm a guard with the outpost here. If you come with me, we'll go to the ship and get you something to eat. You look like you haven't had a decent meal in years."

"Are there any masks there?" the kid asked.

"The townsfolk?" Erick raised an eyebrow as he looked back up to the platform. "No. We can avoid them on the way back if that's okay with you."

At this point, he questioned why he had been so comfortable around the masks. Beyond his training, he wasn't sure why it had seemed so acceptable. Looking up at the platform now, he had a lot of questions to ask Captain Hawkins when he got to the ship. He would get answers, one way or another.

"I think you'll help a lot of people if you come with me," Erick said. "There's something wrong with this island, but no one is talking about it. If you come with me, we'll get this all sorted out. Then, maybe things will get better here."

"You think so?" the kid asked, looking between him and the wolf.

"Kid, I'm with the Military Police," Erick said with a smile. "It's our job to serve justice throughout all the Erth. If you ever see one of us, you have to know you can trust us. We're here to protect people like you."

The kid looked over to the wolf.

"Is it okay if I go with him, brother?" he asked. "Will I be safe?"

As if to answer him, the wolf padded over, past Erick, and knelt next to the kid. Its inky black form started to dissolve, the droplets running up the kid's arms and beneath his rags. The wolf was gone in moments, but Erick knew where it was. It could come back at any time if needed.

"I'm putting a lot of trust in you," Erick said, looking down at the kid. "That wolf could be trouble on the base, but I won't say anything about it so long as it only comes out to protect you."

"Okay," the kid nodded, standing up beside the platform.

"Then let's go down to the docks together," Erick said as he stood, reaching out his hand. "I'm Erick, by the way."

"Klaus," the kid said as he took Erick's hand.

"I'm glad I found you, Klaus," Erick said.

They went out through the makeshift tunnel in the wall, and Erick led Klaus out into the fog-filled night. He was already thinking about what he would tell Captain Hawkins when he got back to the ship. He already knew there would be a lot of yelling, but looking down at Klaus, Erick knew it was the right thing to do.