The world is a sure strange place. One moment you are the luckiest one alive, the next you aren't.
The scenery can look so captivating at the top, but what they don't tell you is that at the absolute bottom, the point where nothing could move you, the world once more becomes the most captivating place to look at. I'm sure you've seen the world from the point of peace, but me, I had no such luck.
It all started when she left me. Don't get me wrong, she was my everything, the whole thing scared me, but it did not break me, what broke me came next. I was sent to deliver a package, I, coming from a village, the very same people who chose to leave the safety and comfort of a town or city.
I'm not going to blame them though, I would too, the city isn't all it's cracked up to be. In most cases these places take what little innocence is left and destroys it. But some don't mind this desecration, it turns them bold, loud, and different from the people they are when they are alone, the people they hate. I doubt that would be enough to dissuade someone from the city life though. I know what does, and it isn't as pretty.
I'd rather forget my troubles and focus on the bright side of things. It can be hard to do when one is surrounded by the empty pitch darkness that is this place, but I make it work. About a few months back, some strange people asked me to deliver a letter. I would have refused, but my wife had just passed, in a house fire, this took our belongings and other household items. I even injured my arm after running in trying to save her.
I found her but she had been caught in a fallen pillar, this had burned her even faster. The patterns had not been properly calibrated, I would have been mad, if not for the fact we live in a village. Expecting city or even town level craftsmanship is just the error of the foolish. My arm had almost burned off, but unlike my heart, which would heal in time. After coming out of the flames of the building, I could not even tell my daughter anything until later.
A few weeks later, things got worse, my injured arm made it impossible to work. Even worse, the value points I had were running low, the rest had burned along with my wife. Usually, this would not be too much of an issue, but I could not run my errands. With my plans of moving us back to city, so that my daughter can study enough to make it well on her own.
My great-great grandparents had decided to move from the city, but my family had developed a trade that allowed us to live better off than when we lived in the city, even I had no desire to go to the city. The reason lied in a simple story my father told me, but with the recent spikes in darkness activity, I was not willing to risk my daughter's life.
So, I had thought to move my family to the city near here. My wife was hesitant about the whole thing, but she saw it from my point of view. I only hope that she did not die worrying about funds, I wouldn't want her to punish herself for what the negligence of one man and the flames they uncured did.
My daughter had decided to start helping me with the trade, I agreed, I could not do much with one hand disabled and the other having not been used much. I had almost given up on going to the city, and resolved myself to dying, as the disappointment of a father I was.
So, when these strange people came, offering immense amounts of value to deliver a single letter and a package, I agreed. It was suspicious, but I knew why they had come to me, that's because, even after the incident that caused me my working hand, my families trade has been known to be the best in the business. It even helped that we were in the village, it made harder to track down a package once we delivered it.
This is because of the skill we have been passing for generations, Follow. This skill allowed one to focus their mind and be able to allow the package owners to know the status of their package. This skill actually allows shared visuals with the owner. This is an active skill, it does not interfere with the visuals of the owner of the package, it was like living two lives at a time, receiving visual feeds from each.
More senses could be shared but only vision, and sometimes audio, to avoid overwhelming the customers. My daughter does not have this skill, I chose not to teach her, this way, she could earn her own special skill, related to her own desired lifestyle. I wished not to burden her with this skill unless she wanted it where she is going.
Our family's mastery over this skill made us renowned. The customer could not only track their package but check in real-time whether it has been opened or not. We had built an even smaller repour about how much faster we were. The trust they had in us came from the fact that, there has never been an incident where a package was compromised, not only that they could see how much care their package was handled with.
This is why, even though my hand is broken, using my family's trade was the safest, most covert, and as an added bonus, fastest delivery system. With me handling the visuals, my daughter carried the package. Our family beast, Orginas, level 57, a large mule, carried our provisions. This was the break I had been waiting for, so I took the job.
We were going quite a bit aways off, but we had been given a detailed map, marking areas with darkness, monsters, or places near a dungeon. Whoever they are, they were well off, but we are known for our policies, including privacy for the client and desire to know nothing about the customer, so I had not pried. A week away from our destination, we were targeted by a group of bandits, they threw us into a hole, which had patterns carved into it. They took the mule, which had not fallen in with us.
This hole was a perfect cylinder cut into the hard stone here, smooth jade, and barely any sand in site, probably one of the bandits' skills. The patterns made it impossible to climb or go up in anyway. They made things heavier the higher they climbed. One of the bandits was probably a pattern smith. The good thing is that me and my daughter had some provisions in the bags we carried, even if most were on the mule.
Eventually what little provisions we had left ran out. We were holding out and had sent a distress call using follow to the customer, so that they could sent a rescue, it never came. I showed them that the bandits had not gotten the letter and package. With how far we had travelled, I doubt they could make it in time, they probably would not even send anyone.
Why would they? If they had people who could go this far out, they would have not hired us. A few days later, I figured that they had abandoned the package. I am at level 36, and my daughter is at level 24, this made us harder to kill, even hunger and thirst were taking ages, but the customer was right, even with that factored in, they still would not survive until help arrived.
One morning, I woke up in some water, as dizzy as I was, I just started drinking. It had a strange taste, but I could not put my mind on it, time had robbed me of my sense of taste and judgement. I tried waking my daughter up so that she could drink, and then and only then I realised what I was drinking. This hole had been cast into the stone, so there was no sand to drain the blood away.
I had almost barfed it all out, if not for me realising something, and swallowing it back up. Her body still felt warm to the touch, only having been drained of life earlier, cradled in my arms, my tears mixing with the slowly sludging blood flowing through her neck. I don't know how she got the will to do it, but she had strangled herself, her nails had even pierced through her skin, letting the blood flow. On her pale neck were the marks of the delicate hands that had done it.
I don't really know why she would do this, but I can guess why. She had been like her mother, bottling her strife, this is how I knew her mother's death had weighed on her heavily, but she did not show it. I had never known that she would do this.
I even remember what she asked me last night. She joked about having to eat the other sooner rather than later, I laughed it off and went to sleep, but I doubt that's something my little sweetie would do. What I don't get is why would she kill herself?
Then I saw the package… she had opened it, and tried closing it, I know because I have the habit of tying a string in the reverse way when tying it. The customer could not see it, but I can, she tied it back with one string short. I don't get it. What had she seen in there? Did it make her panic? Or did she find out that whatever was in there meant delivering, even if it meant I had to eat my own daughter, for me to survive and deliver it?
I was delirious, which made me believe in the latter. Now, there she lies, bones, dry, and drained even of the marrow. I don't see how much the delirium had affected me, but it turns out it made me very thorough.
By the time I came to, she was gone, I had even licked the blood clean, I had even eaten the parts not meant to be eaten, this skeleton before me had no hair, it had nothing. At some point I started wondering if I was actually looking at my daughter or just a companion who had come with me, the guilt had gotten to me, and it was trying to convince me otherwise.
What would you know I even earned a skill, cannibal. It makes me good at tracking the scent of any human from kilometres away. This is how I felt the nearby people, they were too far to hear me, it did not matter though, they were on the same route, soon to pass through here.
I doubt I am even fully here, I had even thought about taking my life, but after cannibalising my own daughter in delirium, I didn't have it in me to it. I wanted to open the package and read the letter, but somehow, I didn't. I had no reason to even want to continue living, my daughter was gone, my wife was gone, even the family mule was gone, I had nothing to live for.
Yet I wanted to deliver the letter. Not because I wanted the values, not because I had some misguided sense of pride, but for one simple reason, my daughter had given me this chance to live, because she somehow thought this letter was worth more than her life, more than mine, more than everything to be.
I however have come to hate this package; I despise it with a passion. But I had eaten my daughter for what then? This simple reason is why I wanted to, no, why I needed to deliver this letter.
Soon enough, I started going mad, I know this because I woke up and even the bones were gone, including the clothes and bags, but the package and the letter remained there, pristine as ever, not even the blood had gotten to them.
I was there in that hole, for God knows how long. I kept luring people into the hole, and once they entered to help me, I ate them. The place around the hole had turned into some kind of disappearance spot, where all those who entered were never to be seen again.
The strange thing is that the hole was still so pristine and as clean as ever, the only things populating its clean flat surface was just me and the package, even my clothes were gone. I don't know when, but my hand had even healed itself, probably my carnage skill, I got it after consuming more people. I wonder just how much sanity I have left.