The dream was the same as always. A reoccurring one I’d been having for a few weeks now. Way less interesting than being murdered by Santa.

There were strangers in white robes, kneeling in reverence at the base of a bloody hill, which was strewn with endless corpses; some of the bodies wore armor, others camouflaged fatigues. Some were warriors in armor pulled from ancient battlefields, others were soldiers from more modern conflicts.

Many were human, many were not. Various weapons lay scattered about, everything from longswords to sawed off shotguns to magical wands and staves. None had done their wielders any good. Above them, in the reddened sky, a black sun rose in malignant magnificence, bringing unholy illumination to the endless carnage, revealing how the bodies stretched back for miles. Dozens of miles. Hundreds.

This was Hell.

The Hell of endless conflict. The beautiful horror of utter futility. The definitive answer to the question all those who fight must eventually ask of themselves: Was it worth it? Was of it worth it?

Heh. Of course, it wasn’t!

But don’t tell them that. It’s much funnier when they realized it on their own.

At the peak of the red hill, atop a rusting throne, sat the smiling warrior with his crimson hewn axe laying across his lap. His blackened armor was pierced with arrows, daggers, and bullet holes. It was ashen from burns, scorched by magic, corrupted with radiation.

The warrior' remaining eye blazed with merriment beneath his blood-matted hair, and although his face had been ruined by battle and madness, his boundless joy was obvious to any who saw him sitting there; waving happily at his admirers and eagerly waiting for the next hero to come take a swing at him.

_

“Not if I see you , Max,” I murmured to myself when I woke up.

Man, I was going to be one badass god. Visions from the future were

The first thing I saw were the bodies, of course. Always the bodies. Not neatly piled like in the dream. The dream always made it look like they had a chance. The reality was like seeing the results of people being forced through a wire mesh. Here and there and everywhere. Torn apart. Ripped to shreds.

You knew the meat had been human once, because there are bits of clothing on it, intermingled in the fine chop. Faces left partially intact in the gore. Eyes staring at you from unexpected angles.

Telling how many people there had been was work for others. Hard work. Terrible work. Work that ended with men and women saying, “Fuck this, I wanted to be a writer anyway,” and then going home. Smart of them. If you can walk away, you should.

So, I woke up naked, a stranger to the world, a stranger to myself. And I was lying in a pool of blood, and it’s disgusting because blood doesn’t retain warmth for very long when it’s been let out of a body, and by design, it coagulates quickly when exposed to air. So, it was sticky. Very sticky.I’m not an ugly person, but I’m not particularly attractive either. Just average. It’s by design. I don’t feel the need to be memorable to others. I have what I think is a wry smile, and an easy manner around others; a willingness to speak with strangers and to listen to them.

Listening to others makes it easier to fake empathy.

My body’s short, but I gave it a surprisingly deep voice. If I were healthier looking, a little taller, less emaciated, and had less gray in my hair, maybe people wouldn’t find it so uncomfortable to be around me? I’m still trying to figure out the secret sauce for putting others completely at ease. Is my smile too hollow? Is it too easy to see the sharp glint of mockery in my eyes that seemed to naturally spark hostility in others?

In this world, I’m just not a man who can easily set down. People preferred it when I moved on. If I ever demurred too long in my travels, some people tried to hurry me along. Knuckles were occasionally cracked. So were necks, when I’d had enough mistreatment.

So, yeah, I woke up. My bleary eyes take in the sights and smells. I pulled myself free of the gore and cruor keeping me glued to the floor, took a deep breath, and screamed as loudly as I could: ”FUCK!”

This is a perfect word, and thus perfect for my situation.

There is a paradise somewhere out there in creation, where no man has ever slept among the dead. A world where you can easily remember where you are, and who you are, and what you were doing, and where you can easily avoid embarrassing situations like this. That world wasn’t for men like me, and the inequity of it all brought tears to my eyes. I really could use a drink.

Memories gently drifted into my mind as I searched. This had been a tavern. A gathering place for angry locals. I couldn’t remember the name. I couldn’t even remember why I’d come here. There had to have been a good reason, right? Nothing in my life happened due merely to chance. It was a carefully regulated unending nightmare.

Walking to the exit, I stepped outside and read: “The Feral Fang.” It was hand painted across a big wooden sign nailed to a post out front. Walking back inside, I hopped behind the bar and the tap, poured myself out a big foamy mug of whatever the local specialty was, and downed it immediately.

I can drink alcohol like water. I could inhale it like air. It never hurts me; nothing can hurt me.

Tossing the empty mug aside, I sat on a stool and considered my options. I needed new clothes, but I could just make those on my own. In fact that’s exactly what I did after cleaning the blood off my body with a rag and a fresh mug of beer.magic

Now, what else? I wanted some money, but even if I had some, there was nothing to spend it on. I should probably just leave. Now. This place was filled with mutilated corpses, but that didn’t mean everyone was accounted for. Other members of the community could show up, and that would be a hassle. What if some kid walked in looking for his father?

Obviously, that would be hilarious, but then what?

A groan emanated from a room out back, catching my attention. Inside, an old man hung from the wall. He was held in place by the walking cane that jutted from his chest where it had been shoved through him. He stared blankly at me, mouthing words that he didn’t have the strength to speak aloud, blood gently dribbling down his mouth. This seemed like a bad way to go.

I thought.

Still, it seemed like a particularly cruel way to leave someone to die. Maybe I should do something about it? No one could accuse me of being overly caring for the fate of my fellow man, but that didn’t mean I had to be callous all the time. After looking around the area, I found a bloodied knife clenched tightly in a severed hand. It was clutched tightly; I had to break one of its fingers to release it.

With the weapon now sufficiently “unhanded” (heh), or better yet, "disarmed" (heh heh), I returned to the backroom, prepared to slit the hanging man’s throat. Before I completed the act, however, a thought suddenly occurred to me: What sort of man could survive being impaled through the chest for so long? It really wasn’t humanely possible, was it?

Now curious, I lifted a corner of the man’s mouth and saw that his teeth were elongated and sharp.

Oh. huh? That was kind of clever.

Kind of.

Well, that would explain his toughness. A well-fed werewolf was a bastard of a thing to kill. Not that that seemed to be of any help to this particular pack, or this prick in particular. Had he been the pack master? Left to die a slow death while bearing witness to the horrifying destruction of his people? He looked old enough, beneath the blood.

Curious once more, I roamed around the tavern until I found the kitchen.

There’s cause and effect, y’know. Things never happened in life If a bunch of stupid lycanthropes got together and built themselves a janky little tavern, that wasn’t reason enough to grind them into mulch. They had to have done something. Drugs? Uh, who cares? Prostitution? More likely to be customers than pimps.

Murderers? Well, that just went without saying, didn’t it? But what kind of murderers were they?

I opened the larder.

I closed it immediately.

I wish I hadn’t done that. I really wished I hadn’t done that. Memories came flooding back to me. Unpleasant memories.

So, they’d been kinds of murderers, huh? Well-fed,

Returning to the back room, I buried my new knife tip-first into the old bastard’s eye and spat on him when he tried to scream. Then I returned to the bar and drank some more beer. Should I burn this place down? Nah. I was going to hang out here for a little while and see if there were any other members of this pack. It’s not that I disapproved of cannibalism, you see. I think I could logically understand the urge, right? Sometimes you just needed a snack.

But there are depths that some people allow themselves to sink, which I find disagreeable.

Hanging children on hooks next to the salted pork?

Yeah, I was going to be thorough with killing these idiots.