Sciophobia, Chapter I

Even in the dead darkness of midnight where everything took on melancholy shades of gray, he could see the caravan. It was a company of four: two merchants in the wagon (hidden from view, but he knew they were there; race unkown), pulled by two mounted Imperial guards. The wheels grated against the stone pathway, the entire wagon shaking and creaking in response. One of the guards actually looked worried about it as they passed over a few bumps, but Moon-Claw knew that was soon to be the least of their concerns.

From his refuge in the bushes, Moon-Claw could hear a conversation going on, but the words were lost. Good, he thought, it would make it all the easier.

He pulled out his bow and nocked an arrow, aiming at the guard that was the farthest from him. Drawing back the string, he let it fly. It met its mark on the guard's neck, sending him flying off the horse.

The other guard stopped and his head darted down. He got off his horse and kneeled down beside the other, probably asking if he was alright. For now, he probably was—it wasn't a fatal shot, Moon-Claw guessed, but the poison would kill him.

The merchants, Redguards, emerged from the wagon, and Moon-Claw could hear the sound of voices again. He ignored them as he loosed another arrow, which sank into the other Imperial with a wet thud.

The merchants would be looking in his direction now. They always did. Moon-Claw brought up a hand and called upon the Shadow, rendering him invisible.

This was the fun part.

He was behind the two merchants in just a few seconds. He pulled out one of his daggers and slit the throat of one of the merchants. The other one whirled around and gasped, and Moon-Claw took a second to admire the sheer terror on his face before plunging the knife into his heart.

Leaving the carnage to rot, Moon-Claw sheathed the blade and began his walk back to town, whistling quietly to himself.


-


He used the secret passageway to get back into Cheydinhal, since the guards probably wouldn't take too kindly to an armed, bloodstained Argonian in all black. It was so dark that he couldn't really see anything in the city, but finding his way to his house was second nature. It wasn't a really big place, but big enough to earn the envy of the less well-off people.

He went immediately to his room, stripping off the shrouded armor. He began the process of maintenance: wiping off all the blood from the cloth and daggers with a wet rag, making sure that all of his arrows were still in condition, sharpening the daggers...

It when he was wiping the blood off the dagger that the familiar black void began to fill his stomach—he'd just ended four innocent lives.

It never hit him when he was doing the killing. No, he was trained too well for that. It was always in the aftermath, when he was repairing the damage of the night, that it happened. And as always, he needed a drink more than anything, but the Bridge Inn would be closed by now.. He of all people would know that.

As soon as he had his nightclothes on, he was sitting at the desk in his bedroom, a bottle of mead in front of him. It tasted like crap compared to Tamika's, but he never had any of that at his home.

Tamika's...

He had been drinking Tamika's after it had happened, he realized. It was the first alcoholic drink he'd ever had... and how old had he been, sixteen? Nevertheless, he'd remembered staring at the bottle, hating the taste and hating himself even more for not being able to stop.

He had taken a life. Because of him, Irene Patrick would never live again.

She had screamed. Oh, yes, he had enjoyed the look of pain on her face, enjoyed the dull thwacks of the shovel as the blade sank into her flesh. Damned skooma addict, she'd let her mouth get out of control and then she'd tried to—

He shivered just thinking about it, but that wasn't important. What was important was that she would never be able to redeem herself, never have the opportunity to get off the skooma.

But she deserved it, didn't she?

Nobody deserved death, he reasoned, taking another gulp of mead. His mentors had tried to tell him that death was natural, tried to familiarize with him, tried to get him to make it his life. But he'd revolted, turned on them and escaped and lived for all of six months on his own before he'd killed somebody of his own free will.

Two, three bottles—then same as now, all gone, and the next thing he'd remembered then was a throbbing in his head and that accursed voice:

“You sleep rather soundly for a murderer.”

“I didn't mean to do it!” he'd said, not even worried about the stranger's appearance in his house, convinced that if the man was here to kill him he'd deserve it anyway. “I couldn't control myself.”

That was because he was bred to be a killer, bred to live and feed and profit off death. And as much as he hated himself for it, there was nothing he could do to fight his nature.

And so he lived now. Barely. He never did enough to be able to afford Tamika's, but he had a decent house, even worked part-time at the local inn serving drinks so that nobody would get suspicious.

But deep down, he wanted something more. He brooded on it every night when he was in his bed, as he was now, and every night when he fell asleep his dreams were dark and answerless.

His eyes were closed now and everything was pleasantly buzzed. There was the reward for the contract, of course, but he could get that tomorrow. The stupid vampire didn't have a life outside of the sanctuary so there wasn't really a rush or deadline.

For now, Moon-Claw was content to sink into slumber. It might be dark and answerless, but the void that it brought was always more welcoming than the void that was his heart.