First Quarter Waxing 51%

He wasn't sure how far north he had come any longer. Most of his travels were the sleep deprived, zombie-like gait that urged him forward to lands he didn't know. His feet led the way, his mind not quite aware of his surroundings.

The wounds he had sustained during his encounter with the Kindred were thankfully not critical. Some miles behind him there were tatters of clothing with his blood splashed on them, not far from the corpse of the demon. Lyall was a bit stiff the following morning but he had long ago learned to move while wounded. The worst of it was over and he had been traveling without much issue for some days.

It worried Lyall when his higher mind was around. The moon was so large in these lands, hogging up most of the view in the sky and looming like something terrible. It was a constant reminder, it was his calendar here. The full moon was still a dozen or more days away but everything felt wrong since that brush with the Kindred. The air was too still, there was a tension that Lyall couldn't shake. It reminded him of how the world felt during the full moon, when his predator's presence would be at its fullest. It didn't make sense for it to kick in only halfway...

He felt like he was traveling in a new world, so far away from the things he knew and the person he loved. This place was unlike that one, this place was always cold and never inviting and was too harsh for it to exist in the same world as the other. The dreams grew more intense as he got further from home, further from her. They had originally been vague, the sort of nightmare that adults had where waves of bad emotions overtook the proverbial horrors of youth. Since the Kindred however they had been the stuff of a child's nightmares, where the dread wasn't worst part for the monsters you could finally lay eyes on.

Homes set into the snow and ice ablaze, bodies torn apart like ragdolls in the hands of a destructive child. Everywhere were these four-legged monstrosities, furry like a wolf but too large, far too large. Men fought to protect their loved ones and limbs were clawed away, bodies ripped open to expose the soft and warm innards before the monsters devoured entrails. It was bloody and terrible to see and since the Kindred they had only become more vivid.

Lyall shook his head, clearing his thoughts. He had been dazing too much, his instincts were getting sloppy. It was this damned frozen wasteland. There was no life here, nothing worth saving or preserving. There was no hope to be found here, there was only the hope you brought with you.

The moon was straight ahead of him, set in the sky and watching everything play out below. Lyall stopped to look at it, wondering why his curse was tied so strongly to it and he paused, his muscles locking up at the sound behind him. The crunching of snow, the setting of muscles and Lyall was pounced face-first into the snow, several hundred pounds of force driving him down down down into the white frost, his vision fading to black as his wounds reopened.

"Loo..."