Joseph’s head tilted down, eyes dropping to the ground as he digested the man words. No doctors, no clerics, just the dead and dying men and women in the cots that filled the room; people like him, lost and confused with no one around to provide answers or explain what was going on.

The other man tapped the door with the tip of a sword and Joseph’s head snapped up at the noise; he hadn’t noticed that the man was armed until now and the sight of the weapon sent a chill racing up his spine, his body feeling alert and energised in a way that he had never experienced before in the face of a potential threat. The man, Joseph still didn’t have a name for the stranger, walked over to a barrel full of weapons and picked out one at random; he inspected it for a moment, before turning back to him and tossing the weapon lightly through the air.

Joseph started at the action, jumping as the sharp implement was thrown his way unexpectedly, body reacting in a haphazard and uncoordinated way. He reached out to grab the weapon on reflex, when under normal circumstances he would have moved to dodge, and was surprised to see his hand deftly snatch it out of the air by the handle, his arm moving almost with a mind of its own. No, it was more like he’d imagined grabbing the axe and his body moved exactly as he needed it to with more precision and coordination than he had ever displayed before.

It was an alien feeling. In fact his whole body felt alien, different from what he remembered. Maybe part of that was due to the illness he had been suffering from; if he had I fact been cured then his body would feel healthier than it had, but it felt like more than that. He had been weak in the moments after he had gotten up from the cot only for his strength to quickly return, but it hadn’t stopped at just that. He felt stronger, lighter and more alert than ever before.

Was this what it felt like to be a Hunter? Had he been changed? The man before him and all of the people laying on cots around the room, they were all Hunters?

Why so many?

The stranger was preparing to open the door, to leave the room and find answers. Before Joseph could decide if he was going to follow him, if he was ready to follow him, a chilling, blood curdling cry sounded out. Though muffled by the walls and distance, not nearly enough distance, any Yharnamite would be able to recognise a cry like that.

In the long seconds following that cry the only movement in the room was that of the small creatures as they dispersed. Even they were terrified by that noise it would seem as at least half of them disappeared somewhere. The only thing to break the silence was a single crow’s cawing.

[color=f7976a][b]“Is tonight a Hunt? Are there Beasts and Hunters roaming the streets again?”[/b][/color]

[@Habibi359]