[b]DAY 21: ROAD KILL – VENGEANCE[/b]

After a long day at work, Rick – a police officer – was feeling very exhausted and irritated. He hadn't slept well and then he had to put up with some idiots at work. Even the weather was miserable, it was raining like hell. The visibleness was poor because large raindrops were hammering his car's windshield. Also, night had fallen, so everything was dark. This had been such a bad day all in all and Rick just wanted to go home. He had made a quick stop at grocery store and then he began to head home. He had to drive over a half hour before he could be able to isolate himself from the world for the rest of the day. Only him, some pizza and beer and TV.

Because of the weather, he had to drive slowly and carefully. That irritated him even more. He was about to become very impatient. But he tried to tolerate the situation – after all, he didn't want to crash his car.

But today, everything seemed to be against him.

It happened without a warning. He didn't see anything. Suddenly, Rick just felt that he had hit something – something larger than a rabbit or fox. He stopped his car and got out, checking what the hell had come his way. There was a deer laying on the road, not dead yet, but was clearly in pain. Hitting the vehicle had left a horrible dent on the front of the car. Rick didn't like that one bit. His already bad day became worse. Now his car was ruined.

“Fucking stupid animal”, he cursed and took his anger out on the poor deer and kicked it few times.

After he was done with that, he hopped in his car and started heading home again, driving over the animal, not caring at all about its fate. He had never liked animals that much, anyway. 

When Rick got home – being thankful that no other bullshit had happened for the rest of the trip – he sighed in relief. He headed inside his house. It was located in a somewhat remote location, so that meant that he didn't have neighbors too close to his home. This was a good thing, because he didn't have to interact with people for the rest of the day. 

The man did exactly what he had planned. He threw the pizza in an oven, grabbed few beers and put them on a table, turned his TV on and when the pizza was ready, he took the whole thing and then sat on his couch, not moving anywhere for a while. Good food, a bit alcohol and action movies from TV… now that was some quality time for a single man. For the first time whole day, he felt relaxed and there he stayed on the couch the rest of the evening.

Drinking the beers made him eventually feel drowsy. Rick turned off the TV and dragged himself to upstairs. He found his way into the bedroom and just fell to his cozy bed. It didn't take long for him to fall asleep. This had been a good ending for otherwise so shitty day. Or that's what he thought.

He had no idea that the night would turn out to be dreadful. 

Rick was awakened from his sweet sleep when he started hearing banging. It took him a moment to get somewhat woken up, so he just listened the noise. It was coming from downstairs. Probably from his front door. But who could that be? There was no one living nearby. As he awakened fully, he became alarmed. You never knew what kind of unpleasant visitors night may lead to your door. He reached for his nightstand and pulled the drawer, snatching a handgun from there. With that in his hand, he stood up from his bed and silently tiptoed out of his room, taking the stairs.

He moved down the stairs slowly, his gun pointed at the front door. The banging was oddly rhythmic and monotonous. Rick got shivers. It almost seemed like that the cause of that wasn't human… The man then shook his head, getting rid of such ridiculous thoughts. It could probably be that someone was pranking him, trying to get him spooked. He inched towards the door and when he was at it, he roared: “Get the hell out of my property!”

The banging stopped. Everything went silent. Rick stayed in his position trying to hear if anyone was moving on the other side of the door. A moment passed by. And another. But there was only silence. The man shrugged, figuring that whoever there had been was now gone. He decided to go back to sleep.

But suddenly the door banged open, startling the man. His heart beating like crazy, he turned to face the door, pointing his gun at its direction.

And he was completely horrified.

It was a deer. One of its legs was limping and there was a bone sticking out of it. Its body was mangled, pieces of skin missing from few places, flesh exposed. One of the ears was almost teared off, it was hanging from a shred of skin. Somehow, its antlers looked sharper than what they would normally be. And in its completely white eyes was very unsettling gaze – gaze of vengeance.

“What a devil are you…?”

As the deer was limping towards him, he shot few bullets at the animal. They landed on its body and one on its head, but that didn't slow it down or stop it. Hauntingly, it was getting closer and closer to him. In despair, Rick shot the few bullets he had, but in vain. He tried to run away, thinking that the creature was probably too slow. He tried to go around it, heading to the door.

But he didn't make it.

The dead deer charged at him, piercing him with its antlers. He fell down and the animal started to stomp on him mercilessly. It crushed his bones, bruised him, gave him lacerations with its sharp cloven hooves. Rick ended up becoming a bloody mess on the floor, whimpering from pain.

Finally, the deer gored him one more time, piercing his heart. That was the ending to his story. The undead creature watched him die, all bloody and bruised.

Then it started walking away, disappearing into the night.



[b]DAY 22: GUT SPILL – I WANT TO SEE YOUR INSIDES[/b]

Steven woke up with a very groggy feeling. His vision was blurry and he couldn't feel his limbs. He could hear a voice, but he wasn't able to understand the words. He was just dangling his head, trying to comprehend where he was and what had happened. Few minutes passed by and he finally could get a bit of hold on himself, his brain registering information. He was in a pretty dark room. There was a light in the ceiling, flickering every now and then. A stale scent was lingering in the air. Just on the opposite direction of Steven, there was a long table and in it, there was a row of different tools waiting neatly, ready to be used again. The concerning thing was, they were covered in blood and rust. This is the part when Steven started to feel dread. He tried to move, but soon realized that he was captured. There were chains in his hands, he was hanging from them. His legs were still free. At that moment he noticed that he was also naked. Then he looked around more. From his right side he could see a set of stairs going up. And on his left side… There was another man, shackled as well. Just like Steven, he was naked, but also gagged. So it was his voice he had heard… Of course he couldn't understand what he was saying.

“Do you know where we are?” Steven asked.

The other man shook his head.

There wasn't much conversation Steven could have with the fellow prisoner. Steven's head was pounding, the light slightly hurting his eyes. What the hell had happened to him… He tried to remember.

It had seemed like an ordinary day. He had worked in the office as usual. But something had happened… something happy. Oh, yes! It's because of Irene! The woman he randomly met at a coffee shop. They had really clicked and they had decided to go on a date. That's where he went after the work. And Steven remembered having good time with her. They had done some very basic things, such went to eat in a fancy restaurant, watched a movie (a horror one, since it turned out that she really was into them) and as a cherry to the top, they had a little walk around the park. They both had enjoyed their time together and decided to meet again. Then Steven had escorted Irene to her home, gave a smooch to the woman's cheek and then went on his own ways.

While walking through the evening city, he had felt so happy that he had been pretty oblivious to his surroundings. Steven had a vague memory that someone had pulled him to a narrow and dark alley and then… Nothing. He had been probably drugged and kidnapped. But why? And where was he?

Suddenly he heard a metal door creaking open and someone started to descend the stairs with heavy footsteps. A large figured appeared soon: judging by their physique, it was a man. He was wearing a weird hazmat suit and rubber boots and also had stained apron. He had a gas mask on, so his face was hidden. He stomped to the table and had his back turned to the prisoners. Steven didn't know what he was doing, but it definitely wouldn't be anything nice. He couldn't say a single word, for fear was grasping his heart.

The suit man turned around, having an icepick in his hand. He stomped to the gagged man, who was now whimpering in fright. The suit man started stabbing him with the icepick: first to the chest, then to the stomach, few times to the arms and legs. The poor victim was crying in pain. Steven couldn't do anything else but to watch in horror. The suit man retreated back to the table, only to switch his weapon. Now he had a butcher knife with him. He walked once again to his victim, striking his blade to the shoulder. Muffled screams of agony were the only thing that could be heard. The next thing the brute did was horrible: he slashed open the poor man's stomach, his guts now spilling out. But the torturer showed some mercy to him at this point, hitting the blade at his head, ultimately killing him.

Steven was in panic. He knew that he was going to be next. He was crying from fear as the suit man was back to the table of brutal toys.

And when Steven heard the engine of a chainsaw turning on, he ended up in a such state of distress that it was beyond sane. 

“No, no, no, no, please! Don't!” Steven pleaded as the suit man approached him.

But in vain.

Since his legs were still free, Steven tried to kick the man and keep him away. This backfired a little, because the suit man just swung his chainsaw around, slashing his legs. Steven cried in agony as the sharp ravenous metal teeth gnawed his flesh. The torturer then struck his chainsaw right at Steven's stomach, beginning to cut him in half. Eventually his body was in two pieces and the lower part fell to the floor and his guts were dangling out of his upper body. Steven was dead. And for what purpose? Did the suit man just get some sick pleasure out of this? No one knows.

After his bad deeds were done, the suit man left the room, climbing the stairs and perhaps, ready to hunt more victims for his torture chamber.



[b]DAY 23: BARBED WIRE – SUFFERING ANGEL[/b]

Joseph hadn't believed in guardian angels. He had been having a tough life, mostly because of his abusive and toxic parents, so he was convinced that there was no one watching over him. Everything became easier when he moved out to his own apartment. He started smoking and drinking, but was more content with his life after escaping that hellhole. He was in a bit of gloomy mood often, but in general, he was doing well. The folks in the town where he lived seemed to be a bit too into believing that they had guardian angels. Those people were idiots in Joseph's eyes. But eventually, it appeared that he was the real idiot.

When he first time met Cerelm, he thought that someone was messing with him. He had been out having a walk when he had seen this odd figure standing right beside him. It was a very tall man, dressed in robes and he had wings on his back. The man had smiled at him and Joseph had thought that he was just some freak and ignored him. But when he noticed that this strange man was following him everywhere, he flipped out and shouted at him to leave him alone. Joseph did get some weird looks from people around the street.

“They cannot see me”, the winged man had said. “Only you can.”

Next thought in Joseph's head was that he was crazy and was hallucinating things. But the winged one assured him that this wasn't the case. He had introduced himself as Cerelm, his guardian angel. It took Joseph a good while to get used to this, but eventually he accepted Cerelm's presence. Well, at least he now got some companion in his otherwise so lonely life.

It was a mystery why he was able to see his guardian angel and so abruptly as well. Even Cerelm couldn't answer that. But, apparently Joseph wasn't the first human experiencing this and out there was a bunch of people who could interact with their angels. He was special, though, he felt like he wasn't. He actually got a bit bitter after learning these things. If Cerelm was his guardian, why it hadn't done anything when he had been abused? Cerelm did try to assure him that he had been there, giving him strength and protecting him from demons. Yes, if angels exist, so does the demons. And in their eyes, a fragile child without love was quite a treat. Cerelm had driven them away time after time, preventing them from reaching their claws at Joseph's soul. Things could have been worse, Joseph had then realized. Maybe Cerelm hadn't been useless after all.

Joseph didn't really form meaningful relationships with other people. He didn't mind that, though, for he always had someone with him. And for a while, things were like that and it was fine.

But then came the downfall.

Joseph met this woman, Clara. She seemed to be friendly and compassionate and Joseph was really flattered that she was interested in him. For once, someone was giving love to him. Numerous dates later they officially became a couple. Clara started to almost live in his apartment. Everything was perfect at first, but then Clara began to act differently. She snapped a lot about various things and complained. Nothing seemed to suffice for her. She would also demand to know where Joseph was heading every single time when he went outside. And if she thought that he was even just looking at other women, she would yell at him – or in worst cases, slap him. But she also would always tell him that she loved him from the bottom of her heart. So Joseph tried to put up with her and be the man she wanted him to be.

For months Joseph stayed together with Clara. He finally started to recognize how toxic that woman had turned out to be. So he decided to confront her and speak things through. Joseph sat on the couch with her and started to tell her how he felt. But Clara didn't take that well. She became absolutely furious and screamed at him, calling him names. Then she broke up with him, walked out of the door and was never seen again. This really hurt Joseph, for he had loved her. He tried to tell himself that things were better this way… But it still hurt.

Then he lost his job. He got fired. A wave of depression hit Joseph and he started to drink more heavily. All the days he would just rot away in his apartment, drinking and barely eating. And on one of those sad days, Cerelm reached out to him after few months. Joseph had pretty much ignored his presence and pushed him away which had made their connection weak. They hadn't talked much anything the past few months, since Joseph had been so obsessed over Clara. But now, Cerelm tried to strengthen their bond again.

Joseph noticed that there was something wrong with the guardian angel. He had bloody tears on his face and there was barbed wire tangled around various parts of his body. Those thorns of steel had teared his skin and even flesh at few points. Feathers in his wings had got ripped out, the barbed wire grating bleeding wounds.

“What's happened to you?” Joseph had inquired.

The angel smiled sadly.

“I have not been able to protect you, so I have to be punished”, Cerelm answered.

“Oh… Sorry.”

Suddenly Joseph burst into tears. He cried and cried, more than ever before. The angel sat next to him on the couch and closed him into his embrace.

“Everything will get better”, Cerelm whispered gently. “I will not leave you.”

Then the angel kissed his cheek gently, holding him tenderly. Joseph kept crying, but Cerelm was patient. He would let him cry all of his tears. He would stay by his side, loyally, like a lover. The better days were waiting ahead. They only just had to start the climb.



[b]DAY 24: GLITCH – ERROR IN THE MOTHER'S BRAIN[/b]

He woke up from a cold floor. He registered that he had been laying on his stomach, so he cranked himself up on his knees. Feeling kind of dizzy, it took him a while to be able to focus on things. First, he realized that he had some kind of red visor over his eyes. He fumbled his head a little, coming to the conclusion that he had some weird helmet on his head. He tried to get a grasp of it and take it off, but it wouldn't move. Strange. Accepting that he was stuck with it for now, he then looked at his hands. The right one was perfectly fine human arm but the left one was robotic. He raised his artificial hand and took a better look at it. He clenched his hand into a fist and then relaxed it again. The robotic limb seemed to work just fine. Then he decided to stood up, examining himself for other metal parts, but it seemed like that rest of his body was completely human.

Next, he started to register what was around him. He was on some dark corridor. To him, it seemed like that he was in some sort of research facility. He also had an odd feeling that something was seriously wrong, but he didn't exactly know what. Where was he? And even better question was, who was he? He couldn't remember. But somehow this place felt familiar… Had he worked here? He began to walk through the corridor, hoping that he would find somebody that could tell him what was going on.

Dim blue lights in the ceiling illuminated his way. He wandered from hall to another, but didn't find any signs of life. Instead, he detected some worrying clues, such as broken glasses, some pieces of furniture being thrown all around the place and even blood. It seemed like that bunch of people had left here in hurry. But where? And what had happened? He continued his search.

Eventually he found stairs to upper floor. He soon realized that he had woken up in a basement of sort, because now he actually found windows. It was dark outside. And there was a terrible blizzard going on. Visibility was really poor because of that. Well, apparently, he wasn't going to go outside for a while. He resumed his search for signs of life since that was pretty much the only thing he could do.

After a while, he finally saw some movement.

He could see a man in a lab coat walking the corridor. He tried to get his attention immediately.

“Hey, hey! Mister!” he spoke. “Excuse me but can I have a talk with you?”

But the man ignored him. For a brief moment he thought that the lab coat man was being rude to him, but then he noticed something. His figure was… glitching. Like a disturbance on a computer screen. Was it because of the visor? The man was like a ghost that was bugged, or something. But where was the man going? He decided to follow him.

The man was leading him further into the facility, until his figure disappeared to the other side of some door. He chose to go after him and opened that door and went in. It looked like an office of some sort. But it was in a very messy condition. There were papers scattered everywhere, blood splattered on the walls and floor and horrible claw marks on cabinets. Bit by bit he started to feel that he was stuck in a horror story. What could have happened here? Had the people here studied some monstrosity that then had escaped and killed everyone in sight? At least it seemed like that in this room.

He didn't feel like combing through some documents right now, so he just made himself a mental note about this room's location. He would return if his search otherwise ended up being fruitless. Then he left the room, continuing to wander around the building once more.

After seeing the horrors of the room, he should have been cautious. As few moments passed by, he suddenly heard some inhuman screeching. He stopped for a minute. His heart was beating like crazy. He decided to hide behind a corner and be as quiet as he could. He dared to peek a little and saw a dark quadruped figure patrolling in the corridor. It was walking away from him. He had stopped breathing for a moment, but let himself inhale some air after the creature had passed. He began to sneak, going to the direction where the monster had come from, being as quiet as he could.

But hey, good to know that you're not alone, right?

He wasn't sure how many twists and turns he had taken, when he came across some large double-doors. Something important must be inside. Curiosity taking over him, he entered the room, hoping that there weren't monsters waiting for him.

Right after getting inside, he was stunned. Before him was a magnificent core of some sort. It was rather huge and it was floating above weird blue panels. Mainly its color was dark blue, but it had all over its body some light blue veins. At the center of it, there was one eye with yellow and red colors. He couldn't stop looking at it, even though it caused some distortion in his visor.

Then, to his surprise, it spoke to him.

“I see, one of your kind is still alive”, it said with a woman's voice.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You do not remember? You are part of the Core Project”, she said. “In short, you are meant to share consciousness with me, helping you to perform tasks regular humans cannot do.”

He looked at his robotic hand for a while. So that's what was his purpose.

“What happened in here?” he asked.

“Humans discovered a portal to another dimension. They researched it, and did not stop even when hostile beings emerged. They could not stop in time and thus, sealed a downfall for us all.”

“I see…”

“But now you are here. We can establish our connection back. We can eliminate the invaders.”

Suddenly he felt something sharp against his head in few spots. His question turned into screams of suffering as tiny drills started to penetrate his skull. He fell on his knees and tried to tear off the drills, but he wasn't able to do it.

“Do not resist. You are mine. Mine. Mine.”

One of his last visions was blood streaming down his visor. And when the drills dug deep enough into his brain, he became limp. He lost everything: his control of himself, his life… The core had invaded his body, controlling him like a puppet. He was pretty much in an undead state. His head perked up and he stood up.

“Connection complete. We are one now.”



[b]DAY 25: MASOCHISTIC – FOR THE GODDESS[/b]

Kalem was an excellent cook. Usually he worked at the tavern called Drunken Hound where a lot of visitors had a chance to enjoy the fantastic meals he prepares. But he was so well known around the town and castle that sometimes even the king himself ordered food from him. That was such an honor for Kalem and every time when he had to make a meal for the king, he made sure that it was perfect, for no less was fit for a royal. And he always succeeded. Kalem had got offers to work fully in the castle's kitchen, but he had politely declined as he loved to work in the tavern. It just was his place. The king had accepted this and was satisfied with getting meals from him every now and then.

It was nighttime. Quite a crowd had gathered to Drunken Hound, mostly consisting of townsfolk who wanted to have some good time in the tavern after working whole day. Some travelers had also found their way to this place. A lot of laughter and cheerful chatting filled the air together with the delicious scent of food. A fire in the fireplace gave warmth to the spacious hall, offering also some light along with candles that had been placed around every corner of the room. The place had a homely feeling in it and this was the most successful tavern in the town. The owner of Drunken Hound, Mial, had worked hard to get to the point where they were now. She was energetic and very friendly woman who enjoyed to have a talk with people. Mial and Kalem had been friends for years and together they had put a lot of effort in making this tavern the best place where to stop by. 

The atmosphere was very delightful. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood, filling their stomachs with delicious food and beer. It was a bit busy night for Kalem and Mial, the man cooking as fast as he could and the woman then serving them to the tables of hungry people. But they enjoyed this job. And as the night moved on, place got easier to manage as not that many were coming in and those who had spent time in the tavern had wandered off. There were still few people in the hall when Kalem thought that he deserved a break and came to the counter to accompany Mial, drinking beer. They chatted for a bit. And before they knew it, midnight had arrived they had to go on their separate ways. Mial did live in the tavern but Kalem didn't. He wished goodnight for his friend and walked out of Drunken Hound.

The chilly autumn air hit Kalem in the face as he stepped outside. Few lit lanterns shedding light on his way, he headed home. He didn't live far away from the tavern, just a little bit towards the border of the town. He hurried through the streets, for he had something important to do.

Not many people knew this, but Kalem wasn't originally from this town. He was coming from a place much different. Living and being raised among his people, he had taken into his life a belief of a certain deity: a Goddess of Darkness. Every new moon her worshippers would offer their own blood to her. This was done in order to satisfy her bloodthirst so she wouldn't emerge into the mortal world and start taking lives. It was told that although many deities people believed weren't real, Goddess of Darkness was. According to a tale, she did visit the world of mortals and was wreaking havoc and killing people, but then Kalem's ancestors made a pact with her. As long as they would keep giving blood offerings to her, she wouldn't invade their world again.

About a decade ago, however, something terrible happened. His tribe was attacked by another tribe around that region. They killed many, destroyed their homes and banished those who made it out alive. Kalem was one of those survivors. He escaped, wandered around the world in search for a new home, and eventually stumbled upon this town. That's also when he met Mial, who helped him to get on his feet. He settled down, became a great cook and started to live his quiet life. In secret, he continued practicing the blood ritual, sometimes wondering was he the only one left doing it. Hopefully not.

Kalem made it to his humble home. It wasn't big, but he didn't need a big house. He walked to his bedroom where he would perform the ritual. In front of a mirror, he lit few candles with his tinderbox, drew a complex circular drawing on the floor with chalk and prepared an empty wooden bowl and a knife. He took off all of his clothes, being completely naked, and stepped inside the circle he had drawn. With the knife in his hand, he took few deep breaths, getting prepared.

Then he slashed his arm. Blood started dripping from it. He watched it for a minute, making sure that the drops would fall into the bowl. Then he made another bleeding wound. He grinned a little. Slash after slash, his arm was red from blood. Then he cut his waist few times and his sides. He was laughing for himself a little. He enjoyed this. He enjoyed the feel of blade cutting his skin and the sight of that red nectar of life coming out of him. Then he made few wounds to his legs. More blood to the bowl. He lacerated his chest, guffawing like a maniac.

He was getting pleasure from this. He enjoyed to suffer for the sake of his goddess. There was no one else in the world he loved more. He had seen the face of this deity and right at that moment, she had stolen his heart. It didn't matter if there was no other person doing the ritual. Kalem would give her everything she wanted. He was surrendering himself for her. He belonged to her. 

And there he stood, covered in lacerations and blood. The bowl had been filled.

“Oh, my goddess!” Kalem shouted out. “Please, accept my offering!”

In the mirror appeared a face of a woman, more beautiful than any human. She had a pale skin, black hair and golden eyes that shined like flames of destruction. It seemed like she was reaching out from the mirror, a shadowy hand manifesting to Kalem's side. It reached out for the bowl of blood and touched the fluid, red veins appearing to the hand as it absorbed the blood. Then it withdrew back and soon the face of the goddess disappeared from the mirror.

Kalem was happy. Seeing the face of his beloved one made him so blissful. He gave a little loving sigh before starting to clean up.

“Until next new moon”, he whispered.