Bloodsoaked Scribblings

is a note found in Gloomwald.

We left Burrwitch not more than a week ago. There was something wrong with that place and there were rumors of strange goings-on around the Krieg residence. So Frasier had this crazy idea that we should leave and head north. He said there was a nice town just up the road. He should know. He lived up there less than a year ago. He said passage would be difficult but we could make it if we stuck together. He couldn't have been more wrong.

We weren't one day out of town when things started going poorly. First Beatrix came down with a fever. Her skin went pale and her eyes glazed over. That night, she started lashing out at us, shaking, vomiting and screaming about some creature out in the woods staring back at her. The following day, the same thing happened to Heinrich.

With both of them sick, we were forced to travel slowly. Frasier and I towed them behind us in a makeshift sled. Too far from Burrwitch to turn back, but Frasier said he knew of an inn that was less than a day's travel ahead, so we continued onward. When we reached the inn it was abandoned and the air hung heavy with the scent of death. But we were desperate and in need of shelter so we stayed there nonetheless.

That night was when the noises started. Frasier said he didn't hear none of it. But I could make it out loud and clear. It sounded like an animal growling and moving about just outside the inn. As the night wore on, the noises became louder and louder and I began to question my sanity. Frasier insisted that it was nothing but I could swear they were right outside. When dawn came, I didn't want to move but Frasier forced me out of the inn. He said we had to continue or we wouldn't make it to safety. So we began pulling the sled north along the overgrown road.

As we moved I could hear it following us, its footsteps mirroring our own. Beatrix and Heinrich were getting sicker by the minute and we soon grew tired of hauling the sled. My hands were blistered and my feet bloodied from the rough path. Frasier said we had to leave them, the sled was just too heavy for us to pull, but that didn't sit right with me. We argued back and forth about their fate, each becoming more and more angered as we continued. That was when Frasier grabbed his camp hatchet and threatened to kill them right then and there. He said if I wouldn't let them go, he'd just do it for me. I didn't mean for what happened next, but I was scared and the growling sounds bore down on me like a fire in my mind. I shoved him and he stumbled over a root, falling face first into his hatchet which lodged itself in the right side of his chest. He looked up at me in horror as blood filled his lungs and mouth.

That's when I saw it, standing behind Frasier at the edge of the woods. A massive hideous figure, like a man with the head of a dead animal. I froze for a moment and then bolted down the road. As I ran I could hear Frasier's gurgling screams begging me not to leave him.

I can still hear them, all three of them wailing in the darkness like rabbits being eaten by a fox. It's been hours, why won't they die? Is that thing still out there? Is it taunting me? I can't go on, I can't take it anymore...