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The hunter could not remember his name… He barely remembered what he looked like anymore, just fuzzy hallucinations, the workings of his mind falling away quietly… Only remembering a stone labyrinth… A beautiful stone labyrinth… That rose from the ashes, formed a great symbol in the sky, webbed with red veins, and a massive beating heart that formed across the crescent moon… Vivid hallucinations, sharply caressing his shattered memories.
He remembered visiting the labyrinth, walking across the barren earth, again and again, and again and again… With stone arching across the night, the lines, the earth, forming stone, and then rising up and up, along the ground, up into the air, and he ran by himself… All alone… Into the rapidly growing night…
…
It was the same day over and over again, walking around and around… His memory was regenerating, going around the circle of days, again and again. He touched his face and wiped away the dirt. His legs and his hands were covered in blisters. A day repeating itself, endlessly, until he died of thirst, rotted to death. With the water in his pack already empty, his throat parched, and only crumbs sufficing as nourishment…
….
His brain rotting, bleeding, forgetting again and again… He felt the pain inside him, constantly reverberating, echoing, and echoing… Lacking nourishment… Lacking any soundness… He did not know what had happened after he had begun traveling, what sort of beasts lay hidden underneath the green foliage, and inside every single one of the thousands of winds battering against the trees. The rain thickly ran down every branch, every tree. Beautiful, beautiful red rain… Flowing like small rivers, trickling down trunks, down and down into the long Amazon River...
…
His twine had snapped, as it ran loosely, smoothly against the ground, running ever-so-slowly, getting caught in the mud, until he noticed that it had broken. He placed a new one into the ground, fearing the Stone Labyrinth, rising up from the ground, lost in the maze… Trapped by himself, in the endless corridors and tunnels…
…
Further and further into the forest, he could see the sun wavering softly as heat rushed through the serpent’s trail, endless, without reason, continuing and continuing. He remembered strange things, like a man with no eyes, laying against the ground, and blood rushing through the earth, blood running, seeping into the ground.
A bridge running downwards, a head in the sand…
Italy, with a stink running from the sewers, the canals draining forth bodies.
Through blurry eyes, he saw a strange man whisper to him about a voice in the sun…
Then there was nothing, but his brain throbbing, his head continually aching, pains striking through his skull, and he screamed aloud… Screamed into the air, blood continually rushing through his ears… He saw more figures, more faces, unknown, and a continual hunger in his throat, dogs barking, a siren ringing in the air, blood dripping down a face, a knife dropped from the greatest height, and fire across the ground.
A gunman, a hostage, a bridge…
Now, blood ran from both his ears, bleeding. He was bleeding… He ran backward, back and back, into the light, blood running from both his ears and black creeping along his vision… Pain rushing through his great, grand skull, pounding and pounding…
He looked around twitching, frantically trying to wipe away the blood from his ears… Afraid of the dark, afraid of decay, the death inside the forest… The skulls, crushed, laying in the ground… The blood that rose and bubbled… The deep, horrible smell of rotting flesh… The aging of Forever… Time running forward… Alone… All alone, dying in the forest, all alone… Dead… Dead to the silence, the forest that did not care, watched by some omnipresent, omnipotent thing that lived above the sky…
His ears bled, rang, and hurt as crimson continued to run down and down… The blood made his ears itch…
…
Where was Bharat? Not even a sign of footprints, just him continuing down an endless road… Going on and on endlessly… Not even a sign, a single whisper, yet only a horrible ignorance… Was Bharat an idea? A single figurative idea that forever continued to echo in his mind…. He remembered the television, the homeless man, his grand home… Yet, he knew, faintly, that it was all lies… There was only a great green tank… Filled with water, with him laying inside it…
All alone…. Quiet, alone, afraid
….
God… It was lovely being alone with his thoughts, by himself, in the isolation… In a great deep forest… So lovely, so beautiful, so deep, forever alone in his deep, grand thoughts…Where he might imagine great beautiful things, bathe himself in the warmth of the lovely, deep forest… Where all was silent, and a great spring wind washed over a beautiful blue river… Beautiful rugged plains running through the mountains, and the Amazon reminded him of beautiful summer days in Venice… The beautiful canals glittering in the morning sun…
…..
He hungered for the flesh, blood, the skin, and a beautiful brain from the center of the head… He dreamed of blood and meat, and the tearing of the skin with a fresh knife… All beautiful… Beautiful…. Just beautiful… And the string holding together everything, the stone labyrinth weaved into the flesh… Just beautiful… Beautiful… Thread by thread, a figure forming… A delicious figure of delicious meat and bone…
…
Atop a great tall house, in the sky, in the trees, he could see everything… He saw the entirety of the world as it was, the entirety of a strange society… But not from his own eyes, from a different form, inside the deep forest, someone with a familiar name… Someone whom he was looking for, searching for, over years and years…
…
“And the man says we’re all going to die! Why? Because life is-”, said the raspy voice to him… Stopping as static itched
“Life is like an eggshell, it likes to crumble, it likes to collapse…. Faster and faster…”
He woke, then walked…
And as he walked, the policeman noticed two great shadowy figures, laying together, separately, sleeping, silent… He watched them from afar, not moving, staying still, silent when he stared and stared. When he walked toward them, there was a rotting stench everywhere, across the boiling heat, simmering... Two intense gash marks on their stomachs, blood everywhere, empty of skin, only clothes, and flesh…
There was a type of allure to them, to the stench inside them, to the great swathes of ribbed flesh laying down on them, their faces… gone… Ripped apart by some animal force, or some strange thing… But it was beautiful to him, the wrapped layers of muscle, the bones running and twitching together, and red blood everywhere, the beautiful, beautiful blood. They were fresh… Fresh…
…
God… God…. His head hurt, his mind was full of strange thoughts, and he barely understood the two bodies he stood near… There were no more drinks, no more from the bottle, only a harsh cold truth creeping in, and he hated it… Hated how he could see everything… Hated how there was no daze, no forgetfulness, nothing gone, ripped away from his mind, only a clear memory, and vague dreams floating around in his tired mind…
It was the Hunter himself, the one who ran through the deep jungle, into the strange deep forest, wandering around, killing everything… The horrible, vague Hunter, who he knew only by face, only from strange words whispered into his drunken ears… From a strange shadowy figure far away in the deep depths of his mind…
“The horrible, horrible hunter…”, he laughed quietly, “What a horrible, horrible hunter…”
Strange, how empty the forest was… How they were both hunting for something strange… Allusive… Another person in the forest…
Another hidden figure lost in the deep swathes of time…
…
A spike shot up into his mind, and he screamed as the pain shot through him, blood flowing down from his head… But there was no blood anywhere, only a giant spike, and great pains erupting from everywhere at once… Lightning striking down onto the ground, blood flowing from the earth… And a spike rushing through the deep sinews, the blood, the skull, cracking through the bone…
But it was only his brain, suffering, rotting away, quietly, painfully…
…
He ran into the deeper parts of the forest, screaming from the pain, falling into the water, and trying to stifle the pain, drive away from the pain, but there was only more, as the spikes continued drilling deeper and deeper into his brain, sticking deep like strong needles, stitches sewing solely into his mind, into his consciousness…
The sound of footsteps echoing into the woods… Leaves fell underfoot…
Somebody above… Somebody watching…
He tried to stifle another scream, as he could feel his brain-melting away, breaking apart…
He screamed, quiet, then louder and louder as the pain grew worse and worse…
A strange, uncomfortable feeling, and a man smiling at him…
The homeless man stared at his face from above, holding a gun.
The familiar beard, the familiar rags… The face, smiling, as he screamed once…
The bullets rolling inside an open palm…
There was a pause, a second.
He tried to pull his gun out of the holster, and shoot. But as metal crunched bone, hitting him at all sides, he sighed and fell into the deep light… Blood spilling across his shirt…. Falling with him… Fell into the deep great light….
As the pain was godly, became an ichor for his suffering, his lost life…
Bharat drank the water, the plentiful blood, ate away the meat, the bone, the impurities of a human body… Drank from the beautiful plentiful body, the face… His teeth were covered in red, the grand, great crimson, fresh from the wound and the flesh… Fresh from the bodily heaven, the plentiful source, he fed on the memories, fed on the great deepness of the flesh, the rich seams… So beautiful… So beautiful…
The memories pouring in from the blood, so godly… Lovely… Just lovely…
The hunter saw the stone labyrinth rise from the dust, rise forward from the ground and into the air… Rising in his strange dreams, and blood dripping off from the dust…
He woke when he heard a great scream… A great blood-curdling scream rose into the air, echoing and echoing, endlessly across the forest.
Machine gun fire running, echoing. He prepared his M9, pulled it out of his pocket, held it in front of him, and stared at the surroundings… Stared at the trees growing from everywhere, wrapping around his vision, continuing to snake around his legs, his arms, vines twisting like serpents, and the sun rolling outward…
He fired into the distance, the machine gun fire stopped, he could hear a knife cutting into flesh, cutting into the skin, like a pig… Like a great dead pig…
He stepped forward, stepped carefully, quietly, listening for the gunshots, listening for the machine-gun fire again, or any footsteps… A ravine made him stumble, as he saw the heights from a small cliff, and fell down, rolled down into the grass… Fell down… Down… Down… His leg bracing the impact. Until he lay, hurt, injured, bruised, everything aching…. He crawled toward safety… But something stepped on his broken leg…
God… Bharat himself… Tall… With a beard… The homeless man… Standing up, smiling, laughing… He could hear him, talk and talk… Whispering… Mumbling to himself…
“The original cannot be killed, Brothers!”
A gunshot struck his throat, blood filled his entire body, and he choked and coughed… He remembered a green tank…
That was all.
Bharat smiled, feasted…
When he went to his tall home, he placed the weapons in an infinitely multiplying collection.
All alone, so beautifully alone.
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