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I had listened for so long, waiting for something I dare not hope for, hearing nothing in response to my pleas but the beat of the blood as it rushed through my veins. But now it's different. I have discovered a secret, and may the Gods protect me for I know not how to live with this knowledge while maintaining the good grace of my humanity.
I crept to the window and pulled back the curtain, ever so slowly, and looked out from my cage to the spires and grand bridges of Yharnam. Still here, still unchanged, and still bathed in the bright light of the paleblood moon. The corruption hasn't spread here yet, and I thank the Church for that, but I am alone. The others have all left, and I fear for their safety.
They all came here for blood ministration, young and old alike. One of the small boys, poor thing, turned beastly after just two days of receiving the good blood. One of our hunters put him down, but it was not soon enough. The boy-beast died, but not before taking his sister with him. I can still see her face, gulping air as the blood gushed from her neck, her throat flopping open with each laboured breath until the silence overtook her and her sweet amber eyes went blank. They were the last of our flock.
"Do not worry, my dear." Adella, the other nun who worked with me here at the surgery said afterwards. "He was already too far gone, the plague had him. Your blood helped him in his final days, you should be glad that you could help him pass so peacefully." She made no mention of the sister. That night, I left a vial of each twin's blood on the alter, next to so many other vials of ones we had lost, and prayed for their souls.
The next day Adella left the surgery. I begged her not to leave me alone, pleaded with her to stay indoors where it was safe. But she said she had to go, she had to find out if help was coming, or where we were needed most. The beast-boy was the final straw, and we were not safe here with the plague so far along, she said. Others might need our healing blood, and so we could not hoard it here so selfishly forever. I could only agree with her and cry softly to myself as she left me in the hospital wing, alone.
And here I sit, in a hall of empty beds, praying for the safe return of my last companion. I continue to replenish our stocks with my nourishing blood so that we are prepared for any emergency. I take some down every morning to the old mad hunters in their cells, they grab it eagerly from my hands and cackle as they pour it down their throats, my own blood dripping from their whiskery chins. They frighten me, and I do not stop to listen to their cries.
The surgery wing is a large, vacuous space and their shouts echo through the chamber from below. Sometimes, though, I feel like I can hear screams coming down from above. I woke once to loud, piercing shrieks of terror. "My eyes, my eyes!" They said, over and over again... but when I went down to the cells to soothe the poor hunter, it was quiet. They were sleeping like babes. It must have just been a dream. It gets harder and harder each day to discern the boundary between sleep and waking.
And now, I have my formless voice. That sickly sweet and intoxicating chime that rings in my mind and sends me into fits of rapture, for I know this voice and it is the voice of God.
I cannot tell you what it says, for I barely know myself. I only know that it has answered my prayers, my good God has heard me and I weep for joy at the thought of not being alone anymore. I am here, I am seen, and I feel alive.
And more importantly, I feel drawn. I have purpose. I have been given a function in this ailing world, and it is not for one like me to refuse such a generous command.
I gather my patients up in my arms, all my little blood vials, and take them with me. They will be needed where I am going. Them, and nothing more. I hear the words buzz in my head like a river of insects pouring into my soul, a swarm of righteousness that seals my resolution.
Carefully, cradling the precious vials, I unlock the surgery door and venture out into the Yharnam night.
The city sprawls, casting shadows of its former grandeur. I pass by ornately carved statues, their hands clasped in prayer. It is good to know that the people have not forgotten the Church. That said, I do not see a single living soul on my journey out of the city. I hear them, though. Laughing, shouting, crying. Screaming, their words a howling tempest of curses in the heavy night time air.
Look at me, out of bed on a night of the hunt! No matter. I know that I am safe.
Soon the spires turn to trees, and the paved roads to mud. I walk on, unperturbed by the expanding forest around me, though my tired feet begin to drag in the mud. I take a short rest in a hollow stump, gazing up at the moon through the pale branches.
"Look my dears, this is the forest. You always wanted to visit the trees." I say, as I hold up the vials of the little twins. I let the moonlight touch them, and my face is illuminated in blood red light as it filters though the bottles like a stained glass tribute to their small, pitiable lives. The vials tinkle against each other as I curl up around them, protecting them with my body like a mother cat. I sleep for some unknown time, it felt like only a moment but when I wake the stump is overgrown. Vines had taken root over my body and mushrooms had sprouted on my boots. The moon, however, was unchanged and hung in the sky in the same position as before. I brush myself off, gather my beloved patients, and walk on. Only ruin can come to those who let distractions get the better of them.
The formless words in my head form a pattern, and the pattern becomes a path, and the path leads me to the lake. Deep water, a natural barrier between this world and the next. A sanctuary woven in blood.
Byrgenwerth.
I hear it clearly. Byrgenwerth, the ruined academy, standing proud still at the edge of the great lake. The last bastion of knowledge before the beasts triumphed. A cursed place, it makes my skin prickle and burn. I'm not supposed to be here, and yet the voice in my head soothes me, it brings me a certain clarity of comfort.
The Healing church prohibited anyone from visiting Byrgenwerth, I knew more than anyone that this was forbidden ground beneath my feet. An unsanctioned pilgrimage to the start of the hunt, the beginning of it all. As every good hunter knows, every drop of blood can be traced back to the pulsing heart buried deep beneath the Yharnam earth, that holy medium found by the Byrgenworth scholars all those years ago.
As I push open the door to the main hall, rusted hinges scraping and old wood creaking, I bless them for their gift to humanity, I do not know what we would have done about the plague if it wasn't for the good blood to keep it at bay.
I do not get far into this train of thought however, as something strong and sharp whips itself around my throat and drags me into the building. I try to raise my hands but I cannot, a tightness is threaded all about me and I watch helplessly as my dear patients drop from my arms and roll away across the wooden floorboards. Mercifully unbroken.
A black gloved hand reached out from behind me and tilted my chin forcefully back, until I could see the face of my captor.
Eyeless.
A mask only, but my imagination ran wild with adrenaline. An ornate golden mask covered half their face, leaving only the mouth visible. Lips which I would think were normally gentle were now pursed with seething hostility.
"Who are you?" A lilting, feminine voice which commanded me to speak, but I could barely whisper as her whip dug into my throat. She grasped my chin and brought my mouth to her ear.
"I-I am just a pilgrim, following formless words. A God sent me." I rasped through a bruised windpipe.
She did not respond directly to this or seem particularly surprised. Instead, she threw out her whip and I tumbled to the floor in a mess of skirts and shawls. She flicked it once more, and with a deft movement born from years of practise reassembles it into a short cane. She leans upon it, and for a moment seems to smile.
"Welcome to Byrgenwerth, little pilgrim."
It was now that I took a moment to take in my surroundings.
The hall was sumptuously decorated with couches of deep red leather, velvet curtains and many a skilful painting of an old, stern academic graced the walls. It was a mess, however, and jars and books littered the ground in various states of decay. For a moment, bathed in the glow of so many candles, I had forgotten this place was a ruin.
My new companion was dressed in the manner of a high Church official, like ones which I had seen high up in the clocktower gardens and which sometimes visited my blood surgery. When a patient was particularly receptive to the ministration, a representative of the Choir would come and take them for further treatment. They were good healers, as none of my patients ever returned to me after that. I had much respect for these Choir researchers and was always glad to help them in their studies by providing patients, and vials of my own blood. It was strange to see one so far from home, but this only confirmed my conviction that I was in the right place.
And thus began my education.
My new teacher was indeed a member of the Choir, who had returned to Byrgenwerth after the upper Cathedral Ward was lost to the beasts. Here she continued her research unhindered and unnoticed, with only the blind-mute Master Willem for company. But in time, she taught me how to speak to him, using the same formless words that infected my brain. He had so much to teach me, so many hidden rituals that I dared not think were possible. But here, in the realm of waking dreams, nothing could remain hidden for long and I saw the sorrow on his face as I gained more and more insight. I told him he need not fear any longer, for the Church is here and our experiments shall bring about a joyous evolution. Soon we will be free! Thick tears rolled down his face when I told him this, and I am sure that they were tears of joy for the future of humankind.
"Little pilgrim, can you see?" The choir hunter asked me one day.
"I can see." I said as I took off her mask. It was difficult as it stuck to her face, coming away with a sticky squelch. Her eyes had disappeared, leaving only puckered holes which dripped a milky white fluid. Above them sat bundles of exposed nerve clusters, slowly forming retina.
"They brought them here, the eyes from the fishing hamlet. Gave them to the vacuous Rom, but there were so many. So many dreaming orbs. Look! A perfect fit." And she placed an eyeball into her mouth and swallowed it whole.
I wiped her face clean and replaced her mask.
I knew now how to help my patients, and one by one I poured their blood into the hollows where her new eyes were sprouting. Plip plop, plip plop, I heard them as they took root in her brain, forming new covenants between host and symbiote.
I devoured the books of the library, spending long evenings enraptured by the Pthumerian legends. It became a routine to tend to my companion's eyes, which were growing well now with my ministrations. Each one came out a different colour, and I could see with pleasure the sweet amber gaze of the young twins once more. A flourishing crop of eyeballs, ripe for plucking and gazing back at me with increasing disinterest. She was leaving me, seeing past me to a higher plane, I was sure of it.
"Litul 'ilg rmmm…" She said, and I helped her take off her clothes. I peeled back her skin, revealing her newborn eyes to the world.
"Thaan… you…" She embraced me one last time, her eyes pushing up against my entire body, seeing every part of me, writhing and blinking against my skin. The largest one pushed itself into my face like a sort of deranged kiss, bigger than my whole head, and I could see only darkness in her pupil, darkness and a distant star.
I awoke with a start and sat up from the couch where I had been asleep. I was alone except for the distant creak of Master Willam's rocking chair. On the floor where I remember embracing her lay the discarded choir robes. I put them on, white over black, and donned the eye-covering mask. It does not hinder me, I do not need my eyes to see any longer. I can see, I can see.
I will be patient, and continue the research of the Choir, until I too gain eyes on the inside. I am no longer a pilgrim, I am Yurie the last scholar, and I shall protect this place from any who would prevent humanity from ascending.
Here I stand, feet planted in the earth, but might the cosmos be very near us, only just above our heads?