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Hunter groans as he pulls himself higher onto the riverbank. Coarse sand drags under him and digs painfully into his fingertips as the water continues to slosh and push against his legs. Speaking of legs, he can hardly use the useless things! They are limp behind him and numb with cold. Fear strikes his mind at the thought of losing them. When he is finally free of the river's hold, he rolls over on his back and stares up into the dark sky, catching his breath.

He lets his eyes fall shut, panting hard. He’d woken up in the middle of the rushing water and panicked immediately, nearly drowning himself in the process of getting ashore. He’s not the greatest swimmer, and the whole debacle had made him wonder why on earth people do such an awful thing for sport!

He sorrows at the feeling of his sopping wet uniform against his skin. It too is deathly cold. He wonders just how long he was in that water, wonders which part of his body may succumb to frostbite first. He hopes he can keep his hands and most of his fingers, at the very least. His legs are starting to warm slightly, and feeling starts to come back, so he doesn’t worry much longer about them.

Hunter sits himself up to stare at his surroundings, though it’s far too dark to see much anything at all.

Realizing that he cannot lie around all night, Hunter picks himself up from the ground. A horribly and embarrassingly difficult thing to accomplish. He discovers, upon standing, that there's about an inch of river water still trapped in his boots. With a grumble and a lot of cursing, he hobbles over to the nearest tree to pluck each boot off and dump the contents out.

Watching the water dribble down through the grass, Hunter recalls the fact that he did not exactly come out here by himself, but with a small selection of men from his unit. Hoarsely, he tries to call out for his friends, but his voice doesn’t travel far. He figures they could be wherever he had tumbled into the current in the first place, which would mean upstream. How far upstream, though, is the question.

As he begins to trudge back up the river, he notices new pains in his neck and his back. His skull pounds with a headache while he pats himself down, checking for broken bones or flesh wounds. He luckily finds none of those things. His neck itches wildly, but he only tries to alleviate that through the thick cloth of his high collar.

He walks beside the river for a long time, thoughts wandering. Why was he out here? Oh- right, Officer Smithford was leading them on a… a recon? Or a rescue? God, he can’t remember! His thoughts are disjointed and blurry, dreamlike almost.

Determined to figure out what the hell is happening, as well as desperate for a little rest, Hunter plops down at the base of a tree trunk and racks his brain for answers. The brutal ache behind his eyes certainly does him no favors.

He starts to recall, little by little, the events that transpired.

Last night, maybe, a boy had come shrieking back to the encampment. He was young, recognized by one of the other men as one of the regiment’s drummer apprentices. He was terrified and warning about a ‘devil man’ out in the woods. The lieutenant had been upset by the news and annoyed by the lack of discipline in the young man to leave his fellows. Still, he also knew that on the off chance a bear or some other animal had somehow gotten one over on a whole platoon, he’d better send out a small rescue group. Yes, and that is how Hunter ended up outside! At the very least, one question seems to be answered now.

He remembers being woken at such an awful hour of the morning and being then ordered into the mess hall. He and his mates were fed a mediocre little meal and then shoo’d off into the dark forest. A day's travel later and… nothing. He can’t recall. Other than the feeling of disdain for so much marching, he has no idea what happened that could have left him in the water.

He taps his thumb against his knee and frowns. His thoughts circle back to the bear suspicion. How would a bear have attacked two groups? Especially a group expecting such an animal! It still doesn’t seem right.

Where had they gone… where had his team gone in search of the others? Hunter curses himself for not paying more attention to where they were headed exactly, but in his defense, his whole purpose is to follow orders, not question them!

With a sigh, he trains his gaze up to the sky once more. The moon sits directly overhead, and there isn’t even the slightest speck of a cloud. The stars shine brilliantly like they never seemed to before.

He gets back up on his unsure feet and starts walking again. The river is very wide across, and fast. There are spots where the current swirls into inescapable little eddies, and spots where the jagged rocks poke out over the white rapids. How in the world had he survived this? Unconscious, nonetheless!

Hunter walks. And walks, and walks, and walks, and walks. How damn far could he possibly be from his drop point? His best chance of getting back to anything is this river, but he’s been walking for ages, and nothing ever changes. Eerily, the moon doesn’t move either. Hunter is well aware of the minutes that have passed, and yet the moon is still in the same spot as the first time he looked. It makes him lightheaded to think about it, and so he tries to ignore it.

Then, he sees something. It is a ways away, but it’s something! A bridge that stretches the distance across the river. Hunter breaks out into a light jog, rushing forward to it. A strange sense of strong deja vu hits him, and he feels like he could cry! His group could be here, his salvation!

“Sargent? Sargent Brown!” He calls out as he gets closer. There is clearly more than a bridge, and more thoughts come flying back. The church that sits up at the top of the hill is familiar, and he definitely remembers this bridge. It's crudely blocked, so no one can go past for some reason, though.

“Anthony? Eh- any, anyone out… here?”

Hunter slows to a stop. He can see something in the grass up near the small wood archway sat in the middle of a wide open space. It is a person. A person who isn’t responding to him and lies deathly still in the grass.

A soft breeze from nowhere chills his skin as Hunter approaches very slowly. Bile rising in his throat as the smell hits him.

It is the Sergeant, lying on his back. Half of his head is lopped off, splitting him diagonally from his left eye down to the right corner of his jaw. His chest is clearly caved in by something very blunt and very heavy, but in no world could a bear do this. The cut is too clean and precise; the chest would be too rounded out like… like a horse hoof. A very large horse hoof.

Hunter stumbles back.

“Fuck-! Ohh, fuck…” he gags, very nearly tripping on his own feet in his backpedaling haste.

His eyes drift across the area a second time, now looking out for the so familiar uniforms of his own brothers in arms. He sees it now. Though difficult to make out in the dark, Hunter can see many fallen bodies strewn about the grass.

Tamping down the rising grief in his chest, he wanders closer to the nearest one. Tears threaten to fall, because this body is also recognizable. He doesn’t linger for more than a heartbeat, but his pace picks up as he trots to the next, and the next. Names come to his mind each time he notices a fallen friend.

The words slip from his mouth breathlessly as he counts. “Connor, Seamus, Tiff, John…” Hunter walks on unsteady legs; he’s practically hyperventilating by the time he finds poor Anthony.

His head is reminiscent of sergeant Browns chest, though much more brutal somehow. His eyes are squished, hanging from the sockets unnaturally. Blood is everywhere; it leaks from his broken nose and trickles down from the crushed crown of his head, pooling on the grass in a sticky, disgusting puddle. Anthony’s left hand, which clutches his saber still, is snapped at the wrist. The white bone protrudes from the skin in a way that makes Hunter sick to the very bottom of his stomach.

Hunter falls to his knees,s finally, hands hovering over Anthony’s lacerated chest as a wounded sound tears from his throat. He grasps the lapels of his old friend’s coat and lets the tears spill.

𐂃

The moon's lack of movement is sort of infuriating. It never travels an inch, higher or lower, in the sky. Hunter sits against the cold stone outer wall of the church. There are small drops of dried blood under his nails that he picks at with bleary eyes. This nightmare won’t seem to stop, no matter how many times he pinches his wrist hard enough to bruise, nor how much stupid time passes.

Hunter sighs and scratches the hot skin of his neck. His uniform keeps irritating the flesh there, but he’s too tired to try to fix the problem.

He shifts to draw his legs up slightly and rests his hands in his lap. Ten men are dead now, if not more. Ten men that he saw as his own brothers lay cut up and trampled across the expanse of land just down the slope. He wonders if the lieutenant will send more men out into the woods to find their little rescue party. Then he glances back up at the moon and figures that even if that does happen, Hunter will not be found.

Why is it, then, that he has even lived? Why out of all the men down there did he survive whatever Godawful massacre that had happened?

There is then the sound of a slight shuffle behind him. Hunter turns slowly, eyes falling first on the long, sleek legs of a very muscular horse. As he looks up, more of the beast comes into view, as well as its rider. His jaw drops as he takes in the green uniform of what must’ve once been a Hessian soldier, but is now… what could he even call this?!?

Hunter's body freezes in place; fight or flight isn’t even an option! The man descends from his tall black steed and steps closer to the trembling American on the ground.

The closer the stranger gets, the more noticeable the shift in the air becomes. A dusty woody scent envelopes him.

The thing that had so shocked Hunte was the man's lack of a head. Where his uniform stops, so does his body, as only a neck stump is visible, and even that hardly so, as it is hidden by his stock. Hunter takes a deep breath of air when he realizes he hadn’t been breathing, and finally manages to scoot away.

“What the hell are you?!” He spits, further soiling his pants as he drags himself backward through the damp earth.

“Don’t you recall?” The voice comes from everywhere around Hunter and nowhere all at once. The tone implies a whisper, but the words are impossibly loud as they echo around in his skull.

With a gasp, Hunter clutches his head. He would answer, but he thinks he’s having a heart attack right now, or some insane mental breakdown. He manages to shake his head ‘no’ though, and at least that is something.

The next time he hears it, the voice is significantly less loud. “Then you do not know… intriguing.” The stranger squats down, and a hand heavy as iron sets on his back.

Pathetically, Hunter glances up. The pain is subsiding, and he’s still getting his breathing back under control. This night keeps just kicking him while he’s down, doesn’t it? He doesn’t feel much like a soldier, not with the way his chest seizes when that hand on his back rubs in a small circular motion. He’s more like a coward than anything else.

“You and I could help each other, you know that, Private Moore?”

Hunter isn’t even going to ask how this… thing got his name. He doesn’t care.

“No, no, I- I can’t help you.” He rasps, looking up.

“How come? You do not even know what I need help with.”

“I think… God, I think you killed my friends.” He gasps out.

The silence stretches long after that. The hand retracts.

“Hm. That could be. Think about it. Try to remember for me, would you?”

Fuck, why had he said that? He grapples with a great sense of fear, his mind feeling frozen. “I- I really don’t know,” he pleads, but the horseman just grunts.

The stranger circles him. “What do you know?”

“Nothing!-“

“That is not true! What do you know?”

“I… ah, rescue mission. It was a search party for another group of soldiers.” Hunter stops, but the horseman eggs him on with a wave of the hand. “Okay, uhm… I must’ve… gotten separated? I woke up in the water.”

“Hm. Sort of.”

A surge of annoyance runs through Hunter at the dismissive tone. “Why don’t you just tell me? Is it so damn hard?”

“Keep trying to remember. I’ll come back to you tomorrow, see if you will change your mind.” The horseman whistles, a shrill sound that makes Hunter wince, and the horse trots over to its rider.

Hunter watches silently as the large guy clambers on and then gently kicks her pelt. She rears back dramatically, and Hunter startles, but she swiftly pivots around and darts off toward the treeline. Hunter's jaw falls open when the horseman and the horse both vanish into the foggy night.

What would a man like that need help from a man like Hunter for? What could someone so clearly inhuman need a lowly soldier for?

𐂃

Hunter has to move eventually, unable to stomach staring down at the corpses any longer. He manages to pry the heavy church door open enough to slip inside. He nearly chokes to death on the dust, but once it all settles, es he deposits his beaten body onto one of the pews and passes out.

𐂃

The sun, the glorious flaming ball of light, is what Hunter wakes up to! He bolts up upon feeling the warmth on his face and darts outside. He is mildly disappointed to find that it is not the rising sun, but instead the setting sun. He can just see it through the thick canopy of forest ahead and around him, but mostly the colors that it paints the world with indicate to him.

He rounds the church again and gawks when he finds that the bodies of his comrades have gone missing. The grass still holds bloody stains, but the sources are all but gone. If he’s being honest, Hunter was more than prepared to saddle down for the day and dig a shallow grave for each one of the men who previously lay slain.

The itch under his collar returns. The frustrations of yesterday and the ongoing grieving of this day blend together into a fit of rage. He furiously undoes the buttons to relieve the offending skin and scratch at it- only to startle when his fingers recoil at the mere touch of his neck. The skin is fiery hot. Not only that, but there is a thick line of thread interlaced by smaller parallel lines of thread on his throat. With his stomach in his boots, he ignores the heat as best as he can to trace the sewn-in line delicately with his finger as it rounds the full circumference of his neck.

“Holy shit,” he breathes in disbelief.

Dear God, is he dead?

Hunters' first instinct is to dig their nails into the stitches and gouge them out one by one, but the horrible burning feeling grows so strong that he can actually feel it creep into his throat, so he lets his hands fall with a small gasp. There's a slight red tinge to his fingertips that slowly begins to fade after that.

What is happening?!

The whinny of a horse behind him nearly makes Hunter jump right out of his skin. When he turns around,d the horseman has already dismounted and stepped up to Hunter. Fear doesn’t grip him the same way it had during their last meeting as he stares up at the imposing man, but instead, a strong defiance.

“Will you help me, then?”

“…With what?”

The horseman points upstream of the river. “Up there, there will be a small mill with a dock attached. You would go to the mill, cross the dock, and man the boat that I have set up on the water. It’s a small rowboat. I trust you can handle that. Anyone who drops down into the boat you’ll ferry down here. It is quite simple.”

Hunter raises a skeptical eyebrow. “So you can kill them? You want me to fetch you your stupid prey?”

“Indeed.”

“Hell no!”

“I figured you would not like it at first. Stew on it, Moore.” He turns to leave, and Hunter panics.

Is he leaving already? Hunter shouldn’t try to hold on, but… this is the closest thing he’s had to human contact in days!

“Not- not that I am saying yes, but, but what would you do to help me?”

“Help you?” The horseman pauses and pivots on his heel to look at Hunter.

“You said we could help each other. How does my betraying strangers help me, exactly?”

“I would bring back your memories of the other night,” The horseman says simply. “You would remember your friend's last moments.”

Now, why in the world would Hunter want that? Then the burn flares up again, and he winces.

“As well as your very own. As I’m sure you’re aware.” The horseman chuckles low in his throat, as if this is all some twisted game.

Hunter shakes his head again. He can’t do that, lead innocent men to their deaths. There's a loud sigh from the horseman.

“Don’t let yourself forget the things you deem important. I’ll come back tomorrow.” The horseman is back on his mare and kicks her off.

“Don’t bother!” Hunter shouts into the empty air.

Guiltily, he isn’t sure if he means it.

The sun, which had been locked in place just like the moon, starts to move further down once the horseman leaves. It sinks until Hunter cannot see it anymore, and all the light disappears from the area. Hunter sits himself down against a tree and takes a deep breath of air.

What did that last cryptic sentence mean? He won’t forget his life, if thats what the horseman was implying. As if to spite the old coot, Hunter barges back into the church and begins to ransack it for supplies.

Armed with an old bible and one of those new fancy ink pens, Hunter starts to scrawl in the margins of the good book. He writes down names, dates, and everything else that comes to mind. From the first girl he snuck away with, to the friends from his childhood he lost touch with, the day he enlisted, it all gets neatly written into the empty spaces on the thin pages. Every small thing Hunter never wants to forget is now embedded in the book with the ink.

Proud of himself, he sets it down on the lectern.

He figures some things are so intricately woven into the deepest parts of him that they do not need to be written down. His family, for example, he doesn’t write down names for really. It simply would be a waste of space, and who knows if he’ll need to write more!

With the moon fully risen and no longer tired, Hunter figures it couldn’t hurt to take a stroll, explore the small area. He has a lot to think about after tonight's discovery, after all.

What does it mean to be dead, for one? He’s lost people close to him before, and he knows what it is like to grieve. The ache of a newly unoccupied space is hard to come to terms with sometimes, but how do you cope when you’re on the other end? He’ll certainly miss his family, but he feels unprepared for this. He never did figure he’d have to! He’d thought one day he would die and that would be it, not this weird afterlife business that tugs so harshly at his heart.

He kicks a stone as he walks and thinks of Anthony's wife, poor Bryn. He tries then not to think of her.

His neck still itches like hell, but he doesn’t dare to touch it this time. Outside of the blood-stained grass, the area is very befitting for the church, in his opinion. He wanders to the waters edge, gazes at the blockaded bridge, and ignores the smoke he can see rising from the trees on the other side (though it piques his curiosity quite a bit). He takes time to read every single one of the headstones that surround the church. The dates range as far back as the mid 1700’s, and one curious mistake claims to be from 1932. He stares at that one for a long while, actually.

The night drags on very slowly, and Hunter realizes just how boring the afterlife is. He’d never been much of a Godly man; his parents had practically abandoned their religion entirely by the time he came around, but he finds himself desperately wishing he’d believed a little bit harder when he was alive. Maybe then he wouldn’t be stuck in this awful place. Eventually, he retreats back to the church and suffers another uncomfortable night on that wooden pew, falling asleep to the thoughts of his family and wondering if they’ll ever know. Will it be known that any of the men out here died, or will they be found somehow?

He hopes his friend’s bodies are found. He’d give himself over if it meant poor Anthony's wife would have some closure.

𐂃

When ‘morning’ rolls around, Hunter is instantly aware that something very terrible has happened.

He stumbles toward the lectern and snatches the book up. The horseman’s words seem to sit heavily in his gut as the marine desperately flips through the pages and rereads his notes. What could he have forgotten? What is the burning hole in his memories?

‘17xx, October 1st, mother and father get their vows renewed.’

It catches his eye just as he moves to turn the page, and his heart sinks. Everything about her is still clear, except his mother’s face. Her soft voice that would carry through the night when she sang, the soft touch of her silken skin when she’d hug him, and then the melted image of her face that he knows is not true. Her features meld together like unspooled thread, all tangled into a messy knot. In his mind’s eye, her gorgeous black hair still cascades down past her collarbone, but the face of the woman who raised him is erased.

He curses and slams the book down onto the wooden surface again. Then he storms out into the graveyard and starts demanding that the horseman come back.

He screams his throat raw for the better part of an hour before finally collapsing to his knees in the grass. He’s probably determined enough to rip the stitches out at this point, but when his fingers flinch away from the heat again, he slams his fists into the ground. His knuckle catches on a sharp stone, and the skin tears right open.

“You shouldn’t throw fits. That is unbefitting behavior for a grown man like yourself. Especially as a soldier, you should represent your country better.”

Hunter whips around. The horseman is back, his steed chews idly at the grass, and the tall man holds her by the reins.

Hunter stumbles up from his feet and strides over, anger in every step.

“Bring her back!” He shouts, thrusting a hand into the horseman’s coat front.

A cold hand wraps around his wrist and sends a violent shiver through Hunter's body. Still, he stays rooted in the spot.

“I didn’t take her away in the first place.” The horseman claims.

Hunter shakes his head and grits his teeth, because this is absurd! How can he say that when he quite literally did!

Hunter doesn’t get a word out before he is interrupted, though.

“This place tends to mess with mortals that I don’t go out of my way to help, you hear? I didn’t take her memory; you just forgot.”

“In the span of a single night?!”

“Maybe whoever she was was just that… unimportant to you.”

Hunter's eye twitches. With a roar, he swings his free hand at the man's chest. His knuckles hit- and a loud ‘crack’ rings out in the silence. Silence that doesn’t last when Hunter cries out and falls to his knees, his other wrist still in the horseman’s grip.

The horseman doesn’t seem amused at all by the hunter's pain, instead letting out an annoyed grunt.

“Ah- sh, shit!” Tears spring to his eyes, and he squeezes them shut as he cradles his poor fist to his body. His knuckles must be shattered! Blood leaks onto his uniform cuff as he holds back his cries of pain.

What the hell is this guy made of, steel?

His wrist is finally released, and Hunter hisses as he uses it to cup his aching hand. He glares up at the headless freak and mutters a final curse at the man just to have the last word.

The horseman squats down and roughly grabs Hunter by the chin. Hunter's hands come up to grasp at the horseman’s sleeve as the grip on his chin tightens brutally, skin spilling between the leather gaps of the horseman’s gloves.

“Did you think about it then, my offer?”

“F-fuck you,” Hunter spits.

“You’re a fighter, I will give you that.” Hunters' face is released suddenly, and the man gasps and lurches forward.

Putting his hands out, though, bad move. He puts too much weight on the broken fingers and, with a pathetic cry, falls face-first onto the damp grass.

“Should I come back tomorrow?”

“Don’t… waste your breath,” Hunter mumbles, turning to the side and drawing his hand up very slowly.

The man lets out a low chuckle, and then he’s gone again- disappeared into the mist with his horse. His laugh echoes like a sick taunt in Hunter's ears.

𐂃

Hunter hobbles back to the church in anger. He wants to get right to work writing again, but he must take care of unsavory business first. Lucky him, his knuckles are not shattered! But the fingers are far from being in good shape. He sets each one of the digits back into place- a slow and awful process that nearly leaves him in tears again and definitely leaves him short of breath.

Would the horseman provide him with whiskey if he switched sides? God- stop thinking about switching sides!

Then he flips through the bible until past his previous entries before taking the pen back to the pages. He describes appearances, noting mannerisms and accents. Everything he had previously disregarded gets jotted down with care. Every loved one and their appearance is written in detail in the thin margins of the book for him to look back on. Finally satisfied, he shuts the bible and sits back against the pew.

His mind wanders to undesired places. Would the horseman give him a better bed than this rotten old wood? He shakes the thought away as best as he can, but the feeling of inadequacy here in the church still lingers.

He dreams that night, for the first time since arriving: Anthony’s wedding, a small event in their hometown's local church.

A heavy hand plants itself on Hunter’s shoulder, who flinches but doesn’t know why. Anthony grins at him, the slight gap in his front teeth apparent.

“Congratulations, she’s a beautiful woman.” Hunter offers with a smile. He recalls this day, a hot April Saturday afternoon, during one of the pair's discharges back home.

“Thanks, Hunt. You know, you’ll find your own girl someday, and then I’ll be able to congratulate you!”

“That is wishful thinking at best,” Hunter snorts and raises his drink to his lips.

“Hm. Maybe. Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead,” Hunter sips his wine.

“Did it hurt?”

The question surprises Hunter, who glances at his now stone-faced friend. He gulps down the strong liquid and chuckles nervously, shoulders tensing. “Eh heh, uhm- sorry? Did what hurt?”

“Because my death hurt. Took a whole hour 'fore I was too out of my mind with pain to even register I was slipping away.”

Anthony's tone is uncharacteristically flat and monotonous, but hostility bristles underneath. Hunter thinks that the real Anthony would’ve never spoken to him like this.

“Anthony, what are you talking about? Let’s just enjoy your happy day, yeah?” Hunter tries to mend the situation before it can escalate even more.

The hand on Hunter’s shoulder tightens like a vice until Hunter's knees are crumpling under the pressure as he tries to escape. The party sounds around them fade away into a dull hun as Hunter gasps and pleads.

“Why is it somebody like you gets to live, huh?”

‘But I didn’t! I didn’t get to live either!’ Hunter wants to cry, but the words will not come.

He’s down on his knees, and Anthony is slightly crouched to keep his hand set on the crackling and protesting bones of Hunter’s shoulder. His face is different. It looks broken in about a dozen different spots, but healed over. Poorly, he might add.

“I finally drowned in my own blood while it broiled in my throat. Do you know what that feels like?”

Hunter shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out.

“Not sorry enough! Where were you? Floating down the river like a damn coward!”

“That isn’t true!”

“Then what happened to you? Tell me.”

“I- I don’t remember…”

“Aw, fuck.” Anthony shoves Hunter away. “You don’t remember. Yeah, course you don’t!”

Hunter sits back against the warm wooden floor of the church. This wasn’t his fault! He didn’t send anyone out on that damn mission, and he certainly didn’t abandon his brothers!

Anthony is gone when Hunter looks back up, replaced by a stained glass mural of a lamb when Hunter raises his gaze again. He’s back in the old dingy church with his shoulder still throbbing, waves of pain,n but ultimately no real damage.

That night when the horseman visits, Hunter has nothing new to gripe about. Other than his mom's face, all his thoughts are intact. It makes him suspicious, sure, but what can he do?

The horseman sits down beside Hunter. “Have you given it any thought?”

“No.”

“Don’t lie.”

“So what if I gave it thought? It was negative thought, I won’t do it!”

“…For whatever it’s worth, the men you lead will die anyway.”

Hunter turns in horror to look at the horseman.

“They’re already here! They can’t leave. Have you even tried?” The horseman challenges.

Hunter flushes with embarrassment. He had not tried to leave… why hadn’t he?

The horseman barks a cruel laugh. “Well, that does not matter. You could not get out anyway, much like them.”

“I still won’t help you. Just cause you trapped me in this stupid Hell don’t mean I gotta bend to your rules.” Hunter mutters. His cheeks heat up, realizing he let his wording slip a little bit.

A sigh. “You will come around.”

Hunter says nothing else, not about to waste his voice for this monster one moment longer. Curiously, the horseman sticks around for a little longer and keeps up the silence. Hunter is just about to panic at the thought of him staying all night when the giant finally rises soundlessly. He does not bid Hunter a goodbye this time before silently disappearing back into the fog on horseback.

Hunter’s sleep is uneasy that night; he fears another nightmare and struggles to close his eyes.

𐂃

He forgot. He forgot something again, Hunter knows, because he can feel it the second that he blinks his eyes open. He doesn’t rush for the bible immediately.

What good would it do? Whatever he’s forgotten, whether or not he wrote it down, slipped from his mind. Is that just how unimportant his loved ones are to him? That he can just go to sleep, and it’s like they never existed in the first place?

He weeps quietly for an hour before the tears run dry. He grabs the bible but does not open it, instead waking solemnly to the door.

He walks carefully down the slight slope to the river. It rushes by without a care for his presence. Hunter wants to chuck the book into the water without a second thought, but he’s smarter than that and knows he’ll just hate himself more,e so he sets it to the side and kneels before the edge.

His throat is dry and achy for the first time, and without much of a better option, he rolls his sleeves up and cups the frigid liquid in his hands. It feels like heaven as it spills down his chin and soothes his throat with its magic. He scoops water up and drinks until he’s had his fill before drying his hands off on his pants and sitting back on his knees.

He doesn’t skim the words; he takes the time to read each sentence, instead. He mulls over the details in his head, searching for the spot where they stop making sense.

He’s hardly halfway through his notes when the sloshing of water tears his gaze from the pages.

The horseman and his steed are in the water. The horse seems entirely unaffected by the fast rushing rapids, standing firmly as water swirls around its knees. The horseman’s voice sounds in his head past the wind and water.

“Did you forget something else?” He wanders closer, and Hunter just nods.

“You won’t find it.” The horseman's mare effortlessly steps up out of the water to stand next to Hunter, who grunts in response and trains his eyes back on the page.

The horseman silently waits while Hunter trails a finger under every sentence slowly. He does not find anything. How can that be? Was writing things down never the solution, or did he miss something?

He sets the book down finally and lets a ragged breath escape.

“Any luck?”

“You know damn well.”

“I told you,” the horseman's mare effortlessly says. He drops down to the ground and squats to place a hand on Hunter's shoulder before dragging him up and pressing him close to his side. “Does it eat at you? The fact that you do not even know how you died?”

Hunter nods, and the horseman hums. The horseman's arm has come to rest across his back, hand settling on Hunter's other shoulder and lightly squeezing.

“Come on, don’t you want to know?”

Hunter sighs. He feels defeated. He’s been dead for just a few days now, but it feels like it has been a lot longer. He drags his tired gaze to the man beside him. What other choice does he have? He doesn’t want to forget his life! If he forgets his closest people, who will he be?

“They… they’re already dead? The men?” He asks quietly, wringing his hands together.

The hand on his shoulder tightens, and the horseman sounds almost gleeful. “They are, yes.”

“I… I suppose it can’t be helped, then.”

“Will you do it?”

“…”

“I need words, Moore, speak up.”

“I’ll help you.” Hunter finally grumbles.

He can almost hear the grin in the monotone voice. “That is so good to hear, Moore. Very, very good.”

Something in the air shifts that is not like the way it shifts every time the horseman appears. A light breeze swirls past Hunter's face as a fire seems to shoot through his bones. He panics at the feeling- but it does not hurt. His unsure hands pat his own chest to make sure he’s still intact.

The horseman steps away just a bit before- out of literal thin air, he pulls an oar out. He hands the wooden object to Hunter, who takes it wordlessly.

“You will do your duty tonight, and I will return anything you have lost.”

Hunter frowns and furrows his brows. “Was that the agree-“

“We never settled on anything in specific,” the man purrs. “But I like to see results. So, do as I have instructed you, and all will be well again.”

Hunter nods slowly. “Okay…” he says quietly. Looking back up, he sees that the horseman is already gone.

“Dick.” He huffs.

𐂃

He starts the trek just a minute after the horseman leaves him. It's a very subtle footpath he would’ve never found on his own. He finds that even looking to either side of him makes his gut twist with pain, so he opts to just stare directly down at his feet instead.

He walks for a long, long while before coming across the mill. The whole time, the sun sank until there was practically no light at all by the time he reached the structure.

It's a run-down old thing, but it's just as the horseman had described. He wanders in through a massive hole in the side and climbs the creaky stairs. The dock attached looks like utter garbage; it would definitely need some repairs- if that sort of thing even mattered in this strange pocket of the world. The crowning glory of it all is the large wooden beam that connects the gap in the dock.

Hunter isn’t too pleased as he carefully crosses the beam to the other side, watching the wickedly fast water beneath makes him sweat, actually. He steps off with a sigh of relief, only to jolt violently when he hears a loud scraping sound just behind him. He whirls around to watch in astonishment as the beam moves fully on its own, sliding back until it no longer works as a bridge.

Hunter gulps and turns around.

The boat is a fairly sized little thing, and surprisingly, it is in good shape as well. He braces his legs and hops down. The boat shakes a tad and stays upright.

A small rope is tied to the dock at the back, and he guesses he’ll have to unmoor it or something when the others find him.

Do they know he’s here? Or are they just running blindly for the river with nothing but prayers and dreams?

He’s broken from his thought at the sound of commotion on the land and glances over. He can see them!

A group of regulars and a pair of officers sprinting down the hillside as fast as their feet will take them. Hunter can also see the horseman on the back of his massive steed as he tries to run the soldiers down with his great big sword, swinging it wildly and catching men across the backs, faces, and necks. Hunter moves to stand on the very back of the boat and waves his oar in the air, trying to capture their attentions. An officer catches sight of him and immediately barks out something that Hunter can’t hear. The men all funnel toward the mill and disappear from sight on the man's orders, then just the officer remains. He waves back and yells something unintelligible as it is eaten up by the sounds of the water, before he too dashes off to the side where the mill’s entrance must be.

He hears then an awful grinding sound as a deep laugh pounds through the air. The sounds of fighting within the mill are unmistakable, metal slicing skin and men crying out in pain and vigor alike. The grinding sound finally stops, and a dozen pairs of boots stomp against the wooden dock. Wood scrapes, and soon, there are soldiers skidding to a stop just above. They hesitate to jump down even when Hunter tries to encourage them, but begin to drop one by one when their officer practically screams at them.

The second the last man drops down, the officer from the shore slices the rope, and the boat starts to move with the current. Everyone’s eyes are drawn to the sight of fire capturing the dock and the sound of the horseman as his animal furiously launches itself from the dock.

A drummer falls down with a terrified yelp, but the horse simply soars through the air momentarily and then vanishes into the air.

God, the horseman really likes that trick, doesn’t he?

There is a great silence as Hunter faces forward and sticks the paddle into the water.

Murmurs rise among the men. Hunter realizes that there is now only one officer as the mentioned man approaches him.

“Many thanks to you, man. We would’ve been cursed without you.” He chuckles nervously, and Hunter can see the worry etched into his face.

The nightmare isn’t over yet. He wants to tell them- to warn these men that they still have to fight, but his voice refuses to cooperate. He just nods and stares forward.

How can he do this?

𐂃

He stares silently at the blood-soaked field in front of him. He recalls the massacred scene of his own friends lying here just days ago.

The horseman idly trots around on his horse. Blood spatters his right arm and coats his horse’s flank. He wipes his saber clean with a white cloth that is quickly stained red by the action.

He makes his way over to Hunter and stays planted on his horse.

“Thank you.” He says.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Sleep well tonight, Moore. You deserve it.”

The inside of the church is vastly different from how he had left it. The dust has been cleaned away, and the pew moves off to the sides. There is a small cot to the side of the lectern, and on the bed is the bible. The pages are entirely clean of both scripture and his own writing when he flips through.

When had the horseman had the time for this?

He leaves the oar next to the entrance and quietly sets the book down on a shelf in the small nook in the very back of the apse, not intending to ever use it again. He crawls onto the small bed, instantly feeling the weight of his mind beginning to ease. He doesn’t bother with the covers before swiftly dozing off into a soft sleep.

𐂃

It's far too quiet. Hunter glances to his right,t where Anthony marches alongside him looking as bored as he possibly could. When the blonde catches Hunter's eyes, he gives a small smile that quickly falls away. Hunter sighs and trains his eyes forward again, where Sergeant Brown and Officer Smithford silently lead the group.

They’ve been walking for damn near ten hours now with no rest, and they have found absolutely nothing to indicate that they’re even following the right path! But there is no room for argument from any man.

The sergeant, agitation clear in his voice, announces they will walk another mile before rest.

That never happens. Smithford points out a small area with a church as they approach.

“Moore, Harwell,” sergeant brown calls out, “I want you two staying here, keep watch. The rest of you lot-“

The sergeant's voice trickles away as he walks, the group following.

“What do you reckon has the old bat so paranoid?” Anthony asks when it's just the two of them.

Hunter tips his head. Was the sergeant acting paranoid? “Uh, what do you mean, Anthony?”

“His head on a swivel is what I mean! He’s questioning every word Smithford says, and he’s got a thick line of sweat on his brow! You didn’t see all that?”

Hunter scratches the back of his neck and shrugs. “Wasn’t looking. Or- eh, or listening, hah.”

Anthony snorts. “Yeah, ya’ never are.”

Hunter cautions a look behind him every so often. The sergeant has split the remaining group up into three sets of men who scour the area. It doesn’t really seem like anything is here. Hunter isn’t sure why they're wasting their time.

He knows that this little recon thing is partly orchestrated to try and get more field experience into men like Brown, who’ve never truly seen battle. Hunter is mostly certain that every man, apart from their newly appointed sergeant, has seen some form of conflict, major or minor.

Hunter looks back again and sees the first sign of something very wrong. Backlit by the full moon and stood across the river is a tall man on a huge horse. Hunter cannot see exactly what from so far away, but something about him is quite wrong. He almost nudges Anthony to get him to take a look, but refrains. No one else seems to notice the stranger, and Hunter just turns back around.

A nagging sense of dread floods his body. It strangles his mind and he coughs a bit to try and clear his suddenly dry throat.

A shrill scream echoes in the night air behind the two sentries, and Hunter and Anthony whip around.

Hunter watches in mute horror as the man on the horse glides past the sergeant. In a moment hidden by the beast's form, a weapon is laid to sergeant Browns face and chops him clean in half.

Anthony has already abandoned their post and taken off running toward the fight, saber drawn.

Hunter is frozen to the spot. This moment feels familiar, like it’s been played out before. That feeling grips him tightly, chaining him to his spot. He’s only broken from his trance when Smithford yells at him.

The man on the horse has vanished, and the soldiers are now gathered together at the small white fences and single archway. The wind begins to pick up, sounding like a loud howl in their ears. Johnny is gasping for air and clawing at his chest, where his crossbelts have been completely chopped off by the large laceration on his skin. No one can offer him much help, as all the men stand on guard with their weapons drawn. For some its their sabers, others their muskets, for Smithford its his puny pistol that hardly ever shoots in the direction he aims it.

There's a shout to scatter interjected with a booming cackle from behind. Hunter dives immediately just as the pounding of hooves tramples the spot he was in just a moment ago. He catches a terrifying glance of the stranger, who holds in one hand a great big saber and pumpkin, and in the other, he yanks the reins to rear his horse back on its legs. The beast kicks her front legs in the air, and then she is about to barrel right into Hunter, who can only watch in horror as the man kicks her into a run.

A deafening shot rings out, and Hunter flinches as he watches the glint of a musket ball strike the horse in her side. The man on the horse grunts and she steers sideways, out of his control. She whips past his head, and the horseman can do nothing about Hunter lying ready for the taking on the ground as his sword is in his other hand.

Hunter watches the man turn her round and dash toward the nearest soldier- Johnny. It's over in a split second. The screech of metal versus bone, before the young man's head rolls freely of his body.

The horseman laughs again, a deep rumble straight from hell that shakes the air. Hunter scrambles up from his spot to take up his own gun. He clumsily loads the thing as the chuckle dies down and a voice larger than life invades the air.

“Arise!” It shouts, coaxing the dead to rise from their shallow graves. Boney hands claw rotted bodies up and out of the dirt as the stranger truly disappears this time- leaving the soldiers to grapple with the undead.

In the midst of it, the stranger on horseback returns. He takes Smithford by surprise, skewering the old man, and then trampling the first person to try to help the officer. Two dead in one go.

Hunter fires his gun and misses. The ball plunks uselessly into a tree trunk next to the horseman's… not head, driving an eerie chuckle.

Men fall one by one; heads slashed off, guts spewed onto the grasses, or Hunters' least favorite- the pumpkin. The first time Hunter watches the glowing thing arc through the sky, he wonders to himself, " What good will that do?’ Then he witnesses it impact Camden, their surgeon apprentice, who had only come just for the worst-case scenario, and it lights the poor bastard aflame. His shrieks die out slowly while that damn laugh pierces the air.

Hunter stabs his bayonet through the skull of the last undead creature and then scours the area looking for who is left. He spots Anthony, aiming his musket at nothing in particular, just waiting.

Hunter starts to jog over, but then Anthony yells at him to move. Hunter checks behind him and yelps as the horseman is barreling toward him again!

“Head down!” Anthony screams.

Hunter puts his head down, crouches a bit too. The gunshot snaps through the air, the ball wizzes overhead, and strikes something. The horse jumps clean over Hunter, who desperately tries to stick his bayonet into its belly, only to miss.

The horseman doesn't spare him a glance, just keeps going forward- where Anthony is. Hunters' view is obscured by the combined forces of the dark night and the assailant, but he hears all he needs to know. The screams that shatter Hunters' eardrums and the gurgles that break his heart.

He stumbles to his feet and runs as fast as he can to get to Anthony, only for something hard to strike him in the side and send him tumbling. He feels the beginnings of fire ignite, but dissipate as he rolls down the hillside. The rush of water gets closer and closer until his body is half-submerged in the icy chill. He hangs desperately to a stray root to pull himself back up, but the murderous stranger is already approaching.

He just barely manages to pull himself up out of the current when the man dismounts. His boots squelch in the mud, and Hunter realizes for the first time that it had started to rain at some point.

He’s panting hard, sweaty everywhere, tired. A small squeak escapes him when a heavy foot stamps down on his wrist. His fingers uncurl from the grass while his mind siezes.

He looks up at the headless man, breath coming in ragged gasps.

“You American men fight well. Not good enough to win, but that’s no matter.”

“Ple- please!” Hunter rasps.

The slide of metal drags his attention to the horseman's waist, where he draws his saber. He uses the tip of it to lift Hunter's head uncomfortably high as he crouches down. The blade shifts until the sharp blade is directly across Hunter’s throat.

Lighting streaks across the sky, illuminating the world for a second. The horseman has a face after all, though Hunter sees it for just a split second. He looks ordinary, but dead. An ordinary face that is sunken in and claimed by maggots and dirt, sickly grey skin that is puke-inducing. When the light is gone, the headless stump is all that remains.

The blade presses in horribly slowly, and Hunter cries out until he can’t. His sobs turn into gurgles as his blood spurts out and soaks the front of his shirt. He chokes for a good minute before the stinging pain blissfully ebbs away.

He can feel warm liquid falling down his cheeks. Hunter raises a shaky hand up to wipe it away as he blinks his eyes open. His chest rises and falls erratically like he’s still trying to catch breath that won't come.

The memory of his mother’s face returns, and it’s like it was never gone at all. As for the other thing he forgot, he never finds out quite what it was, just that it was very important to him. He’s certain he wrote it down, whatever it was, but that fact helps him cement himself in his decision that what he’d done was right- that forgetting would be inescapable without submitting himself fully to the cause.

The dream, vivid as if it were still happening, also drifts back. His hand rises to touch his throat where the stitches still sit. His heartbeat thrums under his fingertips as he brushes the warm skin. It no longer burns, at least.

𐂃

Outside, the world looks like a beautiful painting, unreal and bright. The sun leaks through the many leaves and branches and casts its rays upon Hunter's grim face.

The whinny of a horse makes his lips crack into a slight smile. In the golden glow, her sleek black coat shines a little bit brown in spots. Yesterday’s blood is gone from her silky pelt.

Her rider lets go of her reins, and she wanders off to the side as the horseman approaches Hunter.

“Everything is well, is it?”

“Uhm… brain is intact, yes.”

“Good, good.”

Hunter sees that with the presence of the horseman,n the sun's decline is put back on its course.

“I have nothing new for you tonight,” the horseman sighs and steps back to sit against the church wall. Hunter follows.

“That’s more than okay with me.” Truthfully, he is oddly happy for the visit.

“But you understand that I will, in the future, require you?”

Hunter nods and stares down at his palms. He traces the lifeline with his ring finger.

“Will my family ever know?” He hopes the horseman knows what he means.

“I am sure they can make an educated guess.”

“But will they know? Will they… have anything to bury?”

“…I could… arrange it. I suppose.”

“Well, would you?” Hunter turns to look for the horseman's face out of habit- he finds nothing instead.

“Will it please you?”

“Largely.”

“Then I shall see to it. Tomorrow.”

“Take your time.” Hunter lets his head fall back against the stone. He closes his eyes as the color drains from the world around them.

The horseman’s broad figure sits calmly beside him, shoulders brushing. Warmth emanates from him like a burning fire, seeping into Hunter's skin. The pain of his throat flares up a little bit as the horseman shifts and pulls Hunter very subtly into his side.