The Lord of Rot

After slaying the Rotting Vulture as a true hunter would, he was overcome with a strong desire to turn around. Like most mountaineers, after climbing a certain distance, they would look out in the world, seeing a vastness they could not on the ground. So Konrad would turn around, as eager to see the world as ever. 

It was the same as it had always been - desolate, absolute and decrepit. It was all falling apart, dry earth upon drier skies. A yellow tint overflowing in the atmosphere. The sun was out scorching the planet, loud with its light. The whole earth looked wholly terrible, and even with pride, this was not something he could enjoy. 

He was out here simply because he hated it, whether he was inside or outside. But he had an idea... Something that may solve his dilemma... 

"Aphaim... Activate the Contract..." 

... 

"Agh!" From nowhere he felt intense pain burning through his eyes making him hazy and dizzy. He saw quick flashes of light, not far off from falling of the steep mountain. 

Fortunately he could grab himself and his senses, and before him... To the Deity! It was... nature!

All around him Konrad could see a vast nature, with rivers flowing through, with greenery and flowers, bushes and trees spanning the whole of the wasteland. What was this, a mirage? An illusion? No matter what he tried to tell himself, he wouldn't believe it. 

He saw a bit of grass on the ground, and he touched it, it felt... it felt real! He had a tear in his eyes, the beauty of the world before him. But gradually he lost his tears, and was resolute in his decision, but what that decision was? He did not even know himself, for as always, his choices were made by others. A soldier without a battle. 

Then he fell to the ground in a haze. He saw his rotting hands, flashing between it. 'Both...?', but then he stopped seeing the world as nature, and he stopped seeing his rotting hands. He was amazed, 'My second hand too?', he wasn't angry at it, but he was confused. But when he did the very same thing, he couldn't control it. He could find control with the left hand without a problem, but the right? Nothing, absolutely nothing. But what did he see then?

It was as though Konrad gained access to another world, like he could gaze through the world itself with the eyes of a Deity. For some reason Aphaim had granted him this ability, and it couldn't have been for a simple reason. To make him dream of a better world? That couldn't have been it. To make him understand what the world once was? That couldn't have been it either. The longer in-between he stood, the more dread and drained his mind would feel. 

So suddenly, Konrad would feel incredibly weak. "Hey, hey, Aphaim, Aphaim?" 

Hearing a peaceful whistling noise through his ears, resounding with a melody the whisper spoke: 

[ 

N... Konrad

C... Aphaim

V.D: 3,030

18 / 100 

] 

"That's lower, isn't it? Ugh!", Suddenly Konrad began to violently cough, his body crunching together trying to hold back. A copious amount of blood splat on the wasteland floor below him. Konrad couldn't tell whether it was his own blood or not. 

That may have seemed like a trivial thing, but after absorbing the bloodied corpses of so many creatures, Konrad did not know the difference between his own blood and theirs. It was not that different after all - even if they were different creatures, all were united by the horrible but calming stench of the rot. 

As though nothing had happened, Konrad continued his climb. Whether he was hungry, thirsty or merely achieving a goal. Gradually, he lost contact to it. 'What was that reality I saw? Was it an illusion, a fake one? Where am I, where do I live? Why was it so eye taking? Eye, eye, eye, what do you call it now again?", Konrad would see the green world before him and see it as breath taking, but even if he were the most brilliant of poets, he did not have the words to describe it. 

'If the world was like that, then perhaps I could enjoy my life...' Konrad had not been bitter over the state of the world until that point. He did not have anything to compare to, but now that he had been shown what he believed to be an illusion. Well, the answer was not the same. He was bitter now. 

Then Konrad would continue his climb without many hinders. But the thought of the other reality wouldn't leave his mind. He doubted his own sanity once more. 'What was that world? Why did "V.D" go down? What was that green stuff' Now Konrad was not an idiot, he was aware of trees from the books and the gardens of the facilities. But that was not the greenery he spoke of. Instead he thought of the grass he felt upon his fingers not long ago. 

In the gardens of the facilities large trees would be grown inside, this produced oxygen for them to breathe. But the grass of the old earth was not effective, moss grew faster and it produced more oxygen for them. Grass, as beautiful it was, was rendered useless in these circumstances. So what use did Konrad have for putting "grass" in his memories. 

So he would in anticipation think of these new concepts, thinking and pondering of them in the same way a child does of the world. And Konrad would continue his climb all through the night, stopping on various levels of the mountain, both to wait for unknown dangers to pass, but also for the timing...

Knowing that night would soon come, where the world was empty, desolate - like normal. But one could not see it. In the morning it was different, and Konrad knew once he reached the tops of the mountains, he could finally see the horizon on the other side...