The monster within

“And you dare to call that a song? Come on!” shouted the huntsman, emphasizing the admonition by throwing a dagger to the battered man sitting on a chair, the sole survivor of the tavern furniture, which has been crushed or simply overturned here and there around the room. 

The wretch target couldn’t help but gasping as the point of the blade stub the wooden wall behind his shoulder, joining a crowd of companions already violently settled down. 

“That was close” thought the hostage, giving birth to a sigh of relief. 

“Don’t get too comfortable! We’ve plenty of steel for you! And if we ever run out of them…” the thug caught an empty bottle of ale and proceeded to crush it on what remained of a wooden table. “… we’ll figured out something.” 

Sneering, he turned the broken glass to the prisoner. Drops of liquid started sliding through his horrid fingers before dropping to the floor.  

“If you are thirsty, feel free to have a sip! It’s up on us, of course! You are our honoured guest…” he bowed “… and, most importantly, you already surrender all your money, how could repay our benevolence?” Another round of laughs burst out from the company. 

“Come on man! Keep your hair on. You’ve played to tougher crowd than this…” the impatient appetite growing inside him withdrew from his thoughts, leaving room for putting some words in a row. But once again the other proved more talkative. 

“However, I urge you to be quick! There is a great demand of ale tonight!” the brute brought the broken bottle to his mouth, savouring the last drops.  

“Please, gentleman! There is no need…” the phrase faded out as the projectile of glass exploded on the bar counter. A cascade of shrapnel rained down on the dead body of the innkeeper, neglected on the wooden floor with an obvious fracture to the head still pouring red blood on the surroundings. 

He had already been looted of his belongings, which now were piled up on the counter. Except of the gold, which had already vanished into the brigands' pockets. 

“What were you saying? You must pardon me; it seems I got distracted for a moment.” 

None of the marauders seemed to have had enough of pleasing their boss, and so they grinned while pointing crossbows and cutlasses to the poor man, which forced a smile. 

“I beg your pardon if my last song failed to entertain you. Maybe the result will be different if I could partner my voice with the sound of my lute, which you have been so kind to safeguard for me” said the jester while staring at the instrument, in the hands of a short and bulky woman, with an anxious eye. 

“Oh yes! Speaking about the lute…” the leader gaze lit up out of nowhere “I’ve been meaning to tell you that it seems you forgot to tune it properly!” 

The other frown, clearly confused “That is… not possible…” 

“Ah, you musicians! Always with your heads in the clouds… But fear not! My mate here is an expert in… how can I say… makeshift solutions.”  

The woman grinned, moving her purple eyes from the captive to the lute before cutting two of the cords. 

“NO!” one more time a legion of feral thoughts laid siege to his mind. His hunger grew, eager to answer back to all that mockery with violence and death. “Like rats in a trap…” But one more time the man managed to push them back.  

“If only you would listen to me…"

“But we are all ears! So, tell us! Tell us about the monster roaming the countryside!” the man covered the distance between them in great strides, waving a sheet of rusty parchment in front of the bleeding nose of the bard. A contract for monster hunters hiring.

“Have I to remember you that is the duty of every citizen to help us in our hunts, providing us with all the information we need in our job?” 

A wave of pain invested the captive man after the brute pushed him against the inn wall. Then comes a punch in the stomach, followed by a wave of nausea. And then anger, escorted by the instinct to come out fighting with bites and claws. “I grow so weary of this fight.” he couldn’t help but think. “We’re not going to make it, are we?” 

The number of aberrations had a significant raise since night started becoming longer. It had pass unnoticed at the beginning, about two years ago, but in the following months no one could deny it anymore that the hours of daylight were slowly reducing, thous encouraging unwanted creature to come out from their lairs.

And the moon... Someone said even the moon had grown bigger in the last years, to properly inhabit that expanding kingdom the night had become.

But of course, perilous times can bring with them unseen opportunities for the daring and the cunning alike, and so a lot of people which were used to bring home the bacon by handling weapons began to use them against the fiends which has inhabited the night. 

Sometimes these brave souls were valiant hearts concerned about their fellow safety, handful of guardsmen or professional bounty hunters. 

Despite all these motivations, it’s all but rare that those who deal often with monster become closer to them than to those they’re sworn to protect. And that seems to be the case of the bastards infesting the inn that night. 

The jester had no other choice but to grin and bear it, once more. One last time at least. 

“Please, listen to me: I don’t know nothing about any monster!” he lied “And now you should leave this place!” he added in a rush, the mouth almost impossible to be stopped. 

The leader stared at him for a long instant with an illegible face.  

“Has he realized that something isn’t right? Is the fur already visible? Or maybe… the eyes? Are they turned yellow already?” a glimmer of hope of avoid a slaughter, mixed with the natural fear of having his true essence revealed in front of a gang of monster hunters made its way into his chest, pushing away all the feral instincts, more numerous every second. 

But nothing good come out from that moment of truce. The vigorous yet mindless thug lifted the other man as it was one of the spared knives inserted in his belt and then threw him against one of the window sashes, blocked only by a frail wooden stick, which could nothing against the might of the impact and simply broke. 

“How you dare you tell me to leave?” he shouted, and the pack of brigands move as one in the direction of the door. 

The jester found himself laying in the dirt outside the inn. “Run” was his only thought, but the body wasn’t able to follow this simple order, shaken by the pain coming after the impact. Only the upper muscles were somehow still capable to move. 

Unfortunately though, raising the head in search of an escape from this torment the poor soul found another one lurking above him. 

The full moon had reclaimed his throne in the night sky. 

The first brigand opened the door with a kick. 

They were still howling and laughing scornfully. Nonetheless, their barks were no longer intelligible by the jester.  

At last, the bulwark of mind had fallen. There was no more space for words then, only for the music. 

A sinister tune was now being played deep inside his mind, a melody not to be shared with others human beings, and for a good reason: just as it was meant to, that song loosed the leash of his inhibitions… 

It went like that night most of the time. It’s all fun and games until the full moon comes up; at least that time she came for true monsters.