Run!
The instinct to survive overwhelmed everything else.
Charles scrambled backward on all fours until his back slammed hard against the cold iron bedrails behind him with a sharp clang.
There was nowhere left to retreat.
Fear flooded his body like icy water in the dead of winter, freezing his blood and thoughts in an instant.
A crack.
But at that very moment, without warning, a cluster of orange-red flames sprang to life at the tips of the Scourge Beast’s outstretched fingers.
Like something alive, the fire swept across the monster’s entire body in an instant!
“Aaaah!!!”
A shrill, inhuman howl tore through the silence.
The Scourge Beast thrashed and writhed wildly in the flames.
Its fur curled and charred, crackling as it burned and filling the air with the foul stench of scorched protein.
Its silhouette twisted and warped in the firelight until, with one last unwilling whimper, it collapsed and crumbled into a heap of black-red ashes that were still burning.
But the eerie feast was far from over.
Before the ashes had even cooled, several pallid children appeared to seep from the shadows along the walls.
Their bodies were shriveled like thousand-year-old mummies, their limbs twisted at grotesque angles as they silently closed in from every direction.
They had no eyes, only hollow black sockets.
Intermittent, piercing cries like glass scraping against glass escaped their cracked mouths as they reached toward Charles with arms like withered branches.
Don’t come any closer…
Monsters!
Stay away from me!!!
He screamed frantically, but his body refused to move, as though invisible strings had taken control of it.
Cold, rigid little hands touched his skin, bringing with them a clammy chill that seeped into his bones.
They tugged and pulled at him as they pleased, manipulating him like a battered doll.
“Oh my, you’ve found yourself a Hunter.”
A clear female voice rang out without warning, carrying a hint of amusement.
Like the chime of a silver bell, it pierced through all the chaos and filth.
The voice cut through the heavy veil of darkness like a blade, dragging him back from the brink of despair.
“Who?!”
Charles’s eyes snapped open.
His pupils contracted sharply in the darkness as he shot upright from the hospital bed as though struck by lightning.
Cold sweat instantly soaked his back.
The hospital room was empty, filled only with deathly silence, as though the monster, the flames, the children, and the woman’s voice had all been nothing more than hallucinations brought on by a high fever.
Iosefka’s Clinic was so quiet that the only sound was his own frantic heartbeat hammering against his chest.
Everything he had just experienced had felt terrifyingly real, yet now it had vanished without a trace.
A Nightmare?
No.
He refused to believe it had merely been a dream.
“Ow…”
A sharp, burning pain came from the bandaged needle mark on his arm.
Like a cold brand, it reminded him that the strange “Yharnam Blood” truly had been injected into his body and had brought with it some irreversible “gift.”
He tried to remember more, only to discover in horror that his memories seemed to have been brutally erased and reset by an invisible hand.
Aside from his name, “Charles,” and the bizarre Blood Ministration he had just undergone, everything from his past, his family, his journey, even the details of his own face, had become blurred and indistinct, as though hidden behind a dense fog.
And yet the core of his mind remained exceptionally clear and calm.
He could keenly sense how out of place he was in this city.
Though his clothes were dusty, the fine cut and quality of the fabric were unmistakable, standing in stark contrast to the rough, plain, and often tattered clothing worn by the local Yharnam people.
Nor did he carry the heavy, lingering “Yharnam scent” that seemed to have seeped into every pore of those who lived here.
Then why was he wearing a hood to conceal his identity?
Did he hold some unusual status or hidden circumstances, or…
had he been trying to hide from something ominous?
Perhaps coming to Yharnam to undergo this forbidden Blood Ministration was itself a secret that had to remain hidden in the darkness.
Charles could think of no better explanation.
He searched the room in vain, hoping to find anything that might connect him to his past, but found nothing.
The only clue was a rough scrap of paper deliberately folded in half on the armchair beside the hospital bed.
Hurried, scrawled handwriting covered its surface:
“Seeking Paleblood, the Hunt is complete.”
Was it a clue left by that strange Blood Minister?
Or had Charles himself written it before losing his memory, while he was still conscious enough to leave behind one final message?
There was no way to know.
Yet a powerful intuition rooted deep within his bloodline thundered through his mind.
Finding the mysterious “Paleblood” was not only his hope of curing the curse, but also the only key to clearing away the fog and recovering his lost self.
“Perhaps this is the key to recovering my past, and the only path out of the Nightmare.”
Having made up his mind, Charles forced his still-weak body upright and drew a deep breath of the clinic’s stale air.
Then he reached out resolutely and once again pushed open the door that seemed to separate two worlds.
What he did not know was that Yharnam’s ever-present dense fog, filled with whispers and malice, was silently churning as it waited for him to step into it.
A faint glimmer seeped through the narrow iron-barred window high above, spilling grudgingly into the room and casting prison-like grid shadows across the gray-green wallpaper stained with unknown filth.
Light and shadow were sharply divided.
The oppressive atmosphere felt like a boulder resting on his chest, making every breath heavy.
There were two heavy wooden doors in the ward.
The one leading farther inside had been firmly bolted from within.
No matter how hard he pushed, it refused to budge, as though some secret never meant to see the light of day had been sealed away behind it.
The other door, however, appeared to open.
Charles strode over and placed his fingers against the cold, rough wood.
With a crisp click as the latch released, the lock opened, and a faint breeze slipped through the gap, carrying an even stronger smell of mildew mixed with something unfamiliar.
Beyond the door lay an unknown darkness so thick it seemed almost solid, but for now, it was his only way out.
He drew a deep breath of that foul yet strangely enticing air and stepped through, like a beast entering a Hunt ground.
It was so dark.
Before him was a steep spiral staircase leading down to the floor below.
The only faint glimmer came from somewhere far beneath him, leaving the steps barely visible in the darkness, like jagged fangs inside the mouth of some enormous beast.
The rotting walnut steps gave dying creaks beneath his weight.
Every footfall stirred up the smell of humus and dust that had accumulated for years, sending it rushing into his nostrils.
Charles’s heart pounded like a drum in the absolute silence.
Keeping close to the damp, moss-covered stone wall, he felt his way downward one cautious step at a time.
At last, he reached the ground floor without incident, his boots settling onto comparatively solid ground.
Several candlesticks stood in the narrow foyer below, their feeble flames flickering as though they might go out at any moment.
The light was dim, but it was enough to push back the deepest darkness and reveal the rough outlines of his surroundings.
By the flickering yellow glow, Charles warily surveyed the room.
Behind the glass of a teak medicine cabinet along the wall stood all manner of cold, gleaming brass bloodletting devices and surgical instruments, their forms sinister and grotesque.
Discarded IV tubes lay tangled among them like a nest of intertwined snakes.
Inside the glass bottles and jars used to hold the “Healing Blood,” some of the blood had already congealed and blackened, forming strange dark-red crystals that resembled coral reefs.
Even so, they remained prominently displayed, like exhibits in some profane collection.
A thick medical manual lay open across the oak tabletop.
Its pages had yellowed and its edges curled with age, and a clear, viscous five-fingered bloody handprint stained the paper.
Scrawled handwriting recorded the following:
“After the 43rd Blood Ministration session, the Patient began praising the deliciousness of the starry sky and displayed an extremely calm demeanor.”
Ever since Yharnam raised Blood Ministration above all else and made it the dominant practice, traditional medicine and reason seemed to have been utterly forgotten and discarded.