Board Thread:What Would You Do?/@comment-34283940-20180113182430/@comment-30700719-20180925055257

I slip my finger off the trigger guard and onto the trigger. I glance over at Dad, the night snap back to the...thing connected to him at the waist. "You...you unholy, scum of the earth!" She smiled, with the assured grin that would make anyone want to punch it in the teeth. "Oh, my...ara, ara..." The sharp slapping noises started to cut through my hearing, and I adjusted my sight along the barrel. "Get off him! Or I'll fucking kill you!"

My father, squished under this snake hag...and here she is, so haughty and preeny about it...like she doesn't even feel it. My eyes narrow, and I fired a shot into what would be her leg. She yells in shock, rapidly uncoiling herself off my father as she cradles her bleeding tail. I rush over to my father, checking him for bites or venom on him. But...I didn't see anything. He looked up at me, and in that moment, I saw shame.

I ran. I ran as hard and as fast as I could. I hadn't even the time to take my rucksack off before my father, a devout member of the Order, had been balls-deep in a monster. Not even a weaker one, not even outside, away from our home, but a fucking Echidna in our living room. I looked back, kept running. My timepiece said it was 5:48. I dove behind the nearest appropriate bush and raised my rifle. For ten minutes I waited, every nerve standing upright as I expected a subhuman search party to enclose me like a fox that had killed one too many rabbits.

After that, I managed to halfway relax. My mind began to wander, back to what I had seen. That monster, casually raping my father in the middle of the room...My blood boiled at the thought. I took a deep breath. Maybe, it was just some illusion. Those things had magic, casting some sort of illusion spell wasn't out of their power...and portraying my father being overwhelmed by a monster certainly wasn't a moral dilemma for them...yeah. It's just another trick, meant to divide us, then pick us off one by one. I decided to go back home, stretching my tired limbs and hanging my rifle over my shoulder.

I approached the front door, bringing my rifle to bear. With a nauseous knot in my stomach, I pushed the door open. The room was empty. The table was scratched and slightly crushed, the chairs knocked away. I enjoyed the thought of my father using the heathen's weakness to redeem his earlier weakness, but it was rocked from my mind by the smell. The unmistakable smell of sex absolutely choked the room, and I faltered for a second. How could it be this powerful? Stepping deeper into the room, rifle up, I saw a handwritten note atop the table.

''Son, I know what you're thinking, and I understand how you must feel about this. That's why I've left the house with Clairvoyanne, to let you stop and think for a while. If you want to come see us, use the medallion on the bed.''

I will always love you, son.

I let the note drift from my hands, taking a deep breath. Sure enough, there was a blood-red medallion sitting on my bed, shaped like a crystal heart. I grabbed it and hurled it as far as I could into the backyard, and sat and lamented, and cried.

The next few days went past in a blur. I went to school, went to church. Bought groceries, cooked my dinner, did the dishes. On the outside, I looked like any other teenager. The pastor asked me where my father was, why he wasn't there for church. I lied to him. I didn't tell him he was off sitting in a cave with some snake-lady. The baker asked why my dad hadn't come in for his customary pork pie for the last three days. I didn't tell him that my dad was probably fucking an Echidna because I didn't immediately kill her. My neighbour asked me why my dad was nowhere to be found. I didn't tell her that I hesitated to shoot an Echidna right between the eyes. I stoppped paying attention in class. I started going to bed without dinner. My life fell into a spiral, and it wasn't going to get any better.

So I gave in. I unlocked the front door. I wrote a letter to anyone curious to investigate and left it on the table. I went out to the backyard, dug around in the dirt before I found the medallion again. It had faded, going from bright red to maroon. It still looked like it could work, though. That's what I counted on. I took it with me back up to my bedroom and laid it on the bed. I loaded my rucksack one last time, adding a few choice additions. I took my rifle in hand, then clicked the safety on and picked up the medallion. Despite its dark edges, it still thrummed when I held it up and spoke, "Invoke."

I opened my eyes. There was a clear, blue sky above me, not the grey of rain clouds like it so usually was over my hometown. I got to my feet, looking around. The rolling green of a grassy hill sloped down at my feet. My rucksack and rifle lay a little ways away, and I hurriedly examined them. My rucksack was untouched, but all but two bullets had been spared for my rifle. I slid back the action, put on my rucksack, and set forward for a gaping hole in a mildly distant hill. The natural beauty of the place was overwhelming. It was like seeing the sun after crawling through a tunnel for days. I checked the safety on my rifle, lest I discharge a shot in awe and shatter the tranquility of the scenery around me.

At the foot of the cave rested a lantern and a box of matches, sheltered behind a rock. I grimly lit the lantern and attached it to the strap of my rucksack to keep my hands free for the rifle, though part of me knew I wouldn't need it. Further and further I went, descending until I met a wall of stone bricks with an obviously magical hole blasted out of it. This puzzled me for a moment, as my father was not adept at magic, but I realised it must have been some other adventurer. I stepped inside and looked both ways down a corridor. A rather obvious word in the Southerner language was etched into the stone, translating into 'father'. I internally acknowledged this trail and began walking. Down hallways, up stairs, past a few cages without doors or fountains centred within a 4-way cross, I followed the trail. Eventually, dim light began to shine.

I closed the lantern shutters and gripped my rifle tighter. I had to squint to see some of the markers, but it quickly brightened. At this point, I was slowly making my way along the trail, peeking around corners and checking branches of the dungeon for ambushes, though I could do very little with two bullets and the safety on.

At last, I reached something that appeared to be an antechamber. Quietly taking off my rucksack, I swung open the heavy wooden door. I instantly saw my dad, standing in front of the door. "Hello, son."

I raised the rifle, more of a habitual reflex than a conscious idea. "Dad," I managed to squeeze out, small tears pricking my eyes. That was when I noticed the Echidna standing in the doorway, leaning out and trying to peek in. I pointed the rifle at her, then at him. "Dad...I need to know t-that it's you, not some illusion or trick of the mind." He nods, and opens his arms. "Don't worry, I’m right here, son." He barely makes it through the sentence before I run to his arms, keeping one hand on the rifle and one wrapped around him in the most desperate, tearful hug I've ever given.

He sits me down and explains it all for me. About monster girls, about why and how he met Clairvoyanne, about everything. And for the first time I entered that cave, I let my rifle leave my hands. He motioned towards the doorway and Clairvoyanne came in. She explained, too, about everything. And at the end of it all, they just told me where my room was, and left. I wandered over to the bed, took off my shoes, and slept.

(Holy jesus that felt good. I haven't written like that in a looong time...Thank you.)