Dead ways

And then he woke up.

"You know me, but I don't know you. Now why is that"

"What?"

"The last twenty or so people in Gielinor should know each other. For you, that may be the case, but I'm the outsider in this affair, now tell me your name."

Bryant opened his eyes to be surprised by a man wearing a mask's face. Not five centimetres away from his own.

"What are you talking about, last twenty people... my name's Bryant, now please go back to where you came from..."

"If I was to go back there I would be murdered. I would then come back as one of the undead to hang you with your own internal digestive tracts. For the sake of us both, I'm not going back to where I came from. So Bryant... where does that name come from...?"

"Ughh I'm not sure... I think my father was half Fremennik or something... Wait, you said I knew you. You lie."

At this, the masked man picked up a plank of wood, and as he smashed Bryant on the head with it, he whispered, "you should know..."

The Second Awakening
So Bryant woke up within twenty minutes. Except this time his head was in immense pain. The enigmatic character he had acquainted himself with had left, but there were fresh cinders in the open fireplace and there was a bowl of Stenting soup. His favourite. Only his parents, his brother and he knew that. His parents were murdered by fundamentalist Zamorakians years ago and his brother ran away. And that man wasn't his brother. Idiosyncratic.

Bryant didn't even touch the soup. His cynical mind was in its natural state of suspicion, however he thanked whoever made the soup, presumably the man from earlier. He went outside and decided he would walk to Varrock. His house (hut) was low on resources. To get to Varrock from where he lived, it was a good twelve hours ride on a healthy horse, but his last horse died weeks ago. It would be a four or five days walk, but it was necessary.

The First Day: Unfamiliarity; Discovery
The land was especially arid this year. The fields he walked by were all desolate. Bryant felt somewhat alone, for some reason. It wasn't often you came across other humans in these parts, but the lack of any life made him feel forsaken, detached. All he had taken were the bare nutritional necessities, ten litres of water and his bow and arrow. He was never a particularly potent marksman; he preferred cold steel in his hands, but his father had insisted since he was young that archery was the safer option for self-defence. In honour of his father, he stuck to it. He also brought some of the silver pieces left for him by his parents. It was a finite source, and it was running out...

It was a bit after four o'clock when he saw the hut of the Covverl family. It was the gathering season, so the days were exceedingly short and he'd rather sleep under a roof, so despite the fact he barely knew them, he decided to knock on the door and take his chances. Three knocks. The usual friendly "open your fuckin' door" way of doing things. He didn't hear anything so he knocked more assertively. Nothing still. Surely they would be home by now, especially as there was nothing to gather in this drought. Bryant decided to take a look through the back window. What he saw made him stagger back and briskly regurgitate his recent afternoon meal. Mary Covverl, the girl he had a crush on from last year, was lying, limbs splayed, on the floor. Her vestments, religious dinner clothes, were soaked in her blood and her stomach cavity had been torn right open. Her entrails were all over the floor, and her face was a bloody mess. It looked like something had literally bitten her face off. After a quick recovery, he stood up and ran off, not needing to investigate further to deduce the state of the other four members of the family. After having sprinted for a good ten minutes, he sat down under a mature yerrling tree and vomited a bit more. He really wanted to get to Varrock now, as quickly as possible. He knew something was up. He hadn't seen anybody, not a single living thing since he started walking, and the man at his house already made things strange, but now this...

He also really wanted to find a safe and cozy place to sleep that night; somewhere that was also well concealed from the beast of his imagination that had literally "destroyed" the Covverl family.

After an hour or two, he found a nice spot between two rocks. There were two entries, and both were covered by soft and sweet scented garn shrubs which he had loved so much as a child. He thought it was a good place to settle. He went straight so sleep. There was no fire tonight.