Murder in the Dark: From Boatman to Killer

Slowly the room swam back into focus and the roar of his rushing pulse abated. Johann sucked in long shuddering breaths, every joint and muscle aching from the adrenalin that had coursed through his body seconds earlier. Tentatively, he brought a hand to his wounded cheek and winced at the searing pain.

He staggered across the room and slumped into one of the chairs, which still retained the warmth of its previous owner. Attempting a hollow smile as the welcome figure of Harbull approached, the old boatman leaned his head forward to allow the diminutive healer a better view.

As the Halfling fussed and tutted over his patient, Johann mulled over what he had just done. Curiously it was neither remorse, nor jubilation that he felt over the gruesome killing of the Tilean cut-throat. Instead a deep emptiness filled him, from which he could muster no emotion for the man he had fought.

The hatred that had burned within him in the dark and fetid passage way now only smoldered in the background. The man had been alive and now he was not - simple as that. It could easily have been the other way. Johann's eyes flickered over to the headless corpse and struggled to visualise it as the living, breathing person it had been moments ago. It - the body had already become an it, a thing.

Johann resolved not to become an it himself...