They sang to me in ways innately

_Parasitos.

The world has fallen to ruin. The tree is nothing but an empty husk of its former self, the blood has been spoilt, and in the claws of the hunter, the torn liver rots. It's unacceptable. So much decay, so much vitality leeched away, and yet there's still so much emptiness. So much craving. So much _hunger.

^{Etymology is a funny thing, isn't it, my friend?} The voice of the host whispers in their mind, the rotting carcass of their prey being kicked off the heights of the tree by the wild hunter — no longer a prize wanted or needed. ^{One who dines at another one's table, but what if everything on that table has been consumed and you still hunger?}

A guttural sound escapes the host's lips; a raging, raw, and primeval shrill. From these heights, crimson eyes tainted by wild amber spot it in the distance: prey — another potential victim, another meal to attempt to satisfy this hunter's hunger.

In a swift motion, this creature falls to the ground, not making a single sound. The body of the host moves through this corrupted land with spectral ease, as if it too had been drained of life and were no more than a phantom haunting those already consumed by the terror that is Mistra. Phantoms also accompany it always.

<'Pump-ka-boo~'> The small ghost's voice is sweet when it appears before the broken man, red light gleaming from within its hollow entrails. Spectral energy wreaths this creature of the night, extending its tendrils towards the stranger that sits upon grass blades that slowly begin to shrivel up and die all around them. The tendrils are like incorporeal limbs, poking and prodding...

What does the ghost want?

What is it searching for?

"Lacrimosa." A voice calls, spectral, broken, coarse, and wrong. It beckons. It hungers. It craves him and him alone. "I see you. You wish to dine at our table too."

It knows.

Through the host's lips, the hunter speaks truths, luring the prey it craves to consume.

PUMPKABOO'S HP: 100/150

Hunt. Deep and deeper into the fiber of the hunter's being — in its very DNA, in the meticulously coded program of its existence — are the instincts that are core, crux, lifeblood, and essence. Feed, they sing in a way that reverberates through the entirety of its being, so primeval and fundamental that to it nothing manners more than feeding. Beyond simple sustenance. Beyond binge and gluttony. It exists to hunt and to feed and to repeat this cycle endless.

Wait. The prey is helpless, lamb to the slaughter, oblivious even to the danger of the creature that pokes and prods with spectral tendrils. Phantasmagoric mist touches soft skin, and crimson eyes watch, fascinated. A barn cat approaching a mouse caught in a trap. A pack of wolves surrounding a lonely baby deer. To every step there is as much threat as there is caution, for hunting is not a matter of pride. It's a matter of existing, a matter of survival; in order for the cycle to continue untouched, in order for the hunter to continue to hunt, it shall only strike once sure its prey won't be able to fight back and cause harm. Such are nature's demands.

Sharp claws reach for the prey, piercing soft skin with every light touch. The hunter stands before it, making it look into his crimson eyes, and oh how loud and clear the songs are: Break it, leave it powerless.

"Does a lamb see a mountain lion and demand to be fed?" The host's voice asks, gaze piercing just as claws are. He studies his prey's face, reaching up for those curved horns that crown its head. He reaches for them, the keratin of a horn clicking against of the keratin of claws. "Don't you see? You're our scapegoat, Lacrimosa."

The hunter throws his head back and laughs, and there is nothing human about this laugh. It's animalistic, strange, and guttural. A cruel and awful sound that causes ripples in pits of the corruption's dark.

SPOILER: Click to show

{scapegoat}

Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of his people, and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land. 

— Leviticus 16:21–22

"You'll gladly take all of our sins unto yourself. You'll gladly take all of the blame. It makes you an outcast... You'll never belong among us. You'll never belong anywhere."

Laughter rumbles, resounding through this barren land, and claws trace their way over a neck, the hunter marvelling at how easy it would be to make it snap — at how exposed arteries are. This knowledge that isn't purely instinctive, it isn't embedded deep in its coding. No, it's a knowledge granted to the hunter by the host; a gift at the least and payment at most.

"Poor, poor, Lacrimosa." The voice rumbles just as laughter had — twisted yet melodious, Dies iræ. Claws trace their way down a sternum, pausing right where the hunter knows the xiphoid process is to be found. "I'll take pity on you, little goat. I'll be merciful and set you free from the misery of this existence of yours."

Oh, how enriching is the game of the hunt.

PUMPKABOO'S HP: 50/150