Heavy storm clouds blotted out stars, a darkness settling over the rolling hills of Redridge. The threat of rain did little to deter Renwyck from his path, plodding footsteps delivering him to the intersection at Three Corners. Just as he mindlessly followed the route from the Pig and Whistle to the Harbor each day in Stormwind, the walk from Lakeshire to the border of Duskwood was just as automatic. The fallen watcher found himself there multiple times a week, simply staring into the darkened landscape of the place he once called home.
No light emanated from within the wood, the watcher's lanterns snuffed out long ago. A thick mist crept over the land, concealing the skitter of shadows across the lush blanket of deep green grass. Something had urged Renwyck to the line of trees separating Duskwood from Redridge. His left hand found the gnarled trunk of an aged oak, the sensation of his calloused hand upon rough bark reminding him not to press further into the forest. Just as the mists swirled before him, inside a haze of emotion writhed within his soul. Sorrow for the loss of what once was, frustration in the wretched man he had become, and anger for those that stole it away in a single night.
They did this. They created everything that I now despise. They took everything from me. I called them brothers and sisters. I opened my heart to them, accepted them as family. And this is what I get? A broken man. A shattered life. And they didn't even have the fucking decency to kill me when they had me pinned beneath their blade…
“Why even bother? You’re nothing more than a lost cause,” a familiar voice echoed in Renwyck’s ears. It was a whisper of the past with words from the present. “Go back to your bottle like the good little drunkard you are.”
He didn’t have to see the ghost to recall Watcher Bukouris’s voice. It was one that haunted him beyond his dreams long after her was forced to cut her down in Duskwood. He should have died with her that night.
“You failed them. Their blood is on your hands.”
The fallen watcher's fingers closed, digging into the bark beneath his palm. “You think I don't know that?” Renwyck growled into the empty mists. “There's not a damned day that goes by that I don't think about them.”
“Do you know how many I killed? How many lives I ended that night? Mabel. Trelayne. But Clarise Gnarltree… she was my masterpiece.”
A chill rolled down his spine causing his entire form to tense. He had seen what became of the Gnarltree's bodies -- a bloody ritual of mutilation to cleave skull from flesh and tissue for some wicked purpose. The memory was enough to form a knot in his stomach, the burn of bile reaching his throat.
A ghastly laughter pierced the silence, twisting and morphing into a demonic wail. Watcher Bukouris’s disembodied voice hissed, her words mirrored by the menacing boom of a Fel Reaver. “I only wish… I could have killed more.”
The dark confession sparked a rage within Renwyck, the fallen watcher clenching his fist until nails dug into his palm. With an abrupt pivot, he drew his hand back before slamming a punch into the rough bark of the tree. A howl of laughter broke out, followed by a chorus of fiendish cries.
Get out of my head… get out of my head…
“Get out of my head,” Renwyck roared, throwing a second hook into the tree. The sting of his hand caused the glee of the hollow voices to wane, if only for a second. It was a beautiful reprieve, and he wanted more. The fallen watcher landed punch after punch against the tree trunk until his flesh tore and knuckles were bathed in blood. Focusing on the exquisite pain, Renwyck drown out the depraved melody with each throb of his hand. The haunting reverberation of the demons in his mind ceased, leaving his panting breaths as the only sound cutting the calm of the night. His arms dropping to his sides, he could feel the beads of warm blood rolling down his hand. With a twitch of his index finger, a droplet fell from his fingertip to the grass below. Turning his gaze toward the dim lights of Lakeshire, Renwyck trudged with stumbling footsteps back toward his new life.
