(the binding of Isaac 'peace be with you' )

"I wonder if there's still any edible mushrooms around this time of year?" I said while walking along an old game path within my grandpa's frankly large, forested country home.

For clarification, my grandpa owns a huge amount of land out in the middle of bum fuck nowhere. Heh, some parts actually remind me of sections in horror games, it also doesn't help that for my eighth birthday he had built an entire recreation of the slender man game somewhere out here.

Anyway I'm getting side tracked, Howdy, name's Hunter R. Herring, yes my name is hilarious, it isn't like I haven't heard it a thousand times before. So before we descend into laughter at my name, I was originally born and raised in Texas, but after my parents got busted for leading a drug ring, I had to move in with my grandpa.

That didn't really change anything though, I basically lived at my grandpa's anyway because of how many times I got a little to close to being caught by my parents while I was collecting evidence on them for my Uncle Kyle, by the way, he isn't actually a cop or any form of official law enforcement.

No he is actually a very high up figure in a local mafia or something like that, and the only reason I helped him was because the mafia he is in, is that it's the type that is actually really caring and protective of the community it's apart of. That and I hate my parents, and no I don't hate them for a reason, I just don't like their personalities.

Back to where I am right now, I was in the part of my grandpa's property that was mostly abandoned by anything and everything, and by that, I mean there's no living plants, insects, or animals. The only thing in this part of the property is knarly, dead, and rotten trees. Piles of random bits of scrap metal, and it's one of the few areas actually close to a rather tall and rocky hill.

I couldn't have it any better, especially with the current weather being a rumbling sea-like storm up above me.

Now you may say I sound insane for saying that, but it's what I like okay, however that doesn't mean I hate living nature. Not after being basically raised by my mother nature loving grandpa. He took me out of school before I went into high school in order teach me all he knew about nature and survival, as well as stuff that is actually important, such as how to both understand and do taxes and other such important real life skills.

It also doesn't mean he didn't teach me what the school system would've, had I actually went through highschool.

The man basically taught me how to be a nature freak tribalist, however I did scare him once by learning how to chant gutturally, and doing it to 'Mary had a little lamb'. I thought he was going to a heart attack with the way he was clutching his chest.

Got chased around the house for it, but hey, he couldn't catch me after I turned 11 and started doing small amounts of parkour whenever I could. I got nicknamed spider monkey by him after he found me basically climbing and jumping all over the outside of the house out of boredom.

Speaking of the house, we live in a large barn shaped building with two stories. The first floor contains the living room, a kitchen with both a meat freezer and a pantry. We also have a laundry room which is just a room filled with cleaning supplies and both a washer and dryer. Then a door that opens to the garage were we have the large amount of DIY supplies, the car, the boiler, and the various machines that we use to live out here with modern luxuries.

Now the second floor is connected to the first floor by a set of stairs in the living room, and you can look over the railing to see into the living room, so it's a rather big open space. Anyway the second floor has the bathroom, which connects to the laundry room beneath it, the bathroom only has a shower toilet and sink. When the house was first made my grandpa completely forgot to account for a tub and has never really put much thought into it. So yeah after the bathroom with no bath, comes the bedrooms, which consist of my room, grandpa's room, and two guest rooms.

Grandpa even installed a small radio tower on the roof a couple years back, all so we can enjoy some of the more modern luxuries that would normally require one to live closer to others.

Anyway, after getting my fill of a nature walk around the 'dead zone' as I called it, I started on my way back to the house. As I was making my way back I spotted my grandpa walking towards the hill while carrying a strange box. Now I immediately froze on the spot and waited until he was far enough away so that I wouldn't be noticed by him.

Say what you want, but he is basically a master hunter and always found me no matter where I hid or ran to, that is until he taught me the proper way to sneak around and cover my tracks in order to not alert my prey.

I got so good a being quiet and not leaving tracks that he had to get serious in order to find me. The part he found most annoying was how quickly I managed to make it into a subconscious action, I once heard him mutter about how it felt now that he was the teacher.

Guess it's a family thing that he did with his grandfather, meh.

After he got out of range of me, I started booking it to the house, mostly cause when I saw him I suddenly remembered the chores I was supposed to do in the day while he was gone.

quickly and effectively making my way through the forest I saw the lights of house were on, feeling a slight amount of dread as I got closer I quickly made my way into the house and did the chores I forgot to do, which where basic household chores this time around instead of stuff that would take a couple hours to complete.

At the tail end of me finishing the chores and just sitting down to rest, I heard more than saw grandpa came through the door.

BANG! "Damn wind caught the door, bloody hell I hope that didn't damage anything,"

"Don't worry, since the brewing storm showed itself I went ahead and put up measures incase it got especially bad later on, like it is now," and I'm telling the truth on this one, as soon as I saw the roiling pitch black clouds in the distance I took some precautionary measures incase it turns into another of those costly storms. "I took a couple extra precautions due to both your old age and baby hands,"

He just glared at me for my young insolence against his elder powers. Also, he doesn't actually have small hands, their just really fucking smooth and the only place he doesn't have wrinkles.

Shaking his head and sighing he starts to gesture for me to get up, "Anyway go ahead and clean yourself up and change your clothes, you smell like burnt cheese and raw clay," he then started thwacking me with a wash cloth from his puffer coat pocket.

"Yipe!, alright alright I'm going!" I said while hopping up on the couch's headrest then jumping and grasping the bottom of the second floor, I then started pulling myself up and doing a half vault/roll over the safety railing, all done in a couple of seconds.

As I made my way to my room to disrobe and grab a new set of clothing and a towel from my personal supply, I remembered that I forgot to do my laundry. Shrugging, I continued on my way by going into the bathroom to start my shower.

Stopping the water flow and pushing the curtain aside, I dried myself off with the towel before I put it into the hamper specifically for my towels, then I started to put on my clothes, with them being my boxers first, then a pair of those 2006 gym shorts, then a T-shirt with a high as fuck Pikachu smoking a joint on it.

I find it funny, so shush.

Walking out of the bathroom with steam still coming off of me, I vault over the railing, landing into a roll before standing up with the help of the rolls momentum. Stretching my arms as I walk, I go towards the kitchen, since that's were I hear the most activity, I see him cooking three porkchops on one pan then in a pot next to it, I see it's that really good Kraft mac and cheese.

Eyes widening I look over to the calendar by the dinner table and see that today is indeed my birthday. Now the reason it's porkchops and mac & cheese, is because I can't eat something overly sweet without feeling sick, now I can be just fine eating a bunch of sugar or sugary products with no issues beyond a stomach ache.

It's just that if it tastes too sweet I start to feel sick, so my grandpa decided to only make my most favorite meal on my birthday instead of a cake and on his birthday I do the same and make his favorite meal, which is chicken alfredo pasta if you wanted to know. That and he doesn't make an overly large deal out of my birthday too, mostly because we both see birthdays as just another day that marks us closer to the sweet and lovely embrace of death.

Shaking my head, I walk over and sit in my chair at the table before knocking on the wall to get his attention.

"So, I turn eighteen today huh, augh I can already start feeling the wrinkles coming for me,"

He just chuckled and shook his head at my antics before actually responding to me. "Don't worry, wrinkles will be the least of your problems as you get older, anyways, after dinner I have to talk to you about something that I found today at the pawn shop,"

"Oh, am I getting a new grandma now?" I say with a smug grin and raised brow.

This makes him sputter into a laughing fit as he was fixing our plates, he quickly regained control of himself as he picked up both plates and walked over to the table with them.

"Quiet you, you still have a living grandmother, and no it's more about an artifact from our ancestors back when the world wasn't as shit as it is now,"

"So what is this artifact your talking about?"

Setting the plates down he responds with the usual thing he says when foods on the table, "Not right now, first food then talking,"

As he takes his seat we both immediately start eating with gusto and soon finish our meals in minutes.

"Alright, *burph* now we can continue talking about the artifact, and to start off it's actually not too dissimilar to a huge carved gem necklace, with colorful beads interspersed with various unique animal or plant carvings made from green colored rocks"

"Yep this is already sounds like something old,"

"Shush boy, I was just getting to the best part, the main part of the artifact is a large piece of white quartz with the image in blue of a tree growing intertwined with a human skeleton on it. The most backstory I remember about it, was that it was said to allow one of chosen blood to dawn the hood of the forgotten wood, basically it could allow the bearer to be one with nature if they are of a certain bloodline,"

Now a normal person would say that this is clearly someone on drugs and associating the trip with the artifact, but both me and my grandpa know better, for a couple reasons. One, I witnessed this man convince a bear to give us a hug, and no, not through training or anything of the sort. dude just had a strait conversation with a wild grizzly and it hugged us then it wandered off, but during the whole time my grandpa was giving off a barely seen glow off of him.

Reason two, animals are oddly friendly towards both of us, and occasionally random birds in the area ask both me and grandpa for help, for the most part anyway. They don't talk to us with words, but every time a bird came to me for help I somehow knew what it wanted and I would help them.

The birds sometimes leave me gifts on the window seal, I find it endearing and occasionally they'll bring me something interesting, especially so if the bird is either a crow or raven. Those birds will bring me bottle caps and coins for helping them.

"So, I'm just gonna take a shot in the dark here and say your going to do something involving the artifact and some type of 'coming of age' ritual deal our ancestors used to do?"

"Hit the nail right on the head boyo, I was planning to do it right after dinner but we may have to wait until tomorrow night for it. Either way, it's right around eight now, so I'm going to watch my show, so get!"

Shaking my head, I get up from the chair and make my way with the dishes to the sink to deposit them before returning to my room for the night. Walking into my room I close the door and lock it, taking a look over my room, I feel old memories dredge up at every decoration or device in my room.

On my shelf lies three fossils that I found when I went out camping with grandpa for the first time, the fossils being a random fish, some small trilobites, and an ammonite all sitting clean and secure to the shelf.

Next to them lies some of the shells, sand dollars, and other stuff in a small bowl from my few outings to the beach with uncle Kyle and aunt Mara.

Then right below my shelf sits my heavily marred desk, each scar or stain showing proof to my use of it to make random items or trinkets from various materials. The well worn brushes I use to make designs on stuff all sitting in a cup, in the drawers lie each and every hand held tool I used to shape and change objects to my whim.

Spread all over my room, I have a multitude of pots, bowls, plates, and cups made by my own two hands, formed from raw clay, cooked in the homemade forge in grandpa's garage, and then painted and/or etched on my desk.

On the walls hang a multitude of posters that came with Lego sets that I built years ago. Along side some of the few times I tried landscape painting, grandpa said they looked good but they never caught the look I was going for when I made them.

Shaking my head again to dislodge me from the old memories I simply grab some ear buds, then plug them into my Mp3 and start listing to my vibing out playlist on shuffle. I simply vibe to my tunes for however long, feeling like I was just floating at some point until I caught the smell of something burning.

Now the smell of burning makes me angry, I don't know why but it does, something smoking on the other hand, like incense or a sizzling steak for example makes me feel relaxed or giddy.

This smell however was like something big was burning, that's when I heard it after taking an earbud out, it was the sound of shattering glass and a flame getting stronger. Bolting up from the floor I yank out my earbuds, pocket both them and my mp3 player and go to the window to see that the entire front yard and porch was heavily on fire and half-way to collapsing.

(Binding of Isaac 'Enmity of the Dark Lord')

Through the smoke I spotted my mom, hurl a Molotov cocktail straight at my window next to three others doing the same, spotting another three people, I see that their making their way around the inferno towards the back of the house.

Eyes widening in alarm, I tackle my door out the way unfazed at the fact it was so easily reduced to kindling. Looking at the ceiling covered in a heavy layer of smoke I felt even more panicked, speeding my way down the hallway and as I get to the railing ready to jump off it, I stop just before it to see that the entire wall towards the front door is burning away. Looking to the ground floor I see that it's a slowly spreading sea of angry flames.

Scared out of my mind I look towards the couch which was already half on fire seeing nothing there. Seeing that grandpa didn't fall asleep on the couch this one time fills me with slight relief. However that relief is rendered down to nothing at the unmistakable twined sound of my grandpa's dual modified volcanic pistols, Dawn and Dusk.

Rushing to the back of the house were the fire has yet to reach, I get out onto the back porch to see the three guys I saw heading back here from the window with two of them missing heads and the third standing over grandpa about to beat him over the head with large rock. The third guy was bloody and wobbly, and wanting to kill my grandpa for taking out two of his own.

He never got the chance.

With nary a sound I dead sprinted towards him, jumped and drop kick the rock in his hands into his face with my full weight. As we both hit the ground, his head making a sound akin to smashing a particularly thick watermelon, and me tumbling into a messy roll. I got up as fast as I could and went to my clearly bleeding grandpa laying on the steps to the backyard porch.

Kneeling right beside him, my hands doing that no touchy dance when someone is badly hurt but you don't know what to do. Steeling my self I start by slightly lifting his torso and holding the back of his head. As I lifted his head, I felt cracked bone, instantly filling my stomach with grief.

"Grandpa, are....are you still here?" I gave a very light shake of his torso

Coughing and spitting blood he responds in a shaky and quiet tone, to which I quickly leaned my head down so he doesn't need to strain as much.

"H-head to the base of dead z-zone hill....you'll find it there......also," letting out wet cough then taking a shuddering breath, he grasped my shoulder tightly and pushed both Dawn and Dusk into my chest. Causing me to let go of his torso to hold the relics remade through history. "Take care of these would...*cough* would you, they were my grandfather's guns, heh heh,"

"heh, guess I'll see you later then?" I felt exhausted and pained just by way he was starting to look now. I know putting up a front is hard for him right now, and we both knew it, we both feel his head wound. Alongside the approaching fire which just set the back of the house on fire, he won't make the night even if he was just put into the emergency room this very minute.

Feeling tears well up in my eyes, I ask one simple question to him.

"Do you want me to let the fire consume you or..." struggling with my words he just gives one chuckle then grabs both my shoulders.

"No, just leave me here, I don't want you to go through that,"

Nodding, I pocket the guns before I pick him up in both of my arms and go up the steps, grab a pillow with my foot from the porch couch just starting to be set alight. Then chucking the pillow onto the middle of the porch, I lay him gently down onto the porch with his head on the pillow before giving him one last hug.

"S-see you l-later, alligator,"

Weakly chuckling, he hugs me back gently, saying. "In a while, crocodile, and remember, crying is okay...there is no shame or dishonor in a man for crying,"

Nodding one last time, we let go of each other and I see that his breathing is already starting to weaken. Turning away and going down the steps I start letting out tears as I pull out the guns from my pocket, as I'm making my way towards the woods I hear yelling from behind me.

"Hey! someone's going into the woods!"

I can hear my mothers shrill voice respond to him in a yell. "Well don't just stand there you dunder heads let's get him!"

Hearing several sets of running footsteps behind me, I dash into the woods leading them deeper into their dooms. My thoughts primarily being about making sure to take them out so they don't do this to anyone else.

Now death doesn't sucker punch me right the feels like it does to normal people, as I've already accepted that one day everyone will die someway somehow, we may not know at the moment how we die, but I sure as hell was making sure they wouldn't leave these woods.

With the burning glow behind me slowly getting dimmer as I moved deeper into the woods, I started hearing the sound of rain and thunder, then feeling small droplets on my exposed skin until it turned into a drenching downpour.

Holding up Dawn and Dusk, I checked the ammo for both of them, Dawn only having two more rounds in her and Dusk with one.

Also they are two very old pistols held over from grandparent to grandchild with them being modified and cleaned only by the current owner of the twin pistols.

Going from primitive hand cannons originally, to having the wood finish and original metal being reworked into a new gun occasionally as it was passed down the line. With my grandpa turning them from blast cap revolvers into his own rendition of volcanic pistols that shoots 5.7 rounds, for the buff against poor people.

(the temporary look of Dawn and Dusk)

I asked grandpa why Dusk was white instead of some darker color, he told that he messed up a step or two during his recreation of the pistols and was too lazy to fix it.

Slowly breathing out, I stalked the back of the group of my mom's thugs as she led them at the front with a flashlight, which wasn't needed given the sun just started to set even with the clouds blocking a good portion of the light, I can still see just fine.

Sneaking off to the side of them I recounted the max amount of rounds in the pistols, which are currently to being a max of three for both guns. Which happens to be the same amount of people she's leading, not including her. Pulling the twins up I line their cross hairs to the two with actual guns in their hands.

The goons she's leading uncannily look like the stereotypical type of brutes you'd see in mobster movies from the fifties. The biggest having a huge overbite and bit of a cowlick going on, one normal looking one that looks like a 1950's bad boy reject, and the shortest having a squint and an underbite instead.

"So who do you think that was that ran in here? He's at least got to be as lost as us," asked the biggest of them.

"Probably the bosses dad, since that was his house," said the bad boy reject.

"Well whoever it is, they ain't gon-," the shortest pop-eye looking one didn't even get to finish as his head turned into a fine red mist alongside the biggest one's head, covering the back of my mother in brain bits and blood, while the normal looking guy got completely covered in it, but for both of them the downpour was quickly taking care of it.

"Ah! mother fucker I got some in my eye!" shouted the normal guy as he fell against a tree to support his weight.

"Were the hell are you old man?!" screeched my mother in outrage.

Ducking behind a tree I eject the spent cartridges, holstering Dusk after letting the casing hit the ground, I ran past some more trees to be ahead of the two then quietly walked up to them, my mom lookin around every which way, except on the path in my direction. As I walk right up behind my mother the normal speaks up getting her attention.

"Ugh, I think I got it all out, wait who is-," interrupting the speaking once more I fire right into his nose causing his brain to blast out the back of his skull.

Whipping around towards me she starts to yell about grandpa more than likely, but I don't give her a chance as I slam the butt of the pistol's grip into her forehead causing her to fall onto her ass and drop her machete onto the muddy ground alongside here flash light which rolls slightly away until I realize it illuminated my silently crying face.

"*Cough cough* you damn old man, how *cough*.... dare...you," as she trailed off I realized she was probably looking at my tear stained face and realizing it wasn't grandpa she was chasing out here.

Looking deep into her brown eyes I only had one thing to say to her, "Grandpa's dead, and you've burned my only home," spinning Dusk to reload terminator style I point the now empty gun at her face of rapidly dawning horror. However, no matter how hard I tried, I simply couldn't pull the trigger even with no bullet in the chamber, so with a heavy sigh I stop pointing the gun at her, de-cocking Dawn and holstering the heirloom next to it's twin within my pocket and turning away from her.

Before I turn fully I spoke out to her one last time, "I know your smarter than those goons you hired, so I'm just going to say this once, leave and never return, and try and do better...please,"

With that, I turned and started running through the forest towards were grandpa told me to go, to dead zone hill.

It took me awhile, but I found the strange box that grandpa buried, using my bare hands I grabbed handfuls of mud for what felt like hours, my energy was sapped away by the freezing rain and digging in the mud, along side any emotional energy of tonight, doesn't really help that lighting strikes seemed to like the top of the Dead Zone hill.

I found the mound with the box at the base on the opposite side of the hill, were it was more rocks and dirt with a little grass compared to the dead zone area closer to home, it felt more desert-y than anything.

Pulling the dirtied box from the ground I set it on my knees as I opened it, and inside is the very same necklace grandpa described. A huge necklace of colorful beads with animals and plants carved into a green stone, with the main part of the necklace being a white quartz with a blue human skeleton fused with a tree.

Taking the necklace out it suddenly glowed bright green, similar to if someone shined a green colored floodlight in my face. Though it's bright, the glow is quickly turned off and as my eyes readjust to reality, the quartz part of the necklace shot a green bolt into the clouds and a couple of sparks into me, making me feel weird at the points of contact.

Suddenly the slow rumbling in the sky turned to a hundred as the clouds started giving off an ominous green glow before coalescing into multiple giant green lightning strikes that hit several things nearby, but the closest to me hit the top of the hill, heavily shaking it, causing a landslide to come hurtling towards me at high speeds.

Sighing one last time, I simply put on the necklace and hold out my arms to the sky, only saying one thing before the landslide hits me.

"Guess I'll be seeing you earlier than expected, grandpa,"

The last thing I saw was one last lightning bolt coming at me before everything went dark.

Author's Note

frankly I have no idea what I'm doing so if it's shit, go ahead and tell me, also the parenthesis below the music vids is incase they get taken down for whatever reason from youtube.