Chapter 3: Warmblood

I shake my head several times and even give my cheek a pinch to make sure I'm not dreaming. Before my eyes stand a two-story tall abode which seems to be clouded by a hazy, nebulous layer of mist. I'm pretty sure that the werewolf has killed me. But this isn't Heaven or Hell, I still breathe and there's water vapour in my mirror. I'm alive. It's eight o'clock and the moon is high in the cloudless sky.
I get up on my feet and walk on the cobblestone pathway to the door. I look around and see that this house is isolated on a hilltop or so. Its only neighbours are deep chasm clouded with fog and hundreds of tombstones that stands motionless in a foggy garden nearby. I take my compass out but the needle is just spinning lazily around. Perhaps there's a naturally magnetic iron ore at the hill foot?
I walk to the fence of the graveyard and find that there are even more tombstones afar, hidden underneath the veil of fog. Growing next to the old tombstones are little white flowers, known only to the herdmen and the lower class. Upon close inspection, however, these flowers are rather strange, unlike any I could find in the Royal Library. Speaking of the Royal Library, I heard that my grand mother's sister- great aunt Sophia used to work there. She was sent to Yharnam on some fool errand and never returned. 
From the moment I set foot here, I sense that there's something wrong with this place, something abnormal, distantly unfathomable. Something peculiar and unreal, as if, this place is all but a fuzzy dream.  I decide to walk to the house ask its house owner about my whereabouts. After tens of steps in the mist, I find on the left side of the doorway, lies a lady.
" Hello! I didn't mean breaking into your..." I pause as I notice the lady I saw earlier wasn't a lady at all when I come closer. It's a human-sized plain doll. I can tell by its meticulous design and quality that its creator must be a master craftsman. This is rather strange, who would make a doll with this size?  I inspect the doll, it resembles a noblewoman with fine hair and beautiful eyes, yet it lifeless eyes somehow give me a creep. This doll is so finely crafted, it is as if alive. 
Leaving the doll behind, I walk forward and on the stair, I see some tiny, nightmarish creatures that I saw earlier in the nightmare. They stand, no, to be exact, sprout from the ground and they are carrying weapon! They see me. For a moment, I thought they would chase me down but they just sit there and point their weapons towards me as if they want to offer the weapons to me. 
I take a risky move towards the little creeps and yet they still not attack. 
" Can you talk?" I ask. They do not respond. I walk towards the door and try it. Locked. I knock but there is no answer.
I notice that there are three groups of little creeps, the first carry weapons, the seconds carry firearms and the last carry a notebook. I sit down next to the second group and notice one is holding a message, it reads:
" The Messengers offer you a firearm. Choose one."
Messengers? So these little guys are called messengers? But what message they carry and for whom? To think, it must be them who set the bloody werewolf on fire and now they offer me weapons. Despite their looks, they seem to be not that bad. They offer me two firearms: one is called Hunter Pistol and the other is called Hunter Blunderbuss. Though their worn condition would not fit a sophisticated noble like me, I take the Blunderbuss from the little ones out of courtesy.
From the Messengers that offer weapons, I choose a the Threaded Cane. It suits my satin pardessus. The weapon is interestingly and finely crafted. Sufficiently deadly as a rigid bladed cane, but also serves as a whip when its blade is split into many.
I stand in the open and transform the whip with barbed blades. Great. So this is the weapon to hunt beast. I swing it around a few times and feel superior. Suddenly, I feel something warm runs over my cheek. Blood. Warmblood is dripping from my forehead. I must have cut myself.
I jog around the garden and find that there are more Messengers that offer me scrolls that contain wisdom and knowledge of hunters before me. Perhaps, that is why they are called Messengers? 
I follow the instructions and advises from my predecessors. I train myself with the bladed whip for hours or so. It's even stranger that in my clock, it's already six in the morning yet the surrounding is still dark. The moon does not even change her position on the sky. 
From a note which I rate fine, an old hunter says this place is called "Hunter's Dream" and is, in fact, a dream. His note is quite detailed and although I didn't take it seriously at first, I slowly realise the importance of these notes. He wrote that those who came to this place were chosen by the dream and had their mind brand with the Hunter's Mark rune. And "By focusing one's thought on the symbol, a hunter loses all Blood Echoes, but awakes afresh, as if it were all just a bad dream." It's the second time I hear this phrase " Just a bad dream". The weird-looking Blood Minister did say this to me before. 
Perhaps it would not hurt if I try. I close my eyes and focus all my thought on the dangling, upside-down rune. 
The next thing I know when I open my eyes is that I wake up on the dirty passage of Hunter's Dream, on a different post. That's just odd. I have just shut my eyes minutes before. Has the short nap turned out to be a long sleep? And did the Messengers move me here when I was asleep? I check my clock again and it's eight at night, the exact time I wake up the first time here.
I walk to an "Awakening Headstone" and choose to wake up at Iosefka's Clinic. The Messengers grab my hand and slowly, everything fades to grey. 
I wake up on the dirty rug of the clinic, hopefully with my belongings. I'm ready to fight the Scourge Beast that killed me before.