Chapter 3

As quickly as the darkness had arrived, it had left. Bright sparks invaded every sense Kalex could feel. One of these sparks felt oddly familiar; he could’ve sworn it felt like a sweet pastry from one of Mourtia’s bakeries.

Perplexed and thinking of baked foods, memories came flooding into him. He had died and he remembered. The last memory was of a tear falling from the face of someone he once trusted. He knew the tear was for him and with the knowledge of his death, it brought a warmth to the darkness of his memories. An ending he could live with.

A rumble of the sparks brought him out of his reverie as something akin to pain inundated his every feeling. The place where he found himself began breaking, and the sparks gave the impression of wanting to be released. He willed the sparks to stay with him and many started gathering in a central space, entangling them into a brightly lit orb.

The majority of the sparks were too far away and resisted his calling. One by one, the sparks tore away from the space, leaving gashes in the darkness and revealing bright light and pain. Kalex hurriedly tried to close up the wounds and put an end to the pain they caused. He patched up the holes in the darkness using his gathered sparks, giving the covered area a gray sheen.

The rumbling stopped as the darkness returned to the space. After a moment, Kalex let go of the sparks he was dearly holding onto which went back to the position he had originally found them in. The pain was gone and the mottled darkness was soothing. He continued going through the memories he had and realized what he had done. He didn’t know where he was but he was himself. He had survived.

Only one thing worried him, he couldn’t feel his presence. He tried to push out his presence as he’d done before but something was restricting him. Thoughts of the holorope were shoved to the forefront of his thoughts but this restriction didn’t feel the same. As he pondered his presence, he stumbled across an idea. He had closed and locked his cube before the blade could rend his presence. He couldn’t feel his cube no matter what he did but since it was connected to him, attempting to open it was worth a try.

Focusing on the nonexistent cube was more difficult than he thought. Kalex attempted to think of nothing but his presence, the same way he would when pondering. Clearing his mind, he felt ready and sent the mental command to open. At that moment, the calm he had fostered turned to chaos in an instant.

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A light that was too bright terrorized his eyes as pain crept through his entire body. He felt for his presence and to his surprise, it was there. Only about 80% of what he remembered was available to him and it moved as quickly as grass grew. Slowly moving it across his body, he noticed that it seemed to stop short. No, it hadn’t stopped short. His body had shrunk, he couldn’t have been any more than half a rod tall.

Confusion addled Kalex’s mind as the light cleared from his eyes, the pain became more than he could handle. Kalex screamed. He didn’t do it consciously, but his new body was in so much pain, he couldn't stop. Sounds were the next thing to register. Through the sound of his high-pitched screaming, Kalex heard voices speaking a language he had never heard before. From the sound of them, they were not happy. As he tried to listen to the voices, he suddenly felt as if he was moving and not under his own power. As quickly as he started moving, he stopped, greeted with a new pain.

He felt heat from all around him and desperately tried to wiggle away from the feeling only to fall from a small height with a new round of pain. Time was not something Kalex could determine but he knew quite a bit had passed. During this time, his eyesight came back to him and he was horrified at what he was seeing.

Beings he had never seen before passed him with urgency, and flames had broken out in every structure he could see. A few of these beings spat at him as they passed which Kalex thought was rude, but with his constant screaming that had rendered his throat raw and the pain he was feeling, he didn’t give it much thought. Time passed this way until a shadow blocked out Kalex’s sight. Moving was painful as Kalex turned to see one of these beings standing over him.

He was not tall according to Beer standard, at around one and a half rods tall but he was heavily muscled to the point that the glistening armor he wore seemed to burst at the seams as he lifted his foot directly above Kalex. To his surprise, he felt a wisp of this being’s presence as his foot began to descend. A much stronger presence cloaked Kalex at almost the same time, lifting him slightly and causing his pain to largely lessen.

All sound was cut off from Kalex as he watched the foot that was meant for him slam into the spot where he had been a moment before. A large cloud of dust and debris pelted a barrier around him, causing his screaming to stop as he tried to figure out what was happening. Before he could piece anything together, he was gently placed back down. The pain came back and he unconsciously started crying again.

He cursed his luck. First, he had been captured and killed and now he was in a strange place with strange beings and strange presences. Before he could fall into a state of melancholy, the dust cleared and the sight of the armored man running away confused him. The confusion only increased as he saw a very small woman looking down at him. His pain quickly retreated as he was lifted. The first thing he noticed was her eyes, they reminded him of the sky as day turned into night. Kalex felt safe peering into those eyes and slowly closed his. As he started to fall asleep he felt movement again, but it was comforting, like floating on a slow-moving river. With that thought, he let sleep take him.