chapter 1- Blood sacrifice.

Darkness. Complete darkness.

I was floating, hovering in an utter reflectionless black. Whether I was drifting along or suspended in place, I couldn’t tell.

I was oblivious to what was going on all around me, yet I knew one thing though. I was conscious.

I could think, I could imagine, and I had had sentience. That alone was enough to keep me alive, enough to make me not drift into the unknown abyss of darkness that my consciousness resided in.

I knew I wasn’t dead, but it sure as hell didn’t feel like it. Occasionally I’d get recollections of my past, I could recall having arms, having legs, oh... Yeah, I am a man alright.

After spending a while in this stagnant limbo, I used all parts of my imagination to imagine how I looked.

My body was tall, pale like snow, and radiantly white. It felt like my whole body was, glowing?

It might be because I still couldn’t remember every part of my body, but my brain defaulted to a glowing white form it seems.

Suddenly out of the blue my left arm struck me with unimaginable pain, I started screaming and aching while I writhed in agony.

The pain spread-out throughout my arm, and into my whole body.

Soon enough the pain stopped, and I was able to open my eyes.

The place around me was dark and moist, but my vision hadn’t adapted to the outside world yet so I couldn’t easily make out my surroundings.

A sharp pain resounded once again in my mind, and now I was able to move my right hand.

I tried to move my hand around to feel where I was, and I could feel that I was sleeping on a stony cold floor.

Moving my hand even closer to my body I could feel a warm and thick textured liquid, as I put my hand closer to my eyes I could tell that it was red.... It was blood.

I was injured, the fact that I was bleeding and was in possible danger of dying as soon as I gained consciousness scared me. I didn’t want to die, not when I just woke up.

Using all the strength of my right arm I moved my body so I could lay on my back. That way I could at least try and avoid whatever bacteria there is on the floor to not get the wound infected.

Funny enough even though I was injured I couldn’t feel a single thing from the wound, yet whenever I gain the ability to use one of my limbs an imaginable pain overcomes me.

In time I started regaining the feeling in my nose, my sense of smell came back alongside it, something that I wasn't very appreciative of in the current moment. The mixed stench if moss, mold, blood and a dead corpse...

Soon after, my ears. I could hear the sound of water droplets falling on the ground somewhere near me.

Now up was my mouth, as soon as I gained access to my mouth on top of the pain, I was immediately welcomed by an uncouth feeling of thirst. It felt like I hadn’t drunk a single cup of water in years. My throat, parched and sandy, was hurting me and it felt like it was bleeding.

Luckily I was able to move after gaining access to the rest of my limbs, but it seems like I had spent a long time here in this cave, since I still couldn’t move my limbs properly.

With great difficulty I crawled on the cold floor of the cave while covering my wounded Chest with my right arm.

My knees, heels, arms and elbows were now all scratched and bleeding from the harsh cave floor. I had spent close to a quarter of an hour crawling to the source of water that I could blatantly hear.

Soon enough I reached a small pond formed from little water droplets that had been continuously falling over a bowl-shaped rock for a very long time. I dunk my whole head strait inside and I started inhaling all the water. I couldn’t care less if it got in my lungs, I just wanted the pain of my parched throat to go away.

After quenching my thirst, I dragged the rest of my body down to the little pond and I washed every inch of it. Dirt and grime that was accumulated on my body in the span of God knows how long had now fell and inhabited the pond waters.

I thought to myself “I really should have saved up a bit of that water for myself, God knows if I can find another water source later... Well it’s not like I’m carrying a waterskin or anything so I can’t do anything about it.”

After washing my body and my clothes I sat near the pond for a while, my stomach started aching from both hunger and from the pain of my wound.

I tore my shirt into pieces, I made a bandage for my chest from the end line of the white shirt. And I made myself fabric shoes and wrappings to wrap around my hands as well, that way I can at least have some sort of protection for my hands and feet.

After resting for a while, I started moving aimlessly, trying to find a way to leave this cave.

I found myself stumbling, falling, and hitting the cave’s walls time and time again because of how poorly lit it was, it was pitch dark inside with no source of lighting.

I occasionally met some lizards and bugs on the way, even though according to my memories I was supposed to be disgusted from these types of animals, but looking at them right now I couldn’t bring myself to not salivate over how delicious that lizard’s tail looked.

I caught the bugs and lizards with my bare hands, and without any hesitation I shoved them inside my mouth. I didn’t bother to grill them, fry them, cook them, I didn’t have the proper equipment for that after all. Thus, I just ended up eating them alive without even killing them first.

I was able to sustain myself that way in the cave for a few days while I looked for an exit, and luckily enough, when I was as thirsty as I could, I found the exit.

The way I found out about the exit was easy, the cave was cold, and I could occasionally feel a chilling breeze of air coming from the cracks of the cave. This only meant one thing, there was an opening to the cave that was nearby.

I was greeted with a soul chilling gust of wind as soon as I got close to the opening of the cave.

The consequence of staying in that abyss like cave was that my eyes weren’t built to endure light, so when I got out of the cave for the first time, the moon’s gentle light felt like someone was aiming a torch right at my eyes, scorching it in the process.

After a couple of minutes my eyes adjusted to the light and luckily I could avoid being blinded by the light of the moon. Just imagine how stupid it would be to explain to someone that you got blinded by the light of the freaking moon.

The place I was in was a cliff that oversaw the entire region. There was a lot of plantain life under the cliff connecting to a huge forest to the south. And after the end of the forest, I saw it... A huge castle, like that out of a fantasy novel. I felt something itching me, drawing me towards that place, and that was when I knew that that place was my next destination.

Waking me up from my daze, was the feeling of sharp pain through my feet. I looked down only to see a not so familiar view. Snow?

The area I used to live was closer to that of a desert, only raining a week in a year, and I’ve never seen snow outside of movies and TV shows.

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The cold was unbearable, but I got an idea. I grabbed huge chunks of snow with my hands and I started shovelling it into my mouth, the taste was God awful, but I was so thirsty that I didn’t care.

I was freezing cold, and I knew descending this cliff was my best choice of action if I ever wanted to survive. My plan was to move down to the forest so I can gather some wooden planks and light a fire somehow. It wasn’t the best plan, but it was better than nothing.

After walking down for a while I found the end of the rock path in this cliff, so I was placed in a predicament where I couldn’t descend unless I climbed down. I placed my hands on the edge of the cliff while I dangled almost 10km high above the ground and started going downwards.

My hands aches and my feet bled through the bandages, each second felt like hell but I had to endure if I wanted to survive. My outmost and never-ending determination to survive and find out who I was and what I was doing here was stronger than anything else I could feel, it drove me forward.

While climbing down I saw a little nest on the side of the cliff, it looked like it belonged to a couple of birds and their eggs. The birds weren’t there, but instead and unbeknownst to them they had an unwelcomed guest.

A small squirrel jumped towards the small bird’s eggs, and without a trace of hesitation he filled his cheeks with 2 eggs and jumped off.

I chuckled a bit, amused, trying to forget the pain in my hands and feet.

The little squirrel looked as if he had noticed me though, he jumped off the branch that was stuck to the wall on the upper left side of where I was. He spread his arms and looked as if he had, wings? He was the type of squirrel who could fly, instead of wings he had this thin skin part under his arms that allowed him to carry his weight in the sky.

He flew over to where I was and he landed on my shoulders. He jumped on my hand, forcing me to stop my descent. He looked at me with his pitch-black eyes, and with his cheeks filled with food.

He stared at me for a couple of seconds until I said something to him.

“Hey buddy... Would you mind flying off to somewhere else, I’m trying to climb down this cliff over here.”

I said with a chortle.

The squirrel didn’t move an inch, what did I expect? For the squirrel to understand human speech and say “Oh sorry good sir, here let me move out the way for you“ angry with disappointment at myself I moved my hands off the ledge and continued my descent without paying attention to the squirrel “Stupid squirrel, just move out of my way already.“ I said with an annoyed yet pouty face.

The squirrel though, came back on my hands, this time it looked like it had... “Hey is this squirrel grinning at m-“without even having the ability to finish my thought sequence the squirrel started biting away at my hands. “HEY, HEY CUT IT CUT IT” I yelled.

While waving my hands off trying to scare the squirrel away, my footing slightly slipped and with a cold breath I ended up slipping away entirely from the cliff.

I started free falling in the air straight into the ground, the fall probably took a matter of a few seconds, yet it felt like hours to me who was stricken by panic.

I landed straight on my back on a pile of snow, my body rebounding from the huge fall.

I could feel every bone in my body crack and get squished together, adding salt to the injury it looked like the wound on my chest started bleeding even more now.

I laid in the cold snow, freezing yet unable to move. I had tears streaming down my face, my emotions getting the best out of me. I wasn’t able to comprehend the fact that everything was going against my way. Why did I have to wake up in that god forsaken cave, why did the cave have to be on that huge cliff, why did that stupid squirrel decide to bite me and make me fall down, and why in hell could I not remember anything from my past!

I passed out and woke up after what seemed like a whole day. Yet waking up I felt a strange feeling, I was fine?!

The bones that were cracked and broken were fine, the cuts and bruises on my hands and feet were all healed up. Practically every wound on my body was healed except... The wound on my chest.

I was confused about everything that was going on, how was I able to heal all of those injuries in the span of a single day? I know I don’t remember a lot of things, but I definitely knew humans didn’t have this fast regenerative ability!

I was also wondering why the wound on my chest didn’t heal. if all my injuries had healed overnight then how come the first ever wound I had gotten is still there?

I couldn’t focus anymore on the matter before realising that my mouth had dark red stains over it, while a deep metallic taste took over the tongue.

I immediately started getting worried that I had injured my lungs during the fall and started coughing blood while I was passed out. But seeing how I’m perfectly fine right now it looks like that wasn’t the deal.

I chose to let things go and focus on getting out of here and into that castle, after all I’ll have all the time in the world to think about solutions to my problems once I had reached safety.

Thanks to that squirrel I had fallen down straight in the outline of the forest. I was surrounded by tall and large trees all around me.

Dusting my pants off I started marching forward towards the end centre of the forest.

Cursing under my breath I stepped on tree branch after tree branch, I was basically exposing where I was to whomever inhabited this forest, but I couldn’t do anything about it since the floor was littered with tree branches.

“Wait.... tree branches?” a thought crossed my mind.

If tree branches were littering the place, then I could collect them and find a secluded place to start a fire!!

I grabbed as many tree branches as I could find and wrapped them all up in a band using the cloth of my left hand.

I kept walking until I found a rotten tree that was big enough for me to stay inside. Considering its dead state, it was dry enough to light ablaze quickly so I had to get some fresh tree bark from outside that was moist enough to not be lit so easily and could use it on the outline of the campfire I was planning to make.

I got the tree bark quite easily since it was snowing everywhere, and the trees were all moist. I got back inside the tree and got a couple of stones trying to light the campfire. However, I failed after realising that I actually needed a flintstone instead of normal stones. But I quickly got back on my feet after remembering that I could light a fire using friction. I got a wooden stick and wrapped a few leaves around it to use as handles, I started moving the stick really fast until sparks were starting to fly off from it. Happy I raised the speed and soon after I could see the bright orange flames from the fire I just lit.

The feeling of warmth was that of one I had not felt in an eternity, I could feel my aching bones slowly turning more and more mellow as I grew closer to the fire. At one point I yearned for the warmth so much so that I wanted to hug it, but I stopped myself knowing better otherwise.

Looking at the dancing flames of the fire I was mesmerized, put under its spell, enchanted by how beautiful those flames were. Slowly tiredness came over my body and sleep took over me.

Woken up by the sound of birds chirping, and the sight of the now pile of ash that was supposed to be my campfire, I had realised that a new day had just ensued.

I stretched my limbs and went outside the rotten tree, putting my hand across my face to shelter my eyes away from the bright rays of sun.

It wasn’t all bad though, the gentle warmth of the sun enveloped my body, I felt like a baby who was being tightly hugged by his mother.

Suddenly I stopped in my tracks “Mother huh ...?” I said with a sombre tone to my voice. I had been wondering what had happened to my family, if I ever had one that is. This was all the more of a reason to make me continue moving forward and to figure out why I was here from the start.

Wrapping my left hand again with the bandages I got ready to leave this place.

Moving forward once again I saw many animals and insects, most of them fled at the sight of me sure, but some bore a familiar face.

“You... YOU ASSHOLE” I screamed towards the unsuspecting squirrel that was choking on a chestnut.

It was the same stupid squirrel that made me fall down that cliff, because if that guy I... ARGH

I started chasing after the squirrel as it leaped around from tree to tree. In the end I managed to catch it with my hands, and I was getting ready to absolutely smash it to smithereens.

I took one last look with an evil grin on my face, I thought that was going to take pleasure in killing the little creature. But then I saw a look in its eyes that made me loosen my grip a bit. As silly as it sounded the squirrel looked, desperate? It looked as if it wanted to live, more than anything. It didn’t want to die, and it was sad that it didn’t get the resolution it had wished for.

I sighed at my own self for being so foolish, first trying to talk to the damn thing at the start, and now sparing it because I thought it had emotions?! It’s a damn squirrel for god’s sake.

I put down the little creature on the ground in front of me, and even it looked confused. I looked down on it and said “Listen, I don’t even know why I’m saying this to an animal but hey I’m already crazy. You’re free to go, just don’t go ahead and make more people fall from cliffs.” The squirrel tilted its head in confusion. I guess even squirrels can understand how stupid I must look right now.

Instead of running away the squirrel started running towards me, first climbing on my arms and then afterwards towards my shoulders. It reached where my cheeks were and it started rubbing its head on it, then the little thing went and nibbled on my ears. I guess this was how he was showing affection? Nonetheless he had decided to stick with me instead of leaving and going somewhere else.

Somehow that feeling was, nice. Each time I had felt an emotion, disgust, anger, sorrow, regret. I’d always remember knowing the feeling, because I had felt it before I had woken up. But this time, the feeling of affection, it was as if I had been yearning for something like this for a very long time.

“Huh, what, why is this happening?!” I said with a shaken voice, as I noticed a stream of tears running down my cheeks.

Guess I really needed someone to stick to my side huh?

I gently grabbed the little squirrel and patted it on the head “Thank you. “I said with a smile that forced itself on my face. The little squirrel started rubbing his head on the thumb of my hand, causing my heart to melt in the process.

“Ember, yeah this sounds like a fitting name for you” I said with a warm look on my face.

The squirrel looked like it liked the name from the way it ran back to the top of my head.

Now, and with a companion by my side I was ready to continue off towards the end of this forest.