The sounds of ringing slowly fade over time as your ears adjust to their surroundings. Confusion evident on your slack jawed face, your tongue involuntarily runs over your cracked lips. It seems you had been out of it for quite the amount of time. Straining to return your mind to a semblance of the order it must have surely once knew, you try to empty your mind akin to a blank slate. Voices, unintelligible, clamor to be heard over one another however.

In-between these ravings you hear a melody of running water far in the distance. Pain wracks your entire body as the jumble of voices become muted for but a brief second. In this tiny second of control that you have gained from the agony you feel, you order your body to lurch forward towards the song promising of some relief.

Legs shaking, you manage to somehow get on your bare feet. Chalky skin filled with bruises and cuts greet your slowly returning sight. Who knows when it happened but you must have lost your middle toe on the right foot at some point. Rough rock barely felt by your lunatic mind will not stop your battered body from moving onwards.

Gazing straight ahead shadows play on the edges of your poor vision. Twisting hands beckon to you turning your sight once again backwards for the briefest of seconds. A slitted green eye greets your vision from a blue rimmed portal giving off the bit of the ambient light that lets you see the area around you. Jerking your gaze the opposite way you feel chills rack your body.

The raving voices subdued for the time being after seeing… observing… strange. You seem to not be able to remember what had just occurred. It’s almost as if… hmm. Deeming it not important to the current situation you break your line of first somewhat questionable coherent thoughts. Taking in the atmosphere around you notice a mix of reddish black colored archway up ahead with stairs leading downwards. The ceiling is grey with stalagmites growing in the same direction. Rough rock floors irregular without any pattern is the same muted grey color. Only the blue light and out of place archway has a difference enough to pull your recently returned attention.

Remembering your original goal from the low thrum throbs of pain demanding your notice, you pick up the pace just a little bit spurred on by these demands. Arriving at the archway you run your fingers atop the smooth cold biting surface. Your nails tap it producing an echo and a quick flash of memory as to your previous self… Hands covered with red. Red splashes on the canvas. Sharp pointed nails tearing through a thick furred throat, shredding the muscle and sinew easily as red bubbles out… Looking to your nails all you see is short, cracked fingernails obviously not well kept. Deciding to not dwell on the slight of mind just experienced, you step under the archway. A brief struggle to continue has you panting in short gasps of stale air. Weird… it almost felt as if there was something blocking your way for a moment.

Lifting your left hand to wipe your face but for a moment reveals a smudge of black staining afterwards. Dripping from the nose is a black substance not unlike that of blood. Battered and weakened even further you resume the journey down the increasingly darker path of stairs. After an indefinite amount of time passes you come to the end of the stairway. A straight path awaits you with a speck of hazy green in the distance. Trudging along is all you do as energy for thought is nowhere to be found anymore. A mere husk one would say.

A gentle tinge of green starts to appear as the song becomes clearer by the second. You shuffle towards the sound body numb to all feeling. Seconds later you find yourself lying face down upon a slightly warm fiery red platform. Lying there you almost succumb to warm inviting promise of an uninterrupted sleep. Your legs no longer respond to the commands given to them and you use your hands to grip the ridges engraved deep into the disc you lay upon. Green particles can be seen floating up and out of these ridges disappearing after a few meters.

As your fingers enter the ridge… you feel a surge of strength! Along with this surge comes a sense of contentment as if you were rising in power tremendously. All too soon however it ends. The heat emanating from the disc fades as does the green particles flowing from the now seen spiral engraving. Life has returned to your body along with another fragmented memory. “Green particles of life energy. The power over life and……. known Aer.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

You prop yourself up and in the dying emerald light find yourself in a small room standing upon a disc in the entrance. You’re able to make out four archways with small golden characters of an unknown language carved into the reddish black pillars. Off to the left side of the entrance lays a closed rack of some kind. To the right the sound of water can be heard as it gathers into a small pool before continuing underground in some kind of pathway.

Rushing right you fall to your knees and submerge your head into the pool inhaling the water as if you were breathing. Thirst quenched you lift your head from the pool breathing heavily and coughing. Water dripping from matted black waistline hair and chest heaving. Laying your back against the nearby wall you sit in silence listening to water run underground finally able to ponder about the situation you’re facing.

Your scant memories begin when waking up in front of that crystalline portal. A village was first seen in the image appearing to be in the medieval ages. The houses were made of wood with chimneys made of red brick. It was a peaceful image calming to the mind turned dreadful in the next image. That same village turned battlefield filled with corpses and beasts. Red blood pooling on the ground and fiery flames rising to the skies. Ashes falling as if it were rain. The first memory fragment of yourself fighting a thick brown furred beast with your sharpened nails. A battered body in dire straits after waking. You think to yourself and connect the fragment with the portal. You must have somehow came from that warzone.

Your most recent regained memory was that of Aer. The life energy of all living beings. You somehow absorbed this energy from the entryway disc when gripping the ridges. Looking down at your hands shock fills your mind! At the ends of your fingers are nails at least three inches long sharpened to a fine point. Looking down even farther towards your feet you find the cuts previously present healed and the bruises a motely color indicating well on the way to recovery. This life energy must have had something to do with it…

Your body tired but much stronger than before, you get on your feet to go inspect the left side of this astonishing room. Halfway there your stomach twinges painfully. Blowing all the air out your nose you wait for it to pass since you have no food on you. A white linen shirt and grey shorts all that you possess at the moment. Standing in front of the rack you twist the knob at the top sideways and quickly leap back as the heavy lid crashes downwards! That was close, you almost lost your life to a simple rack as tall as yourself. Inside the rack can be seen seven empty slots and a weapon standing proudly. A fine spear! The shaft an ocean blue with a metallic sheen to it. Icy veins can be seen twirling around the shaft and ending as the point of the spear. You feel the frozen aura emitting from the spear and study it before attempting to touch in fear of losing your hand.

Twenty minutes later with your shirt ripped and bound tightly around the middle of the spear shaft you make a small noise that could have been a grunt. The spear looks delicate but is a hefty weight. Hopefully you can find some better clothing soon to protect against this chill. Opposite where you came in the room, probably a good 50 meters away, four archway outlines can just be made out as the green tinge in the air that has been providing you light has almost left this world. You feel as if the small golden characters carved into the pillars are somewhat familiar but for now it is unknown as to whether or not you once knew them.

Debating which archway to take is pointless since you have no idea what any of the characters mean. You simply pick one at random and enter the third from the left archway. Another feeling of discomfort assaults you as you pass through this archway but it quickly fades at the sight before you. How could a brief mental discomfort distract one from a sight to behold such as this!

Spreading out in front of you is a land so wide and so far that it must be endless! Above the land stretching across what you expected to be a ceiling is the reddish orange tint of a setting star. Far in the distance a herd of wild beasts numbering in the thousands can be seen. Swaths of forests dot the land and you stand upon a cliff thousands of meters high overlooking it all! Mind numb with shock you sink to the ground in utter disbelief.

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.Upon a cliff in a different world, a distant star, one can see a new beginning.

- Writersan