It wrapped around him like a sheath as if he was a weapon. He was confined and compressed in its embrace. Cold dug at him until Kenan’s sensation warped to a warmth. There was more alteration than that. The place was so lonesome. So deprived of anything that it forced him to conjure. His mind, in its total lack of meaningful details, called back on previously known stimuli.

There was light. Kenan didn’t see it but felt the radiance. Dim, drawn back. Scents. Familiar smells that had messages. They brought back memories that went deeper than normal mind function. He could feel the air. It was warm. No, that wasn’t right. Dry. A consequence of magic. His body reacted and relaxed. He was in his territory.

Then came the sound. Words spoken so far that it was impossible to hear. Nonetheless, they rang into Kenan’s ear. “Come back.” The voice was deep. Gentle but commanding.

He did not know if he chose to ignore it. But whatever response he mustered slipped away. Kenan’s grasp was too weak. But there was something, it touched unformed thoughts and vibrated them. Kenan felt liquid form in his eyes and then drip down.

Something pulled and then twisted his gut so hard it made him double over. “You… have… to… go… back…” The voice came again. The pain intensified and Kenan was forced to peek through his eyelids. He met another pair. Dark green, but vibrant at the same time. Before he could comprehend, understand. The abyss around him inverted. Like a point behind him ripped the space and swallowed him whole. Their eyes disappeared along with the person to whom they belonged.

Kenan breathed in a deep breath, as it traveled he shuddered. His mind was so muddled and broken that he couldn’t find his bearing, like that foothold on conscience was gone and he lived in a limbo of unknowing and sentience. He took stock of his condition but did not take heed to its limits.

His lower half was still stuck in the rubble of his home. The upper portion was inflicted with the same damage and none of its agonizing status had changed. In some sick benevolent coincidence, the sheath to his blade lay in front of him. It was a struggle to put it on. His right hand was frozen around the black sword and his left was so fractured and broken that it didn’t allow for any usage. After the task was done, it turned out to be a blessing.

The sword turned into a tool of leverage. Inch by inch more of his damaged body revealed itself. Surprise for the grotesque gore and blood was deflected into the mess of his mind. His conscience broke down everything it didn’t need and spit it out into the nothings of the brain. Kenan did not look at his slow work, didn’t see the death in front of him. The nine on the ground weren't in his perception. He grasped something beyond.

Words echoed in his skull, generated and propagated by himself. Over and over. A mantra he clung to.

The lower half of him got fully excavated and it did not happen with nice execution. He flailed, stumbled and then his body had a rough go as he tumbled down the small hill of rubble. There were a few more cuts and nicks picked up but each fell into the obscurity of his gouged-out body.

What followed was a pathetic facsimile of a walk. One leg didn’t work at all and only dragged on while the other had a rapid decline of its effective usage. Blood oozed out a ripped artery but a portion of it was graciously cauterized. Each movement was only propelled forward by the toughest motivation. Like the closing distance was a need that clawed greater than thirst, hunger, or mana. Kenan crossed the space, slow in the physical but blurred through the haze of his eyes.

Then it all came crashing down. His knees crunched on the ground. The sudden contact with the earth pushed out the scrounged-up strength that he had accrued. Followed was the salvation that was his numbness.

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In the fields. Layed dead and strewn were pigs with their throats cut, and horses used for archery practice. The barn was nothing but a crips husk and its fate was shared with its sister coop. The stable was tarnished down to rubble. Large swaths of flame billowed their seething hatred as the crop was put to the torch.

Closer to him. Actions of atrocity that hurt so much worse than the others were in front of him. Nine bodies, slain and slaughtered. Seven of them were unknown souls that had slipped into the hells in the name of self-defense. Each had a mixture of halfway melted ice shards stuck in their bodies, or large contusions that left them bereaved of conscience by earth's power, and a couple had large holes the width of an arm that left them cold.

And there, halfway encircled by the dead were two more. Each sight left his soul maimed. He could not, he would not look away. It was so much trauma that it only let him experience it more. His father, Tyris, lay stiff. His arms were pulled off, throat slit, and his legs broken backward. The other parts of him had too many depressions to unfold.

His father's neck was twisted like a wrung rag and his head lay aside. Eyes open, bare. Passageway for the soul to leave, but somehow left unused. The white of death opened in the iris. But they held a power beyond the veil and pricked at Kenan. His father's lifeless eyes stared at him, bored into him, yelled at him, and accused him.

Breath broke Kenan's seized mind. But not his own. On top of Tyris and to the side was his mother. Her black hair was colored old brown and thick blood splayed all over her husband's stomach. Each inhale came with a precious, non-renewable resource that left all too easily. Most of her was untouched, except her stomach. It had large lacerations with pulled-out gore and pools of undulating blood.

Something dark. Placed and tucked in a deep recess of his soul. There was a crack and it seeped further. The implications of this were dampened by the mush of his battered brain. So the trauma took its desolation further.

Kenan crawled and managed to copy the position of Ava. His head lay on the cold corpse of his father and Kenan’s body touched his mothers. “Mama,” Kenan said. His voice came out a whisper, like a frozen rasp of ice on ice. Ava’s head turned and the gasp that escaped her lips did not have any sound behind it.

Her eyes looked at Kenan but beyond him at the same time. She said something. Over and over. A repeated series of comments burned at Kenan greater than any fire could've. I love you, Kenny. Find Lucy. I love you. Find Lucy. I love you. Find Lucy…

“I will mama.” He moved his hand down and grasped his mother's. His mantra repeated the same. “I will, I will, I will…”

It took some time. Not long. For his mother's mouth to stop moving, her pulse to halt and her life to escape the coil of her flesh to the realms beyond. Sometime after that, Kenan closed his eyes and let himself slip into a more permanent state than sleep.

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Then came a scream. So loud and so powerful that it reached from the void. It had the yell of something primal, with undercurrents of an endless hunger. In the same circumstance, the yell was so quiet and subtle that its wake was left unnoticed, and traveled unhindered.

Kenan eyes shunted off their lids in a wide stare at the sky. He sat up quickly, oblivious to the pain and the shock of his system. His eyes were empty, missing their regular sentient intelligence. Beyond that. Their white was replaced by a dark black, and his regular grey darkened too. He continued to look up, like the dreary clouds above, hiding the sun was a new stimulus to receive. Then Kenan looked forward. His jaw hung open as his tongue explored his mouth. Then he cocked his head to the side, then to the other, and then straight.

Like his injuries were fabrications, conjurations of the physical he stood. Kenan looked down, where his hand was fractured and molded to a black blade. Then he turned and saw a dark horse saddled. The creature lay there, its large snout sided towards him. Its eyes looked on him and waited. Kenan strode towards Jefned. The blood loss, mana deprivation, and all his negative effects were flung away as he walked. As if they never happened.

Kenan effortlessly jumped on the horse. He did not take the reins, but instead shifted so he was sprawled on Jefned. He closed his eyes, and whatever strength he had dissipated.