Sorefen, if that was truly where I was, was not the place I hoped it would be. At least, not in this exact spot. Here, it was as if the landscape had endured a glancing blow from the sun. Or, a sun I suppose, there was no longer a definitive star in which my existence revolved around.

The moon was distinctly different. Despite its size, the amber rays it diffused completely transformed the night sky. I had excellent vision in the middle of the night, despite the charred landscape which enveloped me.

I took a deep breath in, exhaled and took my first steps onto new land. A brilliant crunch followed each foot as brittle stone and charcoal crushed beneath my feet.

For a moment, the bleak reality behind the noise faded away, and I was transported to a beautiful shingle beach covered with colourful seashells and driftwood. An expansive crystal ocean extended outwards infinitely off the shore. Behind me, I heard the low whispers of my family preparing a picnic. I turned to face them and-

I snapped out of my delusion as my foot dropped down into an invisible hole that threw me forward. The ground was completely uneven, and the ash, stones and charcoal that comprised its surface were difficult to distinguish between. All was dyed black with soot.

Dragging my bare foot from the ash, I absorbed the sights around me. The grim looking stronghold appeared small over a gentle but wide slope that broke apart in the middle. A stony road passed through that narrow gap.

The road was poor, and the walls that bordered it were sheer and degraded. Presently a few stray boulders lay strewn about the track.

That same road stretched up towards me, though its consistency and width varied along the way. Ash swept across its surface and holes littered its body, but it still wound its way past the rotting tower behind me, and out into apparent oblivion.

Under more intense scrutiny, I observed two deeply impressed tracks that approached the stairwell from the edge of the road, perhaps thirty feet out. It seemed likely that some wagon, or cart had been used to ferry bodies from the road to the basement.

My stomach churned at the sight of it. This connection implied that those who use and maintain the road were likely from the stronghold. That they were complicit in what occurred here: the foul bloodletting and cremation of bodies.

The cremation… I bounced the idea around in my head. Could it be possible that here in this dead landscape, people dispose of their dead in such a way normally? In that lonely pit?

Does that mean that my body, the body that I walk in now, was deceased as well?

The body of a dead man. I doubled over and covered my mouth. My guts twisted and acid sloshed about, but I failed to bring anything up and merely burned my oesophagus.

Of course. It was obvious. Or rather, it should have been. I had stolen a dead man’s body.

I clutched at my neck where the hanging man’s throat had been slashed. I searched my limbs, my stomach, my back for anything other than metal and found no fatal wounds I’d neglected. Death did not mark me. There were merely the bumps and bruises I’d already managed to acquire.

Perhaps, I thought, this man had never died. Maybe I had shunted their mind out of their own body instead. Have I traded places with them in the aether?

As I squat in the muck, struggling to process what exactly this new life meant for me, a familiar low, deep droning sound echoed across the ashen plain to my left, from behind the decrepit watchtower. The noise sent electric shocks up my spine that projected out to the rest of my body. The sensation was burning hot, painful even, but only for a few instances.

The droning continued, louder now. Deeper. It buzzed in my ears. It was oddly soothing. I felt calm, relaxed for the first time since I’d awakened here. A smaller, singular shock popped out from my right shoulder. For a second I even thought I saw a brief flash of blue in my peripheral vision.

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Perturbed, I stared in the direction of the noise, boring a hole into the sagging stones of the watchtower. Without moving my head an inch, I reached for the dagger I knew that I had strapped to my waist. I wrapped my hand around its worn leather handle and withdrew it from the sheath slowly.

The material was tightly bound, and smooth where my hand rested. The blade was worn, but not rusty. If anything happened however, I suspected I might be better off poking than slicing.

The drone ceased. The only sound remaining was my laboured breathing.

I crept up to the side of the watchtower. With each step I took, I first assessed the strength of the ground beneath me with the ball of my foot before moving forward.

I reached the ash-blasted stones of the watchtower’s base. The building rose perhaps three stories, but each story shrank in length, width and height as it went up. Rather than sitting squarely in the middle of each preceding story, they all aligned on one side, giving the tower the illusion that it stooped over.

I came to rest under the stooping side, its chipped and dilapidated cover was less than reassuring. Crouched down along the base, I crawled forward and approached the corner. My back grazed along the stone as I crept, scraping a thick layer of ashy dust off the stone which drifted to the ground behind me.

Electricity reignited in my body suddenly and promptly surged along my ribs, converged on my spine and shot out from my back into the small cloud of ashen dust drifting behind me. The dust ignited with a loud bang and the blast knocked me face down into the grime. I dropped my dagger in surprise. It landed into a dense pocket of ash, disappearing instantly.

The droning roared back into existence, much closer this time. The sound pulled at my heart, at my bones. I felt them rumble beneath my skin.

Okay, I no longer needed to see the damn thing, it was time to go. To the stronghold!

I needed my dagger, at the very least. I might not be well versed in bladed combat, but at the very least it gave me a great degree of comfort. I fossicked through the black powder, reluctantly reaching for the blade, until I remembered my hand wasn’t made of soft, fleshy tissue. It was bloody metal now.

The droning was no longer just a rumble, its roar was more akin to a jet engine. The ground surged with energy. Plumes of fine ash flew up into the air as the ground trembled. The disturbances revealed a glimpse of the dagger for a moment, and I snatched it up.

I felt electricity bubble up from within me again. I stared at all the dusty ash floating in the air as electric arcs surged down my right leg. If I stayed here then there would be a much larger explosion.

My ears rang and I sprinted away from the suspended ash. As the base of my foot touched the ground the electric power discharged harmlessly into the soil without a bang.

I approached the road at speed as the roaring noise continued from behind me, failing to grow quiet. Instead, four sharp thuds joined the torrent of sound, repeating in succession. One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four.

I was bolting towards the stronghold now, with not a care in the world for subtlety or stealth. I desperately wanted to look behind me, but I could not. It took my full concentration not to trip and fall on this terrible road.

I was closing in on the cracked slope now. Walls gradually rose in height on either side of me. The path grew rockier and darker.

Behind, the thunderous crashing and bellowing receded slightly. Whatever it was, it hesitated before the narrow valley. The droning ceased. I was alone in silence once again. Only this time, I knew it was not true.

A quarter of the way through the shallow ravine I stopped. Quiet thuds echoed off the walls, displacing the creature’s true location. I feared it had overtaken me now, and I hesitated to progress further. It had been right behind me earlier, only to back off suddenly as I entered the ravine. Perhaps, I hoped, it was too large to enter.

Several minutes passed as the creature quietly circled the slope. I stood with my back flat against the rock wall, clutching my dagger with both hands as fear and drowsiness battled each other in my mind.

One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four. It was still out there. The whistling thuds echoed through the ravine and I clutched my dagger tighter.

I don’t want to die. Not again.

I heard each of the creature's four legs spear into the earth behind me. It was scaling the slope. My eyes fixed upon the precipice overhead as the creature grew closer and closer.

The thuds came from directly above me now, and I saw a burst of ash rain down from the edge. For a fraction of a second I glimpsed a grey, barbed appendage whip across the shining sky.

Then, the droning returned. Louder than ever. The sound was penetrating. My skin itched, my eyes bulged, my bones ached and the metal lattice covering my skin audibly groaned. More and more ash rained down from above as the noise grew louder still. I covered my head as stones, and then rocks pelted me.

It wasn’t until a huge chunk of earth broke off from the wall and smacked into the ground beside me that I realised what the creature was doing. But by then it was too late. The wall was coming down, and with it came the creature.