The forest grew darker as the sun began to set. The shadows of the trees stretched long, and the little light that remained barely pierced through the dense layer of leaves and branches. I could hear the pounding of my heart due to the tension.
The ogre walked beside me, more alert than usual, his eyes scanning every corner of the surroundings. I tried to do the same, but my breathing quickened. Every shadow, every movement among the trees made me more nervous. Something was wrong; this couldn’t be a coincidence.
Suddenly, we heard a sharp screech that shattered the tense atmosphere. I turned just in time to see them appear. They were huge, their black wings spread, covering much of the sky. Their eyes glowed with malice, fixed on me. My heart started pounding even harder.
I had never seen creatures like these before, and fear took over me. But I knew there was nowhere to run. I had to fight.
"Dark Harpies!" the ogre roared, alerting me as he raised his axe.
There was no time to prepare. The harpies descended like winged shadows, shrieking with a ferocity that chilled my blood. They surrounded us in the blink of an eye, attacking from all directions. I barely managed to lift my dagger to defend myself before feeling their claws tear through my skin and clothes.
The ogre, on the other hand, fought like a raging beast. Each swing of his axe thundered, and though several harpies attacked him at once, his light armor and thick skin kept him standing. But I didn’t have that advantage. My movements were clumsy, driven more by fear than by any instinct to fight. I felt every scratch, every bite, and soon my clothes were soaked in blood.
And then, it happened. One of the harpies lunged at me from an angle I didn’t see coming. Its bite was swift and fierce, ripping off part of my ear before I could react. The pain was sharp, searing, and a scream tore from my throat, echoing through the forest. Filled with rage, I drove my dagger into the creature’s neck, feeling the blade slice through flesh and bone. Blood splattered across my face as it fell, but there was no relief in that small victory.
Covered in blood, my hands trembled as I threw Grimmor’s package to the ground to free myself. I knew it would cost me, but if I didn’t make it out alive, there was no point in protecting it. The harpies kept coming, relentless. Every time I raised my dagger, another strike sent me staggering. My strength was fading, and the mistakes were piling up.
The ogre continued to fight, swatting at the harpies with brutal force. But even he was starting to falter, and I... I could barely stand. Fatigue crawled through my muscles, my movements were sluggish, clumsy. The creatures knew it, they could sense it, and they closed in, their hungry eyes fixed on me.
A claw brushed my back, tearing through fabric and flesh with terrifying ease. I screamed in pain, but barely managed to raise the dagger to fend off the next attack. Pain burned through me, blood ran down my body, soaking my clothes, and adrenaline was the only thing keeping me upright. But every hit, every slash, drained me a little more.
Then, one of them lunged straight for my throat. I dodged it by a hair, but lost my balance and fell to my knees. It felt like the weight of the world was crushing my shoulders, like the very forest had turned against me. Desperate, I glanced at the ogre; he was still fighting, fierce and unstoppable, but his movements were slowing too. We were both at our limits, and the harpies knew it.
Taking advantage of my weakness, one pounced on me, knocking me down completely. Its fangs sank into my leg, ripping through flesh as a scream tore from my throat. I tried to get up, but another harpy struck me in the back, knocking the wind out of me and forcing me to brace myself on the ground. My body wouldn’t respond, and darkness began to cloud my vision.
The harpies closed in around me, moving like living shadows, waiting to deliver the final blow. I felt their claws digging into my flesh, biting and tearing without mercy. The pain was unbearable, but worse was the sense of defeat. In that moment, I wondered if it had been a good idea to make that deal. I knew I wouldn’t survive this.
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The last thing I saw before darkness swallowed me was the ogre’s axe rising one last time, his growl echoing like a final defiance. Then, everything went silent. Everything went dark.
It felt as if my soul was being ripped from my body, dragged through an endless void. Fragments of my life in the ordinary world flashed before me, distorted and blurry. And just before I vanished completely, I heard her. Her voice, whispering to me one last time, that phrase I had promised never to forget.
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When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the dark space, facing the three giant entrances. The transition had been confusing, almost like a dream. But I knew what had happened. I had died. And now, it seemed, I had been reborn.
Slowly, I began to regain consciousness. The surroundings were the same dark and vast space, but something had changed. It took me a moment to remember what had happened. The last image I had was of the harpies tearing my body apart, the pain, and then... nothing. How was it possible that I was here again?
I woke up with the taste of iron in my mouth and the hollow sensation that death's claws had left behind. I touched my ear, where I could still feel the blade ripping through the flesh... as if it were still there. My mind struggled to make sense of it. Everything in me screamed that this couldn't be real, that no one could come back from the dead. But here I was, standing once again in that same place where it had all begun.
I tried to get up, but a sharp pain in my head forced me to stop. The pain was intense, as if my brain was being crushed from within.
Suddenly, memories from my ordinary life began to emerge. But they weren't clear memories; they seemed to crumble, as if something was tearing fragments of them away. I felt parts of those memories fade, as if they were being ripped from my mind, leaving gaps that hadn't been there before.
Amid that mental chaos, one memory managed to cling, clearer than the rest. Selene and I were walking through the park where we used to go, the one with a small wooden bridge that crossed over a calm river. The water reflected the sunlight, and there was a gentle breeze around us. We stopped on the bridge, watching the water flow.
"I have a gift for you," Selene said suddenly, breaking the silence with a light smile.
"Really? But I didn't bring you anything," I replied, feeling a bit awkward.
Selene let out a small laugh and looked at me with that gentle and soothing expression that always managed to calm me. "Don't be silly. It wasn't planned. I was on my way here to meet you, and I saw a stall where they were selling this." She opened the small bag she carried with her and took out something wrapped in delicate cloth. When she unwrapped it, I saw a pendant, a small silver star that gleamed in the sunlight.
I took it carefully, surprised by the gesture. "It's beautiful..."
"I thought it was a fitting gift," Selene said, her voice softening as she looked at me. "Since we love to stargaze, I wanted something that honored that."
I couldn't help but smile, feeling a warmth I hadn't expected in my chest. Without hesitation, I put it on immediately. "I love it," I told her, and her smile grew even brighter.
The memory faded as quickly as it had come, torn from my mind by something I couldn't control.
My hands instinctively flew to my head, clutching my skull as the pain consumed me. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Was I losing parts of myself with each death? The thought terrified me. This pain, this feeling of being torn apart from the inside, was worse than anything I had experienced before.
After a few minutes, the pain began to subside, but the confusion remained. I stayed there on my knees, trying to piece together the fragments of my broken mind.
Out of reflex, I brought my hands to my neck, searching for something to anchor me to reality. Feeling the pendant still there, where it had always been, a faint sense of calm washed over me. For a moment, I felt like I hadn’t lost everything. That small object was the only thing connecting me to what had once been my life, and it was still with me.
In front of me, the three entrances I had seen before were still standing, but something had changed. Only the middle entrance—the same one I had entered through the first time—was active, emitting a faint blue light. The other two, however, were dark, shrouded in the same darkness that filled the rest of the space.
I didn’t understand anything. Why was only that entrance still active? What had happened to the other two? The feeling that I had been deceived began to grow inside me. Was this part of the deal I had made? Had the presence I had bargained with somehow tricked me?
Frustration and uncertainty consumed me. I didn’t know what to do or who to blame. The only thing I knew for sure was that I was trapped in something I didn’t understand, and it seemed harder to see a way out with each passing moment.
I stared at the entrances, trying to find some answer in the gloom that surrounded me, but all I felt was the loneliness of that place and the emptiness left by my last attempt to find my beloved.
With the pendant still in my hand and my mind full of doubts, I knew I couldn’t stay there forever. Even though I didn’t have all the answers, the only thing I could do was move forward. I looked at the active entrance one last time, took a deep breath, and stepped toward it. Despite the fear and confusion, I knew that the path to the truth lay in facing the unknown.