Stiffness was what brought me out of my slumber. My back ached, and my whole body was cold. I opened my eyes ever so slightly, only to be met with a somber gray roof. The muffled but vivid sound of heavy rain crashing against the stone roof permeated this room. I closed my eyes again, and for a few moments, I laid there, listening to the sound of the rain and feeling the world. Much of my body felt numb; I had been in this position for a long while. How long? And where could it be that I currently lay? I took a deep breath and was greeted by the heavy and pure air of this vast country, the fragrance of mud and moss, but also something iron-like. Blood? My torso jerked up, eyes shot wide open, and I looked around. I felt my back crack, and a pain started to radiate throughout one of my thighs.

I was in the middle of three constricting circles, each with a cacophony of symbols from the old Hellenic language engraved between each one of them. Four lines extended out from the central circle which surrounded me, seemingly following the cardinal directions. At the end of each line was another circle, with the heads of a lion, an ox, and an eagle. This circle was drawn with blood. I looked behind, to the opposite direction of the lion's head, to find the cadaver of a man. Unlike the others, the body was still very much attached, for the man was in a kneeling position. The top of his cranium was facing the center, and a knife that previously drew blood was to the side of his head. I started to move, the numbness in my body making my movements not too dissimilar to that of  a drunk fish.  An electric-like sensation emanated from my nervous system. I held the head of the man to eye level.

A thick, brawny face, sun-kissed but having lost its luster, stared back at me with black hollow eyes. The man had been crying, streaks of tears having darkened some areas of his face. He had a rather large unibrow and pompous facial features: a wide, heavy nose, puffy cheeks, and a gaping mouth that had lost much of its vibrance. He had a week-old beard, something that felt foreign to me on a deep level. His thick neck had been slit, the blood having made a pool around his face, with traces of it making rims on his forehead which had contact with the ground. This man was none other than my father.

A wind whispered by, but the cold left me hollow. I had nothing to cry for, for what had happened was obvious.

"Blood alchemy."

I grabbed the man by his arms and moved him slightly to the side, laying the body flat on his back. I moved to the side of the eagle head, where the exit to the place lay. After a flight of stone stairs, I left the family mausoleum. Through the rain, I trod, the cold downpour cleaning me of dried blood, soaking my white chemise. The cold was numbed, for a great hollowing had filled all my blood vessels, all my cartilage, all my flesh. I walked up the hill, from the manor's graveyard to the manor itself. The sandstone walls of the place were a blurry image. I had no glasses and had trouble seeing with the downpour. Pressing forward and having found a white pitch-black wood door, I lunged myself inside.

I went back to the mausoleum with a piece of white woolen cloth and a jug of water. Carefully, I cleaned the man's face of all grime and dried blood. He had gone completely cold, as cold as the stone floor he lay on. After having cleaned the man, I once again grabbed him and started moving him out. Up the flight of stairs and towards a great dark ebony tree. My lungs were pumping with all their might, my calves were stinging, but I pressed on. After a march in silence, I laid the man on his back once again, on a linen cloth on the grass. I started to dig and dig with a shovel.

I had made a hole of 3 feet, and my arms started flailing. I started digging in wide strokes to fight the fatigue.

"Mastr' Mitra?"

The rain took on a more ravenous character. Droplets covered every inch of my body. The icy cold stole every last bit of warmth from me. These uncaring things crackled and shocked my body, but I stood my ground. The scent of earth filled my lungs, and an ever so subtle tinge of salt made its presence clear.

Herm looked at the Margrave of Sangrepol and sighed heavily. From the wounds on his neck, it was very much obvious to him what had happened.

"Mastr' Mitra, I doubt the ol' lord would find a hole in the ground much of a resting place to his liking. I will go get a coffin from the chapel and ask Father Anselm to come by in an hour. May I ask that some of the populace be given the right to bid farewell to his lordship? We loved him very much." he said in a manner that betrayed his usual hearty self.

"You may do as you please."

I glanced coldly at the gravekeeper Herm. He too had a bulky stature, not too dissimilar to my father. I saw him off and continued to dig.

A few hours later, we had moved Father into his casket, closed it, and lowered it. Father Anselm, an older gentleman from the east and of the faith, had come, accompanied by a small number of villagers. A wide array of village folk stood shoulder to shoulder, their physiques ever so different from each other. People from Eastern descent were intertwined with those of Hellenic lineage and peoples native to this side of Arcadia. I could pick out some of our domestics from the crowd, as well as a few wealthy peasants and village elders.

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They wore mournful expressions. A few children amongst them carried orchids. The procession that followed was swift. Prayers were made, the people wept, and flowers were given to the dead. I buried my father that day. The crowd didn't take long to dissipate, Father Anselm and Herm called it a day, and the sky was clearing. I found myself smoking a cigarette and drinking some rum next to the grave.

"You know, Dad, I had a wonderful dream. There is this whole world, separate from our own, much more ancient than ours. They have no alchemy, can you believe it? And yet most of the world has food on the table and clean clothes and these carriages drawn not by horses or alchemical processes but by the burning of a black liquid they call 'oil'. They can also communicate instantly with anyone on these little glass panes, and there are very few kings in their world."

"They killed most of their kings and their nobles. They are structured in a similar manner to the short-lived Selenic Polity, in something called a 'Republic'."

"I think you would have loved to live there. They have so much good food, and people can eat produce from the different ends of the planet they live on called 'Earth'."

"It sounds like paradise, doesn't it?"

I took another gulp from the bottle of rum and another smoke.

"You know, they have something similar to the Holy Arcadian Empire. It's called the 'Holy Roman Empire'. Can you believe it? And it also had its own version of Aedui the Great; he was called Charlemagne. They had many great leaders in the past, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Joan D'Arc. But those are the leaders of the past."

The rain stopped, and the clouds started to clear.

"But you know, I don't know if I can say this out loud, the Kaiserliches Sicherheitsbüro may cut my tongue out, and my hands too so I don't write what I discovered. So please stay quiet, I know you don't run your mouth like Mother used to, but better be safe than sorry? A good one right? That's a saying they have in the most spoken language of that world, English. That language is widely spoken because some Eastern-looking people from a small island took over a quarter of the world, and they had an Empire called the British Empire, whose heart was a Kingdom called England."

It had become night, the moons bathed the ground in a sterile light.

"Let me tell you the secret. That world had a great thinker and a great philosopher. He had an eastern sounding name. Strange coincidences all around, no? But that is beside the point. He figured out mankind, its politics, its economy, its society. His theories were truly wonderful, and they changed the world. But the old world hated him. I lived in the old world, and they had defeated the new world. There was an empire, following the model of the 'Republic', that killed the new world."

A star-speckled sky made itself present. My breaths grew heavier, and my eyes started to dart.

"What, I am having a bout of hysteria? No, hysteria is a bad word. It is mean against women, and meaner when used against a MAN! I am your son, how could you use this word! In that other world, they discovered that hysteria was but a condition called a panic attack! You are patronizing like those around me in that other world. Yes, they were very much backwards there too, maybe a bit less but still very much so! They didn't see the unfairness, the pain, the emasculation that permeated their daily lives. All because demagogues and charlatans of all stripes told them what to think, what to feel. They could not see the beauty that the world had to offer, as their minds were filled with greed and their hearts numbed to the pain they inflicted on their fellow men."

A dark sky, stars gleaming up ahead. I reached out to the moon and then a shooting star came by, a good or bad omen? The other me tells me to wish but then tells me to not do so as it is unscientific. The tears well up.

"What did you do to me? You used Hellenic blood magic to resuscitate me and used yourself as a sacrifice. I knew you knew how to do that, but why? Are you so selfish so that you've put this burden of life, the weight of your life on a dead man? I am sure you saw yourself as a hero, as a martyr. But father, you are the most selfish man to have ever lived."

"Why do I have these absurd thoughts? To change a mind, no, to bring forth knowledge that is unnatural to this world, what have you sacrificed, your right to an afterlife? No, no, there is no afterlife."

The tears came streaming down, and I wailed.

"No, there may be an afterlife, but all that this other world shows me points me that there isn't. It is sad no, to only be able to live once, and face obliteration once you leave this world. You know, to not feel, to not think, to only see black but not really since you cannot think of seeing anymore, and that forever and ever. But the difference between a year and a thousand is null for you, isn't it? For you're dead! YOU'RE DEAD! YOU'RE DEAD! YOU'RE DEAD! You and Mom left me behind. No, no, you sinned, and gave me an unnatural life and you died an unnatural death."

I took a deep smoke and felt the nicotine really kick in. I grinned. 

"You know, this stuff kills you. It makes flesh grow unnaturally in your body and makes your lungs black. I wonder if I smoke more if I will meet damnation too like you."

I felt my tiredness break, like a switch being turned on, and my humors shifted.

"Goodnight, I am responsible for this little fief from now on. I will make it a utopia, one deemed worthy of the name Arcadia. It will be more beautiful than Herzstadt or Prague, more bustling and rich than Grand Port or Hong Kong. I will make you proud, Dad, and I will become Archduke too!"

I looked up at the sky, took in the scorn of the stars, and looked down once again.

"Goodnight."

I poured the rest of the bottle on the dirt patch under which my father rested, and stumbled my way back home.

Hello everyone, I am Intarim and this is my very first webnovel, or story ever actually. Hope you liked the first chapter <3