In the thick undergrowth of a dense forest, his heart hammering in his chest, while a relentless pack of snarling wolves hot on his trail, their bared fangs glinting in the pale moonlight. Abruptly, in a sudden twist of fate, one the initial moments of the narrative, a young man of seventeen summers is seen frantically dashing through of the predatory beasts launches itself towards the youth, but in a strange twist of chance, both the desperate boy and the frenzied animal lose their footing, hurtling down a jagged slope in a tumultuous landslide, and ultimately plummeting into the icy embrace of a frothing, churning river, the frigid waters enveloping them in a chaotic maelstrom.
Summoning a surge of sheer willpower, the young man pushes the disoriented wolf aside, his fingers frantically grasping a slender, swaying vine that dangles precariously from the rugged riverbank. While the furious current snatches the wolf and ferries it away into the murky distance, the determined youth engages in a fierce and gritty struggle against the relentless force of the roiling river, fighting not just for his life but for some semblance of control over the capricious whims of destiny itself.
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After what feels like an eternity of battling the relentless surge, he finally manages to drag his exhausted, waterlogged body onto the unforgiving solidity of the riverbank, his lungs heaving for precious breath as he sprawls upon the gritty earth, his gaze fixated on the vast expanse of the star-speckled firmament above. With a voice strained and barely audible, he murmurs to no one in particular, "How many days have slipped through my fingers since the day I fled my home?" His eyelids fluttering, he succumbs to the relentless embrace of exhaustion, the encroaching tendrils of unconsciousness winding around him like a dark, insidious shroud. As sleep envelops him, his consciousness drifts into the realm of dreams, but these visions are far from the gentle escapades of a slumbering mind; instead, they manifest as haunting apparitions of a traumatic and harrowing past, a past he desperately yearns to expunge from the tapestry of his memory.