"You have solved it?... Wait, you cannot go yet, you are gravely inj--"

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And then with a flash I was in the Darkness again.

The laughter was gone.

The pain was gone.

The dancing shadows upon the rock walls, and the eternal hunt and cowering, were gone. I had conquered it, but with a price paid in blood so plentiful that I had to forget. This will not be a fresh start, but it didn’t have to be one. I already had that once, so long ago. I simply needed to get back, no matter the cost. That was all that mattered to me.

But the price I paid was enormous.

Soon the pain came back - a shallow cut, but a deep pain. It was inflicted by hate I would never know. By a hunger I could never understand. By an eternal suffering I would never face. But a cut nonetheless it was; and one which would start spreading its fell poison. It was a wound delivered with a sword not of this world and will need healing from purer means.

It was endless dark, like back then. A spaceless void filled only by my thoughts, unbound by time or space or reason. And then, like before, a pull appeared. Gentle at first, but growing heavier, and dragging me towards the exit. No, that would be wrong. One exit out of many. But the exit I wanted.

And then, a pink flash of light and a thunderous crack, followed by pain I’ve not felt since ages ago. I ceased to be there in the void and came back. And darkness also returned, an icy darkness, cold and wet. It pierced the body, my body.

I had succeeded, then...

But it was not without a price, and soon the price will be paid. The sharp crackle echoed back into my ears, but I hardly could even notice, for the echo was dim and diffuse. Almost as if my ears were not yet fully formed. But the pain was still there; two types of pain - the deep and unearthly pain delivered with hate, and the pain from leaving my h-

And then I paid the price of my return. I forgot.

Where had I left?

And, most importantly, who was I?

It was so cold and wet, and I soon was soaked through. Light rain fell upon me, and leaked through my clothes, freezing my skin. And I was hurt, so very hurt all over. But one area hurt more than the others. There was a sharp jabbing in my left side, right under my ribs and shallow into my skin. I tried to touch it, but my hands could barely move, and something heavy and coarse and muddy was in the way.

Then, slowly, my senses returned, and I realized I was laying down on my stomach, face first, in cold and soggy mud. It was soft, brown, and with some thicker chunks floating in the muck. And blowing from afar was a frigid chill and soft rain.

My arms were not moving as I wanted them to, as if they were made of oak, unmoving and stiff. But as I stubbornly commanded my arms, shoulders, and back to obey, with enormous effort, they moved. I felt the cracking of joints and sinew tightening. With great pain, I overcame the cold, which would’ve asked me to come and join it in eternity.

I rolled over on my back and drew a panicked breath full of air. It stung. But it felt fresh. It was a sensation I recognized from long ago but had forgotten. I coughed and then filled my lungs again with the cold and sharp air. It felt untainted.

But I was wrong. It was not untainted.

There was a stink there. There was a familiar stink in the air, which was sour and sickly. Like rotten eggs and fish. When I drew another panicked breath, the air smelled of death. It was unmistakable. More rain fell on my face, washing some of the mud off. The rain was cold, but it was clean and that was untainted. But the ground was not. I could feel it. As I slowly regained my sight, hearing, and smell, I also regained my other senses. Something felt off, and it was not the cold, nor was it the mud, but more like a poisonous pit in my stomach. The sensation of it was so familiar, I almost felt incomplete without it.

I remained on the ground for some time and simply watched the sky. It was grey and heavy, and the clouds were low. And somewhere in the distance was a flash of light, and then much later a thunder I heard, not unlike the one I arrived with. But the clouds, dark as they were, were of the world and of designs of Yana.

It was not too long before the cold took over my sense of wonder. The rain was cold, the mud was cold, and the air was cold too; my entire body was stiff, and I would’ve been taken by it if I didn’t rise up. Heck, it might even take me if I did get up.

Then a gust of wind picked up and blew away the stench of death. Using its momentum, I slowly, and not without a great deal of pain, rolled around and found a steady footing. Then I stood up on wobbly knees, and it almost felt like I had never used my legs in my life. Within a moment, the sharp pain in my side pulsed sharp but grew more faint.

I knew I could ignore it, push it back somewhere, and deal with it later.

The first thing I saw when I got up was a man lying down. I stumbled towards him and tried to shake the frozen body. It didn’t move. Must’ve been dead for some time. How long I did not know. Next to him was another man, almost submerged in the muck. His torso was hacked through, and a mess of mangled muscle and bone was now taken into the cold.

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There were many more dead lying around me, I discovered then. Some seemed to be so calm to be almost sleeping, while others did not have a calm or quick passing. Few were frozen in place, holding on to the injuries they succumbed to.

And in that wet dirt, I saw azure blue and gold and dark grey heraldry sewn on surcoats and shields, which were now ripped and torn into the mud and dirtied by blood. The more I stumbled around, the more I saw that so many did not pass calmly. I stood where a battle had taken place not long ago. It might’ve been days or weeks. Or it might’ve been less than that. Some corpses seemed to be lying there for much longer, while others looked almost alive still.

And there was a deep silence around me, with only the dribble of raindrops falling, which filled the total absence of sound. Something cold leaked inside my left boot, and my toes cramped, then my calf. But it wasn’t a bother, it was just pain I pushed back to be dealt with later.

I breathed in more of the sour smell of death.

Many dead wore plates of steel or coats of mail. Over those precious treasures were coats of many colors. Some of which aroused a faint memory, others did not. A golden chain caught my eye, and I limped towards it, regardless of the leaking boot and the pain in my side. I kneeled down and ripped a thick golden chain off the body of a young woman. She had dim blonde hair and her eyes were open, frozen forever in terror. In her final moments, she had seen something so terrifying she might’ve fallen over dead because of it. Such was her horror. But as I stared at the body, I felt a deeper pain somewhere in my soul, one which I could not push down, nor ignore like the rest. One which I had no skill to deal with. I traced her hair with my gloved fingers.

A memory, the faintest one. Ah, damned it! The memory escaped, but I heard myself say: calm down, all in time.

In my gloved hand, I held a chain made of gold, and a finger-sized medallion depicting the letter “Y” surrounded by a thin circlet. Next to her lay two young men wearing the same golden medallions, but those had deep cuts in their necks and chest. Their passing was quick, I thought.

The stillness of the scene was oddly calming. It felt comfortable. Almost like it was something I was used to. But then I saw something which sent a fit of hate through me - I saw deeper in the mud corpses dressed in rags and rusty mail. Many more were naked with only ragged pants of underwear or animal furs. And on those bodies were drawn or cut symbols which enraged me. The symbols were circular or triangular, intersected by sharp angles, but I had a deep recognition of their meaning. I could not explain it then, but the symbols depicted the teachings of the perversions against the designs and purposes of the world.

And many, many corpses had those symbols marked on them. Some seemed to have painted or cut into their flesh those symbols willingly. While others were strung with rusty chains and those markings cut deep into their skin with violence and hate.

Panic filled me then, and I limped with haste away from the dead and towards some buildings a dozen paces away. More mud leaked into my boot, and cold took over my toes. I stumbled away from the deep muck and towards a tall building with a stone foundation, wooden walls, and a tall and sharp roof. I rushed under the leaky roof and steadied myself on some stone steps, feeling a weakness setting in. Was it from the cold or from the pain in my side? I did not know.

I had on a dark and heavy woolen coat, which stopped the sharp wind blowing towards the right, but it was soaked through like the rest of my clothes. But it was better than nothing.

Then, off to the side!

Voices!

Bestial and rough, like deep coughing.

And then I heard steps rushing towards where I had been. They were slow steps, wading through the sludge while talking amongst themselves. They seemed to complain if I had to guess.

An immediate caution took me, and I crawled behind a thick wooden beam and made myself small. Just by their sound, I sensed danger.

Not even a moment later, I saw them coming from behind the corner. They were three men, ragged and hurt, and they wade past me through the thick brown gunk. All were dressed in rusty mail and torn coats or cloaks dirtied with brown and red. They held loosely in their hands some kind of grim-looking blunt weapons. But the most strange was that they were hunched over and wild in their behavior.

Not only a dozen feet away they passed me and started searching around the large square I had just been in. Between themselves, they talked in that strange tongue that was deep and bestial and I could not make sense of a single word. The taller and thicker one seemed to be their leader, commanding them around and scanning the area. He had a missing eye and a bloody rag around his head and stood up more straight than the other two, but in his gaze was a hunger the others did not.

Then the large bald one got on all fours and sniffed the muck, seemingly ignoring the tracks I had made leading towards where I was. After a moment, his head whipped up toward where I was hiding and pointed at me.

The three beast-men howled!

Then they did not scream, nor shout, they howled and charged toward me. The two shorter ones dragged their knuckles in the mud, almost running like beasts.

I kicked myself up with newly found strength, found a steady footing, and widened my stance. Nowhere could I find something to defend myself with, the closest weapon I saw was a spear on the other side of the square. And close the stone steps were empty, except for a few dark red drops of what I thought was blood.

The shortest of the bestial men was the first to reach me.

His eyes were like those of an animal, devoid of thought or emotion, except for an all-encompassing hate. It was as if his entire being was consumed by that hate, which was now directed toward me. He was short and thin, barely reaching my chin when hunched over and wearing only worn-out trousers and ragged remnants of a shirt.

And with a complete disregard of form or technique, he raised his weapon—a spiked mace with a dark shaft and a head forged of black iron, which was covered in dark-red spots and dried mud. With speed, he lunged his body forward and struck with wild ferocity.

But the strike came down slow, and even before he could bring down his weapon enough, I reached for his palm and ripped the mace off his hands. With a knee kick, he fell back, down the steps, and away from me. Quicker than the beast-man could even react, I raised his mace and aimed it at his bare head. His eyes went wide in shock, and panic overtook him. Without a single bit of pity, I drove the mace’s spiked iron head into his cheekbone, shattering his entire face. His eyes burst, his teeth splintered and he fell over dead in an instant, and what was left of his face was now falling apart into the brown and red sluch in front of me.

The other man, taller but still crooked and not more than a few steps behind his dead companion, took a single fearful glance at his dead buddy. And in that single brief moment his eyes glanced downward, I caved in his skull and left his lifeless body to fall over on top of his friend.

Their leader, the taller and bald man, stared with wide eyes and ran. He stumbled over his feet as he ran away and dropped his spiked cudgel. Before I could even limp forward, he ran as fast as his legs could take him and disappeared around the corner, all while wailing like a wounded dog. And then, after a moment, there was only the rain.

I cast my eyes down at the two bodies, with their heads smashed into pieces, and shrugged. I had extinguished their hate, and I felt nothing. Then off to the left, behind a wide, dilapidated roof, I saw thick, black smoke rising into the sky. Suddenly a piercing shriek filled the air. A shiver ran down my spine.

I dropped the mace and ran.