I awoke to find myself in darkness. Strange as it was, I couldn't remember much of anything. But, even still, I somehow was able to remain calm in this darkness. Slowly, my eyes began to adapt to the darkness and I began looking at my surroundings in depth. I turned to my right, to see four meters of darkness before some sort of wall. I put the back of my right hand on the wall I was leaning on to find it surprisingly cool and sturdy. After a few minutes of brushing my hand on the wall I realized two things. One, I was in chains and had been for a while. The cuffs around my wrists had done more than chaif my skin, but I was ignoring that. The other thing I learned was that the walls seemed crudely made out of stone. To my right was another wall. It was so close that I didn't even give it a second glance before looking in front of me and trying to guess the distance between me and the wall that was there. I'd say about three meters. Yeah, that seems about right.

I moved my hands slightly to see that they weren't connected to each other, but to a loop made out of the same material, welded perfectly into the ground. It seemed that my ankles were in the same shape as my wrists but the chains were about a half meter shorter. I guess that whoever is keeping me here wanted to make sure I couldn't go more than a meter away from this spot. If I tried in earnest, the chains on my legs would buckle, forcing me to trip, and then unable to fall properly, the chains on my wrists would catch me slightly to make sure I didn't kill myself on the fall.

"But...where am I? Who am I?"

My voice was raspy and shocked myself. It sounded surprisingly young- as if I have never heard this voice before. What's going on? I decided to push the rushing thoughts out of my mind and tried to think back at everything that transpired.

"Attention to detail, that's how you survive," I whispered to myself. Another shocking statement I've made. I know someone taught me that, but who? Questions for later, I guess.

After a while, I realized that I couldn't even perceive the time, since there was no light able to come into the cell I was in. No one was bringing food either. Well, I guess this means I'm not in prison, then. I let my thoughts trail off, since I no longer needed to analyze the situation anymore. It was simple; I was in an unknown place, chained to the ground, with no way of escaping and there's no other living being around that I can tell. On top of it all, I have no idea who I am or why none of this even shocks me.

It comes down to a simple thing, really. If this had always been my life, then I would at least know that much. But I shouldn't know these tiny bits of information that keeps popping up in my mind, if that were the case. However, if this wasn't always my life, then something must've happened to change that. Which is more likely, but the problem of not being able to remember anything is actually hindering me from progressing any further with rational thinking. So letting my mind wander for a bit, without taking anything I think of seriously, would be the best course of action while I wait for something to happen.

But what happened was something that I wasn't able to predict. Some sort of smell that seemed extremely familiar waft through my nose. Nostalgia of some sort ran through my mind as I embraced the scent of fire. There was no mistaking it, this is definitely a smell I'm familiar with. But for this much smoke, the fire must be huge, which means outside of these walls, a building must be burning down or something.

But for some reason, I knew that fires this large must somehow have humans involved. So, I began biding my time to see if there would be any other developments. After a few minutes of complete silence, I heard a strange sound I couldn't recognize. I stiffened, sharpening my senses to see if there was any change happening outside of these walls. After a moment, the smell of fire seemed slightly stronger than before and footsteps could be heard. Eventually the footsteps stopped outside of my wall.

"Oi, anyone in there?" a female voice called out from the other side of the wall.

"...Yes," I answered after a brief pause. My voice was raspy and instead of answering, there was just a deafening silence.

As I was about to try answering louder, some changes happened and I tried to pay close attention to them. The woman's voice didn't respond to me, but to someone else in a low whisper. Then, I could hear her footsteps moving away from the cell. Maybe they're the guards. No, wait, if they were guards, would they need to confirm if someone was inside? As hundreds of thoughts came flooding to me attempting to analyze the new change in the situation, I heard the woman's footsteps come back towards my cell, along with another pair of footsteps behind her.

"Still alive in there?" the same female voice called out.

"Yes," Why wouldn't I be? You were only gone for like ten seconds?

"Good. Try not to let this kill you, okay?"

"Wha-?" Before I could even grasp the situation, there was a deafening noise, and almost all of the stones to my right, just barely twenty centimeters away from me, all the way down the wall for three meters, flew to the other side of my cell, before crumbling into dust. I began choking on dust, and coughed and rapidly my senses started to become overwhelmed. I was closing my eyes tightly since there was now an extreme amount of light flooding into my room, burning my eyes. On top of that, the noise somehow made it hard to hear anything. With dust in my nose- actually I don't even want to think about that one.The light hurts. I focused only on that thought as I tried covering my eyes and taking a peek at the new world around me. As I thought the worst had passed, two figures were instantly in front of me and began to roughly inspect my current condition. One took hold of my wrists and swung my arms towards my left, while the other lifted me off the ground by my hair..

"No wounds. I'm surprised you didn't kill the boy," the first woman, whom I heard way before spoke. She had Jet black hair, with bangs that parted, covering her right eye. Her hair was long, but was kept in a neat braided ponytail that went down to her lower back. She was wearing some sort of light iron armor under a black cloak that left her joints exposed, and had two swords sheathed on her left hip.

"Raven, I know better than to kill this child," the other woman replied to her. Her facial features couldn't be seen with the shawl and hood covering her face, but she was not tiny at all. From the shawl, that was over a cloak, I could see that she had broad shoulders and was actually pretty tall. She was the one holding me up by my hair, but looking at the cuffs, and when she leaned over a little more, I could see that she had a massive broadsword on her back, that was probably as big as her, and almost as wide as her. Not only that, she reeked of blood, and when her face came close to mine, I felt an extreme amount of terror, and it took everything I had to not faint from it.

I felt like I had experienced this kind of terror before, but SHE was different. Her very existence terrified me. For some reason, I instinctively knew that she could kill anyone and anything. And my body somehow understood what kind of threat she posed, and refused to obey me. It's like it knew that trying to get away from her would be a waste of time. I thought I had seen her eyes, but I saw nothing but a black hole of despair, with the screams of thousands of unknown voices in my head. I quickly shut my eyes and looked away. Then slowly, those screams began to dissipate.

"Woah there, Mag. No need to traumatize the poor child," Raven finally let go of my wrists and looked at her hooded companion.

"Traumatize him? He's not begging for death, so he should be ok. There's no spells on those cuffs, so get rid of them and let's leave."

"We're not staying to grab supplies?"

"Carney's team went straight for the supplies, as planned."

Raven backed up, and grabbed the hilt of one of her swords with her right hand, and then put the sword back into its scabbard. Before I could even register, how the sword got pulled out in the first place, the shackles on my body were cut cleanly. I attempted to back up from these women, but I was unable to push back farther against the wall than I already was. Everything in my mind, body and spirit were screaming to escape from the carnage that was soon to come.

"Relax kid," Raven said once her sword was back in its scabbard. "We won't kill you."

"Well, that depends," Mag cut in. "You have two choices right now. Follow us obediently and survive, or die right here. Oh, and if you follow us, and then try to escape later, we will kill you. I don't have time to babysit a brat that doesn't know how to listen. Well, what will it be?"

Unlike Raven, who was making a clear attempt at trying to relax me, Mag seemed to be enjoying the thought of killing me. Was I even safe if I went with them obediently? At that moment, I was hesitating to say 'go ahead and kill me'. For some reason, those words wouldn't come out and I couldn't understand why. After a few seconds I processed everything that I knew and found my mind in an emptiness-like state. I say empty, but it was more like the thoughts were organized. It began piecing things together at a breakneck speed. This room was not where I was supposed to be and this entire building was burning. That meant following them out to survive. But I wouldn't be able to run away from them, however if they were going out of their way to save me, that means they had no intentions of killing me in the first place. In other words, they had planned on using me. And they had a team, which means I had multiple opportunities to learn what I needed in order to survive. Even if running away wasn't an option right now, it could become one in the future.

Both Mag and Raven looked at each other, then Raven sighed. "Look, it's not all that bad, okay? You'll just be coming with us until we find a good spot to drop you off. We don't think killing a bunch of children is justified as collateral damage, which is why we are grabbing you."

I stood up. My legs were somehow unsteady, and I wasn't sure if they would hold out on this journey, but I no longer had a reason to stay here, or die. For some reason, I was yearning for something inside the darkness that was in the back of my mind. The darkness that are the clouded memories I needed to know and understand. And that yearning was giving me strength. For another thing, I knew that this was the only path I could take to stay alive, even if I didn't want to understand anything about myself..

"Good," Mag said as I took a step towards her. "Raven, you're in charge of the boy. Julia, Strider, are you done mopping up on this floor?"

"Yes" two unfamiliar voices answered in unison. It was only then I had noticed their presence, although their silhouettes vanished back into the background before I could actually get a good look at them.

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"Good, Cover the rear, I'll take point," once Mag was done giving out the orders, it felt like everyone took their positions while Mag led us out, but I couldn't see anyone but Mag or Raven, stayed right next to me the entire time.

I began to question everything in my sanity that allowed me to agree to follow them out of here, instead of negotiating to be allowed to run away. It was still extremely difficult to get used to the light, even if it was just a bunch of torches here and there throughout all of these hallways. My eyes were burning and tearing up, even while squinting. But I fought through the pain to try to get a better look at my surroundings. It did indeed seem like I was in some sort of prison, and although the smell of fire was getting stronger, it didn't seem like the cause was coming from this building itself. Here and there were corpses littered on the ground of what I was assuming to be the guards of this place, while every cell was opened, and their contents empty. It seemed like they had let mostly everyone escape already, except for the few with swords or daggers in their heads. I didn't try to figure out why those ones died- there wasn't enough time to worry about anyone else's life. Through all of this, though, I was oddly surprised that this entire massacre didn't bother me at all. It seemed almost natural to be surrounded by hundreds of corpses.

As I hobbled behind Mag, another person came down the hallway in a small trot. I didn't understand their conversation at all, since it was in a different language altogether, but Raven did eventually whisper in my ear that her name was Ayesha. While carefully looking at her, I realized that she wasn't human, like Raven, who was next to me. She had a small and slender build, with a quiver of arrows on her back, and a bow half as tall as her, in her left hand. Her clothes were a deep shade of green, but were lacking in many places. She just had a Shirt that covered her chest, which was pretty much flat, especially in comparison to Raven, and a skirt, which left little to the imagination. Even her boots covered more of her body than her clothes. And her ears, they were long and slender, and pointed out from her head about fifteen centimeters. They also constantly twitched at the slightest sounds. Staring at her back, I was actually uninterested in her figure as a woman, but more interested in her race. Which somehow brought up more questions that I ended up having to push to the back of my mind for later. I mean, she wasn't curvy, but she was by no means ugly. However, I was just uninterested altogether. I ended up scratching my head in annoyance and decided to study a few of the corpses while we waited for their conversation to end.

After a while, the conversation between Mag and Ayesha did end and she led the way as we walked silently towards a hallway Mag was interested in. I was beginning to find this silence deafening but was only kept sane because of the sounds of our footsteps- well mostly my own footsteps. But I was making my footsteps louder on purpose, just to make some sort of sound. But after a while, I noticed that everyone besides me was able to move without making noise. We climbed a set of stairs, and then continued walking down the hallway they led to. It didn't take much thought to realize that we were walking in the exact opposite direction, three floors above from where my cell was. As to why I was paying attention to that, was because for the past two floors there hadn't been any windows so I couldn't tell what direction we were even heading in. But now, each cell had one window, which gave a small view of outside- the ground level. And if I can see outside, I might be able to find out which cardinal direction we were heading in. Well, under normal circumstances anyways. The only thing I could see from the windows we walked passed was a city burning down.

While drowning myself in thoughts of analyzing every detail, I failed to realize that Mag and Ayesha had stopped outside of a cell. I poked my head around Mag, burning with curiosity but I had quickly began to regret it. On the floor were the corpses of four guards who were gripping their blades tightly, even in death. But, tied to a bed in the room a single girl, who had appeared to be no older than eight. Her hair was matted and long, falling slightly past her chest, but was pitch black. Her eyes almost seemed dead, but with a faint glimmer of hope. What caught me off guard at first was her cat-like ears on the top of her head, but afterwards I noticed that her dress was ripped and although it seemed like her chastity remained, the fact that it was almost taken from her shattered her mentality.

I took in the scene and swallowed a lump of anger that rose into my throat. I was angry at this scene, but for some reason, it felt like I had seen it plenty of times- enough to know that the mental state of this girl was in critical condition. But worst of all, I had no idea why I was able to know any of this, nor why this felt like a recurring anger. But before I could even push these questions into the back of my mind, my eyes locked with this girl.

Instantly, my mind flashed to a horrid memory. I was in a single room with nine men, all on the ground half naked and bleeding from gunshot wounds in their head, while I had another in my left hand. I gripped the knife in my right hand as I looked at one of the girls in the room, and slashed the man's throat, without sparing a single glance at him. I looked the girl over, her body was completely naked and limp. Her eyes were glazed over but she was very much aware of what had been done to her. Her face may have been wet with tears, but the rest of her body was soaked in blood- both her own and those of the men I just killed. I took a step towards this girl, and without hesitation or fear, she looked me in the eyes.

I know that look. I took a deep breath to resolve myself, then I asked her clearly, "Are you sure?"

The girl didn't respond. Her amber hair that was kept at shoulder length just bounced slightly as she nodded. And without hesitation, I pulled the pistol from its holster on my right thigh and shot her. I then looked around the room to see how many other girls were left in her state and strengthened my resolve. If they were too far gone, saving them would only make their lives miserable, no matter how much help they get.

Once my resolve was affirmed, I opened my eyes, but I was no longer in the memory. I was now staring at a different girl. She wasn't gone, yet- there was a chance to save this one. Or so I told myself as I stepped forward.

"What is it, boy?" Mag asked. For some reason, she didn't sound angry nor did she give off any feelings of violence. In fact, she seemed interested in this situation.

"..." How was I supposed to answer this? How do I explain what I had just seen? No, there was no need to explain- actions speak louder than words.

I made my way towards the girl, stepping over the corpses. Eventually, I bent down and took a sword from one of the corpses' hands, and began cutting the ropes that tied the girl down. Once I was done, I went to the wall and found some of the guard's traveling cloaks hanging on the wall. It was definitely too big for her, but she can make do for now. I took one off the wall and tossed it at her. Then I stopped and looked at the rags I was wearing, and decided to take one for myself as well. After that, I began checking the equipment of the guards in this room and decided to just take one sword, two daggers and one knife. Any more weight and I would end up hindering myself. But somehow, it seemed like I used to be able to carry more weight than this in the past. Oh well, another thing to tuck into the back of my mind for now.

Raven and Mag were watching me with curiosity, while Ayesha seemed to actually be surprised. I guess she was thinking that the girl was too far gone to be saved, but she managed to wrap herself in the cloak that went down to her ankles. And although her eyes filled with tears, she managed to find her way to Raven.

"Sorry, Raven. Can you babysit another one?" Mag asked as she began thinking about my actions to salvage usable equipment.

"It's fine, but the boy needs to figure out the rest when we drop them somewhere."

Oh, I definitely wasn't prepared to be taking care of another person. Maybe I should've thought my actions through a bit more? Hm...

After a brief internal conflict, it seemed like both my body and my emotions deemed this was the best course of action. It still confused me as to why I was thinking like this, but it made no difference. If she can learn to defend herself, everything should be fine. Besides, what's more important right now is figuring out that memory. It seemed like there were a lot of things going on in it, but there was one thing that stood out more than the rest; guns. I feel like a part of me understands them, and a part of me doesn't. But I'll just have to push this back with the other questions for now.

"You have a name?" Raven asked the girl. Ayesha and Mag had already started heading down the hallway to what I assumed would be the way out. But the girl was still trying to pull herself together, so Raven was standing just outside of the room trying to talk to her.

The girl nodded. I could see the fear not only in her eyes, but her entire body. She was trembling and crying. It took a solid ten minutes of Raven talking to her for us to get a word out of her. But eventually we did.

"Eliquis," she answered, still trembling.

"Well, Eliquis," Raven started. Clearly she was getting annoyed with having to baby us, but she tried hard to push those feelings down as she continued talking. "We need to go, now. Unless you want to end up like them."

"Ah," Eliquis glanced at the corpse that Raven was pointing to and she let out what I assumed was supposed to be a shriek, but it was faint. Almost like her voice was already running out of the building without her.

After going down the hallway that Mag and Ayesha went through, we eventually made it to a large room that was about forty meters in length on all sides. I saw piles of corpses everywhere, and people wearing the same type of clothes as Mag searching the corpses, and organizing them. I say organizing but it seemed like they were just piling them up semi-neatly along different walls. I had no idea what was going on, but apparently, they had killed everyone around here. Who was Mag, and why did they kill all of these people? Not that I wasn't grateful or anything, but it seemed like something massive was going on right now. Raven realized that I was getting lost in thought again, and pushed me from behind to keep following Mag, who had started to walk again when we caught up.

Mag was leading us to two massive wooden doors ahead, and as we approached those doors, a man dropped down from the ceiling wearing all black, with his entire head and face covered. I instinctively jumped back, but it seemed like it was uncalled for. He simply landed next to Mag, and took a knee.

"All of the corpses are currently being dragged to the first floor, and we will demolish the fortress as soon as we make sure that none of the corpses can be identified," the man reported to Mag.

Fortress? I thought this was a prison.

"And what of Carney?"

"She has already sent four carriages full of supplies back to HQ, and we are currently loading up another six, that we found inside the fortress with the rest of the supplies. If we can, we will take some more supplies when the rearguards leave."

"Prioritize the necessities. It's not like we're desperate for anything. And we must leave before they find out that we were here. I'd say we have no more than twelve hours, seeing how the damage to the city is quite visible," Mag left the man with those words and continued walking to the doors.

The doors slowly creaked open as Mag lifted a single finger and pushed. Suddenly a blast of natural light entered the room we were standing in. Unlike the dimly lit castle, that seemed to blind me just by torch light, the light from outside immediately penetrated my eyes, and burned the inside of my head. I fell forward, on my knees, clutching my eyes with my hands, screaming at the pain. It was burning, and piercing. It felt like I was being stabbed in the eyes with a melting cattle prod. This was way too much. I couldn't even gather the strength in my body to fight against that kind of light. Was I a creature that couldn't survive in daylight?

"Will he be okay?"

"I didn't want to assume that Endol's were this cruel, but it might be his first time seeing light. Give him a minute to let his body adjust," Raven replied to the unknown person's voice. Then, I felt her pick me up and throw me over her shoulder. And we began walking, once again. "Don't worry, it won't feel like that forever, I think"

"We have prepared two carriages for you," another person said as we got closer to the exit. "Although I was not expecting there to be any children locked up in here."

"One is fine. I'm traveling lightly to drop them off," Mag responded quickly while taking in her surroundings. It was almost like she was expecting something to go wrong at that moment. But after a few more seconds, she just walked to one of the carriages.

After a few minutes, I was let down in one of the carriages. It seems like everyone except Raven was in the back of this carriage, while Raven was driving it. It was hard to tell with my eyes still burning, but from what I could hear, at least, it was Mag, Ayesha, Eliquis and two others back here. I kept my eyes shut as the carriage started moving and took the opportunity to attempt to sift through a few of my thoughts. However, everything seemed to start looping back into circles, so I just tucked those thoughts away for the time being and slowly let my eyes get accustomed to the light. It was a painful experience that I had hoped I would never have to experience again.