Chapter One: Paragon Raging

Pain radiated through my entire body, not a single nerve left unscathed. Then came the smoke. I couldn't breathe. I tried to cough the smoke out but no matter what I did, more just filled its place. I tried to open my eyes just to get a glimpse of what was happening to me and was blinded by a bright, orange light all over myself.

Then came the smell—the scent of burnt flesh.

I knew where the smell was coming from. I screamed in agony, knowing there was no one around to help me. Even so, I screamed over and over, each time more smoke filled my throat. I coughed, screamed, coughed even more. The pain was so incredible, it didn't give me time to think. I didn't know what was going on, where I was, who I was. All that mattered was the fire, the pain, that consumed me. I had to get out but I couldn't move. I was going to die and I couldn't do anything about it but scream.

Something moved, and a crashing sound came from the distance. Where was I, in a building? Was it crumbling? It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the pain.

I used all of my strength to scream one last time and felt my vocal cords snap. Just as I predicted, no one came. I couldn't scream anymore, I couldn't do anything anymore.

I couldn't even feel the pain of the flames.

#

It was cold. Bitterly, and utterly cold. As I opened my eyes, I felt my brain explode in aching pain that pulsed with the rhythm of my heart. Something was hitting me all over my body, bullets that pounded onto my skin. My body was wet, water rushed off my hair like a shower, and my hands gripped into the ground and found it jagged and soaked. It was all too much, I tried to focus on something, anything, but there was so much going on and my head pounded with the worst headache I'd ever had.

“Yes! Rise!” Someone called out, their voice booming through the air as if through a microphone, causing my head to pulse in pain.

Another, much worse, pulse came as a massive boom ripped through the fabric of reality, the sound pounding into my very soul as my entire body went rigid. My headache from the sudden movement and for a moment I thought I had been shot.

“Yes! Come toward me! COME TOWARD ME!”

Light surrounded me suddenly, illuminating me as if a spotlight had been shone right down on me just before another gigantic boom sounded. The sound was thunder, I was in a massive thunderstorm. The pellets hitting me were rain, the ground beneath me was sand. I looked at my hand that lay on the sand, my fingers pushed deep within the coarse earth. The sand didn't look right, the grains too big and sharp. I tried to pull together how I got there, the fragmented reality that once was mine. Yet, it was hopeless, everything just seemed to be shattered and vague. I pulled my hand from the sand, watching my fingers draw lines on the wet ground. Quickly, water took over the new divots in the ground, drowning them, and creating a tiny lake next to the ocean surrounding me.

The ocean. I could hear it, the waves crashing just behind me. Through all of the noise of the storm and the mysterious figure calling out, the ocean made itself clear by calling out in its own way. With the strength I had left, I put my hand to my head. Immediately when my hand touched skin, pain shot through my skull, ricocheting out across my body. Rubbing my thumb and index finger together, I could feel a new liquid on them but it was so dark I couldn't see what it was no matter how hard I squinted.

“YES! COME NOW! RISE!” The booming voice shook the very ground I lay, causing my entire body to sink just slightly further into the sand. Just then, another lightning strike soared through the sky, lighting up the entire world before me. In that instant, I saw a horror I had wished I hadn't glimpsed.

In front of me, I saw the dark crimson of blood covering my hand. I knew it was my own, leaking from a head wound I now knew I had gotten from the smashed and broken debris of what used to be a large, wooden vessel. Now it was reduced to rubble, its enormous sail stuck deep into the sandy ground, marking where the ship had its last stand.

Surrounding the broken ship, that sandy ground was soaked deep with red as bodies lay motionless all around me. Not just dead, but truly mangled. Arms, legs, and head unattached to ripped-apart torsos. Men, women, and children alike. This hadn't been done by the apparent shipwreck that I had been in, no, this had been from something much worse, something truly nefarious.

“YOU MUST COME FURTHER! GRANT ME WITH YOUR STRENGTH!” The voice screamed, erring on the side of nearly manic. All of a sudden, the realization came to me as large as the waves that had taken down the ship I had been on. This man had done this. Whoever he was, he had killed these people. I knew what it was for, it was for whatever he was calling forth.

How I had gotten here, whatever caused me to be in the ocean in the first place didn't matter. I couldn't let this man do whatever he was doing. I had lived my whole life not believing in magic, it just simply didn't make any sense. Magic wasn't real, science was, science was just magic once understood. Perhaps this was science too, but whatever it was, it had caused this man to kill these people. Surely, whatever he was summoning - magic or science, it didn't matter - couldn't have been good.

Lightning struck once again, illuminating everything around me and I saw this man once and for all. He stood there in yellow-outlined, purple robes. His arms were outstretched as if reaching for the sky, and his eyes seemed like they were about to pop out of his head from sheer exhilaration. I knew I shouldn't, it would waste time and would cost me precious movement I couldn't waste, but I wanted - needed - to know what this man was staring out at in the vast ocean.

I pressed my elbow into the sand, wincing as each grain pressed into my skin. Yet, it could've been glass and the pain wouldn't have been nearly as bad as the rest of the pain I was feeling in my body. I pushed my body up with my elbow, feeling every part of me shake in revolt before I allowed myself to crash onto my back. At first, all I saw was darkness and worse, rain was now pelting me in my face, directly hitting my eyes. My long hair helped block it but it wasn't enough and I had to struggle to put an arm up to shield myself from the unrelenting flow of water.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Long hair...I don't have long hair. How do I have-

My thought was interrupted as another flash of lightning came, revealing in that instant something. And then the light was gone. I had seen it but not all of it. It seemed to be almost a waterspout. But it was enormous, spanning the entirety of my field of view of the ocean. With my depth perception as it was, I couldn't tell if it was fifty miles away or right upon me. But what was worse was that it wasn't the whole creature. I didn't quite understand how I knew, it was more of a feeling, but it rang true. That wasn't even half of the creature, but merely a leg.

My heart skipped a beat as all of this realization crashed into me at once. Science, there was a scientific reason for whatever the hell I had just seen.

But it didn't feel scientific, it didn't even feel magical. It felt horrific.

I pushed back onto my elbow and flipped myself onto my stomach once again. I had to get to this robed man, and fast. I pushed up on both of my hands, feeling my elbows shake profusely as I did, but my arms didn't give out. One knee dug into the sand as I put a foot on the ground. I realized then I was wearing a shoe - only one as I could feel now the sand touching my other foot's bare toes. I pushed onto the ground, trying to get onto my feet. My leg shook, my whole body shook. But I was getting up, I was making it. Just as I was making it halfway to my feet, though, my leg gave out and I hit the sand once more, my cheek now buried in its coarse grains.

I had to try again.

I put my hands back on the sand and began to push up, leaving several grains of sand attached to my cheek and many more in my hair. I felt my arm grow weak and my hand slipped on a wet section of sand. I dug my fingers in, feeling them slip through the sand and become one with the ground. It was the traction I needed to keep from hitting the ground again. I put my shoe-equipped foot back onto the ground and pushed upward with all I had. My fingers were forced out of the sand, sending clumps of the stuff flying out.

Every part of my body was weak and every muscle shook with the strain I was putting on myself. But I was up, I was standing.

Another lighting strike lit up the beach. In front of me was the same robed man, his face now not as ecstatic as it once was. Replacing it seemed to be confusion. I took a shaky step toward him, managing to stay upright.

“What?” I heard the man ask.

I picked up my other foot, feeling it scrape the grainy sand with my toes as I couldn't pick it up far enough away from the ground. I dragged neat lines across the sand before planting my foot further ahead of me. I was getting closer to this mysterious man, just perhaps nine more and I could make it. I could get to him.

And what would I do then?

“No, this can't be right.”

One more step, more lines being dragged through the sand.

“What are you doing here?”

The question seemed to be directed at me. I paid it no mind, I simply took one more step closer to the man.

“No. I did everything right. I did everything right!”

Another step. Then another.

Dammit! Damn you! DAMN YOU!” Lightning flashed and I saw the man pointing at me with one hand. In the other, I saw a long, metallic object. A knife.

Even in the darkness, I was close enough now to be able to make out just enough detail to see that the man took a step toward me. At that moment, however, his legs gave out and he fell.

I tried to take another step toward him but my legs gave out too. I fell. My arms were too weak for them to brace me much for the fall and I felt my brain explode as soon as my chin hit the muddy sand. This time it was so much worse than the last as it went away quickly yet left me unable to think whatsoever. Just then, I heard something dig into the mud right next to my ear. I didn't have to see it to know it was the knife.

I heard sand fly out of the ground as the knife was taken out and raised in the air. I forced my neck up and saw the knife hanging there, ready to fall into me. With renewed strength, my arm shot out in more reaction than actual purpose. But even so, luck seemed to be on my side as I caught the man's arm in the air. Surely, this man, who had seemed so full with vitality only moments before would've been able to push back against my weak arm. Yet, his arm hung there weakly, my arm feeling stronger than his by an exponential amount.

“Damn you!” The man barked into my ear. His other hand grabbed onto my face, wrapping around it as if it were an octopus. I grabbed it with my other hand, pulling his hand off of my face just as easily as I stopped his knife. As I pulled his hand off, though, each of his fingers began to glow white.

Before I had a moment to react to what he was doing, light flashed across my vision and I felt a burning hot pain sear through my shoulder. The light was gone in an instant but its afterimage was burned into my retinas. I could hardly see anything except it.

Something thin flicked across my cheek. My hand shot to where the object had touched and came back with a viscous liquid, more blood. The knife. He still had the knife and I realized I wasn't holding onto his arm any longer. My vision began to clear, not much but just enough to see a bit around the deep afterimage. Another lucky stroke for me as I saw the blade coming for me. My arm went out and grabbed the man's hand once again. I wasn't taking chances anymore, I slammed the hand down onto the sand as hard as I could and felt his arm loosen.

We both scrambled for the blade now somewhere on the dark ground. His hands touched mine, but we both knew a fistfight wasn't how this would end. I felt something cold touch my finger and pain came as the blade sliced it open.

I paid it no mind, running my finger across the blade to the hilt. I grabbed the hilt of the knife, and just then one of the man's hands began to glow again. With my unarmed hand, I slapped his hand away as if a fly and squeezed my eyes shut. Even with that, I still saw red as the light flashed brightly.

I didn't feel any more pain than I already was in. I had successfully pushed his attack away. With the knife-wielding hand, I did the only thing I had left to do. I felt the man's hand shoot out in desperation to grab my arm and stop the inevitable but he missed.

The edge of my hand touched soft skin as the entire blade was driven into the man's throat. Through the rain, I could feel the thick liquid of blood begin to pool onto my hand, running down my arm.

Just then, another flash came - not from the man's hands but from the sky. In that instant, I saw an image that emblazoned itself not on my eyes but on my brain. I saw the man's eyes, bulging in fear and shock. His mouth was wide open and blood was beginning to drool out onto his chin and the wet sand underneath him was already beginning to stain red.

The light was gone and I was once more in darkness. The man went limp, his neck resting firmly above the ground as the hilt of the blade held him up. A sigh escaped my mouth. I had done it, I had survived. I let go of the hilt and flopped onto my back.

As I lay there, the rain began to suddenly peter out, as if being turned off by a valve. Already, the dark clouds began to break up. Replacing that dim darkness was a blue sky. I could see the faintest of rainbows in the corner of my vision beginning to take form. Before my eyes closed, I saw the sun break through the clouds. I had made it out, I was alive. Wherever I was on this death-riddled beach, I had lived. Just as the sun's rays touched my eyes and just before they became blinding, I felt my eyes become as heavy as lead. Just as the light began to touch me, darkness took over once again as my consciousness left me.