Twilight shook her head. Not now.

It was a hell of an accusation she’d made against Rafe, that would have burned what was left of the line she had crossed. They were allies. If he was hiding something, she wanted to know, but if it didn’t harm her, she could wait.

But that was the problem…would he harm her?

‘No…don’t think like that. Rafe would never…right?’

She wasn’t sure. It seemed the horror of the stranger’s face had done a number on her psyche; she couldn’t escape it. Right now, she couldn’t talk to Rafe. Not because she didn’t want to, but because right now, she couldn’t help but feel…strange.

She didn’t want to ruin whatever bond they had right now, not on something she wasn’t certain of.

But she still couldn’t escape that damn feeling. It was eating her inside.

“Damn it” she cursed, garnering Jed’s attention.

“What’s up with you and Rafe?”

He had obviously noticed Rafe cursing and storming off with a pissed off look on his face. Now, he was a little curious and concerned for the group.

“None of your business”

Jed pulled a face.

“Alright, Twilight. Alright”

He turned over, facing away from her. He didn’t fancy being the target of her feelings right now. He wasn’t in the mood for that.

“Sorry” she muttered, inaudibly.

‘I need to calm down’

Twilight laid back down on her bed, attempting to think about anything else. But right now, any she could think about was arguably worse; everyone here had given up; damned nightmares appeared on the off chance a rift could be found. Everything seemed to be pure hell right now.

She couldn’t deal with it. Perhaps she should just go to sleep.

Outside, Rafe slammed his fist against the hard, stone wall, blood dripping down from his red knuckles from all the times he had punched it previously. He was evidently in a bad mood.

‘She just had to run her damn mouth’ he inwardly cursed.

Slowly, he leaned against the cold wall, sliding down it until he was sat on the cold ground. His gaze moved towards the odd-shaped moon in the sky. It was green, just how it had always been.

It differed a lot from Earth’s moon, with it always being full, and the obvious fact that it was green. Well, green and black. Plus, it was a lot bigger.

And the stars, they differed a lot from what Rafe had seen in the real world. You could see so much more here, where pollution hadn’t cloaked the beautiful sky just yet.

“What are you doing out here?” a delicate voice reached his ears.

Red.

Quickly getting up, he turned towards the stunning woman. She seemed to be on duty tonight.

“Nothing much” he said.

However, Red wasn’t having it.

“Your hand was bleeding, I saw it. Is this about the rifts?” she asked.

‘Is this where she recruits me to whatever group is still set on escaping’ he smiled inwardly.

“Partly, yes”

Red squinted her eyes.

“What else is it?”

Rafe wasn’t planning on spilling his life to this basic stranger.

“Just everything really. But the rift situation is eating at me quite a bit. It sounds like getting home might just be a pipe dream after all”

Red shook her head.

“No…we haven’t given up. Well, most of us. Even after seeing our friends die, even knowing how insane it is, we want to escape. It’s only natural, right? We’re continuing to scout for rifts everyday. And once we find one, we’ll take volunteers to try escape through it. If you’re serious about getting home, don’t worry, we’re all still trying. We haven’t given up just yet”

She tried to reassure him. And to be honest, she did.

‘Most of the guard? That’s a lot better than I imagined. But is even that enough to kill a nightmare?’ he pondered.

“Thank you…actually I don’t know your name?”

She smiled softly.

“Scarlet. What about you?”

Rafe thought it was quite a nice name.

“Rafe. The other two are Jed and…Twilight”

He felt bitter saying her name, after she’d accused him of causing someone to blow their brains out. But, was it really much worse than what they were both planning? They were going to kill him. So, why was making him kill himself worse?

“Ah…good to know. I look forward to you all joining the team. Sleep well, Rafe”

Her soft smile radiated a strange warmth and calmness. It felt oddly comforting.

“You too, Scarlet”

Slowly, she walked away, disappearing under the night sky.

‘Blind…she’s blind. Yet, how did she see I was bleeding then? So many questions. She is one mysterious woman’

Remembering her movements, he was almost certain of the fact that she was blind. When talking, her eyes didn’t seem to follow his figure but the location of his voice.

She must have been blind.

‘I best go back inside’ he sighed.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

As he entered the small room, he said night to Jed, ignoring Twilight and jumped into his new, comfortable bed and closed his eyes.

Over on her bed, Twilight wore a bitter expression, hurt by Rafe. Yet, she understood she had stepped out of line. But it wasn’t like she’d accused him of anything worse than he was planning. He was planning to kill him after all.

It was just the pure fear in the boy’s eyes that caused her unease. Just what had caused that?

“Night, Jed” she said.

“Night”

Jed seemed to be ready to go to sleep as well.

“Night, Rafe” she said softly, a little quieter.

However, Rafe simply ignored her and kept his eyes closed, ready to go to sleep. Meanwhile, Twilight wore a slightly saddened expression, and a little angry herself. After a moment, she dropped that expression and just closed her eyes. Why did Rafe matter anyway?

“What in the hell is that thing?” a guard shouted in shock.

Before him was no battle; before him was a slaughter. A myriad of corpses littered the crimson stone ground, scattered randomly with terrible sword wounds. Some were stabbed in the heart; some were ruthlessly beheaded; some were mercilessly slice in half; some seemed to have had their skulls caved in.

Before them was a horrific scene that not even a million words could truly convey. Their holy temple had become a slaughter house and the men of the guard were the victims. What kind of monster could have done this? A nightmare?

“A lord” his friend spoke, his face becoming paler by the second.

Hearing those words caused the guard to tremble. A lord? A damned lord? Why would a lord be butchering the guards of the temple?

“We need to leave…now” his friend muttered, shaking.

They were faced with certain death if they remained in this cursed temple. If a lord was set on slaughtering everyone in this temple, they would accomplish it. The only way to survive was to escape this hell.

They sprinted through the labyrinth of perfectly cut stone, their faces dark, betting their lives on the one chance they had to escape. Down the endless halls, round the sharp corners, they dashed through the dying temple with all their strength, praying to survive.

‘Strange’ Rafe thought, observing through through the guard’s eyes. How was he seeing this? He knew he was sleeping, so this couldn’t be real, but he felt strangely present.

A moment later, he awoke.

‘One hell of a dream’ he thought.

Scratching his head whilst letting out a yawn, he made a quick look around. So strange. It felt so incredibly strange to be so well-rested. All of them were. After all, they no longer needed someone to keep guard.

Stretching out his refreshed body, he noticed Twilight tentatively staring into nothing.

‘Must be bored if she’s just rolling through her status’ he thought.

Jed on the other hand…was still asleep.

‘Ah…let him rest. Big things are coming’

With that, he set off outside for a morning walk. Normally, he tried to save as much energy as possible, but now

Looking around the fortress, it seemed rather populated given the time. Well, they were professional after all, even in a hell like this. Very odd.

‘I need a break from all this noise’

Rafe began to trek away from the majority of the guards, moving into a more secluded part of the fortress with little going on. As he turned the corner to get to the small, empty spot, he spotted a woman with long red hair resting against the behemoth wall.

“Rafe?” she asked, confused.

‘Why’s she here?’ he spat inwardly.

“Yeah. What you doing here?”

She squinted her eyes.

“I always come here. This is my spot, that’s why most the guards leave this area”

Rafe nodded. So that was why the area was so empty; Scarlet had made this her personal territory.

“I’d been meaning to ask actually, are you the leader of the guards?” Rafe asked.

Scarlet simply chuckled.

“Oh, gods no. I have a bit of power, but by no means do I lead them. That’s Ryu’s job. I’m just one of the Captain, I guess? We don’t really name the ranks, everyone just knows who goes where on the hierarchy. But none of that really matters anyways. How come you came here?”

Rafe simply nodded with her words. He was getting the idea she was a lot more important than she was trying to make it seem.

“Just looking for a place to relax for a bit. Does Ryu come out often? Also, isn’t that name foreign?”

“A place to relax, hmm? You fell out with one of your friends, didn’t you?”

Rafe remained silent.

“Ah, get over yourself. You lot best not forget what’s actually important. Anyways, yes Ryu is from the East territory…what’s left of it. Though, he was raised in central”

Rafe nodded.

‘East territory, huh?’ he thought.

After people began to fall into comas all around the world, the world entered a pretty bad state. A lot of people misunderstood what was happening and a lot of money was wasted trying to hospitalise these youths. However, they didn’t need it, since when the entered the Land of the Stranded, their bodies functions slowed down tremendously to a point where they could survive for up to a decade in that strange state.

It was a medical phenomena that still doesn’t truly make sense. Of course, since many of the first stranded ended up dying from lack of knowledge and strength, it only added to the confusion. It took a long time before the first stranded to escape appeared, after that, he was considered an insane young man. But after others that had escaped with him began to speak up, the world had no choice but to believe them. They were from all around the world, never meeting each other in the real world, and yet they all had the same story.

It was credible.

Yet, it still took the public a long time to adjust to these supernatural ideas. Another world? That’s insane. Well, that’s what they likely thought. Even in the present, some people just couldn’t accept the facts.

In fact, there was a whole cult of them. And another cult that wished to kill any stranded to survive; even kill the ones still sleeping in order to ‘cleanse the world’ or some bullshit like that.

Perhaps they were just jealous of the power stranded held, even after returning to the real world. In present times, there were a decent amount of stranded that had escaped the land, able to traverse between the worlds freely.

Some decided to just stay out of it forever…well, as much as they could control it. Every year or so, the ‘infected’ found themselves back in the Land of the Stranded. Yet, this time, they were much stronger after escaping once. Additionally, they seemed to attract rifts, so it only took a few weeks to escape again. That was another reason settlements were a heaven to stranded, since many of the escaped resided there, meaning there was a higher chance a rift would appear nearby and they could escape.

But people of the real world sometimes felt hatred towards the stranded, as around the same time they would be brought back into the world of stranded, monsters would appear in the real world, almost as though they had swapped places with the stranded.

Since the monsters were neigh bullet proof, it was incredibly tricky to kill the monsters. The solution ended up being nuclear weapons and bio attacks on the creatures, that caused many places to be abandoned. After a while, only six territories existed, and since everyone had begun to migrate here, they were names simply: north, east, south, west, central, and high.

High was where the most important people would live, a step above the people that lived in central. They resided on a large island that was elevated by a stranded’s powers in order to make it taller than any sky scraper. There, only planes could enter, and only the ones authorised too would make it to the island.

“Where is Ryu?”

Scarlet shrugged.

“Somewhere off east. An expedition of sorts. He’s like that”

Rafe pondered for a moment.

“Alright. Well, I should head back”

Scarlet nodded.

“Go make up with your friends. Can’t be having discord between our new guards”

She waved as Rafe left. After he left, she went back to gazing at the morning sky. It was beautiful, an incredible contradiction to the hell beneath it. Whilst she couldn’t see it’s beauty anymore, she could feel it’s warmth. It comforted her.

Losing her sight was one of the hardest things she’d been through, for obvious reasons. Well…second hardest, but she didn’t like to think about that.

She sighed, closing her eyes.

A little away now, Rafe did not head towards where the others were, instead he found a random wall and leaned against it. It felt rather warm and comforting.

He couldn’t face Twilight right now. What was she thinking? He worried.

‘She’s dangerous’

Suddenly, his face darkened as his eyes grew cold. It was true, she was a danger. But what could he do? Indeed, what could he do?

Name: Rafe

Title: Rafe of the Fallen

Title Description: Held by the inheritor of the fallen god. In the darkness, he grows stronger than any ordinary creature should be.

‘Ack’ he spat in frustration.

He had to do something.

As that viscous thought entered his mind, a sweet voice swiftly danced towards his ears. Hearing the melodic sound, Rafe’s eyes flung open in shock.