From the depths of a newly awakened mind, a fractured memory formed. The darkness once surrounding his vision faded away allowing for him to witness majestic light shining through a temple’s ceiling.

With hardly any time to make further sense of his surroundings, a crystal-like sword came directly at him. The blade began slicing through his wrist causing his sword to fall to the ground.

Blood gushed forth like a raging torrent staining the once bloodless white marble floor. There was so much blood, he could hardly register what was happening to him and that it was his own. A wretched scream reverberated from him as their sword began slicing through his other wrist.

Whilst completely defenseless, he felt every additional stab and every slice directed towards him. Their crystal-like sword pulsed and glowed as it continually tore him apart.

There was simply nothing he could do to fight against them. Only hopelessness and defeat remained for him.

His body harshly hit the ground. He gazed up struggling to see as his vision became hazy. The adversary trying their hardest to kill him began to stand over his body. Behind the dark-clad figure, that same majestic light shined down on him.

The warmth of the sun shining through the glass ceiling truly felt brilliant, yet this glorious warmth and light quickly faded as a swarm of black fire began to appear in his vision.

No amount of wriggling around or attempting to crawl away helped. There was no surviving at this point. Only death awaited as his entire body burned from the black flames.

Thankfully, the fire burned so hot, that he didn’t have to feel it for very long before this vivid memory faded away.

Darkness surrounded his vision once more, but unlike previously, he felt in control of his own body.

In a panicked state, he rushed to his feet running his hands up and down himself.

I’m alive? It was hard for him to believe. He saw his death or what he presumed was his death. And yet, here he was.

He began to notice something heavy surrounding his neck. His hands began to feel it and see whether it was even possible to get it off. His hands eventually discovered a chain dangling from the device.

The chain ran all the way from this apparatus to a wet wall behind him that he began to feel. What is this place? Where am I?

He tried to get the apparatus off but it didn’t appear possible no matter how hard he tried to pry it off of himself with his irritated fingers that felt strange to him.

His strength quickly faded. This body of his wore out quite quickly. He breathed in heavily officially giving up.

Accepting the futility of his situation, he sat down and pressed his back against the wet wall.

In this dark place, he found it difficult to breathe. The air was thick in toxicity. His throat along with his lungs burned with every additional breath taken.

He had been dealt a cruel hand for one reason or another to end up in a place like this. But ultimately, he had pertinent questions looming around in his mind trying to make sense of everything. One of the questions revolved around the one responsible for murdering him in that memory he just experienced. Another question revolved around how he ended up in the place he currently occupied.

But beyond those two mere questions, was an even greater question that demanded an answer.

Who am I?

It was, of course, an important question, but it was also a question that contained no answer. It didn’t matter how many times he asked that same question. He would only be greeted by the eternal darkness that surrounded him and the occasional sound of water dripping from the ceiling that hit a nearby puddle towards his left.

Some unfortunate circumstances have led me here. For what reason though, I wonder.

As if someone had heard his thoughts and thought to answer him, a tiny flame appeared before him revealing a well-groomed figure who had short black hair. His eyes with subtle red pupils reflected the flame coming off the black candle he held in his hand.

The mysterious stranger who decided to appear suddenly began to approach. He leaned down for a moment as he stood just a foot away. While leaning down, he placed the black candle onto the wet cobbled ground between them.

They stood upright once more and began to place a long wooden pipe into his mouth that found itself quickly lit with some sort of sorcery. With pale delicate fingers, he pulled the pipe out of his mouth blowing smoke all around himself.

Smoke kept surrounding the figure wearing fanciful black attire. He began to tilt his head and grin just a tiny bit as if he found this situation amusing somehow. “It is unfortunate that you appear here of all places. It could’ve been anywhere else, and yet here you are.” The stranger put the pipe back into his mouth taking another big puff.

Due to the angle of the black candle on the ground, the stranger’s shadow danced along the ceiling. He also became aware of the somewhat moderately sized enclosure he occupied currently as well thanks to the candlelight. The black stone walls all around were covered in slime and moss. On the wall opposite to the one he was bound to, there was a rusted cell door exposing a long dark hallway.

At least now I know there’s a way out of here.

With the candlelight, not only could he gain an idea of his immediate surroundings, but he also became aware of his own appearance. He possessed a dark gray colored hairy chest with slim arms and even slimmer legs. His ribcage jutted out like someone who hadn’t eaten for several years yet somehow had survived that entire period without eating. The long hair from his head that went down his shoulders too was a dark gray and a tangled mess. Everywhere he looked, he saw a pathetically weak and decrepit body.

It was a complete anomaly that he had awakened in such a tattered state. A body like this shouldn’t be capable of living. There were even darkened splotches all around his body and places where the skin had long ago fully rotted away to expose bone and some of his innards.

The stranger standing before him lifted his head up with one finger placed at his chin. “My, you are in quite a pitiful state.” The stranger waltzed around the mossy cell enclosure with his shadow trailing against the wall and ceiling as he continually paced around. He blew more smoke into the cell and looked over one shoulder without looking directly into his eyes. “Can you even begin to realize how long it took me to find you? I swear it feels as if it took me years.”

“Where am I?” His voice came across as hoarse and raspy as he spoke aloud for the first time. His lungs continued to burn with every breath taken and blood began to seep out of the tiny cracks that ran around his dry lips due to him even daring to open his mouth.

“Not in a particularly pleasant place if I am to be honest with you. I am not all that familiar with this particular domain you have found yourself in, nor can I give you a proper name for this location within it specifically, but what I can say is that you’re in some kind of abandoned jail out in the middle of nowhere. And yet still, I am truly curious as to why you’re here of all places in a body as pathetic as this one.”

His body really was pathetic. When he lifted his arms to examine his hands in greater detail, the skin barely hung onto his fingers. In some twisted manner of thinking, he thought of how easily the last remaining flesh could slide off if he merely wished it to be so.

The stranger who kept him company gave him a gross glare. “I suppose now that I’ve found you, it’s time we get on with our previous arrangements.”

“What arrangements would that be?”

“‘What arrangements would that be.’ Are you toying with me? Don’t even begin to suggest directly to my face that you don’t remember.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“I don’t. In fact, I don’t even know who I am.”

It was as if a great tension lifted off from the face of the stranger. “Oh really? Then that makes things easy for me. Goodbye then.”

“Wait!”

The stranger disappeared only to reappear again. “What is it?”

“Will you at least tell me who I am?”

This person clearly knew who he was, but knowing he had lost his memories, he was eager to not lend him any assistance. Whatever relationship they had, had been obviously a tumultuous one and not one based on any actual friendship prior to when he still possessed his memories.

He smiled. “I have no interest in helping you, but I will leave this candle for you. Take that as a gesture of the last remaining goodwill I shall ever share with you. Now then, I shall take my leave. Good day to you.” And like that, the stranger disappeared for good.

He stood up, grabbed the candle, and walked over to the rusted cell door. Thankfully the apparatus with a metal chain dangling behind his back didn’t prevent him from reaching the cell door. As he held onto the black candle, it illuminated a dark mossy hall that appeared unoccupied. There were other numerous cells with no immediate signs of other living beings within any of them.

“Is anybody there?” he asked with the hope of a response.

Of course, as he expected, nothing responded to him besides the continual dripping of water landing in a puddle within his cell.

“Just my luck, huh,” he muttered with his cracked lips. He fell to his knees holding onto the rusted bars and watched the light from the black candle send the shadows of the bars through the hall.

He wound up going back to the opposing wall and slid down it to sit there as he had been doing so a moment ago. He then placed the candle down a few feet away in front of himself thankful for the light that it provided.

He stared at the tiny flame. The candle itself was a bit of an anomaly much like himself. He expected it would eventually go out as he sat there watching it. It however would not. It just kept burning with no sign of stopping. Not even the wax itself would decrease in its quantity for some strange reason.

In time, its light would disappear from his sight as his eyelids grew heavy and sleep took him. He began to lose count of the number of times he would awaken, stare at the candle, fall asleep, only to reawaken, stare at the candle, and then fall asleep once more. This occurrence repeated enough times, that he thought he would experience this tedious and repetitious occurrence for the rest of his life which he imagined would not be for much longer considering his rapidly deteriorating body.

As the days and possibly months went on, the skin from the tip of his right middle finger had completely rotted away exposing the bone it once had hidden from sight. His left eye had gone blind and most of the hair on the top of his head had fallen out.

He had many days ago awakened to a state of being that was already on its way out. Frankly speaking, the odds weren’t looking good for him. Every day he deteriorated further than the day before. He imagined his other last remaining good eye would go dark soon as well which would give him even worse odds at survival.

I’ve truly been dealt a cruel hand, haven’t I?

Despite how bad and dire things were, he still wanted to live. He wanted to find out who he was and learn about how he ended up here in this strange jail. It was not immediately obvious to him at least that he would ever receive any answers to the many questions that he had amassed over the last few months of being here, however.

He eventually fell back asleep as he always did after staring at that candle yet again, and eventually, he awakened only to find the apparatus around his neck unlocked and lying on the ground beside him, along with the rusted cell door ahead of him left ajar.

Huh? That’s strange.

Though he was weak and barely able to get up off the ground anymore, he picked up the black candle and forced himself up onto his feet. He struggled finding it nearly impossible at first, but as if graced by some miracle, he managed to get up and wrap his tattered fingers around the cell door’s bars.

It became a daunting task to stare out into the long dark hall and have no choice but to walk down it. But he unhanded the cell door and strode down the hall lined up with cells towards his left and to his right.

Some of the cells he walked by had skeletal remains in them. They certainly made for poor company. The fact remained, that the dead never talked back. And if he were being honest, he disliked that fact.

He continued down the hall only to find an entryway leading to a room with a spiraling staircase. Some of the steps were broken or loose making him carefully choose which steps to take. With a bit of tact and time to test the steps as he strode down them, he made quite a bit of progress only to end up stumbling over one loose step that caused him to begin the process of painfully rolling down the spiraling staircase bumping his head, knees, shoulder, and even particular bits of his body that weren’t ever meant to be bumped.

His body kept rolling until it stopped near the bottom. The pain that erupted all over his body caused him to let out a pathetic moan. As if things couldn’t possibly get worse, he looked to his right side noticing the black candle setting his thin brown gown on fire. He quickly pushed the candle away while trying to put the blossoming fire out. It thankfully died down but he couldn’t help but think he nearly became covered in fire right after a painful tumble.

If I’m to die again so soon, please let it be something other than fire.

As he continually moaned aloud with his body strewn out across the many steps, he couldn’t help but think he might not ever stand again.

But somehow he did.

It might’ve taken him half a day, but he got up onto his feet with the candle in his hand once more, and he managed to exit out into a courtyard full of brown grass swaying in the wind and a giant dead tree with crows sitting atop its many dead tree limbs.

For some strange reason, the candle chose to go out the moment he stepped outside of the jail and had sunlight hit up against him.

The many dozens of crows pointed their beaks at him. “Did you all come by to give me a warm welcome?” he said with a bit of a raspy laugh. He was just happy he had managed to survive that embarrassing fall down those steps and make it outside.

The sun looked hazy due to the atmosphere around him, but he couldn’t help but be glad to see it for the first time in a while and feel the heat hit against his pale skin.

Unfortunately, the outside world from beyond the jail was not particularly inviting. There was a bit of a slight green haze all around. He thought it might be the source of the toxicity in the air that he had been forced to breathe for a long period of time since his initial awakening.

Perhaps by some miracle, the fog-like haze would only extend so far. If he could make it outside of the opened gates ahead of him in the courtyard, the fog might end and he could finally breathe in some proper fresh air.

However much the fog irritated him, his attention focused on the gathering of crows. They cawed and cawed and cawed to the point that he felt as if they were laughing at him.

In his approach to the open gates ahead of him, the crows began to fly towards him. Dozens of them began to assault him for one reason or another. And sadly, there was no escaping them. All he could do was fall over and feel them tearing away at his body.

But at this moment, he began to do something he didn’t know he could do. Some kind of presence that existed within him presented itself and he directed it towards them all at the same time. Their assault stopped as they began to fly away in a hurry to get away.

He knew not of what he did, just that this strange presence, energy, or force scared them off.

He managed once more to stand back up. Feeling further battered and bloodied, he saw little other option than to walk out into the murky green fog that occupied the dirt path running outside of the jail’s courtyard and hope the crows didn’t come back to finish him off.

From beyond the jail and its courtyard, there was nothing but endless dead trees in all directions. When daylight eventually disappeared, he sat himself up against the trunk of some tree.

He thought it odd when he gazed up towards the night sky. He expected there to be a moon and for there to be stars, and yet it was entirely pitch black. There weren’t clouds or anything obscuring it either. There was just darkness which would make any possibility of traveling at night a true nightmare without at least the moon to provide some light.

When morning came, a yawn escaped his lips. He tried to stumble on up, but his body would not abide. No amount of manipulation of his legs or arms would accomplish it. He could only rest his back up against the trunk of a big dead tree and stare out realizing that this was as far as he would ever go.

I accomplished at least a half day’s worth of walking from that jail. All things considered, I didn’t do all that bad considering the state I am currently in. He smiled despite realizing he was not long for this world. At least if I am to die again, I managed to make it out of that wretched place.

It was a strange feeling that he came to possess, but he felt at ease realizing his end was soon to come once more.

In truth, he hadn’t managed to make it far. But he had managed to live and make it out of the jail which was an accomplishment in and of itself.

He could be content enough with everything he had been through so far. He had a good run of it. Could anyone else but him make it this far with how bad things were? Nah, of course not. Only someone such as I could manage this feat in this barely put-together body of mine.

Even with all the pain he felt, he managed to cackle to himself as his lungs continued to burn due to the toxic atmosphere.

His arms fell from his lap down to his side and he closed his eyes one last time.

Goodbye world. It’s time I die once again.