Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nothing but white. A blinding abyss devoid of any feeling, sounds, sights, or smells. The only thing that anchored Marcus to the here and now was his memories, memories of his old world so distant and faded and the new world so raw and painful like a fresh, untreated wound.
But none of that mattered now. He was confident that he had died. He had thought that he was meant for something more, something grand. Why else would he have been brought into this alien world if not for a purpose? But he supposed that it was simply his ego telling him that. Everyone thought they were the main characters in their story, but in reality, no one was special.
He didn’t know how long he had been in the empty white void. He drifted in and out of his own thoughts, losing the ability to determine what was real or what had been created by his fragmented mind. He was a child, playing with his friends on the playground on a cloudless summer day; he was back inside his apartment, getting ready for another long night at the club; now he was old, his body failing him as he drew his last breaths. He could see everything that had happened and everything yet to come.
He didn’t know when it appeared; maybe it had always been there, maybe it had just now emerged while he was lost in the labyrinth of his own unconsciousness; either way, it was there. A speck of green. A green so vivid and full of life that it stood out against the white void like a lighthouse in the middle of a dead sea.
Marcus reached out for the green speck, desperately grasping for the only thing to keep him afloat. But he had no form. He was nothing but an ethereal mist, helplessly adrift. He was forced to watch as the green speck grew more prominent, from a tiny sprout to a towering, ancient tree, its canopy stretching wide, full of broad, shimmering leaves.
He was in awe of the tree's majesty; he had never seen anything like it. Its massive trunk supported thick branches and dense foliage that swayed and shuddered in an unfelt breeze. Then, all around him, with the mighty tree as the epicenter, other sprouts emerged, countless islands of green in an endless ocean of white.
Time started to move forward at an astonishing pace. The sprouts grew, reaching upwards into the white with fingers of wood and leaf. Their canopies blossomed, spreading across the empty expanse and creating a ceiling of life so dense that the blinding void could no longer be seen. Still, nothing that grew could compare to the original mammoth tree that towered in front of him.
He could move now. Regaining the freedom he desired, Marcus began exploring the primeval forest he found himself in. He moved over the dense underbrush unimpeded, weaving in and out of the trees like a phantom. His movements were so fluid that he couldn’t determine if he was the one moving or if the forest itself was moving around him.
He continued through the forest, flanked by endless trees. He stopped at a winding brook, the churning water bubbling happily along. A tall tree had fallen across it, creating a decaying bridge covered in fluffy green moss and large mushrooms capped in deep violet, flecked with white.
All around him was brimming with vegetation, but the lifelessness of the forest caused a feeling of anxiousness to well up inside him. There were no animals to be seen within the many branches of the countless trees, no birds flittering through the air or singing discordant calls from hidden nests, and no insects skittering across the forest floor, hiding from the bright light of the day. There was nothing but towering trees, luscious brambles, and stagnant air wherever he looked.
A sound from behind, a broken twig, or the crunch of dead leaves? He didn’t know. To Marcus, it all meant the same thing. Turning to look behind him, he came face to face with a tall, handsome stag.
The creature’s coat was a deep amber color that grew lighter as you moved toward its belly, eventually turning into a white so pure that it was reminiscent of virgin snow. The crown of antlers atop its head conveyed to him its overwhelming grandeur and unfathomable age; each tine sparkled with golden light, more numerous than the stars in a cloudless night sky.
He stared into its unblinking eyes, drawn in by the bottomless pools of black. It was looking at him, inside of him. It was as if his entire being was splayed open to it, his darkest secrets and deepest desires; he could hide nothing from it. With languid movements, it looked away, gazing to his left and right.
Following its line of sight, Marcus turned to his side. Among the trees, obscured by a churning pale mist, were silhouettes of innumerable creatures. Different species of every shape and size stared back at him with silent, golden eyes. He recognized many of them: rabbits, wolves, bears, deer… Mixed amongst them were what he identified as monsters: goblins, orcs, griffins, a mighty dragon spreading its wings wide... Looking closer, he could also make out people, some extremely short and stocky, a few tall and slim with tall, tapered ears... They stood unnervingly still next to each other, keeping their eyes locked on Marcus where he stood.
Confused, Marcus turned back toward the stag, feeling that it would hold the answers that he sought. “Where… am I?”
The answer came in a whisper that sounded so close to him but still so far away.
“…You are here… with us…”
“…here… with us…”
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Multiple voices now, from all around him, all speaking with whispers barely louder than a man’s dying breath.
“Who are you? I don’t understand…”
“…everything…”
“We… are everything…”
“…we are nothing…”
“…we are what is in between…”
“That doesn’t make any sense…” Marcus was even more confused. The whispering voices overlapped, mingling together and becoming one voice but somehow remaining separate. “What do you want from me?”
“……help us…”
“We need help…”
“……SAVE US!...”
The voices were urgent now, repeating the same phrase repeatedly as the mist churned violently. “Save us!... Help us!”.
“How? What do I need to do?” Marcus shouted out as the cacophony of voices swelled into a deafening roar, making him clamp his hands over his aching ears.
The voices cut off like a switch had been flipped, plunging the forest back into complete silence.
“……find them…”
“Seek them out…”
“You… must find them…”
“Who? What am I looking for?”
“Like you…”
“……strong…”
“Powerful…”
Were there other people like him in this world? Had others been brought here against their will? Or were they natives that stood out amongst the others? Was one of them Alissa? He could feel the mana radiating from her body like no one else he had encountered before. And what was the reason he had to find them? He needed answers to many questions but didn’t know where to start. Before he could ask anything more, the stag started to stamp its feet hard. Turning its head, it snorted while the shadows idling within the mist began to stir restlessly.
“…no time…”
“……you must hurry…”
“It is coming…
He could feel it as well, an uneasy sensation that was growing stronger. “What is it? What is coming?”
“Destroyer…”
“……conqueror…”
“…DEATH…”
A great wind blew through the forest. The tall, ancient trees bent and shuddered. Their leaves lost their vibrant green, turning an unnatural grey as they withered. They sloughed off the cragged branches as the gale intensified, dropping and swirling on the breeze, creating a desiccated blizzard of leaves. The stag gave him one more long look, trying to convey a message lost within the raging tempest before it broke away, bounding off through the groaning trees.
Thunderous snaps sounded throughout the forest as the first trees fell. Their wide trunks split in half, exposing hideous burrowing insects skittering over the rotted wood. More trees succumbed to the wind, falling all around him, peppering where he stood with sharp splinters. All the beautiful vegetation within the forest had died, withered leaves turning to dust as the corrosive wind carried them away.
Now, only the mighty tree stood, twisted and broken, barren branches reaching out in every direction, acting as a weathered headstone, a dead monument to what once was. But not even that would last. Soon, it began to rot away from the inside, and thick miasma flooded out of every crack that plagued the massive tree.
The miasma spread across the ground, a rolling head of black fog that polluted the earth and choked the rivers. Marcus was only a silent observer of the destruction of the world around him. He was unable to interact with anything in any way. A booming crack came from the hemorrhaging tree, splitting it from the top down to the roots.
More and more of the noxious gas spilled from the massive fissure, reminding him of a volcano spewing forth its contents high into the air. Marcus could see movement from within the coal-colored smoke, something squirming, something pulsating. The tree shuddered with labor pains as a pair of vaporous, clawed hands sprouted from within the split timber, digging into the decaying wood and pulling a demon out into the world.
It towered over the landscape, casting a deep shadow that blanketed the dead and barren land. Its body was made up of the same miasma that coated the land around him, but Marcus could still see its chest expand as it took in the noxious air with evident pleasure. Its many eyes that populated what must have been its face opened, all locking onto Marcus below, an unfathomable, alien consciousness hidden behind the pitch-colored sclera. Its face had no other characteristics, no nose, mouth, or ears, but the lack of features didn’t stop Marcus from realizing it was smiling.