Kiano lay unconscious on the ground.
His feeble body had turned to glass in the bitter cold. His face had lost all colour so that he looked like a ghastly ghost.
Fraught with worry and alert, he faced the moon that was hovering in the night sky. It hid behind the dense clouds that enveloped him, and with its lopsided and toothless mouth, it grinned and mocked him.
The wind howled in an uncanny tune all the while, sending frightfully strange shivers up and down his spine and waking up his numb limbs from their trance-like slumber.
He didn’t know how long he had been there, lifeless and dry as dust. It was difficult to tell.
All around him was absolute, pitch-black darkness, rocks, mountains, and, also, the shadow of the tree somewhere to his right.
Strange creatures swarmed and gathered around him with every breath he took.
Their sunken eyes cast an unusual glow over the otherwise dark surroundings and illuminated the murk.
Kiano jerked up as soon as he noticed them and crawled backwards until he could no longer, almost losing his balance and falling off the cliff he was on.
Their sockets were devoid of eyeballs, and they were all sniffing the fog-shrouded vicinity with such eagerness that it appeared as if they were trying to make out something from the air, responding only to the howling wind and his heavy, shallow breath.
The tree’s massive shadow, however, didn’t linger for long.
After all, the tree didn’t care about him. It vanished with a growling noise, straightening its invisible trunk to scare off the creatures one last time.
The bizarre creatures stepped back so quickly that some of them tripped on the bumpy mountain trail, while others sped away on four legs, oblivious to the sharp cliffs that popped out of nowhere from the darkness that persisted and killed them.
His mind spun with a thousand questions as he forcefully pushed himself up.
The suffocating darkness encircled him and he could do nothing but make a run for it. The creatures closed in, leaving him no time to look around.
They emerged from every corner, faster and more daring than before, and he knew they would soon catch up to him.
Cold sweat trickled down his forehead as he braced himself for the worst. Panting. He couldn’t bring himself to look back, yet their spine-chilling screams still rang in his ears.
He tried to close his eyes without success as if not seeing would change anything. He had nowhere to hide and no one to cry to. He was all alone with the strange creatures.
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My mum must be beside herself with worry, he thought. If only he could tell her what had happened, if only…
A faint whisper reached his ears soon after, something that indeed came with the whistling wind and caused his ears to ache.
He moaned, but never broke off. Whoever or whatever it was, it was telling him to keep running until the end of the mountain ridge.
So he sprinted without breaking stride to get away from the creatures.
With each step into the unknown, his heart raced and roared beside itself, but eventually, the patch of fog cleared and revealed what lay ahead; countless towering mountains emerged from the shadows. The weirdest part was that they were literally everywhere.
He never stopped running. That is, not until he reached the edge of the cliff and stared at a massive fortress surrounded by equally enormous trees, wilted undergrowth, and inexplicable darkness.
It was bigger than it appeared from the mountains, that was certain. He had never seen a fortress as big as this one. It was three times larger than any other fortress, and the darkness that enclosed it was so intense that it suffocated him.
His spine tingled at the sight of the four towers, which were as black as the passing grey clouds and filled with malice and evil. The gatehouse was half the size of the towers and stood on a steep hill.
To reach the gatehouse, one had to cross a dilapidated bridge over a raging moat; steam arose from it, causing fumes to encircle the castle. It was stunningly in ruins. He had seen nothing like it before.
The only castle he knew of was none other than Belzcakir in former Jewarta, which belonged to Gartâr and the humans. But deep down, he did know another castle.
With a frown, he remembered. A forgotten castle sprung to his mind, a forgotten fortress much like the land where it was built. The Hezakhal dungeon. His eyes grew in size.
At that moment, he realised he had entered the Land of the Beasts. Lordôm lay before him in all of its glory. It was ominous and eerie beyond his imagination. And soon he heard them too.
Who, you ask? The prisoners trapped in the dungeon – the inmates who are doomed for the rest of their lives and afterlives. Their helpless screams were chilling to the bone and reverberated across the forgotten land with the aid of the whistling wind.
What was he doing here?
Below the ravine, forgotten and vicious creatures passed by before his two widened eyes, which were full of fear and fright. From mountain-sized giants to almost invisible trolls – creatures of all sizes were here.
The Great Forest of Secrets was once home to these ominous beings; some claimed that they still roamed the woods, hiding in caves and caverns beneath the ground and out of sight.
Only the humanlike creatures with wide-open, bloody mouths hiding in the shadows were unheard of in the rest of Yiraál. He had known their name once but had forgotten it over time, perhaps out of fear.
These humanlike creatures walked on four elongated legs with limbs so thin that even a gentle breeze could break them apart. Their eyes, brighter than the moon and stars, only responded to threats and the smell of flesh.
He glanced back and recalled the humanlike creatures were following him in the mountains.
Nothing was there, nothing but darkness.
The creatures had gone, somehow, but he was still in danger. Crossing the bridge was the only escape from Lordôm.
He took a deep breath and stepped close to the edge of the cliff before backing away, too scared to take the plunge. But he had no other choice.
A rattling noise jolted him awake then; it echoed throughout the mountain ridge and caused him to hold his breath and turn around in a heartbeat, unable to see the source of the numbing cry.
Crows took over the night sky shortly after, singing sombre tunes on purpose and causing him to freeze in place and watch them as they swarmed over him in a split second, ready to throw him off the cliff if he indeed didn’t move on his own.
He crouched on four legs, gasping for air as his vision blurred and the depth beneath him seemed to grow deeper and deeper, or so he imagined, as the crows charged at him.
There was no time to waste. He took the leap of faith.