I awake surrounded by total darkness. My entire body aches and I wince in pain lifting my head. It throbs a loud pounding echoing in my ears. How did I get here? Better question where am I? Even better question. Who am I. With a groan I roll over on to my side and slowly sit up. Looking around everything is dark and quiet. A dark outline of a massive structure is barely visible in the distance, other than that there is nothing. Nothing at all. Just dark empty space.
Wincing at the ever present pain I press against whatever counts as the ground getting to my knees then my feet. Instantly regretting that decision I sway unsteadily on trembling legs and fall backwards. To my surprise instead of cracking my Skull open and spreading my brain’s across the ground I land instead in a tall high backed chair and slam my head against the back rest. Pain rips through my head.
“Damn that hurt just as much as it did when that asshole grabbed my head” I hiss rubbing the back of my head. The darkness suddenly explodes around me, a storm of color filling my vision. I’m lying on my back, the old Man stands over me rambling on about something. My attention is elseware. There is something else. Something more important than his words and offers. Something I need to do. Something I need to find. The world around me ripples again.
A massive mountain Range reaches into the sky and stretches across the horizon as far as the eye can see. A small breeze ripples through the air and I take a deep breath breathing in the familiar smell of sweat, blood and death. A large city burns in the distance. I stand alone surrounded by a mass of blurred figures. I know where this is.
“Home” I sigh.
The instant the word escapes my lips something clicks into place like two puzzle pieces connecting together. The figures rush me and Pulvis answers my summons. He cleaves through flesh and bone with ease. I have to make it. There is no time and only one path. Forward. Retreat is not an option. With a gasp I’m sitting in the chair again my head throbbing. New found Knowledge circling in my brain. “I….I was looking for something.” My head pounds harder. “…And there were More than just Pulvis. There were others… there were.” Frantically racking my scrambled brain, my vision swims again and I’m staring at a black vaulted ceiling. It’s the old man again. He needs to leave I’m trying to remember something. There is a dim mumbling in the background and I feel a spell forming. Power fills the air. It’s followed by a searing pulling pain. Something pulls at me. The pain increases as does the pull. Someone is screaming in the background. I wish they would stop its annoying and it causes the pounding in my head to increase. I can no longer think straight. The pounding drives spikes through my head. Then with a final wrench everything explodes and all is silent.
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Curled on the floor my entire body shakes like a leaf. The pain is gone as is the pounding in my head. I lay there trying to catch my breath. I inhale nothing. Grabbing my throat I struggling to breathe. A minute passes, two then three. I’m not dead? Looking at my hands I realize that they are lightly glowing. Upon a closer inspection it seems that I am simply a dark form of something vaguely human. Two hands and feet. Teen fingers and toes. A round head and neck with a body that connects everything together and I apparently don’t need to breathe. I’m dead aren’t I? I have sickening feeling of déjà vu, like this has happened before. I can’t remember. Fucking perfect.
Looking at my arms, a multitude of colors swirl over my surface like a second skin and a small blue flame flickers deep in the middle of my chest. The darkness around me seems clearer now. I can see two massive towers off in the distance and... Is that a door? The flame in my chest suddenly burns brighter and a surge of power jolts through me. I feel something foreign lance through the space around me. The colored skin on my chest dims the colors swirling away from the center of my chest. At the same time something sharp spears into me as a foreign entity penetrates my chest, the pain returns tenfold. I scream a silently cry of pain and the blue flame suddenly blazes brighter. A sphere of blue fire explodes from me racing away in all directions. A fist sized hole appears in my chest slowly widening as the Foreign entity pushes deeper. I curl in pain. It nears something vital. Something important. I feel it deep down inside me. A small sphere filled with energy, the core of everything. It wants it. Hungers for it. The space around me trembles, large cracks appear letting in a blistering light. The towers shake in the distance as the hole continues to expand the entity pushing deeper, digging towards its goal. There is nothing connecting my head and arms together anymore. The circle continues to expand. With a herculean effort I reach into the growing hole. It must not have it. Cannot have it. I wrap my hand around the sphere and squeeze as the entity continues its steady digging. My body fractures as I tighten my grip, cracks splitting across my body. The space around me rumbles and heaves as the sphere cracks. Pulling my hand away a small sliver of light slips from the crack. Grasping it gently I pull my hand out of my chest before dropping the light. It falls through the floor and continues to fall as it fades into the distance. The massive door in the distance Shatters with a massive crack fading to nothing as darkness takes its place between the two towers. The last thing I do is smile as a wall of blue fire approaches in the distance. A sudden twisting pain explodes as the foreign entity suddenly twists deeper and darkness claims my sight.