A strong hand clamped over my mouth before my scream went on any longer, cutting the screech short. The hand was like an iron vice, completely blocking my mouth, not allowing any movement from my jaw.
“Be quiet, would you? I’m not going to kill you.” The aged voice said, sounding annoyed but subdued. The hand didn’t move, and I didn’t try to resist. This guy was a tonne stronger than I was, just from the strength of his hand alone I could tell that much. This guy could probably just snap my neck if he wanted me dead.
“Huh, didn’t think that would actually work.” The old voice said, surprise leaking into his voice. I was being as non-aggressive as I could be after being scared half to death, and it payed off. The old man gradually lessened his grip over my mouth, a test as to whether I’d begin screaming again. Makes sense. After a second of waiting, the hand was completely removed from my mouth, dropping away from my face entirely. I turned my face to the side, trying to get a look at the man.
He had moved about a metre away since removing his hand from my mouth. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, about dead on average. He was, however, muscled. He was wearing basic leather protection gear that covered most of his torso but was otherwise covered in simple clothes similar to mine. But even in the covering clothing, his musculature was prominent. Even more impressive was his age. The man had to be in his sixties at least, his skin covered in wrinkles and sunspots, his skin sagging. His face was half stern, half bushy eyebrows. His jaw remained set like stone, giving the distinct stoicness, and his bushy eyebrows spoke of his emotions. He had his eyebrow raised inquisitively. His stony-grey eyes adding pressure on to me, finally resulting in me blurting out whatever I could think of in that second.
“Uh, good evening, sir?” I fumbled out. A second after I had spoken, the man’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief before morphing into amusement.
“Good evening to you too, kid. Now, do you want to tell me what you are doing all the way out here dragging a…” The old man looked behind me, seemingly trying to interpret what it was he was seeing. He raised his left arm, and I finally noticed the light source that had flashed on earlier. Or what it was, specifically.
He was holding fire in his hand.
It floated a few centimetres above the palm of his left hand, a little ball of fire. The fire lapped at an invisible container, pushing up against the air, trying to free itself. But my mind skipped all of that initially and just gawked at the fire. It was strange, seeing something so impossible right in front of your eyes.
“Is it a plow or something?” The old man looked to me, only then noticing my gawking. He looked down at his left hand and his eyebrow raised slightly.
“Jesus, you can actually do magic…” The words leaked from my lips before I could stop them. I knew, logically, that I should hide my status as being from another world, even if it was just so that I could avoid any unwanted attention. But if everyone could use magic here then I had given myself away with just that sentence. I started to sweat, the fear returning to the pit of my stomach. I hoped beyond hope that the man ignored it.
But I had no such luck. The old man turned back to me, his brow furrowed severely while he processed my words. His eyes wandered for a moment, before coming to rest on what was see able of my hammer. Then his eyes rapidly widened, and I knew that I was busted.
“Did you say 'Jesus'?” He demanded.
“Huh?” I said dumbly. Shocked at the sudden change in conversation. ‘Jesus’? That’s what he picks up on of all things? Not on my surprise at his use of magic, but my use of the word ‘Jesus’? Why would he want to know that? I honestly didn’t really know how to respond to that other than to just tell the truth.
“Uh, I guess so. What about it?” The old man’s eyes narrowed significantly. In one swift motion he pushed past me to stand over my hammer, using the ball of flame to see the metal monster that laid behind me.
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He examined the hammer closely, and then brushed off the side of the hammer's head. An uncomfortable feeling overcame me as he touched the hammer, like a spider crawling down my spine.
“Uh, hey! Can you not, like, touch it? Please?” I mumbled. Damnit why can’t I just speak like a normal human being right now.
The man turned to me, looking me dead in the eye and waiting a moment. I nervously looked at his hands, hoping that he wouldn’t touch the hammer again. It felt kind of disgusting for some reason.
“It’s a Soul Weapon, isn’t it.” I paused for a second, my mind started to go into overdrive again. I was being found out! The fear in my gut surged up to my throat, forcing my mouth into saying whatever I could to get out of this situation.
“Ah, no. No, I don’t know what you are talking abo–” But I didn’t get to finish before the man placed his hand on the head of the hammer.
All of a sudden, I felt disgusting. Nothing like before, now it was like I was covered in filth, inside an out. It made me sick to my very core, it felt as if something of mine was being defiled. I couldn’t take it, so I rushed forward towards the man, and kicked out at his chest, wanting nothing more that to keep him away from my hammer, to stop him from touching it.
However, with a simple push from his hand I was sent tumbling backwards in the dirt, the disgusting feeling gone for the moment.
“It’s a Soul Weapon.” The old man intoned darkly. “Are you one of them?”
I didn’t respond right away, trying to catch my breath from the sudden combat.
“I-I don’t know what you mean!” I called, and a hand clasped over the hammer’s haft again, the horrifying feeling returning. My mind was overtaken by the need to get him away, forcing me to rush forwards with reckless abandon once again. In the middle of my mad dash, the man threw the small ball of flame he was holding.
I was forced to dodge as best as I could, throwing myself to the side with reckless abandon. For all I knew it was capable of burning a hole in me, but with the terrible feeling escalating further, it was slowly overwhelming my ability to think clearly.
Now I was on the floor, writhing in disgust. Like millions of bugs were crawling all over my body, in and out of every orifice, and it was only increasing in severity, becoming more vivid of a feeling.
In a last ditch effort I simply screamed.
“I don’t know what you want! I’m from another world!” And the disgust stopped.
No, not just stopped, completely gone. It was as if they were never there in the first place. I panted, struggling for breath not only because of the acrobatics. That disgust was something so overpowering, it caused everything in my body to seize up and clench all at once, leaving my muscles exhausted.
I groaned with the effort to sit up, pushing against the ground with my tired muscles.
In a way I was still terrified. I knew, just from the feeling itself that it could have gotten so, so much worse than it did, spiralling into a torture beyond possible words.
I looked up at the man who stood next to my hammer. He started at me, then crouched to be closer to my eyeline. He looked at me for a long, long moment, not daring to break eye contact with me, searching my eyes for something. He sighed and hung his head in a dismay, breaking eye contact with me for a brief moment.
Something in me wanted to race forward, try to give the man a surprise and take back my hammer, but I shot it down as the instinct hit me. He could overpower me easily and he could torture me through a massive lump of metal I could barely move at a walking pace.
After a long moment he looked back up, meeting my eyes with his grey, stony ones.
“I’m sorry about that. I mistook you for something you weren’t.” It was a gruff apology; one that inspired a small flame of anger at the injustice of the situation.
“You could have at least checked first.” I growled, but the man didn’t get angry back, his face remaining calm but apologetic.
“I couldn’t have. If I gave only a moment for me to check, I could have died.” He shook his head sadly. Me? Kill someone? I almost laughed at the absurdity, but the man wasn’t joking. He saw my eyebrow raise inquisitively and he sighed.
“The cost of not knowing is too great.” He looked at me with genuine eyes, but stone cold in their conviction. He did exactly what he thought was right. In a way, knowing that there was a reason so important that there was a cost of not knowing sort of made it a little better in mind.
“What would the cost be, exactly?” I growled, retaining the anger in my voice.
The man looked at me for a long while, his eyes piercing into mine. It was as if those stone-grey corneas could see directly right through me, deep into my mind. His face changed multiple times. Emotions flicking through his head that were strong enough to provoke a strong facial reaction from the seemingly stern man. Strong enough that I could swear that I felt them myself.
It wasn’t long before his eyes refocused, returning to reality. His face settling on an emotion that I think I may have only ever seen a handful of times in my life. But before I could identify it, the man sighed, his mouth opening slightly, before hesitating once again. He looked deep into my eyes, and only after a moment did he close his eyes and speak.
“The Champion War.” He whispered, sorrow dancing on his lips.
Oh, that’s what that emotion was.
Loss.