Part 1

- JULIE BLUESCALE'S POV -

As my brother brought his arm back to his side, my attention shifted from the blunted and broken blade back to the man holding it. I have always felt fond of him, more so than I would let it know. Lucas was more like a friend than a brother. An accomplice, rather. We'd joke together, pull pranks together, sneak out food from the kitchen, annoy Raphael together -kind of how friends would behave. But Raphael was different. I was too young to really understand what it was, but I always felt this aura of controlled coldness coming from him. As if he purposely distanced himself from everyone else. Always careful with his words, always busy, and always attentive. Yet he never missed the chance to spend some time with me, even if it was just staying around me while nose-deep in one of his books.

His personality coupled with that cold gaze of his made him, in my eyes, the most reliable person I knew. And, as I painfully recalled, that led me to be jealous of Lucas for having much more of his attention, leading me to sort of compete with him for it. A stone-cold statue with a soft spot for me. That's how I saw Raphael.

The man in front of me was not even a ghost of that image in my mind. His skin was deathly pale, almost transparent enough for me to see the blood vessels on his neck and cheeks. Malnutrition, or the lack of it altogether, caused his eyes to become hollow, making the dark bags under them even more prominent and ill-announcing. His lips were cracked and devoid of color. His hair a mess of mud, blood, and grime. His clothes were torn and tattered so much that calling them rags was a compliment. Poorly-made bandages covered the better half of his body, yet I could still clearly see the cuts, the bruises and the bones poking from under his skin. In his entirety, he looked like a vagrant on death's door.

I felt a tug on my heart. How could the brother I knew become like that? Was the fact that he became stronger at the academy a lie? If not, what kind of horrors did he face for him to end up like that? I felt tears blur my vision.

"Raphael!" I shouted in a messy sob as I launched myself forward in a hug.

- RAPHAEL BLUESCALE'S POV -

She was crying. Literally bawling her eyes out as she, right after screaming in a sloppy sob my name out loud, launched herself full-strength on me. Her forehead was barely reaching my sternum and with each movement, I could feel my bones painfully poke against her.

She was right there, begging for attention. Begging for my attention. I could feel every tear on my skin, sliding over the bandages. I could feel her warmth, spreading from the center of my torso toward my limbs. It was as if life breathed onto me once more. The grey smoke of the past month's experiences slightly fading, thinning.

I wanted to reciprocate her. Embrace her in a hug as strong as hers. I wanted that warmth to spread even further...even deeper. But I did not. I did not let go of my sword. I did not put my hands around her. I did not move. I simply stood there motionless, like an old tree. I couldn't move. How could I?

[After what I've done?] My own voice rang ominously in my head.

Like a coward, I stood motionless.

Interminable minutes passed tears flowed without end down her cheeks. When she finally took her face off my chest, her eyes were red and swollen with flushed cheeks and a snotty nose. For a moment, I was reminded that she was still just a kid. Without even thinking, I moved to clear what remained of her tears but stopped as soon as my hand entered my field of view. I recoiled, but it was too late, she had noticed it. Thus, I changed motion and placed my hands on her shoulders.

"Are you okay?" I asked hearing my voice raspy and dull.

"I-I'm okay, yes-" She replied, stifling just a little and cleaning her nose with her sleeve "- I just need a minute"

"Alright, but not really what I meant-" I continued, ignoring the childish act in front of my eyes "- Are you hurt anywhere? Injuries? Cuts? Illnesses?"

"Eh? Ah! No, no, I-I'm fine. Just some bruises...but you are injured!-" She shouted in surprise, most likely realizing she had completely forgotten about my bandaged body "- You are full of them! Are you all-"

"Don't worry about me-" I replied almost too coldly as I saw her recoil just a bit because of my tone- though my intent was to ease her worries. Realizing that, I cleared my throat and took a step back, creating a comfortable space between us. I was about to continue questioning her further but was promptly interrupted by her, once again, screaming. This time, something else was mixed in her voice. The relief of seeing her brother had almost faded, replaced by deep fear and uncertainty. She was crying, just not with her eyes.

"Where have you been?!-" She cried whilst shutting her eyes to prevent further tears from falling "- A-a-all this time! We were so scared. I thought you had abandoned us...abandoned me"

"Julie, I-" I began formulating before being interrupted once more.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!"

"Looking for you-" I replied matter-of-factly "- For you and for our parents, but I couldn't find you. No matter where I looked, I couldn't find you... Father has most likely left the labyrinth already and-"

"What about Lucas?" She asked, seemingly having calmed down after hearing I had not forsaken her.

My heart sank. I felt it stuck into my throat, choking me, suffocating me. I wanted to claw my way through my throat just to feel relief. Even the air flowing in felt like sandpaper on my trachea. I couldn't tell her the truth. The sole notion of it scared me. The possibility...no, the certainty that she would hate me, broke what was left of me in pieces. I looked away, turning my head to the side in an attempt to escape her piercing gaze. I couldn't look at her as I lied.

"He's dead-" I answered. My voice was utterly unfeeling, devoid of any tone, any imperfection, any emotion. It was simply air vibrating on my vocal cords. I was disgusted by myself. I heard her fall to her knees. I had no heart to look at the expression of despair she must have worn, so I continued "- We fell in together, close to Migurd. Explored a bit, looking for a way out but soon we found out that the entire village had been swallowed so we started to look for you. We descended as deep as this dungeon goes... We had no chance. The master of this place was too strong. Lucas got killed and I ended up tortured. I escaped my miracle...forgive me" I ended in a whisper.

"It's a lie, right?-" She asked, sorrow and pain-induced madness filling her voice "- You two are strong. The letters said so, right?"

I stood silent. My eyes escaping hers. I had no answers for her, no excuses. Only lies. Lies I did not want to say.

"P-please-" She begged, her eyes swelling up once more with tears. Her voice shaking "-Please tell me you're lying! PLEASEEE!"

[Close your heart!-] I repeated in my head like a mantra [- It's your fault! Bear it... It's your fault. Bear it... This is for me to shoulder. No one else!]

"He's dead, Julie-" I confirmed, this time looking at her directly in the eyes. It took me strength beyond what I imagined to look into her pleading eyes and lie my sins to her "- I couldn't save him... Sorry"

Silence befell the cave as interminable minutes passed. The only sounds filling the air were my sister's sobbing. In an attempt to muffle them, she used her hands to cover her face. But it was difficult to mask them, especially to me who was so close.

She was weak, fragile, emotional. This I thought of her as I patiently waited for her to cry and sob to her heart's contempt. [She's still a kid] I added to myself. She needed help, support, someone to rely on, but most of all, someone to lead her. Even out of the labyrinth, someone had to protect her, guard her and be there for her. Someone strong. A castle of a man. That role belonged to me.

[I mustn't be weak] I thought before falling on one knee in front of her.

Her sobbing had died down and, as I placed one hand gently on her head, she stopped crying and rose to meet my eyes. Some rebellious tears fell still from her eyes but soon dried before more could fill their ranks. I felt the need to hug her, treasure her it was going to be fine, but I couldn't. What I had to ask was more important.

"Julie-" I began, making sure that my voice came out as 'normal' as I could. Calm and controlled as usual "- Are you here alone? Do you know where's mother?"

Her lips trembled and the weight of my gaze seemed to be too much for her to bear. The ground below absorbed her sight instead. A chilling sensation, ominous in its timing, crept through my spine and into my head. I asked again.

"Julie-" I repeated, this time more firmly "- Where's mother?"

She made no sound, simply rose an arm and pointed a shivering finger toward the entrance of a cave sealed by fallen rocks. Only then did I notice two such caves were present. I rose to my feet, glancing once last time at Julie, wearily.

The rocks were easy to move. They had been put up roughly and in a very disorderly manner, such that it was enough to move ten of them for the whole "wall" to crumble and make room enough for me to pass through.

The sinister feeling made itself know harder. Something was amiss.

I took a step in and promptly understood. The absence of any symptom of life, the staleness of the air...the stench of a corpse.

I wanted to scream. Break. Destroy. It was all happening again. I didn't want to see. I didn't want to know. If I remained ignorant, I could live with the doubt. Fabricating a false hope, a fairytale, out of that painful reality. I felt my sanity slip through my fingers like water as I walked, slowly, one trembling step at a time towards the inevitable end of the cave. I did not want to know, but I had to.

The moss was emitting that eerie dim, only at the very end of the cave. It was raining light over a rough bed of round rocks, making use of the protrusions of rock to cast a film of shadows dancing around them. There, under the light of the moss, laid my mother's mangled corpse. An arm was missing, as it was half of her face. The only remaining eye had been gouged and all over the body were bits bitten and clawed off, together with countless bite marks. Human bite marks.

What little sanity was left in me finally disappeared in smoke, burned away by rage.

Part 2

- JULIE BLUESCALE'S POV -

I stood at the edge of the cave. Minutes passed in silence. Not a single sound came from beyond the walk of stones I built. I was too stunned by the news that Lucas died that I didn't even think of walking inside with him. Even if I went with him, I had no idea what to say, what to do. I thought of it all too late.

After that interminable time, footsteps could be heard coming from inside the cave. Soon, Raphael crossed the stone threshold. He seemed to notice me, if only with the corner of his eyes and I flinched away. Fear made my limbs tremble enough that my knees almost gave out and I had to use the wall for sustain.

His expression was dark. I could barely see the outlining of his face, everything else was covered in shadows. Even his black hair seemed darker. The only part of his face I could distinguish clearly were his eyes. Crazed with rage and bloodshot red. His pupils almost inexistent. He didn't regard me in any sort, just a glance in my direction before he spoke as if ignoring me.

"Who did this?-" he asked. His voice seemed slower as if he was having trouble finding words. I was too shocked, scared, stunned or all of them together to answer so, when I didn't, he asked again "- I'll ask again. Who did this?"

It took me a few seconds to understand the question and some more to articulate an answer and even then, I could not stop stammering and stopping mid-sentence. Raphael did not move, didn't speak a word to interrupt me or scold me for my slowness, he just listened, patiently, as I explained my mom's death. I told him how they came out of nowhere, this large group of people. Mom and I were traveling around the tunnels with a few other people, some of which were armed, but the enemy's numbers were too big. Our fighters were instantly overwhelmed. Our group scattered, ran like cornered rats through the tunnels, and some of us ended up in the cave me and Raphael were in. We had been followed. Someone tried to fight back, mom was one of them, and that's when we found out that those people were cannibals. They bit and ate as they fought, like mad animals. I hid behind a pillar, too scared to even run. It was too much of an embarrassment to tell how I soiled my pants in the process. Suddenly, an earthquake shook the cave. Rocks began falling from the higher caves and that seemed to scare away the cannibals.

"I tried to help her, I swear!-" I finished. Tears were once more marking my cheeks "- B-but I was too late...she... she was d-d-"

"That's enough-" he interrupted me, shooing my words away with one hand. The veins on his hand popped out from under the skin "- What happened to them? Do you know where they went?"

"W-What?"

"Julie..."

"T-they would sometimes come back. I could hear them from inside my hole...t-that means they are close, right?" I replied, not understanding what my brother was asking of me.

"Which tunnel?" he continued unfazed.

Not understanding what was going on I complied, pointing to the entrance of a tunnel on the other side of the cave. As high as the average human and large enough to fit three side by side, the tunnel appeared inconspicuous, but the way the luminescent moss was placed at even intervals suggested the presence of someone in there. Raphael nodded, then began to walk towards that tunnel. Sword in hand and gritted teeth.

"W-where are you going?" I asked, almost too scared to know the answer.

"To deal with them" he replied without stopping his march.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"No, please-" I pleaded grabbing what little cloth was on his body in an awful attempt to stop him "- Don't leave me please!"

"Go back into your hideout and wait for me-" he said, swatting away my hand holding his shorts "- I'll be back shortly, and Julie...I'll never abandon you. I can't afford to lose you"

With those words he left for the dark cave, leaving me alone once more.

- RAPHAEL BLUESCALE'S POV -

The tunnel was easy to walk and fairly well-lit. The luminescent moss had been placed at even intervals on top of rocks roughly reaching my hip. There were some side tunnels, some impossible to walk if not by crawling others large enough to fit a horse, but their lack of moss revealed them to be untended. Thus it only took me around half an hour to hear the first sounds coming from a human mouth.

Laughs and screams for the most. Complete opposites. The laughs were almost maniacal, maddened with joy while the screams were filled with pain. They were horrifying. The volume of moss grew the more I approached the sounds until I saw someone. A man wearing some brownish clothes plastered with filth. He was standing in front of the entrance of a tunnel big enough to fit just one man and covered with an earthly-green curtain. In his hands, he carried a long spear. The light was bright enough to give away the cleaver he fastened on his belt.

No doubt that was the cannibals' hideout.

I had no idea how many of them there were inside the tunnel, and neither if there was another hideout further down my current one. I wanted to just run in there and massacre each and every one of them but I refrained to do so. I lied to myself, telling myself that it was for Julie, that if I were to die or injure more than I already was, I would put her in danger. But the truth was that I wanted none to escape. I wanted to eradicate all of them. Leaving not a single of those disgusting things alive. Thus I waited and walked back towards a side-tunnel.

Ever since my release, I refrained from using mana. At first because of my lack of awareness and poor mental state but then, when I started to regain some focus, I came to realize something was amiss in my connection with mana. A feeling, more like, that something was broken. A strained muscle, of sorts. So I preferred to be cautious about it and fight physically rather than using magic...and I made the right call.

As I looked inward, I instantly recognized that strained-muscle feeling. My mana circuits were broken and misplaced, creating intricate designs and knots in places where mana wasn't supposed to flow. Furthermore, most of it did not answer to me, as I painfully learned. It was like being cut with a hot knife from inside my bones outwards. What's worse was that I had no idea how to fix it.

[A mage unable to use his mana...pathetic!] I thought as I bit on my hand to muffle the screams of pain threatening to surface.

I refused to succumb to panic. I had neither the time nor the luxury to do so. Luckily, some mana still answered me. A mere fraction of what I held, but enough for those wretched beings. Wind, the element I was most adept with, seemed to be the only one I was able to call upon. I resigned to using magic as little as possible.

The first to fall was the guard. He was distracted by something happening inside the tunnel, so I took advantage of it. The closer I sneaked the less I wanted to know what was going on on the other side of the curtain. Finally, when the guard faced back my way, my blade slid through his throat. His screams got cut off before he could voice them then stabbed his chest two more times, to finish the job. He died with his back against the wall, making no sound at all. The surprise in his eyes was still visible.

I plundered his corpse, stealing the cleaver, the spear, and the belt. With the tip of the spear, I moved the curtain, just enough for me to almost want to puke. A great cave almost five meters high and three times longer was filled with the stench of dried blood and piss. The ceiling was almost completely covered with moss, shedding light onto the cave's denizens. From my spot, I could count around ten people but from the sheer intensity of the voices, the numbers were double that. Screams were coming from a corner of the room I could not see. Unaware of my spying, the people I was looking at were all bent over something. Some were crouching, others squatting or on their knees. I bit my lips hard enough to taste hot blood pouring into my mouth when I realized those pathetic husks of human beings were feasting on a corpse. The source of the screams I first heard, most likely.

I waited no more. Taking a deep breath, I held firmly the sword in my left hand and the spear in my right. A slash was enough to cut the curtain and I sprinted into the room, thrusting my spear through the ribcage of the first man I came across. His scream was bloodcurdling. Crimson liquid spewed out from the hole in his torso once I extracted the spear, bathing the better half of my body in it. The whole room turned their eyes on me once the pierced man's body slumped on the floor, still screaming.

They looked at me in surprise, stopping what they were doing. Those who were eating stopped, blood fell down on their chins. Those who were sleeping woke up, fear and surprise marked their expressions. Even those who were copulating turned their heads at me. I changed the grip on my spear and slammed it down, tip first, into the screaming man's heart. His screams stopped but were soon replaced by mine, My war cry. A beastly one. They all rushed at me, screaming their lungs out.

A battle took place in that room. More than twenty of them against one of me. It was a flurry of slashes, thrusts, and small and controlled wind scythes. Among the cannibals, only one seemed to be a mage, but she only had time to cast one spell, a rock spike, before the upper half of my now-broken spear met her chest. The mage had been my fifth kill. After her, I ceased to count. The bodies piled up under my feet as I held my position, forming a small mound. A slightly advantageous high-ground. With it, and their disorganized- except for a few of them- way of fighting their necks became my blade's prey.

Once my sword broke down, I used the cleaver. Once the cleaver slipped out of my hand due to the blood, I stole a sword from one of the dead. Once that fell off my hand due to a knife slicing its back, I used my fists until I could pick up a new weapon. Before I knew it, only the deathly rattles and bloody coughs filled the room.

I shouted my rage once more. Loud enough for the echo to hurt my ears. Loud enough for my sister to hear. I had succeeded.

"This is for my mother, you disgusting excuse of human beings!" I barked as I disrespectfully spat on the closest fallen to me.

I won. I suffered some injuries but I won. Yet, I felt no relief. I knew from the start that I was doing that most to satisfy my own anger but it left me baffled when that anger was simply switched with the notion that my mother was gone, never to be seen again...and the hollow that it brought. I slapped my cheeks, regaining lucidity of mind, and set off to make the most of the situation. That is by plundering the now-dead cannibals of all their possessions.

Part 3

I left the tunnel, finally entering the cave where Julie was waiting for me with my back heavy with plunder. I had brought three full backpacks, the cleanest I found. In them, I had stuffed two of the only three bedrolls that survived the bloodshed, some clothes I found in a corner, various little pouches filled with utility items such as flint stones, a whetstone, a handful of copper and silver coins, and some clean bandages. Carefully selected food- the vast majority of which being pickled vegetables and jerky- completed the plunder together with some set of clothes and as many weapons as I could carry.

Whilst still in the cannibals' cave I got rid of my torn clothes and poorly-made bandages for new ones. Simple things, really, a light-blue long-sleeved shirt with a small hole in the back and a way too long pair of brown trousers tucked into a pair of ankle-high blackish boots. Three belts were tied around my waist, in the gaps of which two swords, both of them around my arm's length, were sheathed. I cut the excess of two more belts in order to tie them around my thigh and arm where they held one knife each. A spear a meter and a half long completed my arsenal. I had some more weapons stored. I didn't know whether Julie knew how to manage any of them, so I brought the whole bunch with me thinking I would leave the rest behind.

My only regret was not finding any sort of container that wasn't splattered with enough blood to stain even its insides, broken or filled with unquestionable liquids. I would have preferred to search a little harder in their hideout but I had spent too much time away from Julie and the fear that something may have happened to her was beginning to creep up on me.

As I entered the open space I made sure to be as loud as possible and, once I reached the opening of the tunnel where mother was laying, I shouted for Julie to come out. Promptly, as if waiting for that exact moment, some stones rolled away from a nearby tunnel and my sister crawled out of them. Surprise and relief were clearly visible on her face. She didn't ask what happened and I didn't wish to tell, I simply shared the clothes and asked if she knew how to handle a weapon. She replied that father tried to train her a little but blades were not really made for her so she switched to a bow. Unfortunately, I found no bow among the cannibals' possessions so she instead picked a new shirt and a pair of small knives. From inside her little hideout, she brought out a waterskin, a little worse for wear but still working fine. I shuddered in realizing that it was almost empty. My timing in finding her was almost too perfect.

"What do we do now?" She asked once she finished changing clothes and fixing her weapons.

"I don't wanna leave her here-" I said gesturing at the cave beside us "- wait here for a bit"

While I was walking back after the bloodshed, I thought hard about what I could possibly do for her. I didn't wish to leave my mother here, rotting and for the rats to feast on. I couldn't forgive myself for that, but neither could I bury her there or carry her outside. That's when I remembered the tradition of this world regarding the dead. I had never seen it myself, but I knew that only the great men's bodies were sealed with magic so that no decay would occur and buried in either temples or mausoleums. For the rest of us, the burying process was much simpler. The corpse would be burned on a pyre, the ashes sealed in a box, and then buried in a graveyard under a tombstone. Not every culture followed that tradition but most human's did, so I chose to do so too.

I carried her body out and cleaned it as best as I could. Using a bundle of wood I gathered from breaking some stakes and wooden weapons the cannibals carried, I crafted a small pyre. At that point, Julie understood the meaning of my actions and helped me set it all up while holding her tears back. Soon, we were standing by the pyre, our mother laying on top of it, using the flint stone to spark the flame. Once it appeared I did not regret using some wind magic to feed the flame.

I remained silent as we stood side by side in front of the pyre, my hand resting on her head. She was stifling little sobs, respectfully holding them back, as it was custom in this world. The silence had to reign sovereign when the dead were being sent off.

Tears started to wet my eyes as I thought back to my life until now. My life as Raphael. Living under her roof, being called her son, eating her meals, spending time with her, being scolded by her, once in a while annoy her. Watching her smiles, her gentle eyes. Hearing the sound of her voice, feeling her touch as she lovingly caressed me before bed...I could never experience any of that. Ever again. The woman named Elizabeth, the woman I called mother, was gone.

[I'm sorry...for everything and thank you...for letting me be your son, mom] I thought as I clenched my teeth and hid my tears from Julie.

More than an hour passed before the whole process finished and the flesh turned to ash. It would have been longer if I did not intervene with magic. After separating the burned chunks of wood from the ashes, I took one of the pouches, the most beautiful of them, and filled it with them. Using laces of cord I had tucked in one backpack, I tightly tied the pouch and fastened it to my belt with some leather straps. I wanted to make sure that pouch would never leave my person. Then, without lingering further, I tapped Julie on the shoulder and began walking towards the tunnel I first came through.

"Now what?-" Julie asked as she walked closely behind me, almost following my steps like a shadow "- Can we even get out of this space?"

"There's a portal not far from here-" I shortly replied not feeling in the mood to entertain any sort of conversation, but the silence that followed made it known how unsatisfactory was my answer "- *sigh*A portal is...well you'll see when we get there. In short, is just a door. A magic door. Though I don't know what's beyond it"

"You don't know?" She answered surprised.

"It's not common magic but something...different? Ancient I suppose. The thing is, I have no idea where it leads and neither I can control it. We could be lucky and end up in Migur, or not and be sent in the middle of the ocean or the den of a beast. That's why-" I said turning around and fixing my eyes on Julie's, making sure there was no room for discussion "- you will follow everything I say... Do you understand me? If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to hide, you hide. If I tell you to stay put and wait for me, you do so even if it takes me one week to come back. Clear?"

"Y-yes, clear" She said, clearly taken aback by my sudden forwardness.

"I make the decisions, I fight and I talk. Don't speak with strangers and don't stick your nose in other's business" I continued basing my speech on the speeches seen in those militaristic films I used to watch.

"I'm not a kid-" She scoffed, regretting soon after seeing my expression harden "- I mean, I know how to behave"

"It's different, out there. I have no idea where we'll go, if we'll even end up somewhere civilized. You must keep your guard up, that's what I'm trying to say. Everyone else is an enemy, everyone is against us, everyone else doesn't matter until I bring you back to father. Do you trust me?"

"Yes. Yes, I trust you Raph!"

"Then, do exactly as I say-" I answered, softening my expression a bit and starting to walk again, checking for the signs of moss I left "- Now come. It shouldn't be too far"

* * *

The rest of the trek was silent and uneventful, though I had to slow down my pace for her more than once, not that it mattered much. It worried me how, in two different instances, tremors began shaking the walls of the tunnel. Julie said that it was a normal occurrence for earthquakes to happen on a daily basis but I feared that because of them, the passage I dug through the pile of stones would crumble. Such fear turned out to be pointless as soon as we reached the pile, seeing how it had been cleared almost completely by those tremors.

The portal was there. Still swirling in white and blue magic, seemingly unaffected by the tremors. I swallowed a heavy chunk of saliva as I mentally prepared for any eventuality.

"Take out one knife and be ready to defend yourself if I tell you to-" I said as I approached one side of the portal with an unsheathed sword "-Here-" I continued, extending my free hand for her to hold on to "- grab my hand and don't let go. We could be led in different places to hold onto it...Are you ready?"

"A-are you sure it's safe?" She asked hesitantly.

"Absolutely not, but what other choice do we have?" I retorted.

"O-Okay! I'm ready!" She said, more to herself than to me. A sort of self-encouragement.

Without hesitation, I took her hand, held it tight and stepped through the portal, basically dragging her along with me. The world started to spin with only my sense of touch, being firmly tied to reality by my connection with Julie, remaining intact. The other senses mixed as they wished.

A tunnel of white light formed in front of us and countless small blue whispers of lights circled around in a very hypnotic manner. Magic was all around us. Palpable, almost alive, composing every single particle of that otherworldly view. It felt only like a handful of seconds passed but before I knew it, the world spun once again and the show of lights came abruptly to an end.

A wave of heat hit me in the face like a sledgehammer, almost taking my breath away. Blinding light filled my dark-accustomed eyes. Squiting made it bearable but it still was cause of pain. I turned around slightly, checking from the corner of my eyes if Julie was behind me. To my relief she was, squinting her teary eyes and covering them with her other arm.

It took a full minute for us to grow accustomed to the light, though it was still not enough to completely get rid of the blurriness. With my regained sight, I finally looked around me. To my surprise, the light was coming from the top of a staircase of stone, shining down on the portal like a single ray. I walked out of it, dragging my still-blind sister with me to a more darkened corner of the room. From there, I could see more clearly the place where we ended up.

It was a single square room. Its walls made out of old grey bricks covered with a thick layer of dust. There were no carvings this time, and no steps raising the portal. The room had nothing special to it, exception made for the swirling portal in its center.

"Are you okay?" I whispered, receiving an overly-powerful nod in return.

Together, still hand in hand, we walked up the stairs. To greet us, was even more light and the crunching of sand under our feet. Golden grains were spreading like wildfire the more we rose and with them, a set of distant voices began filling the walls.

"There's someone there-" I said gesturing to the now almost visible end of the stairs "- remember what I told you!"

The rays of the sun invested us fully as we took the last step, leading us into a much bigger room. The voices didn't stop even with our appearance. The people around us seemed to notice us but decided we weren't interesting enough to stop whatever they were doing. This room was made of the same bricks as the other, just greyer and in worse condition. Holes on the walls and ceiling made it so that sand seeped through, coating the floor in a soft golden carpet.

I took a moment to look at the people around us. All thin and tired, men and women alike. With their skins browned by the sun and hair and beards caked with sand and sweat. Their eyes were hollow and weary, distrustful of each of my movements. I spotted some weapons among them. The room was packed full of people, but everyone kept some distance between one another. Some were sitting under makeshift tents made of worn-out clothes sewed together, others had found themselves in a corner untouched by sand and sun while some stood wherever, playing with the sand with madness brewing dangerously in their eyes.

Not wanting to linger there longer than needed, I started to walk through the room, toward what seemed to be the exit. I felt a movement to my right, too close for comfort. One of the men, a skinny fellow dressed in bright red clothes had approached me, his hands stretching towards Julie who had yet to notice him.

In a single motion, I pulled Julie closer, spun to my right and swung my sword downward. Blood stained the sand as all of them fell silent while watching the scene. The only one making any sound was the man kneeling on the ground in front of me and pressing the stumps of his blood-gushing hands on his chest. I felt Julie recoil at the sight and cling to me just a tad bit harder.

"Be this a warning-" I said firmly as I made a show of pressing the tip of my sword on the guy's neck "- Next time someone tries anything funny, I'll go for the neck"

With a low murmur of voices and side eyes, everyone turned their attention away from me. It didn't surprise me as the bleeding man was left to fend for himself while those who were closer to him promptly plundered his merger belongings.

[Rabid dogs dying of hunger] I thought, eerily musing to myself how no feeling other than disgust surged from that sight.

With a deep sigh, I resumed my stride across the sand-filled room, pleased that no one was paying attention to us anymore. No one but one single person. An old man with grey hair and a beard sitting at the edge of the hallway leading out of the room. He was dressed in something similar to a white toga flowing widely on his body, his only shield from the sun a set of multi-colored cloths wrapped around his head like a turban. His eyes were blurry and unfocused, white with the clear signs of approaching blindness, yet a glint of curiosity still shone in those empty pupils of his. I pulled Julie closer and approached the man, taking advantage of his apparent calmness.

"Hey old man-" I said meeting his gaze "- what can you tell me about this place?"

The man did not answer, instead, a slight smirk cracked across his lips as he slowly raised a cupped hand, shaking it twice to further the signal.

"Ha, I see where you're going-" I chuckled as I reached for my backpack and grabbed a handful of jerky before unceremoniously placing them in his hand "- Feel like talking now?"

"You are not very generous are you?" The old man said in a coarse and weary voice.

"As much as you are opportunistic" I wittily replied, making a show of slamming my sword against the side of my boots.

"We all came from that portal-" The man began to tell "- There were more of us at first, two groups and some stragglers who came after us. We thought we had finally escaped but turned up here...all here in this god-forgotten hell"

"Where's here?" I pressed.

"Who knows?-" Continued the old man while slowly chewing on one of the newly acquired jerky "- An island in the middle of the sea? Some wretched corner of land in the Demon continent? Or all the way down somewhere in the Land of deserts? For what I care, we are in hell, plain and simple. We just haven't realized yet"

"Speak clearly you senile relict!" I barked as I grew tired of his rambling.

"...There were more of us at first. We felt hopeful and tried to traverse the sand... It didn't end well. Some died from the heat, others of fatigue. A daughter got stung by some kind of bee...her eyes turned into a bloody puddle. My neighbor got killed and eaten by those giant black scorpion-like monsters...many others met the same end. What you see here are those who survived. Struggling another day as we wait for help"

"How many tails did the scorpion have?" I asked hoping that knowing the species of the monster would give me a clue about our location.

"Too busy running to care" He answered plainly.

"Very helpful-" I sarcastically replied "-...do you really believe waiting here will be of any help? Do you think your prayers will be answered and a savior will come?... Bah! Why am I even asking this?!"

"Lying to oneself is the surest way to survive another day" The old man mused, almost satisfied to have come up with that kind of answer.

"*sigh* Whatever gets you going...-" I replied as I began to walk away from the old man into the hallway "- Tell me, does this place have a name?"

"Sahfra" He replied, pointing with a boney finger to a wall where, roughly graven with a sharp object, was the word 'Sahfra' in cubital characters.