As the sun slowly rose above the tree line of the lush forest, a young boy began to awaken sprawled under a tree.

As he groggily opened his eyes, he took in his surroundings. The starry night sky came into view first, the tops of incomparably large trees next. Suddenly, coarse coughs erupted from the boy's throat as he leaned over to his side. He wiped the spittle off of the corners of his mouth and got up in a hunched over position.

The only thing he could think about was a name: Corrin. Corrin, Corrin, Corrin. The name was repeated in his mind countless times by a familiar womanly voice. The voice sounded…scared. The name repeated as if it was the only thing he knew.

Turns out, it really was the only thing he knew.

He tried to think about where he was, how he got there, who the voice in his head belonged to, but he drew blanks on everything. He couldn't remember anything other than that name. He assumed the name belonged to him, as he wasn't a woman. He could tell that much.

He tried to stand up, but quickly realized he was in pain. A lot of pain. Shifting from his surroundings, his eyes turned to his body. He was wearing brown pants and what appeared to have previously been a white undershirt with a black vest with gold edges on top of that. Oddly, there was a hole in the vest over his left breast, as though someone had purposefully ripped something off of it.

Everything, literally everything, about him was a mess.

His pants were torn to the point that they looked more like shorts. The vest and undershirt faired a little better, but not by much. Everything was covered in dried blood, and his body was basically all black and blue. It looked like he had been rolled down a rocky hill just long enough for it to hurt badly but not enough for it to kill him.

He sat there for a few minutes, taking everything in and came to an obvious conclusion: he had no fucking clue what was going on. As he was sitting there, he heard the sound of running water. It didn't sound too far, but not too close either. He mustered his strength and headed in the direction he heard it coming from.

As Corrin struggled to make his way to the river, all he could think about was how to get out of the forest. It wasn't clear which forest it was, or where the exit of this forest was. He figured that the best thing to do would be to walk upstream and see what he could find at the source of the spring.

Corrin finally made his way to the source of the sound and was greeted by a beautiful spring. He was very happy to find the clear water to be drinkable and that it had fish constantly swimming through. Seeing the fish reminded his that he was starving. While he thought about how to catch one of the fish to eat, he thirstily drank from the spring. It was the best feeling he had had since he had woken up, not that that was saying much.

Corrin took a look at his reflection on the water's surface and was…underwhelmed. Not with the state of his body, but how average he looked. The boy had jet black hair with a round face that was a little chubby. What stood out most were his blue eyes. The color was somewhere between turquoise and aquamarine, but they were beautiful.

After he checked himself out, he thought about how he could manage to catch a fish. He was not having as much fun with this as he had looking at himself in the spring.

The only thing he could think of would be to get lucky enough to impale a fish with a spear that he would have to make. After thinking a little longer and figuring that that was his best option, he began to scavenge around for a stick long enough that he could sharpen into a spear. When he found one, he realized he hadn't thought too far ahead, as he had nothing to sharpen it with.

"Damn."

After he let out a sigh, he started digging around for a sharp enough rock. After about fifteen minutes, he found one. He almost started crying tears of joy.

Unfortunately for Corrin, this had been the easy part. Now, he needed to actually catch a fish. This took much longer than Corrin had anticipated.

Corrin struggled for about three hours before he managed to stab a fish well enough to get it out of the water, make sure it was dead, and prepare it for consumption. He had gotten close four other times. The first three times, he had stabbed the fish, but they fell off the spear as he pulled them out of the water. As for the fourth one, he successfully got it out of the water, but as he laid it down on the riverbank it flopped back into the river and out of his grasp.

Corrin finally was able to release his anger and frustration on the last fish. He angrily smashed its head until it was dead, then a few more times for good measure.

As he sat there panting from his exhaustion, a grin appeared on his face.

He had caught a fish! He was going to eat!

But just as soon as the grin appeared, it was replaced by a deep frown.

"Wait…how do I cook this?"

It didn't seem like there was anything light a fire with, and Corrin wouldn't have known where to start even if there was.

Corrin didn't even curse, he just let out a deep sigh and looked back at the sharp rock he had used to make his spear. He used it to roughly cut off the head of the fish, and then roughly separate the flesh from the bones.

What he was left with was two mangled filets of fish.

"What's the worst that can happen…right?"

Corrin scarfed down the two filets while trying not to focus on the overwhelming fishiness, then downed it with some spring water.

After resting for a bit, Corrin picked up his spear and made his way up the stream, hoping that whatever he found was worth the effort.

******

Corrin eventually made it to his destination after three grueling weeks. He had managed to survive off of the few fish that he was able to catch, despite all of the pain it caused him.

He didn't think it was possible to be in more pain than he was when he first woke up, but he was wrong.

That's why it took him so long to make it to the beginning of the creek. He had to stop every few days because of his debilitating bowel movements.

However, when he reached his destination, he automatically knew that everything he had suffered through had been worth it. The creek that he had been following originated from a pool of water created from a huge waterfall. The vegetation surrounding the pool was so lush that it seemed like he was in a completely different forest. Not to say that the rest of the forest was dull, it was just less… fluorescent.

Everything around the pool glowed with a certain brightness that was unlike the rest of the forest. The glow became brighter as Corrin's eyes moved towards the waterfall. It came from an unspeakably high cliff. Corrin wasn't even sure if he could see the top of it, it was that high up.

"This place is so…nice."

The pool was so enticing that Corrin decided to take a swim. He stripped off his clothes and dove in. As his head came out of the water a few feet away from where he dived in, he immediately jerked his head to face the waterfall. Specifically, he was looking behind the waterfall, a little above the pool's edge.

There was a strange sort of attraction that he felt towards the location as soon as he entered the pool. Something was calling out to him, but he had no idea who or what it was. It wasn't really a voice…more like a feeling

Corrin had trouble deciding what to do. He was considering that the attraction could be to something that would kill him, but it could also just as equally be to something that could help him out of his situation.

He eventually came to the conclusion that realistically, he didn't have a lot to lose by following the attraction. He dried off, got dressed, and grabbed his trusty spear, the tip of which was coated in dried fish blood.

As he had assumed, Corrin found a cave entrance that was hidden by the waterfall in the front and weeds and vines on the side. Corrin had to push the weeds and vines aside to access a narrow and slippery strip of rock that led to the entrance of the cave. Corrin managed to make his way in and found that he could barely see twenty feet in front of him.

Corrin had already resolved to find whatever was attracting him, so he moved to the side of the cave. He outstretched his right hand to touch the cave's wall. The coarse rock was rough against his hand, but it would help him keep his balance.

As Corrin wandered further into the cave, the texture of the rock on his hand began to change. It first changed from a course and rough rock to a smoother yet uneven rock. After that, it changed to smooth and fairly flat stone.

"That's weird… this doesn't seem natural."

This change raised Corrin's hopes because the walls of the cave seemed to be man-made. However, Corrin's hopes began to fade after about an hour of walking.

"HOW LONG CAN THIS CAVE BE?!" Corrin shouted angrily.

Corrin felt like he had walked so much that he was now geriatric. To make it worse, there was no clear end in sight. He decided to look behind him to see if he could still see the entrance to the cave.

He didn't see the entrance to the cave, but what he did see was a pair of double doors which were somehow illuminated.

"Wait…what?"

"What the hell?"

"Since when…"

"HAS THIS BEEN HERE SINCE THE BEGINNING? WHAT KIND OF BULLSHIT IS THIS?"

After Corrin rapidly let out his colorful thoughts, he walked closer to the doors. It was like he was in a total world of black and the only thing he could see were these doors. They were two ornate rectangular white doors that seemed to swing outwards, meaning Corrin would have to push them. The ornate design of the door took the shape of different symbols and designs. Corrin counted dozens of different symbols scattered around and numerous designs that included things like fires, rivers, plants, clouds, lightning, animals, and even skeletons.

When Corrin touched the door as he traced along the designs, he felt the attraction he had first felt outside the cave grow exponentially. Corrin's anger had now turned to a burning curiosity.

Corrin gave in to his curiosity and pushed on the doors… and nothing happened.

Confused, Corrin tried again but he was met with the same result.

After the third attempt and failure, Corrin's anger had returned.

"Stupid door doesn't know when to open. What the hell else am I supposed to do? Ask it to open for me? Should I say, 'pretty please wonderful and most beautiful doors, would you please do me the great favor of opening and letting me bask in whatever wonder lays beyond?'"

As soon as the words had left his mouth, the doors swung open and drowned Corrin in a bright white light. Before he could say anything, he could feel himself being pulled into whatever lay behind the doors.