A dream… a nightmare… or perhaps a bad memory… My unconsciousness was filled with terrifying images that I did not want to see and heartbreaking sensations that I did not want to feel.
Fear, despair, anguish… and an indescribable agony whose pain far exceeds what a sane mind could bear. I was breaking, my whole being was breaking. My body, my mind, my soul.
'Am I going to die like this? Right now? Just after…'
My vision went completely dark. I was surrounded by nothing but empty space. There was no up or down, just me floating in the same nothingness. I raised my hand until it was in front of my face. It began to dissolve right in front of my eyes, turning into nothing but black smoke rapidly drifting away from its source. My feet also began to disappear, and this continued throughout my body until there was barely part of my head intact.
I looked up and a pair of eyes opened in front of me. Eyes belonging to a huge shadow that was swallowing the smoke that my body had become.
'You… promised… that neither… the same… death will prevent you from meeting… again with…'
Little by little, I began to lose consciousness before my body completely dissolved into that black smoke. That shadow had devoured me…
***
I gradually began to regain consciousness. The sun was blazing in the cloudless blue sky, in contrast to my last dim memories. I tried to get up, but a strong pain assaulted my entire body. Every muscle ache and even my bones were burning in agony.
'What the hell happened to me?' I couldn't help but wonder as I realized my sorry state.
I endured the pain the best I could and sat up heavily. It was impossible for me to know the time, but by sun position it was past noon. My head hurt as much or more than my body. I didn't quite understand my situation.
"Finally woken up?"
I heard a familiar voice next to me. That voice made me reposition my thoughts. I sighed loudly as I searched for the source of the voice. I found it, or rather, I found her. Just at my side was the girl who caused me so much trouble.
'Someone tell me that I'm still asleep…'
I wished with all my might that it had all been a nightmare, but no, it wasn't. She being there proved that had been real. Although there was something different about that girl. She had been proud and authoritative all along, but now her face was red and her eyes were puffy.
"Raidha… Ehm… Is something wrong?"
"Something? Is something wrong, you say? Sniff, sniff… are you stupid?! Buaaa, buaa, buaa!
She started crying uncontrollably. I still didn't understand what the hell was wrong with her. My head was already tormented enough, so I didn't want to endure a tantrum from a girl who no longer appeared to be a child.
"Hey, hey, hey, wait for a second! Don't cry and tell me the problem!"
She partially stopped crying until she was just sobbing and fixed her red gaze on me, clearly angered.
"You stole my…"
"What?" I asked with a stupid face, not understanding anything.
"Give me back my…" She stopped mid-sentence as she resumed crying.
"Give you back... what?"
"Buaaaa! You took my most important part from me! Buaaaa! Thief, pervert, stupid!"
She jumped to me, waving her arms trying to hit me while shouting those three words without stopping.
"Calm down for one!" I ended up yelling with my patience on the edge and shook her off from me.
'Wait… something is missing here…'
I finally realized that my memories of that girl and the actual did not match completely.
"Raidha… Your wings… Where are your wings?"
"Stupid!" She kicked me with all the strength she had.
Added to my actual pain, the strong impact made me see the stars in broad daylight.
"That's what I'm telling you! You stole them from me!"
'Of course, how did I not understand it before… The most important part of her… What kind of person am I that didn't notice that wings are the most important to her? Damn girl!'
"Crap, aren't they part of your body? How am I going to take them off? Is not like they were a mere object… By the way, they were not exactly small. Do you see them with me?"
Another kick came straight to my head. I collapsed on the ground, without the strength to reply to anything else.
"And it wasn't just my wings, you took all my power! I have almost none of my usual power left!"
"How am I going to do that?!"
"I don't know, but look at this!"
She took out some kind of long knife and pointed it threateningly at me.
"What's this? Some kind of big knife?"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! You fucking retard!"
Raidha lunged at me with the intention of stabbing me with that knife. I began to dodge the dangerous stabs with my little remaining strength.
"This is Vurtalis! When you stole my power it became like this. I can't even make it take a decent form anymore!"
I stared at that knife in disbelief. The strange sword that had dragged me into the disaster had practically become a useless weapon. The blade was reduced to about only thirty centimeters. Now only had one single straight edge, making it look like a kitchen knife. Its blackish color also faded away, turning into metallic gray that, at least, reflected my image like a mirror. The hilt also had shrunk so much that it could only be held in one hand, and its handguard barely covered the hand. The only thing that remained similar was the gem, which had lost all its color and luster, turning into a simple, almost transparent crystal.
Trying to overcome the surreal situation I was in, I began to force my head back in time. I clearly remembered how I was dragged into a completely black world and then taken by this crazy princess to her castle.
'I… I was in that strange castle, where we met with Raidha's father, who didn't seem willing to help me… So I took Raidha's sword and… After that… what happened? What are we doing here? Why don't I remember anything?'
As much as I racked my brain, I was unable to remember anything from the moment I had wielded that sword again. No, that was not true, I remembered something… Just before losing consciousness I heard a voice: "Moron, what would you do? You're weak. But don't worry, I'll get you out of here."
"Raidha… What exactly happened at the castle?" I asked as cold sweat began to flow from my body.
The heartbroken princess suddenly stopped crying and made a strange face. She quickly averted her tearful gaze from me and began to slightly tremble.
"Raidha? Hey, Raidha!" I insisted, concerned about her reaction.
Her gaze drifted through the space around me as her mouth opened and closed slightly. She seemed to be unable to find exactly what words to say.
"You really don't remember anything?" She finally dared to ask.
"So… that voice wasn't my imagination…"
A chill ran through my body from top to bottom and I began to shake uncontrollably. Raidha quickly approached me and grabbed me by the shoulders. I raised my head and stared at her eyes. She instantly released me and backed away in fear. No one would think that she had been hitting me seconds ago.
'Why does she react like this?'
I deeply breathed and mustered all my courage. I approached Raidha, who lowered her head silently as if she apologized for her reaction.
"Tell me…" I insisted.
She slightly shifted her gaze from her right and down, hesitant whether to answer or not.
"I don't know. I can't say exactly what happened there, but somehow you…" she stopped a few seconds as if it was difficult for her to say what she wanted to say, "you didn't seem human…"
I did not conceive any emotion. I didn't understand the real meaning of that sentence, but somehow I already sensed that something was wrong with me. The moment I wielded that sword in the forest something changed in my body.
'Why the hell did I have to touch that damn sword? Although… it was my own body that ignored me…'
Now I understood why that girl with golden hair looked at me with that face. She was really asking what kind of monster I was.
"So I'm a monster… That's what happens for poking my nose where I don't have to..." I said almost indifferently.
"No, you are not a monster. You are normal again, right? And that was just an ac…"
"An accident?" I finished the sentence she left incomplete. "It's possible… but accidents can be avoided with only some caution. If I hadn't touched what I shouldn't, if I hadn't involved myself where I shouldn't… nothing would have happened."
I laughed wryly inside. I did not have big dreams or aspire to anything serious. I just lived my boring life not interacting with anyone unless it was really necessary. People's problems used to matter nothing to me and I didn't like being affected by them. In some way, it was funny to have ended up in such a situation precisely for doing what I always tried to avoid, getting into someone else's problems.
"No, it wasn't an accident! It was my fault. I caused this… I have to fix it… and return you to your world," Raidha quickly corrected me before going momentarily silent with a worried face, "or at least that's what I would like." She finished with a dejected tone.
Her face turned grim again. She seemed to be on the verge of collapsing as she gazed intently at the shrunken sword in her hand.
"I can't use Vurtalis. It doesn't react to anything I do. No matter how hard I try, I can't open dimension portals."
From such a sentence I deduced that this place was not my planet. I let out a deep breath inside and put my ideas back in place. I wanted to break anything around me, but since at that moment it would be useless to make a fuss, I tried to keep calm.
"So we're both trapped in this place with nothing to do… Rather, where are we?" I wondered as I turned to take a look around us.
We were in the middle of an abandoned field. Weeds grew everywhere, with some occasional small solitary trees every long distance. I couldn't see mountains or water when looking at the horizon. We were surrounded by absolutely nothing.
"It seems that we will have to move. Standing still isn't going to help."
Raidha simply nodded. I started moving with her walking beside me without saying a word. We randomly chose a direction and gone straight. After a long walk, despair began to add to fatigue. Luckily, just before I gave up on moving forward, I saw a gray path running through some of the terrain in the distance.
"Is that… a road?" I asked, surprised and hopeful at the same time.
"I think so," Raidha replied.
"If there is a road, there is civilization. Come on, hopefully, we will find help if we follow it."
With that small increase in morale, we regain some strength and accelerate our pace. The moment we arrived at the road I immediately began to inspect that ground with my hands. It was not very clear what material it was made of, but it was certainly an artificial surface.
"We are in luck. There is no doubt, this is human-made." I said with a slight smile.
"I hope someone passes by soon," Raidha added with clear signs of relief.
We sat on the side of the road to rest while waiting for a vehicle to pass by. As expected, it didn't take long for the first to appear. I got up at my full speed and jumped into the middle of the road, making signals for him to stop.
It was something like a car, with some variants that blew my mind. It was a rounded piece of metal, metallic green in color. At the front, where the engine should be, a hub protruded, from where stretched bright red grooves ran through the entire vehicle. They appeared to be integrated circuits of some electronic device.
"What is this thing?" I whispered in a daze.
After stipping, a door opened in the same way as it does in a normal car and a person came out.
"Ah?!" A cry of surprise came out of my mouth when I saw the appearance of what had come from within.
The driver was a strange creature almost identical in appearance to a human, but his skin was red and his nose was only formed by two holes in the middle of his face. He was leaning on the door he had just opened with a hand that only had three large fingers. His mouth was open in surprise at what was before him. Well, probably his expression and mine were the same.
"This…" I managed to mutter.
Hearing me, he reacted somewhat scared.
"Aliens!"
"What?" I replied with a goofy face.
He returned to the car as fast as possible and accelerated as much as he could. I had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit by that vehicle.
"What just happened here? What was that thing?"
"Humans aren't the only thing out there, you know" Raidha approached me.
"I see… Since you look human, I didn't expect to find something so different."
"I look like a human because you stole my wings!" She answered me with teary eyes.
"No, your wings are not…"
I closed my mouth before she became mad again.
'Well, better not talk about the subject anymore…'
We tried to ask for help from a couple more vehicles, but both reacted similarly to the first.
"I never expected to be an alien in a foreign world…"
Before we knew it, the sky was already beginning to darken and hunger assailed us. We were both tired and hungry. We had no food and no place to rest. The situation was much worse than I had imagined it could be.
"I'm sorry." I heard Raidha muttering.
"Don't worry… we will be fine," I answered without looking at her.
And while I was thinking about what to do next, we heard a larger group of vehicles coming. Even more of those strange vehicles could be seen approaching through the sky. In a few seconds, we had been completely surrounded. A lot of these humanoids began to emerge from within with things that looked like pistols in their hands.
"Capture them!" One of them yelled.
Unarmed and unable to do anything, I fell against the ground on my knees. Raidha didn't seem to have any strength left either, and she too collapsed beside me.
"We will be fine…" I whispered again, almost voicelessly.