Once upon a time, a young man woke up with amnesia in the middle of a forest.
He felt disoriented, confused, and scared of his ignorance towards his surroundings.
He headed towards what appeared to be the exit of the forest, but then he realized that he had just stumbled upon more forest, but beneath his feet, laid a track, a dirt road.
As he follows the path of the road, and after what seems like forever, he finally reaches the end of the road.
He's tired, thirsty, and fears death.
At the end of the road, is a large wooden castle gate, covered in moss and vines.
He doesn't recognize it as a door, and tries to climb over the wall instead.
Hidden, behind the vines, he sees a hole in the castle wall and enters through that passage.
Behind, he sees an ominous, dark, medieval castle.
He feels scared by the sheer intensity of its gigantic size, but he anyway goes towards it, for it is the only landmark he can identify.
As he goes up the broken path towards the castle, he jumps at the sight of skeletons and mice that litter his surroundings, behind broken chunks from the castle, as well as the oddly placed boulders that are scattered around the toppled-over trees.
Just before he makes it to the entrance of the castle, he comes face to face with a standing entity.
This entity is humanoid in form, but friend or foe, he is unsure.
"H-hello?", he is too scared to think about anything in particular to say nor ask, all he can do is be on guard and hope for the best.
The standing entity, holding its sword, enters a stance to intimidate the young man.
The young man gets ready to dodge, but it doesn't move. He takes this chance to step back.
Unfortunately, he trips over a rock, which makes him look back for a short moment in order to catch his fall, but in this short moment, the entity has already reached him.
The sword, large enough to be the size of a full-grown man, but the same shape as a Katana, comes crashing down.
The young man, instinctively, jumps in between its legs.
As he crawls and stumbles his way up in the direction of the door, he looks back to see that the upper body of the entity has twisted 180 degrees in the opposite direction from its lower body. Now facing him, it's ready to strike again.
The young man tries to open the door, but it's locked.
In order to dodge the second attack, he stretches his arms out on either end of the door's frame, and kicks his legs up in order to lift himself off of the ground, protecting his crouched legs.
The entity slashes the door instead as a result, and the young man takes this moment to step on top of the flat side of the wedged blade, and use his body weight to bend the sword, and pull the entity in closer.
He then kicks it in the face with his other suspended foot, still holding his body by the support of his sturdy arms against the door frame.
The entity, green like vines and faceless with the texture of tar, freezes from the impact of the young man's foot.
It then begins to shake like a puppet.
The young man then sends a barrage of kicks to its head to make it stop, since he's now scared of what it could be up to now, and hopes to make it go unconscious before it succeeds in its next course of action.
However, the entity goes completely limp and collapses to the floor.
Without hesitation, the young man takes this chance to escape to the inside of the castle with the now accessible door, and takes the bent sword in with him just in case.
Once inside, he goes down a small number of stairs and finds himself in the center of a thrown room.
Dust is scattered across the floor, or... perhaps it's ash.
He keeps his ears sharp, hearing for anything else that exists within this building other than his own pattered breath.
He stands in silence for what feels like an unimaginably long 15 seconds, before he finally hears footsteps echo throughout the halls around him.
He doesn't know which direction the footsteps are coming from, and quickly looks around, double checking, triple checking, for any signs of where exactly the next potential threat could appear from.
That's when he sees a figure appear from the shadows of one of the halls of the first floor, directly to the right of him.
It appears to be the only source of the sound of the footsteps, so there is only one potential threat he must deal with.
The figure stops.
"Young man, what bring you here?", the voice of a woman.
"S-step out!"
She moves into the light, coming from the roof riddled with holes, which illuminates herself.
He then lowers his sword.
A normal woman, at least, what feels like the most normal thing that he has come across in his short but hellish experience in this confusing world.
She is wearing what appears to be a dark gown, and wears a tiara that covers her eyes.
[Yes, I'm going all out with the dark souls references/inspiration.]
Her hair is silver, and is well-kept despite the state of the castle.
The young man still clenches his sword even though it's lowered.
He doesn't know what he should ask in this situation.
The woman takes the lead, "This castle is where The Pures gather.".
Confused, the young man remains silent.
"Are you surprised? Then I really have to know what brings you here."
"…I don't know."
"You don't know?"
He nods.
After careful consideration, she asks the young man, "Come here.".
He hesitates, but does so cautiously anyways.
She stops him though, "Stop. I would appreciate it if you dropped your blade. Well, as much of a blade that it is you have."
He doesn't drop it.
"I'm not going to hurt you. Do you see a blade on me?"
"You could be hiding one…"
She smirks, "You couldn't possibly expect me, a lady, to thoroughly prove to you that I am hiding a weapon on me.".
He gets a little annoyed, "Then I'm not coming over.".
She sighs.
The young man takes this moment of awkward silence to look around his surroundings, and notices that there is not 1 thrown, but there are 5 thrones, and each of them has vibrant, red banners that look cleaner and newer, than the rest of the rubbish in this place.
He wonders if the logos bare any significance, considering just how much they stand out compared to the greyish atmosphere around him.
Once he turns back to the girl, he sees her lifting her skirt.
He lifts his sword higher, "What are you doing?".
"I'm letting you do a thorough inspection."
He feels uncomfortable and anxious from this, and he doesn't know why.
She keeps lifting it, and once her knees are exposed, he says, "Stop it. That's enough. Just show me that there's nothing on your back and I'll come over."
She sighs with relief, "Ok.".
She stretches her arms out to her sides and turns her body around, he doesn't see any sign of an object being concealed by her clothes, so he says, "Ok. I'm going to put it down now.".
He then takes one last look around himself to make sure there isn't anything that can ambush him from behind.
He places down the sword.
His feet crunch against the gravel, rubble, dust, and ash as he walks up a small number of stairs and comes within a comfortable distance of her.
At closer inspection, she is wearing jewels around her neck, and most notably, her facial features have no blemishes. She's the depiction of beauty, at least, that's all he can say about the lower part of her face; he is still unable to see her eyes because of the tiara.
She then raises her hand up to his forehead.
He leans back.
She then stops moving her hand, and gives him the chance to allow himself to have his forehand touched.
He slowly leans back forward, and she places, specifically her thump, on his forehead.
"…what are you doing?", he asks feeling uncomfortable.
Her lips parted, surprised by her findings.
She takes her thumb off of his forehead and says, "You have no memories?".
"Yes."
She goes silent, as though she's witnessing a spectacle.
She whispers to herself hesitantly, "You're…Chosen.".
He slightly tilts his head in confusion in response to her self-muttering.
"A-You have to come with me!"
"To where?"
She grabs his hand.
The young man, struggling to pace himself, feeling as though he is ready to trip over his feet, asks the woman, "W-where are you taking me?".
He shakes with chills of anticipated fear with every corner they turn, and the deeper they go into the castle's unknown depths to its halls, the more he feels as though he won't be able to get the chance to escape.
The woman stops moving, her breath is bated.
She takes a deep breath in, and then turns around slowly.
"Look at me."
He looks at her.
After calming herself, she reassures him, "…You're going to be fine. I'm on your side, trust me.".
Those few simple words and her motherly aura despite her probably being the same age as him, which he himself has yet to even question as to how old he is, makes him feel calm for the first time in this hellish and confusing world.
They both continue to walk through the castle halls, hand-in-hand, at a much slower and relaxed pace.