Cold hardwood pressed against his knees and palms. A chorus of panicked voices swirled around him, mingling with the pungent scent of sweat and mold. Sato's senses slammed into him all at once as he staggered to his feet.
"W-Where…am I?" he muttered, his voice barely audible over the chaos. He turned, twisting his torso every which way to scan the room. It was packed to capacity with a crowd of shifting, panicked figures.
"Where are we?"
"What's going on?!"
"Mom?! Dad?! Where are you?!"
"What? Where?! Who?!"
These and various other lines of confusion echoed from within the group. Meanwhile, Sato was caught up in his own disorientation.
"I'm…alive?" he mumbled and brought a callused hand to view. His fingers weren't seared to charcoal, but seemingly in pristine condition. He squeezed his fingers tightly shut to form a veiny fist, then retracted them again. "How is this possible?"
Though puzzled, the soldier shook his head and returned his focus to the surrounding group.
It was a mix–students in winter uniforms, office workers in suits, athletes in outdoor gear. Despite their variety, they shared one thing in common: their Japanese nationality. Sato stood out sharply among them, his military-grade combat gear an anomaly among the civilians.
'Were we captured? But the missiles? The fire? How the…?'
Many questions flooded the soldier's mind, but his eyes fell upon a massive, bloodied hole that'd punched through his armor. That's when he remembered. It was from the metal fragment that had pierced his gut moments prior.
'My wounds!' he thought frantically. His hands fumbled through the buckles of his vest's straps. Much of it had lost its drab green color, replaced by blackened charring from flames and the red spattering of blood.
The vest undone, Sato cast it to the floor and lifted his shirt to reveal a scar-covered stomach. His eyes widened with shock.
'Is this possible? Could it actually be? My injuries… They're…'
Sato traced the faint scars across his body with trembling fingers, the memory of searing pain rushing back to him. He died. He was sure of it—the metal fragment piercing his gut, the fire swallowing everything, the world going dark.
But here he was. Breathing. Whole.
"How…?" he whispered, his voice cracking under the weight of disbelief.
His mind plunged into turmoil as his curiosity grew greater. Sato shook his head from side to side, as if to cast out unnecessary thoughts.
"No… Focus." He took a breath, then moved his attention to the room itself in search of any clues that might explain his whereabouts.
The floor was curved into a perfect circle. Lining its edges was an odd ring of asymmetrical minerals.
'What are those?' Sato wondered, scratching his chin as his gaze locked onto one of the strange objects. It seemed to shimmer faintly, radiating a thin, wavering distortion—not unlike the door from before.
'This all looks very... occult,' he thought, narrowing his eyes. 'If someone summoned my spirit just as I was settling in, they better exorcise me. I'll haunt the hell out of them.' He exhaled sharply through his nose, the corner of his mouth twitching in irritation.
The dim haze of flickering torchlight cast long, uneven shadows, making finer details hard to discern. Still, Sato could tell the space was rustic and crude. Roughly hewn gray stone blocks formed the walls, held together by thick wooden beams.
The floor creaked beneath his boots, worn planks groaning with each slight shift of his weight. Above, more beams lined the ceiling like ribs.
Yet, what held Sato's attention wasn't the room's irregularity but the yellow-red flames atop each torch.
His gaze locked onto them, their flickering light twisting and curling like the firestorm that had swallowed him. His throat tightened as the heat seemed to grow, the crackling flames roaring louder in his ears. The scent of burning flesh hit him like a wave, and suddenly, he was there again—back in the inferno
Sato stumbled backward, clutching his chest. His breaths came fast and shallow, his heartbeat pounding in a frantic rhythm beneath his fingertips. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. His eyes darted wildly, searching for an escape, but there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
"It's happening again," he gasped. "I burned. I know I did!"
The flames roared louder, consuming everything. His legs gave out, and he fell to his knees.
'I have to get out,' he thought frantically. His gut twisted with nausea as the memory of his death surged through him.
The soldier staggered to his feet and stumbled into the shadows on the far side of the room, a patch of darkness where the firelight didn't reach. His back hit the cool stone, and he pressed against it as if trying to melt into the wall. His breaths came in uneven gasps, the air finally returning to his lungs.
Slowly, the silence of the shadows seeped into him, extinguishing the chaos within. He studied the room. The flames hadn't moved—still fixed atop their sconces. The walls weren't burning. Everything was still.
"It wasn't real," Sato whispered with a wavering voice. He clenched his fists, the tremors in his hands finally subsiding. "It felt pretty damn real…"
Sato shook his head from side-to-side. "Keep it together. Stay calm. Don't go giving yourself a heart attack," he mumbled to himself.
A few increasingly controlled breaths later, he finally regained control over himself. That's when Sato noticed something he hadn't before: a single wooden door on the opposite side of the room.
Several cloaked figures blocked the door, their vacant stares fixed on the panicked crowd. Gripped within each of their hands were strange, symmetrical objects bound in leather.
The objects weren't guns nor blades. In fact, they weren't weapons of any kind. Instead, the figures wielded…
'...books?' Sato's brow twisted into a subtle expression of confusion. He figured kidnappers would've been armed with more than just an arsenal of literature.
Amongst the cloaked strangers, the mid-most one turned their obscured head and spoke in a low tone that Sato recognized to be the one from before.
"Are they ready? These are all of them, correct? I'd rather not endure the Lady's wrath as consequence from a foolish miscount"
"Yes, Sir Weiser. That's all of them. We may proceed."
"Excellent!"
The figure stepped forward, clasping his hands together with an unsettling enthusiasm. Slowly, he pulled back his hood, revealing a white-bearded face lined with age. His smile was wide—too wide—as he outstretched his hands.
"I welcome you all! Heroes!" he proclaimed, his voice booming across the room.
Sato frowned, his brow furrowing. 'Heroes?'
As the soldier quietly pondered, none of his countrymen dared to respond to the old man's greeting. Each quietly murmured amongst themselves–a mix of fear and bewilderment in their voices.
"Yo… Is that dude for real? Heroes? Seriously?"
"But who is that guy? What does he want with us?"
"You think I know? Just listen."
Unease shackled the air with steel-like bindings, so the best Sato's countrymen managed in reply was a contest of awkward staring. That is until the commanding voice of a young woman seized control.
"Heroes? What are you talking about? Where am I? Is this some kind of cult?!" Matching her every word were loudly expressive hand gestures.
Sato shook his head. 'She's confronting them? Not the brightest thing to do.' Based on the woman's youthful appearance and mannerisms, he was confident the girl was in her late teens.
She sported a pair of golden-amber eyes and an equally hued ponytail that swayed with her animated gestures. As for her attire, her body was encased within a dusty green and white tracksuit which had clearly seen many years of use.
"You better give some answers!" The woman jabbed her finger toward the hooded figures, her eyes blazing with defiance.
'She's gonna get herself killed,' the soldier sighed.
That's when the rest joined in. The crowd became a mob–shouting and the rocking of fists in the air for answers. Still, their combined effort was anything but organized.
Rather than an orderly questioning followed by careful decision-making, the interrogation devolved into pure chaos. It became the norm for Sato's countrymen to avoid questions altogether, resolving instead to hurling demands and insults at the figures instead.
"Pointless time-wasting," the soldier grumbled. 'I really need to get out of here…'
His eyes narrowed on the hooded figures. Each carried a black-steel dagger with ornamental gold etchings–impractical, but unnervingly deliberate.
'So...' Sato sighed. 'They have black robes, occult books, and strange knives? Maybe she was right. Some kind of cult.'
Meanwhile, the mob's barrage of questioning was ongoing. Yet, no matter what they said, the hostility seemingly ricocheted off the old man and his allies without effect.
The cloaked men simply stared at their verbal assailants with vacant expressions. Their faces mimicked that of disinterested parents as they waited for noisy toddlers to tucker themselves out.
Only one of them seemed to hear the complaints.
"Please, my Dear Heroes," the old man called, his voice cutting cleanly through the chaos. His hands rose in a placating gesture, commanding attention with eerie calm.
The crowd's shouting faltered as the voices died one by one. Unease rippled through the room, thick enough to choke on. All eyes turned to the old man as silence fell.
"Thank you," he smiled. "Please allow me to extend to you all my most sincere apologies." He hung his head in an apologetic bow. "I know you all must have many questions. Alas, I am but a humble servant of a higher power. The answers you seek are beyond my authority to give."
A few choice words caught Sato's attention, but nothing was more jarring than the old man's tone of voice and posture. Every bit of it felt empty and stale, more akin to that of an advertiser than a jailor.
The young woman scoffed and took to the spotlight again.
"Enough with the apologies!" she snapped. "You dragged us here, so at least tell us where we are!"
"I understand your frustration, Dear Hero, but please calm yourself. There's no need for anger here." The old man performed an easing gesture. But, seeing that the fury from the woman's expression hadn't faded, he sighed. "Well, I suppose I could explain the basics of the matter to you all…"