'It burns', was his first thought, before he opened his eyes.
Looking in front of himself, the boy saw a burning white tower in front of him. Standing in front of it, he looked so small and frail, as if at any second he would be consumed by the fierce fire. From this distance, the boy felt as if some parts of the tower were moving, but since he couldn't make anything out clearly, he decided to look around instead.
He looked over to the horizon, but there was none. All the boy could see was an endless expanse of grass - grass that was slowly beginning to burn.
'Is this … a dream?' he asked himself, stepping forward towards the tower, curious about its sudden appearance.
'I'm confident I was sleeping in my bed,' he thought, rubbing his chin and he looked around his surroundings. Taking another step towards the tower, the boy felt his feet step on something.
Looking down, the boy's eyes widened as his feet shot backwards on their own.
'What the hell?! Is that a human?!'
Looking around, the boy started to notice more and more of these bodies. Some were mangled beyond recognition, while some seemed like they were simply sleeping. Some had their limbs cut off, while others had extra ones attached to their bodies in haphazard ways. And yet, the one thing common across all those bodies was that they were all wearing white hospital gowns with-
'Are those tags?' the boy thought, as he slowly inched forward towards the body in front of him.
Suddenly, the body's eyes shot open, and its hands shot towards the boy. Falling on his butt, the boy quickly crawled backwards, his body beginning to hyperventilate.
"S-s-save me," the body spoke, its voice raspy and barely above a whisper as it tried to make its way to the boy.
"Please,please save me. I-I-I don't want to die here. Save me, my k-"
Unable to make out the end of the sentence, the boy could only watch as the fire engulfed the body, turning it to ash in mere seconds.
'What the hell is happening?!' the boy screamed to himself.
'What kind of f***king dream is this?! This can no longer be explained by lucid dreaming! And why does it feel so hot? No - wait, it's not just hot, I'm burning!'
"AAaaaaargh", screamed the boy, jolting awake from his slumber. He could feel nothing but pain, and it hurt so, so much. Especially his hands and face, it seemed like they were under boiling water. In immense pain, he tried to open his eyes to see what was happening, but the moment he opened them, his eyes felt the intense light streaming in from the roof and, before he could even understand anything, his eyes began to burn as well.
Unable to withstand the pain that was wrecking his entire body, the only thing the boy could do was thrash around and hope that somehow his pain would vanish. And yet, to his horror, he couldn't even move his body.
Moving his limbs simply resulted in more pain as they collided with something sharp and cold keeping him in place - chains - the boy guessed. And so, lying flat on his back and unable to even move, the only thing the boy could do was scream.
Scream and scream, and hope in his heart that somebody would come to rescue him.
Scream and scream, and hope for unconsciousness.
Scream and scream, and hope for the sweet release of death.
Suddenly, a loud whirring sound came from somewhere above him, and slowly, he felt the light begin to fade away. And as the light faded, so did the pain. And yet, the boy was in no condition to understand the implications behind this, as the moment he was freed from the pain, his mind, unable to process anything else, shut down, leaving the room in an empty silence.
/Swish/
Suddenly, the sound of a door opened in a wall to the right of the boy, and in walked a lady wearing a white one-shoulder gown and high heels. Standing at around 178 centimetres tall and wearing a mask with two holes for eyes, her very presence commanded attention. As she walked, it seemed like the world itself bent to her will - light bent towards her, and gravity constantly changed as you came closer to her.
Slowly, she made her way to the young boy lying on the bed and bent over to look at his face.
"Oh? It's healing quite well for a half-breed, isn't it?" she said in surprise, looking over to her left - towards a wall. Turning back towards the boy's face, she slowly touched his face with her gloved hand. His face - if one could even call it a face at this point - was blistered, split open and a bright red. It was as if someone had dumped a bottle of acid on his face, completely disfiguring it.
However, that would not be the most surprising part of this description. No, what was surprising was that his skin was healing, and at an astonishing pace to boot. New skin knitted itself over his blistered flesh, pushing away the charred remnants of his old body. His hands, too, were shedding their ruined layers, regenerating with unnatural speed.
With her eyes curving upwards, she made her way to the door she came through, and slowly pushed it open. Looking back at the young boy one last time, she said (smiled),
"I hope you don't disappoint me, half breed."
A/N:
To a start of a new journey, cheers!
To all those who read this prologue, I hope you liked what I wrote! More will be coming soon, and more is already there on my patreon!
And as always, thank you for reading and have a great day ahead!