The world is bound by the darkness around me. My thoughts become lost in the pursuit of understanding. I can't find myself; I can't comprehend what is happening. All I see is darkness and fleeting senses of realism, accompanied by lingering pain.
Pain. What is pain? I ask myself. Who am I? I ask again, not understanding what or who I am.
What am I? I think once more, as the darkness around me grows, and there is no light—only pain.
Pain. Yes, pain. It is the feeling of something... What is that something? I ask myself. What is that feeling when you feel pain? Where does it come from? Where do I come from? The world is darkness, so I should be darkness.
The world is what I am. Where do I come from? The words have no voice, but within my soul, they do.
Motion is not evident; there is nothing but darkness. There is nothing but the very feeling of loneliness, the feeling of dread and soullessness.
My soul falls into the abyss, yet there is no falling—only drowning. The darkness, the world, is falling, and the world is me. The darkness is me. The soul is my world; the soul is dark.
I feel nothing but pain, like the pain of breathing... Breathing. I am breathing. I can breathe. I feel the air in the darkness, in the fleeting moment. The darkness lessens with the light above my soul, and the world grows less dark.
Light binds to my soul. It calls out for me, reaching like a magnet. I come forth with it. My mind begins to realize who I am. I am Ash...
I am dead... I am reborn.
The world around me, once filled with light, now lies in shades of gray and bleakness. My eyes are strong, yet my height is short as I lay, taking in my surroundings. Dark gray wood surrounds me, covering the walls of the room I find myself in.
The floor beneath me is made of the same gray wood, worn and weathered. I lie there, the coldness of the surface seeping into my body as I try to make sense of my surroundings. Where am I? What has led me to this strange, dismal place?
I slowly push myself up, my upper body rising with effort. As I lift my head, I see the room before me—a dim, wooden interior with heavy beams above. The air feels thick, stagnant, as if time itself has forgotten this place. I glance around, the silence pressing in, and find that the walls are bare—no decorations, no signs of life, just the unyielding grayness of the wood.
Before me, there is an opening, an entrance into another space, but it is unclear where it leads. A faint light filters through, casting eerie shadows, yet it does little to illuminate the full extent of this place. I feel an overwhelming sense of isolation, as if I am the only one here—trapped in this vast, hollow space.
I push myself fully upright, my legs trembling with the effort. Questions swirl in my mind, unanswered. Why am I here? How did I end up in this forsaken room, surrounded by nothing but dark gray wood and the oppressive silence? The mystery of my existence grows heavier with every passing moment.
To my left was a bed, and to my right, an old man. His body was withered, fragile with age, covered in dark cloth, his pants and shirt torn and tattered. His eyes were gone... only hollow black sockets remained where they once were, but for some inexplicable reason, his lifeless body that lay on the bed seemed to be staring at me. The empty blackness of his eye sockets bore into me, a silent gaze that held some inexplicable weight.
My body trembled with fear, but my soul struggled to command this weak vessel to move. My stomach twisted in knots... I couldn't breathe. My lungs burned, clutching at my chest in an agonizing grip. My blood pumped fiercely, trying to force air into my lungs, to expel whatever was trapped within. The feeling was all too familiar... the same sensation I experienced before my death, before I was placed in this strange and haunting place.
"UU" The sound escaped my lips, thick with saliva and drool. I vomited, the water spilling from my mouth, followed by something else... a crystal, diamond-shaped, but somehow rectangular. It hit the ground with a sharp, hollow sound, and the resonance of that crystal reverberated in my head, sending a strange vibration through my skull.
My hands shot up to my ears as a growing pain throbbed in my head. The sound of the crystal's impact awakened something within me, something sharp, piercing, and painful. A headache, brutal and relentless, struck me like a needle jabbed into my mind. The pain was unbearable, a force that threatened to tear me apart from the inside out.
"You who were lost are now born again. Lost child, come," the old man spoke in a language I could somehow understand, a language called Alren.
The words came into my mind, clear and soft: "Come, child."
I tried to move my body, but each step was forced in this child's body. My skin was pale, and my bones were visible to the naked eye. My feet were bare, and my legs were covered by pants that reached my knees. They were torn and caked with dirt.
My chest was clad in a long-sleeve shirt that barely reached my elbows. The shirt, dark gray, was worn and full of holes, perfectly blending with the grim environment. My long dark blue hair reached my shoulders, and as I lay down, it cascaded to my butt. My eyes looked into the reflection from the crystal, and what I saw was bleak. I looked like a child from hell, my body on the brink of death, my bones stark and sharp. My face, gaunt, lacked fullness, leaving me with the look of a dying prince.
I was lost in a haze, struggling to make sense of what was happening, how I had died, and how I was now reborn as a child. My reflection seemed to mock me, tinted with a golden hue. This hue came from my eyes, small, like strands of hair, thin as ice, circling my iris and pupil. My blue eyes were the color of the ocean, dark like the storms that roamed the seas, where rain endlessly fell.
The sight brought a tear to my eye, as if I had awoken in a nightmare. My mind was lost, unable to comprehend the chaos around me, when I heard the old man's voice once more: "Come, child..."
I forced my body, pushing every fiber of my being, my weak body straining with all my effort. I almost fell back down, but with all I had, I moved my leg with each step, passing the wet mess I had made.
Bump—pain shot up to my feet, making me almost lose my balance once more. I looked at the ground and saw a brown book. It looked withered and old, thin, no more than a couple of pages in my eyes. I kept moving, passing the book, and soon reached the old man, who looked at me.
His hands grabbed my skeletal hands. "Who are you? Where am I?" I asked, looking at the old man who lay on the bed, his time seemingly at an end.
"It has come, the day of change. The morning is set, and the weather is dark. The stars are no more than that. My end is set..."
"My end is set..." The old man let go of my hand, then pointed to the ground.
"You, who have no blood of royalty, lesser being chosen by..." Some of the words he spoke left his mouth without sound, only entering my mind. I could understand so much, but the language was unfamiliar, and my soul couldn't keep up with this man.
"Pick up the book left by the daughter of Lilith, who marked he who sees what is set. Marked by the eyes, only when the day of death proceeds can you see what has been set and given."
"What... old man, I don't understand," I said, the words coming out of my mouth in the language of Alren.
"Hide it... hide it... lie, lie, lie..." His body stilled more, and his face turned gray, his life slowly ending.
"He who was wounded will find that all things are fated by the string of time and death. We have no control. We have no will. We are destined to fall into chaos..."
His body began shaking. My hand reached to his chest, trying anything to help the old man.
"AA!!" he screamed with utter pain. His body stilled, and then, in his final moments, his voice dropped to a whisper, words drenched in an unfathomable weight:
"You have been... you have been... chosen by..."
The name lingered in the air, a dark and powerful breath, something ancient, something that twisted the very fabric of the world. It was a name wrapped in mystery, a name that crushed the edges of reality itself.
"Aethros..."
Bang!!
Blood. Blood everywhere. My mind rang, reverberating with that name, a name I could not fully grasp. My body was flung up from the ground as if the very mention of it had thrown me from existence itself. I heard the name again, and this time, it struck deep. Aethros. I didn't know what it was, what it meant—but I knew one thing I was in hell.