Cold and dark. That was his first memory. And then his first instinct was to take a breath. That was most definitely a wrong choice.
He splashed wildly in the dark, grimy water, his limbs flailing as he struggled to stay afloat. Panic surged through him as he realized he didn't know how to swim, and his movements became more frantic with each passing second.
In his struggle, he tried to shout. The second wrong choice right there. The river's taste was foul, like a mixture of dirt and decay, assaulting his senses and adding to his growing unease. Not to mention the texture was beyond description. He almost passed out.
As he fought against the relentless current, a sense of dread washed over him. He felt goosebumps pop up all over his body. His instincts could tell him.
Something was there, he could feel it, lurking in the murky depths, unseen but undeniably present. It was quiet but he could feel its sinister presence slowly inch ever so closely to him.
His heart pounded in his chest as he kicked and thrashed, desperate to escape the unseen threat. But his efforts were in vain and only seemed to draw the creature closer, making the wide body of water feel more and more constricted.
Or maybe that was just the lack of oxygen.
Then, as darkness closed in around him, he had one last thought before everything went black: "At least I made it out."
He stirred from his slumber, but it wasn't the creaking of floorboards or the rustling of curtains that roused him, rather, it was the soft chirping of the clockwork birds perched on modest wooden shelves. Their mechanical melodies pierced the quietude of the room, coaxing him back to consciousness.
"I'm alive?"
Blinking against the soft, slightly blue sunlight filtering through worn velvet curtains, he took in his surroundings. The room, though humble, was a curious blend of eras, with Victorian furnishings juxtaposed against futuristic gadgets. Brass pipes wove along the walls, intertwined with simple wooden shelves filled with a somewhat barebones mix of artifacts.
The gentle glow of orbs suspended from the ceiling cast a warm ambiance, illuminating the space with a soft radiance. Through small windows obscured by the worn velvet curtains, he caught glimpses of the mist-shrouded river below, its waters reflecting the muted light of dawn.
It seemed that he was in the attic of a 2-story building.
As he sat up, the mechanical birds continued their chirping. Their movements were jerky yet oddly comforting.
Confusion knitted his brow as he blinked blearily and looked around the room. "Where am I?" he murmured to himself. His voice was barely more than a whisper in the quietude of the morning.
He pushed himself up from the simple cot and swung his legs over the side planting his feet on the creaking wooden floorboards. With cautious steps, he began to explore his surroundings.
Among the artifacts scattered about, one caught his eye—a shimmering orb nestled on a shelf, pulsing with a faint electric energy. It seemed to be one of the few working artifacts in the room.
It had strange, runic marks all over its surface and they we glowing with a faint blue electric light. To the newly awakened explorer, the orb was like a shiny big red button yelling 'Touch me!'
Intrigued, he reached out to touch it, and as his fingers made contact, a jolt of static coursed through him, sending shivers down his spine.
The orb responded to his touch, cycling through a mesmerizing array of colors before settling on a strange whiteish gray hue. He watched in awe as it shimmered and faded, crumbling to dust in his hand.
Undeterred by the orb's mysterious fate, he continued his exploration, wandering through the room and inspecting its contents with growing curiosity. Among the trinkets and oddities, he found an ornate mirror hanging on the wall.
Approaching the mirror, he hesitated for a moment before meeting his own reflection. His features were unfamiliar and his memory was still shrouded in a haze. But as he gazed into his own eyes, he understood that the man could only be him, a freer him.
He stared at perhaps the oddest of the oddities in the room.
Staring back at him from the full-length mirror was a young man on the cusp of adulthood. He had piercing azure eyes framed by unruly white hair that fell in disarray around his angular face. At 17-20 years old, he possessed a youthful charm tempered by a quiet intensity that belied his age.
His pale locks tumbled in a tousled cascade and were a match to his pallid , almost, deathly pale skin. A faint scar traced a jagged path across his left cheek and he traced it with his finger as he wondered about the story behind it. A smattering of stubble lined his jaw, adding to his rugged charm.
He was dressed simply in a pair of worn trousers. His lean and muscular upper body was bare for him and rest of the world to see. His gaze was drawn to the ornate X rune tattooed on his right shoulder. Its design was intricate and impossibly well detailed. It almost seemed alive.
At that thought, he felt the energy in his shoulder swell up briefly as the tattoo glowed as it struggled with something before it flickered and faded back to become a normal tattoo.
He felt a strange sense of loss, but then he got over it. His mind was sort of blank, like there was a haze over everything.
Or he just felt that any loss really meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Regardless of his thoughts, they did not last long before his peace was shattered.
An enraged, shrill voice pierced through the tranquility of the room. "You ingrate!" it shouted, followed by a series of curses and the stomping of feet rapidly approaching his door.
Before he could even react, the door burst open with a resounding crash, revealing a woman in her twenties standing in the doorway. She was the very definition of a fiery beauty, with cascading curls of vibrant red hair framing a face that was just slightly above average but exuded an undeniable allure.
Her emerald eyes blazed with fury with flecks of red sparking up occasionally and her features were set in a scowl that seemed to challenge the very world itself. And she looked ready to burn that world down too. The air was practically burning around her. Her rage, her fury was heating the entire room. And that, is most probably what drew him in.
Despite her anger, he couldn't help but be struck by her presence. There was an undeniable magnetism about her, an attraction that was just difficult for him to put into words. Or maybe he had forgotten the words he needed for the task. In that moment, he found himself smitten, captivated by her fiery spirit and undeniable strength.
But his reverie was short-lived as she continued to berate him, her voice filled with righteous indignation. He caught snippets of her rant, her words piercing through his thoughts like shards of glass. "Taking advantage of my kindness," she spat, her voice dripping with venom. "Using my hard-earned orb of awakening for your own selfish gain..."
The mention of the orb jolted him out of his daze, his mind racing to make sense of her accusations. But before he could respond, she launched into another tirade, her words making even the walls of the room blush as she unleashed her fury upon him.
Caught between awe and confusion, he could only stand there, rooted to the spot, as the whirlwind of emotions swept over him.
As she continued her tirade, he finally found the courage to interrupt her. "Wait, I don't understand," he interjected, his voice tinged with confusion. "What orb are you talking about?"
The woman's expression shifted from anger to incredulity as she stared at him, disbelief etched across her features. "The orb you made disappear, you ingrate!" she exclaimed, her voice rising in frustration. "The orb of awakening that I left in here!"
He felt a pang of guilt at her accusation, his mind racing to make sense of her words. "I... I don't remember," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. "I don't remember anything before waking up in this room."
"Wait was it that orb with all the marks on it? I just touched it and then it jolted me then went through a whole lot of colors before it turned whitish Grey and then turned into dust." He confessed with shame written all over his face. He couldn't hold her gaze and looked down at the old, worn floorboards.
Her expression softened slightly at his confession, a flicker of sympathy crossing her eyes. She was confused by his mention of many colors, but then her eyes widened with excitement as he mentioned the color the orb had ended with.
"Whiteish gray?" she asked eagerly, her voice barely containing her excitement. "That's the color it ended with?"
He nodded, surprised and a little unnerved by her reaction. "Yes, it turned into dust right after," he confirmed.
At that moment, she interrupted him, her voice barely more than a whisper as she murmured something about high light aptitude under her breath. Then, she locked eyes with him, her gaze intense and penetrating.
"What's your name?" she asked, her voice soft yet insistent.
He hesitated for a moment, his mind racing as he searched for an answer. And then his eyes shining with confidence and a sense of certainty that surprised even him, he replied, "My name is..."