" How painful....."

The cold embrace slowly began dissapearing as Lincoln woke up from his sleep.

The fuzzy feeling all over his body, the throbbing headache which he suffered from, the blurry vision he had, it was all quite overwhelming.

Lincoln, feeling himself lying on a cold and hard floor, out of reflex, pushed himself upwards with one hand, sitting up from his position lying down on his side.

Eventually, his body slowly began feeling an overwhelming numbness as the previous sensations slowly vanished.

Lincoln's eyes slightly widened and the pupils of his eyes contracted as he stared at the sight.

Right next to him was a woman with long blonde hair wearing a strange type of clothing.

It appeared like a priest's clothing but rather than the usual black, it was white in colour.

And around him were dozens upon dozens of corpses in dark robes, all lying on the ground with sacrificial knives deeply embedded in their abdomens. The blood on both the bodies and the surrounding rock was completely dry and flaky.

They had clearly died a long time ago.

Lincoln himself was in a large altar, candles surrounding him which seemed to burn with a gigantic flame even larger than the candles themselves, which seemed strange to look at.

He looked down at the floor beneath him, putting his arms on the ground to support him while he stood up.

Eventually, he completetely stood up and looked at the ground beneath him to see some kind of symbol.

It appeared to be a snake curled around in a circle, eating it's own tail. Furthermore, it was filled with other strange markings and angular lines which were connected with others.

It appeared like some kind of circle used to summon the devil, as someone from the modern world would see it.

Suddenly, a sharp pain rushed through his entire body. It was like someone was taking needles and stabbing him with them in ever part of his body.

These needles seemed to be used aswell, considering his other strange symptoms.

His entire body began itching and his vision became red as he directly fell to the ground, unable to move his body.

He was like a puppet with it's strings cut, directly lying on the floor like a dead body, completely unlike his earlier state.

And then, once again, he gained feeling in his body before he began to feel an extreme pain in his navel region.

It was like someone was taking a spear and directly stabbing him with it, taking extra care to twist the spear when removing it.

The pain came in jolts, never truly letting him get used to a certain level of pain.

Lincoln's mind was completely blank, all these sensations were far too overwhelming.

But eventually, all these symptoms ceased as suddenly as they came, leaving him feeling completely normal and actually slightly better than he usually did.

Eventually, he stood up once again, groaning.

He looked around himself, half believing that this was some strange nightmare. But the other part of him knew that it wasn't a dream of any kind.

The pain, the itching, the dizziness, it was real; and if it wasn't, he didn't know what was.

This was simply too strange.

He was confused by... all of this. Where exactly was he? How did he get here?

But, abandoning all the things which he didn't know and couldn't have changed, he simply decided to focus on what he knew.

When he turned around he saw a large tome which was on top of a stand made of stone directly infront of the altar.

Lincoln walked over to it in a casual manner.

After all, suicide cults like this one appeared to be, didn't leave anyone alive.

"Wait... Wouldn't animals be attracted to this place? The smell of blood would surely lure one here."

"I should get out of here quickly...."

As he got closer and closer to the tome, he stopped in his tracks before reaching over to directly pick it up, not turning his back to the opening which seemed to be the entrance to the cave.

He slowly opened the tome and began reading from the first page, hoping to gain some information as he occasionally stared at the opening in the cave.

As he started reading the tome infront of him, the letters, rather than the typical languages used on Earth which had letters which were combined to spell out words, it appeared more like some form of pictograph.

Although, he was only saying this due to the spaces inbetween each one of the symbols and the fact that he rarely saw the repetition of a symbol. He didn't know for sure.

On this tome was a symbol of something that appeared like a open hand with an eye on the palm region, a sword, and the same symbol which he had seen previously below him.

Those were the first things he saw on the tome, below that were dozens of symbols of which spaces became irregular and the writing began looking like someone was clawing into the paper.

After the first three symbols, Lincoln didn't continue. Eitherway, he likely wouldn't gain much information about his location. After all, who knew if he was even reading it correctly?

What if it was read from left to right? Who knew if it was read from down to up?

Things like these were beyond him.

Lincoln's hands went to his head as he grabbed his hair and almost ripped it out due to frustration.

First, he was brought to the hangout spot of some maniac suicide cult and he didn't even know how. Second, he was in a foreign country, judging by the language, without access to anything!

How shitty....

Whatever. This was a day and age where phones existed. He would just call one of his men to pick him up.

Soon enough, he was broken from his thoughts by a small drop of water falling on his head.

And soon enough, he looked upwards to see a tiny crack from which water slowly poured in mere drops.

He was in a cave afterall.

Lincoln simply stepped to his side, ruffling his hair to get even the small drop of water out.

Sighing, he looked at the opening in the cave where he had seen before which seemed to lead upwards.

Even though the opening seemed to lead upwards, it didn't reveal any real light.

Like this, Lincoln could surmise that he was deep inside the cave.

And due to this, he turned around, grabbing on of the candles from the altar to use as a form of light.

With this candle in his hands which burned with a flame bigger than the candle itself, he climbed up the incline of about thirty degrees.

The cave was musty and dirty, and in many places, moist as all hell.

It was steep terrain and it was difficult going up the thing with a candle in one hand, especially since there didn't seem to be any stable footing.

Even the walls didn't provide adequate support due to their rocky and uneven nature.

But still, Lincoln simply persisted, deciding to continue climbing up the cave until he reached the outside.

Eventually, something caught his eye.

It was a single ray of light which fell on the side of the cave face, presumably from the entrance.

It was still daytime and he was getting closer to the exit. This was the best possible situation he could be in.

Eventually, he directly reached the entrance of the cave and stared outside, leaning against the rocky walls of the cave's entrance.

And as he stared outside, all he saw was a lush forest.

The grass was green and lively, he heard all kinds of sounds all over the place, presumably from smaller animals that lived there.

But, he saw one thing which was extremely strange.

The leaves of the trees weren't completely green or even yellow in colour, rather, they were a mix of pink, blue, green, yellow, red and even white.

It was like somebody directly took a pallete of paint and painted the trees into existence.

It was a completely alien sight to him.

Slowly, he neared closer to these leaves.

Even though, he was a middle aged man, he was full of wonder at the mere sight of these leaves, almost like he was a child.

Suddenly, he felt a strong and warm sensation in his head.

He then heard a woman's voice speaking to him,

"It seems the fated one has finally arrived."

After hearing this voice, Lincoln looked around to check where it was coming from before he heard,

"You won't find me no matter where you look." The woman spoke,

Suddenly, the entire world turned dark.

Lincoln looked around himself to see nothing but a deep abyss and a woman in the distance.

This woman had a slim and slender body which was covered in robes that were extremely long, even reaching the "floor" where they seemed to rest. Furthermore, she had long blonde hair which even exceeded the length of her robes as well as a pair of blue eyes.

"Who exactly are you?" Lincoln questioned,

"There is no need to be afraid, fated one. I have no intention of harming you."

"Where exactly am I?"

"You, fated one, are in The Eastern Continent, on the grounds of The Great Six-Coloured Forest."