Nothing happened!
Alden could feel his consciousness slowly slipping away; his vision had become hazy, and his breathing had almost stopped, which was probably better, seeing that the air he was supposed to breathe made his lungs feel worse than if he had suffocated.
He had placed his last hope in requesting whatever the heck had brought him up here to take him back, but here he was.
That could only mean the voice was merely a fragment of his imagination, It could not help.
If there had been any doubt, now he was certain he would die here atop Bray Mountain, and no one would ever find him.
His body would become a frozen statue that would forever stare down at Braycliff. Only he would not see anything.
His thoughts went to his family. They would mourn him, for sure, but the trouble was, without any evidence of his death, they would always cling to a nonexistent hope that he would come back.
Alden may have shed tears, but if he did, they had probably frozen on his face even before hitting the ground.
'You still have two wishes left, wish hunter...you could still save yourself.'
Again, that voice seemed to come from someone comfortably seated at the back of his thoughts, watching with fascination at all his problems. Whoever, or whatever the source was, felt detached from his suffering but could easily access his thoughts.
Alden knew it wasn't him. It couldn't be his thoughts—no way he could afford such calm when he was quite literally at the brink of death.
At that moment, something became clear to him.
"Two wishes left...?" So...so whatever had brought him here had responded to his first wish?
But how? His wish had been to leave the forest, not to end up atop a freezing peak of endless mountains.
And hadn't he just wished to be taken back? Why, then, had whoever was responsible not just taken him back?
'I don't respond to pleas, fool...you have to make a wish,' the voice mocked from inside his head.
Then it suddenly became clear to him.
Yes...what had brought him here had been a direct wish, even though it had not been an intentional one.
The second one, to be taken back, was indeed a plea, not a wish. It seemed all he had to do to get out of here was make a proper wish.
'Finally figured it out...I suppose that makes you a genius, ha-ha!'
Alden did not bother with the mockery; he was just a few heartbeats from dying.
"I wish for you to take me back."
The wish rang in his thoughts; there was no way he could even manage to open his mouth, let alone speak the words. It however appeared that it was unnecessary.
From the little vision that his hazy eyes could manage, Alden saw himself lift from the ground.
For several heartbeats, he rose higher and higher until he suddenly stopped mid-air.
'What the heck is happening? I wished for you to take me back!' Alden yelled at something he could not see.
'Your wish is my command.'
Suddenly, Alden seemed to blitz through the air at a speed that made him feel like it would soon tear off his clothes and skin him.
What was even worse was the fact that he was not falling back as he should have if he was going back to the forest.
Instead, he was moving backward, his speed seemingly increasing with every passing moment.
He wanted to scream, but apart from the fact that he couldn't even make the sound, what would screaming help with?
No one would hear him; his only hope lay with the thing that was in his mind.
Alden had seen enough to know it was in control of all his problems.
"Stop, stop...I said take me back to the forest, not backward!" he yelled into his own thoughts, as his mind formed a petrifying picture of his assailant.
'Well, your wish was for me to take you back; you did not specify back to where.'
What on Gadlon was this? Had it not been the one that took him from the forest? At the very least, it should know where to take him back to.
'That is your assumption. In the absence of enough information, I work on my best guess."
Alden felt like reaching out and tearing away his head if only to end that stupid, annoying voice.
If this was its best gues,then he hated to see its worse.
Call it his imagination, but he could hear the evil satisfaction from it. It knew exactly what it was doing; heck, it was even enjoying it.
'Don't blame your empty head on me, wish hunter; you still have one wish to correct your mistake.
Yes, he did still have one more wish he could use, but what...?
Alden's thought ended abruptly as he felt his clothes begin to tear away from his body.
The first to leave was his boots, the one thing he owned that cost a fortune.
He, however, had no time to contemplate this, as the next to go were his pants. Surprisingly, his knitted sweater, which should have been the first to be torn away, was the last to go.
Alden was now flying backward through the blizzard-like wind, stark naked.
He did not know where he found the strength to finally move his frozen arms, but they were now both covering between his legs, clutching at the only thing he could not afford to lose.
"Sto...stooop!" His voice, previously suppressed by the cold, now cried in deathly desperation as he felt the air tearing at his skin.
'Careful...is that a wish?'
Yes, the wish. His disappearing clothes had almost made him forget he still had one more wish.
Alden had no time to contemplate what he wanted to say; there was simply no time. He would rather face the shame of being rescued from the forest stark naked. At least he would still be alive.
"I wish for you to take me back to the forest."
Alden abruptly skidded to a stop mid-air before he began tumbling down in freefall like a falling star.
He felt like he would soon vomit his guts out as he spun on and on.
He could not even see where he was headed, but one thing was for sure: going by what he had experienced so far, there was a good chance that the entity would still find a loophole in his last wish.
His now-awake mind was working, trying to find what twist could be. Maybe he was being taken to the forest all right, but no one was concerned with how he would land...this could well be the meeting he had scheduled with death from the first time he had entered The Edge of Bray.