The Sun shone its sharp rays, directly on my face, through the palm-sized hole in one of the wooden walls of the hut I was sleeping in. The annoyance it caused made me get out of my sleep. Exhaustion from last night was so overwhelming, that I could only consume the canned food, the cabinet of this hut's kitchen had. The discovery of those supernatural powers built irresistible curiosity in me, out of which I couldn't rest easy, but kept on practicing. Replaying the moment when I shaped the fire into a sphere in my mind, I tried to transform it into many other shapes too, but after around an hour of training, all of my energy reserves were drained. The hut was the closest to where I was, so I walked up to it, entered and dug into the couch, falling into a deep slumber.
I stood up from the couch and made my way out of the hut to the edge of the cliff, the shaggy hut was built on. I could capture the whole village from there, but the sight of that place was no longer a solace to my mind but instead grew a sharp pain in my chest. Nothing was making sense to me, like.....ah. The feelings surging inside me were a mix of confusion and frustration, making me feel out of direction.
I raised my head up to the sky. With full radiance that the Sun shone, opening eyes for even a moment felt unbearable. The atmospheric heat although, didn't quite uphold the sun's efforts. As I stood there, gazing at my surroundings, the thought of my own residence crossed my mind. From the steep pathway behind the hut, down to the cliffs bottom, I made my way, then through the grassy fields to the village.
As I was walking through the colony of houses to my own one, I started to feel a change in atmosphere. The wind started to blow harder at each moment, brutally shaking the few trees there existed. The debris from the ground mixed with the dead, yellowish leaves started to ride the wind, forming mini tornadoes and giving a smell to the wind too. The sun rays gradually lost their intensity as the bust of dark clouds started to take over the sky. Continuous collisions were being made between the heavy clouds, causing thunder one after another. In just a few moments, there wasn't even a single ray of sunlight, which could, escaping through the dense layers of dark clouds, reach the land.
I could do nothing but stand there clueless, as my surroundings transformed. From the clouds, which were no longer just greyish but had a violet tint to them too, started to beam tubular columns to the land, with a distance with each other. The columns looked like, that were made of a light particularly denser than the original one. They were deep purple and glimmering like pulsing veins.
That wasn't even all. After a few moments of formation of the columns, something, not actually something but someone, started to descend through the translucent columns. I ran my sight through the translucence of each light column and the same thing was setting down. The pace gradually increased, and as they reached the quarter length of the columns, like a lightning thunder, they covered the rest of the displacement and were all on their feet, on the ground. The columns vanished.
I was still on that same spot, too overwhelmed, by the unrealistic phenomenon I witnessed. I felt like I would be caught even if I breath, the very terror of ghosts I used to feel on the cold nights while hiding myself in the blanket.
Collecting myself together, I walked a little further towards the field where the majority of the columns were. Crouching behind a wooden fence I found some gap to see through.
From there, I could see them. They were huge and built like humans but not quite what an actual human would look like. Their physiques were other worldly, and all wore, or to be more honest, wrapped themselves in dark, torn clothes. In their hands they held huge wooden and metallic tools which looked like weapons. There was one, which was distinct from all the others—comparatively gigantic, but body a lot leaner. I had my eyes locked in on him, as he commanded the group and instructed them, following which, they all dispersed. From the looks, they seemed to be finding something, I was curious, what.
From where I stood, I could see that terrifying being only from its back. He was still standing there motionless, and I kept my eyes on him too. I noticed his neck preparing to make some movement. His head rotated abruptly, then facing me. A fierce look on it. His eyes, staring right into my soul. I could feel the primal fear that stare caused, from hundreds of meters away. His presence was being made known to my very soul. That was just a stare, but impactful enough to run a wave of tremble down through my spine. I knew that I had to move but my brain froze. When forced my brain, it finally permitted my body to move and I took a few steps back still in my crouched position, wanting to get away from the sight of that monster.
I managed to at least escape his deadly stare, but I wanted to run somewhere far, away from everything. My brain was failing to process everything that had been happening there. Everything was going fine and totally normal, but then out of nowhere those strange events started to happen. After the vanishing of the villages' people, I got some fantastic power gifted to me, I was clueless why, and then the sudden appearance of that new species stirred the already mixed thoughts in my mind.
When got out of the creature's sight, I stood up half turning, preparing to run away from the village as soon as I could. As I was about to complete the rest of the rotation, my eye caught something from its corner.
As I rotated my head and made the thing out, the world slipped right from beneath my feet. I was left with a 'how' in my mind. 'How could.... someone possibly be this fast?' I thought, then let the question be dismissed because everything was already so messed up that it felt like nothing new. However, I didn't want to see him again. No. I just wanted to escape from everything, but it seemed like fate didn't want me to.
As I stood there motionless, too scared to be mobile, his hand reached my neck and gripped around it. He was holding my neck like one would hold a soda can. Tightening the grip around my neck, he lifted me off the ground, till I was about his own height. I couldn't breathe at all. My lungs were dying for oxygen, as the creature's grip blocked my windpipe. My heart was slowing down, because of no oxygenated blood to pump through the veins to my body. My hands, on his one huge one, were continuously tapping, for him to let go of me. If by any chance he would feel, even just a little, mercy towards me. By each moment, I could feel my body drop in temperature. It felt like my life was being extracted out of me.
Blood started to go down from my head. My eyes were losing their functionality, as everything gradually started to fade out.
My lifeless hands couldn't ask for mercy anymore and the little hope I had had also decayed. I was about to blackout, but before I could, he let my neck go, leaving me in the air, around 3-4 feet above the ground.
I dropped on the ground like a sack of rice, completely lifeless, gasping for air. I got on my knees and with my one hand, started to beat my chest, while coughing and shooting bits of saliva too. Air started to course through my gullet to the lungs, inducing my numb body with life again. My breath started to stabilize, and heartbeat went back to standard.
Nothing was making sense to me. Firstly, his flash like zap to me, and then his unexpected mercy after almost pulling the life out of me. What kind of fantasy did I even get trapped in?
Still on my knees, my eyes could capture his wild, bare foots, covered in dirt. Their size was like three hundred percent of an average human's. I raised my head up, till I could see his torso, wrapped with a patchy, black cloth, and his bald head too. On his face, were deep scars all over, and the same ferocious look on it. Amount of muscle on his face was perfectly balanced, that the features were all defined. For his eyes, had two voids which seemed to absorb the very light surrounding them and skin color, a perfect twin of his eyeballs.
I was still staring at the creature's face, miserable, knowing nothing about what was going to happen. He bent his lower back and knees too while extending his arm, approaching me, not my neck this time though. I was so hopeless that my body didn't even try to dodge him. His hand, when reached my right arm, curled in a tight grip around my wrist, as if it was intended to crush my bones. I tried to, but my body could not contain the pain, expressing it on my face. The grip then loosened, as if he my pain got acknowledged to him.
His other hand reached for an artifact which was hanging down his neck, looking like a piece of jewelry. The artifact was around the size of a baby apple and had an irregular, polygonal design. Each edge of it was transiting perfectly into a new angle, giving it a sharp look and its surface had a smooth, matte finish. The dull artifact when contacted with the creature's finger, glowed with a soft, purplish light.
The pulsing of the artifact smoothened for a moment, before it started to fade out again, but with it the world too. My sight got whirly, exerting pressure on my brain. Shades of purple started mixing into the whirlpool of colors, until it was all violet. 'What now?' I thought being too frustrated yet calmed. The creature was still with me in that world of purple.
The world then started transiting, colors varying, new structures appearing in front of my eyes. Eyelids curtained my eyes as per my brain's signals, as it was failing to process. The structures and lights kept on shifting, changing paces and colors. When the light striking my eyelids went uniform, I lifted them up, and what was in front of me was totally unreal, unimaginable and shocking too. That wasn't the place I was at, moments ago. Not just that town but the whole world. The air was different and with every gust I breathed, came a huge amount of debris making me cough and sneeze. The sky wasn't blue but a mix of dark shades of purple and black, which painted the whole world into its color, giving it a gloomy vibe. That new world looked like as it came straight out of the fantasies.
I was standing on a flat, rectangular platform, on one long side of which ran some stairs down, which I couldn't even see the end of, and a huge gate on the opposite. The dark, wooden gate, higher than even a double-story house, belonged to a castle which itself seemed to be talking to the sky.
Blackish purple material which looked like obsidian, was used for the construction of the castle, absorbing most of the yellow light from lanterns, which hung on the outer wall of the castle. To counter the darkness, light leaking out from the rectangular segments each after a few meters, contributed too. Each segment's frame had a clean design carved, giving the castle an ancient look. Overall, the castle was emanating spooky vibes, as if it had ghosts living in it.
The creature gave one of the two man who looked like the guards and were standing beside the castle's entrance gate, a glare, then with his eyes, pointed me. The guard understood the creature's signal and quickly started to walk towards me. As he approached me, I realized that he wasn't as lanky and bulky as the one who brought me there. His height was about half a foot more than me, and even with the armor on, he couldn't outmatch my physique.
"Take him to the prison", the creature ordered the guard, in a voice so deep and wild, that as soon as it reached my ears, straightened every single strand of hair of my body had. Visible shivers ran down the guard's body too. Regaining his composure, the guard reached for a small leather sac which he wore as a waist bag and took a rope out of it.
"Your hands" he said. From his voice he sounded like a young boy, around 17-18 years in age. As I raised my hanging hands up, for him to tie them, I noticed the other guard, who had been standing, still beside the gate's handle, preparing to make some movement. Turning himself towards the huge handle of one of the gates, he took a few steps forward and when reached the handle, gripped it with both his hands. Infront of that gigantic gate, he looked like a kitten standing against an adult human. I was curious to see if he could even move that door. Holding the ground tightly with his feet, he started applying force to pull the door. With all his might, he was pulling, but the door didn't even flinch. He kept on pushing himself, but no difference was made. His grip started to loosen, which he didn't seem to realize, and after a moment he was on the ground. His black, metallic armor produced a loud crash. Saying, "You should work harder, Alaric", the creature, himself went for the door and using only his one arm, opened it, showing no signs of struggle. I was left in awe by such a show of power.
As I saw the creature walk straight in, through the castle's entrance leaving me alone with the two guards, something clicked in my mind. 'Wasn't that a chance for me to escape?'. I was ready to put all of the training I had done in the military, to a use. I didn't know what I would be treated like, there in the prison. I still needed to find the people of my village—especially my father and Aria. I couldn't let fear hold me back anymore. 'If not now, then when?'
Thinking no more, with a click, I imbued my hand with a soul fire...