The world around Perry was on fire. Great, towering columns of flame lit up the night sky. Ash and snow fell from the heavens and from the buildings. But Perry couldn't smell the smoke or hear the fire eating away at everything.
He stood in the middle of a narrow road as the world burned silently around him.
There were doorways on either side of him and one at the end of the road. They were far apart, and from where he stood, Perry couldn't see past the dark threshold of any of them.
There's something there…
The echo of a memory whispered in the back of his mind. Or was it a dream? Was there a difference?
Dreams are memories from your soul.
No, that couldn't be right. Perry was… Perry was…
Something flickered past the first doorway to his right. Perry's feet moved without his permission. They weren't his, why would they obey him? None of this was his, not even the eyes that blinked and peered into the doorway.
A man sat in the middle of a round stone platform. Strange symbols were carved into the stone, and as Perry got closer, they seemed to shift, like thousands of glittering eyes staring up at him. The left side of the man's body was completely slumped, his arm an unnatural gray color, bloated and soft-looking. His face and head were completely burned, the skin melted and distorted. In his right hand, he held a bleeding crown.
"We were kings once," the man said, his voice sounding like sharp metal scraping over rocks.
The crown continued to bleed, but the man sat there, holding it. He didn't seem to notice as it pooled around him and dripped off the stone platform.
"We were kings once."
The feet retreated from the doorway and took him to the first on the left. Something blazed from within, and as he got closer, he saw it was a pyre. Bodies of all shapes, ages, and sizes were piled one atop the other to form a grotesque pyramid. They were burning, all of them. The fire rose even higher than the one silently consuming the city around him. But it moved differently; it oiled instead of flickered. The feet carried Perry closer, and the eyes widened as he saw things slither out of the fire. Bright orange and red, burning, with mouths filled with sharp teeth and sharper-looking claws. The things raked their hands through the corpses, collapsing part of the pyramid. A low moan attracted their attention and they converged on it like starving animals.
The feet carried Perry away from the horrible sight and to the second door on the right. A dagger gleamed on the shores of what looked like a beach made of smooth, round stones. A black moon shone in the sky, and in the distance, something rose from the waters. The ocean seemed to bubble and boil as the thing kept rising and rising. It looked like a mountain, but the edges were strange. It didn't have any shape Perry could name, and it swallowed whatever faint light the moon cast. The dagger shone brighter, almost a pale blue, and the thing kept rising from the ocean.
Next, the feet carried Perry to the second door on the left. Even before he reached the doorway, he heard crying. It was a throne room, but it was different from any the eyes had ever seen. It was a large, bare room. Save for the throne itself, there were no paintings, expensive silks, or golden ornaments adorning the space. The throne was made of black, polished stone, and from its back, two wings spread out. It looked like it had been carved from a single block of stone, the details on the wings so intricate they almost looked life-like. At the base of the throne, a man wearing black sat craddling someone in his arms. The eyes couldn't discern the features of either of them because the man that sat had his face covered by a long curtain of black hair. And the person he craddled had their face turned away, pressed against the other's chest.
The sobs were coming from the man wearing black. It didn't take Perry long to understand. The person he cradled lay unmoving in his arms, gold blood spilling from a gaping wound in the center of their back. Perry wanted to look away, he didn't want to see the scene anymore. It felt wrong, intruding on this moment. But the eyes wouldn't let him, and the feet refused to move. The man in black sobbed as he held the person tighter, as if willing them back to life through sheer force of will. When he raised his face, his eyes were completely black, and bloody tears streaked down his cheeks. And when he screamed his grief, the empty throne room came alive with the flurry of thousands of wings, ravens, who screeched and echoed their master's pain.
The feet carried Perry to the last doorway at the end of the street. The world around him still burned, ash and snow covering the world in coldness and death. Through the last doorway, Perry saw an endless expanse of grass. No, Perry didn't want to go back to that place. He didn't want to see that again. But the feet kept on moving, carrying him closer.
There's something there…
Beyond the endless expanse of grass, there was a lake. No, no. Perry didn't want to go there. He didn't want to see. He knew what would happen if he reached the lake. He remembered. Or dreamed?
He was close, so close to the doorway. The feet kept carrying him forward. He had to stop. Had to stop.
The fire around him died, and the world fell into absolute darkness. The feet stopped. The eyes closed. Opened? The doorways were gone. There was just him, standing in the endless space in between the light. Standing?
There's something there…
A cold, assessing gaze. Perry could feel it, distant and indifferent. Calculating. A gaze that had seen more than Perry would ever understand.
Cold tendrils wrapped around his wrists, his ankles, his neck. They pulled, as if testing. Maybe a little tighter? Perry choked in the silence and felt himself being pulled away, away, away…
A dry cough woke him. Perry groaned in pain. There was something burning, itching. His arm and his back. His throat felt like he'd swallowed a mouthful of glass, and his entire body felt clammy and hot. He shivered and pulled the blanket covering him tighter. It hurt. Everything hurt.
It was dark, but not too dark he couldn't make out the wooden walls and feel that he was laying on something softer than the forest floor. Where was Mal?
His lips cracked, and he tasted blood when he opened his mouth to try and call out to him. All he managed was another coughing fit that shook his entire body and made him want to die. Maybe he was dying already.
When he was younger, Perry had pneumonia and could barely breathe for days. His lungs felt like they were two balloons filled with water and rocks. And that felt like a summer vacation compared to whatever was happening now.
Perry tried to force his sluggish brain to cooperate. He checked his own forehead with the back of his hand. It felt warm, but then so did the rest of him. Well, he guessed it was safe to say he had a fever. Maybe because of an infection? Perry didn't even want to think what kind of bacteria lurked under the nails of that girl.
Thinking about her and what had happened only made his situation worse. So he pushed those thoughts aside and tried to focus on something useful.
He needed to get out of there and, somehow, make his way back to the Palace. He never thought he'd say it, but that was probably the safest place for him all things considered. But if he did manage to drag himself out of the cabin, there was still the annoying fact he was being hunted.
He doubted the girl had been the one to fire the arrow, so that meant there was someone else out to get him. And all alone in that cabin, barely able to move, and feeling like death warmed over, he was a prime target.
Perry hated feeling helpless, and he hated depending on others. But he wasn't too proud to recognize he'd probably not make it out of there alive on his own. He needed Mal. Where the hell was he?
"Mal?" The nickname was barely more than a pitiful croak and led to another coughing fit. Pain almost made him pass out when he forced himself to sit up. Damn it he would force his body to obey him, no matter what. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Mal?"
Where the hell was he? Wasn't he supposed to protect Perry? So where was he? What, had he suddenly developed the urge to go frolicking in the woods? Weren't bodyguards supposed to be around in life-or-death situations?
It made Perry angry that he wasn't there. It made him even angrier that he needed him to be there in the first place. Since when had he reverted into a helpless child? Perry depended on himself, period.
"Malrik!" The shout felt like it tore something in Perry's throat at the same time that he felt a stabbing pain in his chest. The coughing fit that followed made him lose balance. But, of course, instead of falling back on the couch or bed he was lying on, his body went in the opposite direction.
Realizing he was about to faceplant on the floor of the cabin, Perry instinctively stretched out both arms to brace his fall. Blinding pain tore through him, and he screamed as the floor came up to meet him.