Chapter 1: The Unending Nightmare

???'s POV

The Fog... My home.

I had long grown accustomed to this animate white haze even though it almost completely obscured my vision. Just like a real home, it was comfortable, and it was safe.

It protected me from the horrors of the past, and the unknown future.

At home, all I did was sleep. I had no worries, and I could pay no mind to what happened on the outside.

Because only hurt and sorrow awaited on the outside...

Yet, the pain had now found its way to me, even here within my home.

It had started small, like the prickle of a needle... Now it felt like an executioner was hammering mercilessly against my cranium with a bloody mace, over and over again.

The pain was unrealistic, maddening, and unimaginably excruciating.

And it was here again.

I gasped, panicking as I was suddenly assaulted by the horrible torment.

I attempted to move away, but the pain followed me, traveling across my body.

My head swung back, my lips parted in a silent scream.

My insides felt like they were ablaze, starvation and dehydration gnawing at my organs. My joints were stiff and cranky, and my body shivered repeatedly to the fever I was having.

I was plagued with even more ails, most of which I could not immediately comprehend.

I wanted to go back to sleep, my body was screaming for me to. The boulder I had my back against felt more comfortable than the bed I lay on when I was a baby.

But I could not, I could not escape this because it was nearing the time for me to awaken.

I could not breathe.

Why? Why was the air so heavy and viscous within my nasal tract?

'W... where am I?'

I grimaced and forced my eyelids open, fighting through the misery the piercing influx of light brought.

The world was blurry before my eyes. For the first few seconds after, I could see next to nothing.

The recovery of my vision was slow. Gradually, the colors scattered around began to converge, settling into blurry black silhouettes.

One of them was particularly large as if it was right in front of me.

'What is... is that?'

I asked myself.

'...A dog? A black bird?'

The figure before my eyes continuously blurred in and out of focus, making the outline difficult to understand. Yet, perhaps inspired by my famished state, I recognized its actions.

It seemed to be eating, devouring something.

I found all my attention drawn to what it held between what appeared to be a black beak.

'It is eating...'

It raised its head as it struggled to swallow, and ultimately failed to since the target object had some sort of cord still attaching it to the helmeted head it was pulled out of.

Then the bird began to struggle to detach the eye from the—

'...An eye?'

Realization hit me like a bolt of thunder, followed by a moment of clarity. The mirage of blurred images began to settle into different grotesque scenes, each more visceral than the first.

Gruesomely mutilated corpses: disemboweled, decapitated, riddled with arrows... All of the most visually upsetting ways of murder on exhibit, as if they were the most common things–because they were, here.

Suddenly, I knew where I was. The stench made it hard to breathe, the scavengers gathered to feast on the horrid spectacle...

The setting sun dyed the sky in woeful shades of purple and red, the wind sang a doleful wail as it blew over the scene.

It was a battlefield.

No, that's wrong...

[You survived.]

I shivered, startled, then turned ever so slowly, to gaze at the direction the voice had come from.

"I did... It...seems I fainted..."

[Indeed.]

An indescribable masculine voice responded from the figure standing meters away from where I was seated.

I cautiously settled my gaze on him, reminding myself even in my state that he was not of this world.

He was clothed in a pristine white archaic robe that hid almost every single detail of his body; his arms were hidden beneath its large sleeves, and its overall length covered down to even his feet.

There was not a single blemish on His robe, not even as its hem wafted over the corpses he walked to me.

Yet, these were not what substantiated the reality of his otherworldliness to me. No, it was the only visible feature of his essence.

Underneath his hood was a shroud of absolute darkness that my eyes were unable to see through.

Only his eyes were visible to me, and they were the most unearthly things I had ever seen.

He had golden-colored irises that glowed so bright they shone like two morning suns. In those micaceous irises, were two black arrows: one shorter than the other, connected at the center of his eyes.

These arrows were in a constant rotational motion... like the sails of a windmill.

Compared to those eyes, his flawlessly white clothes were just that... Unblemished clothes.

Reaching me, his ancient voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once echoed in my ears;

[Remember your purpose here. The reason you are the only one still alive.]

His words were like tobacco. They burned into my body and mind, stripping me of every sentiment that may have posed a hindrance or distraction towards this purpose that he was reminding me of.

I forgot everything. Pain, hunger, dehydration...

...The sickening feeling of déjà vu rising from my very core.

None of it mattered anymore.

I turned and pulled out a broadsword from the body lying beside me. The corpse's rotting innards spilled grotesquely from the large gash the blade's exit left as I rose to my feet.

I was fitted in a now filthy chainmail vest over a red long-sleeved cloth and same-colored pants. At my feet and hands were heavy brown leather boots and leather gloves.

I stared down at the corpse that was outfitted similarly as I was, then looked at the broadsword that ended his life. The hilt had a sigil of an eight-pointed star, with a circle drawn in its center embedded on it...

Whoever it was that owned this blade was a worshipper of Space...

Not that I cared.

I began walking with huge strides through hundreds of thousands of corpses, stretching on for as far as my heavy eyes could see.

As I walked through the land covered in death, my mind trailed away from the sights before me.

I reminisced of a night years ago when I stood amongst other children in our village and stared in awe as a star fell from among the host of them up in the night sky.

It was said to have landed in the mountains south of our kingdom, Lordan. The fishermen that stopped by our village whispered that it had laid waste to four villages, that it had leveled a portion of the mountains, and that the crater from its impact reached the coast.

They said at the center of it all was the star... still glowing just as it had when it was in the sky.

'A piece of the heavens... they had initially called it...'

The royal army of King Grewart the Second had ridden through the kingdom for days to investigate the strange meteorite and take it back to the capital city.

Beside me, the figure began to move.

His steps beneath his pristine robe were steady, unperturbed by the stygian deadland all around him.

His footsteps made no sound. The swarms of insects around did not approach him, even those in his path parted as he neared them, and gathered again after he had passed, and the scavengers merely stepped out of his way as if it was the most natural thing to do.

It looked as if he was floating.

I was reminded yet again that he was not of this world.

Perhaps he truly had been there to witness those events he had narrated throughout our journey...

The thought birthed questions about the nature of his existence again, but I could not be bothered about it now.

He had proven himself trustworthy by getting me to this point, now it was my turn to play my part... To end this game of those bastards...

'The gods.'

I gritted my teeth as I thought of the Divine rulers of the realms, before venting my rage on a rat that had fattened itself on the flesh of the dead so much that it failed to scurry away from my path.

I thought back to my childhood... the collapse of it.

During the harvest season when I was seven lunar years old, there was a popular rumor among returning traders that many vicars from the Empire on the LEVWIN mainland had received some kind of revelation from the gods.

They claimed that the fallen star was a gift from the gods, and that gift should be shared by all nations.

...A year later, our continents' shores fell under various skirmishes, a joint invasion of the other mainlands.

My village was one of those settlements.

I could still hear the people's screams...

My mother...

My little sister...

My father...

How many years did I despair? How many times did I beg for life? For death?

I grew up as a child, orphaned by the war, moving from one town to another, feeding off scraps, getting abused...

At first, I held on to the strong belief that my life would get better eventually and that the war would come to an end. Like in the stories the women in the village used to tell us... I would see the light at the end of the tunnel.

But there was no tunnel and no light. Only starvation, death, and suffering.

No matter how many soldiers lost their lives in the war, thousands more replaced them.

The war encroached deeper into the Continent each year. The Capitals of Edomia and Gibleot had already fallen to the assault from the Levwin mainland, and Linmeleot had been conquered by the giants of Srhusia.

At some point in my life, I gave up and just kept living life as I saw it.

After years of misery, my arduous journey seemingly came to equilibrium as I and the sole companion I had left arrived at a relatively safe town within the eastern reaches of the Kingdom.

Nonetheless... So what if it was? Even after eleven years, the war was still as ardent as it ever was, how long till it caught up to me again?

Every day new refugees would troop into the town, and not just the Lordanish, but even Reidanish villagers crossed the borders of their country in search of the same solace I believed I had found.

People would mourn those they had lost, and orphaned children would sit beside the streets crying for their parents, believing they would come for them.

It was a nightmare we could not wake from... An unending nightmare.

[We are here.]

The ancient voice sounded in my head, snapping me out of a somber daze.

I came to a halt in front of a cluster of heavily armored corpses, each belonging to men who just from their builds alone, would easily stand out among multitudes.

Yet, here they were, rotting corpses.

I turned to my guide and he raised his right hand hidden underneath the large white sleeve of his robe, and pointed to a certain body that stood out, even among the others.

The sight of the body brought back a long-forgotten memory from when I was younger. His shiny chain mail, his pauldron and metal chest plate with the Lordanish insignia on it; an eagle perched on a sword pinned vertically on top of a mountain, his black leather gloves, blood-red pants, black boots...

I could not help the weak smile that tugged at the corner of my lip.

Under the instruction of my guide, I proceeded to search through the corpse of the man whose armor distinguished him as a lordanish war general.

Eight arrows stuck out from his figure; two through the chain mail on the right side of his chest, one of which must have punctured his lung. One through his lower abdomen just beneath his chest plate, multiple through his legs, and one just underneath his jaw, through his neck...

'This must have been the blow which killed him—'

And finally...

"Haha... Finally, I found it!"

I completely forgot everything about the corpse as I screamed those words, my excitement audible even through my hoarse voice.

Laughing croakily, I heaved a bag out from the dirt and blood behind the man, the words brought pain to my throat, but my excitement downplayed the pain.

"I–I found it! I found it!! This is it, r–right?!"

[To think he would try to bury it even in his last moments. What... dedication.]

I ignored the words of the being behind me. All I needed was the confirmation that it was indeed the thing we had set out to find, his actual words were of no immediate concern to me.

With my attention centered on the bag in my hand, I relished the feeling of accomplishment... recalling the words he first said to me.

That day he had appeared out of thin air in the middle of the gloomy starless night. His figure was unaffected by darkness as if it were afraid of touching him, and his words had a mysterious tone that echoed from all directions as he said to me;

[Do you hate the gods for not answering your prayers?]

[Do you wish for your son to grow up in a world without meaningless warring?]

[Do you desire to end this nightmare?]

Of course, at first, I didn't trust him, much less after everything he revealed to me— I even suspected he was god himself, or at least a Sprite who hated the gods.

But it all changed after my wife, who had been pregnant at that time, gave birth... She gave birth to a boy.

How had he known our child would be a boy?

It could have been a coincidence, after all, you could only either have a boy or a girl, any lucky guess could have been right. I wanted to dismiss it as such...

But with a being like that, were there such things as coincidences? It reminded me of the whole enigma that surrounded the very thing that led to the chaos in the first place.

A piece of heaven had fallen from the sky.

With each passing day, the invasion of our continent progressed.

How long until I was forced to move again? With my wife nursing a baby, how would we be able to travel across the Kingdom until we find another haven?

Would I... have to relive "that day" again?

That night, when my newborn son and wife were fast asleep, I stepped outside of our home... and wept the whole night.

He appeared to me again a few more times, always ending with the same offer...

[Do you desire to end this nightmare?]

"Why me?"

I had asked once. His response had been:

[Because you are special, you were born with a powerful soul, and the hardships that you have faced have only made you stronger... It is the perfect cauldron for the one who shall save the realms.]

It was an ambiguous reply. Most of it made no sense to me, however, I imagined he may have been speaking of something akin to a hero.

In other words, I had the soul of a hero... I was destined to be a hero.

I had heard such tales when I was a child.

A boy from a small village chosen by the gods during times of crises and darkness to be a beacon for peace and light...

But all I wanted was a world where my son and wife would be safe, not to be some hero.

It was that very drive that I based my decision upon, and even though I did not trust him, I accepted his invitation to join him on his quest... As he called it, though I grew to believe rather than that, it was more like the tales of the chosen hero being led by a god.

The days were hellish, the nights grueling.

Many a time, I found myself full of regret.

But for my son to live, and not live through what I did, I persevered.

And now, I could feel it in my very being that I had reached the end of my journey.

Perhaps it was all worth it.

Now, I was at the moment of truth. I opened the bag to reveal a multicolored glow,

[...]

Warm light pierced my eyes. I would have hissed in pain and irritation if I was not immediately stunned by the magnificence of the object at the center of the iridescent luminance.

"H...how beautiful..."

I said in my hoarse voice full of awe, but then his voice reached me, startling me out of my entranced state.

[Do not gaze upon it for more than an instant.]

I fumbled with my grip on the sack at the sudden warning, turning the bag upside down and dumping the head-sized "rock" on the grimy floor in the process.

The Sapphaix. That was what he called it.

It looked like it was roughly carved out of a rainbow-colored bedrock. Even if I ignored the fact that a solid of that size weighed next to nothing, each of its innumerable, uneven facets glowed of a different color.

'How can something like this even exist?' I wondered to myself.

I watched the light pulsate slowly as if imitating a beating heart, then muttered uncertainly to the being.

"W... what now?"

His clock eyes shifted from the meteorite to focus on me for a few seconds, I watched his golden irises expand and contrast repeatedly in that moment.

I could have sworn I saw a hint of vulnerability in those eyes... Then he gave a flat reply:

[Destroy it.]

Two simple words, yet I felt my heartbeat quicken. This was it, the moment I had gone through all the agony to see. The day I would change the world with my own hands!

I tightened my grip on the sword I held, before raising it high above my head with both hands.

[Wait.]

My body froze at the sudden order and I threw a tense glance back at the robed figure. His multicolored eyes were once again focused on the multicolored rock—

'Huh?'

My thoughts halted, a strong feeling of incongruity momentarily washing over me.

He suddenly raised his hand and pointed to my sword.

What happened next could only be described as incogitable, in all honesty, my mind failed to accurately comprehend it. What I did know, was that afterward, the blade of the broadsword in my hand was abruptly engulfed in strange white flames.

My parched lips parted into a wide menacing grin, and all I needed was a simple nod of approval from him.

My sword came down with such speed it traced a beautiful sliver arc as it sliced through the air, and with a deafening sound, clashed with the Sapphaix.

Time seemingly froze the moment my sword made impact. The shrill sound of iron rebounding off a hard surface echoed eerily in the corpse field that had gone completely still.

And then, all at once, every single scavenger within the vicinity took to the skies in a roaring tide of beating wings, feathers... and terrified caws. I could even see insects and rodents hastily fleeing frantically.

But I had no time to ponder their intense reactions... almost as suddenly, an explosion of bright white light flooded the whole area.

"Ack! Wh–what is this?! What is happening?!!"

I screamed as the sword in my hand was instantly vapourised in its entirety. It was so bright and hot, for a moment I had the illusion of being right in front of the sun.

[With this step, the nightmare will soon come to an end...]

The usually apathetic voice of the being reached my ears with a tone so full of heavy melancholy that I felt my heart tighten.

But I could not focus on those words. After the sword, the skin and flesh on my fingers disintegrated next, leaving only bones... those too became dust the next moment.

The process continued forward, eating me away quickly, and excruciatingly.

"IT HURTS!! IT HURTS!! HELP ME!! RAAAAHHH!!!!—"

★★★★★★

In a dimly lit bedroom, a boy no more than fifteen years of age could be seen struggling under his blanket, writhing in pain.

"MHHHH!!!!"

He woke with a scream, his brain panic-stricken. He attempted to open his eyes, but he found that he was unable to.

He was also unable to draw in a proper breath. The smell of smoke and the stench of rotting corpses still filled his nostrils, somehow blocking out the passage of air.

Another scream rose from the pit of his stomach, but just like the first, it was muffled by the—

The boy hurriedly rolled on his side and sucked in a desperate breath as he sat up. His shoulders heaved as he continued to gulp in the air.

Suddenly he spun and smacked away the pillow he had been lying face down on. It flew off the bed, but the boy did not bother to see where it landed.

He clutched tightly onto the chest area of his sweat-drenched pajamas, shivering at the scorching feeling of death still wrenching his heart.

"Fuck...!!"

He screamed between labored breaths.

The contrast between his loud voice and the quiet night brought him a much-needed moment of clarity. Though he still strained each breath, his eyes wandered around the current setting.

Among the assortment of things he gazed upon, it was the huge brown wardrobe, the bookshelf, and finally laptop computer resting atop a desk that his eyes lingered on the most.

The first two contained things he cherished, and the third was his most valued possession. At the moment, the bright screen of the computer served as the only source of light, barely illuminating a finite radius around it.

The boy's breathing gradually calmed as he became sure of his location, being the safety of his bedroom.

"..."

When his breaths were stable, he silently loosened his grip on his burgundy-colored shirt, muttering to himself:

"...It—"

He hesitated... as if the words he was about to speak were accursed.

"Was just that nightmare again..."

Perhaps they were. The nightmare was no different from a curse after all.

"Yes~!"

The boy paled at the voice that suddenly erupted from the speakers of his laptop computer.

"Ahn~ Ah~ yes! Harder!"

Springing from the bed, he hurried straight to his laptop and slammed it shut. He winced at the forcefulness of his own action, then stiffened as silence descended within the room.

The boy remained still, breathing quietly as he listened for any sounds coming from outside the room— approaching footsteps in particular.

There were none.

"Too close..."

He released his hold over his breath, and collapsed into the chair in front of the table with a weary sigh, staring up at the ash ceiling of the bedroom.

After taking a moment to rub off whatever traces of sleep still lingered in his eyes, he pushed himself off the chair and dragged his feet towards the bedroom window.

Parting the curtains slightly, he stared up at the dark gray sky, then looked down at the barely-lit street and watched a stray cat run by.

Frowning, he turned around and stared at the digital alarm clock on his desk.

"4 am? God..."

He groaned, then dragged himself back to his bed and simply fell into the soft embrace of the sheets. His arms felt around for his pillow, and then he recalled smacking it away and groaned even louder.

Cursing under his breath, he rolled lazily and switched on the bedside lamp. The fluorescent light from the lamp instantly illuminated a substantial portion of the room, nonetheless, the boy only had his eyes on a calendar pinned on the wall in a corner.

Six numbers representing the days of the month had "x" crosses on them... this very day would be joining them too, once he felt energetic enough to get up again.

He crossed his right hand over his face.

The day was Wednesday, the seventh of Soltveir, the eighth month of the year.

Daniel had that nightmare again.