2 A New Name

After a thorough search, he found no clues regarding his identity in the underground chamber where he had been slumbering. What was surprising, however, was the tunnel that led to the surface. It was a long winding and twisting tunnel that seemed to stretch on forever. He found hints of dirt seeping down from the tunnel walls, yet the walls seemed surprisingly intact from the decay of time. Perhaps he had not been slumbering for that long.

When he finally found the exit, what he first noticed was that he was inside a cave. It was dark inside. The darkness, however, held no discomfort for him. His eyes were able to see in all but total darkness, he had found. The height of the cave was by no means large, just about twice his height. As he proceeded further outward, the ceiling became lower and lower until he was forced to crouch.

The small sliver of light that shone through the small exit of the cave was barely perceptible and he was forced into a crawl to go through the opening. He wondered how the two intruders ever managed to find such a small opening. The two human intruders had been new adventurers hoping to find rare minerals inside the unexplored cave. It was unfortunate that they found him instead. But fortunate for him, however.

With some care, he divested all of the necessary clothing from the male human. He was certain, judging form his humanoid anatomy, that he was male. Thus, courtesy of the male human, he was now wearing a loose fitting tunic that went just shy of his knees, a pair of dusty leather pants, and brown boots that were uncomfortably tight and stained with dried blood. The male intruder had not been a small man, just shy of perhaps six feet. He was, however, a tad over six feet.

Exiting the cave, he found himself in what was known as the Outlands, home to all sorts of unsavory creatures, monsters, humanoids, and oddities. The Outlands was a vast unexplored place that stretched on almost endlessly. The land, however, was not simply called the Outlands for its wide landscape. It was also known for its variety of strange habitats that seemed to sprout magically from out of nowhere. The Outlands, simply put, was outlandish.

To be exact, he wasn't exactly inside the Outlands yet. He was only at the edge of it. Being an unexplored land full of unprecedented dangers, strange species, monsters, opportunities, and oddities, the Outlands attracted explorers and adventurers alike. And the two human intruders that had awakened him were adventurers.

The fragmented memories he had stolen from the two intruders had given him this useful information and a rough idea of where he was.

Looking around, he noticed that he was standing in the middle of several mountainous ridges sparsely populated with shrubs and the occasional lone trees whose trunks curved outward unnaturally. The ridges were long and wide with gentle steeps and seemed to stretch on endlessly northward. North was most likely the wrong direction and would probably only lead him deeper into the Outlands. Eastward, he could distantly see an enormous forest. Westward, he could only see the continuation of the ridges. This left him with only one direction. South was where the humans lived and where he would find clues to the knowledge he sought--what and who he was.

But first he needed a new name to interact with the people of these lands. And from the fragmented memories of the two humans, he had found just the right mixture of syllables--

'Azul.' That would be his new name. Rolling his tongue, he played with the sounds the name produce. Yes, it sounded just right to him. It also confirmed to the strange language he knew deep inside.

-------------------

It took Azul the better part of two days for the ridges to shrink from his view, and to find himself in what could only be considered vast plains. He was surprised at his own knowledge of the geography of the lands. It seemed to Azul that he had only lost memories of his past life. He had not lost his common sense or knowledge, granted he did lose his recognition of the wild animals.

He did not know what to call the four-legged animals of the plains. The animal had four great horns, thick, faded gray hides, large cloven hooves, twin furry tails and lived in great herds. Their sustenance consisted of only the green and yellow grasses found beneath his feet, which seemed almost bizarre to him. Azul didn't think he could live solely on grass alone. But to each his own, he supposed.

These animals also seemed to be the dominating species of the plains. Barely any of the predators dared to threaten the herds, for fear that the animals would all band together and attack in retaliation. And indeed they did. He had seen some weaker predators gored to death in retaliation after killing one of the herd animals.

While the herd animals may have posed problems to some of the weaker predators, they posed no problems to him. In the course of these two days, he had found that his lithe body seemed to hold both an abnormal strength and speed.

Compared to the two human intruders that awakened him, he was far superior in every physical aspect imaginable. He left a mental note to himself that he would need to test the extreme limitations of his body. He was no human so to speak--that fact, he was certainly sure of.

But it wasn't his strength and speed that were his biggest advantages. All of the animals Azul had passed by seemed to hold an innate fear toward him. When the animals came within five feet of him, their bodies no longer obeyed their true owners. Their muscles became locked in place as if frozen. The fear he seemed to emit had both frozen and silenced them.

Knowing that this would prove to be a problem, Azul had tried various methods to suppress the terror-inducing aura he emitted. He had termed this fear-inducing power as an aura, for the word seemed familiar to him. He didn't speak the same language as the two humans, although he had stolen a few words of their language. Simply knowing a few words, however, did not meant he could speak their language. Thus, he could only describe his world and himself with the sole language he comprehended. He couldn't put a name to the language, so he could only term it as Ancient.

As for his terror-inducing aura, he called it Spheris Malus. His Dread Aura, he called it. The term seemed just right to Azul. Thankfully, it only took most of a day to find out how his Dread Aura worked. It seemed to work like an extra invisible limb and complied to his will easily enough. He only needed to reach deep into his mind and will it. The only reason it had taken him a day was to become familiar enough to control his Dread Aura.

Feeling a small hunger stir inside his stomach, Azul moved toward a herd nearby. He picked the animal closest to the edge. As he moved closer, the grazing animal remained unsuspecting of the danger, so sure was it of the protective safety of being in its herd and of being the dominating species of the plains.

It was only until when Azul was within five feet of the unsuspecting animal that he unleashed his Dread Aura to its fullest power. The mouth that had been chewing the grass so busily froze in place along with the rest of the animal's body. The plains animal was a great big creature, easily twice his size and more than quadruple his weight. Nonetheless, the plains animal could only freeze in fear. Its frozen state did not last long. A few seconds later, the animal keeled over, its heart giving out from the fear.

Even in its last living moments, the animal never knew what had killed it. 'A death in which one never knew one's killer was perhaps the most pitiable,' Azul thought to himself.

At this sudden death, the animal's brethren from all around looked over and charged toward Azul. But when they came within five feet of Azul, their short, stout legs gave way and collapsed underneath their great weight. They fell to the grass with loud thudding noises along with the crunching of grass. To their very last living moments, none of the animals knew how they had died.

When five of the big animals collapsed and died seemingly without a cause, the alpha of the herd finally made grunting noises. To the alpha, it was plain to see that the being before it was beyond its understanding. It could also tell from the obvious corpses of its brethren around the being that this being was the cause of everything. Soon enough, all of the charging plain animals halted to a stop and retreated.

It was a sight for Azul to see more than fifty of the animals retreat in a wild fashion with their alpha leading the way. He sighed to himself at the wasteful deaths. He had only needed one of the herd animals. Now, pooled just in front of him in a disarrayed pile were four extra corpses of the big creatures. Azul knew the deaths had been a necessary deterrence to stop the rest of the herd. Still, he found it both pitiable and wasteful.

After all, he was only slightly hungry.

Azul felt that directly drinking the blood from the animal with his mouth was a disgraceful and somewhat disgusting endeavor. What mattered to him most, however, was that such a method was inefficient. Instead, he simply stabbed his hand into the animal's heart and drained away.

He beckoned to the blood within the animal's body and the blood obeyed, akin to a servant heeding the call of the master. With the absorption of the blood, there came the rush of the animal's long forgotten memories. Azul was now the animal, basking underneath the light of the sun, stampeding with his herd, fighting off predators, and indulging in nature's bounties.

These memories were just mere moments in the animal's life. And interestingly enough, Azul found that he could retain more memories from the two humans he had drained than from the animals. It was not the amount of blood drained, so to speak, for Azul had drained the entirety of the human and animal likewise. Thus, disregarding that, perhaps the retention of memories had something to do with the nature of intelligence?

It was also strange to Azul that his hands could absorb blood so easily. What was even more strange was that it wasn't only his hands that could do such a feat. Instead, his entire body could absorb blood if he willed it. His hands as the medium, however, was still the most efficient method.

Once more, another thing that needed to be added to his growing mental checklist. His dominion over blood would need to be explored furthered.

Azul sighed to himself the next moment. His eyes then widened at the involuntary sigh. Such a new yet familiar emotion left him in a ponderous mood.

Emotions, Azul had found over the past two days, were new yet familiar to him. Every new one was strangely fascinating to Azul.

He had been trapped inside the stilled, blank canvas of a dream for what seemed to be an eternity, after all.

He looked down at the shriveled corpse of the animal. What had once been a great, big dominating creature of the plains was now a mere husk of its former self.

Pitiable. But necessary.