The Nightmare

A tall burly man, takes a step out of a doorway leading into a short hallway. To his left is a wall, while straight in front of him is a second door leading to a different room. Shutting the door, he continued walking to his right and down the stairs leading to a table and 4 chairs in a medium room as well as another hallway.

As he walked down the stairs, a series of thunks flowed through the house awakening a waiting personage. Suddenly appearing in front of the staircase, a smaller yet still sturdy woman stands imposingly, arms folded.

"Safotz." A cold voice rang out.

"Y-Yara?" The man stopped startled at his wife's unusually cold spirit.

"Do you know what time it is." A wrathful voice filled the atmosphere as the two stared in silence.

In the tense moment, Safotz couldn't keep his gaze and was forced to shyly look to the side. Just as he did so, A sudden scream echoed through the house.

~

A child's body was lifted out of bed and the cold winter air immediately surrounded his body. It reached under his short sleeve shirt and pants, as well as causing his bare feet to clench. However, he forced himself to keep them open, in order to not arouse suspicion.

"Looks like we got two little birds and a hawk." A bold voice struck through the piercing cold wind. Still remaining 'asleep', Lavitz was set down on a cold flat wood surface. Hearing what sounded like a door closing, he decided to take a glimpse of what's in front of him.

His mother and his father, blood oozing from their skulls, laying across from him in the back of what seemed to be a carriage. His eyes shot open and he instinctively was about to scream, but his hands restrained him by blocking all air and sound from entering and leaving his body.

He looked around in a panic, luckily nobody else was in the box that seemed to be boarded on all sides by wood planks. He crawled over to check on his parents, they were still breathing, however they had only been knocked unconscious. Relieved, he reluctantly took a look at the sides of the wagon, all sides were sturdy other than one which moved slightly when he press his hand on it.

Looking through a crack that appeared, a bright light was burning the surroundings as a tall figure and a smaller one walked slowly towards the carriage.

Hurriedly he went back into the position he was in before when a voice was seemingly shot into his mind.

'Don't be afraid'

Images filled his head, leaving his mind numb causing him to fall down, just as he barely got back into his position the side of wagon split open completely.

A 6 foot demonic figure appeared, jumping towards the small child. It's entire body coated in shiny black and rigid pointy ears, horns, and shoulders seemed sharp enough to kill. It's eyes glowing a disastrous red with an orange flame leaking through. In fear, he shouted and shut his eyes and using his hands to cover his face. Although he only saw it for a second. This figure's muscular demonic appearance was engraved into his mind. As he screamed, he suddenly felt the warmth of a blanket surround him as he was being shaken furiously.

Shocked his eyes jolted open and Safotz was shaking the entire bed back and forth, practically lifting the entire frame off of the ground and then slamming it back down. In a panic Safotz, seeing his son's eyes open, started to ramble.

"Are you alright, Lavitz? I heard a scream and when I came in you were sweating, and freezing cold and I didn't know what to do, I tried shaking you, but you wouldn't move and and and..."

Yara came rushing through the door with a warm blanket.

"Yara hurry he's still freezing, but he's awake though, I don't know what this means, but..."

"I'm fine" Lavitz interrupted his worried father as Yara covered him with another warm blanket and spoke softly while heat quickly returned to his body.

"I think you should sleep in our room tonight"

Hearing this, Safotz had already taken liberty and pulled the child out of bed, lifted six feet above the floor with his warm blanket dripping down. While laying on Safotz' shoulder.

The man said in a rough voice. "Would you like to listen to the story".

"Yes" Lavitz replied knowing that Safotz was only doing this to calm himself.

Safotz took a glance at Yara, as he tried to continued his story from where he had left off no more than 10 minutes ago.

"Growing bored of..."

They laid down in the bed as Safotz was speaking, however Lavitz was only pondering on what had just happened in the dream. When he thought about it the images that appeared were still there. Each showed a diagram with some text describing it. Before he got any information Safotz started spitting out new information.

"In anger they split, Uguns and Zeme evolving beasts into intelligent beast folk and Ūdens and Gaiss working together to defend humanity. However, for unknown reasons, the creatures who seemingly killed the previous humans, had alternatively captured them, creating a separate society of humans in the forests, caves, and mountains creating evolved races of human. Elves of the forest, Dwarves of the mountain, Draconic peoples of the cave, and some devolved races such as Lizard folk, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, Trolls, Giants, Ogres, and many undiscovered. Another group also appeared, consisting of the first humans that had been created, still thriving having absorbed the last of the remaining ichor in the atmosphere. They became a superior Specter race, independent from all other races, each man as strong as 100.

Overtime naturally borders began to form, with land division of the world consisting of half for pure monster, a quarter for the devolved humans, and another quarter for the humans, evolved humans, beast folk, and spector. The 4 deities now split completely. Uguns favoring the Draconic, Zeme favoring the Beast folk, Ūdens favoring the humans, and Gaiss favoring the Specter. Leaving the Elves with the nutrients of nature and Dwarfs with the will of the mountain.

As these separated races live and multiply, a war burst out in order to destroy all the camps of devolved humanity. But as a result, the races powered by the deities defeated all the Dwarves and the Elvish empire as well. Thus leaving the Draconic, Beast folk, Human, and Specter Races ruling over a third of all the land, in a form of confederation.

Remaining this way six hundred years when the Beast folk are all massacred by a unit of mysterious murderers, soon reviewed later the murderers being the original humans having become hungry for power and desiring more land. After this display the deities acted against them and dispersed the ichor built up by humanity back into the atmosphere to wander, all except for a small part.

This was stolen by one person who was crowned the supreme ruler by the masses. The last remaining powered Specter, who teaches the secret absorbing technique to hundreds of thousands in hope to find a capable host to cultivate the power of ichor again, after the Spector people lost all the ichor they had built up naturally. This was in order to find worthy people to become his brothers in arms in the fight with the pure monster. This is due to the... ever... lasting...

Lavitz realized that his old man had drifted off, and began searching his memory again. Out of nowhere, his face lightened and he made a huge grin. However it was well hidden in the darkness as he calmly asked his father.

"Do you have any ichor?"

"Huh...? Oh, no." He was surprised that his son was awake, but answered his question and went back to sleep.

"Ha..." A soft astonished gasp rang out as the child went back to sleep.