Freedom? Or Just Another Cage...

Pain... that is all that Markus felt at that moment. From just a few minutes ago he escaped from his master and attempted to run out of the doors to freedom. When he barged through those cold double doors he saw a glowing circle.

The circle was surrounded by the beheaded guards corpses. Their blood was being absorbed into the circle. The smell of death permeated through the air. A lone sorcerer was chanting a spell through the misty room. Ignoring Markus he continued chanting.

"YOU GET BACK HERE YOU HELOT. YOU CAN'T ESCAPE!" His masters guardsmen yelled as they chased him up the stairs to the temples doors. Afraid and hurt, Markus continued into the middle of the room with the circle. Sprinting into the middle of the room Markus suddenly stops.

The chanting was finished, the lone sorcerer walked towards the circle but stopped when he saw Markus standing on the dead center. He didn't even realize that they were there. "Hey what are you doing here? Isn't everyone supposed to be preparing to send Fafhara through to the next world?"

"Stop him you idiot wizard! He killed the master!" The guards shout as they slam the doors open. They were in the room for a full 10 seconds before they got pushed through the doors by a large gust of wind.

"The hell did you call me? A wizard is someone who does cheap tricks... AND I AM NOT A WIZARD!" Sending lightning bolts through the air, the sorcerer was too prideful to let these hooligans go, even if they were right then that means that he was free from that evil mans grasp too.

A slave was much less worry some then knights with swords. Walking towards the circle Markus tried to figure out how to activate whatever it was that it did. He picked up a couple crystals and moved them to random spots written in the shining circle.

Eventually the circle started to glow brighter and brighter until the whole room was lit up. "NO, Thats my way out of this hell hole!" The sorcerer yelled as he jumped towards the portal. His master was the one that was supposed to be the one to use the portal to another land but it was HIS creation, HE deserved to use it second.

But before he could jump towards the portal Markus disappeared in a blinding flash. The guards used the opportunity to swing their weapons at the sorcerer, decapitating his head in one fell swoop. They stood stunned as they were left alone in the room.

With no master to guide them and no slaves to punish they left. The sole survivors of a now forgotten temple had become wanderers.

Pain

Pain was the only thing that Markus was able to feel for the longest time. It was like the cold floors during a winter storm. The stone floors carried an echo of the chill all throughout the year. Then the heat. It reminded Markus of the blazing heat from the torture that he had to endure.

And then nothing, all of it just stopped. There was no chill, no heat, not even any light. Just darkness. For the first time he tried to open his eyes, and what he saw was magnificent. Stars, planets, and galaxies just floating inside this unperceivable blanket of night.

But then he tried to look closer, and what he saw terrified him. All of the stars, planets, and galaxies light just started... disappearing... as if they just ceased to exist. A wave of something darker, something stronger than what he could imagine, swept through the blanket at an unimaginable speed.

Or was it extremely slow? He had no way of knowing because he was far away alone. He watched as the trillions of lights around him slowly dimmed until they disappeared. Until he was truly alone, it was coming for him next.

He knew it. There was a sense of dread rising from deep within him. He had just seen countless lights vanish under his gaze but he had been indifferent to all of them. If anything he felt a small amount of pity. Was where he came from one of those lights? Did his home get destroyed?

Did he ever have a home? None of that mattered as he could sense the destructive wave charging at him. He tried to brace for impact... but nothing hit him. The wave rushed past him with the fury it had held but ignored him.

Well that's what Markus thought. Something started to hurt, then his arm, then his torso, then his whole body. It felt as if he was disintegrating into nothingness. A lone consciousness floating in the void. It was peaceful, almost.

He finally had no pain, no worries, no thoughts... but as the wave finally passed by him he could feel it. His body was being reconstructed piece by piece. Using the power of the wave Markus rebuilt his body to be durable, to be fast, to be able to move how he wanted to... To be strong.

The wave wisped past him and he could finally see again. Left in the wake was the lights... dimmer yet stronger. As if they had been tempered by the darkness. And then everything went blank.

Markus had finally achieved death. His body unable to be put to use. The years of torture and pain gone in an instant. All that he had hoped and dreamed of doing was forgotten in the darkness. "The weave is a powerful thing. Stronger than anything." His last thought echoed into the darkness.

Then everything fades and goes black.

"Hey kid get up. We need to move the cart through security." A gruff voice woke Markus. He stood up quickly, thinking that what had just happened was a dream. Looking around he found the source of the voice. An old man who looked to be a merchant. Strange, his master never invited the richer guests into the slave quarters.

"Yes sir, anything I can help with?" He asked trying to convey hints of subservience to lessen his masters torture later.

"Oh, since your in such a good mood today then you can take the horses and feed them while we wait for our turn. We thought that you were dead because you didn't wake up two days ago. Good to see your still alive." The old man said.

Taking the horses reigns Markus walked through the door. Stepping on the grass he looked to try and find the hay for the horses. The sun blinded him as he walked around... the sun? He stopped and looked at the clear blue sky. "Freedom"

"What was that?" The old man yelled from the tent. "Nothing!" Markus was finally free. The weird spell had worked. He didn't know where he was or what had happened to him in that black wave but he was free, and that is all that mattered to him.