1 Prologue 1: Stasis (M)

His face remained above the surface of the ground. Luckily, he had ended up in this position after slamming through the roof of the building many years ago. He hit the floor with quite hard. His body created a small crater in which it cemented itself in. On that day, it rained. Soil from the walls of the crater slowly washed down. A blanket of soil covered his body. It was like the world itself was burying him into a grave. A muddy unmarked grave.

Well if only it was a grave.

After he had fallen, he knew his body was broken. Rain seeped through the soil and into his open wounds. His body ached with immense pain. He tried to get up. But, the pain batted him down again. He felt his broken bones grind against each other triggering another immense wave of pain through his body.

'I'm done for...' He thought.

~No don't give up yet~ a voice replied.

'There's nothing I can do, I gave it a try and now we are stuck.'

~No you need to get up once more~

~Don't give up, we need you...~

'Leave me be, go, let me here... we tried and we didn't succeed...'

~We won't leave you...~

~I'm staying until you are better.~

He knew that there was nothing he could do. He couldn't cry out for help as he knew that no one nearby would help him. He knew it was his end.

The injuries he had sustained during his fall had wrecked his body. Many of his bones were broken and his condition was dire. As he slowly bled out, he could not move, nor could he make a sound. His eyelids closed and shut tight. However he tried, he didn't have the energy to open them; no matter what happened around him.

Before he lost consciousness he heard the cry of one last voice.

~I'll find a way to save you...~

And he blanked out.

A few days passed. His skin had dried out from the sun. In an effort to heal himself, his body had utilized his own fat and muscle to try to mend his wounds. It was as if all the moisture and fat from underneath the skin had been sucked out. What remained on his body just a layer of skin on a set of bones.

Unable to eat or move from his spot and without help, he was destined to die...

But he didn't.

As more time passed, dirt and dust covered more of his body. Only his darkened face and parts of his chest remained above the soil he lay on; he was a small bump in the dirt if observed from afar. Despite looking like a dried up corpse, he was still alive and breathing. Well barely alive and barely breathing. He had remained this position for a long, long time.

For him it was like he was in a perpetual dream. Time passed him by slowly, yet quickly. He would be feel the warmth from the sun shining through cracks within the treeline and crumbling walls around him. But as the building that was surrounding his body crumbled and so did his body.

At the start of his entombment, he could remain conscious for long periods of time. To him, breathing was a slow and painful process. He could feel his body aching: the pain from his wounds and broken bones, the feeling and temperature of the environment, and itches that he could not scratch.

It was like the world was torturing him by keeping him alive.

Sometimes an intense sunlight would shine through the broken roof onto is body. It burned him and he didn't like it. His already dried skin cracked with the heat which made it worse. He tried to move in response; but no matter how hard he tried, he could not move from his place. He was stuck plastered to the floor without the energy to free himself.

'Please... just let me die...'

~No we won't we will keep you alive, we promised...~

Instead of sunlight, he would often welcome the rain. When it rained, dirt and dust would be washed off his face. When it rained, the his body would become cooler as the cold rain mixed into the soil that surrounded him.

Sometimes the rain felt soothing to him. In other times, his body would freeze.

'Why am I still alive?'

~We are keeping you alive...~

~Don't worry, we got this dear... just rest...~

Time would pass and gentle flakes of snow would take the place of the rain. He hated to be awake during winter. With every flake of snow and every formation of ice, he felt pain as his arms and legs began to freeze. Slowly, he felt the frozen area increase. The ice moved inward from his extremities. Eventually the pain would end as his body would freeze solid and he lost consciousness in the process. Come spring, it he would thaw again and maybe return to consciousness with the coming of spring showers.

'A cold winter, a warm summer, followed by a warmer winter, followed by a hot summer.'

He took note of what he could as the seasons passed him by.

~It's been a while, since you woke up...~

~I'm bored...~

~You'll be up soon, Ato has a plan...~

Although his state was almost unbearable, he enjoyed awakening in the spring and summer. The sun became more bearable as a young forest had grown into the area surrounding the dilapidated building. During this time, sounds of wind rattling the leaves of the young forest and the cries of beasts would fill his ears. The sound of nature was wonderful and soothed him like a gentle musical peace would to a child before bedtime.

One time he felt that something was different. Instead of waking to a cool morning or warm summer breeze or to the burning sun, he woke up to puffs of moist stinky air. In and out in and out. It was rhythmic. But he knew that something bad was about to happen. Something had found his body.

'Am I going to die?What does look like? What color is it? Does it have giant teeth? Am I finally going to die? ...Maybe it's here to help me.' many thoughts and questions appeared in his mind all within a brief moment.

Unknown to him, it was a beast. Quadrupedal and muscular, its four yellow eyes had found the body that was poking through the dirt. It had simple thoughts. Hungry. Food. Its large single mouth that spanned 80% of its belly opened and revealed three lines of yellow teeth.

Normally, it was an ambush predator. It's rock shaped back helped it camouflage with the forest when it lay down. Plants and herbs grew on top of it and attracted wandering herbivores. When it sensed prey, it would wait until it approached. When a herbivore did approach it, most of them would attempt to climb its back to reach the herbs. In response, the beast would kick two of its legs up and flip a surprised herbivore. Unfortunately for the unlucky herbivore, a painful death would befall on at as the beast would take its chance to swallow it in one bite. A painful death at the mercy of rows of sharp teeth.

This time the beast had found a free meal laying in the broken down building. It didn't care if it was a corpse. Food was food. To maintain a it's large body size, it needed sustenance. Having not eaten in a while scavenging was its best choice.

Bending down it opened its giant mouth. Strands of putrid drool dripped from its sharp teeth onto the "corpse's" body.

'It's coming.'

Encased in his soil tomb, he waited for the inevitable to come. As the beast's mouth approached closer and closer, he felt the air around him heat up even more with the beast's breathes. The stench was almost unbearable and the thought of dying caused him tensed up. He stopped breathing momentarily. He tried to seem more unappetizing than he already was.

And...

The source of the warm air disappeared.

Thud.

Something heavy fell in the distance.

Riled up from the experience, his consciousness started to fade once more. Before he blacked out, he questioned to himself. 'What... what just happened?'

Unknown to him, the beast had been slain. Something had been protecting him the whole time. Deep down in his mind, he knew what had protected him, but due to the passage of time, he had forgotten.

The beast had been punctured twice by something sharp. Jet black blood flowed out of its open wounds and into the soil below it. Mixing with the soil, the blood eventually reached his body. Strangely, his body absorbed the blood and his wounds healed, if only a little. His cracked skin regenerated a small bit in the process.

After being stuck in his position, this scene was actually quite common. When he was unconscious, scavenging monsters and carnivores would find his body. When they tried to devour him, they would meet their demise.

Attracted to the dead bodies of other monsters and beasts, more scavengers would find his body. Their deaths drove the constant cycle and slowly but surely, thousands of monsters were slain over many years. With every death, his body recovered. But he was still unable to stay conscious or move from his position. His consciousness remained faded and instead, he woke up less often.

~Something is missing...~

As his consciousness began to fade out more often, the passing of time became unknown to him. His consciousness would slip in and out and suddenly autumn would become summer. His track of time became muddled and disappeared.

His thoughts slowly faded and his mind became blank.

Many years had now passed. The number of times he woke up became even more sparse. Sometimes the intervals spanned years, even decades.

'Something's gone missing...'

Slowly, he became a useless body stuck the dirt. He didn't have the ability to move and lost his ability to think and to feel. He became a corpse. A corpse that wasn't actually a corpse, but a live body that could barely breathe, didn't rot, and didn't die.

'Why and how did I end up this position again?'

He didn't know anymore. His memories slowly faded with the passage of time just like his consciousness.

Over the years, the soil near his body had darkened significantly from when he fell through the roof. The soil was fertilized by the blood and dead beasts that were slain near his body making it highly suitable for herbs and plants to grow. And they did. They created a blanket of color and released sweet scents that covered the aura of death from all the monsters had died near his body.