Where and Why

'Could death be where true freedom lies? Is this what I'm feeling now? Floating through this infinite void in between dimensions? This darkness inside me, threatens to drown me every day. But maybe I should just let it? Maybe the darkness is better than the light? There isn't much light left anyway. Within darkness lies the ability to make true change. I want it. I just want to be at peace. Can the darkness help me achieve this? To fall into that unfathomable deep. It's feels so nice...'

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The boy was petrified with terror as he watched his father like a wounded animal. The boy had never done anything like this before so it was unknown to the boy how his father would react. The boy knew it was going to be bad though, just based upon his father's extreme reactions to the minute misdemeanors the boy had committed in the past.

The silence in the room was like a thick soup, so thick with tension the boy felt like he was suffocating in it. The truth was, the boy's father didn't treat the boy any different than he would a random person he found on the street. Malice and cruelty were his father's main weapons and he didn't hesitate to use them, as long as they were more beneficial to him than any other method available. However, most of Arandor's inhabitants didn't know this about the prime senator. They all had a preconceived notion, even though they had never met him, that the prime senator was a kind and benevolent man who cared about his citizens' well-being.

All the good things the boy's father had ever done were, in reality, just a facade, used to improve and maintain the public opinion of himself so that rebellion would never be a thought within anyone's mind.

The boy didn't know the half of it. He was only a boy just learning about the world, how could he know the ins and outs of government and political intrigue. The only thing the boy knew at that time was that his father was an incredibly terrifying man, not someone to be crossed or anger in any way.

And what had the boy just gone and done? Made his father angry. No not angry. His father wouldn't have that visage if all he was was angry

All his father did was stare. Cold eyes gleaming like icy stars in the artificial luminescence.

After what felt like an infinite eternity of the one-sided stare-down, the boy's father snapped his fingers from under his black leather clothing.

The boy almost collapsed in fright from that one snap. It was a death sentence to him, the end of his life for all he knew. The tension in the air grew thicker and if their had been candles in the room instead of the artificial magical lights, they would have sputtered and been extinguished from the seeming lack of air.

But then, the front door to his room opened and in came the guards who had been standing outside along with another set of guards with red and white leathers. These were the renowned Cruor the boy's father transferred last month.

The commander of the Cruor was dragging a small girl by the hair into the room. The girl wore a white summer dress that accented her small frame perfectly and made her seem like an angel descended from the heavens. Well, she would seem that way, if not for the agonized screaming and crying.

The boy's terror turned to immense sorrow and hatred the moment he saw the girl. So profound was the depths of his emotions it seemed to swallow all feasible thought, reason, and matter. The boy knew this girl. Had known her all his life. And he had seen enough of his father's ruthlessness to know where this was going.

This girl was the only true friend he had ever known in his solitary life in the castle. Shortly after his daughter was born, Senator Talcyx brought her to the prime senator's palace on a ritualistic occasion. And, noticing how well Avnar and his daughter got along, the senator let her stay at the palace indefinitely in the hopes the two would grow even more attached as time went on. This way, if the two ever got married, Talcyx would almost inadvertently have a grasp upon the future prime senator's power. Of course this also showed that Talcyx cared very little for his daughter.

Talcyx knew how ruthless and cunning the prime senator was when he felt an affront to his absolute power but felt that planting his daughter in the palace was worth the risk. When Avnar later found out about this through his own deductive reasoning, he couldn't believe it. Not fully understanding human nature at the time, he simply couldn't begin to fathom or comprehend why someone would abandon someone so precious and sweet, in the hopes of gaining a meager political advantage.

Her name was Ertinia, and she was the boy's best friend. And now, she was being held in front of him like a piece of meat to be shown off at the market. Her tears of lamentation tore at the boy's heart and he felt as if he would go insane. However, the fear of his father stilled his body and all he could do was shake like a ninety year old man with arthritis all the while staring at his father pleadingly.

His father got up from the chair with his flat and cold face, walked over to the girl, and harshly held up her chin so she would meet his eyes.

"Your father practically sent you to the slaughter. That must feel horrible, does it not?" Said the prime senator in a voice that was barely a whisper, but was heard by all in the room.

"Father... p-please.. Don't..." The boy stammered with fear. In his mind however, the boy was confused. He had thought this was a punishment for him but from what his father had said, it seemed like this was a punishment for the girl and senator Talcyx. But then again, his father would be punishing all three of them. The boy loved the girl as a sister and best friend, if anything was done to harm her, that would be the boy's punishment. The urge to protect her from harm was so strong that any affront to her health would seem like an apocalypse to the boy. Talcyx would be punished because he wouldn't have his political advantage anymore. And lastly, Ertinia would be punished with whatever harm came to her and the looks of mental torture that arose from the boy's face.

"I will not kill you..." the boy's father whispered in Ertinia's ear, completely ignoring his son's increasing panicked breathing. The boy's mind and face was a literal void of fear and pain. Those words that his father had uttered were the worst thing possible that could have come out of his mouth. Death would be better than what his father was about to say next.

The prime senator turned towards his son and stared directly into the center of the boy's cowardly soul, "let this be a reminder to you son," he emphasized the word son, "that I will not tolerate insurrections from anybody, let alone you."

He said as such and promptly cut off the girl's left pinkie finger.

The boy had not even seen anything, all he saw was a spray of blood and the girl's face as she screamed in pain. And then the all-encompassing darkness as he fell to the ground...

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Somewhere?

I woke up and grimaced at the pain flashing behind my eyes. I groaned in pain and sat up, still not fully comprehending what was going on and what had happened. My head throbbed in a rhythmic pattern as I opened my eyes and stared with shock at my surroundings

I seemed to be in the center of a large crater.

I circled around and stared in awe at the unrivaled destruction which surrounded me. Fires burned all around the crater, charring the already incinerated landscape and all I could think of when the fires started to diminish and burn out was, 'Did I cause this?'

My awe capitulated as I remembered what circumstances most likely led to this cataclysmic event. I didn't truly understand what had happened but I guess that the magical formation which I thought was a teleportation array was actually some other trap used to kill its target with near excessive force. It was either this or I had caused the explosion myself. Both circumstances were extremely impossible. How the hell would I have been able to survive a blast of this magnitude? And the second situation was even more impossible. Creating the blast and surviving it? That is impossible to the power of impossible.

I make it my goal in life to find a reasonable solution to everything but I can't exactly do that when not all of the information is presented to me. There was obviously a period of time that had passed when I was unconscious so something must have happened during that time.

My face scrunched up in annoyance as I looked around on the ground beneath me to see if there were any clues as to what might have happened. Situations like these where I had no clue what was going on infuriated me. It was then that I noticed something off.

I was completely naked.

I stared for a moment before thinking, 'We'll it's obvious that I would be naked, the blast would have completely atomized my clothing. Of course that means that somebody was protecting me from harm, not myself subconsciously doing it. I would have included my clothes in that layer of protection to save myself from the embarrassment of having to run around in my birthday suit for a while.'

The fire was almost completely gone by now and with nothing else to see, I decided to climb out of this pit of questions and see if I could find the Laknan village I had been trying to find before.

This was when I realized that thinking and actually doing were to different things. Climbing out of the crater proved to be a mammoth task. The gradual slope towards the center gradually steepened to a near vertical incline the closer I got to the edge.

I was fresh out of mana and thus could not glyph my way out of this situation. It was also becoming dark. Night, in any forest in the world, was not a place anybody wanted to be unless you happened to be foolhardy adventurers looking for coin. Various monsters and creatures of varying sizes and strength roamed the forests at night, battling other monsters for territory or prey.

It was very unfortunate that I happened to be in a hole shaped like a bowl, practically served up and ready to be eaten by anything that happened to stroll by.

Thankfully I had a pretty good physique so I just held onto the roots sticking out of the side of the crater and hauled myself up with much effort. The roots were pretty dry and some outright crumbled in my hand, assumedly from the heat of the blast.

After tumbling back into the bowl a few times, I finally managed to mount the rim of dirt around the crater. I was panting from the effort and looked back at the hole in which I'd climbed out of. Nothing but black glass and silt remained of what had been there before. It kind of reminded me of me. That may sound egotistical but isn't that what all human's do? Constantly compare themselves to everything around them?

After catching my breath I got up and looked around, surveying my surroundings. That was when I became really confounded. Nothing around me made any sense. I had already convinced myself that one of the two circumstances which led to the creation of the crater and my unconsciousness was the truth. So what the hell was this?

"Where the hell am I?"