The Dream

Where am I? The last thing I remember is that I was asleep? Wait who am I?

I woke up in an unfamiliar place and wondered where I was and who I was. I raised my hand to look at it, but instead of finding a human hand, I saw a familiar black hairy paw with black nails at the end. I was surprised and yet not at the same time, as somehow I knew I must have a paw instead of a hand. I looked around, but everything else lost importance when I saw what was in front of me.

In front of me stood the Tree that even in my state, with no memory or knowledge of who I am, I was sure was the most majestic and beautiful tree I had ever seen, its huge roots dipping down and back up again like snakes slithering in and out on the ground,

The ground that was covered by a uniform grass that gave off the same color and energy as the tree, creating a beautiful ethereal image.

Its trunk, was huge making me feel like an ant in front of it, it was thick and powerful, it looked like it could hold the weight of the entire universe, almost literally so it held the end of its branches. The energy the tree gave off was intoxicating, almost palpable and immeasurable.....

The branches of the tree stretched out in all directions, and in each of them was what seemed like an entire universe spinning and growing. The energy that came from the universes, accumulated between the branches, forming a leafy appearance and illuminating everything around it, giving it a mystical and almost divine aspect.

Giving me the desire to get close to him to sleep under his protection in this beautiful and peaceful place, I did not know who I was, but apparently I like to sleep eh?

Suddenly, when I was thinking about something unimportant, the whole environment changed like an illusion, where before there was a peaceful atmosphere and filled with a beautiful energy that the tree released.

It changed to a twisted and grotesque one that dyed the environment in dark red, giving a sickening feeling of darkness and danger.

From one of the branches of the tree, something came out, of one of the universes of the tree. Was something dark and twisted, almost deformed, formed of darkness and changing shape, appearing thousands of faces of different races with pain in their expression, on the surface of what looked like a slug grotesque and dark, but.....

It was the form that interpreted it as if its true form I could not conceive or understand it, taking a more basic or simple form to make sense of what I was seeing..... which made me involuntarily bring my paw to my face and realize that my eyes were weeping blood at the sight of the grotesque creature. ... as if my conscience could not process what my eyes were seeing, making them bleed only in its presence... giving me a sense of danger and fearas as I've never, surely, felt before..... that thing, it was as if it were the opposite of life, as if it were a corruption that consumes, devours and tortures everything it touches.

As I continued to see how that thing, that corruption, managed to leave with a "pop" of the universe in which it was, sounding billions of screams, when leaving, the universe disappeared instead leaving the grotesque corruption.... as if it had consumed them.

The corruption, without wasting time, began to move, detaching parts of itself that were falling into other branches and the smaller parts were going towards the nearest universe, while the main mass was heading towards the center of the tree.

"NO!" I shouted unable to remain a mere spectator any longer before what I was seeing, before what was going to happen, knowing instinctively that if the mass of corruption reached the center of the tree, everything would end. All realities, all the different universes would disappear, even the one in which I lived, whatever it was, I could not remember.

Everything would end.

"HMGGGRGRRR!"Grunting, unable to move, as I tried with all my being, disturbed after seeing the corruption and for what was going to happen, I preferred to fight and sink my fangs into that thing knowing that it would possibly be useless and die, than to stay, as a mere observer, as a prey paralyzed by fear waiting for its predator, waiting for death, than to see the terrible scene that was going to happen....

Without being able to move an inch. I could only watch in horror, as the Corruption reached the center of the tree, where most branches were born and .... began to stretch at once by all nearby branches to reach the universes of each branch.

When the Corruption touched the first universe...

I could feel and hear the screams of millions if not trillions of bilions of souls dying being absorbed and it was not just the souls that were being consumed violently and with immense pain by the corruption, it was EVERYTHING!

Everything within the universe, both the immaterial plane, as well as the material plane of the universe.

Although I still don't remember who I am, I retain some memories of the structure of the universe as I recall it;

The universe is made up of two planes: one material and the other immaterial. These planes are opposites, they attract and repel each other, but they also need each other, creating something like a love hate relationship, to create a stable universe, as if the two push each other and with this incessant struggle between the two, a balance is created in which the soul, a creation of the immaterial, can reside for a time in the material plane, thus, allowing the creation of life. Enriching the two planes mutually as a symbiosis.

The instant the screams ceased, the universo..... had disappeared, and the branch that held it had dried up and turned to dust... After witnessing that..... I could not think or do anything I could only watch in disbelief as a universe and all beings in it disappeared consumed by that horrifying thing, and this was only a prelude to what was going to happen while that same thing the Corruption, continued stretching to devour more universes.

After the first one without being satiated or repentant, for anything of what it had just done the corruption even accelerated almost happy, to reach the next universe... that even with the screams of the first universe in my head I could hear again as trillions or millions of billions of screams of the souls of the inhabitants of the second universe disappeared... and it did not stop there.

After the second came the third, the fourth, the fifth.....

Without being able to do anything I could only watch with horror, recording in my being everything I was seeing while I was a passive observer, the end of everything, the end of all life, the end of all the universes.... being consumed by that grotesque thing..... that the more time passed, the bigger it became and the more universes died making the previous magnificent and beautiful tree become sicker and weaker...with every second that passed, less universes were left, being consumed in screams of pain and agony by the insatiable corruption that devoured them.....

Without my noticing, without knowing how much time had passed, the blocky sensation of my body partially disappeared, allowing me to turn my neck and see that it was not only me who had been invited to this nightmare of the end of everything, there were thousands of beings, of different shapes, colors and clothes, with different number of limbs, some with armor that seemed futuristic, others that looked more ancient others that were animals like me, that I could not name their races unknown to me, among all these figures, they had several things in common, they all had dried blood under their eyes, just like me seeing the corruption and they all had lost and desperate expressions on their faces because of what they had seen. ... I don't blame them.

Within the group of unknown beings there were some that looked familiar to me, especially a woman who wore a tiara made of metal that ran down the sides of her face, covering her cheeks, giving a sense of strength and wisdom, in her face lost to the state of the tree.

Like her, I turned my attention to the tree, which was in its last moments with just less than a couple of universes alive and the tree ..... was in such a bad state, that you were surprised that it was still able to maintain the universes that had not yet been devoured by corruption.

When the corruption was about to devour the last remaining universes.... I could hear a weak voice, like that of a puppy, pushed by the wind while watching the last moments of the tree and with it that of all the universes.... was speaking to us..... begging us.... "Help me... please" knowing instititively whose voice it was..... was from the tree.

When I heard those words everything went dark for me as if my eyes were closed, as I slowly opened them, waking up from the dream I remembered every second of it, as if it had been burned into my soul, but.....

Now knowing, who I am, where I am

"I am... the God of the Wolves, the God of the Beasts, the slayer of All-Fathers.... I AM FERNIR!"

When I realized who I was, I was overcome with the feeling of despair of the tree's dream, consumed by a feeling of helplessness, pain and despair I....

"AHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU" I howled with all those feelings in my sad howl, trying to free myself from them.

Which was gradually accompanied by more howls from the souls of the wolves sleeping around, followed by those in the woods of my domain as god of beasts. In The Hunting Grounds, they joined my howl making all the wolves howl, creating a wave in the immaterial, that could even be felt, by the beasts that have been reincarnated, in a new life on Earth, living in the material realm, making them howl as well...