The Mill

White stood still as he heard the old raspy voice.

'Where is he' White thought as he turned his head left and right however the darkness allowed nothing to pass through its veil.

"Are you the raven or the master?" The old voice asked once more.

White felt like the voice was coming from all directions, making it impossible to tell the owner's location.

*Step* *Step*

Hearing stepping sounds getting closer and closer, White felt sweat start dripping from his temples as stress and anxiety started taking hold of his body.

*Huff* *Huff*

Taking deep breaths, White tried to calm himself down as he waited patiently.

'If I can't use my eyes then it's better that I don't focus on them at all, this way my other senses will at least be better' White thought as the steps seemed to almost be right next to him at this point.

Closing his eyes, White stopped hearing the steps coming towards him.

A slow and quiet laughter spread around the dark room instead.

"So you're saying that you aren't thy sacrifice?" The old voice sounded out once more in the pin-drop silent room.

White didn't answer, and simply stood still, sweat had already drenched his body from head to toe.

'Who is it? Is this Krabat or someone else?' White thought as he focused on his hearing, trying to notice even the slightest of sounds.

"You have passed thy test, thy isn't going to go easy on you anymore" The raspy voice sounded once more.

*Fsshhhhhh*

A large windy sound was heard in the room, and White could see the light piercing his eyelids causing him to open his eyes once more.

'What the hell, where am I now?' White thought as he looked around.

All around him, white could only see a large grass field with the only structure in place being a small grain mill in the distance.

That wasn't to say that the field was normal, no it was completely outside what anyone would call normal.

The grass was pitch black with red pointed tips as if they had been painted with crimson fresh blood.

The Mill in the distance had four wings that were used to gather the kinetic energy from the wind, instead of being made out of cloth however, they were made from some type of pale skin though White couldn't determine exactly whose or what skin it was.

*Sigh*

"Everyone just has to look inside of them but I have to go through all this shit to get my mana" White mumbled as he started walking towards the Mill.

'The voice said that I have passed the first test and im not a sacrifice, but what exactly does that mean? Did I finish the test or am I still in the middle of taking it?' White thought and then opened his quest menu by mumbling 'Quest' in a low voice.

A small holographic screen appeared in front of White's vision just as expected.

[ Mission has started ]

[Mission completion requirements ]

[ Kill Krabat the apprentice 0/1 ]

'The mission clearly says that I have to kill Krabat, not finish his tests or defeat him, i have to kill Krabat' White thought as he continued walking towards the mill.

The closer White got to the Mill made of black rocks and Pale skin, the more horrifying the structure looked.

When White almost arrived in front of the Mill, he noticed another thing that he hadn't been able to see from afar.

'Are those raven feathers?' White thought as a sharp chill ran through his back.

In between each rock, which the walls of the Mill were made of, there were hundreds of raven feathers, they were so black that they simply looked like the outline of the rocks making the building from afar.

Heading closer, White was finally in front of the Mills entrance.

*Karkaang*

A deafening noise was heard as the large moldy wooden gates of the Mill opened up on their own, allowing light to finally grace its insides after what looked like hundreds if not millennia of years.

The inside of the Mill from what White could see from the outside was small in comparison to the outside structure.

The flooring was made of black, obsidian-like rocks with jagged edges that didn't really look like something one would wish to use as flooring for a building.

What caught White's eye however was something much more horrifying, in the middle of the grain mill was a large wooden machine that seemed to take something from underground as it continued to make the same material from which the wings of the grain Mill had been made.

The skin looked pale, almost human in color though it would have to be an extremely sick person to achieve the kind of paleness in the skin.

It was being processed from what looked like two giant wooden wheels which crushed and flattened the skin and then dropped it in front of the door, making it stack on top of each other.

'Someone has to be here or with the speed of this production then the skin would have already filled the entire structure and clogged the machine' White thought immediately as he headed inside the mill slowly.

Heading towards the skinning machine with slow steps, White finally saw it.

He saw the skin for what it really was.

The skin had a very characteristic pore-like look and a feel that White could never mistake.

He touched it every day after all.

'Human skin' White thought as his eyes widened and his breath quickened at the discovery.