A/N: English isn't my first language, I use grammarly, I probably missed some grammar errors but wanted to post the fist chapter today and I'll correct anything I've missed tomorrow because I'm after a full nighter and need sleep.
Okay? Cool, glad we understand each other.
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"Thou who art undead art chosen." A cold, dispassionate voice rang in his my mind.
He didn't know who it belonged to, couldn't remember. Not that it matters, he knows better than to try remembering. Remembering memories lost to hollowing isn't something one could achieve by trying really hard to do it.
A low growl-like sigh escaped the undead's mouth as he stared blankly at the cell door in front of him. How much time passed since he last checked on it?
Does it matter?
Standing up from the cold mold-covered floor, he walked up to the cell door and reached for it. His body felt weird, all movement felt sluggish, slow as if he was moving underwater.
It upset him.
His memories were scattered, fragmented, and without detail, almost like a dream you only vaguely remember after waking up. But he did know one thing for certain, he could fight, he remembered being in fights. Casting pyromancies and swinging weapons against his opponents, clashing blades with them in battles to the death.
He remembers being fast, strong, capable.
Now he is slow, weak...hollow...in body, at least.
Shaking those thoughts away he touched the bars of his cell door, and ran his fingers through it, feeling the layers of rust rubbing against them. Did those bars have this much rust the last time he checked them?
Grabbing the door, wrapping the bars on each side in a tight grasp (as tight as he could manage) he braced himself and pushed!
It didn't budge, nor make any sound.
The only thing his struggle achieved was a small amount of dust falling from the sides of the stone frame in which the cell door was mounted in.
A small victory.
A couple thousand more like these and the door will fall.
Joy...
With a sigh, the undead let go of the bars and began to walk back to the corner he chose to make his own. There are four corners in this cell, but the left one parallel to the cell door is the one he chose to sit and sleep in! ...Not really sure why...it feels like a joke he forgot the context of.
But just as he was about to lower his behind and sit in his comfy corner, the undead froze, went still as a statue as he heard something... impossible.
The sound of a cell door opening with a loud screech of rusted metal grinding against each other. A grating, unpleasant, sound echoed through the corridors of the undead asylum.
He once again approached his cell door, grasping its bars and bringing his face close to them, trying to see if he could peer past them into the corridor, trying to locate the source of the sound. Someone opened one of the cells, but who? Did someone come to explore the asylum? Loot it?
No, that didn't make sense. There was nothing and no one to loot from this place, nothing except hollows and the occasional black knight that patrols the corridors.
Hollows had nothing worth on them to loot, and only an idiot would try to kill a black knight for its gear. Even if you somehow killed it, you wouldn't get out of the fight unscathed.
Does that mean a prisoner managed to get out?
Another sound soon echoed through the stone walls of the asylum, slow rhythmic, and loud.
"Footsteps!" He realized. And they were getting louder, coming toward him!
Happiness, hope, and relief hit him like a Warhammer to the chest, a light feathery sensation spreading outward from it and toward his whole body as he listened to the approaching footsteps.
He opened his mouth and called out toward the undead who managed to escape their cell.
Well...Tried to call out.
The sound that left his throat sounded nothing like speech and resembled more the growling of mindless hollows.
"No..." Dread replaced the feeling of hope in an instant.
If he can't communicate with the person approaching his cell, how could he convince them to help him? Who would help a hollow unable to show any sign of Intelligence?
Trying again, doing his damn best to say something coherent, the undead Pyromancer opened his mouth.
Another growl.
"no, no, no, no, no, no!" Panic rapidly filled his mind, trying again and again but his mouth seemed to only let out growls.
"Wa-ghrrh!"
"nononononononononononononono!"
The escapee finally reached his cell. He was Tall, clad in knight armor, with the visor of his helmet raised, allowing the undead Pyromancer to see the hollowed dried corpse-like face of the knight.
"Wai-thrgh!" Dread and fear filled the Pyromancer as he watched the undead knight pass his cell.
Breathing. He could feel himself breathing deeply, erratically. Likely a result of his panicking.
When was the last time he breathed? It didn't take him long to stop doing it after hollowing. Breathing wasn't needed for a corpse.
"Oh." The Pyromancer thought, hit by a sudden epiphany. "You need to breathe to speak." Now he feels stupid...
Getting his breathing under control, the undead took a deep breath and tried to communicate once again.
"WAIT COME BACK!" Success! His voice was raspy and broken, but the sounds that left his mouth were understandable, a clear cry for help. A loud scream that left him with a hurting throat.
What followed after that was a moment of silence, hopelessness overtaking the pyromancer completely as he thought the undead knight already left, that he called out for him too late and his cries went unheard.
And then...Footsteps.
Rhythmic, slow, and loud, and becoming louder with each step taken.
Soon the undead knight was standing in front of his cell, staring at him silently.
"H-how did you get out?" The pyromancer asked after a moment of silence.
The knight reached for something on his hip and raised it for the pyromancer to see.
A key.
How the knight acquired it baffled him, but as the saying goes: "don't look a gifted horse in the mouth". And it's not like it matters how the knight got it, the only thing that matters is that he had it.
The key to his freedom.
"Could you-" His cell was opened before he could finish his sentence.
It left him stunned, baffled, confused, shocked.
Just like that? The knight opened his cell...just like that? Without demanding anything in return or hearing him ask to be let out?
"T-thank you, Sir.Knight." He sounded more confused than he wanted, but he couldn't help it.
The knight just nodded before turning away and continuing to walk. The pyromancer couldn't help but stare blankly at his savior, leaving quietly without saying a single word or demand for compensation.
It felt surreal and made him wonder if he wasn't hallucinating. Trapped in a fantasy inside his mind while his body mindlessly roamed the still-closed cell in the real world, succumbed to the undead curse and completely hollow.
After a while, a low, unpleasant, and rough sound escaped his throat. He recognized it as laughter. It rocked his body back and forth, making his shoulder jerk up and down and his chest contort.
Gods, when was the last time he laughed?
It felt so alien to do it, but at the same time very pleasant. Not to mention, reassuring.
After all, hollows don't laugh.
Turning back, the pyromancer went to his little corner, the one he sat and slept on for his entire stay in this accursed place and bent down to pick up his only possession.
A sword, a broken one.
The blade broke somewhere below its center, and what was left of it was chipped and blunt...a weapon with no redeeming qualities. The faint licks of black smoke leaving a trail of from blade suggested it was enchanted at some point. How? He couldn't remember that too, but it didn't matter, whatever magic was left on it was barely fumes of what it once was.
It's a useless piece of junk.
But it's the only thing he had, so he's taking it with him.
Next, his gaze went to the engraving on the wall near his sitting place. He remembers doing that, scratching the wall over and over until the pattern on it was visible.
A single word, a name...his name. He didn't want to forget it.
"Edward." The pyromancer read out loud. Then did it again. And again. And again.
And again.
Edward repeated his name a couple more times, before falling silent for a moment and giving himself a nod.
"I'm Edward." With that statement said, Edward walked out of his cell and began walking in the same direction his savior went too.
Walking out of this place and toward freedom.