Book 2 – Beyond Death - Re-Awakening

Felkin awoke, his mind was muddled before realization hit him and he leapt to his feet sword in hand. He woke up in darkness and felt like he was floating on fog. He was unable to speak and observed the vast-stretching abyss that laid before him. He heard quiet singing in the dark and walked towards it. He held his sword and walked towards the faint sound.

He soon came across a girl with a blindfold on, sitting comfortably in the nothingness. He tried to speak but no sound came out, and then the girl began to speak to him. She was draped over with a large amount of loose cloth and had bandage-like cloth wrapped on her arms and legs as well. She had long flowing white hair. Felkin thought it strange that she had that hair color but realized that Metas had gray hair so it was not too dissimilar in this case. Moments ago, she had her hands clasped together and she was singing a comforting but unearthly tune. The sight of her made Felkin uneasy.

"Welcome, traveler. To the deep abyss. Because of the nature of your soul, as you died you remained lucid and conscious amidst the darkness." There were sounds emanating from far away, and from all directions. Creatures growling and howling, as well as the sounds of bone and flesh gnashing and the sound of inhuman gurgling. The girl put a finger to her mouth to indicate 'silence' as the sounds seem to grow louder and closer, and after a while they stopped. He tried to ask her 'who are you?' but found he couldn't speak. "Me? I serve as a guide, for those such as yourself."

As Felkin got closer he saw her clearer. She smiled coldly and uncaringly, and her mouth did not open as she spoke. "Follow me." She started walking and Felkin followed her. Their steps on the ground made no sounds but they occasionally stopped when noises of creatures shrieking and crawling in the dark were heard. Felkin looked up and saw the expanse as akin to a dark cave but the roof of the cave extended to the sky.

They walked in one direction and there were no landmarks on any features, save for the sounds heard distantly. They suddenly approached a slope. The girl wore a long but simple dress, with different parts and kinds of cloth patched and mismatched on it. She raised her long dress to just to her knees. Felkin stepped forward and felt the first sensation he did walking on the ground in the abyss. He felt like the ground was wet and as they walked further in the slope, each step he took felt like his feet sank into the ground, like walking in a swamp. Although he had his weapon in hand, he did not feel any threat emanating from the girl he was following, he even was somehow comforted by her presence.

While he was walking something emerged from the murky, dank darkness and grabbed him. Instinctively, he slashed at it and as he looked down, he saw that he had severed off a human hand. Startled, he walked backwards and felt another force of resistance. He looked around and figures began to emerge from the ground. Hands and arms reaching out from the ground and faces began to emerge as well. They were groaning and reaching out for him. Their faces were either skin and bone or no skin at all. They wailed emotionlessly and eerily and Felkin's hands trembled at the sight of them. "They are the lost ones. They are trapped here, body and mind. They are not so fortunate like you. But they are none of our concern." She still smiled and they continued to go up, Felkin trying to avoid the mad and feeble creatures.

They went up and more and more started to appear. They could no longer step over all of them and occasionally stepped on some of their faces, making their fragile forms crack or break. She suddenly lost her smile and pointed forward. Felkin looked and saw a field filled with the pleading, hollow souls and saw a figure seated in the darkness. In the distance, lied a throne made from countless bones. Four large posts connected the seat to the ground, which had a high backrest. The chair looked eerie and almost looked alive. The various bones appeared to move ever so slightly in the distant darkness. A figure sat, in the darkness. It lay slumped over, and appeared to be lifeless. A sparkling glass-like crown lay upon its head.

She pointed towards it. "There, it is your goal and your exit to this place." Unsure, Felkin cautiously stepped forward into the abyssal marsh. As he walked forward, the figure in the throne fell forward, face first in the wet murk of the abyss. Felkin felt a cold chill. He could not determine if it was because of fear or the temperature. The figure had its mouth open; its body was smooth and featureless aside from its mouth. As Felkin stepped closer his feet stopped as the ground he walked in froze. He broke free and saw that the rest of the area was slowly getting frozen. It had a large gaping jaw, not like a human's but more like a dragon. It breathed icy breath on the water, but suddenly went alert and smashed the ice beneath it with a headbutt. The creature smashed through the ice and slipped into the dark waters.

It began to viciously drink and gulp. Felkin watched disturbed and saw that the creature also had mouths on its palms and on the bottom of its soles. Felkin raised his sword and swung, but the creature leaped backwards, using streams of water jets coming from its bottom mouths to propel itself backward. The mouths on its legs sucked up water and the dark liquid came out of its hands frozen like giant icicles. The 'king' ran forward and tried to strike Felkin with a downward slash. Felkin jumped out of the way and extended his sword to strike it in the back of the head. The thing blocked the attack using the ice spear in one of its arms. The ice spear shattered, prompting it to turn around and jab at Felkin with its other arm. Each step it took shook the ground and shattered the ice, so they were now fighting on wet ground. It kept using its bottom mouths to absorb water which it uses to create more and more icicles to block and fight Felkin with.

Felkin was surprised by its supernatural speed, as each time he shattered its ice creations and struck to attack, it would have a new one to block or attack with. Felkin stabbed his sword into the ground. He felt the sensation of the abyss' underground as a kind of solid sludge or miasma. The creature shrieked and bounded towards Felkin, icicles in tow. Felkin waited for the right moment and the other end of his sword penetrated through the ground and struck the creature right on the bottom of its foot. It jumped backwards and howled wildly, then it bent down to the ground on all fours. Felkin shortened his weapon back to its original size and thrust it out again, extending it to attack the king.

It crawled rapidly on all fours and used four of its mouths to suck in water. Before Felkin's attack could connect, the king spat out the abyssal fluid in a burst deflecting away Felkin's sword. It sprayed water at Felkin, who was spinning his extended blade rapidly to deflect it. The creature jumped at Felkin who dodged and stabbed it in the side. The king howled in pain as it was struck, Felkin shortening and lengthening the sword again to strike it in the head. White smoke oozed out of its wounds, as it leapt toward Felkin. Felkin struck it in the head, but it landed undaunted and pounced at Felkin. Felkin tried to dodge but noticed that the king had frozen the wet ground beneath him. Before he could react, he was struck by it and had been eviscerated.

His limbs and legs lay scattered and his sword clattered a distance away. As he lay unable to move, he saw the girl he was with, standing in the distance glowing in an inhuman light. She glowed red, and she pulled up one of her sleeves. Her blindfold and the wrappings on her hand fell to the ground as they revealed multitude glowing red eyes. Even on her hand and running across one of her arms. He felt his crimson eye glow as well as he could see a light emanating from her. Not like the bright white lights he saw from the people in the surface, but a raging crimson radiance. He stood up, the parts of his body that were lost returned to its original mass. He held his sword up high, his red eye gleaming brightly. He brought it down on the ground and caused a shockwave, parting the shallow water on the ground.

He ran forward and swung his sword before the waters could flow back into the space. White smoke flowed upward from the wound on its head and it madly hobbled towards Felkin. It did not dodge but only blocked Felkin's attack with one of its arms. Felkin's sword bounced off but left a wound in its place. As the waters receded, the king froze it instantly and Felkin jumped up and struck the icy ground shattering it and blowing back the waters once more. The king ran to an area with water and spat out the liquid and froze it, creating a shower of ice towards Felkin. Felkin focused and closed his eyes.

Instead of deflecting the ice, he punctured through it. He got a few cuts from the fragments, but he thrust his sword straight through. It caught his sword as it stabbed into its chest. The king pulled it out of its wound and it held on tightly clasping its jaws around the blade. It used its hands to coat the sword in the abyssal water and froze it, ice slowly creeping up the blade. Felkin held on tightly and tried to pull it out of the king's tight grasp. As the blade froze, he debated letting go of the sword but the king pulled hard and Felkin held on in response. Both of Felkin's hands could not hold onto the handle at the same time, so Felkin was forced to grasp the blade itself with his hand.

His blood dripped onto the ground as the ice continued to climb up the sword but suddenly stopped. Felkin's blood dripped down the blade and touched the ice. The ice cracked and fractured and Felkin's sword came loose off the king's grasp. He swung it upwards and sliced the king on the side of the face. The king wailed madly and tried to freeze the ground as well as throw water in the air, creating a shower of icicles. The frozen water stopped short of Felkin as his blood dripped into the water below him and he flicked his hand, instantly dissipating the shower of ice. It galloped like a madman towards him and Felkin ran towards it as well.

Felkin let his blood drip on the point of the sword and he extended it. The king intended to deflect the blade but Felkin redirected it to move around the king striking it in the back of the head. The sword pierced through his skull and Felkin directed it to hit it in the chest. The entity stopped moving and uttered one last groan. Felkin pulled out his sword from the creature's corpse as it dissolved in white smoke and disappeared. He could feel himself grow stronger as he absorbed the smoke from the king's remains. The girl slowly clapped and smiled as she walked towards Felkin.

The light shone high up in the sky of darkness, showing a bright cavity that illuminated the abyss below. "This is your exit." Felkin looked up and looked back at the girl. She had wrapped up her crimson eyes once more. Felkin held out his hand, now healed and he wore his eyepatch once again. "Champion, you have dispatched one of the higher powers that lord over the abyss. An ancient king consumed by his own desires." "As for me, I cannot come with you to the surface. I dwell in the abyss, and still have business here." Felkin lowered and his hand and began to walk past the throne into a spot where the light illuminated the surface of the abyss. "May we meet again, champion." Felkin looked up into the sky and disappeared. The hole in the sky sealed itself and darkness once again consumed the abyss. After a few moments of silence, the sounds of creatures crawling and shrieking from the shadows had emerged.