Prologue― Escape

"hah hah hah hah" running full speed in down a large hill in an unfamiliar forest with my brother in my arms, my breath was sucked out of me. My legs were numb from all the running and my vision vent blurry. The tears in my eyes wouldn't stop flowing.

My eyes had become sore from all of the times I had, had to wipe the tears away. The physical and mental exhaustion I felt weighed down on me, making me sleepy. I repositioned my brother, throwing his body over my shoulder to relax my arms and to wipe my tears away again. The feeling ripped cloth I was wearing rubbing against my swollen eyes was unpleasant, however the pain helpful as it prevented me from falling unconscious.

I ran and ran and ran. The trees and roots in the ground made the footing uncomfortable to run on, forcing me to search carefully for the safest places for me to place my feet. My heavy eyelids were now covering half of my eyesight. It proved more difficult to be careful as I was running. Becoming desperate to run as far as I could as fast as I could, I quickened the pace. Completely losing track of which places were safe to run on and which were not, I finally stumbled on a tree root. "Wha?" My thoughts hadn't caught up with what was occurring, as my feet were lifted from the ground and my bod was shot forward in an instant. In that very same instance, my thoughts caught up to me and there was only one thought that reached the surface of my mind.

―Protect Kuro

Almost instinctively, I wrapped my body around Kuro's. I embraced him tightly afraid of accidently letting him go. I plunged down headfirst spinning round and round. My world was upside down which made me completely lose sense of direction. All I knew was that I was falling, and that now my body crashes against the ground, it would hurt like hell. I faced downwards to protect my head from being the first thing that would hit the ground.

The sensation of my back colliding with the ground cause me to vomit. My breath was beaten out of me, and the chunks of vomit clogged my throat making it impossible to breathe. I instinctively tried to draw breath into my mouth, but all I was able to accomplish was swallowing my own vomit. My whole body felt like it was burning from the intense pain being thrashed at me. The pain caused me to forget what I even was doing in the first place. I just wanted the pain to end. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" I screamed, praying that the scream would lessen the unbearable pain. I desperately reached out my hand to try to grab ahold of something, anything. It was a mistake my hand caught hold of something, but I was unable to stop my tumbling. The speed was too great, instead… *Crack*

"Ghaaaaaaaaaa!!" All of my fingers on one of my hands broke. I was in such a state of shock I unable to figure out which hand I had even reached out with. I wrapped my hand around Kuro's body as I had done before. The hill seemed endless.

―How long have i been falling?

Pain coursed through my body. Finally, after tumbling for what felt like an eternity, my head hit the ground. A loud noise echoed in the forest. Red liquid seeped out of the crack in my head. My world faded to darkness as my consciousness floated away. I heard a soft voice calling my name, it was a familiar voice. "Luqha…"

―Who is it?

The familiar voice was the last thing that reached my ears, as my consciousness left, my still tumbling body.