Chapter 1: The Depths of Sanity
The wind lashes against his face, the hood of his cloak whips and cracks around him.
The wonderer stumbles on in the dark, against what he cannot tell but that was becoming much more prevalent the farther he ventured, to him this was yet another impediment slowing the progress of an important matter.. The void seems almost tangible as if you could reach out and pull it down; like curtains on a stage.
He increases his pace, desperate to be somewhere, to make it in time only to stumble again. This time
losing his footing the elements where successful. *Crunch*, the ground felt as if it where covered in wet tightly packed snow.
This place possessed an unnatural quality, he burned on the inside,
while his skin remained cool.
The man growled and heaved himself up, the conditions he must meet where growing far too repetitive,
This was important
he had to make it before everything comes to a close without him, failure would prove to have disastrous consequence.
Failure, it just wasn't on the table. It was cruel for a man who could press on through any problem from nothing more than his wit and unmatched determination to only fail miserably when it actually mattered, like some great cosmic joke. Fate was being cruel.
A voice spoke breaking the silence; "Do you even know where we are?" It posed a curious question,
somehow the details seemed almost irrelevant.
His pace slowed and the void turned to mist, revealing outlines of a barren land.
This time it was his own voice "Where am I, how did I get here?" The fog cleared, the world around him looked cold and barren. As the ground began to silently quake, jagged rocks and mountains jutted from the ground, as if molded from lightning.
"This isn't real, I'm dreaming..." A cold chuckle vibrated the air around him, chills run through his spine.
"Far more real than you." An accusation rather than a statement?
"Where are you? Come out." He spoke at a whisper, far quieter than he had intended. The wonderer scanned his surroundings from shoulder to shoulder.
There was nothing but mountains, rocks and ice.
"Where am I? Why, Im right here." Mused the voice which seemed to emanate from under his feet.
This realization came as a shock, the wonderer was standing on what looked like
a lake every star in the sky reflecting perfectly without a single ripple.
But it wasn't what the wonderer could see that concerned him its what he couldn't.
His reflection was missing, in its place a shrouded figure emerged, as if fromed from ink.
"More real than me?" He replies.
"Do not struggle." As if awaiting its que the sound of blaster fire pierced the silent night air, cable cords shoot up from under the lake, wrapping themselves around his neck and waist, all before he could even process what was happening he falls face first.
"Why?!" My words surface choked and automatic, like someone was speaking them for me.
I could hear my throat crackle under the strain of trying to speak through the bindings.
Looking ahead, my face pressed hard against the icy surface, my eyes where fixed as if tranced from the sudden shock of the situation.
I laid there like a fish held down on a butchers table, my rhythmic breaths turn to vapor before me.
The dead silence was short lived as
I begin to hear the silent echoes of thunder in the distance. The noise draws closer, like the sound of snapping bone. My gaze fixed, I cannot summon the will to investigate. Complete terror of this... mysterious stranger, holds a grip on my focus so profound that nothing else matters.
The sound of cracking and popping grows near, racing towards me. Ice begins crack as I plummet into the water below, I suck in the arctic air as fast as my lungs could manage. "I'm just taking back whats mine." Its voice now guttural. I begin to thrash violently as I make my decent, chunks of ice turn to clear shards; every piece reflecting or perhaps containing an image, as if each where windows to another place and time.
"Don't struggle, you're only making this harder for yourself."
As I begin to plummet further down I reach out, hopeful to grab a passing shard, perhaps hoping that one of these... fragments
might do something, anything. I reach and miss, they always remain just out of reach.
I try, again and again I try. The bindings grow more violent, drawing me ever closer to the shrouded figure, I can now make out its yellow eyes. "It", an adequate description.
My attempts grow frantic, I'm no longer sure if I can even see what I'm doing, my mined goes blank, as if fear has gripped all my senses.
Success! I grasp a shard into my hand, digging it into my palm, releasing blood into the water above. I'm holding tight, as if it where an object for prayer, perhaps I was praying.
Corridors begin to construct themselves around me, as if it where a spell forged from my own blood.
Lights begin to flicker on then off.
I proceed down the narrow halls of what seems like a sunken ship. My long tattered robes and
unkempt hair flowing and swaying behind me.
I make my way down in a half run and swim, with my arms cutting at the water around me, in an attempt to increase my decent. It never occurred to me why I was moving down or that I hadn't even run out of air yet.
All the water begins to drain out as the hulls mend themselves, the floor gently levels off.
A memory, my actions predetermined, my conscious falls once again into a stupor.
I remember shots from blaster rifles whistling past my ears, only slightly deflected by my shields with a nasty hiss. I remember explosions so fierce they would shake the floor beneath me, for a moment I thought I had gone deaf.
Everything fades to black.
Now I limp on through the narrow corridors, I can remember vague whispers; pleads for help, but I do not know who it is, I don't know if they're
people trapped in their bunkers or if its the person I'm carrying in my arm, I wonder who she is, my memory of her seems... faded.
The vibroblade in my main hand begins to glow and hum violently, as if content within the new hell that encompassed us both.
Everything begins to fade. I remember shock-waves rippling up my arm as I violently hammer my sword against that of a young man draped in black attire, he was fortunate, the brute force of that swing was more than powerful enough to cut him clean in two from almost any angle. However his fortune was short lived as I drive my blade into the hilt of his sword. Fingers part from their master, I drive in a successive third and final strike, the power and flurry of my attacks where far too great for a novice such as this.
I do not spare him a second glance. Somehow I didn't feel much pride in my success.
I remember people shouting equivocal commands and finally as the dream ends, I hear someone speaking; "hurry, get everyone in the escape pods, ill hold em off!"
Next comes the hiss of automatic doors and the brief sensation of falling as the metal globe begins to part. I feel safe, I close my exhausted eyes; coated in blood. Was it mine or someone else's?
Do I even care? My job here was done.
The wonderer closed his eyes, diem rays of light of various colors illuminate his sharp yet masculine features. His face and long dark brown hair coated in both dry and fresh blood from who knows how many adversaries.
His every muscle ached, skin cut and burnt in various places, his leg throbbed from a fractured shin. His head lolled from side to side as a result of occasional rattling of the pod. Nothing
could be important enough for him to get up and push on, not even his own life.
After all the countless cannon fodder that he had managed to cut through,
If he died than at least he would go in his sleep and it would be at the hands of a broken down pod as apposed to some sniveling novice hoping to make him a notch in his belt.
One way or the other he was finished.
Or was he...