Prologue
Screaming was all I heard. Darkness was all I saw. Blood and gunpowder was what I smelled. My heightened senses were overwhelmed by these things. I cracked my eyes open and took in the snowy landscape that was tainted by blood of my comrades and the corpses of grimm. I pushed myself onto my hands and sat there on my knees, my mind refusing to believe what I saw. Mere moments ago, we were winning the battle, but now…now, we were sorely losing. Why? How did this happen? My friends were dead, I was sure of that, but how did I survive. I stood shakily and searched for my weapon. I found it lodged into the back of my best friend, Fade. I froze, why was my weapon in his back. What happened to me?! I looked at my hands and saw that they were covered in blood. I knew that it was not my own. Tears streamed down my face as I pulled my scythe out of Fade's back. There was a deep, loud cry across the battle field. The grimm and the other soldiers stopped and turned in my direction. I did not know at the time that the inhuman wail they heard was my own.
I charged the nearest grimm and cleaved it through its stomach, black ichor splashing onto my face. I pulled up on my scythe and severed the grimm from stomach up. The grimm began to flee when they realized that I was aiming my fury towards them. The other humans in the field began shouting at each other in a language I did not understand. Why could I not understand them? They wore the same crest as I, yet it did not sound like they spoke the same language. One of the soldiers ran by and he looked at me with such fear, and I could not understand why. While I was distracted by the soldier, I did not notice another cut the rope that held up one of our war machines. The only warning I had was the whining of metal and the cracking of wood. I looked up and only got a glimpse of the machine's arm before it collided with my back and darkness consumed my vision again.