I opened my eyes to see a dark night sky, the stars shining and blinking in a graceful twilight dance. I felt grass underneath me, wet and cold, soaking my arms and cloths, my hair laying flat against me. I sat up and looked at my surroundings.
'Where am I? What is this place? It smells of sap and wood.' I had thought, my mind muddled and foggy.
I tried to think of how I got here, but nothing came, only a sentence that had no meaning for me. "Go, young Viribus. Go and bring yourself glory!" That was my name, Viribus. I had just realized I had forgotten my own name. I tried to remember my mother, but I couldn't even get a picture of her face. The same was with my father, nothing came, and I was terrified.
I searched through what I remembered, and what I found made me stop and sweat. I only remembered 3 things; my name, the sentence, and the very present. The world started to swirl and mix together, it started to make no sense, my senses stopped working, I stopped feeling the ground beneath me, I stopped hearing, I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing, and my nose was non-existent. Then the world cleared, and I stopped breathing.
I was in a dark place, a void of all light, like a black hole. I tried to look around, but it wasn't any use, there wasn't anything to see, so I started to walk, which had my head swirling at the possibility, and just walked in a straight line. I continued walking till my mind was attacked with a bright flash that blinded me, making me fall to my knees.
I went to open my eyes, but it was too damn bright. I sneered and growled lightly in anger and annoyance. Here I was, in a fucking void with no bloody memories of my life and now I'm blinded. Fucking great.
"Welcome, to my little powwow young challengers." I crumpled to the ground as the voice spoke louder then anything that could ever be in existence, making my mind feel as if it were melting under the sonic waves. "I know you must all be feeling angry and a little upset about this situation, but I will explain myself...in time." I arched my back and my eyes seemed to pop out of my skull, my mouth open in a silent scream, or I was now deaf, I didn't know, I just wanted the voice to stop. "But until I feel like explaining why I chose to leave you all with no memories, I must explain the rules of this world for you." I had long sense covered my ears, the voice didn't even get slightly quieter. I was in agony, tears were flowing down my face, and my mouth was still wide open.
Then I felt that I was being watched, and I felt the coldest chill run down my entire body. I felt a pressure push down on me, and it was only then that I realized the voice was no longer talking, that it was quiet finally, but it was replaced with a sense of death, that I would die in any moment I could, and will, die. It suddenly vanished, and I wasn't relieved in the slightest.
"I guess I should wrap this up, yeah?" The voice spoke again, and my mind split into a million pieces. "You young challengers aren't ready to handle even my voice yet, guess I'll just give you the rules instead of telling you." My heart was beating fast, almost too fast, and I felt my eyes start to burn in mind numbing pain, causing my already half destroyed mind to break further down into nothingness. "With all this said, I must be gone, a few of you have already died from a mind break. Good luck, Younglings. And welcome, to Mors."
I felt the ground beneath me fall away, and I was finally relieved in knowing I would leave this place and fall into the quiet unknown.
My eyes shot open, instantly seeing my vision covered in green. I pushed up and saw that I was in the forest again, it was a bit brighter now, seemingly dusk, and I could now see much more, like how the trees seemed to have moving bark.
The bark seemed to look normal, only that it flowed upwards like a reversed waterfall, only slower. I went and touched it, and it was solid. It felt like regular bark and it was just moving, that was all that seemed different. I backed away.
"What in the actual nine levels of hell is this place?" My voice was deep, and rough. I gasped at the fact I had not realized what my own voice sounded like. I started to realize that I couldn't remember anything about myself other then my own name, I didn't know my age, I didn't know my height, I didn't know my last name, if I had any parents, or a family or anything at all.
Then a scroll slammed into my face with the force, and grace, of a freight train. It caused me to go and smash my head against the ground, my nose bleeding. I groaned and held my nose. I looked at the scroll and wasn't too impressed.
It was plain, it had no markings and was white in colour, the two ends were a boring brown colour with nothing else. It looked like it was bought at a dollar store.
I picked it up and opened it, curious as to what I would find. I found the loose part of the paper and pulled lightly downwards, not wanting to tear it. There was writing inside, which was expected, and it seemed to be writing by someone with pretty bad handwriting.
It read: "Dear Youngling:
This scroll has come to you to tell you the rules of this world, Mors. It has also come to tell you of the rules of your challenge. Now, let's do this.
You may have noticed that you seem to be missing all of your memories, and don't worry, they will come once you find them. It is part of your challenge, after all.
As for you challenge, it is quite simple. Survive. The longer you survive, the more memories you'll gain, and the stronger you'll get, So it is in your best health to read this.
As you have, most likely, noticed, you have no memory of anything, but have the knowledge of what and where you are. This is part of the Challenge, you must recover your memories. As you recover them, you will grow stronger, and so, it leads to the next part. You must fight and kill me.
As you may have noticed, your mind almost broke when I was talking. In order to fight me, you must recover your memories, and find the other Younglings, and together, you must all battle and defeat me. Fun, yeah?"
I stopped reading and tried to process what I had just read. This guy had taken my meories to put me inside a world with how many others and we must kill him to complete the Challenge and recover our memories to grow strong enough to do kill said man, but, we must also find all the other challengers in order to work together and battle him to even have a chance. Fuck me. I lowered my head back to the scroll to continue reading.
"Now I know that sounds like a lot to do, and it is, but it doesn't end there! In order to recover your memories, you must survive in this world long enough to recover said memories. That should be difficult enough.
What do I mean by survive? Well, this world is crawling with monsters that will not hesitate to rip your inards out and eat them infront of your dying corpse. You can not run from very many monsters, as they tend to smell you no matter what you do, so fighting is usually the best option, instead of tiring out and being hunted by a creature of the night. Oh, and at night, the monsters go hunting, hoping to find some sleeping, easy to catch, supper. I hope you can survive, itll be entertaining to see you suffer. I'll be seeing you in a while. have fun, Youngling." With that, the scroll stopped unrolling and was blank. I sat there, just staring at the scroll for a few moments, processing once again.
After a few minutes, a bubble of frustration started to grow in my throat, blocking out any words to come out. I tried to think back on if I was ever this frustrated before, but nothing came, nothing about anything came. I felt the frustration skyrocket, so I looked up to the early morning sky, my nose still bleeding slightly and trickling down my chin and my neck now, and opened my mouth, and closed my eyes tight.
I let loose a yell, one that held all of my frustration. A scream that made my throat raw and strained my vocal cords. A roar that shook the trees and scattered the birds that lived in the trees. I felt myself running out of breath, but I continued, wanting to show this guy how much I hated him, how much I wanted to kill him. As I ran out of breath and stopped yelling, I heard a loud snapping sound to my right. I gasped for breath, and looked out to my right, considering how I'll survive if it was a monster. I thought about it for a second, before standing up and putting my fists up, looking to where the snap came from. If I was going to die, I'll die fighting.
I heard the crunching of sticks coming closer, rapidly aproching. I was scared, terrified, but I stood my ground and clenched my teeth. "Well come on then! Hurry up you bloody monster!" I yelled out, my voice stronger then I was expecting. The snapping of twigs and sticks stopped, and I heared something I thought I wasn't going to hear for a long while. A voice.
"Crikey mate, no need to be agressively yelling at a friend." The voice was deep, deeper then mine, and held an accent that I couldn't place. The snapping continued till I saw the man, and I wasn't expecting what he was wearing. The man that came out of the trees was wearing a brown Kangaroo leather hat with tuffs of brown hair sticking out of it, reaching almost his shoulders in length. Covering his upper body was a white T-Shirt saying: "G'day Mate!" On his lower body was a pair of black jeans and black sneakers. His skin was a light brown, more of a tan then anything really. All in all, not what I expected.
"Sorry." I said quickly, putting my hands down hesitantly. For some reason, he struck me as familier, but I couldn't remember.
"You okay there, mate? You seem to be bellowing like an ankle biter going for a meltdown." The man said, pointing to my face. I was confused by what he said, till I felt something hit my hand. I looked down and saw a clear liquid on my hand. I reached up and touched my face, feeling tears flowing down my face. "You good there mate?" I nodded and wiped my tears with the sleeve of my blue hoodie quickly. I sniffed and wiped my nose.
"Sorry, dunno what came over me there." I apologized. The man just laughed big and deep, the sound louder then you'd expect. he walked over and slapped my back, making me stumble a bit forward. Suddenly, my mind flashed to a scene, and I saw the man looking down towards me, his arm on my back. The man had started to walk forwards with a smile on his face, and said something, something I couldn't understand. I felt a wave of despair as I saw the man face forwards and put his hands up as claws, then he disapeard and I was back in the forest again, the man still laughing and grinning.
"It's fine mate, we all need a good cry every now and again, especially with what's going on." The man said. Suddenly, something clicked, I reconized his accent. It was an Aussie accent. I chuckled at not getting it the first time I heard his voice. The Aussie man chuckled with me. "Guess I should introduce myself. I'm Ethan, no last name given." The man, Ethan, stook out his hand for a shake. I reached out and grabbed his upper forearm in a monkey grip, which felt right for me. I grinned and shook his arm in a short, strong, shake.
"I'm Viribus, no last name given." Ethan laughed again, and released my arm. We stood there for a few moments in silence, trying to think about what to think. Finally, I found the sentence that would start up a conversation and also help both of us out. "Do you know what in the Nine Hells is going on?" After I spoke, Ethan lost his smile and instead had a thin line, almost too serious too suddenly. He shook his head and sighed.
"Probably as much as you know." Ethan said, waving his hands infront of his face in, what I could recall as, the Aussie salute, getting some bugs out of his face. "Did you get a scroll in the face?" I nodded to his question, grabbing the scroll from the ground where I dropped it, holding it up for him to see. I then relized the height differnce between us. I could only guess that he was, at the very least, 6' 4", towering over my 5' 8". It bugged me for some reason, irritating me that he was ahead of me, litterally, in something thats impossible to control. Ethan took the scroll from my hands and opened it.
"Can I see your scroll?" I asked, keeping my arm out. Ethan nodded and handed me his scroll. I opened it and was almost imedietly disapointed. It was the exact same thing, except for the name at the very top. It read: "Dear Halfling:" It was weird, why was I Youngling, while he was Halfling? Shouldn't everyone be called Youngling, or even Halfling? Before I could think about about it any futher, Ethan snapped me out of my thoughts.
"Nothing that's helpful, sadly." Ethan said. Handing me my scoll while I closed his and handed it back. I nodded, also dissapointed. Nothing giving me a clue as to our memories. I sighed. "Cheer up, we just gotta survive long enough, yeah?" Ethan put a hand on my shoulder, seemingly trying to comfort me. "With that roar, a lot of people would be heading this way." He smiled, tilting his head to the side a bit. The hair on the side of his head moved slightly, showing his ear. The ear though, was pointed, and long. 'Like an Elf from a fairy tale, or a fantasy novel.' I thought back the the scene I had seen, where Ethan had done something that had either helped me, or damned me, but looking at it again, it didn't seem like he was damning me, more like he was sacraficing himself. I tryed to think on the words he had spoken, trying to figure out what he was saying my mouth reading, and why it had caused me such anguish. I tried to think on it, I tried and tried, but nothing was coming. Nothing at-!
"OI! VIRIBUS!" Ethan's yelleing snapped me back to reality, and I looked up at him. He now had both hands on my shoulders, and had lowered himself to be eye level with me. I felt like a child. I shook my head and focused back on the pointed eared Aussie. "Your head choc-a-bloc of thoughts? Come on, we've got to go. Gotta find the other people while they're still alive." He stood up after I nodded and turned around to look at the clearing. I saw a shift in his hair, his ears twitching it seemed. "I say we take this path, it's close to arvo now, no need to waste anymore time." Ethan pointed to a worn down path to our left. That surprised me a bit, as I hadn't noiticed it at all sense waking up here the first time. I felt a spike of envy, but pushed it away. There wasn't time for that shit.
"Yeah, let's do it." I spoke my agreement, nodding with my words. I was still completely and utterly confused as to why this was happening, as to why we had to be thrown into this stupid situation, why our memories were taken for the entertainment of a bloody scroll throwing dick. I started to get pissed, irritated and scared. This guy wanted us to fight him, but he has the power to take our memories, make some people go completely insane with only his voice and could probably kill us with nothing but a bloody thought. I sighed again, and started to follow Ethan, who had started to walk a few seconds ago.
Time to find the rest of the Survivors, and figure out why the hell this is happening to us.