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Diablo: Jungle of Shadow
Prologue: Air
It was night...but you wouldn't know it.
Over the last week or so, Felix had noticed that. No matter how high the sun, no matter its level of heat and light, it had no effect on the gloom. True, it was humid. True, it was hot. True, he was sick of it, and had made his views known to anyone who cared to listen. But the Torajan Jungles were still dark regardless. Dark, dangerous and certainly not the kind of place one should wander alone.
Yet Felix did so regardless. Ignoring the chirping of unseen creatures, the sixteen year-old boy felt he had little choice in the matter.
The call had been given, and he'd answered. He hadn't told anyone about the...need, to leave their trade caravan. He hadn't explained the...whispers...in the dark...drawing him in like a corpse might attract a dune thresher. He hadn't speculated on what it might mean for him, whether it was the sign of a calling with the Vizjerei, Zakarum or another power entirely. Either way, he ventured into the darkness, golden hair and bright eyes standing out as clearly as he would in the marketplace of Kurast. Kept following, kept wandering, a faint light in the darkness.
Kept wandering for a good two hours.
Shivering as perspiration was released into the cool night air, Felix wondered if he should turn back. He couldn't explain this...need, to wander from his group, but not all things in this world could be explained or understood, and if the edicts of the Light held any truth, perhaps that was for the best. In the day, in lands further south, he might have gone on until sunrise. But this wasn't the day, and the lands here were much different. Far better to...
You are close, human child. So very close...
To what?
What you seek.
The words were not spoken, nor fully understood. Not by Felix, and maybe not even by the one contacting him either. But he understood the...meaning. The desire. The need. The compulsion to keep wandering into the gloom. To find what he sought. Even if it took him another hour...or two.
Closer...closer...
How close?
You're...closing in.
More words, more uncertainty, more gloom. If the sun was beginning to cast its rays over the world, Felix couldn't see it. Then again, he could barely see anything. He was walking blind, with only four senses to rely on, five if one included intuition. They sustained him. His thirst ignored, his fatigue discarded, the...thick air...making it difficult to breathe...
Need...rest...
Of course you do...
The teen lowered his gaze to meet the cool soil of the jungle, and breathed deeply. He'd been walking for hours, and was not a prime physical specimen, as practically everyone pointed out. But to be this tired, both in weariness and lack of sleep...it was tempting...so tempting...to lie down here and rejuvenate both mind and body.
Then go ahead...but would you wake up?
...what?
The voice...it was clearer now. He heard the words, and despite their foreign, harsh tongue, understood them. For all his laboured breaths, for all the...heavy air and dense foliage, the voice was the only beacon of light in the darkness.
Or darkness in the light. But it matters not...such things are beyond Men...
Soon, his breath didn't matter. Soon, the dark was not of the jungle, but of his own mind. Soon, as terror rose within him, the voice was all that was left.
And besides...the darkness is all you have now. It is all you ever will have...the light is gone from your world. It shall not return.
Felix didn't know much. He didn't know whether this voice was for a higher calling, or a malignant force. But right now, he wanted nothing to do with either of these. Rising to his feet, ignoring the pounding of both his lungs and heart, he looked for an escape to this madness.
There was none.
No...impossible...can't...
The voice had spoken the truth-the dark was all that remained. Not the dark of night. Not the dark of the jungle canopy. Just...dark. Nothing. A void. An emptiness filled only by the sound of his breathing and the pounding in his head. The emptiness...of his very soul.
Fear not, child, the voice whispered. We have all night to ruminate your situation.
Felix didn't know what the voice meant. But as he lost consciousness, as he uttered a prayer to whatever benevolent entity might be willing to aid him, he knew that the voice had spoken at least one lie.
They didn't have all night to discuss this. For night was a phase of time that existed in opposite to day.
And right now, as the darkness took him, times of day became entirely irrelevant to him.
A/N
This isn't the first Jungle of Shadow story I've written and one will be able to find plenty of similarities between this and the Sonic the Hedgehog version I wrote. Still, how there came to be two stories is a long...story (see homepage) and not intentional, but decided to go ahead regardless. At least here it's easier to work with demons.