PROLOGUE
"We should leave. I don't like this place" Gared exclaims, The forest was getting darker by the minute. "Are you afraid of the dead? I don't think they can hurt you." Ser Waymar Royce chuckles, dead bodies all around the three of them, all wildling men, women and children, slashed to death "Must have been other wildlings." "Amongst themselves? These wildlings are mostly women and children, the men don't carry swords either." Will replies, he'd heard of the dead and what they do to the living. "These slashes don't look like anything a wildling could have done." Will had been a poacher before he joined the watch, before he had been caught stealing. "Might have been a bear, doesn't matter, we know how they died and where so let's get back to camp" Royce replied. Inspecting the wounds of one of the wildlings, three slashes across the chest and odd bite marks on their arms and legs. Royce moves towards his horse reaching for the reins, "Let's get moving, don't wanna be caught by one of these, we should be able to reach camp in a day or two." Gared sighs in relief and moves towards his horse and Will follows suit. Will feels a shiver run up and down his spine, he feels as if someone, no, something was watching him.
As the three men rode across the forest, Will realized that they had been following the same path for the past few minutes, it had also gotten a lot darker and colder. "Ser Waymar, Have we not taken this path before?" His horse seems to be tired, they might need to take a break or he'll have to walk the rest of the way on foot. Royce does not reply, instead he keeps on moving. "Ser my horse needs rest, we could figure out where we are in the meantime, and we have seemed to have taken this path more than once." Royce does not react. "Gared do you think he has fallen asleep?" He chuckles. "I don't know, why don't you go give him a poke?" Gared smirks. Will smirks along with Gared and decides to ride ahead to see what's wrong with Ser Waymar. "Ser Waymar? Are you awake?" He looked back to Gared and all he gave him was a smirk.
When he poked Ser Waymar, he didn't budge. "I think he's knocked out" He pushed him harder and he still didn't move or react. Will decided to get a good look at his face, moving the cloak out of his face so he could get a better look at him. As he rode ahead and turned his head he saw the unexplainable. Will gasped and froze at what he saw and felt his last meal going up his throat, Royce's throat was cut open and he was pale faced. He was dead. Then a deathly scream came, more inhumane than anything they the two have ever heard. It sent shivers down their spines and they knew that it meant their death. Out of the woods of the dark twilight came something that would have even sent the Others in the opposite direction. It was twisted, and looked like it had only bones for a body and looked as if it was rotting away, long boney claws that matched the wounds they had seen on the wildlings. It was hunched and had no eyes and had a large red bulge on the top of it's head. And it was not the only one. More came pouring out of the forest and they had all seemed ready to pounce on the two men. Then another screech came, then thousands more, they were paralyzed with fear. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE THINGS?!"
Somewhere in the Haunted Forest...
"Eyes up, Guardian." A little machine commands his buried friend, the machine was a Ghost made up of one large glowing eye in the center, surrounded by a shell of white triangles, infused with the Light of The Traveler. A Hunter rose out of his snowy burial, he was an Exo. "Where are we?" He asks feeling as if he had just been stomped on by a colossus. "How did we even get here?" Looking around at the odd surroundings, it was far different from the insides of the moon. As if they were back on Earth. "I don't know, I can't even recall what happened to us before this." His Ghost replies, his one eye lid moved down making him look confused and frustrated. The last thing the Guardian remembered was him fighting hordes of hive deep in the Scarlet Keep, trying to get into the Pyramid, with his fireteam..."Where are the others?" All he sees are endless woods shrouded in darkness. It didn't feel right to him, there was something else here. "I'll try and contact them." His Ghost floats above the trees to try and get a better view of where they are and where the others might be. "Where are my stuff?" He says to himself, feeling himself for his trusty weapons, the only thing he had was his dreambane armor. "Ghost, have you seen my weapons by any chance?" He asks hoping the little guy would have seen them before he was resurrected. "I don't have any of your firearms, odd, but I do have your sword. Goldtusk." Replied the ghost communicated through their shared comms channel. A sword is transmitted into his hands. It had a beautiful golden hilt with black outlines, and a sharp one sided blade colored black. It was very light, good for quick successive attacks, made specifically for Hunters.
"Got a clue where we are?" "Must be somewhere up north. I can't get a signal from here, it's like we aren't even on Earth." Dry laughter was the reply he got. "I'm serious." Sure thought the Guardian. "This could all just be a Vex simulation." The Ghost looked at him with a dead eye. Then an inhumane screech was heard, it sent shivers down the Exo's spine. "Hive." Not another word was needed as the Guardian bolted towards the source of the sound.
END