(by Kazie Solo)
He was aboard an enormously large ship, and as much as he wanted to look into the faces of the people he was sailing with, he found it impossible to do so. Everytime he would spare a glance at someone else's direction, the person he had intended to look at would scurry away in the form of a hazy, black mist. While it was strange for him, it seemed normal for everyone else. Probably because he couldn't see how the others were reacting to such a phenomenon…
He looked up but only saw darkness. The sun, the moon and the stars were nowhere in sight. And to add to the unwelcoming shadows, the air was pungent, and upon taking in a deep breath, he felt like he was going to suffocate. Poison. The sky was loaded with poison, and so was the soil. And while the water remained toxic-free, the waves soared as high as mountains, causing devastating effects on the lands upon which they would crash.
He stopped, suddenly realizing something. The ship he was sailing on was neither riding above the waves nor tearing its way through them. It was rising from beneath them, from a dark realm of ungodly fires in which it had been trapped. But why? Where did he come from, then? And what was going on? Try as he might to remember what had happened to him before his journey, he could not seem to put together the past he had left behind.
The ship finally broke free, and it chose to sit atop a large swelling in the ocean. Yet what he had seen and felt earlier remained to be what they were. The sky was pitch-black. The land was teeming with chasms. The air was venomous. The waves were huge.
"To Vigrid we sail!" a loud, commanding voice tore through all the noise, and he turned to look at the owner of the voice. To his surprise, he discovered that their helmsman didn't transform into a wisp at his gaze; rather, his towering form, monstrous in comparison to his physique, burned brighter and brighter with… fire? He blinked, trying to clear his vision, to check if his eyes weren't deceiving him, and when he focused on the other's form once more, he saw, through the blazing flame, what he thought was a head of a horse.
He abruptly turned away, as if the fire stung him. He chose to stare at the horizon instead, and while he thought the sea would stretch on for miles, he saw a track of land at the distance. It was a vast plain, desolate in a way, yet they didn't seem to be the only ones heading there. Another ship was catching up with theirs, and a giant commanded it, a giant who he hadn't seen in his entire lifetime, yet whose name seemingly had been implanted in his mind. Hymir.
In no time, they docked, alongside the giants under Hymir's leadership. As soon as their helmsman stepped out of their ship, everyone bowed in reverence, and even though he had no idea what was happening, he did the same, not wanting to get himself in trouble with all those deadly warriors gathered in the area. He thought he wouldn't be any more surprised than he already was, but he was wrong. Soon, they were met by another group of giants, their eyes ablaze. Their leader, carrying a huge sword that blazed like the sun, scorched the land some more, before stopping to address the one who they had chosen to be supreme commander. He recalled, from a rather distant memory, that the fire giant chief was called Surt.
"Lord Loki," Surt rumbled, going down on one knee to pay his respects. His companions quickly followed, doing the same. "We have come to join your battle against the gods. The sons of Odin shall come to know the meaning of destruction… their destruction."
What Loki said in response he no longer heard, for as he continued to stare at their helmsman, the supreme commander of the army aiming to overthrow the gods, he was aware that everything he had seen, felt and experienced had finally fallen into place. The absence of the heavenly bodies… Midgard's terrifying destruction… the arrival of the giants at the battlefield of Vigrid… Hymir, Surt and Loki's alliance… Odin and his sons…
Had it finally come?
Ragnarok?