Talon awoke, still bound to the bed he had become all too familiar with. His mind was blank as he stared plainly at the wall in front of him. Not only had he retraced his entire life in his mind, he had done so, so many times that he thought he was about to go insane. He began to wonder if he was not in a situation of hospitalization, but a strangely elaborate torture chamber that was designed to do nothing more than make him relive his life and look back into the eyes of every man, woman, and child he had ever sunk his blade into. A smirk appeared across his face as he realized that he still did not feel guilty. Perhaps his emotionless void of a soul was truly capable of absorbing and neutralizing anything that was thrown into it. Not that it surprised him at all.
His internal clock told him that the day was shifting into night, but he could not verify it by looking up at the sun: not a single stream of light shone into the room he laid in. Yorick had not entered the room at all that day, and the previous day he had forgotten to pour that vile liquid over Talon's back. Perhaps the heathen was done bugging him, or maybe he had found someone else to torment.
The silence of his room was irritating. It felt as if everything in the area was either dead or dying; even the air itself. A constant and unbearable taste of bitterness from the plagued air was always stained to his tongue. Some discomforts are easy to get used to, but that one persisted with the strongest amount of perseverance that he had ever experienced. There was no light, the air tasted horrid, the bed was awfully uncomfortable, and the dead silence was torturous; the only sense that was not taunted by the room's shackling existence was his sense of smell. And not that its aroma was any good, but growing up ducking into sewer systems every time danger reared its ugly head, he never grew too uncomfortable of bad smells.
The whole situation was just the definition of uncomfortable to Talon. He began to pull and tug at his bindings, realizing that he had the energy to do so for the first time in what felt like ages. The ties felt loose enough to snap with just a few rough yanks. As he struggled, his back lit up in pain, but not to the extent that it had the last time he tried. It was a healing wound, and so long as he did not attempt to force any unwarranted movement, the pain was tolerable. It felt like he could actually escape if he struggled hard enough. And seeing as he appeared to be abandoned by Yorick, it may be his best course of action.
He shifted his weight left and then right repeatedly as he alternated which rope to apply tension to. After a few minutes, his right arm was free of the shackles. He could prop himself up with it, but lying on his stomach, he did not have a whole lot of options as to what he could do. Talon twisted his back slightly to roll his right arm under his chest and to the left side. With it, he fumbled around with the rope ties until the knot came loose. He curled himself up and sat on the back of his legs. By turning himself slightly to the right and to the left, he managed to untie the respective bindings on his ankles. He then turned around and sat up on the bed for a few moments. The sudden movements were leaving him light headed, so he remained relatively still while he rubbed his wrists and ankles that were finally freed from the ropes. When the dizziness subsided, he contorted his arm around to try to feel the scar on his back. The mark was thick and burned when he touched it. The laceration's length encompassed the entirety of his back, and was definitely not fully healed yet, but he knew that that part could come in time. The most prominent action on his mind was to get out before he went completely insane.
Talon got to his feet slowly and stood still as he allowed for his body to cope with the sudden shifting of movement. The world rotated around him and his feet felt like they were about to collapse under the weight of his body. It was like learning to walk for the first time as he took one step after another towards the exit to the room. The blood rushed to his head and he had to stop in order to prevent a blackout. He gradually got to his knees and retained a kneeling position. He was not quite sure how he was going to get out of there. His body was not meant to stay still for such a prolonged duration and as a result it had become accustomed to remaining in place.
He felt like he had no energy and no strength to support himself. It was then that he remembered that he had not eaten a single thing in the entire time he had spent on that bed. Never once did Yorick bring him food, and never once did Talon feel hungry. Ignoring the strange phenomena of his previous lack of hunger, he scanned the room in a weak attempt to find food. It proved unsuccessful; an undead being like Yorick would not even need food. Talon had been used to lasting a very long time without food in order to keep a stealthy location, but never something to the extent he had just endured.
He stood up and tried to push forward once more. Never before in his life had he felt so weak and incapable of movement. It was like trying to walk through sludge with a boulder on his back. "If I could just get outside and find some food..." he thought.
The next thirty minutes or so felt like days as Talon persevered through the exhaustion to get outside of the shack. Past the doorway to his room, there was just a short hallway and an exit to the hut. Once he got outside the house he was not greeted by that eternally blinding light that he expected to find after being shackled down for so long. The outside was just as dreadful as the inside. Part of him wanted to turn around just to be in a room where he was more familiar with his surroundings. The trees were dying and decayed, showing no color other than black with flakes of brown poking through; the sky looked more suited to house a collection of skeletons and cockroaches than it did a bird or butterfly; and the soil beneath his feet was composed of dead plants, rotten flesh, and dry crusty dirt. A deep fog encompassed the area yet not a single cloud was seen in the sky.
Talon thought hard to figure out where he was. The pools of water and soil resembled that of Zaun; looking horrendously poisoned and polluted, but Zaun was not known for having trees, even if they were dying. In Zaun, most trees were cut down in order to allow for more building room. And while Zaun can have a slight smog set over itself for days at a time, the dense smoke never spread out to the forest area around it. But if he was not in Zaun, he had no idea where he could be.
After a day of slogging across the dirt, Talon came to a large body of water. Unlike the rest of the water, it was blue and small waves rippled through it. It was more reminiscent of the ocean than it was a lake or pond. Talon looked to the left and to the right across its expanse and found nothing but more water extending outwards. He rolled his neck and stared at the water. He did not have enough energy to swim all the way across to the next island. He was still starving, having found nothing more than dead trees and foul smelling corpses along the path he had traveled. It was strange though; there were piles of ghouls and undead beings scattered throughout his route. Yet, undead beings are called undead for a reason, being that they are undead. So, how they were all killed, Talon was unsure. They smelled fresh too, like someone had recently come through and taken them out. Perhaps one of those corpses was Yorick. Talon could only hope so much.
He continued to stare at the large ocean expanse. It would easily take him twenty minutes or more to swim across; and that was assuming his body did not give up part way through. He considered executing a series of shunpos in order to cross the water, but he did not have a target to shunpo to, and he knew that entire distance was far too great for him to achieve, even if he had actually been at full strength. The ocean did not have any fish or even remotely alive creature in it. If it did, Talon would have just eaten them to get the energy to swim across. He pondered his options a little longer before he got an idea.
Talon turned and walked back towards the wooded area and looked for a dying tree that would fall easily. He found one whose trunk appeared to have been shot through. He crouched down and looked through the hole in amazement before giving the tree a light push to topple it over. He broke off as many of the gnarled branches as he could and took the two largest ones in hand. He then rolled the tree towards the ocean and sat on top of it to rest for a few minutes. Once he had conjured the strength that he needed, he pushed the tree onto the water and waited for a few minutes. After he had determined that it was not too heavy to sink, he climbed on top and laid down along its length. With his thicker branches in hand, he rowed himself across the water. It took more effort than he had expected to keep the tree from rolling over, but he managed to keep it steady over the next fifteen minutes as he rowed across to the next island. Once he had gotten ashore, he took another break to regenerate his strength. At that point in time, he questioned where his body was even getting the resources to keep pushing him along. He lay in the sand with his face skyward and, for the first time in his life, wished that there were some clouds for him to watch. Too exhausted to get up, he remained still until his body drifted away into a sleep.
Some time the next day, Talon's rest ended and he slowly got to his feet. His back seared with pain as the grains of sand fell off of his flesh. Taking his time and being cautious not to accidentally irritate his wound, he unwound the gauze and proceeded to brush the flakes off of his skin that were stuck between then cloth and his back. He stared into the forest area ahead that greatly resembled the island he had just left. There were only three places in Runeterra that held a series of islands connected to one another by short strips of water; Ionia, a place too beautiful and flourished to possibly contain the decaying foliage and colorless sky; the Blue Flame Island, where there were more drunkards and pirates roaming about than there was air to breath; and the Shadow Isles. Talon's throat fell into his stomach as the thought struck his mind. It would fit the description of his surroundings, but it was not a place he ever wanted to be. Talon pushed forward through the mangled tree limbs in pursuit of some way to escape the Isles.
As he walked, he did not run into any beings other than a shadowy figure that floated along like a ghost; it had no legs – just a small wispy like substance that trailed behind it – and wore large blades on each arm whose metal shined with a bright red as if coated and stained in blood. As soon as he saw it, Talon slumped behind a rock and waited a good thirty minutes before moving again. He knew he was nothing more than bait in his current state and he wanted to avoid any potential conflicts that could lead to his death; he had survived much too long to go down before leaving the Isles.
As the day progressed, Talon started to hear things for the first time since he had last spoken to Yorick. They were not pleasant sounds, but they were noises at least. Cries and shouts of pain and torment echoed throughout the Isles as Talon walked; nothing that would make him cringe, but enough to assure him that someone or something was suffering or dying. He felt like the noises were moving in the same direction as him, but Talon was somehow gaining ground. He kept his eyes peeled to insure that he did not waltz into a situation that he could not get out of, but he continued to pursue the noises due to the fact that it meant there was something alive in that direction.
Hours of walking later, Talon noticed that the sounds seemed to have taken a sudden halt. Talon moved in a little closer and crouched behind an upturned tree. Analyzing his surroundings, he found many freshly dead beings and scorches along the trees and ground. Whoever was there was killing things, and killing them quickly. Their weapons had to be some sort of techmaturgy or the people there must be brilliant wizards; the singe marks left behind did not come from matches or small forest fires.
Suddenly, Talon heard cries of intense pain and agony, as if someone was being tortured ever so slowly and ever so brutally. The pleas he heard that time, however, were enough to make Talon cringe at their sound. Shortly after they had stopped, they started up again, but in a more feminine voice.
"Perhaps two people are here," Talon thought. But they were not making it much farther. Regardless, it was still in his best interest to look for the source of the noises. Talon vaulted the log and stalked the noises until they ceased. It seemed that the person being tormented had finally given up. Nevertheless, Talon's trail did not end there; he started to hear yelling and gunfire. He shifted his walk to more of a gallop; awkwardly moving as fast as he could with the little energy he had. The man who was yelling and shooting was definitely moving at an incredible pace.
Something must have begun to slow him down though, because eventually Talon started to see the source of the noise; a man, in white clothing with a dark complexion and his hair in dreadlocks, was firing two weapons into a massive horde of ghouls being brought upon by an undead being out in the distance. If it were not for the shovel in the being's hand, Talon would have never been able to tell that it was Yorick. The man with the guns was also holding a woman on his back. Things started to fit into place; the man had been tortured and then the woman, the woman had fallen unconscious from the pain, and now the man sought revenge as he fought onward.
Talon watched him fight wave after wave of oncoming minions of the undead before he finally collapsed in exhaustion. Talon expected the man to be swarmed by the ghouls and torn to pieces after he had fainted, but the undead creatures dispersed instead. Talon was a bit confused by the sight, and looked into the horizon to see if maybe Yorick had passed out himself. To his surprise, Yorick was perfectly fine. He hobbled away with his gimpy mannerisms and appeared to be talking to another nightmarish creature; he wore long black clothing and glowed with a green ethereal essence. He dragged long chains behind him that left a thick trail in the disgusting dirt. Not a great plan for someone who planned to be escaping, but he clearly was not too concerned with his unconscious opponent.
Talon emerged from his cover after Yorick and his friend had left, and walked over to where the fainted combatant was. The assassin kneeled down and checked his pulse. He was breathing, barely. Talon rolled the woman over, who was on the fainted man's back, and jumped back in astonishment. Her eyes were wide open, but there was no color in them; just a blackened void of emotion. She was breathing as well, but remained completely unresponsive to anything Talon did to try and snag her attention. Talon took the backpack off of her and shifted through the contents in attempt to gather information about the two. As soon as he opened it, he found some cans and the rest of its contents became obsolete. His heart rate boosted tremendously in excitement as he sorted through its contents to find a knife. He stabbed the can ruthlessly until it was open enough for him to eat its contents. He continued to do so until three cans of assorted foods lay in shreds on the ground around him. It never felt so good to eat before in his entire life. Once full, he looked through the bag's contents again and found little to nothing that would suggest who the people in front of him were. Talon took the weapons from the man's hands and placed them a good distance away to insure that any hostility he may experience when the man awoke was non-threatening. Then, Talon waited.