My back was pressed against the cold and uncomfortable ground. I didn’t want to open my eyes, or move in any way. Every inch of my body felt lethargic and heavy.

  I could hear muffled voices near me—approaching me—me that managed to be heard over the ringing in my ears.

  “—could still be close by.” the first voice I could understand said. His nasally voice was quite distinctive and helped to separate him from the others.

  “That thing has to be long gone by now.” a feminine voice shyly interjected.

  There was a small silence before the third one piped up in a quiet voice. “It’s not the Nülgard we should worry about, that’s likely gone with the main force. It’s any stragglers we need to keep our eyes peeled for while we loot.”

  I couldn’t tell if the voices I could hear were real, or just part of some vague dream I was having. I absent-mindedly decided on the latter and continued to wallow in my own mind before the voices picked up again, still increasing in volume.

  “It’s not like they blend in with the scenery,” the nasally voice responded. “their golden arses’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”

  I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to think. The dream I had just had was clogging my mind. Or, was it a dream? I supposedly remember dying but, how could I still be feeling and hearing if that was true? I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted to stay in the cold darkness I was in.

  “Not just Nihil to worry about.” the quiet voice added.

  “Hm?”

  “People.” the voice elaborated. “Survivors, or others.”

  “Anyone still here is either dead or stupid. In fact,” I heard the rustling of coins. “let's make a bet.”

  “Alright.”

  “Two rels on there being no one here who isn’t already dead.”

  “Deal.”

  I heard footsteps near me, much closer than the voices. My eyes remained shut.

  “Um… you sure you wanna keep that bet?” the timid woman asked.

  “Hm?”

  “I… don’t think this one’s dead.” she elaborated.

  The others’ footsteps grew louder and closer. It felt like I was hyper-aware of everything, but it was like I was experiencing everything through a window. Until…

  A sudden pain wracked my ribs, a boot having struck my side as I rolled over from the force. I still didn’t want to move, or to see, or to think.

  “Oi.” the nasally voice assumedly called to me.

  I gave no response.

  I heard him walk towards me once more and I involuntarily tensed up, ready for another blow, but it never came. It seems he noticed my tensing and decided it was enough evidence that I was “alive”.

  “Get up.” he demanded.

  I didn’t move.

  “I know you’re conscious. Up.”

  I still didn’t move. I was almost scared to move. It felt like if I moved, I would have to accept this whole absurd situation. Accept that I had died, yet lived. That I had met a goddess. That my home was gone. And Maya…

  I felt a firm grasp at my shoulder as I was pulled onto my back to face the sky. My eyes remained closed until I received a slap across the face.

  I opened my eyes.

  The brightness was overwhelming. The first thing I could see was a man’s silhouette against the overcast sky quickly recoiling away from me as soon as my eyes fluttered open.

  “What the fuck!?” the nasally voice exclaimed.

  I could hear the three of them whispering in panic. I stared blankly into the bright sky above.

  “Her eyes…”

  “Is she one of them?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Why are her eyes like that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Nobody should’ve survived here…”

  “Are you sure she’s alive?”

  “I don’t know!”

  I saw another silhouette crouch over me as countless frantic questions kept firing through the air off to the side. She looked into my eyes, a clear expression of both fear and confusion plastered on her face. But that was quickly replaced by an almost concerned look…

  “She’s crying…”

  The other two went quiet before walking to join the girl crouched over me. She was right. I felt the warm tear roll down the side of my cold face. I could see all three silhouettes above me, but I couldn’t properly make out any of their faces.

  “Who are you?” the nasally one bluntly asked.

  I didn’t respond.

  “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

  I didn’t respond. Why should I? Was it really that important?

  I received a slap across the face that somewhat brought me from my trance.

  “Elise…” I whimpered.

  “Okay. And your eyes?”

  “I-I don’t… What about my eyes?”

  The nasally one dragged me up as the quiet one went to fetch something reflective. They brought back a broken shard of a mirror and held it up to my face.

  My eyes were… silver? They were like marbles. They had a sense of complete emptiness to them, yet it felt like I was staring into my own soul. These eyes didn’t feel like mine. They were like…

  Hers…

  Before I could make any kind of comment on the sight before me, the silver sheen disappeared from my sockets, and I was left with just my regular brown eyes again.

  Now the glaring issue was no longer present, I could actually study my face. I looked rough, on the same level as a drunk upon waking after a full night in the taverns. I was covered in dirt and dust and my hair was like a wet bird's nest.

  In short, I looked like shit.

  “What happened to you?” the shy woman asked.

  I looked around. I was near the north gate, just like when I had supposedly died, but… Everything was a wreck. The gate was in pieces, the houses all around were reduced to rubble, I could sense the smell of death in the air.

  Now I was a little more conscious, I could take in the appearances of these three bandits that surrounded me.

  The one to my left, the man with the nasally voice, had as unappealing a face as you would think. He was crouched next to me, still holding me up, with eyes as fiery as his red hair, and a menacing sword held in its scabbard at his side.

  To my right was a small woman with shoulder length blonde hair that looked like it hadn’t been given a proper wash in quite a while. Her quiet and nervous mannerisms matched the timid voice I had previously heard. As docile as she may have seemed, the crossbow in her hand clashed with her general aura.

  Finally, stood in front of me with their arms crossed, was a man—or a woman, it was hard to tell—with their arms crossed, face mask covering everything but their sharp eyes as they stared down at me, appraising me. This person had no weapon that I could see, or any defensive equipment for that matter.

  Their faces grew more impatient by the second as they waited for me to speak. Could I just say that I cheated death thanks to a goddess?

  “I-I don’t know…” I lied.

  “Bullshit.” the red head hissed.

  It seemed I was still too disoriented to lie, so I stumbled out some version of the truth that even I could barely make sense of.

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  “I… sort of died.”

  There was a confused silence as their stares forced me to elaborate.

  “My eyes, before… might have had something to do with a certain goddess of death giving me some kind of horrible immortality.” I blurted out, no proper idea how to word it apart from just saying it all how it came to my head. “The seed of altered fates, as she called it.”

  More silence went on, but I had nothing left to expand upon. Not without them asking any questions that I probably didn’t know the answer to anyway.

  “A bold claim. And how are we to believe you?” the redhead asked.

  I pointed to the hole ripped through my shirt from where I had been impaled and the heavy scarring underneath, then at the rip in my sleeve from where I could only assume my arm had been ripped off.

  The blonde girl inspected the scars then gave the red head a worried look. Part of me felt like maybe telling the truth wasn’t the best move here, but I was still dizzy and confused so I couldn’t think of a better course of action.

  “We’ll talk more about this later.” the red head said, before turning to the blonde one. “Felen, bind her wrists.”

  The blonde girl—Felen—hurried to her pockets, then tied my hands behind my back before I could resist. The trio started to move quickly through the destroyed streets as Felen dragged me up and guided me along behind the other two.

  “What’s happening?” I hobbled along.

  “Limited time. Can’t hang around long. Banen’s in charge, he decides the group's actions.” she gestured to the red head.

  “Right. So, you’re Felen, that’s Banen… who’s the masked one?”

  “Saura.”

  Saura gave me a cold glance.

  I grumbled to myself, not exactly happy with my current situation. I glanced behind me at Felen but her face was unreadable. Banen was facing away at the front of the group so I couldn’t see his face.

  I was still trying to properly wake myself up, but it was like my head was stuck in a thick layer of oil, desperately in need of a rinse. I couldn’t think properly. There was a long, long moment of silence as we walked through the desolate piles of rubble, dust still hanging thick in the air. It was hard to believe this place was the same place I had lived my whole life.

  “There” Saura pointed out a building that appeared to be the still mostly standing town hall. It stood tall amongst the shattered buildings around it. We approached cautiously until we were underneath the overhang of the entrance canopy, held up by thick mostly-in-tact stone pillars.

  Felen was ordered to remain outside to keep watch and make sure I didn’t run off, while the other two went inside to assumedly loot.

  These three people were bandits, who assumedly were taking advantage of the recent vacation of Raine to snag whatever they could from the wreckage.

  All of a sudden, I could feel tears starting to form. “Why…?” I uttered.

  Felen gave a puzzled look.

  “Why did this have to happen…?” It seemed the gravity of the situation had finally started to catch up with me.

  Felen sighed. “War doesn’t need a good reason to cause misery. Sometimes things like this are out of our hands.”

  “I didn’t ask for this!” I bellowed. “I just wanted her to have a peaceful life!”

  Felen hit my shoulder and shushed me, her head on a swivel, scanning our surroundings.

  I stifled my tears and remained silent, aware of the potential danger this place now represented. Judging from the colour of the clouds above and the still settling rubble, I guessed it was early into the morning after the destruction, so it was certainly possible for Nihil to still be present.

  We both stood in silence until Felen reluctantly popped a question. “So, you say you also saw a deity?”

  “Also?” I asked, but Felen didn’t elaborate when we both heard steps coming from inside the town hall.

  Banen emerged from the entrance, the bag on his back noticeably more packed than before, followed similarly by Saura.

  “And with that, this trip has already been more than worth it.” Banen said with a smile, his yellow teeth showing through.

  “How so?” Felen asked.

  Banen raised an emblem about the size of his palm up for everyone to see. It was remarkably detailed, a miniature shield of brass and silver glimmering in the light, bearing the familiar emblem of Raine—a raging tidal wave—etched into the surface.

  “The guild crest.” he proudly stated. “Raine’s crest.”

  Felen said nothing, simply nodding at Banen’s showcase. All three of them silently agreed to get moving, and I was pulled along.

  As we stalked through the streets, the main fear of the whole group became stunningly real as it gripped my ankle. With no time for anyone to react, I was dragged to the floor by the long spindly arm that jutted from the rubble next to me.

  The creature—the Nihil—emerged fully from the debris and held me upside down in the air. I couldn’t do anything but watch as Banen unleashed his sword, and Felen pointed her crossbow. The creature swung me by the leg for a moment before Felen fired a shot at its wrist. In an instant, it dropped me, recoiling and flailing its hand as I dropped to the floor. There was a horrible impact in my shoulder as I crashed into the ground. I wasted no time in shuffling away as fast as I could, away from both the Nihil and the three bandits.

  I stopped a good distance away before focusing back on what was happening. It was quickly decided there that Banen’s and Felen’s equipment weren’t going to do much to this creature, but… what was Saura doing?

  Before I could theorise anything, the other two stepped back. The air itself seemed to bend against its own will, and a storm of shattered stone and splintered wood sprung from the surrounding debris and swirled around Saura. A cyclone of shards twisted and swirled around them, a perfect storm, before it all came to a stop, and each and every fragment pointed towards the creature.

  With the simplest and subtlest of movements, they sent the swarm of jagged debris hurtling towards the creature. Each piece flew through and pierced the creature, hundreds of new holes appearing across its shining rose-gold body. It stood still for a moment before tumbling lifelessly backwards into a heap on the floor.

  Saura, it seemed, could harness wild magic, something I had never been able to do. I had always sparingly relied on prayers to the divine for any required magic usage, but some people, like Saura, were able to manipulate stagnant magic that dwelled in the air around us, without the aid of the gods.

  I tried to slowly shuffle further away as the group collected themselves, but they quickly spotted me and Felen marched over, before she dragged me to my feet by the back of my collar.

  It became quite clear that I wasn’t going to get away from these three for now. I was stuck, once again.

  - - -

  What proceeded was about half an hour of walking through the town, waiting outside of buildings and generally being very on edge.

  Eventually we found ourselves at ground zero—the west gate. The doors of the gate were almost completely destroyed and countless shards scattered across the courtyard, embedded into the ground and the walls of the buildings that surrounded it. An eerie wind blew through the area from the outside.

  Under close guard, the bandits guided me over the rubble and through the spirit of the gates that once stood strong.

  This was the first time in months that I had been outside Raine, I practically never had any reason to leave. My whole life was inside those walls.

  There were a few buildings scattered around the gaping hole in the wall, all of which now uninhabitable, the two sides separated by the large road that ran through the middle. Instead of following this path though, we veered right, between the few buildings scattered about. We hiked up a small hill until we reached the top, a huge valley of gently waving grass sprawling out before us. The horizon was dominated by numerous mountains that all descended into the valley we were now at.

  In the distance, parked along a small road, appeared to be a horse-drawn carriage—or wagon; it was hard to tell with the distance. I gave Felen a glance before we got moving.

  The walk to our supposed destination was rather long, but it was accompanied by a cool breeze—almost too cool. The tears and holes in my clothing were starting to become all the more apparent as the breeze chilled me. I shivered, but kept walking.

  We eventually arrived, the clearly long-neglected carriage waiting before us. In the front sat a fairly plain man—balding head, stubbled face, runny nose—holding the reins of two horses that stood impatiently in front. The driver picked at his nose before he gave us an impartial glance, his gaze quickly fixing back to the front, silently inviting us on. Banen was first to move amongst us, opting to sit beside the driver. Saura opened the door to the carriage, inviting Felen to enter first. She did so, guiding me in closely behind her, before Saura entered and sat opposite us before they closed the door. There was a drawn out moment of silence as I glanced at the two, before the carriage jolted forward and started to move along the bumpy path.

  Both of them were looking idly out of the windows at the passing scenery, but I could clearly see Saura casting looks at me as I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. The rope was starting to get very uncomfortable, and it was making my wrists sore and itchy. It didn’t help that I kept twisting my arms around to find a comfortable position, but it was the only thing I could do.

  Looking out the window, it looked like we were riding through a long abandoned town of sorts. It was almost hard to tell what the surroundings originally were, these buildings must have been left derelict for hundreds of years at least. The moss-covered cobbles barely stood up right, corroded and battered from centuries of abandonment.

  We continued forward through damp town, eerily quiet, if not for the rhythmic gusts from outside. The wind sounded odd, but I paid it no mind.

  Felen could clearly see that the bindings were bothering me and looked like she was considering freeing me from them, or at least loosening them, but Saura gave her a sharp glance that forced her to move her attention elsewhere.

  Suddenly there was a deep rumble, and the carriage shook and vibrated. The sounds of the unnatural wind had picked up again, only louder, and coming from behind us. I tried to turn around to see what made the noise but it was no use.

  Felen turned around in my place. “Shit.” she spoke, holding onto her own seat. “I told him we shouldn’t have come through here!”

  A muffled “Shut up!” came from Banen at the front of the carriage, along with the whinnying of the horses as the carriage accelerated.

  “What’s happening?” I asked anyone who would listen.

  Felen turned to answer. “A viraan.”

  I simply tilted my head, not knowing what that was.

  She sighed, rushing out an answer. “In short, a viraan is what you get when many lost souls are left to congregate in an abandoned place such as this, so much so that it begins to haunt the land itself.”

  Without any time for me to respond, the carriage shook violently as one of the doors on my side was ripped off its hinges and fell into the mud outside, quickly lagging out of sight behind us. Felen gripped my shoulder and shielded me with her arm to hold me in place and guard me from whatever tore open the door.

  Quicker than my eyes could keep up with, a long dark mass flew into the carriage and started to flail around, slapping against the inside. In a flash, it slapped against my leg and, without me being able to do anything, wrapped around my ankle.

  Shit.

  The slimy, moss-like tendril that was wrapped around my foot tightened its grip before yanking it so hard I thought it was going to fall off. I slipped immediately out of Felen’s grasp and started sliding rapidly out of the carriage. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  The cold outside air had fully enveloped me by now as I was pulled outside, but… I hadn’t hit the ground yet. I opened my eyes to find that I was sideways, hanging precariously over the rapidly moving terrain below me.

  Looking up towards the carriage, I saw Felen leaning dangerously from the side, barely holding me by the collar. She had reached me just in time to catch me. Looking down however, I saw what Felen had briefly described.

  Stemming from around my ankle, a dark green tendril, formed from an amalgamation of dirt, moss, stones, mud and twigs, leading into a terrifying mass of the same stuff, rapidly flailing its many limbs about in an attempt to keep up with the speeding carriage.

  I flailed and kicked at the tendril to no avail, this thing was not releasing its grip in the slightest.

  In the panic, it seemed my bindings had become slightly loosened. Only slightly, but that was all I needed. Without putting more tension on the rope to tighten it once again, I dislocated my thumb—a skill I had learned to get out of handcuffs should I have gotten into trouble back in Raine—and slipped my hand free.

  Without wasting a moment, I dug my hand into the pocket of the coat I was still wearing. It was still there. From the pocket, I pulled out my trusty knife that had gotten me both in and out of trouble many times before. I lifted it close to my face, taking in a deep breath, before I threw it. The knife hit the tendril that gripped me just below where it reached my foot.

  The viraan made a horrible noise, no doubt in some kind of pain, and released its grip on me. I had lost my knife, but I’d regained my foot.

  Felen yanked me back towards the carriage now the opposing force was no longer pulling me away, and dragged me back inside. It seemed the viraan was slowing down and had given up its chase. Felen and I let out a sigh of relief, with Saura simply giving an indecipherable look.

  We were off the hook for now, but that didn’t mean I was out of trouble. I had no idea where I was being taken, but hopefully, at the very least, it was somewhere I could sit down and think about things.