A dark skinned boy with white hair in black prist apparel stood before a circular basin containing dark, murky water.
His face was covered with a supernatural darkness akin to a shadow.
He waited patiently with a hopeful 'expression', his hands clasped together infront of his chest, chanting hymns and prayers, yet no sound could be heard.
Whatever light source lit up the temple he was in slowly dimmed and extinguished before darkness descended.
His 'smile' grew brighter in the dark, and somehow so did his chanting.
Eventually light came back and darkness receded. The basin was now even darker.
The states of light and darkness cycled continously untill even time began to wear out.
Eventually a man in similar priest clothes came in, but his clothes and aura carried a heavier, more powerful feel to them.
The boy looked up with innocent 'eyes'; a 'face' that sparkled with joy and devotion
He turned his head to look at the man who came in, and stood next to him. He gazed at the man with familiarity in his 'eyes', yet he couldn't make out his features. The man placed a hand on the boy's shoulder before giving him a reassuring look.
The boy turned his back to the basin, his eyes closed shut and hands still clasped infront of him, and gently fell backwards.
The man's smile grew wider and wider untill his grin reached his ears. His surroundings grew darker and darker, yet not to the point of complete blackness.
The boy fell into the water, the back of his head touching the the surface of the black liquid first.
As he continued to fall a shadow consumed his vision, where darkness was all his shut eyes could see, and darkened them further.
After the boy's body was fully submerged and vision completely shadowed he finally opened his eyes.
He was standing upright infront of an altar, the man standing right next to him.
The man looked the same as before, however he still couldn't make out his features.
The boy however looked a tad bit older. Now a teenager his white hair was streaked with black, and the shadows covering his face had darkened.
There was a darkness growing behind him; expanding and filling the room.
Across the altar was a man and two boys.
The man had a white lab coat on, with gloves on both hands and wrinkles on his face. His hair was white, yet unlike the boy's it was decrepit and withering, likely a product of the passage of time.
The man's empty gray eyes held a spark within them– What the spark signified however no one knew.
The two boys on either side of him wore similar clothes. White and simple, like that of a patient.
Their faces seemed to blur into the world as he couldn't make out any of their appearances.
One swirled in red, gold, yellow and white. The other collapsed into gold, yellow, blond and white.
Yet the boy seemed not to care, or maybe he hadn't noticed, as he stared intently at the altar.
Eventually the two men left together for somewhere else, leaving the three boys together.
All three spoke of each other yet no sounds emerged from their moving lips.
Eventually the boy turned away after requesting something from one of them. And as he did so the shadows behind him swallowed the boy whole.
He emerged out the other end much older.
His hair now on the verge of becoming completely black with only a single streak of white remaining.
He was now a young man with a mature face, taller stature and carried a changed aura.
Yet still his face was consumed by an ever darkening shadow.
He slowly walked away from an ivory cathedral made of white marble. In his bloodied hand was a shard of glass and in the other a black pyramid.
He walked and walked and walked untill he reached a large towering gate that exited into a path within mountains.
He paused for a moment, the glass in his hand having disappeared sometime during his journey, and clenched the pyramid in his hand hard.
He slowly walked through and as he came out the other side his hair had many more streaks of white that seemed to fight to black.
Injuries, blood and dirt decorated his body while death trailed behind him.
He eventually reached a cave where he slumped to the floor, his body too destroyed to function any longer.
He could feel death approaching him, yet he was unwilling.
And thus he lived.
His matted, bloodied hair turned fully white and the shadows covering his face started his dissapear.
His 'eyes' saw darkness, his 'ears' heard emptiness, his 'nose' smelled nothing and his 'mouth' spoke abscense.
Yet the parting shadows on his face gave way to a smile.
Cracks then filled the world as everything shattered and dissolved into the void once more.
...
Ray woke up with a slight headache and mild soreness in his body. He scratched his head as he got up.
He felt as though he had forgotten something, yet he wasn't sure what.
He scanned the area around himself while realizing he had escaped from the bandits!
No, not just him. Them! Feyd and him!
He immediately turned his head frantically to look around for Feyd, only to see him peacefully sleeping next to him on a bike.
As he remembered what had transpired during the escape he began to wonder how Feyd had managed to escape with him in tow.
Maybe that's what he forgot? The memories of escaping with Feyd?
That would make sense since he was was pretty drowsy and weak, yet something kept nagging at him from the back of his mind.
Yet as he recalled more and more about his escape the feeling that something was amiss soon dissapeared.
Just then as he was tending to the fire Feyd woke up.
Turning to look at him, Ray raised an eyebrow at the movement he noticed to his side.
...
Feyd's vision slowly recovered as he found himself in the middle of a devastated battlefield, floating midair.
With a wry expression he looked down to see that he had no body. Unsurprised, he floated towards the sound of battle.
'Here once again huh? How long has it been since my previous visit? A month?'
He soon reached a large crater where a young man with long, flowing red hair and shining golden eyes fought something.
Feyd could never perceive the opponent, yet from the clues he had observed during his past three visits here he presumed the enemy was a large creature, maybe even a monster.
The footprints it left behind weren't uniform. Instead they were strange, malformed circular indents in the ground.
It's roars were piercing, yet carried a hollow sounds to them. However whenever he felt it's gaze pass by his approximate location his very soul began to quiver.
It's gaze seemed to be overflowing with malice and... Several more gazes within.
The man fighting had a bow in one hand and a sword in the other. He fired arrows made of golden flames and his sword slashes could cut Rifts in the space he presumed the man's foe occupied.
The first time Feyd woke up in this place hewas awestruck, yet also felt a tinge of fear.
That fear soon momentarily transformed into terror as he witnessed the man fighting something he couldn't see.
And as an arrow flew towards at a speed he could not dodge he felt death's scythe graze his neck.
Yet the arrow flew through his body without causing any harm.
He soon realized that the two people fighting could not see him. Well actually at first he wasn't sure if the man was fighting at all, and what or how many he was fighting against, but that fact matters not.
He then spent an hour in that place as he watched the man fight with his life on the line, almost die multiple times, before presumably barely escaping.
He had gathered much information about the place which was further solidified and refined during his next two visits.
–And it was now Feyd's fourth visit.
The man fighting, quite obviously, seemed to be his past self.
Both of their fire powers shared many similarities in feel, execution and flow, though his past self was much more powerful.
His intuitive use of fire to create arrows seemed to be a core of his past self's combat style.
The man used sword slashes to create Rift, and left it hanging midair whenever he needed to draw his bow for a powerful attack.
He continuously jumped from Rift to Rift while slicing the space infront of him, sending powerful arrows of fire and blasting golden flames at the invisible enemy.
Orbs of fire revolved around him which turned into arrows to be fire or combined into blasts whenever needed.
Every time he witnesses his past self's incredible combat prowess he felt himself entranced, attempting to disect and learn as much as possible.
Every application of his powers and attack, every nuance and tiny detail, every movement, everything.
Though not by much he did happen to learn and improve while watching him.
And another thing was that he was sure that the enemy itself was not invisible, with how his past self's eyes moved and tracked the enemy, how he turned his head at every incoming attack.
He felt a mystical connection to his past self that fed into his conviction that the enemy itself wasn't invisible, it was just that he himself couldn't see it.
Although he wasn't sure why he had long exhausted himself thinking about it, and eventually given up, and thus he cared no more about such meaning details!
Though he did, on occasion, spend a few measly hours pondering on this dilemma, though only once in while.
As he floated mid air Feyd continued to try and learn as much as he could from his past self.
And as the battle came to its end, and his past self prepared to Rift away somewhere far for safety, Feyd knew it was soon time to wake up.
His past self jumped into a rift while dodging a devastating attack that burrowed into the ground and shook the earth as Feyd was left alone in that battlefield for a dozen minutes or so before his vision turned black and he woke up.
He took off the leaves covering his body and sat up feeling a slight soreness ripple throughout his body.
One thing both he and Ray had noticed was that they both recovered from wounds abnormally fast, to the point that just getting a good night's rest would be enough to survive most regular injuries.
He saw that Ray was already up. Ray was tending to the fire beside them both with a slightly bored expression.
He had risen an eyebrow when he sensed Feyd had gotten up. A slight grin curled up on his face as he spoke.
"Did ya sleep well?"
Feyd nodded his head.
"Yeah, you?"
Ray nodded too.
"So... Tell me how we made it out alive"
A slight smile formed on Feyd's face.
"Hehe, sure! By the way, you're gonna the last part..."
Feyd told Ray about their getaway from after he was shot and nearly fell off the bike.
He told him how he saved him from falling off, dodged multiple bullets, the strange bandit who enjoyed licking his revolver, the tension when he ended up at a cliff, and the final climax where he drove off the cliff with exaggerated actions.
After telling the story Ray asked Feyd a peculiar question.
"Hey, do you know what happened to those three bandits that caught us?"
Feyd grimaced as they were being mentioned before shaking his head.
"Nah don't know"
"Alright then...", Ray looked up with a slightly amused expression that seemed strangely expectant.
'I wish I could see their faces as the box was opened... And how they are going to be presumably punished'
Ray snickered for a moment before shaking his head with a rueful smile.
Feyd tilted his head for a moment puzzled, but then a light bulb shone bright above his head as he had an idea.
"I see... So you want revenge huh? For capturing us?? Aye aye?"
Feyd looked at Ray with a slightly smug expression, as if he had clearly seen through him.
The corner of Ray's smile twitched for a moment.
"Let's find a way to civilization, otherwise we'll have to starve and sleep outside again"
Feyd nodded as he felt his empty stomach complain.
They then split their work, Feyd going out to find food and possibly cook it, and Ray trying to make out their current position.
Feyd managed to find some food from god knows where, and thus served a not-so-scrumptious meal for themselves.
He then summoned a guitar through a Rift and played with for him and Ray. Interestingly the only thing presumably from his past life was this guitar, which seemed to channel his ability to create a separate space for itself.
He tries to learn it's functioning but was a long way from it, though he was grateful to have a gift from the past which turned out to be an extremely enjoyable instrument.
Ray spent nearly an hour trying to figure out where they were by referencing the now-tattered map they had in their possession and Feyd's vague recollection of what he saw while driving and in which direction he went.
And then by the afternoon Ray had eventually manged to deduce their position, and so they set out at once!
Only this time much of their clothes were being used as bandages, and they had a bike that may or may not be on its last legs.
And thus they headed south, where they hoped to encounter a road as per Ray's great map reading skills.