*The italicised parts are his thoughts*
*Also tell me what you think about this chapter, I would love to be criticised*
My head...
It felt as though a ball of lead had been lodged inside his skull.
My eyes...
They were sealed shut, as if they would never open again.
My mouth...
Dry and unmoving, as though he hadn't spoken in years.
My hands...
Cold iron bit into his wrists. The touch of the chains sent jolts of pain through his battered body.
Chains?
I can't... stay here.
Without a second thought, he stretched his chained arms as far as they would go. Fresh blood seeped from his wounds, yet his expression never changed.
Done.
The pain helped him regain full control of his body. The dense fog clouding his mind began to clear, and fragments of memory slowly returned.
He opened his eyes.
No colour.
Suddenly, he grunted as a splitting pain erupted in his head.
Sol! I'm Sol!
I see....
They really sold me?
But what happened here?
It's too messy.
After calming himself down, he parted his lips. The taste of cold iron lingered in his mouth.
"Blood..."
He spoke with a raspy voice.
He took a deep breath before flexing his knees and getting up with the assistance of the wall he had been resting against.
With a loud clang, the chains loosely wrapped around his wrists broke apart.
They were already so fragile, and it's too hard to see...
Everything is in grayscale.
He could only sigh as he tried not to step on the unknown objects scattered across the floor. The place he woke up in was some sort of cell, though much larger than the others he saw. The smell of rotting bodies permeated the entire area.
This place is definitely underground.
There was a long hallway with cells lining both the left and right sides. He couldn't even see what he looked like, as there was no light.
"I can quite literally see in the dark. Am I underreacting?"
At the end of the hallway was a flight of stairs with about twenty-three steps.
Sol tried as much as possible not to touch anything, since the risk of infection was too high.
A frown unconsciously appeared on his face as he watched all sorts of insects and rodents scurry around. He could only take a deep breath and climb the staircase.
On reaching the top, he was met with an ordinary-looking office room. White floors, papers, files, boxes, and pieces of clothing were all littered around as if the place had been thoroughly ransacked.
...A pouch!
Yes, a water pouch. Though it was covered in obvious stains and scratches, he picked it up without hesitation.
As soon as he stood upright, he stopped moving completely.
What happened?
He looked around before sighing.
"Shit."
"The staircase is gone."
The staircase he had previously used had mysteriously vanished.
No point in stressing.
He began looking through papers, boxes, and drawers, searching for anything that could be important.
He found a few coins, a white shirt, and what he hoped were black pants. Without hesitation, he changed out of his torn, dirty clothes.
He walked toward the only door in the room. Just as he was about to push it open, his eyes fell on the stickers and objects pasted onto it.
"This one..."
He stared at a cracked glass star.
"So beautiful."
After a moment, tiny moving particles appeared within it—the first light Sol had seen. It resembled stars floating in the night sky.
He gently pulled the star off the wall and slipped it into his pocket.
Sol finally turned the doorknob and pushed.
...
...
Nothing happened.
The door didn't open.
He pushed again.
...
...
Oh, I'm stupid.
He pulled.
The door led to a short staircase. He could see rays of sunlight.
Sol calmly walked to the top of the stairs and placed his palm in a ray of sunlight.
"Warm."
I'm lucky it's daytime. I need to leave.
He felt the glass star in his pocket and immediately moved forward.
He had finally reached the surface.
The building looked as though a huge beast had taken a bite out of it. There was barely a roof, and most of the walls had crumbled.
He looked back toward the staircase. To no one's surprise, it had vanished.
"Wonderful."
Walking out of what looked like the entrance, Sol was greeted by a lush garden with very few insects.
I can barely remember anything that happened there. I was sold to them, but how did I get—
Before he could finish the thought, a jolt of pain assaulted his head. He clutched it tightly and shut his eyes. It felt as though his brain was being squeezed and stabbed at the same time.
One minute.
A full sixty seconds passed before Sol regained his senses.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying on the ground.
"My clothes..."
He picked up the water pouch.
The cuts covering his body hadn't been spared from the fall. Pain spread through every wound, though it was nothing compared to the agony in his head.
I can't think about that.
He decided to leave the cursed place. Anytime his thoughts drifted toward where he had been imprisoned, he immediately cut them off and focused on something else.
At first, it was difficult, but after only a few minutes he grew more accustomed to it. He even felt as though his eyesight and the condition of his body had improved.
I must've gone crazy. There's literally no correlation.
"Is that...!"
There was a comically perfect blue pond surrounded by beautiful flowers and lush green bushes. He hadn't even been walking for six minutes.
He looked at the pouch in his hand, then at the pond, and almost smiled.
He first drank until he was satisfied. Then he poured the little water left in the pouch onto the ground and rinsed both his body and the inside of the pouch. After filling it again, he closed it tightly before rinsing the few coins in his pocket, just in case they had any questionable stains on them.
While rinsing the coins, he took a moment to look at his reflection.
I didn't even realize my hair had grown this much.
Purple eyes?
His eyes seemed to possess a faint glow.
He then removed all his clothes and sank into the pond. The water stung his injuries, but that was the least of his concerns. He scrubbed his body with his hands, trying to enjoy a proper bath.
By the time he climbed out, the pond's magical blue hue had completely vanished. It now looked closer to brown. A few blood stains appeared on the surface before disappearing just as quickly.
My skin...!
That was the first thing he noticed.
His caramel skin looked soft and almost milky.
"To think the dirt, blood, and injuries were hiding this."
"But where are my injuries?"
"Some of the deep, infected ones are still here, but mostly healed. The others are all gone?"
This pond...
I still have no food. I need to find people quickly.
At least it's still morning.
He put the damp coins into his left pocket and the glass star into his right. The water pouch was too large to fit in either pocket, so he carried it in his hand.
Sol quickly returned to the entrance of the ruined building and walked straight ahead. After all, he had no idea which direction to take after being distracted by the pond.
About ten minutes later, he saw what looked like a thin, bubble-like wall stretching as far as he could see. Beyond it lay a forest.
Some sort of barrier?
Maybe that's why this place seems untouched.
Without hesitation, he stepped through it.
But something unexpected happened.
The barrier shattered instantly.
An extremely loud sound of breaking glass echoed through the area.
Sol immediately covered his ears before sprinting as fast as he could away from the area. The little energy he had was quickly exhausted, forcing him to stop and drink some water.
He ran as fast as he could, making sure to avoid injuring himself or making unnecessary noise.
Fifteen minutes had passed. Sol's sprint had turned into a jog. He rested against a tree and drank some water.
The loud sound of wings flapping caught his attention.
No normal bird can make a sound that terrifying.
He immediately leapt away from the tree he had been resting against and continued running.
The sound of an explosion rang out behind him. He turned just in time to see the tree he had been resting against blown to bits.
A loud laugh thundered through the sky.
"HAHAHA!"
"To think a mundane person like you was able to survive that. Impressive!"
"But you've seen things you weren't supposed to."
Sol looked up.
A man in a red cloak and straw hat hovered in the air. His brown wings were more than twice his size.
Two bullets of compressed air floated beside him, shifting direction as the man moved his arm.
"There you are."
He folded his pinky and ring finger while extending the other three in the shape of a gun.
Then he fired.
The air bullets moved too fast. With their destructive power, there was no way for Sol to escape.
Sol stared at the sky and smiled.
"Is this the end?"
The ground suddenly shook as a wall of earth erupted upward, blocking the two bullets before shattering apart.
A man and a woman wearing white uniforms with a grey crest on the back stood in front of Sol.
"Killing a civilian on our territory? You disgust me, Red Nomad!" the man in white shouted.
In a quieter tone, he said to the woman beside him,
"Take this one back."
A large rock appeared out of nowhere, and the man stepped onto it. The rock began floating as it carried him toward the Red Nomad.
The Red Nomad's expression darkened.
"The Central Alliance? You haven't attacked... I see. You've already sensed them."
The man in white turned toward a section of the forest.
"And where are you from?"
"So there was no point in hiding, I see."
A woman wearing a black bodysuit and a black mask slowly floated into the air, accompanied by her colleague in a separate bubble.
"We represent ZoroArk."
The Red Nomad's and the Central Alliance members' expressions darkened.
"ZoroArk."
The terrorist organization that sprouted like weeds. Just when you thought they had been eradicated, they would emerge on the other side of the world.
"ZoroArk."
The organization whose leader had once stood at the very peak of the world.
"ZoroArk."
The harbingers who revealed themselves only as an omen of the destruction to come.
The Central Alliance, one of the strongest human forces to exist for hundreds of thousands of years, the protectors of humanity, had once faced their greatest foe for the sake of those living today.
No more words were exchanged.
The Central Alliance moved first, immediately engaging the ZoroArk before temporarily joining forces with the Red Nomad to drive them into retreat.
With ZoroArk gone, the alliance took some special artifacts and items, split the rest with the red nomad and sealed the whole area, planning to do a proper investigation later