Interlude
Heo Caster Estellé's point of view
I'm scared. Where am I? Am I in my body again? I looked around the forest I was in. How long was I drifting in?
"This is my body again." I sat up. "But, this isn't home."
My mom and dad will find me, I won't be worried. I can sit here and wait. The ground of the forest was full of pebbles. They crushed together under my small body. My hands explored the pebbles, finding a few nice ones I'd like to take home.
The forest laughed around me and the wind pointed at me. Alone. I'm not alone. I stood up fully at an intimidating three feet.
"I'm not scared. I can control my body now, so I can decide for myself." I turned arrogantly in a random direction and started for it. "Besides, I can't be that far from home." I was.
The pebbled forest had trees where the bases were big distances from each other, but the trees didn't grow up. The trees tangled loosely with one another. Black grass stuck up between the pebbles, The sky between the trees was a dark orange. I caught a glimpse of a moon but the color illuded me.
"Wasn't it just yellow? How is it red?"
The night air smelled different, not like the shore's scent wafting up from the beach, or like the capital. The smell was almost fruity, and sweet. I kept walking, the nice smell attacking my nose with the wind.
I could see kinda in the dark, enough to make out what was and wasn't a tree. Still, I found myself tripping over spiraling branches. The wood left shallow cuts on my legs that made me whine. Alone, the wind spoke again.
"I… I'm fine. All I need to do is get out of this forest. I must have gotten into this forest while I wasn't controlling myself. Then I must have fallen asleep."
I yawned. Did I fall asleep? I'm really tired right now. This place is really scary, my eyes watered. I want my momma. I started to cry and lay down on the pebbles. The grass tickled me between the rocks, and my clothes.
I still wore the shirt I had been wearing last night and throughout the day, but I was also wearing something else. It was circular shaped and I couldn't tell what it was in the dark, but it sat like a crown on my head.
I eventually regained my courage and continued on through the forest. I'm going to make it back to momma, dad and Stella. I puffed my chest out, my feet speeding up. Then I'll tell them that I didn't die and that wasn't me that day.
An image flashed through my mind. One of my bloody face filled the ocean as I was brutally beaten. It made me scream. I cried and ran faster. I whined and I whined getting farther from where I woke up.
Did I die that way? Did I die! Where am I now? Heo, was that Heo? Then who am I? If I am no longer Heo, she took it, then who am I? She took my life then made me die a nobody. I was now in this endless forest crying and screaming for a family who wasn't here.
So I'm gone. This is it. I slowed. My bare feet became tangled with grass and pebbles. I'm as worthless as these pebbles are. Small. insignificant. You could throw one away and replace it with another without knowing the wiser of the difference. I look at the few pebbles I picked up and liked.
"No one will even see a difference in them like I did…" Would Heo?
I give up. I threw my pebbles at the floor below me.
"Gods just let me see them again."
"Horrid thing." A man's voice came from behind me.
I turned to see the only other living thing here. Was he living though? He wasn't normal looking.
The man had light blond hair and dark blue eyes. His hair was pushed back and two strands fell down to cover his face. I was taught to fear this man by my parents. He was the evil you'd have to be good for, or the ice would melt and the Hero of Chaos would come for you.
"Are y-you…" I stuttered.
His face matched but an arrow shape cut out went from one side of his head to the other, pushing all of his features down through the arrow. The pattern on the sphere I saw when drifting in was laid the same way in the arrow shape.
"You invader, how'd you get here?" His voice was commanding.
"I died. This is what comes after right. Because you're the evilest, Hero of Chaos."
"You mean God of Chaos, invader." His voice pressed down on me from four times my height.
He didn't wear his armor he was known for. I didn't even see any black ice on his body. The same cut out and feature was on his neck to his collar bone in a forty -five degree angle connecting at the middle of his chest forming another arrow head.
"G-god? Like the black hole gods?"
"You must be a sleep follower sent somehow to anger me."
He raised his left arm, which was wrapped in tattoos, forming a fist. His right arm was bright red. His chest was covered in more forty-five degree angles on each muscle. His oblique muscles were shaped strangely. They stuck out like abs and each had an eye that followed me on them. He wore a cape around his waist and dark pants. Stabbed through his cape were all types of swords. His body was just so huge they looked like toys in comparison.
"I didn't God of Chaos sir. I don't know how I got here. I don't know who sleep is." I pleaded. "I just want to go home. I want my parents and cousin. Could you send me home please."
I cried and attached myself to his leg. Looking up I saw the most gruesome part of him. On his right peck was a carved human arm, stretching out and up. Under that arm was another or two. Under those more arms. It stretched high out of the forest. A cloud of smoke wrapped around the arm.
He didn't try to intimidate me. He punched me, knocking the wind completely out of my body, and sent me into a tree. I coughed blood, and vomited air. My body shook, my hands twitching on the pebbles.
"I expected the invader to be strong. You were when you came in, but something- No I see it." He smiled, the expression being shifted down by the arrow. "Your soul is strong, but you are so weak."
"Don't call me weak." I crawled on the pebbles. "I'm going to get back home."
"You can't, the filled nothing won't allow you to get back to where you came from."
"The what?"
"There is no leaving this universe, even a god can't deny that law, especially during the current war. I expect the other god will be coming for you too."
"Other…"
"NO!" I punched his leg. "I want to see my family again."
He gripped me by my throat and threw me back against the pebbles. My body rebounded up and delivered another row of pain. The pebbles ripped my clothes and blood poured out.
"She took it. Heo took my life and left me here!" I screamed and cried.
I curled up and whined for my parents, for my life. Why did I die? I didn't deserve that.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" He laughed loudly. "Thats all?"
His foot stepped closer to me. The pebbles under him were crushed instantly, leaving foot prints of sand behind.
"Is that all, invader? Are you going to lay down and sleep? Fall into slumber's curse?"
I shakingly looked up at him. My arms wobbled to try and push myself off the pebbles. Blood discouraging movement.
"You'd need to at least kill two gods, let alone figure a way through the turn nothing."
"Impossible" I despaired, my hand curling around the pebbles under me weakly.
He stepped on my leg, the pressure sending torrents of pain through me. I screamed but he didn't stop.
"So, are you going to let me kill you, or the world? Let the impossible hold you back? Or…" his foot retreated. "Are you going to pick up those fucking pebbles and throw them at me!" His eyes sharpened.
I seized on the ground. My body was crying in pain and fighting any movements. My hands which limply held the pebbles tightened.
I wobbled, aiming my arm up before scattering the pebbles around his godly face.
"I'll kill two gods, what's the challenge in that!"
"AMAZING INVADER!"
The pebbles harmlessly hit him. It fell and rattled against the other pebbles. Something was glowing above my head now. My horns had come. Once I reached to touch them, I found the crown. It wasn't a crown though, it was a halo. An eye I saw out of floated in the center of the halo.
"GLAD YOU JOINED CHAOS!" His features smiled demonicly.
My wounds healed over and he turned around. His cape flashed like a whip. The swords clattering together.
"I'll be waiting once you think you can challenge us. That is to say I don't win the war and become the only god of this universe." He laughed and disappeared.
…
I was left alone again. The forest hummed quietly. My anger was louder. I stormed through it looking for an exit. I'm no weakling. I'm something more now. It spoke in my head. I had taken something precious from Heo like she took my name.
"You might be me, but I am you, Universal Being."