Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
An Undying Dream
Whitespace.
The world was an empty space of white.
Cruelly indifferent and beautiful.
And there he trudged along, a man of a young age.
The man had quivering grey eyes, ones that looked in all directions of this empty plane.He wore mostly black outwear. A sort of black cloak covered his shoulders from the back, and the hem was uneven and could be mistaken as one from a dump. His hoodie was on him, a fabric that was too thin after multiple washes. His fashion could almost mostly be fit with the black duster coat he wore, professional but equally worn as his other parts. Fingerless gloves slid onto his hands. His face wasn’t much remarkable either, now mostly covered with a simple black mask, but his face didnt fit the idea of a remarkable man either. It was more hungry, impoverished, and maybe feral.
But right now, his aim was to find the next place, whatever that may be, for it wasn’t a good idea to go to him with questions after all.
The lights bled in all the wrong directions, it encompassed him, but felt like a fleeting cloth.
The trudge continued further, until something finally caught his attention.
Thick viscous fluid, on the floor, throughout his old, dust-covered boots. Horrible putrid, red fluid.And before his eyes, stood a person.
He saw it, well, a slick of it, black under the white light, spreading from the center like a dropped cup of coffee. His stomach twisted.
The enigmatic person stood in the middle of it all.
Tanned skin, the kind that used to burn in summer but never peeled. Black hair, thick and unruly, sticking to his forehead with sweat. He wore a gray sweater, the kind that wouldnt be remembered unless for a specific reason. The sleeves were too long, and cuffs were frayed.
The hole in his stomach was new.
It gaped like a second mouth, but the man just grinned, teeth too bright against the blood crusted on his lips. His eyes, and oh god those eyes, they were weeping. Not tears. Something thicker. The person laughed, voice cracking like a 14-year-old’s.
“Yooo! Long time no see eh, Timmy? Where have ya been for so long..?”
Tim’s fingers curled by a little, as if doubting the sight in front of him.
“Huh? What happened? Forgot me? No way, It’s ya old boi, Razak.”
Tim’s voice wavered for a while back, before regaining momentum “You are suppo-”
“Deceased...?”
A silence stretched the whitespace.
The haughty corpse answered , “I am supposed to be dead? But Timmy... I AM DEAD! LOOK AT THIS! AND THIS! AND THIS! HA! DEAD YOU SAY? Really?!” while it pulled across its rotting smile, both of his face, and the cavity in his abdomen.
A step back. The blood stuck to Tim’s sneakers, strings of it stretching like gum. His pulse hammered in his old scar.
The man’s grin split wider. “You ran. You always run.” Razak’s hand shot out.Those fingers were familiar, calloused from climbing the same trees, stealing the same wallets as Tim.He then grabbed a hold of Tim’s wrist. “But I found you first.”
The whitespace ripped.
And along with it, so did Razak.
While Tim darted away from the horror in front of him, the blood below his soles stuck him to the ground, enveloping his feet.
Tiny but significant protrusions moved across Razak’s face and chest,
before they erupted.And out came rats, tiny sacks of vermin as they chewed on the sweater boy’s flesh, and turned with anticipation, towards him.
Each step deliberate, each step anticipating.
They climbed, spread, and covered, like a carpet hungry for viscera.
Covered every inch of Tim’s body, before biting into it like plump victory feast.
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A new day began.
Sunlight spilled through the half-drawn curtains, thin and weak, like pond water diluted with rain. It pooled on the floor, ignoring the man on the bed.
But Tim was gasping for air.
He was ventilating, breathing in all forms desperate and wrong, one that a dying man would find too embarrassing, or a starving man finds too gluttonous.
He didnt have his mask on, for it sat on the stool near him. A simple military hoodie hung by his door, and clenching fingers pried into his forearms, leaving half-moon marks for a skin that didnt even remember to heal right.
And then halt.
The sun brought about a new day, a wish for Lete Eternel, the meaningless symphony of forever sunshine.
Timothy finally got up, in a more ordered fashion. Less trembling, and more reminiscing.
He bore haphazard tufts of hair on his chin, which he swiftly covered with his mask as the elastic bit into his ears, before getting up to make his way outside. His old scar by the neck throbbed.
Then Tim fished out his smartphone, which was below his pillow, and began browsing random news articles.
-- Unidentified Demonic Activity surges in the North-Eastern Provinces. Authorities contact Local Guilds for clues.-- Stock Prices surge past predicted baselines, Expect Potions Sector to face scarcity-- "The Holy Order Guild Headquarters Announces Mandatory Conscription for Ex-Members. ‘The War Isn’t Over.’”
His thumb hung still over the last one.
“The fuck... they wouldn’t dare-...” Words drew out of Timothy’s mouth, but he knew that there wasnt much that could stop them. At the very least, and thankfully, it was that he left his old guild.
Tim swipped off all of the notifications and kept the device within his pocket, his chest still heavy from the unruly sights that fabricated before him. He makes his way to his kitchen, still only in his undershirt and some random pants he found lying nearby. He opened a cabinet, and made himself a cup of coffee to rid himself of the dull ache in his temple.
Outside the world waited like always,
Tim finally put on a plain grey shirt, and stepped outside while scratching his head, now more awake from before. He reached out for the door, and his hand held the doorknob, seeking a little bit of ground.
“God... Just...... Let’s... go out.” He breathed, and a turned open the door, stepping out of his cabin.
The outside air flowed in, simply taking space near him rather than having an oppressive weight, and the sun shone in his eyes. Tim squinted at it, but still continued ahead.
His wooden cabin was surrounded by trees in most sides, and a simple path that lead to the nearby towns also was ahead of him, but it wasn’t like he wished to visit them anytime soon.
At a nearby tree, on the bottom lay a bag, and an old blade poked its head out.
“I guess, let’s see if i got a little rusty or am still okay then...”
Tim walked ahead to the bag, and drew out the knife, it was a simple blade, one that wouldnt be much distinguished from any other, but in the bag also were a few rounds of bullets, but Tim had left his pistol back at the cabin, so he rather preferred to ignore them.
He came a bit more into an open space, but didn’t exactly hold a stance. He rolled the knife in his arm, feeling its weight.
A weak form of energy covered it, the mana enveloping the blade in something that wasn’t much but still noticeable.
He made a normal slash in the air, and the balance leaned just a little more in the handle. “Hmm.” Tim grunted to show his lack of satisfaction.
“...Yeah. Figures.”
His fingers tightened slightly around the handle, and then he finally gave it a short swing.
The motion cut through the air with a soft hiss, the mana from it felt more like residue than proper intent. He stopped halfway through the follow-up, since he had to have his wrist adjust to compensate the poor angle.
“Still not worth much” Tim frowned under his mask.He lowered the enchanted blade for a moment, his grey eyes drifting by a little. He wasnt unfocused, but not fully present either. The kind of thing that came when something else still lingered in the back of his skull.
Then he swung it again, this time to make it more precise. And he let it have a full arc before relaxing his grip.
“Not up to the mark.... but close...”
...
Timothy’s days were mostly spent like this. He had a small berry patch near the wooden cabin, for Wotsk Forest didnt have much to offer than skeletal trees. The benefit was that many magical species like Direwolves didn’t frequent this as much.
He would rarely frequent to the nearby towns, only to sell his meaningless produce and purchase whatever he needed by selling the huge stacks of blades and bullets he owned from his older war days. What a strange thing, a 19 year old with the life of a veteran.
But such was only the usual in his world, atleast in his wonderful country of Baxon.
The one with the most hunter guilds, most demons, most children who never came back home.
Demons, Tim winced at the word, but kept the flow of his day. For a more composed outlook was all the more beneficial for a good day.
Until that day was rudely incinerated by someone.
It was just the morning, and Tim was just sitting outside, gazing into nothing, or maybe oblivion. Not like he cared.
But then a sudden sense of a heat wave snapped out stimuli from him.
In the distance, stood a figure he recognised.
6 foot figure, high grade boots; an expensive, sleeveless, orange jacket; silky brown hair that were in a sense semi-combed; a pair of sunglasses with little flames in the front. And of course, that childish grin.
The man’s voice boomed from far, with high energy that Tim wasnt ever gonna get accustomed to.
“G’Mornin Tim! Look who it is! Your one and only comrade eh?” - the man said with a slight chuckle.
“Tairon.” Tim blurted then blurted out,“The fuck are you doing here? Huh?”
Tairon stopped in his tracks, “Eh... Now that was a little rude.”The fiery man walked upto the absolute mess of man that was sitting at the cabin. He had his grinning face, one boot smoking just barely and his flashy sunglasses glinting.
“Missed me??? Didn’t ya???” Tairon asked with cheer.
Tim just stared like a disappointed 40 year old with a mid-life crisis, and then asked,
“Okay. Hello there ....Tairon. What... Why did you come here?”
“Ooooo, So i see now. Minimal concern over seeing an old friend after an year huh? You are a cruel man, Timmy.”
“Just get to the point already.”
Tairon’s grin didn’t falter, but he slowly took of his sunglasses.
His orange irises burned to look at, as they glowed in a strange fashion, a sign of high amounts of magic in the towering man.
“Bad news for ya spark, and good news for me and the boys.”
Tim hunched a little.
“We need you again, back as a recruit for our old academy guild.”
