Erec's first sensation was a metal tang on his tongue, iron, thick and warm, followed by the sensation of cold ground pressing into his cheek. His vision swam between darkness and the silhouette of leaves dancing overhead. As he tried to inhale, a stinging grit scratched at his throat.
Gradually, his eyelids fluttered upwards, and the forest's dim canopy became indistinct shapes. Then, in the corner of his vision, a face hovered too close: a dead man's pallid features, eyes glassy and unseeing, blood trickling from his cracked mouth in sticky rivulets. Erec's chest seized as he choked on a gasp.
He tried to draw back, but his head felt as heavy as a stone, and his limbs would not obey. A single thought hammered through his mind:
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When Erec finally found the strength to roll away, his vision cleared to a forest ablaze.
Not really normal fire, but rather flashes of green and purple showering the area with crimson and amber light.
A thousand shards of embers ignited among the tree trunks, crackling like an angry hearth: trees bursting with violent flames, exploding and leaving only shattered bark behind.
Somewhere to his right, a thunderous crack announced another tree splitting down its trunk, showering the area with leaves and splinters in a violent hail. The scent was a nauseating cocktail of smoke, fresh pine, scorched earth, and the acrid tang of blood.
The resulting soundwave seemingly shattered Erec's eardrums, leaving him dazed with a high pitched bell ringing in his head.
As his hearing slowly recovered, he started to hear faint screams in the background of the cacophony of exploding trees and roaring fires. Even as his eyes slowly regained their focus, he could not see past the veil of smoke that covered his immediate surroundings.
Erec slowly raised himself on his hands and knees, coughing through nasal passages raw with ash and soot. Each shallow breath felt like sandpaper scraping his lungs. As he blinked away falling embers from his eyelids, he tried to piece together what had happened.
One moment, he and Azra had been in that fetid cave, fighting off darkness and torturous chains. The next, he found himself in the middle of a burning forest. Not exactly the usual place one might expect to wake, but then again, little had been normal about this day so far. If it even was the same day?
The dead man's face had been the first thing he saw when he woke up, and it was still laying next to him, its lifeless eyes reflecting the fires that were inching closer and closer.
With a strangled moan, Erec dragged himself to sit against a gnarled root. Pain flared through his ribs. Erec's left side burned where a nasty cut had appeared, although he could not remember how or when.
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"Azra! Azra where are you?"
Erec remembered he was not supposed to be alone. His brother was supposed to be with him here. Wherever "here" was.
Biting through the pain of his body, Erec glanced around the patches of scorched earth and burning debris until he saw it: a tangle of limbs, hair matted with blood and dirt, and a face filled with cuts and burns.
"No… Please gods no!"
Panic coursed through Erec's veins when he caught sight of his brother's terrible form, though the ragged rise and fall of Azra's chest confirmed he still breathed.
Crawling on his hands and knees, he eventually reached the barely breathing Azra.
"Azra. Azra please"
Erec whispered Azra's name, shaking his shoulder until a deep groan escaped his lips. It was enough assurance for Erec who now needed to focus on the next challenge ahead.
"How do i get you out of here?"
Before Erec could think of an answer, a guttural roar split the air. A confident war cry or a desperate cry of defeat? Erec couldn't tell.
From the tree line came a flash of light and a jagged bolt of cerulean energy that punched a fist-sized hole in the trunk of an ancient oak. Bark splintered outward, sending wood chips drifting like grotesque confetti.
Somewhere else, the twang of a bowstring screamed through the chaos, followed by the thunk of an arrow that embedded itself in the heavy moss at Erec's feet. He flinched as the arrow's point glinted wickedly in the crimson light.
Instinct screamed at him "get Azra and run". But run where?
The last place they remembered being was the cave in Nightfall Ravine but now Erec had no sense of orientation or direction, and this forest held nothing but carnage. All around, fire raced through the trees and wet moss, causing heavy fumes of smoke to render the sky imperceivable so the stars were not here to help him navigate this maze of chaos.
He had no idea where they were, or where to go for that sake, but the strange bolt of fire and the arrow embedded in the ground at his feet, along with the dead body laying close by, all confirmed one thing in Erec's mind:
"We need to get out of here".
Glancing down, Erec once again saw the sorry state that Azra was in. There was no choice.
"Every damn time. Why do I always have to carry you?" Erec groaned.
His rib cage protested, but he forced himself upright. He laid Azra's head across his thighs for a moment, checking for fresh bleeding. Though a wound in Azra's leg had clotted, flecks of crimson still oozed onto the forest floor.
"A problem for sure, but we'll save that for later"
As Erec lifted Azra and slung him over one shoulder, a howl of wind - and another arc of deep blue flame blazed through the branches above. Erec hissed as heat strobed across his face.
"Who in the seven depths of hell, is throwing literal fire at me?" He roared, receiving no reply. Not that he really expected one.
Even if someone answered his crazed roar, what could he do? Nothing. He could do nothing but grit his teeth and run from the supernatural danger facing him.
He turned away and staggered into the tangle of trees. With each footstep, Azra's weight tugged on his strained muscles, but Erec refused to stutter. He felt a cold sweat slicking his forehead, mixin with the copper taste of his own blood whenever he seized another lung-burning breath.
Branches whipped his face, snagged his clothes, and snagged his mind: "How had they gone from a damn cave in a ravine to a burning forest?"
Suddenly, a memory appeared in his mind. He recalled a humanoid figure, bound in hellish chains, and an explosion of metal and stone. And then he recalled three simple, yet eerie words spoken from the encroaching depths of darkness "Art thee eke".
What the hell did that mean? And it still didn't explain how they got into a forest!
Questions clattered in his skull, but he quieted them. There was no time to dwell on useless questions, as only one mystery needed solving right now: "Where do I run to?".
Above all else, Erec wanted to put distance between himself and the dead man's body. The image of the pale, bloodless face was still haunting Erec's thoughts.
The forest seemed alive, a writhing labyrinth of verdant canopy being devoured by crimson flames and black smoke.
Erec's vision blurred as beats of sweat reached his eyes. All around him the shadows seemed to quiver. Were they hiding enemies, or were they merely phantom tricks of flickering fire?
He pressed his back against a broad trunk, gasping for air. His breath came ragged, but he didn't care. He needed the short rest or he feared he might collapse at any moment.
When an arrow thunked into the moss a few meters away, Erec flinched sharply. Jaw clenched, arms trembling, Erec twisted to rearrange Azra on his shoulder. A fresh hiss of pain ripped through his side but he had to fight through the pain.
Looking around, no one stood within direct sight, only trees, cracked earth, and the distant roar of trees exploding in bursts of fire, and… distant yells?
"Azra" he whispered, forcing his legs into once again start walking. "I think someone is trying to kill us". It seemed a logical conclusion, but in this thoroughly illogical situation it was hard for Erec to think straight.
Azra gave no reply to the terrifying statement, his body simply dangling limply to the motion of Erec's rough march.
"The first time i could actually use that wicked head of yours, and you're unconscious. I swear, sometimes you do these things just to piss me off!"
Another arrow hissed through the air, coming from Erec's left side. He could see the arrow coming towards him, but there was nothing he could do, there was no way for him to dodge it. He was too heavy and slow with Azra on his shoulder.
All he could do was watch the arrow on its inevitable path towards him, and wonder "How exactly did i start the day by going to hunt deer and end it like this?".