"What? Where am I?"
Perlì's eyes snapped open, sitting on a church pew. At first glance, he seemed to be in an abandoned medieval church, surrounded by lethal silence.
The whole scene was lit dimly, with the soft light of candles still burning, their wax mysteriously unmelted. Distorted Gothic arches bore a crumbling ceiling, ancient rusty chains hanging like abandoned vices.
He stood before a shattered altar. Behind it stood a severed statue that had toppled in the presbytery, most certainly the work of some sacrilegious hand.
*What is happening here? How did I end up here? This must be one of those world transmigrations like in novels...*
The air was thick with dust and memories long ago forgotten. Every step across the checkerboard floor echoed like thunder. Perlì stepped out of the shadow of the pew and snatched a candleholder from the altar to light his way.
The church consisted of ten naves. Struggling to comprehend what he was seeing, he glanced to his right, where broken idols littered the floor and bleached murals lined the walls, one showing a man in black armor with a claymore, his face obscured by a great big black censor mark.
*This has to be a dream. There is no other explanation. Or perhaps I'm going mad. Why am I here? What did I do last? Dang it! I don't remember....*
The air itself hung suspended, waiting for something impossible to resume. Time had stopped, buried under the wreckage.
He moved towards the huge wooden doors, putting down the candleholder on the floor before he pushed against them with both hands.
The creaking doors creaked open slowly, revealing an apocalyptic landscape, as if the end of the world had reached its final act.
The sky was cold gray. No stars. No moon. The only light from above: an eclipsed sun by a stationary moon, with a thin ring of sunlight cutting through its shadow.
*What is happening here? This is the story of one of Henry Paget-Lowe's novels. Oh dear, don't tell me I was transmigrated into one of those stories...*
In front of him was a seventeen-step staircase, black and worn out, without banisters, leading down to a desert of blackened grass and ash where life once bloomed.
Bits of ruined architecture were scattered on the ground. Tattered columns and broken arches stuck out like beacons of a vanished civilization.
He stepped back, hastily retrieving the candleholder and clutching it as if it were a sacred relic.
*And I'm supposed to go out unarmed, not knowing what might attack me?*
He yelled in his mind, refusing to allow even the barest whisper to escape his lips.
With no choice left to him, he gripped the candlestick more tightly and stepped forward. His heart pounded with each step until it stopped when his boots touched solid ground.
*I must be having a nightmare, I'm sure. None of this makes sense.*
He paused, gazing out over the barren wasteland, searching for an explanation.
*No one is chasing me. I have time to consider it. What? Where? Why?*
*I am the last heir of the illustrious House of Nemunas. And now the world about me is falling apart. Lovely, yes, but lovelier still would it be to live.*
He descended the stairs in daydreaming, with no design.
*Why should I be transmigrated? I don't remember dying, and if I had, I'd be the last person worth this second chance. Unless some Kamu took pity on me and restored me to life. That would be something.*
He entered into this strange new world, following the path of a moss-covered wall streaked with dried blood, the traces of a house demolished.
While turning the corner, he came face to face with the rotting corpse of a knight, his body torn open but still gripping a rusted, shattered sword.
Perlì rushed to the corpse. He was no physician but had an idea of what had occurred.
*No stab wounds. By the blood on the wall, he must have been thrown and shredded. That would imply predators are near. That's bad....*
He freed the sword from the knight's grasp and went on.
*What if I wait for someone like a fairy or a spirit animal to appear and introduce me to a tutorial? Nah, tutorials are always boring."
Though there were no answers, Perlì was not afraid in the regular sense. Monsters occupied every space, creatures he'd never even heard of, starved to devour him.
But at least it was fresh. No dowry wedding, no graduation. He had vanished from Couesnon, gone missing to all of them. No duty to nobility, no fate. He was experiencing the Arcadian poet's fantasy, but Perlì wanted it more real.
Before him, there was a pile of ash. Maybe beyond that pile, there could be a distant village or group of survivors gazed, individuals who could help, or kill him.
With effort, he climbed the smoldering pile and at once repented it.
In front of the wasteland stood a ghastly monster, over 3 metres high. Its head was shrouded by a crown of white tentacle-like projections that contrasted with the black skin, a foul flower if we want to give it a term. Three spiked, blood-stained tails whipped behind. Its raw, rough flesh moved on three pairs of legs, two for move, one for kill.
*How am I ever going to kill that thing?*
For a few minutes Perli stands there trying to think of a plan on how to avoid the beast. Looking carefully at the beast's behavior, Perlì notices that the beast is blind.
Minutes pass, and Perli is organizing a plan in his head. He sighs for a moment and says to himself.
*Im ready.*
Perlì knelt behind a rock, out of sight. The beast wandered the wasteland, looking for its next victim.
He saw forward. Under the flower-like head, a skeletal, hungry mouth from jaw to chest. Despite seeing such a hideous creature from the worst nightmares someone could ever dream, Perli kept repeating the same phrase to himself.
*I can do this.*
As he stood there, there was a bellow behind.
Rolling over onto his side, Perlì saw a grey wolf, blinded and broken, jaw broken, limbs twisted, and a spear lodged where its tail would be, charging full tilt at him.
Horror-stricken, he threw the candlestick and fled.
*Son of a bitch!*
The howl of the wolf roused the beast, which turned in that direction and sprang.
With its aggressive front claws, the monster pounced on the wolf, which growled and turned in pain. The creature opened its mouth to throw the entire animal, who was flailing uncontrollably in its last moments of life, in a single but big bite.
Seeing in horror, Perlì witnessed this story's conclusion. He would fight the monster but it would catch him anyway.
*I must die, don't I? Can't I find another way out? You, do you really think I'll be killed like that?*
He drew his damaged sword. Though he lacked powers from his Sulla, he refused to die without a fight.