A shove sent him stumbling forward only to be yanked back by his collar before he hit the ground.
He had just been in the white space of the disfigured one, had he been reborn already? He expected to have been reborn as a newborn but this was something unexpected.
There was a lot of noise around him, mostly shouting. And a lot of people around him, it sounded like and angry mob.
The air was thick with smoke and sweat, a sour, choking stench that clung to his tongue. Each shout from the mob rattled his ribs, as though their fury was beating against his chest.
"What the hell is going on? Where on earth am I?" He moaned.
Pain tolled in his skull like a church bell, each strike threatening to split his head in two until he realized it wasn't just his head. A real bell tolled in the distance.
"Well that's good to know." He said, his voice drowned by the cacophony of noise around him.
He looked up to see the backs of people, he was indeed in the midst of an angry mob. As to what he was doing there, he had no clue. He could tell from their clothing that they were ancient, looking to be as last as the time of knights. Or perhaps earlier.
They were mostly men of all sizes, huge and beafy, lean and scrawny. A majority of them wore an assortment of clothes, from rough-spun linen, to cracked leather, to furs stiff with old blood. One good look and it was clear that these weren't costumes from a story. They reeked of lives spent in mud and sweat.
A warm liquid trickled down the side of his temple, he felt the touch and brought it to his face to find it to be blood.
"What the hell? What kind of reincarnation is this?" He hissed out, "Did that psycho give me a dying body?"
The hand holding on to his collar pulled him back out of the mob, he struggled to break free but his body failed to respond. His limbs felt stiffer than they should, his senses dulled.
He tried to see who was pulling him away from the mob but that proved to be had in a huge mob. He was at least grateful that the noise drowning his head was now far from him.
Away from the mob gave him space to think and air to breath. He took in a huge gasp of air. Whoever was pulling him let him seat on a small wooden barrel with a covered lid.
He moaned in pain as his bones practically creaked as they eased to sit down. His eyes grew wide with confusion.
"My body hurts, and it's heavy." He thought to himself.
He looked to the hand resting on his shoulder and could tell instantly that it was that of a female.
Her hand was small but calloused, nails too long, scratching faintly against his shirt. A chill ran through him and it felt less like comfort, more like a reminder she could tear skin if she wished.
His gaze went up from the hand to the body harbouring it.
Beside him stood a young woman clad in rough furs and cracked leather, the kind of clothing that looked lived in, not worn.
She had a round face, dark eyes, and cropped hair. Not ugly, but far from beautiful, at least beneath the dirt smudges. She looked more hardened than any woman he had seen in his past life.
The look she gave him was lifeless, like something had died inside of her.
She opened her mouth and spoke shortly after, her voice was hard but not caring in any way. "Lord Aerith, are you okay?"
The name hit him like another blow to the head. His mouth went dry. He could barely croak out the words: "That… that's me? I can't be a lord, that doesn't make any sense."
She looked at him more closely, that he could smell a foul stench from her. "You're bleeding. We should cover that up."
"Who is she, and why does she care about me?" He thought.
The stench for her cause him to wince, she picked up on it and backed up by a few feet. She then responded by bowing her head down slightly.
"I apologise for the irritation but I to be sure you were still, living." She hesitated before speaking even further. "Are you alright, Lord Aerith?"
He tried to over come his shock and speak for once, but was more surprised by his own tone. "And why would I not be?" Compared to the young woman's tone his was a reverse, he sounded softer and weaker. If he hadn't heard it himself he would have said he was crazy.
"Why is my voice so weird?" He asked himself.
She responded to his question almost immediately, her tone was slow and methodical. It seemed almost practiced and lacking any emotion or depth in them.
"You passed out, I thought you had... Died." She hesitated again for a second before continuing she did before. "But you came back and wandered into the crowd, so I had to save you."
"Save... Me?" He said still staring at her in disbelief.
His thoughts scattered like broken glass, each time he reached for one, it cut deeper. From the time he was last in his room, to when he was in the body of Davoz and when he met the disfigured one.
Was he still alive in the real world? Was this a dream? Was anything real?
His head wound stung him, he winced in response.
The young woman noticed his shift, "I will get a bowl of water to clean up the wound. Please wait here lord Aerith." With that she sprinted off, disappearing into the night behind a number of carriages.
He sat down there still confused, the bellows from the mob seemed to draw his attention once more. He turned his attention to them, to their flaming torches that seemed to draw his attention.
"What's going on there?" He asked himself.
"My people!" The voice cut through the chaos like an axe through bone, silencing the mob in an instant. Torches wavered, shadows danced across snarling faces. "We have gathered tonight to cleanse our town of the filth that stains it." A silence stretched thin as a blade— then came the words that made Aerith's blood run cold. "Tonight, we burn the witch."
Aerith's eyes widened, "You have got to be kidding me."
The mob swayed like a sea of torches, their voices rising and falling in a single rhythm, like one great beast waiting to strike. Then a voice split the night, cold and commanding…