It all started with a flash of white and a sudden, uncomfortable pain at the back of her head.
The girl opened her eyes with great effort. Blurry vision slowly giving way as she blinked time and time again. Dark, muted colours filled her surroundings as a splitting headache troubled the girl who was lying on something both soft and hard.
'W-where am I? Wait, who am I?' The thoughts passed through her head. With shaking hands, the girl pushed herself up and what she had seen, confused her. She was alive, but beneath her was a small mountain of decomposing corpses. To be precise, she was at the very pinnacle of it.
'G-gross!' She tried moving away but her legs could not move, they were stuck in between the bodies. Her long, thin hands grasped torn clothes of one of the bodies in question and lifted it just enough for her legs to be free.
With one problem solved another appeared.
Feeling a throbbing pain at the back of her head, the girl reached around, touching the source of her discomfort.
Then, feeling something wet, she brough her hands Infront of her face and saw small droplets of red liquid. 'T-that's not good.' Her headache intensified.
Now free, with great effort she crawled down from the mountain and breathed deeply. At closer inspection, the bodies were odd. Not one was the same. Size, shape and skin colour varied. Some were no bigger than her head with broken wings, some had long gnarly teeth while others had long, slender bodies.
The girl then looked at herself and noticed a weird, glowing tattoo in a shape of a rose down her lower abdomen. Bright red discharge of energy spread through her skin as the light was depressingly dimming, coincidentally her headache was slowly going away.
'Well I do not know where I am, who I am and what is happening.' She sighed while noticing that her clothes were fully ripped. Her gaze landed on the pile of corpses. ''Do forgive me.'' She apologetically bowed to the pile and began pulling bodies in search of something to wear.
Long, agonising moments passed but finally, she was satisfied with finding usable clothes, that once must have belonged to someone filthy rich, now a shadow of their former glory, covered in dried blood, mud and other liquids she didn't recognise. Just before her departure, the girl noticed something else in this pile of trash.
On a body lying to the side, the girl noticed what looked to be a battered but unbroken bow with a quiver and few arrows inside of it. She carefully rotated the body. It was missing a leg, as if it was bitten off by something massive and disarmed it, attaching the quiver to a leather belt she had found and flinging the bow over her back, securing it.
Still weak but now armed and clothed, the girl looked at her surroundings. The encroaching shadows casted from the black leafed trees surrounded her, blocking out the sky. She wasn't sure what time of the day or night it was.
Taking a look down a trail that was leading from the pile of bodies into the deeper parts of the forest, she saw a trunk of a massive tree, it seemed much bigger and different in colour.
While trees around her were black in colour, the one down the path was ashy with golden leafs. It looked more inviting than this place so with no other choice, the girl slowly and painfully dragged her feet while hoping for safe heaven to show itself.
It seemed to be within reach yet the girls condition slowed down her progress.
'Its odd. There is no wind.' She noticed the lack of wind on her skin, yet the trees kept moving their leafs and branches, more so the closer she got to the ashy tree.
'No birds or any animals either. I must have died and this is my purgatory...' Her mind enveloped in a weird mist as her eyes kept loosing focus.
The young girl failed to notice a set of eyes gleaming in the dark that stalked her from the pile of corpses. It salivated at the thought of devouring an elf. Yes they were chewy but it still was a good amount of meat.
Monster digged his paws into the earth and flexed his back legs and just as it prepared itself to jump on the struggling girl, a stinging pain shot out from its abdomen. Looking down, it noticed there was a solid branch stuck in its body while looking up revealed two elderly sets of amber eyes, looking down at it in silent fury.
Roots wrapped themselves around its legs, locking it in place as more branches shot out and pierced the monsters body, impaling it against the cold earth. Shocked, the monster couldnt react and the last thing it saw was a large set of crooked, wooden teeth that appeared from within the bark of this tree.
Muffled screams came from within the tree, never quite reaching the ears of this elf girl.
'It feels like I am being guided there. It is very odd.' Trees seemed to part way for her but they were trees, the could not move... right?
Eventually she reached the base of this massive ashy tree. Girl noticed there was some sort of a boundary surrounding this tree. In a large circle there were stone pillars evenly scattered around it. Each pillars contained some sort of a rune but their understanding was beyond her capability.
She crossed the stone boundary and entered the area. Immediately the elf girl felt a blast of hot air hit her but it wasn't dangerous, instead it felt oddly comforting. She felt her eye lids become heavy and being unable to stop herself, the elf girl collapsed and fell asleep as the golden leafs scattered around her body...
'Miserable life set this path, an old soul trapped in young body, past is scarring events yet to come.'