A circle of hollow flames encircled Ashfall island, a phenomenon that had rarely ever happened. Somewhere in the middle of the flames, a figure stirred. One of his sleeves had been destroyed by the fire, also leaving burn marks on the arm, parts of his white hair burned by flames that couldn't hurt him anymore. His ice blue eyes stared into the flames.
He was Aatos. Or he was as much as he could be Aatos. He couldn't remember much, which made him so confused his mind was as hazy as ever. His eyes drifted around, looking for answers.
All he saw was some kind of a mechanical device on the ground. When he picked up without thinking much, he noticed a mistake someone had made while trying to wire it. With a few realignments of cables, it would be ready to be used if it was powered.
But before he got to work, a dark figure headed towards him. Its dark cloak flowed when it walked through the fire. Once the tall entity had reached its destination, it stopped right infront of Aatos.
"Do you remember your name?" it asked him. Aatos couldn't answer, so it continued asking him questions. "Do you remember dying?" it asked.
Aatos paused. His mind was clouded with the image of a falling rock. The flames, the heat, the pain. He remembered all of it perfectly, but nothing else.
"Then the fire kept what it could," the figure said to Aatos before the ring of fire vanished so suddenly that it made Aatos flinch. The dark figure vanished with it. The environment he was starting to get used to turned into a dense, ashy forest to wander alone with nowhere the go, the confusion still his dominant emotion.
In the meantine, the others were already leaving the ruins, done with their mission for the day. Maya kept the scroll in her hands, because she felt like it was strongly related to her research. The research she had barely continued in years.
"Do you think we should believe this old piece of paper?" Hazel questioned.
"By my eye, it's a real warning or record. Even if it was a random house we found it in, it could still be written by an expert. I haven't connected it to my other research material yet. Well, I left most of it behind, so I barely have anything to connect it to," Maya elaborated.
"We don't even know what it means yet. What if someone is using it against people and only we can save the world?" Aurora chattered.
"That would only happen in a childrens' storybook. We're real people, Aurora, not heroes of a telltale!" Hazel exclaimed playfully, it coming out half a laugh.
Remy was still bothering their head with the text in the scroll, and nobody knew what was going on in Hexa's head. Neither of them had spoken a word since reading the scroll. But before anything, Ocean felt a presentence nearby.
"Someone is in there," Ocean informed.
Hazel looked around, but saw no one. The closest thing to a person was fresh footprints that started out of nowhere with no evidence of human means of transport.
"How did that person get here if not walking?" Hazel asked, confused.
Maya scratched her head and looked at Hexa, who was still deep in thoughts. Most people wouldn't notice the struggle in Hexa's eyes like Maya did. But right now, they had one object: follow the footsteps. The group followed the path of footsteps.
"What if we run into a bounty hunter? They've been bugging me," Maya said. The question wasn't meant for just Hexa, but the whole newfound group.
"Then we kick his ass like last time, right Remy?" Hazel said so proudly it got Remy to frown. No other response came out of Remy.
"You're encountered them before?" Maya asked, surprised.
Hazel was ready to tell the whole story, but they noticed a figure walking through the forest with something in their hands. Positively not a gun, but something they couldn't quite make out.
"Hey!" Hazel called out.
After that, the figure turned around to face them.