"Surely... this isn't how I die."
The words escaped Aldric's lips as barely more than a whispered cry. His knuckles had gone white around the sword's hilt, grip so tight that if he possessed even a fraction of the strength he should have, the metal would have shattered in his hands.
"Aghhh, no! Help me!"
A man's scream tore through the temple – raw, primal horror given voice. But his wasn't unique.
Over a dozen other awakened scattered across the vast chamber, scrambling desperately for their lives. Those whose legs had been shattered crawled, dragging useless limbs behind them in what could only be futile desperation.
As Aldric watched the carnage unfold, the inevitability of his own death crystallized with terrible clarity.
Why? Why did I agree to come here?
His eyes found the woman standing at the temple's center. Brown hair. Eyes some color he was certain he'd known before but couldn't place now. She laughed as she waved her hand in manic circles, conducting the chaos like a mad prophet. She was, in every sense, the herald of their demise.
But not its source.
That which did her bidding was far more terrifying.
A knight. Three times the height of a man, clad in armor that gleamed with a faint nothingness – dull yet blinding in its promise of destruction. The metal had been painted in a color that stole the breath from lungs: pure despair, mixed with the blood of enemies mortal men dared not imagine.
This being, this thing, could only be described as a nightmare that redefined the very word.
It moved with terrifying grace despite its immense size. The armor seemed weightless, producing only soft clanks with each deliberate step. Its movements were fluid, almost gentle. There was no urgency in its pursuit.
Each attack was precise. Deadly. Spilling crimson mist with every strike.
The knight swung its dull, barbed blade downward and cleaved through two bodies at once. One victim was a man whose armor now seemed nothing more than decorative as he was split open like a fish, entrails spilling from his opened torso.
As the man screamed and cried, cradling his own intestines in trembling hands, Aldric noticed something. A horrific truth he'd failed to grasp until now.
No one here had been granted the mercy of death.
The screams were so numerous he'd failed to make the distinction before. But now he heard it clearly – some screamed from horror alone, while others howled with unending pain, their voices rising in pleas to be freed from misery.
One woman, pupils shaking with terror, shrieked without pause. Her voice crescendoed each time her gaze fell upon the lower half of her body, severed from the shoulder down, lying meters away.
For some reason, no one was dying.
Aldric stood frozen as he watched the massacre. He might have been the weakest among them, but he wasn't stupid. After the third attack, he'd already noticed the knight seemed to specifically target those who ran.
But standing idle would only delay his own torment.
[You have entered the Temple of the Perpetually Lost. The Firsts have ordained you a candidate. To save the greater past, you must forsake your future.]
Aldric ignored the pulsing notification hovering before him, just as he had since entering the temple. After all, he found no path to survival in its words.
He needed a logical plan. Leaving was impossible – the heavy stone doors had sealed shut behind them. So he needed a safe place within the temple itself.
As he scanned his surroundings, his eyes returned to the woman at the center.
That's it.
He'd noticed earlier that even when people scrambled close to the woman, the knight never followed them there. Where she stood was the safe zone.
The woman wielded a longsword, its blade etched with runes. She stood within a circle on the floor, and that circle seemed to be filling with the blood of the knight's victims, fed by every drop of crimson the creature spilled.
"It will soon be time," the woman laughed with an excitement that sent ice down Aldric's spine.
He had no idea what her plan was, what ritual she performed. None of that mattered. He simply knew that reaching her position was his only chance at survival.
With an intoxicating surge of adrenaline and grim determination, Aldric launched himself forward at full speed. He'd been motionless for so long that his sudden movement immediately drew the knight's attention. But he didn't stop. Couldn't stop.
"Yes, it is time," the woman declared, unaware of the desperate awakened charging toward her. She watched the circle fill with blood, then raised the rune-inscribed blade to her chest.
She looked up just as Aldric closed the distance.
"What – "
He lunged into her with his full weight, sending her stumbling backward, out of the circle.
Aldric collapsed to his knees on the blood-slicked floor, gasping for air above the circle the woman had occupied moments before. He glanced toward the approaching knight. It stopped mid-stride and turned away.
"I... made it," Aldric managed between the thundering beats of his own heart.
The woman clutched her sword and stared at Aldric, her face contorting with horror.
"You fool! What have you – "
A sound like the world breaking cut her words short. A massive pillar of pure crimson light erupted from beneath the circle, engulfing Aldric completely.
[A candidate has stepped forward.]
[You have been chosen.]
[You have been made a true candidate.]
[The true candidate does not possess the Blade of the Black Star.]
[You have been deemed a false existence.]
[Gods of the Expanse have noted this event.]
Aldric's vision flooded red. Notifications blazed across his sight. In that moment, he found himself unable to breathe. Unable to think.
Then it stopped.
Silence descended upon the temple – heavy, absolute, unforgiving.
Aldric knelt within the circle, gasping. As his vision cleared and he swept his gaze around the chamber, he saw those who had screamed for death finally receiving it. Those who had run were meeting the same fate. Bodies collapsed throughout the temple, released at last.
Only the woman remained alive, staring at Aldric with a face carved from utter defeat and despair.
"What... have you done?"
With a single decisive swing, the knight cleaved her in two. She fell in pieces beside Aldric as the creature stepped over her corpse and fixed its attention on him.
"You possess the blade, but not the marking. This trial is not yours."
Aldric heard it speak for the first time – a voice of dread and pure calamity made sound.
"While you..." The knight tilted its head as it studied him. "What are you?"
It waited for a response. None came. Just the trembling form of a weak and terrified man. Certainly not who it sought.
Or so it thought.
"The lost men whisper to the gods pleas of redemption, and for that sin, the Firsts spill the blood of the gods on the very altars where they were worshipped... Why?"
The knight raised its sword as it posed the question – more to itself than to anyone else.
Then, with eerie finality, it swung.
Perfect silence held for one crystalline moment, disrupted only by the wet thud of Aldric's severed head striking the stone floor.
[You have died.]