Mind's Eye

Chapter I =÷= Awakened in Seclusion

Soft. That's what he felt beneath him, soft. Something that tickled his skin. His eyes weighing like they were glued shut, but he slowly managed to pry them open, seeing a sky of dark blues and purples with clouds of dark grey floating above himself. He slowly pushed himself up as he observed his surroundings. Turns out the things tickling him were blades of grass, dancing in the wind. Where was he? Who was he? These questions filled the boy's head as he slowly got up, having to try a couple of times as his legs felt like jelly and refused to support his own weight. Despite searching, there was nothing he could remember before waking up. His past, if he had one, was a blank.

The boy looked through the darkness to the silhouette of mountains and hearing water rushing by. There was little time to get more acquainted to the land as a sudden clap of thunder and lightning filled out the sky, echoing through the valley. For a second, the boy could make out some sort of structure, with towers reaching up and scraping the clouds from the mountain edge. Drops of water began falling and hitting his skin as it began to rain soon after the clap of thunder, a small drizzle quickly turning into a downpour. The boy swiftly made his way to a nearby tree, desperate to stay dry. With branches forming a canopy, it would mostly keep him dry. It wasn't comfortable, but it would do for the moment.

Sitting down at the base of the trunk, the boy finally had a look at himself. He was clothed in loose fitting grey and black clothing, doing little to keep him warm, but some subconscious feeling made him grateful to have them on. Curling up, listening to the rain hit the tree and slide off, the boy spent what felt like hours trying to answer questions he didn't have answers to. What even was his name? Did he have a name? The boy was confused by the idea of going by a name, but looked to his hand as he muttered, hearing his voice for the first time, "My... name..." It sounded soft and dry, like it hadn't been used in a long time, if ever.

The boy looked up from his small hand as another flash of lightning caught his attention. And as he looked around, in another strike of lightning, he saw the silhouette of a hooded figure, staring at him from across the river. Their face was obscured from the shadow of the hood they were wearing, but they stood with an edge of nobility. Whoever they were, they didn't say a thing, they just... stared. But in the next flash, they were gone. The boy quickly got up and ran in the direction of where the figure last was, hoping for some answers. He dipped into the river and slowly waded across, feeling the cold water soak the lower half that sent shivers up his spine. Finally coming out of the river nearly entirely soaked, he approached where he thought he saw the figure. Looking around, there were hardly any traces of the figure. But then the boy stopped as he saw what appeared to be boot prints in the flashes of lightning, carving a path and heading in the direction of the structure he'd seen previously.

Choosing to follow the muddy tracks, the boy began to shiver from the cold of the rain as dirt and grass slowly faded into rocky stone with every step he took higher. Continuing to observe the structure as it slowly got closer, he wondered why the figure didn't say anything and why it suddenly left. The boy was honestly beginning to get tired of all these questions as he shook his head and kept going, trying to keep warm.

Eventually, the rain began to lighten as the sound of thunder traveled farther and farther away, but it still remained, hitting the boy's pale skin. He sighed as he looked down into the valley, lightly shivering at how high he was now. Looking back to the path, the tracks of the figure had stopped a while ago, but he chose to keep walking up towards the structure, which was now dominating his sight and making him feel even tinier as he got closer.

As the boy walked through an open hole in a wall presumably for defense, he looked about the old and destroyed buildings that littered the town. Moss and vegetation snaked up some of the buildings and looked like they were slowly reclaiming the materials used to make them. There was also rubble littered about the town, scorched wood, shattered stone, clearly something had attacked the settlement, but what was it? And was it still nearby? Walking through the town, in several passing moments, the boy thought he could see people watching him from the shadows. But every time he looked back, nobody was there. The anxiety of the moment began clawing into his mind with a similar feeling to everything else. Soon, the boy summoned the courage to call out, "Hello? Is anyone there?" The only thing to respond was the silence of the ruined settlement that cut through his words like a knife.