Where Shadows Breathe [Legolas Fanfiction] :on hold:

Chapter Fifteen: Ellipsism

Chapter Fifteen: Ellipsism--Forven

Flashes flickered across my vision, fading to bleak darkness. The lights were without form, shapeless and shifting, like a cloak in the wind.  A weight pressed on my chest, and a dull pain throbbed up my side. I could only groan, hands clenching.

The lights were growing brighter as the seconds passed. Head throbbing, I felt the weight on my chest lighten, faint noise filling the air as a cold liquid was pressed to my lips. The noise faded and I felt a brush of air upon my face, but then all was still. Unmoving. Blissful unawareness crept upon me, and I drifted into its cold embrace.

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The ground was burning, a living, flickering, furious inferno.

I breathed harshly, but the smoke burned my throat. The voices of the trees resound, piercing the hazy air with splintering force. I couldn't see, couldn't move, couldn't run. Somehow, I did not feel the heat upon my skin. Instead, a strange chill hung around me, almost as a void between the fire and myself. Despite the strange barrier, dread still overwhelmed me as I could but only watch. Wait. See.

The trees were burning. And I could do nothing.

A wind swept by me, and suddenly the light was gone, and I could breathe, only to be caught by oblivion again, sinking into its deepening abyss.

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The ground was crimson, the sky black. Screams arose, biting what had been eerie silence, and, try as I might, I was helpless to cover my ears.

The chilling clash of metal sounded, the silhouettes of what could only be warriors blurring to become a single endless action. My vision narrowed as I struggled to bring the images into focus. Such effort seemed to be in vain, all the colors bleeding into one mural of increasing desolation. Breath harsh and footsteps fumbling, I spun, unable to comprehend the happening around me. It was all so strange.

Abruptly, clarity was awoken.

At what I saw, I drew a sharp intake of breath. The scene became a plaintive storm of attack and defense, set upon an infinite plain. The warriors—I knew them, did I not? But even as the thought arose, it fell as I could bring no name nor relation to them. Each of my comrades was lost in a phantom sea of faces, sinking into the mirky depths.

Spiders lurked, dropping from the trees and onto the bloodstained ground. Despite the grasp I had on my knives, I could not use them, nor could I step amid the combat. I felt to be watching from the outside, as if a glass prison encased me.

A cry rose, lifting above all others. Even as I watched my comrades fall, their weapons dropping useless from their hands, my wandering gaze halted on a single elf. The ellon's bearing was strong, not quite proud but still confident. A shining crown of sun-blessed hair fell around his shoulders. His face--it was one I recognized,  the passion in his eyes burning as bright as I had ever known. "Legolas!" I called, but my cry failed to shatter the glass around me. Instead, I was forced to watch what could only be described as horror. An innumerable number of spiders crept towards Legolas. He fought, abandoning bow for knives, but there were too many--too much--he would not be able--

And then I could move.

In an instant, I was advancing forward, legs carrying me across the growing plain. But I was too late,  my actions too slow. Legolas saw the immediate threat before him and valiantly fought against it. He did not sense the looming presence behind him, and before A warning could pass from my lips, a spider leapt from the branches above behind him. I heard a cry, filled with pain more than fear—and the world descended into a rippling pool of black.