It's All Br'aad's Fault

Chapter 4: The World

The purple eyes gazed upon him as he drifted back from the Middle Void as he had nicknamed it. It was when he dazed off inside the blackness, sometimes he could remember little pieces of who he was. He never could figure out who this 'Sylnan' was. There was never any sound, only silence.

"Hello." He spoke aloud, it had been a while since he had seen the eyes. It had been a while since the blue had appeared or since the purple light had burned through.

The eyes let out a harsh word he couldn't understand then a simple, "Hi."

"Who are you-- what are you?"

The eyes studied him for a moment. It began mumbling, looking down into the void beneath. He picked up on the words it had said before out of the harsh ones he couldn't understand. "It's all Br'aad's fault."

"Who's Br'aad? What did it do?"

The eyes whipped back up. Then, with no warning and no blue void; purple shot through.

He felt as though his non-existent body was burning. A yell trailed out from his invisible lungs. The grating feeling blasted the eyes away with a long hiss.

"Sylnan? Please, you need to come back."

The void grew much brighter. He had to close his non-existent eyes.

"Sylnan? Please, please, please."

He was Sylnan, wasn't he? The name, he knew it. He had heard it. He remembered the face of a young boy with long ears.

"Sylnan?" That was the word the boy had mouthed in the silence of the Middle Void. He felt himself drifting into the Middle Void. The memories.

One of sadness. The death of a face much like the one he didn't have. A single needle, guards. No father. Little brother.

One of fear. The face of the little brother being held in his hand. A purple marking and a fearful tone. The words he had said were muffled but angry and scared.

One of happiness. His little brother showing up again, drinking with friends. One with a long beard. One with purple skin like the purple eyes. One with a cat-like face.

One of pain. Pain. A sharp weapon plunging through his chest, leaving him to die in a dark place he remembered to be a sewer. A face of a lover in the dreamscape of death.

One of rage. The red crystal breaking. The words failing in pages of an old friend. One of a man with golden markings tracing his skin.

He felt. It was something warm draped over his body. The body that he had. He felt heat burning his skin. He shouted in agny before the heat melted away.

His dark eyes flickered open. The world around him was so different from the void. It was like the purple light that had broken through.

Faces hovered around him. Faces he could remember from what the Middle Void had shown him. No words came to mind that matched them. He bent his head to the side He could move! He could see!

But could he speak?

"Where?-"

The voices of the faces broke through the hushed quiet. It wasn't silence. It wasn't anything like the silence of the void.

"Sylnan? Are you awake?"

"Yeah, probably he has his eyes open, doesn't he?"

"He moved! Oh thank the gods he's alive! I couldn't have him die again."

"I hope he doesn't attack us again."

"Shut up! He won't. It was probably just that demon."

"Shhhh shhh shhh, he said something."

He coughed. A feeling he hadn't felt in while.

"It's all Br'aad's fault." He whispered. It was the only phrase he could remember how to say. There was so much going on. His eyes landed on a face with golden tattoos crawling up it. Three long thin scars were carved beneath his eye. The face's green eyes looked worried down at him.

"What?" The golden tattooed face's voice fell. He-- Sylnan stared up at it. He remembered he could move.

He pushed off the soft rectangle, he recalled from the Middle Void it was called a 'bed'.

"Where am I?"

"You've been unconscious for three days Sylnan. You- you attacked me and Mountain after he tried to pull you away then Vel when you tried to attack Mountain and the Taxi knocked you out and-"

"Who?"

The man with golden tattoos eyes seemed to break as droplets at their edges. His voice broke as he spoke, "Do you not know who we are?"

"I-I know who you are. Just not the words."

"The words?" The golden tattooed man echoed. There were no echos in the void.

"Our names, Br'aad. My name is Velrisa or Vel. You know who I am though, right?" The purple woman with long horns asked.

"Yes..."

"I'm Br'aad." The golden tattoo man said. He tensed. That was the bad one. Yet, he didn't seem evil. Sylnan connected it now. He was the child from the sadness and fear. He was his brother.

"...Uh, I'm Mountain. Are you sure you're alright?" The man with the long beard asked. Sylnan remembered he had tried to kill them with a bear trap. The words came back to him then.

"Then you're... Taxi." He got up off the bed, pointing the finger that existed at the cat-like man. Taxi gave a nervous nod.

"You're not... mad I knocked you out right. Like you won't attack me like you did to- to Br'aad and Mountain and Vel. You got quite a few punches in there. You scratched Br'aad really badly."

Sylnan looked down at his hands. One was bandaged in white, a pale purple pulsed in the veins. That was the color of the eyes.

"I'm sorry." It was barely a whisper.

The assortment of faces and bodies approached him gave sad sighes and forgiving comments. He wasn't scared while they walked towards him. He remembered who they were to him. Sylnan didn't pull away from them as they all collectively embraced him.

These were his friends.

His best friends.