Beyond Evil Lies... (Annalisa)

[Hirem]

19th of Summer, 514 AV

"Back, you animals!" came the cry from his straining throat, his words swallowed up by the dark cavern around. "Back!" On the surface, his roars and screams would carry for miles on the open desert, reach travelers on roads too distant to see. In the Prison, the bowels of the world, his voice amounted to nothing, a vain scratching at the door that would go unnoticed by all. He couldn't even hear himself, for the blood rushing to his head made sensation impossible, the only sound echoing in the space of his mind a thunderous heartbeat. The outside world was numb to him, a confusing array of twisted shapes and shadows that came out from the darkness to loom at him, illuminated only by the dying torch he carried in his right hand. He was only dimly aware of the creatures following swiftly behind him, their maddening cackles that chased after him just as swiftly as their chucked spears, and the broken path that he aimlessly followed. He was even dulled to pain, for the thousand cuts and gashes that littered his body only registered in the hollow space of his mind that he paid no heed. His skin was coated with blood - his own and the blood of others - but he couldn't afford to care for the mess, too focused on his frantic running to devote a second thought to his own condition. Must get away, his mind screamed, must get away!

He felt like he had done this before.

Another spear came, shrieking out of nothing, at him, burying the metal tip in his leg and driving him to his knees. From behind, a chorus of laughter suddenly made the Prison reverberate with sickly joy, for it had managed to fell yet another lamb that it intended to slaughter. "Stuck the giant!" An unknown man gleefully cried, his body lost to indescribable shadow. "Stuck him in his big, fat leg!" Other twisted voices shared in the man's delight, describing how they would enjoy feasting on the giant's leg, how they would adorn their home with bits of his skeleton, how they would enjoy getting a chance to test out that giant's cock. Scarcely able to breathe, so consumed with fear as he was, the man reached behind him, grabbed the spear, and ripped it roughly from his skin, tossing it uselessly into the consuming darkness. Then, understanding that he would either flee or die, he pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. Just as he rose to his full height, an arrow with black barbs whistled by his side and hooked itself painfully into his flesh. By all rights, he should have long succumbed to his wounds by now - and he might have preferred doing so, for it would grant him a relatively merciful passing that would spare him from the terrors that were otherwise waiting - but instead of allowing himself to submit to weakness, he kept running. He ran, because he was too terrified to do anything else.

He knew that he had done this before.

Somewhere after first getting struck by the thrown spear, he had lost control of the torch in his right hand. Now he traveled without any form of guiding light, the darkness of the Prison yawning ahead. Shattered masonry and crumbled statues littered the paths he now ran towards, old remnants of a glorious time long past. If one stopped and stared about and breathed in the decaying scent of this buried hell, one might be able to catch a glimpse of the paradise this had once been... but there was no time for contemplation in this land of horrors. He could only focus on running, keeping one foot ahead of the other, making sure that he was always outpacing his persistent foes. The words of a prayer were fastened to his lips, but to his horror, he found that he had forgotten the name of the god that he was hoping to appease. A dark hole lingered in his mind where that name had once dwelt, a hole that also encompassed his fading memories of home. Friends, family, love, hope, dreams, worship, smiles, peace... these were empty words now, that meant nothing more to him than a lost life and a wasted breath. I'm going to die here, he thought, the idea terrifying him. I am going to die here, and I will never again see the light of day.

Focused on that thought, Hirem was powerless to prevent his course from slipping off the beaten path, and plunging wildly into the abyss.

He didn't know where his steps had fallen astray, nor what mistake had doomed him to the fall. All that he was aware of, was that suddenly his feet were flying out from underneath him, the wind started to rush past his ears, and the blood that coated his weary body was slipping away into the empty air. The path was gone underneath him, replaced with the endless chasm that he was trapped in. He opened his mouth and let out a piercing scream, the voice sucked out from his lungs by the raging winds. Now, he didn't have the distant pinpricks of light that were hostile eyes to light his path, the world utterly consumed by darkness. A void had opened up around him, and he fell, screaming, into it forever and forever, until finally the hair had been stripped from his head and the blood chilled in his veins and the scream finally deafened by the loss of his own voice. He fell down...

Down...

Down...

Until finally he broke free of the lake's pull and exploded from the water's surface. Toxic air immediately filled his gasping lungs, but at least it was air, and air was life. Icy water surrounded his body, freezing his shivering arms and legs and making his whole figure chatter nervously with weakness. Through light-strained eyes, he looked at the skies and saw an unending torrent of gray clouds... looking around showed a broken landscape dominated by wrecked cliffs and treacherous, intimidating gorges. Feeling delirious and absent of strength, the man kicked his way clumsily to shore, unsure of how to traverse through the water but thankful to at least have found stable ground. Choking for air, he pulled himself out of the lake and collapsed on the nearby grass, closing his eyes and letting darkness overtake him.

[Annalisa Marin]

Pain. It seemed a constant state of being in this petching place, there was not a moment gone by that the tall woman was not in constant pain. A fist connected to her gut hard, knocking the wind from Anna’s lungs. Finishing the assault was a foot that snaked behind her ankle, forcing the beaten and battered sorceress on the ground. When she tried to rise she found a hand around her throat and a pair of rather irritated eyes gazing into hers. A weak whimper managed to escape her lips, genuine fear crossing her heart as the womanly figure increased the pressure of her hold.

“Without your magic you really are pathetic, aren’t you? You belong with those walking corpses, Annalisa Marin, your weak of body and mind just like them.” The whispering in her ears took on both masculine and feminine tones, the words seeming to echo long after they were spoken.

Her expression turned from frightened to wrathful, twisting in anger at someone having dared to call her weak. The tall sorceress gripped the wrist of the shadowy apparition, attempting to pry the fingers from around her neck. Surprisingly the being just chuckled and allowed her to stand, distancing itself from her. Anna took a ready stance, the being simply hold its hands at its sides as it waited. The sorceress stepped forward, her right fist swinging out wide and she used the momentum to attempt to land a kick on the figure.

The thing easily dodged the clumsily thrown punch and caught her leg mid kick, easily spinning the dark haired woman around and forcing her to the ground. Anna attempted to rise, crying out when the apparition stomped down on the small of her back hard. The sorceress felt useless, robbed of her magic use she really was useless. It hurt to admit but magic was her most potent tool and without it there was very little she could actually do to defend herself.

“How very sloppy. Whatever, this session is over anyway. I’ll return in half a bell to continue on with the next one, I certainly hope for your sake you show some improvement.” The figure said, vanishing into the swirling mists of her new ‘home’.

Anna simply laid upon the misty ground of the Heartlands for a good few chimes, writhing each time she attempted to rise as pain shot through her body. Everything about this place was a torment to her; the sky above was an angry red and had made her forget that the sky was actually blue naturally. The forest around her was so very lush and verdant but it seemed to threaten her with every poor move that she made. As for time, the sorceress had long ago lost track of such matters. Day and night mattered little to her, every moment she was awake she trained and trained and trained.

Finally the woman managed to rise shakily to her feet, her knees wobbling violently as she stumbled off into the forest. She was heading in the direction of a lake she knew to be nearby, needing some fresh water and having no desire to waste her res creating some. When she arrived at the lake’s edge the sorceress fell to her knees and started scooping out water, the cool liquid escaping down her throat in long greedy gulps. So concentrated upon her task she was that she did not notice the person laying not too far away on the opposite side of the lake.

[Hirem]

The man didn't want to pick himself up.

It was a strange reaction to have, one entirely at odds with what he should be doing in this scenario. Upon being ousted into an unknown environment, the logical thing to do was to get up, search the nearby surroundings, ensure that he wasn't at risk of falling into immediate danger. At the very least, he should have enough willpower to stand and start walking towards some form of shelter. Yet the strength to haul himself off the ground was lacking, and his willpower to survive the next chime was absent entirely. What he wanted, more than anything else, was to melt into the grass beneath him, to close his eyes and fade away into nothingness, carried away by an errant wind. This place was a relief to him, despite the dangers that it might be secreting nearby, for the air was sweet, fresh, and untainted by the howling of madmen and lepers and diseased beasts that lusted for meat. The water was brisk and very cold against his skin, but after feeling nothing but sweat and harsh rock against his body for the longest time, he welcomed the change of sensation. He was very assuredly not in the desert, and certainly not trapped within Hai, which struck him as a very good stroke of fortune.

Eventually, the man came to his senses, and raised his head so that he might get a clearer view of the world around. He was first struck by the revelation that the sky - previously thought to be gray - was actually a dark, muted red, colored like blood and layered with ominous clouds. Gasping at the sight, his gaze then traveled to the ground and realized that he was laying near actual verdant woodland, a far cry from the dusty, bare surrounds of the Burning Lands. Just a short ways from where he rested, sat a little prickly bush that guarded a few colorful flowers, green and lush with life. On the far side of the lake, there was a heavily forested area that his mind struggled to comprehend. Where am I? He kept thinking, trying to understand where in Mizahar he might find a red sky and generous wilderness. And how did I reach here, when I was tumbling to my death in Hai just a few chimes ago? The most plausible answer that came to him was that he had been whisked away by the means of magic, which he immediately recoiled at the thought of. This is not my salvation, he realized, his hands balling into fists. This is some trap by a mage, who seeks to break my will further and exploit the strength of my body. I cannot allow myself to be manipulated.

His first instinct was to head for the safety of the forest and seek the comfort of secrecy, perhaps hide from whatever force brought him to this strange location, but before he could move away from the lakeside, the man had a sudden and keening pain in his throat that reminded him of his own dehydration. His body trembling with weakness, he turned about and crawled on his hands and knees towards the icy-cold water, rubbing his neck and taking low, shuddering breathes. Stooping low once he reached the shore, he dipped his mouth to the lake's surface and sucked in water greedily, ignoring the numbing pain the water's chill left upon his mouth and cheeks. The refreshment was deliciously sweet after what seemed to be an eternity caught in the void that was Hai, and he only pulled back when his stomach felt close to bursting. As his eyes fluttered open and he took large, relieved gasps of air, the man realized that he was not alone at the lakeshore. His wandering gaze, purely by chance, stumbled upon a woman that was sitting opposite him on the far side of the lake. She too was sipping water as an animal would, her thirst evident and her wild manner showing that same desperation that had conquered his own mind. But in everything else, she was different; her skin was pale, her eyes were of a muted color and did not shine like his own, and her clothes were adjusted to the chilly climates of the north. And the gaze that she bore was...

Before he could come up with a more rational plan, he was suddenly throwing himself to his feet and stalking around the lake's shore, heading towards this distant figure. Though she might very well be part of the danger that lurked in this otherworldly land, he was desperate for a chance to speak with a clear-minded, normal human being. "Falim!" He said as he came closer, the pitch of his voice emphasizing just how scared he was. "I mean you no harm! Please, do not be afraid!" Raising his hands high in the air, the man bowed his head. "But I need to understand where this is, where I am... Who are you?"