'I wonder how I was freed from the thorns… maybe my blood is poisonous to thorns…'
Just when he was getting comfortable and started to think of what just happened, he noticed a small puddle of water right below in front of him. In the reflection he saw something off behind him.
A sudden cold icy droplet fell onto his nape, making him shiver as his skin crawled from the cold drop. As he slowly looked above him and confirmed his suspicion as he saw a huge chunk of ice floating in air suspended by chains, right above him, big enough to crush him easily and no one would ever be able to find him.]
It was suspended high in the air by three chains and was wrapped around the ice tightly. The chains were extending outwards into the darkness and mist. One of the chains looked different, fragile and almost as if it could be broken any moment, the other one looked strong, rigid chains while the last one looked out of place and balanced breaking symmetry. Three of them were emitting mist as the air froze as it came near the chain and the fragile one looked broken as no mist was being emitting.
There were small puddles of water around him, those were the first few droplets that melted off and now the water kept on melting rapidly as drops started falling faster.
'Is that a… person?'
But what caught his attention was something blurry and dark frozen inside that giant ice, a blurry humanoid figure, curled up and enwrapped in some red curly strings with some sphere white to his right side. To the left, there was another black sphere. Which was moving rapidly while the white one was almost having no sign of motion.
Not only was the person frozen inside the chained wrapped ice chunk, he was tangled in red strings which looked strong and vivid, even if this impossible ice did melt, the man inside would still be stuck, leaving no way to free himself, and only to fall into utter despair.
The kid thought to himself 'It would suck if I was there' as he pitied him. Then he moved his attention to the small sphere which were blurry due to ice but pure dark color was moving, trying to break free, it was like a fluid enveloping and waving around it despite being frozen in ice, absorbing all light, almost, leaving nothing that came inside and the space near it seemed curved and disoriented as if it was bending the space itself while its opposite, pure white part rejecting all light from entering. Almost like two opposite forces existing around the man.
It was odd, even when it was so far away, yet it still frightened him as the sphere looked almost like it was trying to eat everything in its path and moving in that thick, solid ice.
'Just who… what is that…'
He tried to focus on the person's face but noticed he had a giant hole in his chest and suddenly the kid started to get tired as his vision started to go blurry, he couldn't tell if the ground was shaking below him or his legs trembling for unknown reasons as he fell onto the ground leaving him gasping for air.
He felt something odd, heavy and empty where his heart resided. He noticed he was not able to feel his heart beat as well. He strugglingly moved his hand towards his chest and noticed his chest had a hole at where the heart should have resided. Nothing had attacked him, he felt no different from before either. He just started noticing his heart and its beat was missing just now.
'Dam this world.' he uttered but even during all this, he couldn't forget about the girl's face which was begging for help, and not long after, he lost his vision completely and now all he can hear is the sound of droplets falling onto the ground and soon it stopped as he gained consciousness.
He felt like his body was being carried. He could hear the sound of horses, foot and carriage with a bunch of people.
'I guess he wasn't kidding about soldiers coming.' the kid whispered as he opened his eyes a little to see.
"Captain, he is awake!"
But from tiredness, he fell asleep instantly. He felt something on his face a few times here and there.
He opened his eyes multiple times, remembering vague memories of afterwards. First being loaded onto a carriage, then being dragged out into the village with his hands chained and being dragged across the road.
He barely opened back his eyes once again just to see the commotion of soldiers and village folks.
"let him go. This kid did nothing wrong!" yelled a villager woman while some other villagers were being pushed back, being resisted by one soldier.
A man yelled from front "He is the only lead we got, this is for his protection. It's the order by the town's captain that he will be under our supervision."
'Huh? Protection?' as he hears his chains rattling while one of his knees was being dragged across the muddy road and one of his hands supported by someone else. 'Yea right, as if.'
The village guards are arguing with the two town soldiers about something.
One of them is trying to handle the situation and explaining it while the other looks arrogant, causing trouble. He opened his eyes slightly and saw three orange balls hanging near the guards sword.
He noticed one side of his face was pretty sore as if he landed hard face first onto the ground.
He tried to stand up but his body was not responding to his will as he closed his eyes, blanking out and eventually falling into slumber once again.
He could still hear but the sound was muffled up, he could not make any sense of it.
After some time, he was dragged upstairs and finally, he was thrown onto something, allowing the blood to circulate to his head letting him rest properly but the cold chains were still on his wrists as he felt cold and was irritated. His arms were positioned outwards off the bed making him feel uncomfortable but at least people were not dragging him across the road.
After some unknown time had passed, he whispered in his sleep 'Dont hate me… dont leave me… please don' t look at me' as if he was in a nightmare.
He opened his eyes from the jolt as he woke up to find a wooden ceiling above him.
'That nightmare again. It has been a while since that…' He had the same nightmare he always used to have. He stopped having it for some time until today but he was not able to recall any memories except him sitting in a corner and many shadow like eyes staring at him yelling something to him.
He remembered another dream. A dream with white hair girl smiling at him. He remembered only vague features of the girl 'I am sure I saw something else, a white haired girl? I can't remember it' as he tries hard to remember but fails to recall.
He stared at the ceiling which was colored brown. 'I guess I can see colors again… or I might have gone delusional.' as he joked to himself.
He looked around and found himself in the tavern room all alone, bandaged up on his hands, some of his chest to his neck and even one of his eyes. He tries to recall what happened to him.
'I was fighting with Ignis… Passed out?… and dragged out here… in chains?' as he looked at his wrist, which were freed from chains that were on him earlier now covered in bandages.
The chains were laying on the floor right on the side of the bed.
'So much of their protection.' the kid thought.
A bit annoyed by being dragged around like a prisoner but what's done is done. For now he is not angry or anything, he is just sitting on the bed, thinking about what happened to him as he rubs his wrist. He notices the white string still there, floating in air waving but he chose to ignore it.
After a few moments of thinking, nothing came to his mind, he felt empty, as if he had lost all his purpose.
He suddenly remembered the ring his master gave him. It was not on him as he pats his chest to check for his rough piece of cloth and was not able to feel any clothing wrapped around him.
'Wait… no, where did it go…?'
He looked below the pillows and on the floor but had no hope after some time of searching. 'Dam it…'
As he was looking around him and found nothing, he fell to his knees thinking he lost a precious keepsake.