…Fuck my life…
The thought was the first thing to stroke into Ryckel's mind.
He woke with a scream that died in his throat.
Frantically breathing in and out, only to feel the warmth and dampness at him. Like he was breathing onto something too close.
Not open air.
Something was wrong. He knew this familiar feeling. He was wearing a gas mask.
He coughed until every fiber in his body begged him to stop. He wasn't on a bed or anywhere close to the ground.
Gravity was the first thing Ryckel felt, and it was a lie. It tugged at his worn out shoes, trying to drag him into the abyss, but his body stayed anchored by a sickening, internal tension.
He opened his eyes and saw only red.
The Bleeding Hour. The mist was a thick crimson veil on his surroundings.
How did it get to the Red Dark?!
Wondering, he then looked down.
He saw more red, with not a ground in sight. His body slowly swayed, the wind howling but Ryckel wasn't falling.
He was held by thick, oily black ropes that punched clean through his thighs and ribs.
H-How… How was I even still alive?
Ryckel questioned but never complained.
Oddly enough, it didn't hurt like it should. Only feeling a fading dull sting.
How did all of this happen?!
His brain screamed in a dozen different directions. Where is Lyra? Where is Mom? Syrion… the fight…
Voices drifted from above, distorted by the masks and the wind. Screams. The clash of steel. Loud blasts that sounded in the heavy mist.
What's going on?
But the fact that he was wherever he was and could hear sounds upwards.
Does that mean he was dangling right off the edge of a cliff?
Nonetheless, he needed to get up, to make sense of all. Irrespective of the sounds above.
He wheezed. Trying to sway himself some more to see if he can get close to to any solid feeling, since was dangling off of something.
He swung his body toward where he felt they'll be something solid. The movement was a sickening lurch of the black things, but as his boots found purchase and his fingers clawing at the rock.
He didn't have any fear about his grip, he was a farmhand and waste collector after all.
His grip was terrifying. When he squeezed the stone, sinking into the rock like it was soft clay.
…? Even at that, sinking into rock like that is not normal…
Oh right…I'm an Attuned.
And with that, the white flames erupted again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Name: Ryckel
Race: Human
Synapse Grade: [Ignited]
Glyphs: [10/500]
Compilers' Hearth: [Not eligible]
Greater Will: ---
Marks: [Exalted] [Mist Walker]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not now!
He dismissed it.
Ryckel began to scale the cliff. It was an agonizing ascent.
Left hand. Right foot. Right hand. Left foot. Lunge. Repeat.
Every time he moved, he left deep handprints in the stone. He felt light, almost buoyant, yet his muscles burned with a fatigue that felt days old.
"Jokes on you, mother," Ryckel wheezed, his fingers aching as he began the grueling ascent. "I'd be dead if I never snuck out during the Red Dark."
As soon as he was done saying that, he felt a wet sadness that tugged his body.
Mother…Lyra…
Not now.
He snarled internally, dismissing the fire.
Survival first.
He crested the ledge and rolled onto a flat, gravel-strewn road.
He thought he had found safety and could rest.
Oh how far away from the truth he was.
A transport wagon lay on its side, wheels spinning uselessly. Bodies were strewn everywhere, the poor bums from the town, their bodies slit or were crushed.
Gas masks still all over their faces.
He could also hear the clashing of steel and grunts of people not too far off.
But that was over shadowed from a realization that hit Ryckel.
The wagon. Syrion kept the deal. He sent him with the Attuned batch and kept them out of it. He had won the gamble, even if he couldn't remember the victory.
Ryckel walked closer, trying to make sense of all the noise. His eyes widened almost immediately.
The road was a chaos of violence. Hussars in their red-crow armor were being dismantled by men in muted greys, their rusted armour bearing a sigil of two yellow doves.
One of the Hussars from the wagon stumbled toward Ryckel, his mask cracked, reaching out a bloody hand.
The Hussar increased his pace with what could only be agression. He didn't even blink. He didn't know this man.
As the man lunged, Ryckel simply sidestepped.
He gave the man a firm shove. The Hussar vanished over the cliff edge without a sound.
Another man, one of the Yellow Doves, saw Ryckel and snarled, charging with a shortsword.
Ryckel's body reacted before his mind did.
He lashed out and caught the assailant's wrist, twisting with a sickening crack. Ryckel used the momentum, pivoting on his heel and redirecting the man's weight toward the abyss.
He was tired, so damn tired, but he felt like he was moving through water while everyone else was moving through molasses.
The mist didn't feel like a threat, like it always had before. it felt like it was trying to hold his hand.
For that, Ryckel's mind was focused on the [Mist walker] mark, instinctively knowing that maybe the reason.
The tugging feeling of the ropes reminding Ryckel that they were there.
He reached for the ones in his chest.
Just what are they? How'd they even get here.
Based on what he saw. He gathered in his mind that he was being transported and then the people with the sigils of a yellow dove could have only attacked them.
How could these yellow doves destroy a wagon and spill it like this? It looked more like a Zhenren did it…
Somehow getting Ryckel to dangle off the edge of a cliff and have these black ropes right through him… that whole part was still fuzzy.
He then wanted to rippm the foul things out, they just didn't feel…natural.
That's when a shadow fell over him.
A man in heavy, reinforced leather mixed with rusted metal armor stood there, bearing the sigils of yellow doves. A hood pulled low over his gas mask.
He had stepped over the corpse of a Hussar, his blade dripping, though the blood was hard to make out because everything else was red!
He looked at Ryckel, then at the wrecked wagon, then at the black ropes in Ryckel's torso.
---The End of Chapter 5---