27th of Saun, arc 716
He could hear the words coming form the person outside, and yet the sounds wouldn't go past his ears into his brain. He could not decipher what the person was saying, nor did the person even know if he was there. He was unable to move, and yet he felt lost, lost in the world, lost in his own skin. How much time had passed since he saw the jaws of the beast come down straight towards him and take his hand. Had it been a trial? A week? A season? How many had the beast killed in the meantime? How many did Aeon's actions and emotions sentence to death? He didn't feel like fighting the pain, and the light on the end of the tunnel kept getting smaller and smaller.Help.. He could hear the person saying. Who was the person going to help? The young squire didn't want help for himself, he wanted help for all of the people he doomed by failing to stop the monster. Still, he nodded as he had no energy left to say a word. He felt cold all of a sudden. Could it be that he was buried under the darkness so long, that the cold cycle came? He could feel the chill from the wind without issues, as he shivered. The warm sensation of the blood going around his skin was slowly disappearing, as everything he was once feeling became numb at a single moment.
The person had released him from the prison of the torn shirt, as his wounds were quickly covered with the soft fabric, which was already quite bloody. Aeon felt the pain, incredible amounts, as the person, which turned out to be a woman, attempted to stop the bleeding. Yet, with all of the pain, he couldn't scream. He didn't have the energy. He tried with all of his strength to let out a roar, and yet he couldn't manage to pull the air out of his lungs. Too much air, and too much energy needed for a scream, so he only shook his head slightly.
Not managing to figure out what the woman was doing until it was too late, Aeon closed his eyes from the quick stinging feeling around his neck. The young squire was still pretty disorientated, not figuring out that there was a hole in the collapsed building, and still being unable to connect the letters and sounds coming from the woman's mouth into words that made sense. Everything was so blurry, even sounds appeared to not be whole and clear, but instead some sort of deviation from what the beings in Idalos could produce with their mouths.
What he could hear very clearly were the words coming from the people. The people long dead, the people dying, and the people doomed to death from the monster. They all screamed for help so loud, Aeon wanted to slice his ears off just so he didn't need to hear them. They all looked at him, and reached out with their arms, as he was the one man that survived. How did he survive, and yet all of the others didn't? What made him so special? In the moment of the woman moving his lifeless body outside the wreckage, the young squire could see the faces of the people. They weren't in pain anymore, they were now filled with anger and hatred, as they felt betrayed. What made the young squire live, while every other person he tried to save died?
Aeon could feel all of their emotions, all of what they wanted him to know, from the nicest to the worst of things, and all of it made him genuinely sad. His eyes were filled with tears, both in the real world, and in his mind, as he tried reaching out to the dead, but the claws of the beast came at him once more, pulling him back into life. He wanted to be one of them. He didn't want to be left in the world alone, to be the lone survivor, to be the one responsible. It was truly a horrifying moment for the blond squire, but those ones were the moments that needed to be overcome the most.
"L..listen.." He said, coughing out the little blood he had within his mouth. He might've bit his tongue rather hard during the session of immense pain, even subconsciously. "..listen..to me.." Every word felt harder than the last one, as his eye started closing briefly. The darkness wanted him, and yet the light would not let him go. "you need to wa-..to warn them..they.. they must run.." Aeon managed to say, before coughing out the hot liquid once more, now some of it even falling on the woman. He slipped straight back into the world his brain had made for him, in which he could see only one face now, and it was his father.
After several moments, another face appeared, like the smoke from a freshly-made fire. It was Ryqos now, and the faces of his mentors gave Aeon some new hope, the new hope to keep fighting, for the light was worth it. And still, he had unfinished business in this world, unfinished business he couldn't just leave without making sure it was taken care of. He was going to ride a Jacadon, and not even the jaws of death could stop him. He was going to help them. To save them. All of them. No matter from how small or big a threat, he was going to be there for his city, for his people. For he needed to stop the monster, he needed to catch the bandits, he needed to root out the weed, the last one quite literally.
Narrative format | Aeon speaking | Others speaking | Aeon's thoughts
