Light novel draft

"I love you."

The words echoed in my mind for the longest time, as tired eyes watched a group of pre-school children playing football at the local community playground. Dull sounds of feet kicking the rubbery ball across the field were the only ones I hear, the smell of earth and grass reaching my nose as foot kicked up the greens on the ground. The sky was painted a shade of orange an yellow as the sun casts its last rays on the world around me, scenic painting of a picture I once saw in an art gallery. Laughter and shouts followed after the ball reached the goalposts, the kids hugging each other in celebratory joy.

I closed my eyes, and opened them after a second of deep breath, and in place of kids playing with a football, there was nothing there. The deflated ball collected dirt and dust in the absence of young fledglings. Instead of green grass, there was just barren earth and dirt, the evening August wind blowing up a cloud of dust. My eyes stung as the dust cloud came, and they started to water.

Sometimes I wished I could have erased the memories that kept surfacing, or at least suppress them. But it would seem as if the world wished to punish me, for a crime that I had no part of. I could not remember much, except fragments of pictures, like a shattered glass. Vague, fragmented, but telling. I remembered working at a facility, of a nature that I do not recall. I remembered my wife Eva, but I do not remember her face. I remembered Sarah, my only daughter, but I do not remember how old she was.

Rugged hands enveloped by battered, torn tanned brown leather gloves tightened around the grip of my axe as a sudden rustling startled me, amber eyes traced the source of the sound that so rudely broke my silent contemplation. For a minute, everything was silent except the sound of my heartbeat and heavy breathing. The setting sun cast its final rays as I watched and waited, axe in hand while the sky turned from a deep shade of orange to deep blue, and the shadows of long, dead trees and branches extended their ebony hands onto their environment.

Another rustle.

My grip tightened and ready to swing, I took my stance and anticipated an attack.

A quick dart and a blur of white, and after a second of hesitation, my axe which was swung way back in what would be a wide swing, dropped limply as my arms, when it turned out that it was just a hare that jumped out, most likely scared by me. Or my axe.

It did not matter. I should be counting my lucky stars that it was not something else that came out. A predator would be a welcome change, when compared to what has been haunting me since I woke up, my mind a blank slate, amnesiac and not remembering anything. Not even why was I there or who am I. But now I do remember my name, and it was Raven. Or at least what I remembered it was.

A pounding headache sent me reeling while I moaned in pain. It had been like that for, what, ten months? Ever since the incident, I had to rely on painkillers to suppress the splitting headache, which occurs fairly often. If I could find a doctor, perhaps I could get to the bottom of this issue.

But there are no doctors. Not real ones either.

Pulling out a small flask of purified water and three pills, I downed them all in one go, almost choking on the pills, which were the size of a five-cent coin. Leaning my back against a nearby tree, I sat down, trying in desperation to shake off the headache while waiting for the meds to kick in. It was not long, but the effects of the medicine kicked in just in time for me to see a figure crawling on all fours heading towards me. It was not fast, but it barely gave me enough time to stand back up. With ivory, razor-sharp claws taking swipes at me, I ducked, causing the claw to miss its mark and left deep markings on the tree trunk.

Rolling sideways, I grabbed my axe and swung wildly at the creature's elongated skull, but striking only air as the creature reared backwards and pounced, like a wolf at its prey's neck. I could only raise the handle of my axe to block its attack, its teeth sinking into the wooden handle and snapping the thick cedar to tiny fragments. Frustrated, I reached for the knife strapped onto my boots, but could only draw it out in time before the creature was once more upon me, knocking me onto my back and tearing at my neck. Fresh blood spurt out, and the last rays cast some glitter onto the crimson liquid. If I could describe it, it would resemble that of a rose. A rose of pure life. I screamed in pain but no sound came, the wound gushing blood as the creature's acidic saliva burnt the barren flesh. It had torn a jugular, along with a chunk of flesh and my breathing canal. I could feel my consciousness drifting, my lungs doing their best to keep absorbing air and keeping me alive, while my heart beat faster, contradicting what my organs are doing. I was losing blood. A lot of it in fact. But I know I could not fall here and be the creature's morsel. With as much strength as I could muster while forcing myself to mentally dull out the pain, I managed to land a kick squarely at the creature's abdomen and sent it reeling back. Trying in vain to staunch my wound with my free hand while the other gripping onto my knife, I struggled to stood up, only in time to dodge the creature's next swipe at my head.

I had to get away.

Scampering as fast as I would with the open wound around my neck, I ran as fast as my tired legs and failing body could. I could hear the creature chasing after me, snarling and screaming a bone-chilling scream that would have sounded like a cross between a human and a banshee, if the latter even existed. I heard more rustling and identical screams, and I knew I was in deep trouble. I turned my head to see how far a distance have I put between myself the the Feral, and I immediately regretted my decision. Three more, albeit slightly smaller, Ferals have joined the chase, each as ugly at the first one I encountered, dodging kicked-up stones and twigs while leaping over low-lying branches and trunks of fallen trees which I only jumped to escape them. Snarls and screams were the only sounds they could make, but it was enough to send me running for my life as I ran through the undergrowth, in a vain attempt to outrun them.

But I knew better. In a chase, Ferals win humans, hands down.

My consciousness began to fade, only awake enough for me to feel the ripping pain of a second attack. I had lost too much blood from the running, that it was a miracle that I managed to run as far as I did. But all that blood loss took its toll, and I began to stumble, my legs no longer able to move due to the lack of oxygen and blood. I began to feel the effect of the deprivation of blood and oxygen, and which I could no longer make a sound at all aside from gargled blood. All that moving had my life juice forced into my lungs as they desperately pulled in air, and before I knew it, I was drowning in my own blood.

It did not take long for one of the more agile, smaller ones to sink its teeth into my shoulders, ripping a hole into my leather pauldrons and tearing a sizable chunk of my flesh off it. The pain was too great, and the last thing I knew before I blacked out was me falling headfirst into a stream with the Feral still clinging on. If there was one thing that the Feral feared, it was water, and it turns out I was in luck. The escape took me to one of the streams, and the Feral that was still clinging onto my shoulder loosed its grip and screamed its unearthly scream and its flesh melted, revealing green bones. Even if I would care, it would mean nothing with my unconscious body floating downstream, my blood staining the pristine, clear waters a dark crimson.

Perhaps this time, I would finally die.

************

The world around me fell into my eyes slowly, blurred visages of branches swaying in the dark, midnight wind slowly cleared up, and the first thing that came to my mind was a troubled thought that had haunted me for these months.

I did not die.

To be more accurate about it, I could not die.

The pain on my shoulder and neck came back as strong as ever, even though I could not feel the wounds anymore. It was as if the attack never happened, which would be the case if not of the paralyzing pain that reminded me again and again. The bloodcurdling banshee-like screams, the haunt of the chase through the dead forest, those are now part of the repertoire of nightmares that torments me now. It seemed to me like a punishment from the Gods, of a crime that I do not recall ever committing. Or perhaps it was the fickle fate toying with my less-than-average luck, a really bad April Fool's joke that I now scream and beg for a release. I could not properly die, no matter how many times I thought I was done for. The stab to the heart, the ripping of my neck, evisceration, decapitation. Those were but the few times that I thought for sure I would be dead and waking up only at the pearly gates, the sweet, sweet release from an endless hell that I find myself in. But no, every time I came to, I find myself lying on the ground, my blood pooled around me. I found myself waking up in a shallow grave once, and the horror of it was enough to put me off of burial rituals.

I floated on a river, which I guessed where the stream I had fallen into had flowed. Too tired and in pain to swim, I resigned my fate to merely floating, the cold autumn water lapping against my leather tunic and the chill seeping into my bones. It was not long before I felt my head bump softly on loamy soil, that I slowly rolled onto my chest and crawled, groaning in pain. It seemed like forever before I dragged my sorry, wet self to dry land that I finally turned over and faced the heavens, spread eagle. Automatically, my right hand reached towards my neck where the Feral had torn it before, as if I was feeling the wound even though it no longer existed. It had been this way for the time since I first woke up in this strange land. I would wake up from my own death, only to have sharp, piercing pains where the fatal wounds would be, but there would not be any telling wounds. The same could be said about my shoulder, where the Feral took a large chunk out. Still evident by the missing chunk on my leather pauldron, a reminder to me that it was all real and not a dream.

I had no idea what time was it now, nor did it even really mattered at that moment. The serenity of the night, even in the midst of strange lands, were a welcome calm in the middle of a storm, a storm that I had no idea how did I got myself into. Rest did not come easy, as images of the time that I had experienced here swum into my blank skull. I woke up in these lands first some ten months ago, my left hand bloodied, clutching what looked like a piece of glass the size of my index finger. A shank? No, I quickly realized when I started asking myself three questions.

Where am I?

How did I end up here?

Who am I?

I woke up not knowing anything, unable to recall anything. It felt strange, like a large missing piece of myself were lost to me. Why was I clutching the glass shard, I remembered asking myself as I held it closer to my face, seeing if there was anything that could remind me of anything regarding myself. And that action brought about my first string of memories. I remembered I was working at a facility, and that was all that it showed. The memory came like a flash of light, an insight into a past that I had been robbed of. And as quickly as the memory came back to me, the glass shard had disappeared.

It would seem that the glass shard contains my memories. And if it was a shattered piece of glass, the only logical assumption would be that my memories are contained and fragmented into itty-bitty pieces of memories given physical form as glass shards. In this strange land where I do not know where am I at all, it was an impossible task, but alas one that I felt I had to explore, in hopes of finding the lost fragments of my memories, and hopefully in the end, why am I here.

The pain from the now non-existent wound sting again, and my breath became deep and heavy, panting out wispy thin clouds of mist in the cold night which I find myself began to shiver. I needed fire, and in this part of the land that I had traveled to, dry tinder is easy to find. Forcing myself up to labor, I gathered twigs and fallen branches, and with a talisman, quickly set fire to the pile that I had made. After coming to this place, I realized that there are things that logic could not dictate, even if I find them queer. People make fire with a simple talisman, fight monsters of nightmares with swords and flintlock pistols, defend their homes with shields and spears, and while I have lost my memories, I did find a shard, and that told me a chilling story.

I am not in my own world, neither am I in my own timeline.

**********

A strong, bone-chilling wind that blew into my face woke me up from my slumber, and the first piercing of the sun's rays brought the first shade of blue into the dawning sky. The warm fire yesterday was now a smoldering pile of ashes and burnt wood, the river flowing peacefully, disturbed by the occasional ripples of underwater bubbles or aquatic life surfacing for a gulp of fresh air. Serenity was the closest word I could find to describe this scenery, but I know better. Monsters and other creatures made up of nightmares roam the lands, and the Feral yesterday was only but one of the many dangers. Ironically, humanity itself poses the most threats to others. Bandits and marauders, cutthroats and treacherous politicians, those are as dangerous as any other monsters.

Perhaps the biggest danger was humanity itself.

But who am I to judge?

The pain in my neck and shoulder had already subsided, and I could move my limbs without debilitating pain hindering my movements. Getting up to my feet, I walked towards the river, splashed water over my face, and headed into the dead woodlands, hoping to find at least some form of civilization that I can procure a bread or an apple to stave off the hunger pangs that are slowly clambering into my mind. Ever since I started running from the creatures and until dawn, I had lost my backpack which contained all of my gears, food and my waterskin. And even though I just woke up from my rest, my body felt as if I had sunk into marsh waters, bogging me down so bad that I could not move as fast as I could. I had satiated my thirst from drinking at the river, but it could not stave off hunger nor fatigue. Hunger could not be kept at bay by mere drinking of water, it would come mere minutes after the water had flowed into my intestines and absorbed into my system.

Tired feet kicking up dirt and dust as I dragged my flagged body through the dead woods I found myself in, my mind went back to remembering the Ferals. I called them that, because they are like overgrown, rabid dogs. Eyeless and no visible nose, with overgrown canines and slits for ears, they are monsters with an appetite for blood and flesh. They have pale, ivory white, leathery skin stretched across their bony frame which is rather resistant to many bladed weapons, claws the size of raptors that curve inwards, built for ripping and tearing. From my experience, they dig in deep and almost never let go. They are agile monsters for their size, which are the size of dire wolves, though I have seen smaller ones. Their saliva burns flesh, and it's hard to even catch them as their skin is constantly covered in a layer of slime of which origin I do not know nor do I intend to catch one and conduct a study of it. Surviving one is already a monumental task, much less capture one alive.

And they were not the only ones I had seen. Other, much more hideous and dangerous monsters lurk this land that the locals call Traviel, and I am in the much milder region of Fralhort. And by milder, I think they meant the weather, because if they were referring to the monsters, and if the Ferals are already a mild bunch, I shudder to think of those in other regions.