Level 0

Sundas, 5:25 AM, 17^th of Last Seed, 4E 201

When I awake, darkness and silence surrounds me. I feel nothing but a cold harsh wind, freezing me through the moisture on my skin and clothes. The stone beneath my head is even colder, coated in something slick and frozen.

A heavy weight is sprawled over me, and I can barely move. My arms are weak, painful. Everything hurts. From what state I have waken, I couldn’t guess. Hunger, pain, and cold: those feelings are my world now. And surrounding all of that, a shadow over my mind. Fear.

I am suffocating beneath the weight.

With what strength I can muster, I grab hold of the form above me, cold and damp, and push. In the dim light of sunrise, I can barely make out the face of the elderly man in rags as he topples to the ground. His eyes are stuck open in horror. Frozen. I scramble to sit up, but another weight rests across my legs, pinning me to the stone table where I have woken. Another man, this one much larger and heavier, is draped over the stone table, his chest and arms trapping my legs. I kick out with my legs, slowly and weakly. It takes a few moments to free myself, and my eyes eventually adjust to the dim, blue light in the clearing. I can make out the forms of a dozen or so bodies strewn about the stone table, all of them pale and silent. Surrounding the table, stand a ring of small carved stone towers.

With every inch of my body sore and stiff, I gently slide of the stone and crumple to my knees. How long has it been since I last stood? I dwell less on the questions and more on the fact that I can breathe once more. I inhale the cold, clear air, but I cannot stop shivering in my soaking and bloody rags. Beside me, the old man lies still. His clothes seem a little dryer then mine, soaked through to the skin with blood. I gently remove his clothes, ragged shoes and a bloody tunic, and replace mine. But it does little to fend off the chill in the air. Snow begins to fall in the early morning light.

The rippling sounds of water draw me away from the stone table. I crawl inch by inch to the embankment, my hands sinking into freezing cold mud and rocks. The sun has begun to rise, filing the clearing with streaks of blue and yellow rays. Rising to my knees, I lean over to view my reflection in the stream.

In the gently flowing water, I see my face for the first time. I am young, though my skin is ruddy and powdered with dark flecks of dirt. My eyes are as shadow, cold and empty. A long angry scar streaks down my cheek, still pink and fresh. But it is not my gaze that unsettles me. A red handprint streaks across my nose and mouth, as if a hand from beyond has tried to smother me. The metallic smell and taste of blood fills my senses. I splash my face into the water, scrubbing harshly, but it will not wash out. I try over and over again, rubbing and scratching at the slick and smooth shapes of fingers clutching at my mouth. How can blood not wash away?

I spend much of my morning wandering the clearing, searching through the bodies around the table for the driest and cleanest pieces of clothing. I toss on several layers of what I find, wrapping my hands in cloth to guards against the frost. The sun slowly rises, warming anything in the light, but the thin burlap of my rags does nothing against the chill the wind. I am putting on my second pair of ragged shoes when the otherwise silent clearing fills with the echoes of voices and the soft clinking of metal. I follow the rustling for a few minutes, hiding in the shadows of the trees and low hanging as I catch sight of a group of men, garbed in thickly wrapped blue cloth and mail. A large man riding a horse leads at the head of the pack, pressing them forward into the wilderness. He tightens his heavy fur cloak around him to stave off the cold. I shiver in my thin rags as I watch them with envy.

Several moments pass as I remain still and silent in the underbrush. The blue armored men continue on their path, speaking tensely in hushed voices. I barely make out the words of some, but from what I can gather, they are fleeing some terrible battle. A man killed another with only his voice.

A scout ahead of the group lifts his hand, and the blue armored men halt, waiting in silence. Something is coming.

The attack comes quickly.

Whistling through the air, a volley of arrows whir through the trees and strike the cloaked man’s horse. The creature screams out in agony and collapses to the ground, as the men search for the source. Shouting deafens the forest, as more men charge on them.

I cower further into my shadows. Before I can flee, a hand, wrapped in metal, grabs me in the bushes. I struggle from the grip, but am thrown to the ground and struck several times in the back. Amidst the pain, everything goes dark, as screaming and clanging fades into silence.