Chapter 3: Who Are You?

The crowd wasn't exactly the most impressed with the man's choice. They actually seemed to berate the man for doing so, practically treating his life like garbage and throwing it away at one persons word. Anne seemed to be surprised that one person joined her. Not too surprised as she hadn't given that much information or proof of sorts. 'What am I thinking?! Fighting beast like monsters?! I don't want to die?!' The man thought. His face remained semi-serious.

Anne realized no one else but him was going to join her and that was scathingly obvious. She grabbed the man's hand and walked a few steps. In a instant, the same thing repeated itself. No one knew where she went. They all thought she went out the front door, the back door, or some other place. In reality, only Anne knew. What the man saw was Anne grabbing his hand and being outside. Almost as if she teleported.

It appeared to be they were outside. "Do you see the air?" Anne asked the man. "What?" The man asked if he heard wrongly. "Do you see the air? Do you see the heat surrounding us?" Anne said, With a annoyed tone this time. "No?" The man continued, seemingly even more confused. "Sometimes things happen that you don't see." Anne said. She grabbed his hand which snapped him out of the insanity he considered he was in.

"Wait!" The man said. "I'm not a warrior. I'm not made for it. I don't know what came over me is the truth. I can't help you. Sorry." Anne looked at him before coming even closer, looking at his eyes as if she peered into his soul. The man wasn't exactly the happiest to listen to it. "I can see the fear in you. Underneath all of it is a born killer…" She looked at him closer until she suddenly flinched. As easily as she got him and herself there, she was gone.

The man didn't know how to respond to it, but knew he should stay low. His acts would stay with him for awhile but it would all pass soon. Right? He walked away in shame to his house, hoping no one knew where he lived. Incredibly, nothing stopped him on his way back home. He was going home with ease the entire time. Once he had reached his destination, he climbed into his house in a dash.

Now in the sanctity of his home, He felt safer. He simply eased himself, got a glass of water, and tried to go to sleep. He tried to go to sleep the entire time but his body refused to do so, making himself think about how he'd handle the situation tomorrow. He could only wonder. How could he go back and face his peers? He would just have to swallow his pride and do it.

As he rested, He smelled a weird crisp air enter his room. It made him wake up and sneeze. "What? What's happening?" He thought as he got up. The crisp air kept growing and growing until it smelled like embers and ash. Something was causing this and it had to be from downstairs. He rushed down to see the problem, only for a blast of fire to send him flying back into his bedroom.

Half of his body had crisped up, his left hand was barely moving, his hair was almost all gone, and His right eye was practically seared closed. As sweat encompassed his body, He stumbled and limped across his room to see the window to know why and if he could escape. That there was some hope for him. He tried to open it to jump down but his arms couldn't allow it. His dominant hand was now burned and his left couldn't move

The man headbutted the glass window. Blood exited his forehead with each forceful blow but to survive, it was worth it. He was sobbing as the fire was inching towards him. He hit the window so many times his remaining eye was bloodshot. With each blow, the window cracked. By the time the window was about to shatter, he used his burned arm to guard himself for impact as he leaped through the window.

It was a 2 story high jump, but as the cool air entered the man's face, he felt there was a chance. Once his mess of a body hit the floor, glass shards pierced his back. But he couldn't afford to worry about that. He crawled away to the front of his house to try and find help. His tries to crawl there were injuring him a little more with every time he inched closer. It didn't matter. What mattered was he needed help. Without help, He was sure to die.

Once he finished crawling to the front of his home, being held at the corner of his house to see it, He was mortified. There were hellish creatures marching on the paved roads. They had dozens of lapis blue eyes, Hollow horns practically scratching the skies, A bloodied coat of red on their fur, and exactly 27 spiked and quilled tails. They were carrying bodies in their mouths. They looked close to intact. They almost looked dead though. One of them turned to see the man but he moved in time for them not to see them.

'Fuck! Fuck! FUCK! These are beasts?!' The man thought. Even in a regular condition he couldn't deal with one of those things. He couldn't do this when more than half of his body wasn't functional. He wasn't surviving this. It wasn't possible. If he crawled away, blood loss would kill him. If he stayed the monsters would take him to god knows where.

The only option was to die. He laid down on the grass as the embers of his burning house and the sounds of the beasts marching lulled him to his final rest. He began to blackout from consciousness and into death. Yet, Death had cheated him from that as he heard a deep voice enter his ear.

"Do You Want To Die?"

The man couldn't respond due to his blood loss and fading of consciousness but the answer could still be told to the voice. The answer didn't come from thought or spiritually or anything of the sort. It was the bare instinct to want for life that answered the voice. "What Is Your Name?" The voice asked. It wasn't as if instinct could answer for this question him.

The man, Pushing through the blood loss and burns, answered. "I… Ca-Can't… Reme-Remember…" with how close he was to death, he was forgetting things of his life. The first thing was his name. "Then you- We… Are…" The man immediately blacked out before he could hear what the voice said.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

In the blink of an eye, He had a bright white light shining over his face. The light of day.

He could feel all of his body now, despite being very bandaged, his face most of all. "Sir?" Someone said from his side. It surprised him as he wasn't ready for anyone to be near him, making him turn as fast as he could. He saw a woman in regular black clothing.

"Sir, We found you near a village almost dead if your wondering what happened. You're ready to make a full recovery. Except we couldn't save your right eye" she said. 'Ah… Now I remember. I was going to die' he thought as he touched his right eye. It was still there. He just couldn't see out of it.

"What is your name? I need it for the record." She continued on. "I'm… I'm Aciel." The man said. "Alright Aciel. Welcome to Ravens Path. Currently the most medically advanced place on this side of the world" She said as she reached her hand out for a handshake. The man, Aciel accepted it easily.

He was no longer a man. He was Aciel. And before Aciel, There was nothing. After Aciel was a painful beginning to, hopefully, a beautiful ending. But that's not usually how these sorts of stories go. Isn't it?