The Anchor’s Awakening

With a sudden, violent shudder, fissures tore open around me, forming jagged maws of emptiness. From these cracks spilled shapes, moaning, hissing, their eyes a luminous yellow that matched the sky. Each creature moved as if it were formed of molten shadow, limbs shifting and overlapping with no clear boundary of flesh. A dozen of them, maybe more, each one eager to tear me apart. A test, indeed.

They were illusions given flesh, or perhaps twisted denizens of this realm. I had no way of knowing which. Nor did it matter. My blade rasped against its sheath as I drew it in a single, fluid motion. My heart thudded once, releasing a cool flood of adrenaline through my veins, clearing the haze from my mind. If these creatures wanted to stop me, they'd learn quickly how stubborn I could be.