Ruins of Reality

*********10 years ago*********

The dense forest was suffocating. The trees towered above, their twisted branches clawing at the sky, blocking out the light and casting the world below into a perpetual twilight. The air was thick with the scent of decay, a heavy, cloying smell that settled in Henry's lungs with every breath. The forest had always been a place of danger, where the shadows hid creatures far worse than any nightmare. But today, as Henry made his way through the undergrowth, it felt different—more oppressive, more alive with a sense of foreboding.

The ground beneath his feet was uneven, littered with fallen branches and gnarled roots that threatened to trip him at every step. The forest was quiet—too quiet. There was no rustle of leaves, no call of distant birds. Even the usual hum of insects had fallen silent, as if the entire forest were holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.

And then, without warning, it did.

A flash of light, blinding and pure, tore through the darkness. Henry barely had time to react before the world around him shattered like glass. The trees dissolved into nothingness, the ground beneath him vanished, and for a brief, terrifying moment, he was suspended in a void—an emptiness so complete that it threatened to swallow him whole.

But just as quickly as it began, it was over. The light faded, and Henry found himself standing on solid ground once more. But it was not the forest of Draventh that greeted him now.

He was back on Earth and he was a kid_ the lovely kid he wants to be.

Or at least, a twisted version of it.

Henry looked around, his heart hammering in his chest. The world he had returned to was a ruin, a wasteland of broken buildings and scorched earth. The sky above was a sickly orange, choked with smoke and ash. The sun, once a warm and comforting presence, was nothing more than a distant, dim orb, struggling to penetrate the haze.

The ruins stretched out as far as the eye could see, the skeletal remains of what had once been a bustling city now reduced to rubble. Cars lay overturned in the streets, their windows shattered, their frames twisted and burnt. Buildings, once proud and tall, had collapsed in on themselves, their facades crumbling into piles of debris. The air was thick with dust, the scent of charred metal and rotting flesh hanging heavy.

But it was not the destruction that caught Henry's attention, nor the eerie silence that pervaded the scene. It was the bodies.

They were everywhere.

Scattered among the ruins, lying in the streets, piled in the remnants of buildings—hundreds, perhaps thousands of corpses, each one frozen in the final moments of their lives. Men, women, children, all left to rot where they had fallen. Their faces were twisted in expressions of terror, their eyes wide open, staring at nothing.

Henry's breath caught in his throat as he recognized them. These were not just random victims of some unknown catastrophe—they were people he knew. Friends, neighbors, teachers. People from his past, from the life he had once lived before Draventh had torn him away. They were all here, all dead.

And then he saw them—his family.

They lay together in the ruins of what had once been their home. His mother, her once-beautiful face now pale and lifeless, her arms wrapped protectively around his sister, whose small body was curled up against her chest. His father lay beside them, one arm outstretched as if he had tried to reach for them in his final moments. Their faces were peaceful, as if they had not suffered, but the sight of them filled Henry with a grief so profound that he nearly collapsed.

"No…" The word escaped his lips in a broken whisper as he stumbled forward, his legs barely able to support him. He fell to his knees beside them, his hands trembling as he reached out to touch his mother's face. She was cold, her skin waxy and pale. The warmth, the life that had once filled her, was gone, leaving only an empty shell behind.

A sob tore from his throat, and he buried his face in his hands, unable to look at them any longer. The grief was overwhelming, crushing him under its weight. This was his worst nightmare realized—returning to find that everything he had ever loved, everything he had fought for, was gone.

But even as he wept, a part of him knew that this was not real. It couldn't be. This was some twisted illusion, a manifestation of his deepest fears and regrets. But knowing that didn't make it any easier to bear. The pain was real, the loss felt just as raw, just as devastating.

As the seconds stretched into minutes, Henry's sobs gradually subsided, replaced by a hollow emptiness. He forced himself to look at them one last time, memorizing every detail of their faces, before rising unsteadily to his feet.

He didn't know how long he stood there, staring at the ruins of his life, but eventually, the world began to shift around him once more. The ground beneath his feet trembled, and the sky above seemed to crack, like a mirror splintering into a thousand shards. The city, the ruins, his family—all of it began to dissolve, swept away by an unseen force.

And then he was gone, pulled from the wasteland and thrust into another place entirely.

When the world righted itself again, Henry found himself standing in the ruins of Draventh.

But this was not the Draventh he had come to know. This was a place of utter desolation, a graveyard of the living. The landscape was barren, the sky a deep, angry red, as if the very air were burning. The ruins here were not of buildings, but of lives—corpses littered the ground, some freshly fallen, others long decayed.

Henry's heart pounded in his chest as he realized who they were. These were the bodies of people he had yet to meet, people whose faces were unfamiliar, but whose fates seemed tied to his. Some wore the tattered remnants of armor, their weapons still clutched in lifeless hands. Others were draped in robes, their expressions frozen in fear or pain. But it was the last two that made Henry's blood run cold.

Gorik and Eldrin.

They lay side by side, their bodies broken and bloodied, as if they had fallen in battle together. Gorik's massive frame was twisted at an unnatural angle, his face set in a grimace of defiance even in death. Eldrin's body was smaller, slighter, but no less battered, his eyes wide open, staring blankly at the sky.

Henry felt a wave of nausea rise in his throat, his vision swimming as he looked down at them. The two men he had just fought alongside, the two men he had dismissed and distanced himself from, lay dead at his feet. Their futures, it seemed, had already been written—carved into the very fabric of this cursed realm.

But why was he seeing this? Was this a vision of things to come, a warning of the fate that awaited them all? Or was it another cruel trick, another illusion meant to break him?

Henry didn't know. But as he stared down at the corpses of Gorik and Eldrin, a deep, gnawing fear took root in his chest. For the first time since he had arrived in Draventh, he felt truly powerless, unable to change the course of events that seemed to be unfolding before him.

The ruins of Draventh stretched out before him, an endless expanse of death and despair. And in that moment, Henry realized that his worst fear was not of dying—but of failing. Failing to protect the people he had come to know, failing to change the fate that seemed to await them all.

He closed his eyes, forcing himself to take a deep breath, to calm the panic that threatened to overwhelm him. This was not the end. He refused to believe that this was their fate. He would fight it, with everything he had. He would not let this vision become reality.

When he opened his eyes again, the ruins had vanished, replaced by the familiar, dense forest of Draventh. The world around him was as it had been before, dark and oppressive, but alive. The bodies were gone, the sky was still red and dangerous.