Encounter

Feeling the profound darkness that had settled around and enveloped him fade away, Theodore stirred from unconsciousness as he felt a viscous, cold, and coppery scent surround him. Pushing himself upright, his senses began returning one by one, first was sight, his blurred vision cleared, and nothing but a field of Gray sand that covered the ground filled the horizon in his view.

Next was his sense of touch as the viscous liquid that covered his body felt cold to the touch, after that the faint coppery odour that stung his nostrils grew stronger, and finally, he ears were filled with the sound of rushing water.

'Wait, water?'

Turning back, he saw that behind him was a large expanse of black waters, it ebbed and flowed in random directions as if it were being influenced by some strange force. Along its surface, a faint crimson shimmer that reflected in his eyes as Theo tried to shake off the grogginess of his awakening.

Looking down, he found himself naked and standing in a cold, viscous water that covered his skin from head to toe, which was unsettling to the touch, and the smell of copper only made it worse.

'Urgh! What is this stuff?'

He instinctively wiped it away only to find that it smeared across his hands, a dark, viscous substance that felt both disgusting and somehow soothing, foreign yet familiar. He couldn't explain the inexplicable sense of familiarity, but the substance itself didn't give him a sense of danger.

Looking up, in the sky above, a black orb and surrounding it was a stream of rubble, behind that was another that radiated a white light that illuminated the sky.

"Is that the sun? And,... the moon?"

The herald candidate squinted at the celestial bodies above him, trying to make sense of the bizarre sight. The black orb, surrounded by a swirling stream of debris, looked ominous, and the radiant white light of the sun felt symbolic of something. It cast a strange and warming, yet equally ominous, ethereal pulsing glow over the landscape.

'Weird, but that's not what's important right now.'

Coming to terms with the world he found himself he pushed aside his worry, and a memory popped into his mind.

***

"Remember, when you first enter the world of Yggdrasill, you will most likely find yourself in some sort of strange, unnatural environment. It could be a frozen tundra, a vast forest, or an endless desert, or even a fiery hellscape, but remember, panicking is only going to result in death, so your first course of action is finding shelter."

"And please, no matter what, if you come across a spawn, do not engage under any circumstances. These monsters are more powerful than you would first realize."

A student interjected.

"But sir, haven't we been taught how to fight because of this?"

The instructor sighed.

"Yes, you have been taught basic combat with weapons in the hopes of improving your fighting chances, but remember this: fighting against a spawn and learning in the classroom are very different. As a result, finding the closest gate should be your priority."

***

"That's what the instructor said, right?"

Casting his gaze around, Theo searched for anything that even remotely resembled shelter, but all he could see was the surreal and endless expanse of grey sand. Taking it in, as strange as it was, he finally felt like he was actually in another world.

"Strange indeed," he muttered, shaking his head.

As he continued to observe the sky, he noticed that the stream of rubble surrounding the black orb shifted and swirled, casting shadows across the gray sand below as it moved. But within that pulse, Theodore found something strange; he looked closer at the path the rubble was taking and found something strange.

"The rubble isn't swirling aimlessly!"

He wasn't sure of his deduction and decided to analyse the movement of the debris, and after multiple pulses, just like he thought, it seemed to be forming a pattern, a deliberate path that twisted and turned in a way that suggested it wasn't natural.

Theo squinted and stared even harder, trying to make sense of the chaotic dance of debris.

"Is it...."

He looked even closer, until finally, he saw it.

"The pulse isn't originating from the celestial body itself, but something else entirely. It's as if something is feeding off the energy surrounding it."

But just as the answer clicked in his mind, a worry emerged.

'What is that energy, and how can I see it?'

The thought was both intriguing and unsettling, yet he didn't feel a chill run down his spine. It was more like his curiosity, which in general remained dormant, was stoked. But he couldn't allow himself to get distracted by that.

"Focus, Theo," he reminded himself. "You need to find shelter and figure out what to do next."

***

Trudging through the barren, sandy, and scorching hellscape for hours, Theodore's body felt like it was on the verge of collapse. The hit sand that blew against him, the waves of heat coming from the sun, and even the thirst and hunger that had begun plaguing him were all beginning to hinder his progress.

Yet he couldn't allow himself to rest.

One moment spent idling around was one too many for a spawn to find its way to him. The mere thought of one lurking somewhere and waiting to strike pushed him forward.

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and cast a quick glance around.

'But that's strange,'

Theo had long left the black sea behind, and all he could see was the vast gray plain for dozens of miles. And that was strange. 

'How haven't I come across any though?'

According to everything he's learnt, this world was filled with monsters and all sorts of abominations just waiting to strike, slaughter, and devour anything that moved. So why did he come across any? The thought of something like that happening sent a shiver down his spine, but for the sake of his sanity, he chose to ignore it.

"Focus on the goal," he reminded himself. "Find shelter, find food, and then you can rest."

***

With the scorching heat from the sun above and the burning sand at his feet, Theodore felt his throat and skin dry up, he felt the soles of his feet burn with every step he took, and with every passing second, he would curse at the world in his mind.

"What did I even do to deserve this shit?" he asked himself repeatedly.

From the moment he found Maria lying on his bed on the brink of death till this point, nothing had gone his way. Well, in all honesty, nothing in his life had ever really gone his way, but things took an extreme turn that day for some reason. It felt as if the world itself was punishing him for something.

Short of breath and falling to his knees, tired, he laboured to even blink his eyes, which themselves were on the verge of drying up.

But just as he was about to stop and rest, something just over the horizon shifted and caught his attention. Squinting his eyes to get a clearer view through the waves of heat, the silhouette of a white shape contrasting against the blinding expanse of gray sand was too clear to be missed or mistaken for anything else.

'A person?'

From where he stood, he could make out the shape of a head, shoulders, arms, and legs. If he wasn't hallucinating right now, he was sure that there was another person just a few dozen meters away. Whatever it was, though, as human-like as it seemed, it was nothing close to being human, at least not anymore.

A strange sense of death washed over him in that instant, and suddenly, a memory flashed in his mind.