Between Dream and Dawn

An horizontal slit of light appeared from that everlasting darkness, Aren's eyes were opening but everything was still blurry.

A grunt came out of his mouth, but his voice was weak and he wasn't sure for how long he had passed out. There was a pain on his chest but his arms were numb and tingling while his blood started to flow back on his limbs.

He could feel the tip of his toes, so he wasn't paralysed but for sure he is now laying down on something soft and comfortable, in his mind he was probably laying on a bed.

He took a deep breath and slowly forced his eyes to stay open until his sight was back.

Where am I? His mind started to formulate more complex thoughts.

The first thing he noticed was glass, he was literally laying inside a cubicle with a glass panel in front of him. There was a piece of rock very sharp that passed through the glass, stopping exactly on his chest, enough to scratch it but not that deep to be in real pain.

[VITAL FUNCTIONS RESTORED - Pod opening]

The voice was exactly the same one that he heard at the palace, but this time it was definitely closer to him.

The glass panel lifted completely, together with the rock in it. He was free to exit that thing called pod. The first two things that he noticed were that he was in a very dark room, which looked like a mix between a very large basement and a cave, and the fact that was completely naked. It took him a few minutes to be able to sit up, the room was cold, which he did not notice when the pod was still closed, plus he started to notice that his body felt quite different.

His hands were very skinny, as he was malnourished for a long time, it wasn't a healthy body, but he did not see any injury apart from the small cut on his chest.

He started to touch his own face and head, and to his surprise his beard was not there and his hair was very long. The moment he was able to lift his legs and use a little more of strength, he jumped out from the pod slowly.

The container was actually really small, it was a technology that he couldn't recognise but the weird thing is that it wasn't connected to any source of energy, or any control panel.

The surface was white, on a material that seemed a pretty robust metal, but there were no texts or logos that would have helped identify the creator. 

"Where am I? Where is everyone?!", at that moment he started to remember the meter storm and the city burning. 

"Val! Can someone hear me?! I am here!", he tried to shout despite having his throat very dry, which hurt.

[VOICE RECOGNITION ACCEPTED]

[Welcome Your Majesty. Ask me anything.]

The artificial voice came from the pod, but there were no visible speakers. Aren started to think, and decided to initiate a conversation with the voice.

"What is this place?"

[The location system has been damaged due to the earthquake. No information available.]

Thinking about it, the room seemed to be built inside a cave, and the rock that pierced the pod probably fell from the cave roof because of the earthquake.

"What are you? What is your name?"

[My name is VALORIA, and I am a personal guide. Feel free to ask me anything, Your Majesty, if you need my help.]

Valoria? That's quite a coincidence. I should not trust anything now. Let's test it slowly.

"Honestly, I am quite cold now, I need food and clothes, please", a door on the pod's right side suddenly opened, revealing a metal box placed inside.

[Please grab the emergency clothing kit and take whatever you need from it], Aren took the box with his skinny arms and placed it on the floor. 

After lifting the cover, it revealed a set of black clothes, with various sizes, all perfectly folded, including underwear, socks and a very basic set of boots also with various sizes. 

They seem to be clean, and well organised. The design is pretty minimal.

While he started to dress up, he realised that his size was kind of small compared to what he was usually wearing, the size that he picked was not perfect but it was safer than wearing something too small. Under the boots there was an empty backpack folded which seemed to be pretty capacious.

He started to wear the underwear, the socks and the pants, he could feel his body less cold, which was enough for now, but he still had to fix his bleeding chest before wearing the top part

[Please grab the other kits and take whatever you need from them]

This time the pod's left side opened, and this time there were two metal boxes, they were heavier than the clothes.

The first box contained a first aid kit, he started to disinfect his wound and put a plaster on it, so he was finally able to wear the undershirt. The rest of the kit went directly to the backpack.

There was an empty metal canteen, a few bottles of water and next to it some packages probably containing some food. He drank a bottle very fast, but then decided to not overdo it to avoid a rehydration shock.

I should be careful, be cool Aren! Focus on what you learned about survival.

He then grabbed from the provision something that looked like an edible bar, it wasn't bad, it tasted like a sweet berry and some nuts. Satisfied, he started to put the beverages and the food into the backpack as well, hoping that he could carry all of that despite his strength.

"Wait a minute...", the moment he grabbed the canteen he finally saw his own reflection. He definitely lost a lot of weight but the reason why his face was literally younger, he looked like when he was fifteen years old. In his mind he could still remember how he looked before ending up here. But he was certainly himself, the eyes, the face structure was his, it was just younger and skinnier.

"How is this possible? Why am I like this? Why am I younger?"

[The system cannot find the information. I can confirm that Your Majesty's biometrics results are all healthy, and there are no signs of degradation or corruption.]

"Ok, let's be calm."

[VALORIA cannot feel stress Your Majesty]

"I was talking to myself... I need to think"

[May I suggest Your Majesty to open the second box? It might be helpful.]

The second box was smaller but did not look openable, maybe it was locked.

"How to open this?", he asked.

[Your Majesty, that box has a security system. Please place your hand on top of it for a few seconds to unlock it with the royal handprint.] 

Aren did as he was told and after a few seconds the box started to glow, starting a mechanism that revealed the content.

There were two items, one was a dagger, the other was a kind of bracelet made, they were both made of a dark metal that he could not recognise.

As he lifted the dagger and unsheathed it, the handle and the sheath looked very simple and minimalistic, an obsidian black metal but with a nice grip, the whole set was matching the clothes given, the blade was revealed to be very black as well, it was very light, almost like it didn't weight, but he didn't recover enough strength yet to be able to test it properly.

The other looked like a metallic band of the same material, it looked adjustable but he wasn't sure about its functionality.

"What is this?"

[That is SENTINEL, a multipurpose tool, including a portable guide system. It is also possible to sync my system with it, so I can transfer my controls over it. Does Your Majesty want to start the transfer?], considering that Valoria seemed to be very helpful he needed some answer for sure, but he didn't want to stay in that room for longer.

"Yes, start the transfer."

[Please place your index finger on the band to start the transfer. It will take a minute.], so Aren did as he was told. The bracelet also glowed like the box, after his finger was placed.

[ERROR - POD DAMAGED. Upload will be incomplete. Sixty percent of the data has been lost. Proceed anyway?]

"Wait, what? Yes, proceed anyway."

The bracelet and the pod started to glow intermittently at the same time, it took them some time but then only they both stopped glowing.

[Transfer completed. VALORIA is now present on the SENTINEL.], the voice now was coming from the metallic band.

Aren placed the SENTINEL on his wrist which automatically snapped around his wrist, adjusted the size and locked itself.

"Can I still remove it later?"

[Affirmative Your Majesty , I can also provide a tutorial for all the inputs and pressure points.]

"Maybe later, thank you. Now is it possible to exit this room? I need to find the exit."

[SENTINEL SCANNING THE AREA...Drafts of air found. CALCULATING a possible way out], in that moment a visual indicator appeared in front of Aren. It was like a trail that was leading towards a crack on the roof.

"Wait, how am I seeing this?"

[SENTINEL is now synched with Your Majesty, so it's capable of projecting directly on your eye retina the information needed. It's possible to turn it off if needed. Should I turn it off, Your Majesty?]

"No, for now no. Is there anything else that I need to take from here?"

[No. The Pod Zero-One provided all the possible support Your Majesty]

"So, I think we can move on"

Aren took the bag, which was quite heavy, but still manageable despite his lack of strength.

He tried a few times to call his emblem. Bright Dragon would have helped him at least to carry the things but it seemed irresponsive at the moment, probably he needed to regain some energy first.

The trail was pointing to a fracture on the roof, so he had to climb his way up, stepping on the debris of the room and trying to cling on the wall's protrusions. He was a good climber when he was in shape but luckily enough he could figure out the safest path that would require less strength.

The way up, took a while and the space was very narrow, but good enough to give him some moments to take a break by pushing his legs and back against the wall to lock the position and rest his arms.

After one hour he started to see more light from the surface which indicated that it was still day.

⁂

Once he finally reached the surface, he immediately dropped down the backpack and laid down on the floor, trying to catch his breath.

It took him a minute but then he sat down and looked around. They were definitely not in the palace, since it looked very much like in the middle of a forest.

Some trees were destroyed and he could see various cracks on the terrain, and the one where he came from was actually pretty small compared to the others.

"The earthquake that you mentioned before. That caused all of this."

[Affirmative, it seems like the magnitude of the earthquake was quite elevated, but it doesn't look like it is coming back soon Your Majesty.]

"I guess you have a very strong sensor. But, where are we now? It doesn't seem like any place in Valoria."

[Unfortunately the map was part of the data lost by Your Majesty.]

This reminded Aren of one of his father's stories, he loved going on adventures and discovering places, but it also meant that he was able to learn many survival's trick from him.

"Can you actually start to create a map from zero? I would like to start tracking where we are. We are going to move until we figure out where we are and how to go back home. Hoping that it will still be there."

[Request accepted. SENTINEL created a new file called Map.]

Aren grabbed the backpack, moved his hair back behind his ears and started to walk with all the strength that he could summon from his body, hoping to find his first clue to what happened to him and his country.