Abandoned

Everyone's pupil shrank, the last shred of hope slipping from their grasp like ash in a storm. The Spirit Realm itself mocked their fleeting dreams of salvation. The Mighty Black Knight King loomed, its colossal form a shadowed deity, its void-helm an abyss that swallowed all defiance.

Arty and the leader whirled toward Rilli in a frenzy, seizing her trembling shoulders to snap her from her trance. "Rilli, wake up!" he wailed, his voice a jagged plea.

Rilli stirred, her gaze slowly shifting towards Sezel, filled with guilt. No perhaps relief that she was going to make it out of this.

Arty's lips curled into a vicious grin, a predator cloaked in false piety. He turned to the King, dropping to one knee like a groveling supplicant. "Mighty Lord of the Black Knights," he intoned, voice dripping with feigned reverence, "we offer our beloved companion as your sacrifice. He will trade his life for our freedom." The words were a blade, sharp and deliberate.

Sezel's mind went black, his voice caught up in his throat. 'Such false words, you bastard.' He lunged forward fury igniting in his heart.

THUD!

The leader and his subordinate, blocked his path their gaze as cold as a predator. Sezel Scrambled up his feet, his left arm dangling like a broken branch. "Get out of my way." he roared, though his body betrayed his resolve, weak and faltering.

His frail frame trembling from starvation and exhaustion. The leader's fist met his face, a brutal strike that sent him sprawling, pain blooming across his cheek. The earth was unyielding, a mirror to the Spirit Realm's cruelty. Sezel's vision blurred, his breath ragged,

The Mighty Black knight laughed, [Tie the sacrifice] he commanded.

Two of the Black Knights advanced towards Sezel, the makeshift rope in their hands a direct resonance to death. Sezel surged to his feet, desperation fueling his flight. He darted to escape, but collided with another knight, its shadowed form an immovable wall.

'Shit...Shit...Shit' his mind churned, heart wrenching with terror. He pushed himself back on the ground, "Stay away from me." he bellowed, terrified.

But all his actions were futile, the Black Knights captured him, heir ropes binding his wrists like chains of fate, tightening until his skin burned.

He looked at Arty and the others, enjoying their lease at the price of his life. Rilli's small frame trembling, but does it hide the fact that she had also abandoned him and chose to go with the pack?

Well it isn't simple to defy the heard when your life is on line.

The King's laugh softened, a chilling pause, it tilted his helm towards the group, though it was a plain helm the gaze couldn't be shaken off.

[I will now open a gate for you, as soon as you step out you will forget everything that happened here]

Then with a flick of its finger, the air itself receded, a frail swirl of energy started forming an ovel shaped tear in the fabric of reality, soon a gate just like the one they entered from loomed in front of them.

[Go on]

Arty's eyes lit up with solace, a coward's joy at survival. The leader and his subordinate clung to each other, their fear melting into desperate hope. Rilli's gaze lingered on the gate, distant, as if lost in a memory she could not grasp. Her hands trembled

Sezel's eyes burned, tears falling like shattered crystals onto the ashen ground. Yet his heart, battered by betrayal, found a strange calm. He had accepted his fate, the fate weak is to be abandoned at the end.

He inhaled sharply, teeth grinding, and unleashed his fury. "You treacherous bastard!" he roared at Arty. "I swear, if I somehow survive this, I'll bring ruin upon you!"

His words hung heavy, echoing far and wide through the dead forest. Nothing changed, it was not like someone was coming to help him here, no savior was answering his call. Arty dismissed his words, a dead man's threats were meaningless.

The group stepped toward the gate, their silhouettes blurring in its violet glow. Rilli paused, her gaze meeting Sezel's, her eyes a storm of guilt and sorrow.

"Sorry, Sez," she whispered, voice barely a breath, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Sezel's stare was cold, yet pain lanced his heart, a thousand needles piercing his resolve. "Don't look at me," he bellowed, head bowed to the earth.

"You'll forget me beyond that gate." He hesitated, voice softening. "Live well, Rilli. Never return to this cursed realm." His words were a farewell, a final gift to the one he loved, though her betrayal cut deeper than any wound.

Before she could speak again, Arty seized Rilli's hand, pulling her into the gate's embrace. In moments, they vanished—Arty, the leader, his subordinate, Rilli—swallowed by the swirling void. The gate sealed, its light extinguished, leaving no trace of its existence.

Sezel knelt alone, bound and weeping, surrounded by the Black Knights' shadowed forms. He was dead. This was the certain end anyone could foresee.

There was no way of surviving, a miracle? Sezel was the last person to be intervened with such fateful incidents.

He looked up, at the Mighty Black Knight, sitting on the throne like a God, the God of death to Sezel. He scanned the clearing, the lifeless trees and pulsing Spirit Essence mocking his solitude. "Why? What sin have I committed to earn this fate?" His thoughts spiraled into despair, a sea of anguish drowning him with each passing second.

'Did i kill someone? Did i ever do wrong of someone?'

He was drowning, in the sea of despair every single passing second spelling death. He was trapped, a lone soul in a realm of monsters, his death a certainty etched in the Spirit Realm's unyielding heart.