The Sun shone its sharp rays, directly on my face, through the palm-sized

hole in one of the wooden walls of the hut, I was sleeping in. The annoyance
it caused, made me get out of my slumber. Last night, in my exhausted state
I could only consume the canned food I found in the cabinet of this house, I
didn't even know whose it was. After I discovered those supernatural powers,
the whole rest of the day, I did nothing but practice that power of mine. I
tried many new stances and was successfully learning to use it too, but after
an hour of training, all of my energy reserves were drained. Then that I
rested for the whole night I could feel myself replenished.

I stood up from the couch and made my way out of the hut. The whole
village was visible from the cliff, the shaggy hut was built on. The sight of
that place was no more a solace to my mind, but instead grew a sharp pain
in my chest. I knew I had to do something but was out of directions.

I looked up to the sky. The Sun shone with its full radiance, making it
extremely difficult for me to even look up. The heat although, didn't quite
uphold the sun's efforts. The thought of my own residence crossed my mind.
From the steep pathway behind the hut, down to the cliffs bottom I made my
way, then through the grassy fields to the village.

As I was walking through the colony of houses to my own one, I started to

feel a change in atmosphere. The wind started to blow harder by each
moment, brutally shaking the few trees there existed. The debris from the
ground mixed with the dead, yellowish leaves started to ride the wind,
forming mini tornadoes. The sun rays gradually lost their intensity as the
bust of dark clouds started to take over the sky. The clouds kept on colliding
with one another causing thunders one after another. In just a few moments,
there wasn't even a single ray of sunlight which could, escaping through the
dense layers of cloud, reach the land.

I could do nothing, but stand there clueless, as my surroundings

transformed. From the clouds, which were no more just greyish but had a
violet tint to them too, started to beam tubular columns to the land, with a
distance with each other. The columns looked like, that were made of a light
particularly denser than the original one. They were deep purple and
glimmering like pulsing of veins.

That wasn't even all. After a few moments of formation of the columns,
something, not actually something but someone, started to descend through
the translucent columns. I ran my sight through the translucence of each
light column and the same thing was setting down. The pace gradually
increased, and as they reached the quarter length of the columns, like a
lightning thunder, they covered rest of the displacement and were all on
their feet, on the ground. The columns vanished.

I was still on that same spot, too overwhelmed, by the unrealistic

phenomenon I witnessed. I felt like, that I would be caught even if I breath,
the very terror of ghosts I used to feel on the cold nights while hiding myself
in the blanket.

Collecting myself together, I walked a little further towards the field where
majority of the columns were. Crouching behind a wooden fence I found
some gap to see through.

From there, I could see them. They were huge and built like humans but not
quite what an actual human would look like. Their builds were other worldly,
and all wore, or to be more honest, wrapped themselves in dark, torn
clothes. In their hands they held huge wooden and metallic tools which
looked like weapons. There was one, which was distinct from all of the
others—comparatively gigantic but body a lot leaner. I was staring daggers
in him, as he commanded the group and instructed them, following which,
they all dispersed. From the looks, they seemed to be finding something, I
was curious, what.

From where I stood, I could see that terrifying being only from its back. He
was still standing there motionless, and I kept my eyes on him too. I noticed
his neck preparing to make some movement. His head rotated abruptly, then
facing me. A fierce look on it. His eyes, staring right into my soul. I could feel
the from hundreds of meters away. His presence was being made known to
my very soul. That was just a stare, but impactful enough to run a wave of
tremble down through my spine. I knew that I had to move but my brain
didn't, or rather couldn't allow so. When forced my brain, it finally permitted
my body to move and I took a few steps back still in my crouched position,
wanting to get away from the sight of that monster.

I managed to at least escape his deadly stare, but I wanted to run

somewhere far, away from everything. My brain was failing to process
everything that had been happening there. Everything was going fine and
totally normal, but then out of nowhere those strange events started to
happen. After the vanishing of the villages' people, I got powers bestowed
upon me, I was clueless why, and then the sudden appearance of that new
specie stirred the already mixed thoughts in my mind.

When got out of the creature's sight, I stood up half turning, preparing to run
away from the village as soon as I could. As I was about to complete the rest
of the rotation, my eye from its corner, caught something.

As I rotated my head and made the thing out, the world slipped right from
beneath my feet. I was left with a 'how' in my mind. 'How could.... someone
possibly be this fast?' I thought, then let the question away because,
everything was already so messed up that it felt like nothing new. However, I
didn't want to see him again. No. I just wanted to escape from everything,
but seemed like fate didn't want me to.

As I stood there motionless, too scared to be mobile, his hand reached my

neck and gripped around it. He was holding my neck like one would hold a
soda can. Tightening the grip around my neck, he lifted me off the ground,
till I was about his own height. I couldn't breathe at all. My lungs were dying
for oxygen, as the creature's grip blocked my windpipe. My heart was
slowing down, because of no oxygenated blood to pump through the veins to
my body. My hands, on his one huge one, were continuously tapping for him
to let go of me. If by any chance he would feel, even just a little, mercy
towards me. By each moment, I could feel my body drop in temperature. It
felt like that my life was being extracted out of me.
Blood started to go down from my head. My eyes were losing their
functionality, as everything was gradually starting to fade out.

My lifeless hands couldn't ask for mercy anymore and the little hope I had,
had also decayed. I was about to blackout, but before I could, he let my neck
go, leaving me in the air, around 3-4 feet above the ground.

I dropped on the ground like a sack of rice, completely lifeless, gasping for
air. I got on my knees and with my one hand, started to beat my chest, while
coughing and shooting bits of saliva too. Air started to course through my
gullet to the lungs, inducing my numb body with life again. My breath started
to stabilize, and heartbeat went back to the standard.

Nothing was making sense to me. Firstly, his flash like zap to me, and then
his unexpected mercy after almost pulling the life out of me. What kind of
fantasy did I even get trapped in?

Still on my knees, my eyes could capture his wild, bare foots, covered in dirt.
Their size was like three hundred percent of an average human's. I raised my
head up, till I could see his torso, wrapped with a patchy, black cloth, and his
bald head too. On his face, were deep scars all over, and the same ferocious
look on it. Amount of muscle on his face was perfectly balanced, that the
features were all defined. For his eyes, had two voids which seemed to
absorb the very light surrounding them and skin color, a perfect twin of his
eyeballs.

I was still staring at the creature's face, miserable, knowing nothing about
what was going to happen. He bent his lower back and knees too while
extending his arm, approaching me, not my neck this time though. I was so
hopeless that my body didn't even try to dodge him. His hand, when reached
my right arm, curled in a tight grip around my wrist, as if it was to crush my
bones. I tried to, but my body could not contain the pain, expressing it on my
face. The grip then loosened, as if my pain was made known to the creature.
His other hand reached for an artifact which was hanging down his neck,
looking like a piece of jewelry. The artifact was around the size of a baby
apple and had an irregular, polygonal design. Each edge of it was transiting
perfectly into a new angle, giving it a sharp look and its surface had a
smooth, matte finish. The dull artifact when contacted with the creature's
finger, glowed with a soft, purplish light.

The pulsing of the artifact smoothened for a moment, then the artifact
started to fade out again, but with it the world too. My sight got whirly,
exerting pressure on my brain. Shades of purple started mixing into the
whirlpool of colors, until it was all violet. 'What now?' I thought being too
frustrated yet calmed. The creature was still with me in that world of purple.

The world then started transiting, colors varying, new structures appearing in
front of my eyes. Eyelids curtained my eyes as per my brain's signals, as it
was failing to process. The structures and lights kept on shifting, changing
paces and colors. When the light striking my eyelids went uniform, I lifted
them up, and what was in front of me, was totally unreal, unimaginable and
shocking too. That wasn't the place I was at moments ago. Not just that town
but the whole world. The air was different and with every gust I breathe,
came a huge amount of debris making me cough and sneeze. The sky wasn't
blue but a mix of dark shades of purple and black, which painted the whole
world into its color too. That new world looked like as it came straight out of
the fantasies.

I was standing on a flat, rectangular platform, on one long side of which ran
some stairs down, which I couldn't even see the end of, and a huge gate on
the opposite. The dark, wooden gate, higher than even a double-story house,
belonged to a castle which itself seemed to be talking to the sky.

Blackish purple material which looked like obsidian, was used for the
construction of the castle, absorbing most of the yellow light from lanterns,
which hanged on the outer wall of the castle. To counter the darkness, light
leaking out from the rectangular segments each after a few meters,
contributed too. Each segment's frame had a clean design carved, giving the
castle an ancient look. Overall, the castle was emanating spooky vibes, as if
it had ghosts living in it.

The creature gave one of the two man who looked like the guards and were
standing beside the castle's entrance gate, a glare, then with his eyes,
pointed me. The guard understood the creature's signal and quickly started
to walk towards me. As he approached me, I realized that he wasn't as lanky
and bulky as the one who brought me there. His height was about half a foot
more than me, and even with the armor on, he couldn't outmatch my
physique.

"Take him to the prison", the creature ordered the guard, in a voice so deep
and wild, that as soon as it reached my ears, straightened every single
strand of hair of my body had. Visible shivers ran down the guard's body too.
Regaining his composure, the guard reached for a small leather sac which he
wore as a waist bag and took a rope out of it.

"Your hands" he said. From his voice he sounded like a young boy, around
17-18 years in age. As I raised my hanging hands up, for him to tie them, I
noticed the other guard, who had been standing, still beside the gate's
handle, preparing to make some movement. Turning himself towards the
huge handle of one of the gates, he took a few steps forward and when
reached the handle, gripped it with both his hands. Infront of that gigantic
gate, he looked like a kitten standing against an adult human. I was curious
to see if he could even move that door. Holding the ground tightly with his
feet, he started applying force to pull the door. With all his might, he was
pulling, but the door didn't even flinch. He kept on pushing himself, but no
difference was made. His grip started to loosen, which he didn't seem to
realize, and after a moment he was on the ground. His black, metallic armor
produced a loud crash. Saying, "You should work harder, Alaric", the
creature, himself went for the door and using only his one arm, opened it,
showing no signs of struggle. I was left in awe by such a show of power.

As I saw the creature walk straight in, through the castle's entrance leaving
me alone with the two guards, something clicked in my mind. 'Wasn't that a
chance for me to escape?'. I was ready to put all of the training I had done in
the military, to a use. I didn't know what I would be treated like, there in the
prison. I still needed to find the people of my village—especially my father
and Aria. I couldn't let fear hold me back anymore. 'If not now, then when?'

Imbuing my hands with a flame of soul fire....