0022 Waking Up Again

 

There was nothing but darkness and silence.

In reality, there was no point of view to see something, nor a local point to hear something, as well as the feeling of being off during sleep, when a person sleeps and doesn't dream, only wakes up hours later.

A low hum began to come from somewhere it was impossible to distinguish, and when the hum intensified, it became so loud that you simply couldn't hear it anymore, and so the silence returned.

But now, darkness seemed to take its place, a child with black hair appeared out of nowhere, he fell to the ground as if sleeping and slowly opened his eyes.

There was nothing else there but him, or so it seemed, until the hands came out of the void and started ripping off his clothes, while beating him and scratching his body with fingernails painted in various colors.

The child was startled, and tried to protect his body and face, lying on the floor in the fetal position, when despair began to take hold of him, on his face, his expression looked like he remembered something, and with that he tried to scream out of hatred even though no sound came out of his mouth.

He got up from the floor and began to beat the hands that were approaching him, he bit his arms trying to reach it, and stood in the middle of the dark void, like an animal trying to fight a siege by cowardly enemies.

Now naked, his body accumulated bruises, as well as scratches that began to bleed his body from all sides, but he didn't give up and kept fighting, for a time that was impossible to notice.

In the void, a fight was going on...

In the dark...

*"Aaah!"*. *"Ooough!"*.

*"Someone help?! Take me out of here!"*.

^"But what fucking screams... 
... Someone left the TV on with the volume turned up...
... Any movie with English audio yet... 
... Fuck up! Nobody lets me sleep!^.

His vision was still completely dark, but the noises around him made him completely uncomfortable.

^"One nightmare after another... 
... Fuck! My body is aching all over, I drank so much and got hit by a car?
I'm even sleeping on hard floor...
... But what the shit is this? My head!"^.

He tried to get up, but he felt pain all over his body, and then a cluster of few visions flashed through his mind making his head ache, in the vision there were men dressed in white medieval clothes, and a white knight in the background, and he was being pierced by swords all over his body.

"^Holy shit! Some motherfucker put hallucinogens in my drink?
If it was Alex who did this I'll delete the animations from his HD!"^.

Lucius tried to get up again, and every time he moved his body, he felt pain all over, but the pain in his head caused by the visions thrown into his mind managed to be worse than the pain in his body, so he slowly sat up, but still couldn't fully open his eyes.

^"What is this outfit? And that bunch of red stain... Blood?"^.

*"Thomas! Thomas are you ok?
Thomas! We need to get out of here soon...
... You're all bruised and a headache is nothing compared to our current situation!"*.

*"Thomas? Are you talking to me?"*.

Lucius began to see better, after noticing the clothes he was wearing, as well as the bloodstains, he was doubtful if this was really some kind of joke but slowly he began to notice the place he was, and before a real idea of ​​the place was formed in his mind, he heard the voice in the girl's English language again.

He looked at the girl who was staring at him and calling another name, and couldn't help but wonder if she was talking to him.

*"Ooh shit, what the fuck is this?"*.

Noticing the same style of clothing they were both wearing, Lucius was surprised by the girl's speech and scared face, he slowly looked up and an incredibly fanciful sight surprised him.

The ceiling was like a lake of gray fire, where various strange bodies were moving in every way, he was startled by the scene, in a few seconds it began to drip small balls of gray fire from the ceiling, and soon Lucius watched one of the bodies dissolve and jump to the body of another young man who was lying and tied to the stone table next to him.

"But...".

*"Get out of there!"*.

"Fuck!".

Before completing his curse, the girl screamed and he looked up to where another body lay just over a meter from his head, Lucius tried to move to the side, but fell off the table, hitting his back on the floor, he looked around and realized why the girl was hiding under one of the tables, so he quickly rolled under the table he was on.

The body of fire that was over his head jumped to the table he was hiding, realizing this, Lucius was relieved to have fallen off the table and listened to the girl's warning. 

*"Thomas, help me free myself! Let's get out of here!"*.

*"Stop calling me Thomas! I do not know you!"*.

*"Who are you then? Get out of Thomas' body!"*.

Lucius was surprised by what the girl said, he stopped for a moment and started to analyze his own body and noticed some small differences such as the skin color was a little lighter than his, just as the touch of skin was softer, different from the thinner body he should have had.

Eyes wide, he looked at the girl who also looked at him in amazement, for seconds the only sounds in the salon were the fire in the ceiling and the screams of agony from the other person lying on one of the tables.

But the suspense between the two was interrupted when another body of fire threw itself at Ronan's body.

*"Right, this hell came from which religion?"*.

*"Hell? What is it? Religion? Are you one of the men of the church?"*.

*"Church man? I? Thank god no..."*.

The communication between the two seemed ridiculous, Lucius didn't understand anything that was going on, just like Sara didn't know what Lucius was talking about and to complete, Lucius' sarcastic personality didn't help one bit as he said his last reply with a beautiful smile on his face.

Sara almost never saw Thomas smile as he was a very serious person, and now seeing a totally different behavior in the person she had known for several years made her a little uncomfortable, but still, the beautiful smile entered her vision and made her shy.

^"Is the person who entered Thomas' body completely insane?
How can he smile like that in the midst of it all?
And what did he mean by 'thank god no'?"^.

*"Sorry... But I don't know how I got here and I don't know how to get back to my original body...
... Honestly, I think my original body isn't healthy enough to keep me alive..."*.

^"... At least that's what I think if what happened before isn't a hallucination..."^.

*"We can see this later, help me here first!"*.

Lucius analyzed their situation, the drops of fire kept falling, just like the fire creatures on the ceiling kept jumping over the body of the person lying on the nearby table, he was under the table furthest from the girl, so he would have to go through two tables to get to Sara.

*"Is there any way to stop these things?"*.

*"It is the oil lamp 'The Light of the Guide' that is causing this...
... I don't know how to stop, and I don't even know how it works either!"*.

Lucius noticed a strange oil lamp hanging on the wall, which all the gray fire came out of and dipped into the ceiling, without thinking much, he tried the first idea that came to mind, took off one of the shoes he was wearing and threw it with all his strength at the oil lamp that, when hit, came off the wall support and crashed on the floor.

The lamp broke when it hit the ground so that the oil leaked to one side, and the wick was left loose without support to burn, extinguishing it in a few seconds on account of the dirt, so all the fire stopped rising to the ceiling, and the humanoids on the ceiling fell to the floor as if they had been released by something holding them to the ceiling.

Several bodies collapsed on impact with the ground, some leapt onto Ronan's body and others lay on the ground as if in pain.

*"You broke a high grade artifact!
Do you have any idea what you're doing?!*".

*"I don't know what that means, and I don't even care about it...
... If you want to keep this whole thing, I'll leave you here with these monsters!"*.

*"You were one of those monsters! Give Thomas back to me!"*.

"I was? But how?".

In the discussion between the two, Lucius noticed something that made his mind go blank, in his personal knowledge and studies, things like, he having his mind in someone else's body could be forced to accept following some innovative and daring scientific idea, but those fiery humanoids at his side bordered on fantasy, and knowing he was one of those left him not knowing what to think.

*"It can't be... Are you sure I was one of those things?"*.

*"Yea! And you're really not from the church?"*.

*"No, and please don't invite me into any church...
... These things may have broken some of my scientific knowledge...
... But that doesn't mean I'm going to throw it all away just because I don't have a good explanation now..."*.

*"Scientific knowledge? What does that mean?"*.

As the two talked, more it became obvious that the reality of the two people was completely different from each other, and as time passed, other fire humanoids were extinguished, and thus Lucius' path was clear to go to Sara safely.

*"Right, it's not something I can explain right now anyway, we can talk about it after we get out of here..."*.

*"Alright, thanks..."*.

Reaching Sara, Lucius managed to untie the girl, then helped her to her feet, she quickly tugged on his shirt sleeves, and began to examine his injuries, but to her surprise, there were no more injuries, just white marks from where the cuts had occurred.

*"Hey, what are you doing?
Are you and this Thomas a couple?*.

*"Shut up, I was just checking the wounds..."*.

*"Okay, I'm seeing...
... This lot of blood, but only white marks...
... Don't touch it, it still hurts!"*.

Lucius' question about Sara and Thomas being a couple made the girl a little red, in a way that she didn't even want to look Lucius in the eye, so she went to check on Ronan and found he was passed out again.

*"His body is healed too, I can only deduce that it was the 'The Light of the Guide' flame, but I can't be sure..."*.

*"And this guy over there? Will you release him too?"*.

*"This is Ronan... 
... He betrayed us, told the people of the church about the passage, I'm just going to let him go, but there's no place for him with us anymore..."*.

*"Church...
... Do you mean church in the meaning of those people who are going to bother you with unrealistic ideas and that you have to follow them to be saved?
... Or church in the ancient meaning that you either do what they want and say, or are you a heretic who deserves to be burned at the stake?"*.

*"Unreal ideas? be saved? Old meaning?
I don't know if I understand your question well, but what little I understand seems to be the second case..."*.

Lucius wasn't interested in Ronan's affairs, but the girl's insistence on talking about the church made him care about that subject, then, he understands the difference between his common understanding with the girl, he asked a question with two options, in an attempt to deflect possible communicative noises.

And with Sara's answer, he had an idea closer to the reality that surrounds the church she fears so much, but seeing that she still didn't understand much of the meaning behind some words, he considered trying to be more careful with the next words.

*"I see... Where are we now?"*.

*"On here? It's a ceremony salon to reward some faction workers..."*.

*"Right, but this 'here', do you have any geographic references that could help me locate myself?
Please treat the matter as if I don't know anything..."*.

Sara looked at Lucius again, and thought better of her own answer, then decided to follow his hint and answer in a more didactic way.

*"We are underground, under the rice farms of the farmers' village, the last village west of Marro City, located in the Oriental Unscelto Empire, on the border between Oriental Unscelto and Occidental Unscelto, and borders the neutral southern lands..."*.

As soon as she finished speaking, she expected some reaction from Lucius who just stared at her for several seconds, making her uncomfortable looking at Thomas' face so directly for so long.

*"Sorry, but that didn't help me at all..."*.

*"How not? Are you going to say you don't even know the Empire?
Did you come from the New Continent?"*.

*"Definitely not... Oh right! Two moons, are there two moons out there?"*.

*"Yes, what have they? Are you going to say it came from one of them?"*.

*"Of course not! But I need to go see them! Where is the exit?"*.

*"That way and turning right... No! There are church people! We need to warn the faction!"*.

Recalling the moons he had seen before, Lucius was excited to look at the sky once more, everything that was happening was new and different, he wanted to make the most of it to learn and understand everything, Sara tried to stop him, worried about the church people out there, but Lucius didn't care, he needed to explore the new and different world, mysticism or science, he would find out for himself.