The night after my first magic lesson was plagued by nightmares again, and even in my dream state, I could feel my mark burning. Unlike most dreams, however, I couldn’t make out a lot of details. I saw three figures cloaked in shadows and for a moment a streak of red, before I suddenly startled up fully awake. The next few heartbeats seemed to echo in my ears as I tried to get my panicked breathing under control again.
For a moment, I contemplated waking my mother, but I didn’t get any concrete information from the dream, and sometimes even I had normal nightmares, so I just stood up and stared into the dark tent.
My sisters apparently fell asleep next to me again, and I thought I heard Fela mutter something about cuteness in her drunken sleep, but I ignored them as I went over to the tent exit. Right beside the door were my instruments wrapped in their protective cloth. I thought about it for a moment but decided to take them with me. Worst case, I would just pointlessly carry them around, but I felt like I wouldn’t get back to sleep anytime soon. I also grabbed my belt with the waterskin and knife, just in case.
Without a moon to illuminate my surroundings, the nights were often darker than those in my old world, but I could still make out the shapes of the other tents with only the limited light available. The camp was located on a wide hill and encircled by some outwards facing defenses, as well as hidden noisemakers against monsters, but even in the darkness, I knew the layout enough to avoid them.
I didn’t venture far, only over the next hill crest, in case I got surprised by some of the sneakier animals or monsters, but the camp was hidden from my view. For some reason, I felt like I wanted to be alone right now, so I spread out a small rug and lay down on the ground, gazing up at the stars.
I had never been one to look at the celestial constellations in my old world, but on the empty steppe, knowing at least the basics of how to navigate by starlight was an essential skill, and I quickly recognized a few shapes above me. There was the snake - a big spiral-like sequence - and right below that the arrow constellation - an almost perfectly straight line of bright stars. By looking at how far they had moved in the night sky, I estimated that it was just after midnight.
After a few more moments spent in admiration, a cold breeze suddenly had me shiver a bit and I pulled my coat tighter. Warming my hands with my breath, I got the urge to try playing something, though I had no specific melody in mind. Picking up the big fiddle-like instrument, I played a slower-paced tune. It wasn’t one that Tasos had taught me, and I played it mainly as training, as my thoughts drifted back to the dream that had awoken me.
My more prophetic dreams were usually clearer in the message they wanted to convey and I had never had much bad luck when following their advice, so I wanted to figure out if my dream had some deeper meaning. In the dream, two of the figures had been hidden in darkness and I had only seen their silhouettes, but I had the feeling that they were a man and a woman.
They seemed to look down on me and I had been crouched on the floor. The third one was lying before me and had their back turned toward me. I could see a couple of red spots on their clothes. Blood, I realized in retrospect. The last image I could recall was me reaching out to the head of the figure and shifting it, till I looked into the lifeless eyes of a girl I thought I recognized. As if on autopilot, I heard my dream-self say two words: ‘your fault’.
Suddenly, I was back on the steppe, my breathing wild and erratic and my clothes soaked in sweat. Pressing my eyes shut, I tried to scream from the sudden pain, but all I felt was my breath, stuck in my throat, and an unfamiliar, somber melody playing. After calming down a little, I opened my eyes, and although the tears made it hard to discern many details, I saw it was actually me playing. My hands seemed to move on their own, but with conscious thought, I stopped the music.
After another couple of deep breaths and wiping the tears and sweat from my face, I reorganized my thoughts. The dream hadn’t been about the future, but my past, which I still couldn’t remember. The figure at the very end, I realized, seemed familiar because it had been the girl I often saw in those visions. I wasn't too sure but it felt like the two bigger people were her parents.
Unfortunately, the dream did what most of the memories about my past did: it opened up more questions. Why was the girl bleeding in front of me? What had her parents to do with it? And most importantly, how was it my fault? Even after all the winters I had been here, I was no closer to figuring any of it out.
In frustration, I stomped down one of my feet. A small rodent I hadn’t even realized was hidden in the grass beside me suddenly jumped up in response and scurried away from me. Absentmindedly, I followed it with my eyes, but after a few steps, the mouse-like animal stopped in its track and fell sideways. At first, I thought that was meant as a pitiful attempt to hide from me in the darkness, but quickly realized what had actually happened; it was dead.
That got me to look around me in confusion, and what I saw had me jump up from a mixture of surprise and horror. All around my rug were dead or dying animals; some of them seemed to already be decomposing and I could see the skeletal remains of a flock of songbirds right in front of me. Even the plants seemed to have died out, only dead blades of grass withering on the floor.
The sea of dead surrounded me and I saw no way for me to return to the camp without going through them, but I could call out and someone should be able to hear me, so I did just that. After cupping my hands and screaming for help, I waited a while before repeating, but even after the fourth call-out, I saw nothing, nor did I hear anything coming from that direction. The only way forwards would be through this ring of death.
As I came closer to the small rodent, I could see that the eyes and softer tissues had already decomposed and I could even see ribs poking through some holes in its skin. I obviously wasn’t a stranger to finding dead animals out in the wild, but what really unnerved me was the grey coloration the corpse had taken on. And not just it; the grass and all the other corpses had seemingly lost their color and blended together in a monochrome mix. Due to the low light, I wasn’t sure how far the area stretched.
Before crossing the border of my island of life, though, I looked for a stick or something I could use to clear a path. If possible, I didn’t want to touch the carcasses directly, and, just a few steps to my right, I saw a stick that could work lying on the ground. Thankfully, there were no animals in the way, and I quickly made my way over.
The branch was actually a lot bigger than I first assumed and just buried under a layer of dirt, but that wasn’t something that could stop me for long. So I put some effort into my pulling and wiggled the stick free. Once I felt that it was loose enough, I put all my weight behind one last pull but overestimated how sturdy the stick was, as it gave out first. It cracked with a dry sound and, with the resistance suddenly gone, I lost my balance and promptly fell on my bottom.
However, from my lower position, I could see that I had made a terrible mistake. The inside of the wood was filled with small holes and looking down at my left hand, which was still holding the branch, I saw that a few dead insects fell out of them. They also had an unnatural grey coloration and as soon as they touched my skin seemed to dissolve into fine dust, that was getting blown away by the wind.
Unfortunately, the horror show didn’t stop there. The parts of my skin that had made contact with the insects took on a similar color and although the growth was slow, it was still enough to be visible to the naked eye.
I panicked and first tried to rub the affected areas on the grass, but wherever I touched that as well, it turned into powder and only left grey earth beneath, and my affliction accelerated its spread. I remembered that I still had my waterskin with me and practically ripped it open, before pouring the contents on my hand, but it didn’t seem to help either.
I thought that maybe if the grass didn’t help, the rougher furs of my coat might, so I rubbed my left arm up and down my chest in a wild motion. I could feel the unaffected areas getting burned and looking at my hand again, I saw that they pulsed red and felt the heat emanating from them. The grey spread wasn’t removed though and I could only witness in silent terror as the previously red areas quickly lost their color.
My last resort would be the knife hanging off my belt, but after I pulled it out with my right hand, I hesitated. Cutting off the affected areas would obviously be painful and, even if I got all the grey patches removed, I risked a serious infection of the wound. Add to that, me still being encircled by the corpses and not hearing anything from the camp, despite my panicked screams, and it became clear that I might actually die here, no matter what I did.
In the end, I steeled my resolve and cut into the colorless skin. As I had feared, the amount of pain was unbelievably bad and under normal circumstances, I might have lost consciousness right then and there. I, surprisingly, didn’t feel any blood, though, and looking at my hand, I saw a cross-section of it, perfectly still. A moment later, I saw the grey color claim another finger-width of skin, and realized I didn’t have time to waste.
Another couple of slices and I felt how the knife hit the bone. The pain forced out another agonizing scream. Barely visible through the cut, however, were the bones of my hand, but they didn’t have the white coloration I had expected.
I felt a fresh bout of panic rise in my chest and I in my panic realized that there was only one way to stop this infection from reaching further, although it would cost me a heavy price.
Taking one last shaky breath, I positioned the knife on my elbow to give me enough time and started moving and through my new tears, I saw that the knife hadn’t even cut all that deep. As a cutlery knife, it was meant more for stabbing than cutting, and I hadn’t maintained the edge in a while.
I couldn’t bring myself to watch as I sliced again and again. My pained screams should normally travel for miles in the steppes, but I didn’t get any signal that someone heard me. After a few slices, I hit the blood-smeared bone of my lower arm. I couldn’t see how far the grey had spread though, partially due to the blood and partially because of my tears that wouldn’t stop falling.
I felt my panic rise again, but some animalistic part of me knew I had to see this through or I would actually die here. After the first few attempts at cutting the sinews and softer tissues, however, the knife slipped out of my bloodied hand and when trying to catch it, my right hand brushed past my left wrist. At first, I didn’t realize it had happened, as I was clutching down the blade’s edge and was more focused on not stabbing into my fingers, but a few breaths later, I saw a grey hue starting to spread down from my right fingers. My mark on that hand suddenly burnt more violently than even my elbow and I dropped the knife as instinctively clutched it.
Of course, I had used my other hand to do that, and once I realized that, I couldn’t help it anymore. With a sort of laughing cry or maybe crying laughter, I sat down on the ground. As I was reaching for my knife again, I also noticed that all my previous efforts would have been in vain anyway, as I saw a familiar grey color snake its way up my legs and onto my back.
The last thing I was consciously doing was looking back up at the stars with tear-filled eyes and having a single thought repeat over and over again in my head - ‘I don’t want to die again!’ - before my vision turned grey as well.
The rather loud chirping of a songbird woke me up the next morning. I remembered what happened last night and instantly reached for my left elbow and tried to find the wound. To my surprise, I didn’t even feel a cut, just a lot of dried blood all over my arm. The grey color seemed to be gone as well. Only a paler patch of skin on my left palm was evidence that something had happened last night... and the blood, of course. There was a lot of blood all over the green grass, the rug, my arms, and torso, but I didn’t feel any worse for wear. In fact, I felt pretty rested.
The bird that woke me up was still singing its little song and hopping around me. As it tried to jump onto my instrument, I brushed it away with my left hand and suddenly screamed out in panic. Just like the rodent that had started my nightmare trip before, I saw the life vanish from its eyes. Where I had touched its body a grey coloration spread, although the bird had dissolved before it even hit the ground.
My own hand was fine though and after a moment, there was no indication the bird had ever existed in the first place. Had I hallucinated it? Carefully touching a single blade of grass, I saw it turning grey as well and after a stronger gust of morning air, it turned into a fine dust.
I could feel my breaths getting more erratic again and, if I had been standing, I would probably have lost my balance as a new wave of panic washed over me. With tears starting to gather in the corners of my eyes, I looked for anything that could help me and found the blood-soaked cloth intended to protect my fiddle. I picked it up and bound my left hand so tight that it felt like the blood flow might actually get restricted, but I didn’t care.
Eventually, my cries seemed to have alerted the camp, and I saw that Fela was the first to make her way over. I probably looked like the killer in some slasher film with all the blood on and around me, but I didn’t care.
“What exactly happened here?” She asked with a mix of worry and a bit of amusement.
“Carving accident.” The lie came surprisingly easy to me. Fela tried to take a few more steps in my direction, but I panicked and got up with a sudden jump. Pressing my left hand against my chest, I looked around for an escape. I could feel my tears start again, but didn’t want to go back to the tents. What if I was dangerous to the others? I just grabbed the wooden instrument still lying on the rug and rushed away. I didn’t know where I was going, just that the morning sun was shining into my eyes. Fela didn’t follow me.
