Those who have fallen

Chapter 2: Lost

It had been four days since I came to this wretched world. Despite me walking for days, leaving nothing but dead grass with every step I took, there was still nothing but greenery beyond my gaze. I tried my best not to touch anything until I understood what had happened to me. Even though I despised this realm in particular, I still deemed all life sacred. As I continued my walk without a destination, voices filled my mind again. These voices, however, were different. They were clear and more collected. What truly made them so different was the mixture of emotions. With this bombardment of emotions, there was one stronger than the others, fear.

I felt a sensation, almost like a pull, slightly to my left. As I turned in that direction, the emotions became stronger. I began walking in that direction, and the unfamiliar emotions grew more robust with each step. Although I had been walking for days, I hadn't felt exhausted. As I got closer to the source of the emotions, I started to hear a voice faint but still present. Curious, I began sprinting at full speed through the luscious forest. I looked to my right as I ran and noticed that the trees to my side looked like blurs as I ran past them, unable to make them out. When I looked forward again, a tree was dead ahead in front of me. I raised my hands, bracing myself for the inevitable impact, but the second my arms made contact with the tree trunk, it began to turn black. I was then able to run through the tree without feeling any resistance. I looked back, and the tree was starting to fade into the winds leaving no trace that it was there but the scuffled dirt where it once lay and the irregular open space that didn't fit in the forest pattern.

As I ran for the next few minutes, the voice and emotions became clearer and louder I began to hear another sound, flowing water. When I arrived at the area, I realized it was the sound of a gentle stream. I smiled as I watched how the water moved, with the fish following its flow and the crabs that crawled on the rocks that formed its border for the stream. I was overjoyed to see such animals living in harmony, for there was no malice or rage, simply creatures wanting to live and survive. Then a roar broke me out of my trance. I looked and found the sources of both the voice and emotions. It was a giant beast with brown fur covering its entire body. It had four stocky legs and a long snout with small rounded ears and five large claws on each foot. Coming from this beast was anger, but it wasn't blind anger. There was a mixture of compassion as well. There were two smaller versions of the creatures cowering behind it. It was a mother, and its Offspring.