"There are bigger things at play here. I don't expect you to understand."
The words vanished into the fog as the knife twisted inside his gut while his hands gripped the blade. Her eyes pierced into his soul, unblinking. They always did. From the moment they met, he knew she could read him to the very core. And they both knew he couldn't read her back.
Everything blurred into incomprehensible shapes and sounds, yet her words still reached him. "For what it's worth, your death will mean something." Unbearable, searing pain exploded inside his chest. Their eyes met one last time. Her mouth moved, but no words came out.
Ŕ̷͓͔͍̕X̶͙̓l̸͔͓̅̊͠l̶̥͋̐c̸̣͕̒̈y̶̱̔͠B̵̗͘1̵̡̩̍͐c̵̫̺͉͛͑C̵̰̳̎̎B̸̮̲̟̈H̷͓̊̀͌d̶̞̱̉̒̂W̶͎̳͕͗̓̚F̷̱̳̀͑y̵̬̜̋̊Z̸̼͗G̸͎͚̏́́l̷̛̦̰̄̌h̸͉̪̃̎b̶̥͇̀ǵ̶̦̦̻̂̈=̴̱̩͆͝=̴͚̥̦̀͌
Static assaulted his mind, growing louder by the second and threatening to make his head explode.
Ey̴̖̟̆̂̑B̸̭̘̰̘͖̉̈́̿1̸̞̜͍̙̋̾̿́̚c̷̨̥͍̫͝C̸͇̭̓̈́͐͆̚yH̸̜͚̞͐̎d̶̢̞̩͆̐͗͝eF̸̱̣̔̿ý̷͎̙̣̈́̽͜Z̴̛͓̼̩̞̓ͅG̷̥̝̭̘͂̿ļ̴̭͊h̸̥̮͚̱͐͋̈uğ̴̠̯̝͕͇̚=̶̝̾̒̅p
The static slowly shifted into a woman's voice.
EC̸͇̭̓̈́͐͆̚yeF̸̱̣̔̿s ļ̴̭͊h̸̥̮͚̱͐͋̈uğ̴̠̯̝͕͇̚=̶̝̾̒̅p!
White light fiercely devoured everything around him, taking the noise away with it.
Then, finally, the echo was clear.
"Eyes up!"
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Air violently tore into his lungs as life forced its way back into his body.
"You're up! Finally, I've found you for real!"
A piercing light blinded him, making him cover his face as a painful whimper escaped his parched throat. "Oh yeah, sorry for that. Turning it down a notch." The female voice awkwardly laughed as the glow dimmed.
"How do you feel? Are you alright?" He blinked numerous times. The white spots in his vision slowly faded away.
There, right in front of him, a strange device hovered in the air, gazing down at him. Odd shapes clung to a sphere with a peculiar geometrical eye in its center. He pushed off the floor, away from whatever that thing was. He scrambled backward until his back hit the wall. He was trapped there with it. Whatever that was, he was trapped here with it.
His heart pumped fast. It screamed at him to run away far and fast, but his trembling legs disagreed. A dry wheeze escaped his throat as he opened his mouth. His whole trachea felt like he had just swallowed sand the moment he tried to utter a word.
"Take it easy, it can take a while before you feel alright after you're brought back, or well, t-that's at least what I've heard." The voice softened as the shapes clinging to the eye spun.
The voice was clearly female but had a distinct electronic tone. "W-what ar- " An alien voice came out of the man's mouth, shocking them both. The man grabbed his throat. His fingers felt it all around. Was it himself's? His fingers touched a stranger's skin, a skin that he himself was wearing.
"W-what are y-you? Where a-am I?" Again, that stranger's voice came out of him.
The thing floated close to his face. "My name is Aya! w-well, at least that's what I call myself" Its voice dimmed as it looked down. " I'm a Ghost! And we are in Germany! I mean, almost all the people who called it Germany are dead. Now it just goes by European Dead Zone or EDZ for short," it said. Its downcast mood shifted rapidly to a cheerful one. "And YOU! You are a Risen! MY Risen! Isn't it incredible!?"
"W-what?" Nothing that thing explained made sense to him.
"Why don't you come and take a look?" The 'ghost' floated away toward an opening a few meters ahead. He had to get out of there, wherever he was. He had to get up. The man placed a hand on the wall behind him and pushed himself up as much as his legs would allow. His legs made him buckle over, but he managed to hold himself against the metal wall, as painful as it was to do so. Every step he took without falling down became a challenge as he got closer and closer to the outside.
After he closed what felt like an endless gap, he finally reached the opening. Vines curtained the outside from him. With one hand, he moved some of the vines away, letting the light hit his eyes unobstructed, sending a spike of pain across his head.
The man grunted and squinted. He was just one step away from wherever he was. He couldn't stop now. Just one more step. As he lifted his foot to step outside, the edge of his foot caught on something, destroying his balance and sending him falling to the ground.
His body crashed against the ground. Some sort of liquid covered his entire front as he lay. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a stranger's face gazing back at him.
Amber eyes stared back at him. An uncanny face reflected in the puddle. A perfectly sculpted face, that was the best way he could describe it. Cheekbones neither too gaunt nor plump, flawless skin without a wrinkle, a chiseled jaw, sharp nose, thin lips. The man was a redhead, his hair unkeep, not too short nor long. It barely reached his shoulders.
The face staring back at him wasn't that of a person, but rather the idea of one. He had no identifiable features of his own, no bags under his eyes, no wrinkles, no sign of aging or scars. Whoever was reflected in the puddle was not him. He knew it deep down. The only thing he recognized as himself was the lost look in his eyes.
"Welcome to Berlin!"
The man glanced up at the voice and was instead stunned by the sight before him.
All around them, massive buildings loomed overhead, abandoned and decayed like corpses of giants overtaken by nature long ago. Grey clouds painted the sky, like messengers of bad weather. Wildlife scattered and jumped all over the rusted remains of vehicles everywhere before hiding at the sight of the man.
What was this? The area around them instilled a sense of wrongness deep in his soul.
"What hap-happened?" Whatever else he wanted to say caught in his throat as he looked at his dead surroundings, brimming with life all over, from the vegetation to the animals. "Some aliens came to the solar system a looooooong time ago. They almost made humanity go extinct, and now there are only a bunch of survivors scattered across the system"
This was wrong. Cities were not supposed to be like this, were they?
He...he had no idea.
He knew people should be walking down the streets, with cars driving by and making noise. Voices should fill his ears, along with the smell of pollution. But when he tried to recall any of it, he found nothing.
What noise did a city make? What did it look like when people swarmed the streets, when cars sped down the road?
All these strange words kept piling up. Cars, pollution, solar system, aliens... but none of them meant anything to him. Vague echoes came to mind, but they vanished as quickly as they appeared. He tried to remember, he really tried for anything at all.
Nothing.
He couldn't conjure a single image.
His breathing sped up. His eyes fell on his trembling hands. "The problem is that little record of what happened remains. It turns out that when facing extinction, not many decide to write it down," Aya continued, unaware of the man's state. "Hey...are you okay? You're looking even more pale"
He didn't respond as the drone circled, trying to get his attention. "Hello? What's wrong? Do you hear me?" Her concern grew each time he didn't respond.
"Of course, something had to go wrong! You cannot do anything right, you stupid, stupid ghost!" She shouted into the air.
The thing...Aya freezed mid air. It had to have an answer. It found him, so it must know something.
"...Who am I?" Both looked at each other, but neither spoke as the question lingered. Aya looked away as the pieces over her eye fell down, hiding her lone eye.
...
...
"What is my name? Who am I?"
...
"I...I don't know" Aya answered after what felt like an eternity. Her gaze moved away from his. The man's fist tightened.
"What do you mean you don't know? You said you brought me back, right? You have to know something, anything. Who am I!?" His tone grew louder the more he talked, with him screaming by the end. All the screaming sent him into a coughing fit. He was tearing apart his throat, but that felt irrelevant to him.
"...I truly don't know...When Risen are born, they're brought back without any memories of their past lives, of who they were. They come back as a...blank slate" Their eyes met once more, and his jaw tightened so hard it trembled.
"Then why?" He stammered out between coughs
"H-huh?"
"Why me? Why did you do this to me out of everyone?" He looked down. For the first time since waking up, he noticed the clothes—or rather, the rags—he was wearing. Tattered remnants of a black uniform clung to his body. A long gash exposed his abdomen. His fingers gently traced the exposed skin. How did this happen? Of course, like everything else, he had no idea.
"Because you're the first one..." Aya carefully hovered closer to him. "...You're the first I've found that was touched by the light before death. For a very long time, I've been searching the cosmos all alone. And that search has led me here—to you. The fact that you're here, alive, that alone means that you are special"
Her tone was calm and gentle, hopeful, almost pleading. "You may not remember your past, but that doesn't mean you can't have a future. Whatever it brings, I'll be by your side." Aya finished speaking and looked at him, waiting for a response. What could he say? Despite her comforting words, he still felt lost. But having someone by his side through it all, it didn't sound bad.
"Oh! I've seen that before!" Confused, he looked at her, but her eye was on something else. He followed her gaze to his shoulder, where a faded emblem was patched onto the fabric. "That's the same symbol on the ship!" She exclaimed as she deftly rounded the wreckage they had just come out of.
Now that things had calmed down a little, he examined the object they had come out of. Before him lay a crashed metal...thing? embedded in the ground and covered in roots and vines.
"Come take a look!" Aya called out to him excitedly. He turned around the corner and made his way over to her as best as he could without tripping. Engraved on its side was an arrow soaring above a broken moon. The more he looked at the emblem, the heavier his chest grew.
"Ullr's bow." Was this the name of the big metal thing or something else? Carefully, he reached, feeling the uncaring metal beneath his fingertips. "Ullr..." The name rolled off his tongue as if he had said it a thousand times before.
"Did you remember something!?" Aya squealed while bouncing in the air all around him.
"Nothing at all" He sighed, letting his head hang low.
"Oh...well, at least now we have a lead on your past!" Although her attempt to cheer him up was obvious, she was right. It felt good to have a lead of some kind "OH! I know! I can call you Ullr! That can be your name if you want"
Ullr, Ullr... He played with the name inside his mind. It felt...right, like it belonged there.
"Yes...I think I'd like that" The corner of his lips rose the more he thought about his new name.
"Then let's get going, Ullr! We should find some place to rest before night falls"
A tired chuckle escaped Ullr's lips as the gho- no, she had a name. Aya. And now so did he. Aya danced eagerly around him. Things weren't bad, not at all.
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Second chapter letsgo
Also Mc's name is pronounced Ull-er or just Ull. Wichever you prefer.
Hope you enjoyed it :)