The visitors to Amal harbored one persistent question.
To what place had Eric Holland gone?
Eric remained Alix's sole crew member absent from Sosech Temple.
So, where was he?
No one possessed that knowledge, not even the boy himself.
Upon waking, a void was all that greeted his sight.
He felt disoriented?
His body weighed nothing, or maybe gravity pushed him into the ground? Everything was confusing.
He could be in a room or under the darkest night sky that he'd ever seen. He perceived only the void, stretching endlessly.
Still, another thought lingered in his subconscious.
He closed his eyes, a redundant act in this space, but one that brought him some level of control.
He ran through his memories, back to the events that he could remember.
Amal, he was standing out on the deck when the mist attacked him. He lost that match, then woke up in a village.
That voice. The one from that shack at the village's edge.
Let thy blade fuel thy blessed crest...
The sentence replayed in Eric's head. The words sounded significant. They felt incomplete and vague, but they were definitely important.
Like someone handed him the lyrics of a song, but nothing else. No name, no rhythm, no melody. Just the lyrics...
'Frustrating!' he thought. He had not written these lyrics, yet they expected him to finish the song! Frustrating indeed.
He watched the dark landscape, unsure whether it was moving or stationary. A lack of information impeded his thinking.
"Eric..." His body tightened. Something had called him...
The sound of his name warped across his body, starting as a roar and ending as a squeak.
His blood stopped all flow, causing his body to shiver despite the humid heat of this space. All from the simple calling of his name.
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Not even a strained cry.
"Do you know who you are... Eric..."
Eric's eyes darted! He couldn't speak to answer the voice's question! Even if he could, he didn't understand what it was asking him?
Who was he to this person?
"... I see. Your ignorance is... understood. Time-consuming... but understood." The voice droned.
"No matter...you will come to learn of your grander purpose in the future...for now..."
*Thump!*
A chorus of heartbeats echoed inside the boy's head. They beat rhythmically like drums.
With each thump, the space flashed with a faint red tint. The red became more pronounced every second until it overtook the black canvas.
"... Together we stand with our blades, so that we may witness the Scarlet Glade..." A chorus of voices began chanting these words on repeat through the vast redness.
The sound of searing metal sang, adding a hanging note to the chanting and drumming. Eric fought to move his limbs.
His chest burned. It screamed with... something?
Was it pain? Was it discomfort? No...
It was... purpose!
Belonging!
His heart, body, and soul felt welcomed by the chant. His hand twitched, but his fingers were far too stiff to clench into a fist.
The longer the chants persisted, the more his hand twitched. His mind was becoming as red as his surroundings.
Until the red faded.
It shifted into a cloudless orange sky in the silent evening of a cool day. No longer did he drift in a room filled with uncertainty. He was now standing outside, not on the cliff that he'd first arrived on but in a wide plain.
No, that wasn't quite right...
He stood in the center of a soldier's graveyard.
The remains of a stagnant battlefield still seasoned with the spice of warriors that fought upon it. Grass grew red on this field, dyed by blood. Weapons of old warriors lay chipped and rusted across the field, consumed by the tainted beauty of nature.
He looked left and right, searching for anything that could tell her where this was. Then, his eyes caught a small river of red flowing between the blades of Ruby Grass. It almost blended in, but Blaze's evening glare reflected against the liquid, bringing Eric's attention to it.
He followed the path with his eyes. It snaked around the grass. The sweet, metallic smell entered his nose as the river found its basin around his feet. He felt mesmerized by the sight.
Then a chill ran down his spine, interrupting his admiration.
He followed the feeling to the area opposite him, where a hooded person was standing. Through the shadow of the hood, Eric felt the gaze of the figure. It was scrutinizing, but somehow grounded him.
'Wh-who are you?' Eric mentally questioned.
Silence hung in the air, only the whistle of an oncoming wind. The wind blew strongly. His eyes rounded and locked onto the now exposed chest of his silent observer.
He had a brand. Just like him!
There were a few extra lines, but the way it looked like an open wound was just like Eric's. 'How is that.- "
"... A showdown in the Scarlet Glade, a future yet to be made..." The chanters from earlier returned, their chorus of voices overtaking the silence in an instant.
The figure slowly raised a dagger. The same ornate dagger that Eric himself had gotten from the ruin where his friends had died.
But why did this person have one? Is it something important to the Runic Clan?
"Remember the ritual... descendant..."
"What?" Eric finally spat out. The hooded figure held their blade up and charged at Eric.
He stared at the blade in his chest. Everything happened so fast that his reaction came late. The world darkened, but his eyes never left the dagger in his chest. He felt his body go cold, rigid...
Life drained out of him, but he wasn't ready.
He didn't want to...
"No!" Eric cried out as he jolted awake!
His heart raced. His hands instinctively reached for the dagger. As his hands found no purchase, the realization that his dream had never ended washed through his mind.
"What was that!?" He tried to think back through the entire experience. All the things that he experienced!
The things that he could remember feeling...
'Why was it all so vivid? It was like... they were actual memories? But I don't know what any of that was? What did it mean?'
He shook his head, trying to force his thoughts into place, but that only made him dizzy. "That was a bad idea..." He gripped his head with both hands.
He took a moment to stop the room from spinning, taking a moment to take in his surroundings.
The walls were grey and sturdy but looked fleshy, like the inside of a rotting stomach. It was unlike any building material used in the current era. The floor was hard and made of limestone, which was less bizarre.
Until he noticed the several small puddles of blood on it. Where did the blood come from? Well...
Probably from the pools of blood that filled the room.
They were like crimson moats that no one should ever have the misfortune of falling into. He went to cover his mouth, but the blood staining his hand made him think otherwise.
'This place is sick...' Eric grimaced to himself.
Mentally, he felt disgusted by the sight... but the dull pain from his chest told him that his body craved to get a taste of the pools!
"I hate this feeling..." He moved over to the edge of the moat. His hand trembled as he reluctantly dipped it into the liquid. It was warm, which unsettled Eric. 'Is this fresh or just being regulated? Ugh, I hate this place!'
Eric's hand dripped as he pulled it out of the liquid. He squeezed his eyes shut and fed the blood to his brand.
"Ah," Eric winced! "Why did that hurt?"
He looked down at his chest, confused when he finally noticed the remnant burns on his shirt. Accompanied by a new piece of his brand...
"N-no..." Eric denied. "I-It was real? That dream, the branding? It was... real?" Eric's mind replayed the nightmares that he'd long since repressed.
At the end of that weird dream, he found himself back on a table and someone branded him again.
He clenched his teeth and punched the ground. "Damnit!" His hand stung from the impact.
"I knew this place looked familiar! This is that just like that damned ruin that I got this brand from in the first place!"
He mentally kicked himself that it took him this long to realize. Once again, he'd been dragged into one of these damned things!
"Th-this is..." His entire body tensed up!
Was he mad or afraid? He couldn't tell right now. Maybe it was a mixture of both: mad that he'd been once again pulled into the sick rituals of a group of devils while, being afraid of the monster that this new mark may have turned him into.
His mind naturally wandered to his old friends...
The ones that he left behind for his own survival. He had sworn on their graves that he would never get pulled into one of these again, yet here he was!
"I'm so sorry, everyone!" His voice strained. He tried to fight back his tears, but he couldn't. They poured from his eyes ceaselessly.
"Kendall..." The memory of his best friend's death played clearly within his brain.
He couldn't sleep at night without those images flashing through his brain. And now he was back again...
"... rise..."
"Huh?" Eric looked up, his eyes still wet with tears. "Wh-who's there?" He slowly scanned the room but couldn't see anyone else with him.
"... rise, comrade..." The voice beckoned again, this time sounding more like a crowd than a single voice. Eric sat up straighter. He searched more vigorously for the source of the voices.
"Who's there! Is it one of you sick cultist freaks?! I'm no comrade to any of you!" he screamed.
"... please, comrade....don't deny the blessing ofblood..."
Eric's eyebrows came closer together. "Blessing? What are you talking about?"
"We grow stronger through the river of red. Through the river of red, we make ourselves whole. We become comrades through the river of red."
Eric's bewilderment only grew as the voices resonated. "River of red? You mean blood, don't you? A river filled with the blood of those that you slaughtered on the battlefield?!"
"You think... Do you think I'm a comrade to you maniacs? A comrade, to you freaks that think a river of blood is a sign of comradery!?"
"I would never be a comrade to the ones that branded me with this mark like I was some sort of slave! Are you insane?"
Silence...
He scoffed. "Of course...you run away when I call you out..."
"We did not kill your comrades..." the voices declared. "That is a simple fact that you should know well."
Eric balled up his fist. "Yes, you did! They would never have died if it weren't for that hell that you trapped us in! You dragged us there and killed them!"
"But you survived?" the voices echoed bluntly, their words making Eric's heart sink. "You possess the sigil gifted by our comrades in the mountains. They used their heightened senses to find a place suitable for the trial. A place where future comrades are bestowed with that gift of heightened sense onto a single descendent.You!"
"Sh-shut up. I didn't..." Eric tried to deny, but the voices ignored him.
"Yes, a group is required for the trial, but that is merely for the first step. It is to have as many successes as possible! Sure, some of the weak die during imprinting, but they contain the survivors. Nurture them. Have them trained into warriors!" The voices all lowered in pitch.
Eric's knees shook uncontrollably. He fell to his knees as he lost control of his legs.
. "You were put through a test. First, starved to force the activation of the mark. You were trapped, separated from the other members of the trial...that is when the actual testbegan!" Eric gripped his ears. The act did not dampen the voice, but he still tried.
"Please! Stop!" he yelled. "I don't want to hear it!"
"It was not us that killed your comrades, boy! For you were made to kill them yourself! One at time. Round by round until only the strongest survived! Every one of those people who were there with you in the trial. They were slaughtered by each other...
Eric's eyes widened. "N-no...don't say it! Don't say it!" He pleaded!
"So you understand? We did not kill your friends!" The voices announced with a sinister undertone.
"Because they were slaughtered by you! The victor of the Ruins of the Starved!"
Eric felt his blood run cold...
A victor...that's what they called him...
Of course they'd see it that way. A battle that he came out on top of...as a victor...standing over the corpses of his friends.
His teeth, his hands, even his toes! Every part of his body tensed at the same time. The guilt and hatred overtook his mind, finally catching up to him.
"This is why..." he whispered with his head in his hands.
"This is why I didn't want to come to another one of these places..."