The bite of cold came first. There was no pain. No memory. Just coldness. It clung to Paradonia's spine and granted her a sense of heaviness - as though the ground refused to permit her to rise. The war-torn elf laid still as the rain fell. She felt almost every single drop hitting her skin. At first, she didn't react, but then her chest clenched like a vice. Compelled by instinct, the elf drew breath. The air filled her lungs too easily. Too swiftly. There was no soot. No smoke. The elf coughed. It sounded hoarse and weak. It sounded wrong - alien.
Her body recoiled when she drew in the oxygen again, but this time it felt sharper - unforgiving - desperate.
Paradonia repeated the same action again.
And again.
She felt as though something was being stolen. Whichever domain she had stepped foot in, the air was too clean to inhale - too light.
Her fingers dug into the wet earth, churning up the grass. It was soft - but not like ash.
It felt lush.
Gentle.
Alive.
The elf opened her eyes. The world above her was blurred by rain and darkness, with tree branches shifting overhead as the wind passed through them. She blinked. Silently hoping that this wasn't a dream. Paradonia breathed again, but this time, it was smooth and fluid. However, the general's body began to recall the familiar heat of the inferno.
Delving back into memory.
The endless stench of brimstone and smoke. The screaming souls of the damned. The rain around her vanished in an instant. The ground beneath her became scorched and deprived of life.
With a torn mind, warring between fiction and reality, she digs her fingers deeper into the earth, allowing the sensation of nature to bring her back to the present.
Her only anchor in reality.
Then the memory of the hells was gone, and the rain returned once more.
Something real.
Paradonia turned onto her side, resisting the lingering memories and past sensations.
Trying to reject them.
Since she had arrived here, everything felt heavier. Not painful. No. Just foreign and uncomfortable.
The general rolls onto her front and slowly crawls forward through the mud. The forest stretched around her. Dark. Uncharted. Endless. She didn't know where she was, aside from no longer being trapped in the hells.
She thought that it would have brought her a sense of relief, but it was quite the opposite.
Then something caught her attention. Paradonia stopped. A blurred shape darted between the trees.
It possessed a small frame.
A frame of a child.
He went further into the forest, glancing back at her, expecting her to follow - as though the boy was playing a game. But within the fractured crevices of her mind, she recognised the features of the lad.
Brown hair, green eyes, pale skin, and small pointed ears. The ears of a half-elf.
It was her son.
Freiderei.
Paradonia continued to crawl forth with drenched and trembling arms.
"Stop," the elf mutters under her breath. She forces herself onto her knees and then onto her feet, staggering towards the forest as the apparition of her son becomes evermore distant - threatening to flee beyond her reach.
Treading through mud and roots, the forest began to thin. Branches gave way to more ground ahead. The trees fell behind her, out of sight. Filtered from her field of vision. The unravelling forest path was beginning to slope upwards as she delved further on ahead.
The child continued to run, unburdened by the terrain and the rainfall.
Then he glanced over his shoulder, and stopped. Looking back at her again with the same kind and familiar smile.
He was waiting for her.
Then a sudden searing heat burns throughout her left palm. She gasps and grits her teeth as the mark the usurper bestowed upon her flesh flared - as though something was beckoning her from the eternal depths, making the forest around her feel small - insignificant.
She didn't fully understand the mark, nor did she want to, for that matter, but what became apparent to her was the need to get as far as possible from here.
And so she burst into a sprint. Pushing harder.
For each inhale and exhale, her breathing became rapidly uneven.
The world around her blurred, not because of the speed, but due to the strain - the strain of something that pulled faster than her mind could comprehend. The ground changed. Softer earth gave way to stone. Trees faded from sight and were sentenced to the corners of her periphery.
Then - there was nothing ahead and she came to an abrupt standstill. Her body staggered forward. She quickly realised that she was one step away from the edge of a cliff. The land dropped into the darkness below and was submerged in a thick, dank fog.
It was unfathomable to measure.
Freiderei still stood there, right at the precipice, with the threat of a drop dancing along beneath his heels. Paradonia's breath was caught in her throat.
"Don't," her voice broke.
He didn't express any uncertainty nor fear. The half-eleven child stepped back and vanished. Gone. Paradonia advanced before thought intervened. Then the world tilted onto its side. Her foot slipped against the wet stone, and her hands slammed down upon the earth.
The mark violently burned again. The searing pain once again tore through her entire palm, worse than last time, making her break into a cold sweat. She could feel her sense of reality fracturing into splintered cognitive pieces.
The cliff before her began to morph.
The edge stretched wide, accommodating what seemed to look like a ginormous gate.
The air around it warped, bending inwards, as though something vast was behind those immense doors. Her breathing refused to settle and started to quicken in accordance with her heart rate. She knew those chained infernal doors. That gate.
The anxiety nestled inside her chest, and the mark flared brighter.
Hotter.
The doors open, and two towering sentinels emerged, followed by a gust of humid, foul-smelling air. They stood still and statuesque, as though they were waiting.
Observing her, but not as vermin, no.
This time it felt different.
Distastefully calm.
As though they came to bear their respects and acknowledgement.
The sentinels were not interested in her demise.
They were waiting for her to take her place as sovereign.
As the queen of hell.