The youth stared at the screaming girl, almost unfocused. He didn't even know who she was, and for some reason she seemed afraid of him. He didn't even know who he was, his mind was jumbled and he was still actively trying to piece it together. His last vivid memory had come from before he woke up; for some reason, she resembled the woman he had seen in that memory.
Just before he woke up, he found himself standing in a vast white expanse with nothing around him. He stood unwaveringly, almost unable to think or move. In front of him, forms began flickering, and in time he was greeted with a peculiar sight, rows and rows of people and beasts arrayed before him, their gazes hollow. In front of the rows stood a young-looking woman, and at her side a young man who closely resembled her, except for his golden hair.
The moment he saw them, the people and beasts began melting into gold and grey, streaming into his body and causing him great pain. Throughout the whole ordeal, his face remained expressionless as the pain increased before gradually subsiding.
The white expanse, just like the people, dissolved into his body and the scenery changed.
Now he was standing on the flat peak of a great jagged mountain. In front of him was a half-eaten corpse, or rather, the large hand of something. It seemed to have been there for a long time, yet showed no sign of rot. The hand was large, large enough to belong to a giant. All fingers excluding the thumb had been devoured. For some reason, as he stared at the hand, he felt a strange familiarity, he was certain he knew who it belonged to. Before his thoughts could go further, a voice resounded in his head.
"Ahhhhh," the voice boomed lazily. "So it's ■■■■ this time, huh, the last of the ■■■■ to have regained consciousness."
The voice sounded amused.
For some reason, he couldn't understand some of the words the voice had spoken.
"Come now, ■■■■, the thumb of the lord's hand is yours to devour. Eat it as you please, you are the lord's most trusted ■■■■, after all. Devour that which belongs to the devourer."
There it was again. The voice kept saying things he didn't understand, but one thing was certain, this only occurred when the voice referred specifically to him. He didn't know who the lord was, or why he had to devour the thumb of said lord, but not being able to understand irked him.
"Hmm, why are you reluctant, ■■■■? Don't you want to gain the power and favour of the lord? If you're still stuck on your pride as the first ■■■■, you should forget such trivial things. Devour the gift of the lord and carry on his legacy."
"What is the lord?" the youth said, his tone quiet but questioning.
"Amnesia, hmm. The other ■■■■ who came here regained their sense of self. It's disappointing that you, the first ■■■■, have failed to do something those below you have done successfully." The voice sounded disappointed, almost wistful.
The youth stared toward the direction of the voice, still and composed, then changed his question. "What do I gain from devouring the finger of the Lord?"
"Eat it, devour it, and walk the path of the void." The voice was colder this time, as though it had grown tired of the conversation.
The youth, sensing he could no longer ask questions, went over to the giant thumb.
The other fingers had already been devoured.
He stood in front of the thumb and sank his teeth into it.
The skin was unlike anything, not flesh, not stone, something between the two. It resisted him at first, then gave all at once. Black fluid welled from the wound and fell from his mouth in thick drops, never reaching the ground, disappearing into him before they could. He felt it travel, not warmth, not cold, something that had no name moving through him like water finding the lowest point of a vessel.
He ate.
He didn't think about why. The voice had told him to and he had no particular objection. He simply ate the way a man drinks when he is thirsty, steadily, without ceremony. The flesh came away in pieces, each one dissolving before it fully settled. The black fluid kept falling and kept vanishing into him and whatever it was doing inside him he couldn't tell, only that something was accumulating, the way snow accumulates, quietly.
At some point the pain came back. Different from before. Not the searing kind from when the people had melted into him, this was deeper, structural, like something inside him was being rearranged to make room. His expression didn't change.
An hour passed. Maybe more.
When he finally straightened and stepped back, the thumb was skeletal, grey-white, glowing faintly in a way that made it unpleasant to look at directly. He looked at it anyway. Then at the rest of the hand. Then at the arm stretching back into nothing.
He waited for the voice to speak.
That didn't happen, at least not immediately. Instead, the space began dissolving, not entering his body this time, but dispersing into nothing.
"Follow the path of the void, ■■■■," the voice resounded one final time.
***
The feeling of fear ended as soon as it began. Her scream now felt like a necessary reaction rather than one born of true fear. She felt no fear toward the transformed Deron, nor hatred nor anger toward the wolf Deron that had devoured her parents. In fact, she felt nothing toward the Derons, just as she felt nothing toward her family, now deceased. This, in itself, would have been horrifying. But she felt nothing. Only a thought passed through her mind:
'Do I feel for Derons the same thing I feel for my family?'
She quickly shook away the thought.
"Anna, can you tell me what occurred during the festival, according to your own account?" Heinz asked calmly.
Anna stared at the youth who stood calmly behind Heinz. She wasn't sure what the right thing to say was. Should she give a truthful account? Or should she say something to hide his identity?
"It's just as you know, Mr. Heinz, Derons invaded and slaughtered everybody," she began. "Among them was a Deron in the form of a towering wolf. I only saw him when he came after my family."
Heinz stared at the girl sympathetically.
'She must still be in shock,' he thought, noticing the odd calmness in her disposition but continued questioning her.
"The wolf Deron you speak of was not found in the vicinity. Did you see him go in any direction, or did he return to Mount Serto?"
"No, he was devoured by another Deron. The young man behind you is that Deron."
Her voice remained calm and composed as she said this.
Heinz stayed quiet for a while before turning to look at the youth. The youth seemed unaffected by what Anna had just said. They both had the same calm gaze, unbothered by everything. They must both be in shock, it was the only answer he could come up with. One was confused and talking nonsense; the other seemed to have amnesia.
"I'm leaving now to inform the healers that you have awakened. We will be leaving for the capital soon and would like it if you followed us," Heinz said before leaving.
Anna watched the stout man's figure disappear and turned toward the youth.
The youth met her gaze calmly.
.They said nothing for a long stretch of time.
The youth broke the silence first.
"Do you know me?"
"I don't. I don't want to know you. You're a Deron , what good will it do for me to be close to you?"
"What's a Deron?"
"You...? I think."