Death's Redemption

Chapter 3: Reunited

"Nel...tharion..." a voice called out to him. The black dragon opened his eyes to find himself somewhere unknown. A black mist made up of wispy particles spun around his body, blocking him from looking around. The mist started to get closer to him as he began to feel its voice. The sound of countless wails blasted his mind as he could sense the anguish of thousands of souls calling out to him. They begged him to release them from the torture that they endured. Neltharion did not know what they spoke of and could not help them. The mist flew into his scales as it vanished. His eyes burned from the contact.

As his eyelids opened back up, he saw the desolate land he was in. The ground was dry and cracked, its red color being the only thing unique about it. It extended across the massive plateau he was on, and he could see mountains made of the same material in the distance. Although Neltharion had not seen this barren landscape before, it felt more familiar to him than he felt comfortable admitting.

"Neltharion..." the first voice called out to him again. His talons dug into the rock-like dirt he stood on as he felt chills run down his draconic spine. The voice he heard also sounded all too familiar to him. He could tell where it was coming from this time, so he started to walk towards it. He could feel something inside him beckoning him towards the source of the voice. He walked to the edge of what appeared to be a crater that had blood spilled around its borders. The dragon looked down into the massive hole to see a small elven form. The being wore a torn red cloak on its back and a pair of horns, one of them broken near the base, on its head. Neltharion knew that elven form anywhere. It was Alexstrasza.

He quickly shifted down into his human form as he ran up to the fallen Aspect. She was lying on her side with her back facing him. He pulled her onto her back, only to reel at what he saw. The Dragon Queen's corpse was damaged beyond almost all recognition. Her chest was ripped apart as if something had pulled it out from the inside. The eyes that once held the fire of life were black and empty, still left in a look of utter fear. Neltharion recoiled from the sight; the image forever stuck in his head.

Footsteps echoed into his ears as he saw black boots approaching him. He looked up from the ground to see Wrathion standing before him.

"Father, what are you doing here?" he asked in a calm voice that was unaltered by the nearby mangled corpse.

"What... what happened here, Wrathion?"

"You couldn't save her. You couldn't save any of them, father."

Before Neltharion could respond, the sound of a neck cracking put him on alert. He turned towards Alexstrasza's corpse and watched in horror as it twisted in unnatural ways to stand up. Her black eyes were lit up again, this time with a purple glow.

"I called out to you but you didn't come over, so I had to shout. You never came. You left me to die, just like all those that you loved. You couldn't save them," she said in a cheery tone until her voice started to change into something alien. "It is inevitable that they will all die. There is nothing you can do to save them, Neltharion!" she continued as her voice twisted more and more until that last word. Neltharion could hear Alexstrasza's voice speaking his name, but also a voice he knew very well. The ground started to buckle as he saw Alexstrasza's corpse fall back to the ground as dust that was carried away by the wind.

Something shot up from the ground and started to flail around before another broke out in a different spot. Neltharion realized that they were tentacles. More and more came up from the earth until the shaking stopped. He was overwhelmed with an emotion he had not felt for a long time as something emerged from the ground. This emotion was fear.