Kaos Jolt (Unedited)

Dark Beginnings

A thick, dark mist hung in the air. A dark figure in the humid night atmosphere, looming like an anvil about to fall. I found myself laying on the ground, slowly sinking, being lost to the swampy depths. I jump to my feet, unnerved by my change in surroundings. Suddenly I recognize this dramatic arena of death. The moon shone from above, a silvery watermark on the landscape where I knew my shadowy terror would appear. The wooded path I've walked down so often before, the familiar scent of lake water mixed with sand and honeysuckle, the incessant sounds of cicadas and mosquitoes floating on the air, forewarning the bloody battle awaiting me at the waters edge.

 What is going on? My thoughts had strayed. This isn't right. If this is the same dream, then why all of the change? And, indeed, a lot had changed. For starters, I was armed with nothing at this time. In every other instance, I held a blade in hand. A nodachi around the size of my forearm, to be exact. Besides my lack of defense, I noticed a sun-tailed hawk sitting on the branch of a nearby willow tree. There had never before been another fully developed creature lying in wait amongst the gloom and decay of this deserted land of decomposition and death besides me and the shadow which stood before me, halberd in hand. Speaking of the shadow, the formerly ambiguous character of nightmarish fervor was nowhere to be seen. In its absence stood the cloaked figure of a man, 5'6", draped in what seemed to be a mix of a kimono and a hooded cloth trenchcoat with his back turned away from me. The figure stood there silently, an aura much more menacing and filled with bloodlust than any abomination I had ever even imagined, and to this day I have yet to feel the same weighted sense of dread and despair as this figure bore upon my soul.

"Who are you?" A voice arose from where I stood, though it oddly didn't seem to have been my own. "What is the reason you have come here?"

The figure stood in the dark night air, silent, looming in the shadows like a great beast, reared on hind legs and ready to lash out at it's prey. Suddenly, the figure turned sharply, and no sooner did he turn was he standing right before me, face-to-face. In this case, though, it was more like face-to-mask, for he stood before me wearing a mask covering his entire face. The details on the mask were as clear as day under his hood and behind his black bangs, with a scar cracked across the right eye which he must have tried to repair, because a dark blue streak of paint was covering it, but despite the repair job the crack remained. On the other side there was a crack as well, but this one was wide enough to see a scarred cheek, blood red as if the wound was fresh. In the middle of the forehead was a circular divet, smashed in as if something with a sharp, rounded tip was driven right through.

A moment of silence, then a voice, solemn as the night around us, whispered,"It's almost time. Follow this path, and both great sacrifice, and a great legacy await." Then, a sharp pain in my chest as if I were being stabbed shocked me awake.