Hunt

Chapter 72 (Kyle): The Void

Darkness. All I remember is darkness. My body feels cold and unresponsive as I seemingly float through the black void of what I can only assume is my mind. Left with no concept of up and down. Am I dead? No... I can't be. I wouldn't be able to ask myself that question if I was. Focusing on anything at all is difficult, my thoughts feel disjointed as they flash by in brief flashes of color. Blinding and brilliant in comparison to the all consuming darkness I had quickly grown accustomed to. Where am I really? Why am I here? More questions flood through my mind that I cannot even begin to answer. Memories of before the darkness feel foggy. Like something was preventing me from remembering back that far. A wall standing in my way.

Words begin to resonate through me. Disconnected phrases and voices that feel familiar, yet I still can't seem to place. Names and faces drifting past me in blurs through the darkness just out of reach. Out of focus. "Weak... Lost too much... Quicker..."

Time seems to spread out in front of me, both stretching and compressing at the same time. I don't know for how long I've been floating in this void. It felt like both an eternity and only a couple seconds. The freezing cold of this empty space is the only sensation I can get my mind to focus on when the flashes of images and color fade back to black. A reliable darkness, comforting compared to the chaos that the memories bring.

"I'll help... atone..." A different voice drifts past me, quickly followed by a flash of silver streaking across my vision. But instead of the world returning to the familiar cold and dark like I had gotten used to, the next flash of sensation I feel is blazing heat. A searing pain that very quickly begins to overwhelm me, threatening to burn me alive. I try to open my mouth to scream but no sound comes out. I still couldn't see anything but the black, but the familiar and almost comfortable cold was no longer present when the pain and heat slowly begins to subside.

Color slowly blooms from the blackness of the void. Beginning from the center of my vision and spreading outward, like when the morning sun crests the horizon. It blinds me, my eyes having grown comfortable to the dark.

"You're weak. A disgrace. Couldn't even save yourself, let alone those you love." A voice from behind calls to me. The first statement I can make out in its entirety since I fell into this black. "You disgust me..."

I slowly begin to turn around. My body moves slow and sluggishly, like I'm stuck in tar. The heat I felt earlier may have thawed me from my initial bonds, but I still felt that I had a long way to go. The origin of the voice slowly comes into view. A silhouette of black obscured by the light that had since replaced the darkness, seemingly swallowing the light around them.

"W-what? W-who are you?" I will myself to say. My voice straining from the use, sounding foreign to my ears, like this was the first time I've ever spoken.

The figure approaches quickly, gliding towards me through the void. It's suddenly right up in my face, coming sharply into focus. Looking back at me with a scowl on his face is... me. A perfect reflection of who I can recognize to be me was looking back at me, scowling. "Typical. Can't even think for himself... Just a mindless beast." The mirror of myself spits the words at me with venom, visibly disgusted by my very presence.

"What happened?" I ask, still unable to think of anything past the void, I couldn't push my thoughts beyond that black barrier. I still can't recall anything past the moment the world went black.

My mirror of myself scoffs and vanishes in a flash of light, materializing behind me as he whispers in my ear. "What? You don't remember? Surely you haven't already forgotten about what happened. How you fucked everything up. Doomed us. Doomed me..."

Like a jolt of lighting I'm thrust through a series of seemingly random images. No not just random images... memories. Flashes of color and sensation: a forest, blood, immense pain... followed by the chaotic overwhelming sound of fighting. Barks and growls of beasts lay overtop groans of human pain. A sharp flare of pain erupts in my shoulder, causing me to clutch at where the pain erupts from as someone else's words reverberate through my soul. "Welcome to the pack, new blood."