SKATH: The Awakening Of Power

chapter 11

Dusk enveloped the forest where Skath and Lyra had decided to camp for the night. The fire burned dimly, casting flickering light on the faces of the two travelers, while the wind whispered through the trees with a melancholic melody. Lyra was finishing cleaning a couple of fish to cook, her movements swift and sure, ignoring Skath’s distracted glances.

He couldn’t shake the strange feeling that had been haunting him since they left the village. There was something familiar, a thought that seemed to want to rise from the fog of his memories but slipped away every time he tried to grasp it. Perhaps it was the sky, the dying light, or the silence of nature, but he felt the weight of a shadow following him.

As Lyra hung the fish to cook, Skath stood up, peering into the trees. "I’m going for a walk," he murmured, feeling the urge to move away. He didn’t wait for a reply, knowing Lyra wouldn’t speak to him unless strictly necessary.

He wandered into the shadows of the forest, his steps silent on the damp ground. Twilight was giving way to night, and despite the darkness, Skath could clearly see every detail around him. His ability to see in the dark, a gift he had always taken for granted, guided him in this moment of confusion.

Then something moved in the darkness ahead of him.

A shadow, too fast and elusive to be human, darted across his field of vision. Skath stopped, his heart pounding, a sense of déjà vu flooding him. He looked around, trying to understand what he had seen. The air suddenly grew colder, and a distant voice seemed to whisper something to him, like an ancient echo resonating in his mind.

Skath clenched his fists. T-FOW. The name came to him suddenly, without any apparent reason, yet it felt like the right answer. A fleeting image of a majestic Peryton, wearing a mask made of eagle bones, formed in his mind. "Who are you?" he whispered into the darkness.

And again, only silence responded.

He felt the ground vibrate slightly beneath his feet, and before he could react, a figure resembling a humanoid goat materialized for an instant in front of him, then vanished. Skath fell to his knees, hit by a wave of fragmented memories: Hearth, his distant home, the approaching darkness, and a mission... to protect someone or something. His chest tightened, and the image of Malakar—a dark and destructive presence—flashed before his eyes.

The apparition disappeared so quickly that Skath doubted his own sanity. But that name kept echoing in his mind. T-FOW. He had to know more. He had to remember what he had been entrusted with.

Staggering, he returned to the camp, his heart in turmoil. Lyra looked at him with suspicion, noticing his pale face. "Is something wrong?" she asked, with her usual cold tone, but a flicker of concern hidden beneath.

Skath stared at her for a long moment, still uncertain whether to speak about the memories that were surfacing. "I saw... something. Something I need to remember."

"Remember what?" Lyra asked, not hiding her perplexity.

"Who I really am," he replied, his voice trembling.

Lyra scrutinized Skath, her gaze becoming focused. “And what does ‘who you really are’ mean? You’re just a traveler like many others.”

“No,” Skath responded, raising his voice more than he intended. “There’s more to it. I had another life, another world.” Frustration seeped into his words. “I saw a figure,something that seemed... familiar. And the name T-FOW kept coming back to my mind."

Lyra tilted her head, an expression of skepticism mixed with curiosity. "And who is this T-FOW? A friend of yours? An enemy?"

"I don’t know," Skath admitted, his mind still in turmoil. "But I feel like it has something to do with my past and my true mission. I had to leave Hearth, but I don’t know why."