Horizon Zero Dawn

Chapter 7

I was running along a black hall, the bad men chasing me. I didn't stop running, there was no end. I was getting tired of running after a while and they were getting closer. One jumped on me, and then the rest of them did the same. They all started laughing, stabbing me to death while my entrails escaped my body, until a blood red mist shrouded around me.
I was in a sunny place, a city of sandstone and gold. There were people all around selling commodities and some getting on with normal life. I walked until I came to a golden bridge with velvet archways. There were guards standing all along the bridge, in golden helmets with plumes. Beyond was a golden palace glimmering in the sunlight, and then darkness shrouded it and fire engulfed the town houses around me. People were screaming and getting slaughter by the bad men and machines, corpses lay scattered around me.

I woke to a blur of bright light shining down on me, I wanted to cover my eyes but my body was too weak and I was shaking. I could vaguely make out people standing around me. I realized I was on a stretcher and could feel sheep skin which I was lying on and someone pushing the stretcher. I then went unconscious again.

I was a standing in the courtyard of mothers rise, purple peacocks were feasting at a table with a few braves and and the matriarchs. All of a sudden the peacocks were surrounding me, their feathers were fanned out and were a rose gold. They were standing in a circle around me, staring, only staring at me. I then realized that the peacocks were standing over dead braves, I then started to panic, I then looked at the feasting table and all the braves and matriarch had been slaughtered, and the dream faded away.

I woke up in a room with walls of rough, uneven stone and a roof of the same with beams holding the stone roof up. I looked to my right and there my mother was, weeping and talking to a brave and my sister sitting next to her on a wooden chair with a straw pillow. I looked then to my left and there were 2 men, most likely healers, they had flasks of different substances tied to their robes and they were also wearing wooden masks with golden engravings. One of the healers was mashing herbs in a bowl and the other was looking for a potion on a shelf. The healer mashing the herbs saw me awake and rushed toward me, he put his hand on my neck to most probably check my pulse. After a few seconds he then gave a sigh of relief and called out,"He's awake."

The next thing I knew my mother embraced me a little to harshly, but I didn't mind. My mother started weeping drastically and said,"Oh, Luke, I am so sorry, I shouldn't have let you go, I'm so sorry."

After a while the healer got my mother off me."Welcome back," he said," You have been unconscious for three days, in which your mother has sat by you the whole time." The first question that came to mind was,"Where am I?"
"You are in The Mothers Womb, my dear boy, not everyone gets to see this place."
"Mothers Womb?" I replied,"I thought only Matriarchs were allowed in The Mothers Womb." "That is what everybody else thinks in the sacred land, who haven't been inside The Mothers Womb. Pertrovius, get the boy some night grass. The boy is still very weak and needs his rest." The other healer who appeared to be his assistant, brought him the night grass which was a potion that eased your pain and helped you sleep. He put the bottle of Night Grass to my lips and I drank. After a few moments I started to feel drowsy, and I slowly drifted off to another dreaded dream.

I was in a tree looking down on a few people, those people were the bad men. It was more than a few, there were about twenty or thirty of them. One man pointed and I looked in the direction he was pointing, it looked like a wooden fortress, it wasn't any fortress, the gate house looked terribly familiar to me, it was a Nora fortress because there were braves on the walls of the fortress. The fortress was under siege by the bad men, there were flaming arrows and rocks coming from the bad men and hitting the fortress.

I woke up again in the stone room, it was dim now and the healers weren't here, I looked around and there was a brave sitting on a wooden chair next to the door admiring her bowstring. I heard a faint explosion go off outside. "What's going on?" I asked. My voice was very hoarse, and my throat was dry but not as dry as before. The Brave looked up in my direction. "You're awake," she said,"My names Elana, you probably have a lot of questions." She walked towards me to the bedside table, picked up a jug that was sitting on the table, and filled a cup with water. She gave it to me and I drank deeply. When I was finished I asked," Was there an explosion outside, or is my fever tricking me into hearing things, or am I going mad?"

"There was an explosion, the cult was besieged us." "The Cult?" "Oh, right. The Cult are the name the Matriarchs have come to calling the people who slaughtered the war party they sent, you volunteered in. I am sorry to say, but you were the only survivor."
"What's happened to the Sacred Land?" "Its been put to the torch, every village the Cult have come across has been burnt to the ground and its people slaughtered. A few of the villages took refuge in the bigger outposts in time, but the rest..." Another explosion went off and the sound of screams came with it. "I will get you something to eat," said Elana, "Stay here." So I did, waited. Another explosion went off again a little while after she left. I looked around the room, it was quite desolate. On the potion shelf, most of the potions were gone. I could not see my bow or arrows, but Elana had left her spear stupidly. Another explosion went off, this time a loud crack sounded after, like the crack of wood. The outer wall of Mothers Rise had a wooden wall which could mean one of two things, one of the houses got hit or the wall was breeched.