A Cracked Star

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 “Hah . . . hah . . . hah.” Looking around as I wake up, I find myself still in the same location I fought the creatures from before. Trying to get up takes a bit as my left arm refuses to work with me as it hangs lifelessly. 

 

“I need to get up, I can’t stay here.” I say as the severity of my situation dawns on me. I don’t know how many hours I’ve been unconscious. Thankfully, my wound doesn’t seem to be bleeding too much. I think the jacket stopped some of the force when the creature bit me.

 

As I start to move, a memory from when Stella’s dad was teaching her plays in my head, talking about bait and how blood is useful when wanting to attract more dangerous prey. The suddenness of the memory almost makes me fall but I manage to stop myself from hitting the ground.

 

“Fuck, I’m not going to get used to that anytime soon huh?” Every time it happens, I feel like something is chipping at my mental strength.

 

Making my way back, I find myself stopping near the fireplace I made. I find the corpse of the creature I killed half eaten with a giant wolf standing over it, its fur black having red stripes along its back. Its ears fold back as it starts to snarl at me while it’s hunched over the creature. It looks like it would reach past my waist if it was fully standing up.

 

“E-easy big fella, I don’t want to take your food. I only want that small one right there.” I say pointing at the hare near the campfire. “I don’t mean to do anything to you.”

 

Slowly walking towards the hare, still facing the wolf, hoping it would understand that I’m not a threat to it. I’m not in any condition to fight anything at the moment anyways. Using my other arm I slowly took off my jacket so I could see the extent of damage. 

 

It takes me a few minutes, watching the wolf,  as I struggle to unstick my clothing from myself. The wound itself thankfully isn’t large. The creature wasn’t able to tear anything, mainly just puncturing into my shoulder. 

 

Maybe I can try to find any herbs that could help with this issue. Stella seems to know a lot about herbs, I just don’t know how far that extends from her home area. For now I need to figure out why my shoulder isn’t moving though, it feels like it’s misplaced, maybe it got pulled out? 

 

“Dawn your memories better have been correct on this, since what I’m about to do is probably very stupid.” I mumble to myself as I grab my left wrist and hold my arm up straight and in front of me. 

 

“Haaah, it’ll be fine, if it's not injured then this shouldn’t do me harm.” I say to myself, trying to calm down my emotions as I feel my arm shake. Relaxing my left shoulder as best as I could, I pulled my wrist straight ahead, nothing happened after pulling it for a bit. 

 

If it’s not pulled out, why is it numb? Now knowing that my shoulder socket isn’t the issue, I start to think on how I can deal with the bleeding. 

 

Focusing on the feeling, something deep down tries to guide me, telling me the path I should take throughout my body from my chest towards the shoulder. I can’t determine what is the cause, but whatever it is makes me feel safe. Trusting in my instincts, I close my eyes to focus, after a while I sort of see these lines, glowing as they spread everywhere. These are the roots I saw before, but what they’re connecting too is something I don’t know anything about. 

 

It looks like a star, shifting and never staying a single color, just like the roots spread throughout my body. Focusing on it, the star gives off a warm feeling, as the color starts to solidify to a bright orange color, like it’s trying to comfort and guide me. Letting my instincts take over, the roots start to change , turning orange as well. 

 

Listening to my instincts, I let it show me what it wants as I feel a fire start to burn around the area the wound is hurting. I feel like my wound is starting to heal but not much as only the bleeding has stopped. As it finishes and the feeling recedes, a system notification shows up as if telling me what I did.

 

 

Bloodline? Who had a bloodline, Stella or Dawn? I need to look into that in the future, for now I should be happy that my wound has stopped bleeding. Though I do want to look into the whole star core I have inside myself that I saw earlier. 

 

Thinking I’ve done enough for now, I open my eyes and see the wolf a few feet away from me, staring at me as if I was doing something interesting. I notice that the sun has started to set, probably another hour or two until dark I think. The moons are starting to show, two full moons and a third partially showing itself behind the second.

 

As I look at the moons, I find myself in a trance staring until a memory of Dawn was looking into information about moons is brought up, talking about how the moon revolves around the planet.

 

Holding my head in pain, I look back to the moons as the memory ends, wondering how having so many moons might affect the planet I’m on. Looking back towards the wolf as the headache starts to dull a bit, I can see it still staring, its eyes showing concern. 

 

How do I know it’s showing concern? It doesn’t seem to see me as a threat either, does it think I’m easy to handle should I try to harm it?

 

It tilts its head before walking over to me. I can hear it sniffing me as it circles around me, as if it’s trying to make sure I’m okay. What is it trying to accomplish? It pushes against my back as it whines. What does it want? It’s finished eating but it hasn’t left yet. Does it want something?

 

“Can I help you?” I ask the wolf.

 

Getting up I turn to face it, it continues to press against me as if trying to direct me. As it stops, it heads to the other end of the camp I had roughly put together earlier. Turning its head towards me, I can tell from its eyes it wants me to follow. 

 

Somehow I can understand that it doesn’t mean any harm, but why was it so angry at me earlier though? Following it, the wolf leads me for a while before I can start to hear water flowing up ahead, probably from a small stream. 

 

Looking around the stream I can see a bunch of small critters and even larger creatures. I looked down at the wolf questioning if it just wanted to show me the stream. Walking closer to the stream, the animals closest to me quickly run away. I’m a little sad that they’re so cautious but it’s understandable. 

 

Actually, why am I sad about that? I didn’t think I’d want to hold some of them as bad as I do now. That’s a little worrying, is there something else I’m missing with me gaining Dawn and Stella’s memories?

 

Some of the larger creatures don’t seem concerned about me but seem to be wary, probably because of the giant wolf I have at my side. Taking the chance, I get to the stream to drink some water. Feeling I’ve had enough and that I shouldn’t interrupt the wildlife here, I turn to the wolf to leave. It follows my side closely the entire time back to camp. 

 

Once back, I sit down as I try to feel the flow of mana that is going through my body. This time not taking nearly as long as before, having already felt them before when treating my injury. Time passes as I slowly get lost in my thoughts as I relax and follow the roots throughout my body.. 

 

~~~~~

 

Days pass as my routine starts to settle as I continue living at the camp I made. The wolf leaves in the morning but always comes back near the end of the day, bringing me some small animal it hunted by then. 

 

Does it think I’m part of its pack? It’s getting used to being around me too, sometimes guiding me if it shows up when I go for a hunt. The animals at the stream also seem less wary of me now, but they still don’t let me get any closer to them. 

 

I’ve been wondering if it's the wolf’s doing with there being no more attacks since the first day. It’s been peaceful recently as I try to figure things out.

 

I’m getting used to directing mana through my body using the roots. It seems like fire and space are the affinities I’ve gotten most used to, and grown close with when using. Ice and earth affinities feel distant, like I’m missing a specific key to use them freely.

 

Most of what I’ve been doing seems to be habits Stella made when using fire. I find it concerning though that I've only now learned that habits are showing up from both Dawn and Stella. More noticeable ones have been when I’m walking through the forest I can feel myself correcting my movements, to make myself quieter  and harder to sense. 

 

Or when finding myself uncertain and  nervous I start to mess with my hair like Dawn. Each day that passes I can feel these habits getting stronger.

 

My thoughts are becoming more structured but keep changing focus the longer I spend on one. I’ve started seeing more memories from Stella on how she’s used fire magic before. Seems that fire likes to be very expressive when being used, it doesn’t want to be controlled. 

 

It likes to flow with the cycle that is life, uncertain, with a beginning and end. It doesn’t seek to harm or help, only doing what it pleases or where the situation takes it.

 

Attempting to use space magic has been confusing and counterproductive to say the least. The only success, if you can even call it that, is feeling my surroundings and every bit of motion. When trying to use it, I feel myself kind of meld into space around me before being rejected. Everything around me reacts when I try to move or manipulate it. 

 

I feel like I’ve started a puzzle that changes everything after each checkpoint, becoming a never ending process. Difficulty aside, a part of me is enjoying the challenge, although I don’t know if that part of me is even me, or just another trait manifesting from either Dawn or Stella.

  

Today however, I wanted to look into something else that has been bugging me. I've been interested in learning about the star, or whatever it is, that is encompassing my heart. It seems to control something but I can’t figure out exactly what it is. 

 

As I focus more on it, the star starts to glow before I feel a strong pull latch onto my mind, as if trying to drag me into it. I start to panic trying to stop focusing on it hoping the pull stops, to my dismay, it doesn’t stop before I feel myself pulled into it. 

 

~~~~~

 

Getting up I find myself in a space completely new to me. “What just happened?” I say, as I find myself lying on the ground. Looking up I can see a ball of ice and fire high up inside a vast space. 

 

The ground underneath me is hard and barren of any plant life. Continuing to look, I eventually stumble across something I didn’t imagine I’d ever see. A bit ahead of me, there are three beds, two occupied and the last empty. While it’s weird there are just beds here in a barren land, the occupants are what I’m more focused on. As I get closer, one of them starts to move..

 

“Mhmm, my head is killing me.” She says, rubbing behind her ears as she sits up. “Mom, what happened to me? I feel like I’ve been asleep for days now.” 

 

I feel tears start to streak down my face as I fall to my knees. I didn’t kill them, I’m not alone, this entire time I thought I was the reason they lost their lives. 

 

“I-I’m sorry. . . *hic* . . .I don’t . . .*hic* . . .know why this happened.” I say, my voice catching itself at times. “This isn’t my fault.”

 

Leaving the woman on the bed in confusion as she stares at me. “Who are you?”