The First Hellhound

I float, suspended in an endless void. It feels familiar to me, as if I have done that in the past. I try to remember how I got there, but I cannot focus; it feels as if the eternal darkness I’m in swallows my every more sophisticated thought. It bugs me a bit, but there is also some paradoxical comfort in it. To forget and just... chill. It speaks to me quite convincingly. I feel like I was tired before, but now I feel comfortably numb. It’s quite pleasant, actually. I attempt to relax, but something keep bothering me. Something is not right. I try to move my hand to scratch my head, but I can't. I can only make my ears and tail twitch.

Wait. Ears and tail? How? Am I not a human anymore? Why do I have fluffy ears on top of my head, not to mention a tail? Humans have no such things. What is going on? I try to move and fail again. I feel fur on my arms stand up from frustration.

My… fur? Why would a human be covered in fur? And why do I feel it glowing? Why can’t I see it? Why can’t I see myself? It makes no sense for me to have a form of bioluminescence. Wow, that’s a… sophisticated word. And bizarre. It feels like I thought of it in a language different than the one I normally think in, as if there is no equivalent.

Wait a minute. It was in English. Why does it come off to me as weird? It should not. I know this language at least as well as Kolokolan, Tamaran, or Zheryman tongues. And I am a native speaker of… which one was my mothertongue again? They all feel like one. Even English, which feels otherworldly on top.

I pause again. Otherworldly? Why would English feel otherworldly? Shouldn’t Northern Orezemjan languages I mentioned feel otherworldly? Where do I even belong? To Earth or Yavea? It confuses me that both of those answers are somehow correct… but how?

I try to come up with an answer to those and many other questions, but to no avail; it seems like the void disrupts my line of thought. It starts to annoy me – and that wakes something deep within my soul: the heat that starts radiating from there. It slowly washes over me, clearing my thoughts and pushing me out of the numbness the embrace of the darkness provides, filling me with unbreakable WILL to live – and inexhaustible desire to experience what life brings. It makes the darkness turn from welcoming to oppressive, from comforting to reprehensible, from numbing to suffocating. I struggle against its cold embrace as my senses gradually return to me and my mind clears – until the the veil of darkness snaps.

I wake up, feeling horrible and disoriented. My entire existance is pain: from splitting headache to strained muscles; even breathing is challenging. There is a pit in my stomach and I feel completely exhausted. I keep my eyes closed, trying to get used to this terrible sensation, overwhelming and silncing everything outside me. I am wholly focused on my own hurting body. My chest – both bones and muscles – hurt every time I inhale or exhale. My nose is clogged, so I have to use my mouth; it is parched and when I try to swallow some saliva, I can taste metallic flavour of my own coagulated blood. Some of it lingers on my tongue, now that I am aware of that.

I slowly realise that not everything I feel is terrible. There is a familiar heat, radiating slightly from my heart; it calms me down. I shift my attention from my whole body and debilitating pain to that soothing warmth. I focus on it, trying to increase its intensity and spread it throughout me. It takes quite some time, but the longer it takes, the easier it gets. Wherever it touches, I feel my organs begin to rejuvenate and pain starts getting alleviated. My exhaustion also gets less and less intense – not replenished, just ignored. Slowly I start feeling better, and other sensations return to me; thirst and hunger being first ones I can discern.

Finally, I open my eyes. The cave is dark, thankfully; I don’t think I would tolerate strong light quite well in my current state. That being said, I am surprised at how well I can see. It seems I have some sort of a darkvision. I am not sure if GOD told me about it; if so, it must have slipped my mind completely. Anyway, as I slowly look up, I notice that there isn’t much to look at here; cave I’m in is devastated, with rubble being everywhere. Everywhere but me and the corpse I'm leaning on. It looks truly massive and powerful, even with most of the head completely scorched, with the horns that appear to be partially melted. I snort, twice, to clear my nostrils; it is soon free of black plugs of blood and dust. I take a breath through my nose – and I am immediately welcomed with smell of cold meat, both burned and raw; it makes my stomach roar in hunger. I collapse torwards it – and I am punished for my impatience with a spike of pain throughout my body. It doesn't matter and end up quickly devouring parts of the fallen monster, losing to my instincts and hunger.

I regain control some time later, my belly filled with more food I thought possible; still I haven’t eaten even tenth of my prey so far. And I didn’t even notice that I ate some of the more raw parts of the beast; at least it helped me quench some of my initial thirst. I then slowly crawl to the water, still too weak to even stand up. The surface is still covered in a layer of ice and I know it will be so; there is natural ice magic in the rocks here, after all. Regardless, I don’t even need to melt it – I can just break it and drink freely. The cold water does wonders for my parched throat. I yawn, my exhaustion catching up with me. I look at the bear – its fur seems soft and the carcass should not decay quickly because of magically perpetuated chill in the cave. I have no strength to skin it, so for now it will serve as – honestly pretty gruesome – bed. I hope I will not fall from it – I think as creep up at it and drift into sleep again.

I wake up feeling better. While I am still hurt all over, it is pretty manageable as long as I don’t strain myself, avoid making sharp movements and breathe carefully. While it still prevents me from swimming back to get my stuff, I can explore nearby caves. I know for sure there is a tunnel that leads outside – the bear was too big to swim through the hidden passage and it had to leave somehow. It may be a faster way for me to get my belongings, instead of waiting for my body to heal. The risk of fighting something as dangerous as the beast I just started feasting on is basically zero, I think. If its reaction to me can tell me anything about its character, it is that it did not tolerate any competition on its territory. A bit of exploring should be relatively safe.

Then I stop myself from thinking that way. I am still vulnerable. My injuries need time to fully heal. Without any weapon I have a huge handicap in any fight, especially now. Not to mention I have never practised any martial arts. I also have no clue how far it is to the exit, or whether there are multiple of them; not to mention that they may lead to other regions. I do not want to leave without Nyx and magical acorn I promised to carry outside the valley. It would feel bad, even if I returned quickly. Finally – I am naked and I don’t like it. While the temperature does not bother me and my clothes are crude, uncomfortable and primitive – it still makes me feel like a sapient being. A person. Maybe in the future I will feel comfortable running around only with some body paint, or beads in my hair – who knows? For now I want to be covered.

And so I stay. It’s not like I have nothing to do here, after all. I still need to skin the fallen behemoth, find my crystals and see if I can use bear’s bodyparts – such as bones – in any other way. There's also the issue of what I've seen in the darkness. I decide to start with separating the meat and stacking it near the lake. The sheer size of the monster means that I need to be careful not to strain myself; so I have to get the hide in a very unorthodox method – not by removing it from the corpse, but by removing corpse from it. I feel it will take a pretty long time; I still have trouble believing I managed to kill such a powerful and massive foe. If I had known how overwhelming it was, I would have been more careful in its territory – to begin with, I would keep my weapons on me all the time. That being said, I cannot help but feel excited – I am getting more and more used to this body; my powers also start getting more and more familiar to me. Especially my flame: I can now sense it pretty easily within myself. I am much more aware of my own body too; I can feel energy coursing through it, slowly healing my injuries. I think I should fully recover in about three days; it is difficult to keep time here, in the darkness. I have enough meat to last very long, although I started craving some vegetables or fruits; even some spices would be helpful.

Slowly cutting up whole bear takes me a long time, probably an entire day. I look at two small mountains: a mountain of flesh and a mountain of bones. The first one will last me maybe even for weeks and the other one… I think it can be used to craft something – sadly, I don’t know how to craft. Well, at least I can take one of the femurs to use as an improvised weapon. Maybe then can I go exploring? Either way, I am too tired so I will choose later. For now – it is time to sleep.

I wake up actually well rested and full of energy. I feel great. So great it’s hard to believe; and my bones remind me of my state as they still hurt when I move sharply. My muscles are still sore; my left arm still tingles. My wound there is closed, but it seems it will leave scars. I look at it and an idea enters my mind: can I use my flame to heal? It helped me recover my sight in battle earlier, but can it help with wounds? Well, there’s no harm in trying!

I sit on the hide and cross my legs; then I rearrange them. And again; it takes me some time to settle into a comfortable position, one accommodating to the shape of my legs. Nonetheless, I finally succeed. I am not sure what I should do with my hands, though. Do they go on my knees? Do I form specific shapes with them? I have no idea. I was never interested in those hippy-dippy, new age bullshit, but… magic exists here. I know souls are real. I met god – or at least a being as powerful as one. I cannot think of all those things as a mere superstition from now on. I have to keep an open mind… although it doesn’t mean the people here are correct in their practices; doctors in my previous world used to drain blood from patients to cure sickness, for example, sometimes even with deadly results. A little bit of scepticism won’t hurt.

In the end, I just lock my fingers together and put my hands on my lap. I feel a bit silly when I close my eyes, but this feeling soon passes. I start breathing slowly, carefully inhaling and exhaling. I concentrate my attention on my internal fire. I feel it spread all over my body. It is the densest in my eyes, heart and around my belly button; that last place is where it comes from. I observe how it moves and notice that it pulsates slightly with every breath I take. As I continue my observation, I notice that it reaches every cell in my body – and this realisation makes me fully aware of all of them; it shocks and overwhelms me so much that pain explodes in my head– and meditation breaks.

I take my time to collect my thoughts. My body is built from cells, like a normal one. What is weird is how my flame connects with them – I have no clue how it works and why it works that way. What is the most shocking, is that the law of preservation of energy seems to be weaker, either for me or in this world in general: while significant amount of energy feeding my fire comes from food I ate and digested, most of it comes from seemingly nowhere. Or… is it coming from my soul? I tried remembering if GOD said something useful about that, but it is hard to tell; I don’t know if they were deliberately obtuse or just didn’t care, but their explanations were often unclear and incomprehensible to me. I will have to experiment myself.

I return to my meditation when my headache subsides. I observe movement of energy throughout my body carefully and not too deeply, to get used to this new sensation. After quite a long period of time, I manage to somehow find a solution to my hyperawareness: I ignore it. I am sure it is not a proper

way to do it, but I honestly don’t care. All I want is to see if I can heal faster and better if I utilize my fire. I have a hunch that it might work, because my injured bodyparts have more energy flowing through them right now; so I grab and push it to concentrate more of it on my wounded arm. I feel that it works and my limb will recover faster, but I will still be scarred; oh well, at least they will be less noticeable. Anyway, I continue the process for unknown time, until I feel that I did everything I could for my arm. I open my eyes. I am tired – and hungry. I quickly devour part of meat mountain and fulfil some of my other basic needs; I even rinse myself in the lake. Finally, I can lay down. As soon as my head touches soft and cool fur, my consciousness surrenders to my exhaustion.