Tread Lightly

As I close my eyes for a brief moment and envision my Ether, my mind undulates in pain. The last time I used too much Ether, I couldn't even really control it yet; still such a novice, I could barely sense it, let alone use it. And while my actual skill with it likely hasn't grown by much, my Sigil's benefits allow me some leeway.

And so, I push through the pain, and oh, it is terrible. The trickle flowing from the back of my skull reminds me of a drying creek, and I do all I can to restart it and more. So I push, and I push with my mind onto the core of my Ether. After what feels like a full minute, due to the agony, I feel more Ether begin to join the flowing stream. The pain in my head lulls just a little, and the pain in my body lessens as heat suffuses it.

And with a smile, I open my eyes to an arrow rapidly growing in size as it approaches me. With a jerk, I shove myself to the side and duck the arrow. It only grazed my left shoulder. I peek around and see what changed during my short delve into my mind and notice something startling.

My vision is beginning to cloud, unlike a tired cloud or black spots, but I no longer have any peripheral vision. Something is preventing my sight, and I don't know enough about both Ether, the side effects of skills, or if one of these Hunters is doing it. But I am forced to focus my eyes to see what's around me.

The big man is limping around but still in shape to fight. The woman is nowhere to be seen, and the archer has an arrow pointed, once again, directly at me.

I hope to take advantage of the man with the greatsword limp, so I tentatively test my injured leg, hoping the extra boost will let me put weight on it. And it does, but the pain sears through the gulf of Physical Strengthening and wakes me from the delusion of using it.

Only in the worst case do I step on it for leverage or speed.

So, instead, while keeping my eyes on the archer and trying to sense the woman in any way I can, I stumble towards the warrior in front of me, trying to make my leg look much worse than it seems. This isn't very hard, seeing as the tendon is cut and held together by adrenaline and Ether.

Once I get close, the archer circles around so that he isn't forced to aim at the warrior in case of crossfire. And I know that the woman is around here somewhere, just stalking me. So, I get the idea to bait her out by attacking the big man with a feint.

I get close to him, and with my rapier, I go in for a stab but don't fully commit and back away when the tip of my blade is still a whole foot away. The big man overreacts and puts his sword before the feint, probably careful of my attacks now that I've injured him. Then in the heat of the moment, I came up with another idea.

Instead of going for another, more realistic feint, I grab my knife with my offhand and flick it at the big man's face, going for a kill. Then as something similar to what I thought would happen, the woman appears directly to my left and catches my knife before throwing it back at me.

Disregarding my blade, I let it pierce into my torso, barely even feeling the new wound added to my likely already mortally wounded condition. This surprises the woman as her eyebrows widen when I follow through with the knife, throw my rapier at the big man, and tackle her to the ground.

In a short wrestle, I punch her in the jaw, definitely making her see stars, and unloop the serpentine dagger from my belt. Then, I try to stab her in the neck with it, but she catches my hands. We have a short contest of strength before she begins to win. I drop the knife and pull out the one embedded into my stomach before I stab it into her stomach and twist it.

Then out of nowhere, I feel a vast force slam into my body as I am lifted off the ground and sent tumbling several feet away. I recognize the armor of the big man now pressing down upon me. I struggle to move but am unable to do so.

Despite its fruitlessness, I continue to struggle as the man presses his entire weight upon me and holds me down. Then the woman I stabbed hobbles over while covering her wound alongside the bowman.

She gives me a cruel smile before impaling my own knife into my right palm and the hard dirt. Then she does the same with her own dagger on my left side. And finally, she finishes it with two more knives into each of my ankles.

I yell in pain as my vision begins to truly darken. No longer is it only my peripheral that is shutting down on me. I can barely even process what is happening due to the massive amount of blood I must have lost. As I watch the archer pull out a bundle of rope, the big man pulls back his arm and clocks me right in the face.

The next thing I know, I'm weightless. Like I'm sailing through a cloud. I get a few snippets and glimpses of trees and the sky, but none last longer than half a second. And as I drift away, an old memory comes to mind, one I have long forgotten.

Of the first time I ever fought. At the time, it was a simple kid fight. Only now does it seem weird, and the memory of Ma appears unlike what I remember. But as I watch the memory repeat, and so perfectly it's eerie, I realize I must have only been eight or nine winters old.

It takes place during one of our rare trips to a nearby town to sell extra produce and buy supplies. This one was Palegate, a small town with at most a hundred residents.

Ma went off to sell and buy stuff but left me a quarter to buy some hard candy. And that I did. I went to the general store and bought a piece of hard candy to suck on and enjoy. The flavor was strawberry, my favorite.

And that piece of candy happened to be the last strawberry-flavored one in the general store. Unfortunately, another kid in the store who wanted the candy, who was larger and older than me, pushed me out of the store, trying to make me give it to him.

I refused, and so he hit me. And down I went. And cried, I did. The other kid then reached for the candy out of my hand, and out of nowhere, Ma appeared. She looked me in the eyes and threatened me so sinisterly that I had never heard from her before or since.

"Get up. Fight. Don't want to disappoint dear old dad, do you?"

So I did. I got up, and she told me to fight back again. So I tackled the kid to the ground, unknowing what else to do, and he just hit me to the side again.

And once again, Ma threatened me to fight, this time with a dangerous feel to her voice that I am now certain was not there in the original memory.

"Fight or I will kill you myself and try again. Can't have a coward for a son."

This disjointed and different memory brings me out of the first person and thinking of myself as the Wyatt in the memory. Tears are brought to the younger me's eyes from the words as well, but he gets up and tries again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Unwilling to disappoint his mother, the kid continues to get beat down until the older kid is exhausted and looks at my mother in bewilderment and another emotion I don't quite catch. Confusion maybe? Or nervousness? Anyway, he seems uncomfortable.

He then hands the younger kid the candy and walks away as the mother smiles. Then the mother picks up the younger kid. Together with a kid in hand, she walks away towards the edge of town while humming to the kid some kind of nursery rhyme that sends chills down my spine. I've never heard anything like it, and to make it worse, her voice modulates and, at some points, is incredibly deep to others that are as light as a feather.

"Oh, Graves.

What unholy soul.

What an unholy goal.

What unholy blood.

Forever stuck in the mud.

Forced to wade through horrors.

The last explorers.

Unable to take their last breath.

For none can meet death.

She is unwilling to take us young.

Unwilling to take us strong.

And unwilling to take us wise.

Only mad, old, or covered in flies.

She embraves."

And without being given time to process this bizarre and eerie retelling of my past, I gasp quietly with wide eyes and take in the forest surrounding me as I am bound in chains, ropes, and a collar onto a tree behind me. And the tightest restriction is the collar that connects me to the tree and makes breathing difficult. However, my wounds are no longer bleeding and are wrapped up in bandages.

The only thing that prevents me from thinking this is another dream or hallucination is the nails being driven into my skull that are still leftover from my overuse of Ether. That and the voices I hear are just a few feet away from me.

It appears the Hunters are speaking to each other instead of using their hand signals now that I'm no longer a threat. I try to listen to the voices out of my sight through the haze fogging my mind.

A reserved male voice asks a question.

"Do we just kill him now? There is no way we can drag him through this break and bring him to justice."

Then another, more rough, male voice argues with the first.

"No, it's wrong to just execute him like that. Maybe he can still be helped. He's a damn good fighter, especially for a kid; it'd be a waste to kill him just like that; I mean, look what he did to my leg."

I know I'm young, but why does everyone still call me a kid? It's incredibly irritating, but I obviously don't speak up and interrupt.

The reserved voice returns, this time with a little more energy.

"And if we get killed because we escort him back to Silvia to help rehabilitate this mad little kid?"

Rehabilitate? What the hell does that entail?

The rough voice argues for me once more.

"So, you're saying we should just kill this kid? I mean, you saw him. He looks like he's barely fifteen winters."

Sixteen….

The reticent voice raises in volume, ignoring my unsaid complaint.

"Yes! Why risk our lives for one little lad? We've got to report back to command in Silvia. We lost a Sheriff last night to-"

The woman, who I've come to think of as the group's leader, cuts the man off.

"Hush, he's awake. Why don't we speak to him one more time? We'll decide after."

Then all three of them come into my view.

The big man, who was, I assume, the rough voice arguing to spare me, has a splint on his leg that I wounded. And the other one I injured, the woman, has a wide bandage wrapped around her midsection. Finally, the archer, the only one I didn't manage to hurt, is glaring at me.

I watch as they approach, careful to not say anything to make my situation worse. That, and hoping that Alexos has left, too bored or busy to still be watching. The woman crouches in front of me, who is tied up a hundred and one ways before speaking.

"Can you speak anything besides madness, kid?"

I take a deep breath, and then I speak slowly and deliberately.

"Can you hear me?"

The woman looks at me weirdly as if I said something odd. Which, I guess I did, but I wasn't expecting that face. And the archer scowls and then calls me mad once more.

"See? He's insane. Who asks if you can hear them?"

The woman raises a hand and makes him stay silent. Then she focuses back on me.

"I can hear you. Why did you ask that?"

I take a second to think. They can actually hear me! Does that mean that Alexos is gone? He said he would be watching, but the sun has risen, so several hours have passed. Surely, he's still not standing at the fringes, casting illusions to fuck with me.

In what is probably the most paranoid fashion possible, I look around wildly, grasping for clues that might show if Alexos is around. Anything out of place or odd. And I don't see anything. So, I take a sigh of relief before answering her question.

"There was a powerful man here last night. Who could conjure illusions! Capable of changing reality for one or many at a time. His name was Alexos."

Recognition flashes through the eyes of the woman who wields daggers. She knows! Alexos must have left!

"Alexos, you say? Here, let me get those chains off."

And she surprises me even further by leaning over and reaching over to put a hand on the collar on my neck that ties me to the tree with little room to breathe.

But the second her fingers touch the collar, the world around me begins to splinter and crack like a broken mirror. A voice that summons extreme indignation from within me appears alongside the splintered world, mocking me.

"Oooh, that's rough. You almost had 'em. Couldn't make it that easy, though. You knew that, right?"

And as the cracks in my world disappear and reveal what is behind them, my eyes dilate. The reality is entirely different than what was just happening, as the conversation must have taken a drastic turn at the start due to Alexos.

I am kneeling on the ground with my head resting sideways on a tree stump, and the three Hunters are around me. I am still chained, but instead of to the tree trunk like earlier, I am wrapped with my arms behind my back and legs bound together to force me to kneel.

Confused and unsure of what is happening, I try to look around as best I can to gauge the people's reactions.

The archer is standing to the side with his hands in his pockets, but his thigh is bandaged for some reason. He notices my frantic gaze first, commenting on it to the others.

"See Reuben? This kid is fucking insane. Looking around like a headless chicken after threatening to cut off our heads."

Cut off their heads? Goddammit! Alexos needs to die! He keeps fucking everything up!

Then the woman chimes in, standing a little distance away with her arms crossed.

"C'mon, Reuben. I know he looks like your younger brother, but just do it. We need to get a move on. That's an order."

I wonder what she ordered him to do until I see him sigh, shake his head, then draw his greatsword before walking closer to me.

Oh. He's gonna cut off my head. That's one hell of a way to die.

I fruitlessly try to shake out of my bonds. My body is still frail, and even if it weren't, there is no way I'm breaking through metal, rope, and this collar. So, I resign myself to death. There's nothing else I can do, right? I struggled as long as I could. I was just dealt a dead man's hand.

I close my eyes and hear the crunch of the leaves underneath the big man, Reuben. But right before my eyes close all the way, I see Alexos sitting on a tree branch, eating a piece of jerky.

And rage boils within me. I can't die because of this duplicitous, illusory, and masochistic piece of shit. Ma's eerie hum crosses my mind as well. Ma said Death won't take us young, strong, or wise. I'm all three, no? Well, maybe not right now because my body is too weak.

Wait, that's the answer. The answer to the cabin's question. Our bodies are how the chains restrain us. The chains must approximate or represent our own body's limits. So, is there a way to break those limits?

The cabin spoke of Release, Freedom, and Limitlessness. So is the first step to release me from these chains?

My mind has broken through the fog of awakening long ago. It is moving at a rapid, rarely before-seen pace as my executioner approaches. I quickly come to a decision, unknowing if it's the right one or not.

I should infuse as much Ether as possible, hoping it breaks my chains. It's my best shot at survival. A hail mary at the substance that is said to hold incredible power.

And so, I close my eyes once more, this time with purpose, as I delve deep into my own mind and arrive at the point behind my skull.

Then, disregarding the rapidly rising pain and needles that gouge my brain, I push as much Ether as possible. Unrelenting, constantly increasing the flow, even as I feel my brain begin to melt.

I've never tried to increase the Ether as much as possible. Edmund always warned me that Ether which is not tightly controlled and managed, will kill the user as it wreaks havoc through a body not meant for the energy.

But, for the first time I can remember, I ignore wisdom from Edmund. This is a time to gamble. To draw until I win or the clock reaches zero.

And so I continue to push, turning the regular trickle into a small stream. Then further into a more significant stream of Ether.

Then even further, I go with my mind overheating, and I feel sweat pouring out of my body. I'm definitely experiencing Ether oversaturation. And yet, with no other choice that I can see, I continue.

I push even further. As I feel my mind crack and crumble in pain, I grit my teeth and push. As blood gushes from my nose, I open my mouth to breathe and push more Ether. As blood exits my eyes and ears while they constantly pop and crack, I externally scream at the top of my lungs and push. As my lungs and throat begin to fall apart and fail, I internally shout and push. As I feel the wind moving above me through the hair on my neck, I tighten my neck and shoulders and push. As my mind crumbles, my thoughts slow, and my hold on the increasingly larger river of Ether loosens, I continue to push.

And finally, just as I begin to lose hold of my mind because of the side-effects from Ether oversaturation, a noise other than my internal scream appears.

I hear the turning of a page, followed by a crack that shakes me from within.