**DING! DING! DING!**
The merchants' bell shatters the morning calm. A grizzled man in a leather jerkin—the guild's insignia barely visible beneath layers of grime—stomps onto a crate, his voice cutting through the camp:
*"Listen up! Two days from Galespire ain't two days on holiday! I catch one slack-jawed fool napping?"* He draws his finger across his throat. *"Wolf chow. Now MOVE!"*
As the camp erupts into motion, I curl tighter in the cart, whispering like a prayer: *"Aaron... Aaron..."* Testing how it fits between my teeth.
**THUNK.** Aiden's bruised face suddenly fills my view as he leans into the cart. I scramble back, heart leaping to my throat.
*"Whoa, easy there!"* He holds his calloused palms, grinning. *"Sorry didn't mean to scare you Julianne this morning told me you got your memories back that's—"*
*"Just my name,"* I murmur, *"Nothing else."*
Aiden's smile doesn't waver. *"Hey, at least that's something right. :)
Yeah I guess that is at least something. Oh yeah is your faces okay after you came back yesterday Julianne punched you quite hard?
**'What this? "He plays around with his face a little" ahh that's nothing one time I walked in on Julie changing and she knocked me out for the entire d—"**
**"AIDEN!"** The head merchant's roars shaking the remaining morning dew from nearby leaves off. *"What the hell did I say about slackers?!"*
*"Sorry! Sir! I'll get moving!"* He shoots me a wink before sprinting off.
I lay back in the cart, staring at the worn cloth roof. Boredom strikes like a hammer against steel and I start replaying Julianne and Aiden's sword matches in my mind. The morning sun still painted the canvas golden when I first began, my arm lifting weakly to mimic their precise movements. But my empty hand only flailed awkwardly in the air.
I scanned the cart for anything vaguely sword like until my fingers closed around a long wooden splinter from one of the broken crates.
*This will have to do.*
Bracing myself against the cart's constant rocking, I tried to recall Julianne's technique - how her sword moved like the wind itself, each stroke fluid and purposeful. My own attempts were clumsy by comparison, the splinter wobbling in my unsteady grip. But I didn't care how foolish I look. With each swing, I felt a growing excitement in my chest, a thrilling satisfaction that pushed me to continue even as my muscles screamed in protest.
"Aaron! AARON! AARON!"
Julianne's voice finally broke through my trance. I blinked up to see her concerned face framed by the setting sun - when had morning become evening? My arms dropped limply to my sides as sudden exhaustion and a poisoning smell of sweat crashed over me like a wave. The splinter slipped from my fingers as darkness swallowed my vision.
My eyes lazily open to a forest choked with unnatural darkness. The air hangs stagnant, carrying the scent of wet earth and something metallic—like old blood. An invisible force tugs at me, pulling forward almost against my will. Each step I take fights against an invisible mud.
The clearing appears suddenly, like a wound in the forest's flesh. Moonlight bleeds weakly through the twisted branches, illuminating the figure waiting at its center.
A man-shaped thing with curling ram's horns stands perfectly still. Its skin looks wrong - too smooth, like stone that forgot how to be stone. The shadows around it move when it doesn't. As I watch, its head turns toward me with slow, deliberate purpose. Empty black eyes lock onto mine.
My breath catches and I begin to shake but not from fear. My blood starts to boil with a rage I don't understand, my fingers curling in towards my palms as my vision tints red at the edges. This anger feels ancient, like something buried deep within my very soul is trying to explode! outwards just drooling at the thought of killing this thing.
**"AARON!"**
A hard slap jolts me awake. I gasp, clutching my chest as the anger still fresh find its way to my mouth **"WHY THE FUCK DID YOU HIT ME!?"**
Julianne's voice cracks with concern *"a..a. Aaron?"**
Only after hearing that do I see properly "Julianne and Aiden faces shaken with concerned looking over at me."
They lean back slightly, eyes uneasy.
*"S.s.Sorry I was just scared"* I say uneasy
Aiden's voice is uncharacteristically grave: *"what's wrong with your eyes… they're glowing."*
I shakily bring my hands to my face only to see a sickening blood red glow illuminate them, I scramble for a mirror but only find a rain puddle lit by the campfire. My reflection stares back—not the normally dark blue eyes I know but a deep crimson, pulsing like fresh embers before they fad back to normal.
**CRACKLE.** The campfire spits embers as Julianne steps beside me, her shadow stretching long across the trampled grass.
*"Hey.... kiddo."* Her voice shaken but soft, like the way one might speak to a spooked horse. *"You all right?"*
My vision blurs. Tears **scald** my cheeks before I even feel them coming. **"I..I.. don't know—"** The admission tears out of me, raw and jagged. **"Please. Help me."**
Julianne's face **softens all at once**—an expression I've never seen on her before. **Knowing. Tender.** Her arm hooks around my shoulders, pulling me into a grip that's **equal parts steel and down feathers**.
*"You're okay, Aaron."* Her breath is warm against my temple. *"You're safe."*
And somehow—**I believe her.**
**"Let's talk by the fire Aaron, I'll guide you"**
But as Julianne steers me toward the log, I catch them exchanging a glance—*loaded with tension*—over my head.
The log is rough against my palms as I collapse onto it. Only then does the pain announce itself—a chorus of aches singing across every muscle. I squirm, the discomfort writhing beneath my skin like ants but what feels even worse is the ever stretching silence between us.
Aiden crouches beside the rain puddle, staring at it like it might hold answers. *"Huh,"* he mutters. *"Never seen eyes do that outside of a mage's kid or a—"*
*"Aiden."* Julianne's voice is a cracks like a whip in the silence.
*"Right, right" It's probably nothing*———*"Soo... Aaron why were you swinging that splinter like a madman today?"*
...I don't really know... It just felt good every time I swung it."
Oh reali—
"Julianne voice cuts in **'Seriously! that's what you call felt good, when I found you in the cart, you were trembling, barely standing and drenched in enough sweat to fill Aiden's flask." She kicks a log with her boot, sending up sparks. "Not what I'd call fun."**
I look up and see genuine concern etched across Julianne's usually stern face.
"Sorry for making you and Aiden worried," I mumble, picking at a splinter on the log.
Julianne lets out a soft sigh, the kind that makes her leather armor creak. "Just don't push yourself that hard again, okay?"
"Okay," I say, my voice small.
"Good," Julianne says, her rough hand briefly squeezing my shoulder. "Now you should head off to bed. Here—let me guide you."
The cart's straw bedding, usually scratchy against my skin, might as well be a royal featherbed tonight. As I collapse onto it, my body melts into the rough planks beneath me—every muscle surrendering at once. Julianne tosses her spare cloak over me, the wool smelling of campfire smoke and pine resin.
The murmurs of Julianne and Aiden breach the cart but soon sleep comes like a dropped stone into deep water—swift and swallowing.