Murmurs. I could feel my eyes twitch when they slowly opened as the bright morning light hit them. I felt both exhausted and relaxed, like I had slept for too long.
I rubbed my eyes, looking around. It was the interior of a cozy wooden cottage. The warm sunlight was soothing to the eye.
As I got up, a sharp blast of pain surged through me.
All the memories hit me at once—the last event of my manga, the crowd of fans, the happiness of seeing my work being appreciated, only for it all to die down.
Like an unwanted glitch, the space inside the event venue tore open.
Screams, shouts, whimpers. The sea of people all pushing, being trampled on, falling, stumbling. The discordance was still fresh in my mind.
The spatial crack was tearing people one after another. There was a rain of blood. Bones, flesh, and corpses littered the ground. The stench was overwhelming and shattering.
I had tried to escape, but the force inside that spatial rupture was too ancient—too supreme.
Weirdly, it seemed as if it didn't want to harm me. It only pulled—with insurmountable force.
The last sight I saw was my mother's body being ripped in half, her soft argent orbs looking straight at me—in them, worry, tension, pain, agony, and lastly a terror I had never seen before.
Before I could scream or run towards her, my body was pulled into the crack, within which I swear I could see two infinitely brilliant yet bleak red orbs.
Suddenly I was in an endless stretch of frozen scapes.
The most eerie fact was that I was not myself anymore. Those luscious obsidian strands of hair—not mine.
I had started to feel helpless, and the cold was doing no good. The constant memory of my mother, the screams of the people, and those terrifying red orbs—haunted me.
My mind had started to become disoriented, wandering alone for days—starved, freezing, and constantly on edge in case something—or someone—attacked me.
That was when I realized that life was as torturous as it was blissful.
It was impossible. I didn't want to live.
And I did not live. On the fourth day of my arrival, my life ended.
With the falling leaves of winter, I too fell.
In those scapes of horror, another victim had been marked.
The pines were the witnesses, but they probably were also aghast, as just a moment after, I felt life return to me.
The dried leaf of my life had been revitalized.
I once again was wandering through the numbing plains of frost, but from what I could tell—I had been reborn somewhere else, albeit in the body of that same obsidian-haired vessel.
This time without a purpose, without hope.
Desolation. Hunger. Torment.
Everything was all too familiar. And it would have been a perfect reiteration if not for the caring and equally buffed group.
And how could I forget Mr. Mud Eyes, the tough cinnamon roll—
"You are awake?!"
I jumped up in surprise as a voice suddenly intruded on my ears and my trauma moment.
Turning around, my face was sprayed with warm moist breaths that tingled on my cold skin. I shuddered, gulping down my saliva as my eyes met ones that were the color of earth.
Those stark eyes blinked, inspecting my emotions.
I pulled myself back.
'Speak of the devil and he shall come.' I couldn't help but think of the saying while staring at the devil in question.
He had changed his clothes, now wearing a blue tunic with black hose and the same blue boots.
From the initial brute, he now looked like a god from my fantasies... Uhm, a handsome fellow.
Unfortunately, I had to stop ogling him before he suspected me of being a pervert.
"Karyl! That's your name, right? Thank you for saving me. You and your people are so kind!" I said to him, eye to eye.
His serious face suddenly twitched as if he had heard something embarrassing. His mouth instantly opened in defense.
"I didn't save you, it was the priest. I was just told to not let people die by him. He's the kind one."
I couldn't help but laugh in my head as I saw this secretly gentle giant defending himself as if I was blaming him for a crime.
'How did this too-pure-to-cure guy survive until now?'
"Yes, got it, Karyl. Your village really has an awesome priest. Everyone must love him." I gave in, not wanting to tease him—at least not now, wink.
"He really is! Master Rafael is our leader. He has saved our village from destruction many times," he stopped for a second before his face lit up in realization. "Ah! He told me to give you the vitality serum."
Karyl turned around, retrieving a glass bottle from the table. Its dark green contents looked disgusting, making me recoil.
Mr. Mud Eyes opened the lid, closing in on me. The bottle was surmounted on my lips, a finger of his grazing them.
Seeing me hesitate, he looked into my now-emerald eyes. "Drink it."
His velvety voice melted through my ears, a shiver running down my spine. It felt like a command—one I couldn't refuse.
Thus, looking at his devilishly handsome face, which could make someone drink poison much less medicine, I gulped everything down.
'I think he may not be as innocent as I thought,' I cursed my previous self while looking at the satisfied grin on his face.
Suddenly, my self-criticism was interrupted by shouts. An uproar was erupting, possibly near the cottage.
"Stay here!" Karyl ventured out, a little tense.
The voices were too distant for me to comprehend, but as time passed, that bitch called 'curiosity' was gnawing more and more.
Finally deciding to hell with it, I climbed down the bed and sneaked up to the door.
Amid the long stalks of blue-green grass, a crowd of people dressed in all sorts of eccentric attire greeted me.
"Sir Rafael, didn't you see his eye color? Only elves have emerald eyes. And we all know how much they hate us humans," a person in a silken robe spoke to a central figure amongst the crowd.
"Are you serious? If he was an elf, wouldn't he have long ears and be immune to the cold? We found him almost dead and freezing." Karyl retorted. I could see a suppressed anger in his eyes.
It was surprising. I didn't know why he cared so much about me. We had barely met.
The Rafael guy appeared to be annoyed seeing his villagers fight.
"Stop arguing. You are murking the bond of our village. We can't dismiss someone's life merely on the suspicion that he is an elf."
This robed-guy looked down, ashamed.
I was relieved.
"Seems like these people are not as ridiculous as the medieval people we studied in history. But elves? Are they superstitious or have I really been transported to a fantasy world!"
Just moments later, all my relief and thrill were shattered as I heard the voice of the priest say:
"Enough. We return to our lives. The council will decide his fate… after the spectre is baptized."
The word 'spectre' was like a rock thrown at my glass heart.
Now I got it—the snow-laden lands, the obsidian-haired guy I was in. Those elves—everything.
Spectres were my own literary creation, from a manga I had painstakingly and sadistically penned.
As I remembered everything—the tortures, torments, twists, adventures—I looked at Karyl in a completely different light.
Only a single sentence resounded in my mind.
"I AM FUCKED"