Follow The Sun

…

My vision was utterly blank, darkness consumed all my senses.

Cold… it’s cold.

The emptiness that took over my mind began fading away as I felt my limbs freezing.

My ears began capturing various sources of noise, and my nose caught various sources of smell.

The smell of ash and blood…

It hurts… What I sensed next was nothing else but pain, which happened to be the last thing I felt in Hell before ending up wherever I believed to be.

Another world… the ritual was concluded.

The sharp sound of burning wood reminded me of Hell as I began remembering the context behind my presence in this nowhere.

“Where… am I?” My lips could barely pronounce a word.

Fire… Trees… Blood… I observed my surroundings with my barely opened eyes, the scenery wasn’t so unfamiliar. My body was unable to move.

If I could only stand... The instant the thought of standing crossed my mind, my body obeyed. I could move somewhat easily, the pain gradually vanished, and I felt no longer cold.

“What happened to me?” I sighed as I got up on my feet, “I swapped bodies with the sinner and—”

!!!

What’s… happening… My body started shaking, barely able to keep its balance. A strong headache repeatedly struck my head. While trying to resist the pain, I began visualizing in my mind various pictures and fragments of both knowledge and what I assumed to be memory.

Veylen Eryxion… Raskolvia… Kryndor… Callistra… Family… Kristor… Humanity… Heretics… Society…

A sea of immeasurable information and miserable memories invaded the depths of my spirit.

“Aaaaaaghhh!!!” I screamed so loudly, slamming my head against the trees around me. It felt as if the essence of someone’s whole existence was being injected into the very core of my mind.

It didn’t take long for me to make an identical assumption. I ran around in madness until I fell on my knees.

“STOOOOP!!!” I screamed before calming down the moment my gaze landed on a shiny metal sword that reflected my face. No, it was the sharp, pale human face of the original owner of this body. A black-haired young man with determined golden eyes.

“This… This isn’t my body, nor the sinner’s…” I whispered in shock, but I regained my sanity the moment I remembered that the reincarnation ritual was in fact a transmigration. The sinner’s soul goes to the other world while the body rots in hell for eternity.

“Veylen Eryxion, is this who I am now? And all that knowledge was the essence of his existence.” I turned my head looking around, “What on Pandemonium happened in this place?” The headache distracted me from grasping the chaotic view that surrounded me.

So many corpses were scattered around, blood dyed the green grass red. Weapons were buried under the wet dirt as flames fed on the trees surrounding the scene.

Staying here is dangerous. I attempted recalling what happened to Veylen before my transmigration.

“It’s mostly shattered, my memory,” I sighed in disappointment, “but I’m certain that whatever happened ended this man’s life.”

I could only tell that staying in a bloody, burnt, and destroyed area cannot be a wise decision.

I grabbed the sword beneath me. I paused to think of where to head as I subconsciously raised my head to look at the sky.

What is that…? An extremely vast, very distant, yet unbearably close fireball loomed above. Its light shining through my golden pupils.

At first I was afraid, but it only took a couple of moments for me to recognize it from Veylen’s knowledge.

“The sun…” I heard stories about it from other Guardians in Hell, but to face it directly, the moment shook my guts.

Ostyra… that was the final place Veylen wanted to go to. A memory fragment lit the unknown in the back of my mind.

Since I have no clue on where this destination is, I’ll simply follow the sun.

In most stories I’d heard, the sun usually played the role of a torch in the middle of darkness. What could also be called “a guide.”