Rebuilt

First, there was nothing. Then, something appeared, and nothing was no more.

*

There was a dense and large forest, with its trees extending high up from the ground, as if trying to reach the heavens. The crowns of the magnificent trees were full of branches and leaves, not letting any light shine through them.

Due to how close the trees were to each other, it resulted in the forest being extremely dark—almost pitch black.

It was dead silent in the eerie forest, giving it a rather creepy atmosphere.

It looked deserted and devoid of life, but the opposite was actually true.

Unseen and hiding in the vast shadows were all kinds of grotesque and horror-like abominations, masking their presence and waiting for their chance to strike at one another.

All of them were deadly predators with their own needs of sustenance, which led to them devouring their own kind.

Right then, a particularly large beast grew tired of waiting in ambush, deciding to leave its hiding place and actively start looking for prey.

Stepping out of a shadow, the beast revealed its malformed and unsightly body.

It was more than fifteen meters in height, making one wonder how it even managed to hide in the first place. It had eleven slimy and fat arms, growing from all over its body—including its torso, neck, head, and legs.

Its six legs were gigantic and crab-like, carrying its fleshy and lumpy body.

The beast’s hide was grayish red, and it had three crooked horns atop its neckless and one-eyed head.

Appearing out in the open, the beast sniffed the air using a strange blob with three holes in it situated on its face—representing its nose—trying to catch some prey’s scent.

Before it could smell anything though, something moved with lightning speed through the forest, appearing like a blur.

And suddenly, the large beast’s head exploded into millions of tiny pieces of disgusting flesh and brain matter, flying in all directions and landing on the trunks of the abnormally wide trees.

Just like that, the beast was dead, killed by both his hunger and impatience, and the unknown attacker.

The beast’s body slowly collapsed on the ground, and the mysterious killer revealed itself.

It was much smaller than its prey, only about two meters tall, and rather thin—its bones were protruding from the skin, and it had almost no muscles at all.

Standing on four skinny and hairless legs, it approached the fallen beast and sunk its fangs into its flesh ravenously.

Soon, all kinds of other indescribable creatures rushed over to devour the dead animal greedily, ignoring each other due to more accessible food being right in front of them.

While they were munching on the corpse, the air in the forest suddenly felt heavier and a little suffocating, making all the monsters lift their grotesque heads from their meal and look around warily.

Unnoticed, an almost invisible fog slowly spread throughout the forest from seemingly nowhere, soon covering it in its entirety—even flowing outside of it.

Then, the fog abruptly stopped expending, becoming denser and fuller, blinding all the creepy beings dwelling in the forest.

All was suddenly frozen in place, nothing daring to move a muscle. It was as if time itself slowed down considerably, almost coming to a stop. For a moment, everything was still and deadly silent—it looked like some kind of abstract art captured on an eerie and creepy painting.

The mist suddenly surged, flowing back into the forest and disappearing as abruptly as it appeared—or so it seemed at first.

In an empty place, somewhere far from the feasting abominations, a tiny drop of the mist remained, floating a few centimeters above ground noiselessly.

At first, it was almost colorless, only faintly light gray, but it soon started to change. Its color changed to gold, then pure white, and lastly bright crimson, resembling blood—because it actually was, in fact, a drop of blood.

The crimson drop instantly multiplied, some of the newly formed ones changing in structure and purpose.

Thin streams of blood, lymph, bone marrow and bones, muscles, internal organs, fat and skin, and lastly hair were forming.

The being’s body was almost done being built, but then, golden light shined from their back—which stayed unfinished until then—and a new part started to grow from it.

After a short while, the strange process was completed, and the body of the created being glided to the ground gracefully, its eyes closed and their expression calm and innocent.

It resembled a human male for the most part—medium height, thin and bony body structure, pale skin, and short and messy light brown hair.

What differentiated this young human man from ordinary people were the perfectly white and divine-looking wings on his back.

They were currently folded, therefore not managing to show their magnificence to its fullest potential—they looked pristine and perfect in every way, nonetheless.

Everything remained calm and quiet around the winged boy for a few seconds, when he suddenly swayed, slowly opening his eyes, bright and golden in color. He unconsciously stood up and looked around with an empty expression—he was most likely not fully awake yet.

He gazed blankly forward, gradually coming to his senses.

The winged boy’s unawareness swiftly turned into confusion, and he looked around warily. Even though everything seemed peaceful and devoid of life, he suddenly turned his head sideways sharply, staring at presumably nothing. His frown deepened—taking a cautious step back, he began carefully moving backwards.

He was being extremely careful, not moving his gaze from the seemingly empty spot in the forest at all.

His vigilance ended up being worth it, when something in the forest actually moved from that exact spot, lunging toward him at startling speed.

The creature was so fast, the boy couldn’t even dodge, only managing to block the assault with his right wing. He was thrown several meters back like a ragdoll and hit one of the massive trees, his left wing managing to absorb most of the impact. Despite both of his wings blocking damage to protect the fragile body, they remained in pristine condition—not even a little bit dirty.

The winged boy tried to stand up as quickly as he could, but it was not enough. The unknown attacker was already upon him before he could even assess his surroundings, a deadly attack aimed at his chest.

Luckily, the boy did manage to react, shifting his body slightly, but enough to save his life. The blow landed on his right shoulder instead, tearing the entire arm from his body.

Blood gushed out from the heinous wound, and the winged boy let out a startled and disturbing yelp, but somehow managed to keep his focus on the fight—and he did not waste the opportunity his opponent had given him.

The attacker was now in an awkward position due to its attack missing their intended target, throwing them ever so slightly off balance.

Now, the boy could finally see what his foe looked like.

They were humanoid in shape yet somehow didn’t resemble a human at all. They were moving on all four of their limbs, which had long and sharp claws on their fingers—seven on the hands and four on the feet.

The monster’s skin was entirely hairless and spotty, its color indigo and dark green. It would have been only about a meter and a half tall if it stood on two feet, making it a little smaller than the winged boy—it was still much stronger though, at least physically.

Its monkey-like face had two large and deeply black eyes, and its mouth was full of spiky fangs, dripping with saliva.

Taking advantage of his enemy’s mistake, the winged boy brought his left fist forward, hitting the enemy as hard as he could on the side of their head. The monster staggered slightly—it was not at all injured, however.

But only for the moment.

Right after the boy’s fist had landed—and before the monster could regain its footing—the boy lunged his left wing in quick succession right after his fist, giving the monster no time to react.

The front of the wing hit the purple-green monster in the ribs, actually managing to injure it and sending it flying a few dozen meters back, leaving a deep and bloody wound on its right side.

But the winged boy didn’t see that.

Without hesitating even a bit, he crouched down, unfolded his wings, and jumped into the air, flying upwards. He was fleeing.

Flapping his wings rapidly, the boy shot straight up, soon reaching the massive leaf crowns. He tore through them with some difficulty and was slowed down somewhat, but he prevailed, knowing that stopping was not an option.

Without even looking below, he knew that his adversary was already climbing the nearest tree, catching up speedily.

The boy needed to use his wings to both propel himself upward, as well as shred the branches he couldn't evade, which hindered his movement even more.

The winged boy unexpectedly turned his wings and went against his own momentum, stopping his fast ascent in less than a second. Then, the vile monster flew mere centimeters above his head, narrowly missing him, and plummeting down for a while before eventually landing on another nearby tree, continuing its relentless hunt.

It sank its long talons into the tree’s bark, climbing up rapidly, closing the distance between it and the boy each second.

Eventually, the branches were too numerous and thick to avoid, so the pursuer had to change its strategy and jump between them instead, slowing it down somewhat.

Unfortunately, the branches slowed the boy down considerably as well, letting the monster catch up quicker.

And when it eventually caught up, the winged boy didn’t manage to avoid its lunge completely this time.

The monster flew through the air for a second and managed to sink its sharp claws into the boy’s right calf—holding on and mangling it severely in the process.

The harrowing pain and shock made the boy cry out in agony and sway in the air, causing him to tilt to the right and slam into a tree at full speed. Luckily for him, his right wing was in the way of his head, thus preventing a much worse situation.

The monster, hanging on with one of its hands also hit the tree, becoming momentarily dazed from the impact.

Now, with the boy’s right wing out of commission for a short while, they both plummeted to the ground—spinning and out of control.

The boy was kicking the monster in the head frantically with his left leg, while the monster just endured it and tried to catch it with its second hand.

It was a stalemate for a few seconds, with neither side managing to hurt the other—before the boy regained the control of his wings, that is.

Even with involuntary tears in his eyes and an expression of utter anguish, the boy’s quick thinking remained, his mind immediately coming up with another plan.

Instead of flying straight up like before, he flew parallel to the ground, aiming straight for a giant trunk of the nearest tree, as if planning to crash into it headfirst.

But right at the last moment, he made a sharp left turn and swung his legs in the opposite direction as hard as he could.

The monkey-like fiend, that was still hanging on his right calf with its right arm, smashed its whole body into the tree, letting out an agonized and inhuman screech—the impact wounded the skinny monster greatly, but not enough for it to let go of the boy’s leg.

Not losing heart, the winged boy just made another attempt, and then another, and another. With each one, the monster started to look more and more battered, but the boy didn’t escape unscathed either.

Every time he slammed the monster into a tree, it struggled more, eventually making the damage done to his right calf practically irreparable.

By then, the muscles ranging from his knee to the ankle were shredded beyond recognition, exposing the white and red damaged shin.

Crying out in pain, the boy’s shouts reverberated far and wide through the forest. He felt his mind going numb, threatening to give up on his body—thus making him lose consciousness. But he refused to give in to the torture he was enduring. Giving up was the last thing on his mind, no matter what happened to him.

And so, he forced himself to stay awake. Ignoring the pain, he kept smashing the monster into trees over and over again—and eventually, it was the monster who gave up first.

Battered and beaten, the spotty purple-green monster decided the winged boy wasn’t worth it anymore—sliding its long claws from his muscles and letting go, it started falling down but swiftly caught itself on the trunk of one of the gigantic trees. It glared in the boy’s direction hatefully, then turned away and started climbing down.

Without even glancing its way, the boy immediately flew upwards, flying through the thickest part of the tree crown’s branches.

Despite his speed, it took quite a while before he finally managed to reach the forest’s top and gaze upon the sky.

Escaping the darkness, the light felt even more blinding, forcing him to squint his eyes and cover them with his left palm—since his entire right arm was missing.

The sky was bright blue, with a hint of orange and yellow in the west. The sun was starting to set on the horizon, decorating the heavens like a bright painting.

He spotted a few dozen gray and white clouds, which made him feel a subtle sense of wrongness, for some reason.

Seemingly levitating in the air, the boy looked over his disfigured—and entirely naked—body with a somewhat terrified expression, as if only now realizing what had transpired.

His entire right arm was missing along with its shoulder— despite suffering a wound like that, the bleeding had almost stopped, and it was slowly starting to close up. He was bruised, cut, slashed and swollen all over, his skin a mixture of its original pale beige, red, blue and purple. Lastly, the flesh of his right calf was torn open in several places and mutilated, revealing his bare bones—those were cracked in a few places as well.

Gently flapping his wings to stay in the air, he grimaced, all the pain and exhaustion finally catching up to him.

He desperately needed to rest.

Glancing down at the forest below, he shuddered, instantly rejecting the idea of resting on the trees’ branches. When he finally shook off the monster that was the reason for his current condition and flew straight up, he left the presence of several other beings resting there, observing him in silence. Fortunately for him, they had decided to let him be—and he really didn’t feel like testing his luck twice.

As far as the boy’s sight reached, all he could see was the enormously large and tall forest. So, with every direction being the same—at least in his case—he decided to head west, facing the distant and radiant sun setting behind the horizon.

He flew slowly and carefully, glancing warily at the forest below from time to time to make sure nothing decided to make him its meal.

As he glided forward, his strained mind finally started to clear, allowing him to assess both his current and overall situation. While he felt many emotions deeply and strongly at the moment, one in particular was much more intense than the others.

‘Where...? No. Who... who am I?’

It was confusion.