The Stray, The Sickness, and The Sudden Ambush

Consciousness returned with a violet ache, a lingering throb deep behind the eyes. The last image seared into Nicolas’s mind was one of blinding, all-consuming light; now, that memory was slowly being replaced by a pale, gray luminescence filtering through a canopy of moving leaves. The first thing he registered was the jarring tremor, a rhythmic, violent jostle that resonated through his entire body. It was the monotonous, clattering cadence of wooden wheels on a rough, stone-paved road. As he forced his eyes fully open, he saw the dark specters of tree branches flowing past overhead like a passing procession.

An instinctive urge to understand his surroundings compelled him to sit up, but a cold, unyielding weight on his wrists stopped him dead. He couldn't see his hands, but as he flexed his fingers, he could feel the coarse, abrasive texture of rusted iron and the painful way it bit into his skin. He was chained.

He was lying on a bed of straw on the floor of a horse-drawn cart. The very air smelled alien—a primitive cocktail of damp earth, the sharp tang of pine resin, and the pungent musk of a large animal. This wasn't a hospital. It wasn't the scene of an accident. This was someplace else entirely.

“Hey!”

His voice came out as a hoarse rasp, far weaker and more constricted than he’d expected. In front of the cart, an armored silhouette sat with its back to him, as impassive as a statue. The figure wore a steel helm, and a sword in a worn leather scabbard was strapped diagonally across his back.

Nicolas tried again, forcing more power into his voice this time. “I’m talking to you! What the hell is going on here?”

The guard slowly turned his head, the movement agonizingly deliberate. The face visible beneath the rim of the helm was weather-beaten and utterly indifferent, his expression that of a man looking at an annoying piece of roadside debris. “So, you’re awake,” he grumbled, his voice a gravelly rumble, like a chain being dragged over stones.

“Awake? The last thing I remember… I was in front of a machine,” Nicolas said, his mind struggling to assemble the fractured shards of his memory. “My name is Nicolas. I’m a journalist. I’m not a prisoner. Can you please tell me where I am?”

Upon hearing the word “journalist,” the guard let out a harsh, derisive bark of a laugh. “A journalist? That’s a new one. I’ve heard many a tall tale in my time, but never that.” With a lurch of the cart, he shifted to face Nicolas more directly. His eyes fixed on Nicolas's face, and for a fleeting moment, his expression transformed; the disinterest vanished, replaced by a deep-seated, calcified hatred. “Forget where you are. Let me tell you what you are. You’re a stray. A sickness.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying…”

“You don’t have to understand,” the guard cut him off sharply. “Shut your mouth and stay quiet until we reach your final destination. We all know what you are, with that damned violet color in your eyes. You damned Zinox.”

Zinox. The word was foreign, meaningless, but the guard’s mention of “the color in your eyes” sent a chill through Nicolas’s veins. He tried to raise a hand to his face, to his eyes, but the chains were a brutal reminder of his helplessness. That impossible violet light… could it have left a physical mark on him?

At that precise moment, a sharp, whistling thrum tore through the monotonous sounds of nature. Nicolas’s eyes instinctively darted toward the sound’s origin, deep within the forest. The guard went rigid at the same instant. A heartbeat later, an arrow sprouted from the throat of the cart’s driver, punching through the unprotected gap just below his helm. The man slumped forward with a gurgling gasp of surprise, the reins slithering from his lifeless fingers.

“Ambush!” the guard roared, his hand flying to the hilt of his sword.

But it was already too late. From the side of the road, a mechanism hidden beneath the foliage sprang into action. With the sharp snap of a taut rope, a gargantuan log swung out from the forest’s edge like a pendulum of death, crashing directly into the guard’s side. The sickening chorus of splintering bone and crushed metal echoed in Nicolas’s ears. The driverless cart, now out of control, snagged a wheel on a large stone and crashed onto its side with a violent, splintering finality.

Nicolas was slammed against the cart’s wooden wall as it overturned, the world dissolving into a brief, starless night as the air was forced from his lungs in a painful gasp. When his vision cleared, he found himself pinned beneath the wreckage of the demolished cart. The air was filled with the groans of the wounded and the terrified, high-pitched whinnying of the horses.

It was then that he saw him.

A figure flowed from between the trees like a phantom. They were dressed in practical, dark-hued traveler’s garb, a bow slung across their back. As another guard attempted to crawl away from the carnage, a single arrow dispatched him with brutal, passionless efficiency.

The newcomer’s face was cast in shadow, but their eyes found Nicolas under the wreckage instantly. Without a moment’s hesitation, they approached. With a surprising surge of strength, they leveraged a section of the splintered frame, creating just enough space for Nicolas to escape.

Nicolas scrambled free, coughing and sputtering, finally liberated from the trap but still bound by the chains. The figure produced a sharp hunting knife from their belt and, with a single, deft, and masterful stroke, severed the thick leather strap that connected the manacles on Nicolas’s wrists.

The chains fell to the muddy ground with a heavy clatter. Nicolas rubbed his raw, bruised wrists, his gaze fixed on the stranger who had just saved his life. “Who are you? All of this…”

When their gaze returned to him, their face was unreadable, but their voice was flat, carrying an undeniable urgency that left no room for argument.

“Save your questions for later. Follow me.”