Second Chance

A ray of light seeped through Haruto’s eyelids and snapped him out of his daze. When he finally managed to open his eyes, the world swirled around him. A wave of intense nausea washed over him, followed by dizziness. Every part of his body felt bruised and heavy.

“H-h-how am I still alive? W-where… where am I?”

He barely recognized the sound of his own voice as a dull pain throbbed in his chest.

“No… no…”

His throat tightened as the memories came flooding back without warning. Aristide’s meaningless murder… the snow, the screams, the flames.

“I… couldn’t do anything… I’m sorry… No one deserved to end up like that. It’s… so unfair and cruel,” he choked out.

Images of the hamlet in flames flooded his mind, but others followed. Those of Captain Oscar and his clergy men. Haruto closed his eyes for a second, feeling a sharp pain shoot through his ribs.

“All of this… it’s those soldiers’ fault…”

His jaw tightened as bile rose in his throat.

“And their fucking Church!” he growled.

He struggled to sit up, but his limbs were pinned to the rough surface on which he lay. Resigned, he let his head fall back.

A strange quiet surrounded him, in stark contrast to the hell he had left behind. He slowly became aware of his surroundings. He was no longer outside, although he could feel the coarse texture of a blend of bark and foliage on his fingertips. The air was oddly warm, with the damp scent of lichen and burned wood. The uneven walls seemed to be constructed of rocks intertwined with thick roots.

“A… hut?”

His gaze drifted slowly toward a stone hearth, built right into one of the walls. Its flickering flames cast shifting shadows all around. Just above it was a wooden shelf holding a few rudimentary objects… and something else.

Haruto narrowed his eyes.

A small, dark sphere hovered above its circular base, its metallic surface crisscrossed with lines reminiscent of electronic circuits. These pulsed with a faint, bluish glow.

“But what on earth is—”

Even in his weakened state, Haruto knew that this object defied all logic and every technical concept he knew.

“This thing… It has no business being here…” he thought.

He reached out toward the mysterious object, but a sudden noise interrupted his gesture. Footsteps. Light, slow, and muffled. His heart began to race.

He painstakingly turned his head toward the source and caught sight of a slender figure near the entrance, who was calmly walking toward him.

His clothes appeared to be crafted from natural fibers and tanned hides that clung to his narrow frame. Long, light-brown hair, streaked with gray, framed a delicately featured face. But that wasn’t all.

Haruto froze when he noticed the pointed ears of this… person. His mouth opened and closed without making a sound.

“Could this be… an… an elf?” he stammered at last.

He shook his head as his gaze met two sparkling, emerald-green eyes.

“Or something else… a silvgest… perhaps?”

The thought seemed ridiculous for a split second, then other memories flooded back. The monstrous triton, the hamlet, the conversations with Aristide, and the kerkryos.

“So many similarities to Fantasy Frontiers… and yet, it’s impossible to make sense of it all,” he thought, furrowing his brow.

Meanwhile, the creature continued to approach silently and lithely, its movements almost unreal in their fluidity.

It stopped right at the edge of Haruto’s bed, and an unsettling calm settled over the room as the stranger watched him with a strange interest and intensity.

“Why… is he staring at me like that?” Haruto wondered as a shiver ran down his spine.

The humanoid tilted its head slightly toward him.

“I… I can almost feel its breath on my face!” Haruto thought.

Its eyes never left Haruto, as if trying to analyze him from every angle. Then, a hint of hesitation, almost a look of disbelief, flashed across the creature’s face.

It reached out toward Haruto, pressing its pale fingers against the skin of his wrist.

The young man tensed immediately. “Wait, don’t touch me!”

Before he could finish his sentence, he felt something like a thick liquid, a presence, seeping into his mind. At first lukewarm, then growing hotter, this sap-like fluid spread rapidly through his mind. Then reality shattered.

A searing pain pierced Haruto’s skull as a succession of images instantly flooded his exhausted brain.

Sunlight. A forest of titanic trees. A village nestled among those trees. A massive mountain. And finally, ruins that were somewhat reminiscent of the trinket on the shelf.

Haruto felt as if he were falling into a dark, bottomless abyss.

“Aahh...!” he screamed over and over until the sensation abruptly ceased. Haruto was gasping for breath; his heart pounded so hard it felt like it would burst through his ribcage.

“What… what did you do to me?!” he asked, drenched in sweat.

The stranger remained motionless. However, his eyes had completely changed. They no longer expressed curiosity, but rather confusion. After a long moment, his lips finally moved.

“…by the way…”

His voice was deep, yet it remained strangely soft and imbued with a certain serenity.

“What… what did you say?” blurted out Haruto, blinking in surprise.

The humanoid continued, more slowly:

“…strange… no aura…”

Another silence fell over the room. Haruto stared at him, still in shock.

“You… who are you?”

The unknown being watched him for another moment. His green eyes finally returned to Haruto’s face.

“Askondal.”

The young man swallowed with difficulty.

“Were you… were you the one who saved me?”

Askondal didn’t answer. Instead, he placed his hand on Haruto’s wrist once again.

The same warm sensation surged through his mind, but this time, no images flooded his thoughts. Only a vague sense of calm washed over him.

“Rest,” whispered Askondal.

“Wait! I have more questions,” protested Haruto, making a weak attempt to pull away.

The silvgest immediately withdrew his hand, breaking the strange connection with Haruto’s mind. He took three steps back.

Haruto paused for a moment, carefully weighing his next words. When he finally spoke again, his voice was nervous and trembling.

“Those… images I saw in my head… of that forest and that tree village… they’re not my memories!”

Askondal remained completely impassive and observed Haruto with renewed attention.

“Then… where do they come from? And… why did you save me?”

The flames in the hearth crackled as the emerald eyes continued to study him.

Haruto felt uncomfortable at first, and then began to lose patience, despite his fatigue. He needed answers.

“You could at least… I don’t know, respond!” he snapped in a sharp tone that immediately triggered a brief cough.

Askondal whispered something inaudible and reached out toward Haruto with a slow gesture, without the slightest hint of hostility. He stopped barely two centimeters from the man’s wrist.

Haruto held his breath, fearing what might follow, but eventually, almost imperceptibly, nodded in agreement.

Askondal’s pale fingers touched his skin, and the foreign presence crept into his mind once more. Then, he heard Askondal’s voice echoing all around him.

“I’ve been watching you ever since you entered this forest to gather firewood, Haruto.”

The young man jerked violently, despite his poor physical condition. His eyes widened.

“Wh—what?!”

Haruto looked around the room, trying to pinpoint the source of those words, before turning his gaze back to Askondal, who remained impassive. It then dawned on him.

“He… he’s speaking in… in my head!”

His breathing quickened and his heart began to race, but the pain in his ribs forced him to calm down.

“Okay, I’m listening…”

“All living beings give off an aura, but you have none.”

These words meant nothing concrete to Haruto.

“No… aura? What are you talking about?!”

“Not the slightest trace. Nothing. You’re an anomaly. And it was my curiosity that prompted me to save you.”

Haruto tightened his jaw. The silvgest’s choice of words shocked him with their directness and abstract nature. He was a man, not some weird phenomenon to be studied.

“So, I quickly realized there was something else going on. I followed my intuition, and during our first contact…”

Askondal hesitated before continuing:

“Just like you, I, too, saw things that didn’t come from my own memory. What I saw… doesn’t belong to this world. It comes from yours.”

Haruto’s heart skipped a beat. He felt the color drain from his face as a wave of dizziness washed over him.

“You… you saw into my mind?!”

“Yes. Enough to understand what you are… and what you are not.”

Haruto turned his head, clearly troubled by this revelation.

“So, you can read my mind like an open book…”

“No, it’s not that simple.”

“That simple?! And yet… it’s as if my secrets were laid bare for the world to see!” Haruto snapped.

Askondal remained silent. He looked Haruto over for a good minute before grabbing his arm and squeezing it.

“Damn it! Let go of me!” he complained.

“I’m not interested in what you were doing before, Haruto. But what are you doing in this world?”

The question came out of the blue. It was cold, brutal, and completely straightforward.

“What do you really want?” the silvgest pressed.

Haruto froze, caught off guard once again. Words tumbled around in his head without taking shape. Anyway, this Askondal could read his thoughts, couldn’t he?

“I… it’s just that…” the young man stammered.

He felt a pressure building at his temples.

“Answer me, Haruto.”

His head was starting to hurt badly. A pulse was pounding in his head, much like on the train the day of his Arrival.

“An entire hamlet burned down.”

Images of Pauweik resurfaced in Haruto’s distraught mind.

“No, no!”

“Don’t run away from reality. Your presence did indeed change the course of events.”

“It… it wasn’t my fault,” Haruto blurted out.

“I’m not blaming you. Their deaths were inevitable,” Askondal declared in a tone that was almost nonchalant.

“What?!”

“You aren’t the cause. You merely altered its form.”

“So… no matter what I would have done…”

“They would undoubtedly have all starved to death.”

The air left Haruto’s lungs, as if an invisible blow had just struck his stomach. This sense of fatalism unsettled him even more than the pain.

Haruto felt his anger subside as utter exhaustion overtook him. After a while, he muttered almost inaudibly:

“I have… always wanted just to go home…”

Askondal’s reply was immediate.

“In this world, many, like you, share that burning desire. But it’s nothing more than a naive and dangerous fantasy.”

“So what? What am I supposed to do, huh?! Give up, is that it? Accept my sad fate… or even put an end to all of this?”

The silvgest shook his head in disapproval.

“It’s best to start with the basics. And that means learning to walk before trying to run straight away,” he said before breaking eye contact with Haruto and moving toward the hearth.

Left alone with his thoughts for a brief moment, Haruto was able to reflect on the entity’s words without fear or judgment.

“Surviving… that’s all I have left,” he finally whispered, almost inaudibly.

Askondal returned to Haruto silently, holding an earthenware kettle. Without the slightest warning, he raised and began to pour out its contents.

The water had barely left the spout when a tree root as thick as an arm suddenly burst from the ground. Before Haruto’s incredulous eyes, a wooden cup took shape at its tip. It all happened in a fraction of a second.

“Magic?! But… how is that possible?” he stammered, once the initial shock had passed.

The young man stared at the root, the wooden cup, and the steaming tea inside, still trying to logically explain it.

Askondal, meanwhile, picked the cup off the root, like a farmer harvesting fruit from a tree. As soon as he did, it began to wither, and then it disappeared as quickly as it had emerged.

The silvgest simply handed him the beverage. His face revealed no trace of compassion, only calm anticipation.

“Drink,” he said, in a deep voice.

Haruto eyed the greenish liquid with suspicion.

“Is this a trap? No, he did save me after all… just to satisfy his curiosity… does he really want to help me?”

“Drink it and get some rest. Your body still needs it,” the silvgest said, pushing the drink into the young man’s hands.

Askondal paused, and his green eyes darkened momentarily. “In any case, you’re not going anywhere until The Darkness ends… unless you really want to die,” he added in an icy tone.

Haruto had no reply; he simply clutched the cup between his trembling fingers.

❖

About a month later, Haruto was finally able to stand without his limbs trembling in pain.

The days flew by in a succession of painful awakenings, heavy silences, and terrible tea. His bruised and broken body had slowly recovered from the violence he had suffered during the destruction of the Pauweik hamlet.

Askondal, however, hadn’t changed much. He was still equally cold and reserved toward him. However, Haruto had eventually come to realize that the silvgest did not appreciate conversations or repeated questions.

Most of their interactions consisted of those strange moments of contact when Askondal’s pale hand rested on his skin, and a soundless voice echoed in his head.

Today, though, when Askondal asked him to accompany him on a hunt, something seemed different.

Haruto tightened the thick gray cloak draped over his shoulders, which partially covered the dark clothes Askondal had provided. Hanging from his belt was a bone knife whose pale blade looked too new to have been used.

The silvgest stood in the doorway, quiet and still, like a statue.

“Come,” he said.

Haruto sighed, then nodded.

As soon as he crossed the threshold, the biting, cold wind hit him with relentless force. Haruto took a breath, and the icy air immediately burned his throat and lungs.

Before him, the forest seemed swallowed up by endless shadows. The Darkness impaired his sense of depth and distance and shook his confidence.

The young man blinked before spinning around. Askondal’s hut, from which he had just emerged, had almost completely vanished. Due to the thick blanket of snow and the tangled roots all around, it blended perfectly into its surroundings.

“Incredible,” he murmured.

Haruto didn’t have time to think about it anymore because Askondal was disappearing into the woods. His silhouette seemed to blend into the night with disconcerting ease.

“Wait! I’m coming!” he whispered before hurrying to follow him.

Keeping pace with the silvgest was a grueling experience. Haruto sank into the snow with every step, while his still-weak legs trembled and struggled to keep up. He began to sweat profusely after barely a few minutes.

“Askondal… you… you’re going too fast,” he managed to utter between two breaths.

Either he was turning a deaf ear, or he hadn’t heard a thing. Askondal continued to glide through the trees in an almost surreal manner, never slowing down.

This little game of cat and mouse went on for several minutes, until Haruto realized with horror that he had completely lost track of him.

He stopped, gasping for air. Around him, the forest was a sea of black trunks and motionless branches, submerged in The Darkness. The wind swept through the treetops with an ominous whistle, like a muffled lament.

“Askondal?” he called out, his voice hoarse.

There was no response. Not even a rustle.

Haruto swallowed hard and forced himself to breathe slowly. The cold was seeping under his cloak, biting into every exposed patch of skin. He knew that if he stood still for too long, his muscles would stiffen like last time, and then it would be the end.

“Damn it! Think, think,” he told himself.

The young man then tried to recall the way back through the twists and turns among the roots, the fallen trunks, and the slope beneath his feet. However, the wind and The Darkness had swallowed up and distorted all his footprints and landmarks.

A sharp crack rang out to his right, freezing him in his tracks. Haruto slowly turned around, his heart pounding in his chest.

“It… it might be him,” he thought, hopeful.

Then he heard a second noise, closer this time. Then a third, right behind him.

Haruto took a step back, and his foot sank into the snow up to his knee. The wind continued to roar as the tree branches creaked.

Just then, a long howl could be heard in the distance. It was deep and resonant, echoing off the trees. Haruto immediately felt the blood run cold in his veins.

Other howls answered. There were more of them, and they seemed much closer. Haruto’s gaze frantically searched the shadows.

His fingers unconsciously tightened around the handle of the bone knife on his belt.

“Shit… just what I needed,” he muttered.

Memories of the newt, the escape, the children, and the village in flames surged in a flash. With them came the feeling of being nothing more than a helpless victim, once again. And this time, no one would pull him out of harm’s way.

“Not again… please…”

Finally, shapes emerged from among the trees. They were short, yet their movements were fluid and silent. Five pairs of pale yellow eyes flickered; then the wolves began to circle their prey.

Haruto was paralyzed with fear. His limbs refused to move an inch. A deep growl escaped from the mouth of the largest of the beasts, vibrating through the freezing air.

The predators advanced slowly, and something snapped inside him. It was like a switch being flipped. It wasn’t fear; it was something else. A primal instinct.

“Run! I have to get out of here!”

Haruto spun around and started running, or at least tried to. His clumsy footsteps sank into the thick snow, and he stumbled before managing to right himself by grabbing hold of a tree trunk.

“I have to climb! It’s my only way to escape,” he thought.

His numb fingers slipped against the frozen bark, and his feet had no traction. A warm breath then tickled the back of his neck.

Haruto turned around, a split second too late. He raised his left arm out of pure instinct, and a wolf’s fangs immediately sank into it. The pain was excruciating, worse than anything he’d ever felt.

“Aaarghh!”

The attack sent them both crashing to the ground. The animal didn’t let go.

“My arm! You’re going to rip my arm off!” Haruto screamed at the top of his lungs.

As the seconds ticked by, the young man’s right hand groped around, searching for something.

“Quick! Where… is it?!”

His fingers finally found his knife.

“Yes!”

Fueled by adrenaline, Haruto gripped the bone handle and struck his attacker once in the back of the neck. Then again, again, and again… until the wolf loosened its grip and began convulsing in the bloody snow.

Gasping for breath, Haruto painstakingly got to his feet. His arm was bleeding profusely and hung limply at his side. His vision was beginning to blur. Around him, the four remaining wolves were approaching, growling fiercely.

“So… is this the end of my story? In this shitty forest… in this rotten world!?”

One of the wolves lowered itself, ready to pounce on him. They were no longer trying to intimidate him; they were outright attacking.

Haruto instinctively backed up until he felt the tree trunk against his back. He gripped the knife’s handle so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“Come on, you bastards!” he hissed, more to convince himself than to challenge them.

One of them leaped at him. In that instant, a whistling sound cut through the air. The wolf was struck mid-flight by an arrow and crashed heavily into the snow.

Haruto blinked, trying to make sense of what was happening.

A second whish followed, and another wolf breathed its last breath, an arrow piercing its heart.

The remaining members of the pack paused before backing away, their tails lowered and their ears pinned back. Then, a figure emerged from The Darkness.

Standing motionless between two trees, bow in hand, was Askondal. Haruto fell to his knees as relief washed over him.

“You… you saved me…”

The silvgest slowly lowered his weapon. He paid scant attention to Haruto, who was seriously wounded.

“No,” he replied.

“What? What do you mean?!”

“I abandoned you.”

Suddenly, the cold seemed even more biting. Haruto’s shock gradually gave way to a deep, simmering rage.

“Excuse me?!”

“Deliberately.”

Haruto could no longer contain himself and exploded.

“You motherfucker! You almost got me killed!”

Askondal didn’t bat an eye at this outburst.

“The forest doesn’t forgive naivety nor weakness.”

“I could have died!”

“Yes.”

“W… why?” he whispered in a broken voice.

Askondal’s emerald eyes locked onto his, and he placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

“Because your life belongs only to you and you alone, Haruto. Survival is neither a favor nor a matter of chance.”

The silvgest then turned away, but before disappearing into the shadows, he instructed, “Engrave that in every fiber of your being,”

Haruto stood there, alone with the pain, the snow, and this cruel lesson he had never asked for.

❖

The weeks and months that followed consisted of a relentless repeat of the wolves’ attacks, as well as other insults and hindrances.

Askondal would vanish without warning. Sometimes at daybreak, other times in the middle of a hunt, or even in the midst of a conversation.

Haruto would then find himself alone again, facing all sorts of obstacles: a frozen river he had to cross, a sudden storm threatening him with hypothermia, setting rudimentary traps that he then had to track down. Hunger was ever-present, gnawing at his stomach.

The silvgest, meanwhile, watched him closely. He was never far away, although invisible. He noted the consequences of even the slightest mistake on Haruto’s part: frostbite, falls, bleeding, and exhaustion.

To his great surprise, Haruto was changing, subtly but inexorably. He was adapting and no longer panicked as easily as before. He preserved his strength and listened to the wind, on the lookout for threats. He studied tracks in the snow and was learning to read the forest.

❖

One evening, as they sat in silence by the hearth drinking tea, Haruto probed for answers.

“Why?”

Askondal didn’t look up from his cup.

“Why what?”

“All these… trials…”

The silvgest remained impassive as the fire crackled in the hearth. Haruto continued, more calmly:

“I… I want you to know how grateful I am. Without you, I… I would have been dead long ago. But I’ve come to understand that you weren’t teaching me… no, you were actually trying to keep me at a distance, hence my question.”

Askondal’s emerald eyes lifted. He looked the young man up and down, as if trying to read his mind. Then he reached his hand toward Haruto, who nodded without a word.

“Your presence here has always been only temporary,” the silvgest replied in his mind.

“Because I’m an anomaly, is that it?”

“No. But because you remind me of someone…”

Haruto immediately noticed a change in the silvgest’s tone. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but definitely there.

“Who, exactly?”

Askondal looked away. For a moment, a sad expression crossed his face.

“It’s… irrelevant. A young man’s foolishness.”

“A youthful mistake?” Haruto asked himself and then shook his head to dismiss the thought.

“Some decisions can lead to… regrets. And emotional attachment is a weakness in this unforgiving world.”

Haruto didn’t reply. He didn’t fully understand Askondal’s enigmatic nature, but for the first time, he sensed a flaw in him.

The next day, a ray of light finally pierced the horizon, an unmistakable sign marking the end of The Darkness and, therefore, of winter. The shimmering white blanket of snow gave the impression that the forest was breathing again.

Askondal was waiting outside when Haruto finally emerged. He immediately turned toward the young man.

“Hold out your hand,” he ordered.

Haruto obeyed without questioning. The silvgest then pulled an object from underneath his tunic, a finely carved wooden pendant shaped like a maple leaf.

Hesitating briefly, he placed the object in Haruto’s palm before clasping his hand, as if to protect the trinket.

“Head south for a few days. You’ll find a large city there.”

“And you?”

“Our paths have crossed, but this is where they part.”

Haruto gazed at the pendant, admiring the intricate craftsmanship that had undoubtedly gone into making it.

“Why are you giving this to me?”

Askondal held his steely gaze on Haruto for over a minute, still clutching his hand but offering no answer. Haruto felt his heart racing when, at last, the silvgest conceded:

“Because some will certainly recognize this symbol. But for me, it’s no longer of any use.”

Then, without another word, he released his grip and turned away. The conversation was over.

Haruto paused for a few seconds, unsure how he should respond to this cryptic message. Nevertheless, he tied the pendant around his neck.

“Thank you… for everything,” he said softly before setting off.

Haruto walked south for several hours before coming to an abrupt halt. Although still icy, the breeze on his face drew his eyes elsewhere. Toward something that no longer existed. He took a deep breath, then veered off course.

“I need to see it… one last time.”

When he finally arrived at his destination, Haruto saw that Pauweik was now nothing more than a huge, gaping black wound in the middle of an immaculate white blanket of snow. Collapsed structures jutting out here and there cast menacing shadows.

He moved slowly and deliberately through the rubble. A heavy silence hung over the place, along with the potent smell of burned wood, as if time had momentarily stopped. Each step he took stirred a memory within him. Fond memories of his interactions with Aristide, Norea, Klein, Bhelgor, and the other villagers. Then came the hunger, the flames, and, finally, the screams.

He stopped in the center of the village, where the remains of the well lay buried under the snow.

“I’m sorry…” he whispered.

A familiar presence suddenly appeared beside him. He didn’t even flinch when Askondal placed a hand on his shoulder.

“All of this is in the past.”

Haruto closed his eyes before replying:

“I know, but how can I ever forget?”

Askondal looked solemnly at the ruins.

“Those who remain trapped in what once was will always become like the Church.”

The word hit Haruto like a slap in the face.

“Their doctrine… they impose it on the living without realizing it belongs to the past.”

Haruto clenched his fists in anger. “It’s not the same thing. What they did here…”

“Don’t let them define your every move.”

The wind blew with renewed vigor as the light swept across the ashes.

“You’re not here to repair what has been destroyed, Haruto,” Askondal continued, pressing his shoulder firmly.

“You’re here to decide what you’ll do next.”

Haruto turned abruptly toward the silvgest, but he was already gone. Only the wind continued to sweep through the ruins. For a moment, he had the strange sensation that the pendant was weighing heavily against his chest.