A sword, beautifully made, the design was so simple that its shape was probably what most people would think when trying to picture a sword, yet you could see how every detail was made with the utmost care, truly a masterpiece... no, it was more than that, it was heavenly. The blade was made from the deepest black material, so much so that it seemed to pull the light around it, cutting a piece of reality itself. The white handle, like a magnet, drew my hands towards it with the promise of the perfect fit, the knob at the bottom hosted a black sphere that no jewel could compare. As essential as any other part of it, the sheath wasn't soiled by any embellishments, its perfectly smooth white surfice gently enveloped the blade like a mother's hug, protecting it from any harm, until the time came when the blade would free itself from the defensive grasp to fight for an unwavering resolve.

I reached for it, I knew it was the answer for the questions I didn't know I had, I could almost feel it in the palm of my hand.

Then I woke up, gasping, with my hands stretched upwards.

"What... ?" I said, dazed.

I tried remembering what happened and the thought of the knife wound startled me. I sat up on the ground and reached for my stomach, instinctively trying to stop the bleeding, but I felt...

Nothing. How is this possible?

Somehow I was healed, I knew the wound had been real because even now my shirt was still cut and drenched in blood around my stomach. How did this happen? How long had I been asleep? Lying back down, I pressed my hand to my forehead and closed my eyes, trying to force myself to remember the moments before I blacked out, despite having a mild headache.

After leaving work, I was mugged, then stabbed and then...

"The dog! It was talking!" I said, opening my eyes and sitting back up.

Now paying attention to my surroundings, I noticed I wasn't where I remembered fainting. It wasn't anywhere I knew at all.

It seemed to be some kind of cave, I was in the center of it, with the ceiling and walls being roughly five meters away from me, in a rough arch. Almost every surface was covered by dark gray roots, where the smaller ones were as thick as my arm. Flowers of varied colors grew from not only the ground but the roots too, and were all around me, from purple to yellow, some of which seemed to be slightly glowing. Not just the flowers, there were small crystals entangled by thin white vines, and they were gleaming.

Before I could make sense of any of it, the headache suddenly became a sharp pain, attacking my head from all directions, followed by an agonizing burning sensation. It felt like millions of needles were being shot at the center of my brain and melting inside of it, shaping into something. The pain grew stronger every second, stabbing and burning my skull and rendering any thought or action reactional, making me savagely try to dig the way through my scalp and into the source as if I could physically take the pain away.

From the bare minimum attention I was paying to my surroundings, I noticed something move swiftly through the roots and in my direction, It had the shape of a snake, an awfully big snake.

I tried getting up to run, but it was too late. It jumped in my direction and I raised my hand reflexively, the thing coiled around it and I could feel its several thin and sharp legs gripping tightly at my skin to the point of making me bleed, not that I really felt much with the lingering pain in my head drowning everything out.

Panicking at the feeling and sight of its long body that seemed to be made of only legs, I violently swung my hand in the air, trying to get rid of it and only succeeding in making it take a stronger grip on my arm. In a desperate attempt, I hit my hand on the ground and the giant centipede bit me, this time the pain easily made itself present. I tried slamming my hand down again to no use, the creature's pinkish carapace was harder than it looked, I kept hitting it anyway.

Not a minute passed of me constantly hitting the creature on the root covered ground, and breathing became harder, my movements started to feel sluggish, till I stopped moving altogether.

The legged snake slowly let go of my hand as soon as I collapsed, uncurling and carefully making its way up, as if making sure I couldn't fight back. A trapping, cold terror was all I felt.

Not being able to move was more frightening than the fact that a snake-centipede from fucking hell was crawling to my face.

Despite the danger and more than unbelievable situation, I felt incredibly tired, fighting to not sleep. I was pretty sure I wouldn't wake up if I did.

Dying twice in the same day... I must be really loved by the heavens.

It had reached my neck when something hit the creature. A spear had impaled its body to one of the several roots around me, but it didn't kill it, the part that was stuck to the wood was abandoned by the creature, freeing itself to disappear between the shadows cast by the dim light of the crystals hitting the branches.

I looked, moving only my eyes to the way the spear came from. A man, a sword at each side of him, even lying down I could tell he was taller than me, which was quite damn tall, since I was one eighty-five centimeters. He wore white armor scattered in pieces along his body in a odd pattern, with gray clothing underneath that extended into a knee length skirt with vertical straps of the same white material, and a pair of sandals were strapped to his feet.

He said something I couldn't understand, less for the headache than for the fact that it wasn't any language I've ever heard. When I didn't answer, he said something else and pulled me over his shoulder like one might do with a sack of potatoes. He slightly bent his knees and sprinted, if I wasn't with my eyes open I wouldn't be able to tell he was running through such uneven ground at such high speed, there was even a certain graciousness to it, the way his feet were able to find the right place to step on among the labyrinth of roots and rocks.

A few minutes of him running without slowing down and I couldn't resist the urge to sleep any longer, I closed my eyes.

I felt something rough touch my lips and liquid going into my mouth and down my throat as a hand on the back of my neck helped my head up, I slowly opened my eyes to see a man sitting to my right. He was dark-skinned, had a full beard and dreadlocks, both of a dark gray color that should put him around his fifties or forties, despite his previous physical feats.

The headache had stopped, I realized by how good I felt, normal. My body wasn't responding easily but I could at least move now, the pain was only on my hand, where the centipede-thing had bitten me, or stung. The wound was enveloped by a thin husk that was the same color and texture as of the roots, I carefully peeled it back to see if it looked as bad as it hurt.

It looked worse.

The area below and between my ring and pinky fingers was almost black, making a stark contrast with my pale skin. A white paste that I assumed was some kind of medicine was covering most of the bite.

"Sazara chi sipere," he said.

"Sorry, I don't understand you," I said, shaking my head.

His brows creased when he heard me speak. He pointed to my wound then to the same place on his hand, opened his other hand and moved it through his arm and into the chest, then closed it over his heart.

It'll spread, I thought.

Somehow, trying to find a hospital seemed to be a silly idea given where I was, which I had yet to find out, it was clearly some kind of cave, but I couldn't tell how deep underground I was. I'm no biologist or expert on caves but I was pretty sure there wasn't supposed to be this much flora in them, especially since I couldn't see any way sunlight could reach there.

The man had brought me to an indent in the wall of the main tunnel I was previously in, the place was big enough for him to stand and was five or six meters deep and away from the tunnel, but only wide enough for two people to stay side by side with arms extended. Basically a cave within the cave. There were weapons of various types on the walls, a hole covered by a slightly curved black plate at the end of the place and some utensils like bowls, spoons and a jug made out of either wood or clay, were on recessed shelves in the wall.

Well, if he wanted me dead I wouldn't be here right now, I thought, looking at the weapons on the wall. Six in total.

First things first.

I pointed to myself and said, "Michael," then gestured to him.

"Zanir," he said.