Chapter 21: Black Fog

The erstwhile plot had brought the boy grievous harm, relevant to how his body yearned for desirable slumber that he truly needed.

To sustain such lamentable injuries, where his pale form bloomed with blood, was one that brought his companion worry. It was her first time to see him wounded, and that pain cut deep.

Enough to make him slumber, just as his harrowing experience from before.

Willow fulfilled her oath to keep him alive, and he was quite happy at that fact. And while she could not impede the piercing ice of where the mist struck him blind, he lived to see life. His wounds would heal with time, as time did so.

It is said that time heals all wounds, from some source he’d yet to procure.

Perhaps it held true to his plight.

Or at least until his accelerated healing factor committed to mending the damage his body suffered through.

His strange ability had manifested thrice, with each event brought forth by the onslaught his body and mind withstood. But other than that, the curative properties remained a mystery to him.

The advanced invigoration of his was yet another property of the visor, one spurred into action by crossing the threshold of his mind.

It was what he assumed, established from the previous events, as he’d yet to see its inducement through other circumstances. It always triggered through a singular action; by pain. It seemed applicable to both physical and mental aching.

The phenomenon paralleled whatever his body tolerated to a certain extent. Never by prevalent stimulus did the anomaly ensue, as only by an intensive impulse; of where his mind and body pushed itself to the limit, did the strangeness ever occur.

The unequivocally harmful catalyst that triggered his powerful ability quite limited him. He needed to be harmed, to heal himself.

And, as luck would have it, he neared his waking. All this time, these thoughts of his remained to be within his dreams, for he did not dream normally as the common rabble would.

His dormant thoughts were quite vivid to him, as if he was awake. Although, he remained asleep as of the moment.

Yet, he would be awake soon.

★[Ack...]

And soon he rose, only to be met with pain that shattered his mind. His reaction came as a pained shriek.

★[IT HURTS!!!]

Clutching onto the black box as if it were his head, the boy kicked up dirt, as they fell like rain on the mildewed soil.

He thrashed and flailed at what he felt, far more painful than his preceding misery. The prevailing torment surpassed every loathsome absolution he once established from the agony he felt before.

His current pain felt much worse, and it was.

His vision blackened with pain, his eyes remained shut from the despair of his mind. His bouts of agony would succeed once more, another struggle of his to add. This wasn’t the first, nor the second, and it wouldn’t be the third either.

He would blindly flail about at his tormentor, for it was the damned visor he wore.

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☽

[Your memories remain locked beyond a vault of secrets,

though they deserve no such treatment.]

[Hidden within a black veil that shelters your injured soul,

it precedes what you once knew.]

[You don’t know your own mind...]

[And now, look at you!]

[The cost of forgetting must be really high.]

[And with your weakness...

it really must be so, ▪▪▪.]

☽

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A cascade of words, bearing a message of sorts, caused his abrupt suffering. An enigmatic continuity, unceasing to its own accord. His visor held authority over what he knew, and what he learnt.

The strange object limited him, preceding what he seemed to understand of the strange world.

The boy would yet to forget that he was the fallen king.

It kept reminding him of his forgotten identity, one he knew little of. How cruel was the world to ask of him... to remember what he once fathomed. Of what his shattered mind held.

He knew nothing, and will continue to do so, lest he fray into pieces. His own mind was but a stranger to him, and it terrified him so.

★[I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!!!]

A lone figure screamed into the idle vanity of his mind. Oh how idle it was, as its hands had been barred by itself.

He wanted to reprimand the one who held his fate, of why he kept going through such foolish crucibles.

They were foolish, for his knowledge amounted to nothing, and the pain would not help him retrieve those hidden memories. It would be nothing more than a hopeless endeavor, a frightening absurdity that made little sense to him.

This was the extent of what he knew, that he once held the crown, and nothing else. To expect more signified the cruelty and foolishness of those who sought to expose his clandestine history, as it would not help him remember what he could not.

Yet it kept expecting him to do so, to flourish in this maddening pain that trembled at his head.

What help did it bring?

‘Am I... forgetting something?’

His head trembled further, his fragile self made miserable with pain. An existence kept prying into his brittle mind, inflaming everything he felt. He couldn’t move, he could not speak, and he yearned to cry out his suffering.

Yet the pain... it kept getting worse. Something robbed him of physical sensation, with his torment an exception to this rule.

‘I can’t remember right...’

His memories, ones that merely spanned but a week’s time... they were being rewritten. They were the crowning touch of his infinitesimal knowledge; from when he first roused, to before he felt this agony.

He knew not what or which was being altered among his cognizant thoughts, but they would remain important to him, that much was certain.

His memories held him together, no matter how little he could remember. Yet before his very eyes, they were being erased.

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₭⟑₤∑ℹ︎ძºѕ∁օ℗∃ ℏªꙀϱ [ℹ︎∏⫳ℇՒℹ︎♰⟑η∁∃]:

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___

∈✗©⋿Я₱⊺ ⨗Ւο₥: [լ⫯ь®∀Яӱ ⦿⨍ Яµℹ︎∏ - ª𐅾¢ℏℹ︎⩔℮ძ]

[⫙օ∂ℹ︎𐅿ї∑𐅾ѕ]

+ ι♱ ї$ ο∏℮ º៛ ♱⫳€ ⩊օՒ₤∂₤ӱ ₱∟α₲µ€$.

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His memories, they were changing.

Altering, faltering, his mind grew unstable with the changes. Nothing graced his mind other than his wavering thoughts; sentiments that did not hold true anymore. They had deviated from their original configuration, harboring different meanings than before.

He wanted it to end.

★[No... no...]

He couldn’t stop the process, for it had already begun.

★[I can’t forget...]

Willow wasn’t with him. He didn’t know where she went. Could she save him from his harrowing plight; one that threatened to erase who he was?

If a part of him disappeared, could he still carry his own identity, or would he no longer be the same person? His integrity as a living being was being tampered with by reasons unknown to him.

It won’t stop at all.

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Black Fog [Inheritance]:

A peculiar accumulation of fog present within the Twilight Forest. How it came to be is unknown, yet it remains to be a dangerous location as countless expeditions have tried and failed to map out its interior.

It remains to be a foreboding station; a nexus of mystery that remains unsolved even as countless centuries have passed.

As if it hid an inchoate world beyond its thin veil, the ebony haze is formless and indistinct in its form, serving as a boundary with an unknown coverage within the region. Its appearance never deviates from a distinct nebulous film of mist that is anchored from the ground towards the heavens.

Attempts to circumnavigate the veil have failed as it encloses the inner region of the Twilight Forest.

As for how far the fog’s stature reaches, it is unknown. The dragons have attempted to scale its height has reached an upward of 20,000 feet, though this is the extent of their exertion as they are not infallible to the Green Flames, hence their abrupt departure from the skies towards the ground after achieving such heights. Any higher and their lives are forfeited.

The mysterious fog has solicited the attention of many a person, though its collapse remains to be seen as it remains practically unharmed from any bombardment or disturbance in collision with the misty wall.

From the accounts of those who were present during the innumerous conducted onslaughts, the witnesses have described it to ‘devour’ any substance that nears its proximity.

At this point, it can be safely assumed that the Black Fog shall remain an unwilling neighbor of the adjacent states, as it is impenetrable by any weaponry, nor had the individuals who entered it returned to their respective posts.

And it is forbidden to access this region by any means, for fear of provoking any entities related to the zone.

___

An excerpt of; [Akashic Records - Archived]

[Modifiers]

+ Its real name is [REDACTED].

+ It is one of the worldly plagues.

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★[Am I r-remembering right?] He questioned the deformities of his mind suffered through, though he couldn’t recall what differed from before. ★[D-did something change?]

The sudden changes, whatever they were, would never come to light, as his suffering had finally come to pass.

He wouldn’t be able to find an answer for them.

Rewritten were his precious memories; replaced by something he did not know of. And how was he to perceive what changed, when his own mind was a stranger to him? Why, it was a silly goose chase! ... If he ever saw one.

★[I can’t see...]

He had been robbed of his vision, though it was only a temporary measure of the pain. But as the pain eased, his mind was now in a better state.

Gradually, vague light peered through his sight.

★[My eyes...]

With open eyes, he gazed at the ambient scenery of flora and fauna abound. Instead of what he expected, nothing seemed to have changed. His surroundings remained to be the same.

A figure of the night collapsed beneath the ever-trees, abandoned by the wintry breeze, as the monsters hid from sight. And the black fog, a perpetual fortress of darkness.

★[Black fog?]

Referring to the misty phenomena felt wrong to him, as if the truth was not to be held sincere. The pain still addled him, perhaps. He always remembered it to be of ebony hue, or at least that was how he remembered it to be.

★[I remember someone telling me that... who was it?]

He faintly recalled the memory of a certain will o’ wisp, one who guided him during their journey towards the eventide path.

This recollection happened only recently, though he thought it odd as it seemed to be a memory long gone... as if it happened ages ago.

But he remembered who she was, and that she was not by his side at the moment.

★[Willow...] After muttering out her name, he regarded his surroundings with scrutiny. It reeked of blood. ★[Where are you?]

Though, after looking at the sanguine fluid, the sight evoked another memory. His argument for why he collapsed was paved with blood; and he meant it in the literal sense.

The horrendous wounds that once marred his body were now gone, the blood which once flowed but a reminder to him. His body looked to be unharmed, a cloaked figure of black that showed no wounds, though the memoir of pain remained ever vivid in his mind.

His regeneration came into action once more. And as always, it was without his authority. The black box saw him vitally present, it would seem.

Yet another miracle in the flesh, though he didn’t relish it as much as before. He’d already seen far too many miracles as of his yesterday’s, and he doubted they would stop appearing soon.

Could they blame him for such cynical remarks? No, he was not the one at fault here. A myriad of dangers and threats had already crossed his brief life.

And though he’d only been awake for only two weeks, that brief span of time was enough to convince him that the world loathed his existence, that some ignoramus who abhorred him set up his fate.

And his fragile mind, it was already abnormal to begin with. He’d established that as a fact, for after a close brush with death, he simply stood up, disregarding the torturous pain of only a moment’s past.

It had been less than five minutes since the pain vanished, yet his mind felt to be at ease. It was not normal, for not now, and never.

And perhaps it never will.

★[I feel like I’ve forgotten something important... what was it though?] No matter how much he wracked his head, nothing of note came into being.

Feasibly, it was a fluke, or maybe he’d forgotten. He wouldn’t be solving his short conundrum either way.

★[Nevermind, I need to find Willow...]

Then he remembered what evoked such memories, it were the streaks of blood that laced his surroundings.

An awful display of red that lay in grotesquerie, but it did not seem to be his. He couldn’t have spilt much of his blood, as he would be dead by the excess in which it dyed his surroundings in red.

It must have belonged to another creature, or sapient being... he couldn’t discount that possibility.

He had a faint guess of what happened in his slumber. If Willow was to be believed, many monsters hunted within the Twilight Forest, and many more died from the countless hunts beneath the evertrees.

The amount of cruor red was reminiscent of how a place might be stained in blood after something was crushed afoot; either by force or perhaps an unwitting accident for the travelers.

His surroundings mirrored red, and that did not explain why he still lived. If monsters were indeed the assailants that painted a scarlet setting, then why did they leave him in dormancy?

He would be an easy prey to kill, and his dormant state allowed even the weakest of beasts to catch him beneath their coup de grâce.

This was a forbidden area, and its beasts were monsters in the truest sense. They should be capable of doing that much, at the very least.

There also was Willow’s disappearance, an incident that happened in his sleep. His wounds incapacitated him, so he expected the will o’ wisp to keep guard of his vulnerable self. Yet her location remained a mystery, and he could not grasp where the wisp gone to.

As lamenting of useless things simply won’t be of much help, he stood up from his painful seat of soil and began his search for the missing blaze, as he wanted answers for the spilt blood.

She couldn’t have died, and she shouldn’t have.

★[Ack, my head still hurts...]

His mind briefly ached, as he made himself firm by the ever-trees. One question hounded him, as he quavered in what he knew.

The mysterious haze...

★[Had it always been black?]