He felt himself drifting to the void, his very being moving slowly to the end of all things. but when he was about to reach it, he felt himself being janked back to wherever he came from. Those were his feelings when he regained consciousness.

Now he just felt suspended by something, floating.

He tried opening his eyes, but his strength left him when he did so, and he lost consciousness.

When he regained consciousness a second time, a sudden light burst in front of him, like walking out of a cave after being underground for a long time.

Skies, endless beautiful skies, at least , that is what it looked like to him.

The Sun shining beautifully as always, and the clouds moving ethereally.

It was beautiful.

But then it struck him.

“By The Moon Goddess, what happened?!?!” The elf cried out , remembering the event that happened that day.

“No sound?” he thought, but he put that aside for now.

He looked down and saw something unbelievable. He was above the tower!

For a moment, he thought he was falling and that maybe he was so far away that he would not notice the tower coming closer.

But there was one problem with this hypothesis.

He did not feel himself falling.

“What is going on?!”

He waited for the tower to come closer, but it never did. This puzzled him, he did not know what to do.

“Maybe this is a dream?” he thought

It could be a dream, but the dreams related to flying he has heard about involved movement.

Another thing he noticed was that he could not feel his body, or legs, or hands. Should he not feel cold in this distance?

In panic he started looking for his hands.

He could not find them.

Now he was really panicking.

Where are his hands? Legs? Where is his body?

“This must be a dream!”

He waited for the dream to end and wake up.

But as time passed, and the sun moved ever so slowly to the horizon, his worry increased.

He was in denial, that is true, and he tried to convince himself that this was all a dream and that he would wake up after this ordeal.

But for every moment that passed the more uncertain he became, and the more uncertain one became, the more fear filled one's heart. Was he trapped? Is he experiencing an out of body event or is this some kind of trick played by the Wise Elder?

Is this punishment for his mundane world view? That the Gods do not exist ?

He had no idea.

As evening was coming, he panicked and decided to pray and plead to the Gods for mercy. To pray to the Gods is something unheard of from Aloris.

He made promises , and confessed sins, hoping that the Gods would listen to him.

He continued to do this for a time until he snapped out of his feverish praying and decided to reason his way out of this, Aloris was a captain after all, he would always find a way to solve problems and panicking was not one of them.

Looking at things from a rational standpoint , the conclusion he could get from all his observations was that it was somehow related to the tower in some way, but he did not know how or why.

“ Whatever this is, it must be related to the tower. The event that took place that day must have done something to me. So if I am too save myself, I need to investigate the tower”

He forgot.

He actually forgot about them.

“How long have I been unconscious?”

He could not know so he decided to wait with those questions.

He looked around to see if there were more unfortunate individuals this had happened to, but he could not find anyone.

After pondering some time he reasoned that if there are more like him then they can't possibly speak or even be seen for that matter, that in itself made it impossible for him to find anyone if they did exist.

So he had no way to know if they were there or not, so the only logical conclusion he could get from this was to abandon this quest and try something else.

He looked down at the tower, and tried to find a way to get to ground level.

Puzzlement came over him when the fact that he could look around without a head somehow, and that it was natural to him in some sense.

He noticed that it was like moving your physical head but now it was instantaneous and focused somehow.

He left those thoughts for another time and focused on the mission at hand, to get to ground level.

The sun went down and up and down again, it went like that for a while until Aloris snapped.

“THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!"

Furious and angry at himself for being useless he cursed himself, and blamed himself for this twisted fate of his.

He started cursing the Emperor, the Empire, anyone he thought would be responsible

After cursing and screaming in anger for what felt like a long time he came to a sudden realisation.

His family.

That's when sorrow and pain came over him like a tsunami and overwhelmed him. He felt such pain and torment to be separated from his family.

Would he ever see them again?

The idea of not seeing them again, see his wife, see his children grow crushed his heart to the brink of madness.

He was in anguish and broken, and he prayed to the elven gods again to grant him mercy.

But he heard nothing and received no comfort.

He continued praying and praying, but silence was all he received.

Days passed and sorrow became anger. Screaming and cursing the gods, he could not accept this reality.

More days passed and anger became depression.

These emotions cycled through day and night until he was on the brink of insanity, the only reason he did not go insane was that he remembered something from his wife a long time ago.

-------

He sat on the porch looking at the horizon as a red and orange colored silhouette covered the sky.

The leaves of the trees had an orange luster and the wind was blowing softly at them, making them slowly move back and forth.

It was a beautiful sight, but gave no comfort to Aloris.

Without warning he felt two soft leaning arms embrace him from the back.

It was his wife.

-“You spend every night and day here beloved”

He was quiet, he did not know what to say.

-”I know you blame yourself for this, but don't. He choose that path himself, and you know it”

Aloris with teary eyes responded

-”Sasha, I could not protect our son, I who have protected others from harm could not protect our own son”

His speech began to crumble and stutter

-”I have betrayed you all and failed you…..”

He felt his wife's arm tighten and drops of tears falling down on his right shoulder, and for a while she said nothing.

Then she spoke softly to him.

-”Your son needs you husband, his brother is gone and he is lonely, he needs you”

She took a heavy breath and continued whispering

-”Don’t let depression overcome you, I don't want to lose my husband too, please come back to us, you are going to have a daughter soon.”

------

The memory flashed through him and it calmed him down.

"I must endure, for my family's sake, I must" he thought.

He remembered that the elves had long lifespans, some reaching over several millennia before dying, giving him plenty of time for him to fix himself and be back with his family.

His only hope was that the expedition's failure would reach the Emperor's ears and maybe in time they would send another one.

And so he waited.

Days turned into years and years turned into centuries.

The only thing keeping him from going crazy was the diminishing hope inside of him.