The walls of the church shuddered and groaned, the old wooden boards screaming at the assault of claws and teeth. Scrapes, bangs, howling and screaming all blended together into a hellish song, joined soon by the crunching of bones and the squishing sounds of gnawed meat.

In the centre of it all, Matthaeus sat calmly, cross legged on the floor. It all felt so far away, despite being right next to him, like it was happening to someone else, and not him. He supposed it was, really. It wasn’t his bones that were crunching, his flesh being rent. It was the villagers.

A cold wind circled him on one side, battling a warmth that glowed from his other, spinning around him like a quiet tornado, spiralling and twisting in a dance with him in the middle. It felt like both sides were a barrier, blocking away the nightmare around him.

“Don’t let them see,” a familiar, warm voice whispered. Matthaeus closed his eyes, shutting out the world, leaning back into that familiarity with a comfort he hadn’t known since waking in Arcaster.

The cold wind spun faster, lashing at his skin like a whip, leaving a burning, icy cold everywhere it touched. But then, the warmth would wash over him, cleansing it away.

“Don’t let them hear.”

The doors to the church burst open, and a monster walked in. Its body was shadow, like a flame that licked and flickered, but shed darkness instead of light. It stood on all fours, like the others, but towering, so towering… Matthaeus strained his neck up to see its face.

The ceiling looked so far away, from down on the ground. Hundreds of feet in the air, at least. And the beast looked down at him from far above, like he were a mere bug upon the ground at its feet. Its glowing yellow eyes met his own, and he held its gaze. He felt nothing, no fear, no disgust, no confusion. It was happening to someone else. Not him.

“Don’t let them feel.”

The voice was growing weaker. Fainter, by the very second. The cold wind swirled faster, overwhelming it bit by bit, numbing his skin. But it wasn’t uncomfortable. No, it wasn’t anything. It was happening to someone else. Not him.

Two figures in black stood before the shadow monster. They had weapons, but they were tiny, pitiful against the beast before them. All around, the screams grew louder, haunting and bloodcurdling, but Matthaeus felt none of it. Only the winds, warm and cold, protecting him. Isolating him. Keeping him away from it all.

“And most importantly…” the voice whispered, so quiet now he could barely hear it.

The shadow monster opened its mouth, and its maw glowed with a sickly yellow light. The two figures raised their weapons and charged. Vaguely, Matthaeus started to feel something. A hunger. Clawing from the inside, deep and insatiable, but something else as well. Spite. Viciousness. A cold, calculated rage so intense Matthaeus finally shuddered.

“Don’t let them take you, Matthaeus.”

The monster bent down, and snapped its jaws. The figures both disappeared.

And then, everything changed. The screaming and the crunching were all gone, so was the church and the monster. All that remained… was a cold wind and a new, yet familiar, sight.

He was standing in the middle of a frozen lake of black ice. All around him was a snowstorm, billowing and blowing, blocking his vision of the edges of the lake, leaving him in a void of ice and snow. And there, at his feet, were the remains of a cracked circle of ice, now re-frozen back shut.

There, slithering on top of the ice, was an eel. Black like oil, with streaks of shimmering colour under the skin, its form blurry and indistinct, like a memory or a rippled reflection across a lake, rather than something physical. It squirmed pathetically, floundering atop the surface of the lake, trying to return to the waters below yet trapped.

Matthaeus could feel its fear. Its confusion. Rabid, like a wild dog or a beast, yet so frightfully frail it could only writhe like a worm on a hook.

He knelt down beside it, eyeing the creature curiously. It had no eyes nor ears, blind and deaf to the world, it continued to struggle, heedless of his presence.

Movement caught his eye, from under the lake, and Matthaeus cocked his head to the side slowly in curiosity. Now, this close to the ice, he saw it for what it truly was.

The ice was not black. Rather, the lake underneath was filled to the brim with eels, just like the one above, all slithering together as one tangled knot. There must have been millions of all different sizes, all of which dwarfed the one above the ice. They squirmed and wriggled excitedly, biting and snapping at the bottom of the ice, trying to claw their way through to their missing member.

Matthaeus paused. Faintly, he could feel the ones below the ice, too. It was a foreign feeling, cold, inhuman, ravenous… and violent.

He shuddered at the weight of it all, the force of their presence. He wondered… just what would happen, should the ice break?

The lone eel opened its jaw, and a mewling, pathetic rasp escaped it. Staring down at the strange, foreign creature, Matthaeus couldn’t help what he felt.

Pity.

Lost, away from home, unable to return to its kind… Matthaeus pondered somberly for a moment. He’d been too weak to help the people in the church. Too young to stand and face the monsters in the night. Too small to even help carry his own weight on the journey with Griff and Reyland. But maybe, just maybe… This one time, he could help.

Matthaeus bent down, and picked up the eel. It squirmed in his arms, slimier and more slippery than he was expecting, yet too weak to even slip from his grasp.

The air around him went still, as if the world were holding its breath. Matthaeus froze, an unexplainable fear building in him.

Then, in a single, shuddering gasp, the warm wind died.

Icy air swirled rapidly back to life, enveloping him entirely, biting and tearing at his skin like a living creature. It howled, screaming as the black, tangled mass of eels below the ice started to squirm and writhe excitedly under his feet.

His heart began to beat faster and faster, as he looked around the lake for something, anything familiar. Anything that he knew, anything that made sense.

In his arms, the eel stopped its pitiable thrashing. Matthaeus looked down at it, amber eyes wide in fear, and a sudden… repulsion. A sudden regret.

Where none was before, an eye opened on the eel.

Amber, just like his.