Chapter 2
Arius's sight went black the instant his feet made contact with the distortion.
It creased, it twisted, and then—nothing. There was silence.
When he stirred, the air was thick and muggy, filled with a scent that made his stomach turn. The lids of his eyes seemed glued shut, his muscles weak. He labored, with great pain, to raise himself into a sitting position, hacking at the metallic taste in his mouth. Figures swam before his eyes.
The creature, perched atop the cliff, crouched only a few feet away, its nostrils flaring as it sniffed at the ground around it. Its head turned in a strange, unnatural way, its huge eyes glinting in the light that filtered through the alien foliage. The creature's body shimmered, ever so slightly, as if it existed out of phase.
Arius froze.
"Where. am I?" The whisper was barely audible, as if the words themselves had been shattered into jagged fragments and lodged in the throat, where the hot, damp mist devoured them whole. The question was laughably inappropriate in these foreign surroundings.
The creature sniffed, and after a moment turned its head and focused its gaze on him. The gaze burrowed deep into his brain. Then it spoke, but not aloud, in a voice that rang in his head:
"How… how could you see me? The portal?"
Arius stepped backward, pounding in his chest. "I… I don't know. I just… saw it."
The creature examined him thoughtfully, cocking its head to one side. Its eyes shimmered with a dim light. "Very few beings from your realm have understood as you did. This alone makes. you. interesting."
Arius swallowed hard. "What is this place?"
The form began to change, the shadow creeping across the forest floor. "This. is Myre," it said. "The continent was born long ago, when the Mad King of the Forgotten Kingdom forged a contract with the gods. The Mad King provided the gift of vision to the human race—a vision that lets them see what others cannot see. They call it the sight. But the gift was costly. The price that was paid was the loss of the ability to feel. Most people lost it, but there are those who escaped untouched."
Arius's stomach turned in knots. "So. all of these people. are also—"
"Like you?" the creature echoed, voice low and resonating in his mind. "No. You are rare even in this place. You are one who can see beyond the hint of things, beyond the patterns that few can even hope to adhere to and fully understand. That makes you dangerous. That makes you forbidden."
Numbers and colors swirled and lurched violently in his vision, twisting into forms he could not discern, beating out a rhythm against his skull. The world around him seemed alive, as if listening.
The creature sniffed once again and took a cautious step back. "It was curiosity that led you to this place, human. But Myre is no place for the unprepared. Few live past the first days. Fewer still. who look at the world in the same manner as you do."
Arius swallowed, his heart pounding. The blue portal sparkled ever so slightly behind the creature, a reminder of the impossible path he had just crossed. But fear and curiosity wrestled inside of him.
The eyes of the creature sparkled in the dim light. "If you want to live, then follow me. But understand that all that you see here functions under rules that your mind cannot begin to understand. Some truths… are worse than death itself."
Arius's legs shook beneath him as he stood, nodding slowly. He had no choice. The world he had entered had already begun to take from him.