His movements grew faster and faster as the light faded second by second until it finally went out completely and unconsciousness enveloped him.
But instead of hitting the ground, the surface beneath him gave way. He plunged through a white cloud gate. His body hurtled faster and faster through this tunnel until he finally burst out on the other side.
Still unconscious, his body floated in the air.
Was he in a dream?
In the afterlife?
Or on another planet?
Where on earth was he?
Everything was bathed in reddish light, as if a red veil enveloped the planet.
The ground was riddled with cracks from which a lava-like mass oozed.
The sky was dark, and three moons orbited the planet: one bluish-white, one silvery-white, and the last reddish.
Far below him were countless creatures of darkness, gazing up at his seemingly lifeless body.
As far as the eye could see, the entire planet was teeming with these beings.
The air, too, was filled with swarms of flying beasts, but they all circled a distant location. Was this the place of origin?
Suddenly, his motionless body moved on as if by some unseen force, as if heading for a specific destination.
He was carried to where the flying swarms circled: to a castle. Was it his castle?
The massive gate opened, and his body floated through it until he finally landed softly on the floor of the castle hall.
He awoke from his unconsciousness.
But was he truly awake, or was he in another dream?
Everything around him was pitch black.
He tried to stand up, but dazed as he was, he could barely stay on all fours.
He looked down at the cold floor. Only it shimmered white-gray; the rest was complete darkness.
He was standing in the center of a giant, inverted pentagram embedded in the floor.
Above him stretched a black sky dotted with tiny, bright white stars. They began to spin around him at breakneck speed.
Then a voice cut through the silence.
It came from everywhere and nowhere.
"A test..." echoed through the room.
"What kind of test?" he called back, but received no answer. A deathly silence fell.
Suddenly, the inverted pentagram burst into flames.
Each of the five points lit up.
Above each point hovered a separate symbol, glowing intensely until it finally burst into flames.
The pitch-black sky warped into a giant hand, like that of a clock.
It rotated and finally came to rest above the first point of the pentagram.
There, a symbol resembling a crown hovered. He could read it. It was the symbol for pride.
"Pride..." he whispered.
He gazed deep into the rune. In a vision, he saw himself, a divine crown upon his head.
But it was so hot that it burned him.
He tried to cast it off, but he couldn't.
Suddenly, his body began to float. He started to glow, then to burn.
He screamed in pain.
A funnel-shaped vortex formed around the pentagram, sucking in mist and fire.
He desperately tried to hold on, but the force was too great. Screaming, he was sucked into the abyss.