Ryke clenched his fist unknowingly in sleep, as his body began to whimper.
The first sensation was pain. Not physical, but something deeper — like his existence was being pulled apart along every axis in his body.
His body wasn't his now, and his mind wasn't even whole, as he was thrown deeper into the rivers of memories. He saw flashes.. a boy with his current face but far younger, floating in a tank filled with blue liquid, with an oxygen mask attached on his face. He could also hear the arguments, outside of the tank.
Ryke, who floated as a wraith beside the tank, shifted his view from the younger self of old Ryke to sounds of the arguments outside.
And as his attention shifted slowly... towards those sounds, the blabbering arguments shifted from a broken radio to something clear.
"Che.. we should have used a better nexus. Now this was all we got." Someone said with a voice tainted with slight regret.
"Though you were right, but what if the product was damaged, this was the best till now." Another one countered.
"Yeah, we did that, and now see what we got in the end. The best arc child with a meager nexus."
"It is what it is. Now let's do...."
And efore Ryke could hear any further the scene shifted. His wraith-like body now glided among fields of white snow.
And in front of him stood a boy with bronze hair, as his back was facing him. From stature Ryke could say that the boy was only 10 years old.
As Ryke approached the boy and floated in front of him. His own gold and flickering blue eyes were drawn to the bright gold and deep blue vortex-like eyes of the boy. That was unmistakably just like the ones he currently possessed but more profound.
As he was thinking about that, something then happened that left him stunned. The small Ryke who was gazing at the horizon from the cliff of the snow mountain, jumped from it— passing through his wraith form like air.
Ryke who was stunned suddenly yanked himself at the cliff only to see the small Ryke falling from hundreds of metres from the cliff to the ground.
Ryke stretched his hand as if wanting to catch the boy in his intangible form, but his hand passed through the boy like an air.. no.. not air— as air would at least disturb the single hair but he did nothing.
Ryke could only see as the boy neared the ground, about to be crushed, but then everything vanished from his eyesight. As if someone took out all the colour from a painting leaving only a blank canvas, though for him it was dark instead of the white.
Then just as suddenly light stretched, and Ryke found himself in a forest, there was no blanket of snow; instead the sun was in its grandiose form, illuminating everything and providing warmth.
Ryke still was in his wraith-like form, drifting in the air, away from the ground. He gazed all around to find the smaller version of the previous Ryke, and that he found. But what he saw made him speechless.
His eyes enlarged as he saw the carnage all around. The blood painted red everywhere on the ground sparing only a few spots from this.
Body parts of distinct monsters laid there, only for the heads to recognise the species. Some were torn from the torso, while some from the necks. While all the inwards scattered everywhere inside the perimeter of this carnage.
As his eyes moved he saw a boy adorned with a plain white shirt standing there. Ryke glided towards him, but his breath hitched as he saw the boy.
Whereas the back of his white shirt remained spotless, that couldn't be said the same for his front, it was filled with blood stains. Then his eye darted towards one of his hands, from which the blood was dripping, while the other held something that looked as an intestine.
But the thing that was off about the boy Ryke was that there was not a single speck of emotion on his face, as if the sight of this carnage was not of any importance.
Then for the first time Ryke heard the boy spoke, "Boring.."
It was just a one word, but it resonated with Ryke, telling himself everything wanted to know— for whatever reason that was a tell of another time.
Just after the boy Ryke uttered the word, the view changed again for Ryke.
This time he found himself in a hall, lit with white lights. Suddenly he heard some groaning filled with intense pain from his back.
He turned to see the origin of these sounds, there he saw some people fighting at the end of the hall, just to the side of the gate.
As he moved closer to see better, he saw four men— who could have been security personnel, were now brawling amongst themselves.
Some had bloody fists, some had bloody noses, he even saw someone biting an ear off of another. Two men were already lying on the ground with their uniform soaked in blood— was it from theirs or another no one knew.
As he got too close, he saw the boy Ryke. And the large smile stretching across his lips, this was another shocker to Ryke, as for the first time he saw an expression on the face of the boy, rather than the deadpan facial feature.
Then suddenly he heard some slight murmuring from the above. Ryke turned his head above and floated at it phasing through the ceiling effortlessly.
After crossing through, he found some men in white trench coats staring at the monitor before him, there he saw the situation below was playing on it with high resolution.
"That's some sight isn't it?", one of them asked gleefully.
"It is, but this just made me regret more to not fuse him with a better nexus. Think how good it would have been??" The second one said as a crazed smile appeared on his face.
"You are still hanging on, let it be, we already have the strongest one." Another one said while shaking his head in response.
"You don't understand we could have got a perfect weapon, and nothing further would have mattered." The second one insisted.
Then he turned to others as a large smile stretched across his face, "Hey what if we....."
Ryke who was listening to everything suddenly felt an intense pull, as his existence was barred from it, before he could listen further he was pulled from that to a white space.
Then the white space also started to shatter.
The fragments began spreading everywhere. It was like a mirror crashed to the ground, and broke in the process.
As his dream was about to end, he heard a voice— A voice whispered through his imagery ear, broken by the concept distance.
Become thou not a Seeker, for beyond the Fold lieth naught but unravelling.
At that time the pain of before peaked. The agony came crashing down with full force. He couldn't register the words before he gasped awake. The room was still dark.
Sweat plastered his hairs to his forehead. As he sat on the bed only one word echoed in his mind of those whispers from before.
"Fucking shit..!!"
Seeker....
He didn't know what it meant— not yet. But deep inside something resonated with it. The thing that wasn't supposed to exist anymore.
He leaned back against the headboard, his heart pounding heavily, as he stared at the dim light of outside seeping through the closed windows.
"What.. the.. heck was that?"
Somewhere outside, suddenly a bell echoed again— softer this time, like a reminder of his now world in the distance.
He exhaled slowly, with a bitter smile tugged at his lips.
"So this was a prologue for me...huh?" He took a little time before continuing again, "Well, the game is on then...."