The first was a girl holding a sword.
A 19 year old elf named Sephyr, prisoner 89443.
Her dark brown hair, rich with subtle chestnut undertones, is drawn back into a high and slightly loose ponytail at the crown of her head. The ponytail falls in layered waves, giving it natural movement and a windswept softness rather than a rigid, tightly bound look. Several strands have escaped deliberately or perhaps inevitably from the tie, framing her face in tapered pieces. These loose locks fall along her cheeks and brush near her jaw, softening her otherwise composed features. She had hazel eyes, and had a burn mark on her cheek, with some cut marks on her neck.
The sword rested loosely in her hand, though the way she stood made it obvious she knew how to use it.
Next to her stood another prisoner: Number 777533, named Ubel.
She stood like a tranquil wraith against the sky, her long silver white hair spilling in waves down her back and shoulders. A tangled crown of red roses and dried blossoms wrapped across her head and eyes, thorned branches woven between them. The floral blindfold covered her eyes entirely, petals and thorns forming an eerie mask across the upper half of her face.
Kalintill stared across the ruined platform, trying to force his mind to accept what stood in front of him.
He had already taken in Sephyr and the blindfolded girl beside her.
But the third figure kinda towered over the others.
Prisoner 333665: Xanthe, the Undead Warlock.
Xanthe had stood like a revenant forged from despair and necromancy, his towering frame was encased in battered, corroded armor that seemed fused to his very being. A jagged, crown-like helm concealed his face, save for the eerie green light that burned from within the slits of his visor. Tattered, ashen dark cloth hung from his shoulders and waist, snapping in the wind like the aftermath of a fallen banner.
In his gauntleted hand he carried a massive, weathered greatsword. The blade radiated the same sickly emerald glow visible through his visor, as though cursed energy lived inside the metal itself.
A strange fog circled around him along with drifting specks of green light, giving the impression that he hadn't truly risen out of the grave, but had been dragged from it while the dirt still clung to him.
Nothing about him resembled a living warrior, as he was certainly undead, but living at the same time.
The final prisoner stood slightly apart from the others, Prisoner 832216: Granville Norsenberg.
Granville carried himself with the arrogance of someone who had never accepted the idea that he belonged in a prison. His hair sat in short, messy strands of blond that bordered on white, falling unevenly across his forehead as though he had long since given up trying to keep it orderly. His light blue eyes scanned the strange sky and floating rubble around him with irritation rather than confusion.
And in Granville's hands rested a warhammer, the weapon carried none of the decorative carvings or polished metal expected from a knight's armory. Its wooden handle showed dents and worn patches where hands had held it countless times. The iron head had been forged in a plain block shape with one blunt striking side and a small wedge on the opposite end.
A simple weapon, functional, and nothing more.
And Kalintill studied them one by one.
'These guys…'
Sephyr stood with a rusty sword held casually at her side, the blade stained with patches of brown corrosion. She did not appear bothered by the condition of the weapon, and Ubel carried nothing at all.
Every one of them stood facing the same direction, toward the canvas.
Kalintill rubbed a thumb across the grime on his wrapped hands while a memory stirred at the back of his mind.
'This place…I was here when I was eighteen.'
The realization crawled through him piece by piece.
'All because of some dumbass knights.'
The memory of chains biting into his wrists returned with uncomfortable clarity.
'I got in trouble just for defending myself.'
He stared at the floating ruins again.
'It's not my fault they were weak and just up and died. But they shouldn't have messed with me anyway.'
His lips twitched halfway between a grin and a scowl, not knowing which one to choose between.
'What am I doing here?'
Another thought arrived, and this one made him chuckle under his breath.
'Is this because of the Angel of Death?'
The grin widened now after that though, thinking he was the reason for this.
'Haha… it has to be.'
He looked toward the empty sky.
'That Angel uses those lanterns to spread plagues and all sorts of weird magic nonsense.' His shoulders loosened up as the realization had settled in.
'Taking me back to the worst time of my life. When I was forced to cleanse plagues because the king and the prison demanded us for our freedom. Well fuck you. I'll break out of it! I won't fall for your tricks again!'
Kalintill stepped forward without another word, then he jumped. His body sailed off the edge of the broken platform before anyone else had time to react.
Sephyr's eyes widened.
"Hey!" she snapped, rushing toward the edge. "What the hell was that idiot doing?!"
Granville strode forward beside her and peered over the side, his voice dripping with disbelief. "He just threw himself off a floating ruin," he said. "That man possessed the survival instincts of a brick."
Far below them, Kalintill's body struck against the ground with a dull impact. Blood spread across the surface beneath him, and he was dead almost instantly.
Sephyr grimaced. "Well that answers that," she muttered. "He's dead. Anyways…"
Ubel tilted her head slightly toward the distant corpse. Her voice carried a calm tone that felt strangely out of place among floating ruins and ink-stained corpses and prisoners.
"Oh dear… that must have hurt terribly," she said softly. "I hope his spirit finds peace."
Granville snorted.
"Peace?" he scoffed. "The fool chose to leap off a cliff."
Xanthe lifted the enormous greatsword slightly and rested it across one armored shoulder.
"Well," he said, voice echoing from somewhere inside that helmet, "look on the bright side."
Ubel looked at him, and that alone told him there was no bright side, since Ubel is all about tranquility and peace, as she's worked with the dead before.
Xanthe said, "N-Nevermind. Too soon?"
Most importantly, none of them realized what had truly happened. None of them knew that Kalintill had already lived through the destruction of the world, and none of them knew that time itself had turned back seven years.
….
Kalintill's eyes opened again.
For a moment his mind expected the shattered ruin below, the broken body that had ended his last attempt to escape this place. Instead he sat on the same cracked platform as before, the white sky sitting endlessly above levitating stone and broken towers.
'I'm back?!'
He looked up, seeing the enormous canvas still floating in the distance, its surface drowned in the same black ink while massive hands and tentacles hung out like it was reaching for something from within the painted surface.
And those corpses, Ink leaked from the eyes and mouths of corpses scattered across the sky, their bodies hanging in the air like discarded puppets.
Kalintill sat up fast, his chest rose with anxiety while the memory of the fall lingered in his mind. The impact, the bone breaking end, the certainty that death had surely taken him.
Yet here he was again, and those four prisoners still stood across the platform.
Sephyr remained focused on the canvas with her rusty sword resting at her side. Ubel stood quietly beside her with the crown of roses covering her eyes. Xanthe held his enormous greatsword with the same eerie green light coming from the visor of his helm. Granville balanced his plain warhammer across one shoulder while staring at the ink-covered canvas with irritation.
The scene had returned to the exact same moment.
Kalintill pushed himself to his feet finally.
"No… what…?!"
His voice came out louder than he intended. He stared at his hands for a second, then lifted one and struck his own cheek with a quick slap.
Sephyr turned her head toward him.
"Hm?" she said, looking him up and down with mild curiosity. "Why are you slapping yourself?" She tilted her head slightly while resting the sword against her shoulder. "Don't tell me you're getting nervous before we cleanse this stupid plague. That would be embarrassing."
Kalintill said nothing.
He only looked at her for a moment before turning his attention toward the towering armored figure nearby.
Xanthe.
The undead warlock rested his massive greatsword across one armored shoulder while faint green light spilled from the visor of his jagged helm.
"Well," Xanthe said casually, "look, you can stay out here if you want… but I'll tell those wardens to give me the years that were supposed to be taken off your sentence." He tapped the flat of the blade with one gauntlet. "That means double the years off mine. I'm not complaining."
Kalintill slowly turned toward the last man.
Granville Norsenberg. Granville gave him a smug look that carried just enough arrogance to be irritating. After a second he turned away again, returning his attention to the canvas as if Kalintill had already stopped being interesting.
Inside his mind another thought drifted through his head.
'Out of all the prisoners, they chose a nervous wreck to clear the plague? What were they thinking?'
Ubel stepped closer.
Her movements remained calm and deliberate while she approached Kalintill.
"Oh my," she said softly. "You seem distressed." She circled him once while speaking in a gentle tone. "Are you experiencing dizziness?"
Another step around him. "Any pain in your chest?" She leaned slightly closer. "Do you feel pressure in your head?" Another careful step. "Are your limbs numb?"
She clasped her hands together thoughtfully. "Your breathing sounds uneven. Did you strike your head when you woke up?"
Kalintill stood there while she walked around him, asking question after question as if she were examining a patient rather than a fellow prisoner.
Kalintill chuckled. They had no clue he just died and came back and time reset.
The sound of his laugh started small, then it grew, then the chuckle turned into laughter, then louder laughter.
Then he threw his head toward the empty sky and laughed like a man who had lost every piece of sanity he once possessed before.
"Is this your idea of world domination, you Angel of Death?!" he shouted upward. "I'll screw fate before it screws me again!"
Before anyone could react he sprinted toward the edge of the platform, then he jumped again, and his body disappeared into the white sky below.
Sephyr walked to the edge and looked down.
Far below, Kalintill struck the lower ruin with another fatal impact.
Granville folded his arms.
"Well," he said flatly, "that man clearly had problems."
Xanthe chuckled from inside his helmet.
"I think he might be insane too!"
Granville turned slightly toward him. "The insane can sniff out the insane, undead."
Nearby, Ubel had already knelt on the stone with her hands clasped together. She whispered a quiet prayer for the man who had just died.
Sephyr exhaled with visible annoyance. "Ugh. Finally he offed himself," she muttered. "I thought I was gonna have to do it. People like that tend to get in my way."
Then time reset.
Kalintill's eyes opened again, and he sat in the same place, the same platform, and the same white sky.
The same four prisoners staring at the canvas.
He burst into laughter immediately again. Without saying a single word he ran straight toward the edge and jumped again.
Another death.
Another reset.
Each time his laughter grew louder and more unhinged and more chaotic than ever.
The other prisoners watched him repeat the same act again and again.
Each time he awoke, laughed toward the sky like a madman, and hurled himself off the platform.
After about ten reckless deaths Kalintill ran toward the edge again, laughing so hard his voice echoed across the floating ruins.
"I'll break out eventually! Hahaha!"
He jumped once more, the white sky rushed past him, and the ground came rushing up at him fast.