I felt like shit…
The entirety of my right side felt raw, and the very air felt wrong in my insides.
What… happened?
Then, came the memories.
The mission, the fortress, the demons.
So, I didn't kick the bucket… but now what? Eyeing my surroundings, I tried to get up, but soon found myself strapped in a surgery bed. Gulping, I tried to sharpen my focus.
It isn't your first rodeo, Homestead… Or, at least, that's what I kept trying to say to myself.
"Where am I…" Trying once more to see something, I felt something strange when blinking. While my left side was closed normally, my right eye still could partially see, even with them shut. Almost like my lower eyelid was torn off…
No, not that.
The fire came back to the forefront of my mind… It burnt even that?
What else got burnt?
Trying to move my head, I looked at my right forearm, grimacing. It was ugly. Probably the ugliest scar I ever saw, being almost flesh, with the few parts that still had skin being dried and still burnt.
Bloody hell…
Okay, okay, calm down. Calm down.
I need to stay calm… I need to think. If I'm thinking, I can still act, therefore, I still live. Think. What happened? There's no way this' lady Lenna camp. If it was, I would've woken up on a healing pod.
Which means…
No, it can't be the demons also. Looking around, I knew for a fact this wasn't the place known as Umbral. It was too clean, too… human to be so. Few went to the Umbral and returned, but those who caught a glimpse of it knew that the very air there was evil.
Furthermore, demons aren't known for their hospitality. I wouldn't wake up in a surgery bed if it was them… I would've been in a cell or wouldn't wake up at all.
So who could have brought me here?
Thinking back, the map of the fortress came to my mind.
It was close to a small village. A small, nameless village that was at the edge of Myrka's kingdom… close to the frontier of Synclair.
I tried to remember something, anything about Synclair, but barring some basic stuff that didn't explain what I'm doing here, I was drawing a blank.
They were in an alliance with Myrka to fight against the demons. They had multiple religions and churches. And they used to be at war with Myrka before the first demons came out to play.
"Woke up, at last, young un'?"
Eyeing the being in front of me, I tried to keep a poker face, but it was difficult. The man, if you could call it that, was a humanoid being, with fair skin and a small, rotund body…
There was where the similarities ended, however.
He had a reddish black sclera and venomous, wild yellow eyes. His hair was black, and he had a crooked smile, showing his yellow teeth. I gulped at noticing his joints.
They weren't human. Looked more like a doll.
"Aye…"
"The master'll be pleased. He invested a lot in you."
A lot in me? "What do you mean?" I asked, trying to extract information from the doll in front of me. "Who is the master?"
"It's my creator, Herr Doctor." He answered, walking towards me, his legs making a very uncomfortable noise, almost like metal grinding against metal. He began to undo my shackles, his smile becoming a bit more genuine. "Young un', the master'll see you in a few minutes. I took the liberty of cleaning your clothes, so, please, do wear them."
After saying that, he excused himself, allowing me my privacy.
Sighing, I rubbed my wrists, frowning at looking at my right side. Without a shirt, I could see what happened, and it wasn't pretty.
My right arm, torso, and even face was busted, covered with dried up scars and flesh. Damn, didn't suppose I'd get some scars on my first mission on this world, but I guess this' what happens when you go through a room filled with Molotov fire.
I trembled a little, remembering the way the fire clung to me, how it burned and seared my skin, its phantom sensation like a lick of a fiery tongue.
I felt a numbness in my chest.
No one's going to recognize me like this, so how am I supposed to get to them?
Searching for my clothes, I found them in a bundle and began to dress up, preparing myself for my meeting with the Doctor, whoever that was.
For now, all that mattered was getting back to the base.
Exiting the surgery room, I walked the clean, shadow-clad halls, ignoring how the very darkness seemed to watch me, waiting for a chance to pounce on me. Almost breathing down on my neck, like some sort of monster.
No one was there, the atmosphere was heavy, but the walk was, thankfully, a short one.
Afterward, I found myself in a spacious room, its walls blood-red, a giant chandelier cutting through the shadows. Almost all of them.
In a small corner, darkness was swallowing light, almost unnaturally so, hiding a beast beneath. Its eyes fixed in me, my blood freezing as I felt the crushing weight of that presence.
It felt as if all Ether turned against me, as if I was a helpless child, without parents, without strength. As if all the things I accomplished, both in this world and the last, simply vanished against this being.
Scowling, I prepared myself, my hands slowly crawling towards the holster, only to feel the emptiness that it had.
"Looking for these?" It, or he, threw something at the ground. Daring to take my eyes off of him, I looked at it, seeing my guns. "Such nasty things, these are. Guns are the mark of someone with no aptitude for fighting…"
I felt something probe on my brain, trying to tear away my memories, but I held on, until that feeling increased, becoming almost as painful as having a drill running through my eye, racking my brain.
After painstaking seconds, he let go, my body losing strength, falling as I tried to recover from that assault.
"But you have aptitude… Almost unnaturally so… You wouldn't have bested two demons with such toys if you didn't, right?" Sweat poured freely from my forehead, my breath labored as I tried to think, the emotion I felt was foreign enough to make me pause my breathing.
It was something I hadn't felt in a long time, something that I thought I have long forgotten, that, in my arrogance, I believed I left it behind. Such a feeling it was, how oppressing was this accursed emotion to coil its cold fingers around my soul.
It was fear.
He could've killed me… and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it…
"Now, let us have a talk, shall we, Young Esper?"