Kael ran. Not with the joyful abandon of a child at play, but with the raw, desperate energy of a small creature fleeing a predator. The warmth of Vispera was a persistent, guiding presence, a silent anchor in the chaos of his fear.
Behind him, the ruined village faded into the grey mist. The familiar shapes that had offered a semblance of home were swallowed by the pervasive silence.
The ground beneath his worn shoes changed. The splintered wood and broken stones of the village gave way to a thin layer of grey, dusty soil. Gnarled, grey roots snaked across the ground, remnants of plants that had twisted and died under The Void's influence.
The air grew colder, sharper. The unnatural silence here felt deeper, less like a muffling and more like an active absence. It pressed against his eardrums.
The landscape opened up, a vast, unnerving expanse of grey under the grey sky. Rolling hills of ashen soil stretched to a hazy horizon. Occasionally, a clump of those twisted, grey plant forms (Twisted Flora) would huddle together, looking like skeletal hands reaching from the ground.
Lostness settled in, a cold weight in his small chest that warred with the constant, aching void left by the Bedel. He didn't know where he was going, only that Vispera's warmth pulled him forward, away from the village, away from the things that moved in the shadows.
Then, he saw it. Or rather, he sensed it first. A disturbance in the silence, a feeling of being watched.
Ahead, where the grey mist seemed to shimmer unnaturally, a figure coalesced. Not a solid form like the Hollow Husks he'd glimpsed, but a collection of shimmering, indistinct particles, like dust motes dancing in a sunbeam that wasn't there. It held a vague, humanoid shape, a head, shoulders, trailing limbs made of shifting grey light. An Echo Stalker.
It moved with disturbing grace, gliding over the ashen ground without a sound. As it drew closer, the air around it seemed to vibrate with a chilling, non-auditory hum. Kael's mind filled with sudden, jarring fragments of memory – not his own. A stranger's face, a snippet of conversation he'd never heard, the feel of unfamiliar fabric. Random, chaotic, unsettling.
The Echo Stalker was feeding him the debris of forgotten lives, overloading his senses, disorienting him. Panic flared, hot and sharp. Running hadn't worked.
Vispera's warmth flared within him, not just guiding now, but urging, pushing towards the light energy coiled tight in his chest. A silent command: Fight. Defend yourself.
Pure, instinctual terror and Vispera's forceful guidance converged. Kael raised a trembling hand towards the approaching Echo Stalker. He didn't think, didn't plan. He simply pushed the warmth, the light, outwards.
A pulse of soft, golden light erupted from his palm, not a blinding flash, but a steady, pushing wave of energy. It washed over the Echo Stalker.
The creature recoiled, its shimmering form wavering. The barrage of foreign memories in Kael's mind ceased abruptly, replaced by a high-pitched, silent shriek that only he seemed to hear, resonating in his bones. The Echo Stalker didn't shatter, but it was repelled, dissipating back into the grey mist, clearly harmed by the raw light.
But the victory came at a price.
As the light faded from his hand, the familiar, terrible emptiness slammed into Kael's mind. This time, it was clearer, more targeted. A specific memory dissolved: the feeling of his father's hand rough against his cheek, the sound of his father's deep laugh. Not just a general loss, but that particular comfort, that specific sound. It was just… gone. Replaced by the aching void.
His small body sagged with exhaustion. His head spun from the mental shock and the draining effect of the Bedel. The physical ache in his chest, the emptiness, was deeper now than after his awakening.
Vispera's warmth pulsed with a different frequency now – concern, sorrow, perhaps even a hint of pain. It felt like a gentle, weary embrace, a silent message: Rest. You used too much.
The Echo Stalker was gone for now, but the silence of The Void remained. Kael stood alone in the grey landscape, trembling, clutching the hollow ache in his chest.
He didn't understand the light, the Bedel, or The Void that took his memories and sent monsters after him. But he had survived. And Vispera's warmth still pulled him forward.
With heavy steps, guided by that constant, gentle warmth, Kael continued his journey through the endless grey. The Bedel was a dull throb in his chest, a constant reminder of the price he paid for survival, for the light he carried.
In the distance, the ashen hills rolled on, featureless save for the occasional skeletal Twisted Flora. Or was that a different shape on the horizon? Something still and unnatural.
The journey had truly begun.