Section 1:
Freedom, an emotion and also an ideal that is engraved in each and every one of our souls. Even I feel the same; even after gaining power and wealth, this feeling that I truly haven't achieved freedom still remains deep in my soul.
Although I originally didn't feel this strong sense of longing for freedom, instead it was what this world contained that made me truly feel insignificant and trapped. From the boundless nature to the devilish creatures, it made me realize the difficulty in achieving true freedom.
My journey started in an old, rundown place off on the outskirts of this world. It was a simple yet fulfilling life. Friends and family surrounded the village and I had truly felt at peace and at home. Living this life was ordinary but also enjoyable. Although to others it may be considered bland and boring, to me it was the perfect life that I wanted.
But not everyone had the same ideals as me and everyone else. Others wanted to explore outside of this village surrounded by the woods and the unknown. Venturing out there, they hoped for a better life, one that offered more than the one they currently had.
In a way I don't blame them for doing so; they simply want to chase their freedom and explore the unknown. Yet I also can't control this everlasting rage that fills my heart every time the thought of them appears.
Originally nothing out of the ordinary happened in the first couple of days that they had left. Although the work here got a bit more intense, life was still great and the same as always.
Until one day when one of the people that went out came back half alive and unconscious.
When I'm writing this down, it's still hard to recall exactly what had happened in those couple of hours. I remember my family being all curious and people being scared of how to treat his injuries.
But eventually some people who had dealt with injuries before stepped up and helped that man get back up and running. Although I had no clue what other people were thinking about this situation, at least a good majority of us wanted some sort of explanation.
After all, a group of people left the village and for some reason only one of them came back. But when the injured man eventually woke up, that was when all hell broke loose.
Those eyes of his—they weren't something a human should have. Thinking back to those memories, the best I could explain them was a type of pitch blackness that felt suffocating. When this had first happened, everyone looked at each other in surprise and took a step back but that man simply just sat up straight, observing us.
To this day those eyes of his fill me with despair and fear. Something that even the countless dangers I've faced still can't do. But those eyes just stared at us, as if we were some sort of toy being observed for fun. Eventually he started to smile, but where teeth were supposed to be was instead filled with darkness.
Along with that dark smile of his, tears streamed down the side of his face. Not the clear tears that everyone has, but ink-filled tears that brought shivers down my spine. The very next moment, that man let out an ear-piercing shriek that made everyone cover their ears.
For a moment afterwards, nothing seemed to have happened. My family and I stood there terrified while staring blankly at the sight before us. The next moment the entire village erupted in chaos.
The man's body slowly started to melt into this black substance. The best way to describe it was an ink-like substance, slowly fusing with the ground and corrupting everyone around it. Slowly Parts of his body melted as we watched in horror.
Thankfully we were far away from this scene to avoid touching this substance since the people that touched it also became like the man who had melted, their eyes becoming black; they let out agonizing screams as their skin slowly melted off and became one with this horrifying substance.
Everyone quickly backed off with horror in their eyes, with our family doing the same. Although this situation was terrifying beyond belief, the black substance was still moving at an extremely slow pace; everyone that quickly reacted was able to get back safely before the substance corroded them. an extremely
Although this was terrifying, it still wasn't at the level that could wipe out a village the size of ours. Although the casualties were heavy, the village's overall situation was still not that desperate yet.
The part that brought despair to everyone was what happened afterwards. Out of the black substance, a humanlike figure slowly started to take form. This figure didn't seem to be made out of the black substance that was on the ground; rather, the black substance seemed to be created by him. It was like he used the black substance as a medium to travel to where we were.
The figure was nothing like I have ever seen in my life. Not before, and also not now. A human-like figure made out of darkness—that was the best way to describe it. Looking at its body felt like a bottomless void, the embodiment of chaos itself.
Once this figure appeared, time itself felt like it stopped. Nobody in this sight could move an inch; I couldn't even hear the insects croaking while he stood there blankly, looking in our direction.
After what felt like ages had passed, that mysterious figure suddenly disappeared and allowed everyone to move again. But left in his original spot was a mysterious creature, one that was made of the same ink-like material.
This creature looked exactly like a werewolf, a human-shaped creature with wolflike attributes. This werewolf creature stared blankly at our village members before letting out an ear-piercing howl. an ear-piercing
The next moment a ruthless slaughter started. This werewolf was beyond anything that my younger self had ever seen. Its speed was faster than horses, and its strength was that of ten men. Every movement was precise and calculated.
But instead of going on a massive slaughter and killing everyone here, it held back. Even though his killing intent was clear with his bloodlust aura piercing out, he would stop when delivering fatal blows.
It was like someone was controlling him, like someone was toying around with our lives for mere pleasure.
Although my memory during that time was a bit fuzzy, I vaguely remembered my father telling me to grab my brother and run. Trying my hardest to gather my courage as an older brother, I took my brother's hand and ran into the forest, not going anywhere specific but just somewhere far away.
I tried to navigate the dark forest but I could find nothing but trees and bushes all around me. Without any other options, I ran with my brother far into the woods beneath the village and eventually stumbled across an enormous lake.
It had already been hours and hours that we'd gone without any type of water. Looking at this crystal-clear lake that was in front of us, we felt a massive surge of a desire to gulp down this seemingly clean water.
But even though my brother was extremely joyful at this sight and kept on pressuring me to let him drink the water, I decided to be more careful and instead thought of finding a way to boil the water instead.
With skills that I learned from my parents and older siblings, I found two dry branches in th forest and through twisting one branch into another, I eventually created a small ember that I later used to make a fire.
With a small fire going, I found some medium-sized rocks and first placed them onto the fire, letting them get as hot as possible before putting them into the water. I also dug a small hole into the ground and placed some scooped water in there before using a long branch to push the hot rocks inside this man-made puddle.
Although some traces of dirt and other materials still lingered, my parents had always told me that it was better than drinking water that hadn't been treated. Setting up camp near this small lake, I tried to use the skills that I've learned to the best of my abilities.
Although we haven't explored much beyond the village, it didn't mean that we didn't have survival skills. The people in our village were simply not interested enough in exploring the outside; after all, what good could exploring the outside bring to our village?
Most records that our family had always said that only nature and trees lay beyond our village. With beasts and monsters lurking in the forest, most people couldn't be bothered with exploring this village.
Because of that, I had some survival skills that were enough to let me and my brother live out here for a bit longer. Using branches, sticks, mud, and other materials, I made a small shelter that would at least last a couple of days.
Trying my best to prepare for the worst possible scenario, I tried my best to gather food and plants that would be edible based on what I had learned. Surprisingly, there was a lot of edible food out in the vast forest where no person had really explored. Because of that, the amount of resources was plentiful in the forest where there were only two of them.
But even though edible plants and food could be found, it also meant there was an equivalent amount of dangers. Surrounding the edible materials were also ones that could kill with one bite. Surrounding different fruits were often dangerous animals like snakes.
Although avoiding them was quite easy to do, it still took a lot of effort from checking every available spot where they could ambush me and potentially killing me. Along with that, having to take all these resources back to the small camp was extremely exhausting.
While taking occasional breaks from time to time, I tried comforting my young brother, who was only ten years old at that time. Even though I was only a bit older at sixteen years old, I felt like I was responsible for this lovable brother of mine.
Even though I knew the stuff I was telling him was mostly speculations and words really didn't carry any clear answer, it still brought peace of mind to his young mind. Eventually dawn was upon us and my younger brother wanted to go to bed early.
I had assumed that he was exhausted, both physically and mentally, since everything that had happened was way out of what a ten-year-old should handle. Watching my brother fall asleep, I decided to also rest and recover at the camp since going out at this time was extremely dangerous.
Before, my brother was awake and could run away and potentially defend himself but with him sleeping, he was unguarded and extremely vulnerable. I didn't want to risk the chance of a creature finding this place and eventually finding my defenseless brother and cutting his life short.
Sitting down on the ground, differing thoughts flew across my head. Although I had been courageous and brave for the last couple of hours, deep down I was still shaken to my core.
I wanted to put on a strong face for my brother and make sure we get through this alive, but now that everything seemed to calm down, my mind was in the complete opposite.
My mind had nothing but extreme worry about my family. Even though a deep part of me knew that the chances of them being alive were slim, I buried that thought deep into my heart and decided to only focus on the bright side.
I was afraid. I was afraid that if I were to truly think about what had happened, I wouldn't be able to keep pushing myself and instead would fall into a pit of grief and sorrow.
Instead I put my time into thinking about the creature that I had encountered instead. That pitch-black, humanlike figure was still burnt into my mind. Closing my eyes, I could imagine that creepy figure looking down on us like we were ants.
I could still recall when he had disappeared; it was like space itself shattered and the figure simply vanished from existence. No movement, no sounds, nothing was done at all; he just simply vanished.
That thought brought shivers down my spine as I thought of just how strong that creature could be. Not to mention creating those monsters out of thin air, those werewolf figures—it all brought deep fear into my younger self's heart.
Throwing these thoughts away, I decided to get some rest, as tomorrow would also be a hard journey ahead of us. Thankfully, I had found some rocks large enough to use as weapons and felt relatively safe in the spot we chose and with my skills in at least escaping.
Because of that, my body eventually relaxed and I fell into a deep sleep for that night. Not knowing what could happen the very next day.