Chapter XI: And So It Begins (1-2) [Double Chapter]

Previously 

There had only been a small group of townsmen left by the time it was his sister’s turn but enough people started murmuring in excitement at the symbol of talent and pride of their town. Willow’s mother had already started crying even though Elm hadn’t received her Emblem yet. 

Elm conversed with the old priest before she knelt and prayed. The old man placed his left hand above her golden hair and chanted. Willow watched with excitement at the birth of a Hero - no, he looked onwards to witness the birth of a star.

And was her rebirth grandiose.

If a simple light shone on the other children when they received their emblems, Elm received a whole spotlight on her. The priest had almost been blown apart by the shock. Heavenly bells chimed as if someone had just won the lucky draw as motes of golden light thrifted alongside Elm. Two, ethereal cherubs appeared before her, both of them holding a wreath of silver as they gently lowered it onto Elm’s head. 

“What’s going on?!” 

“Are those angels?!”

“Oh, great Hum.”

Willow couldn’t tear his eyes from the scene as this was something that wasn’t in the game due to the devs being lazy. It was marvelous, so to speak, with all the collective shock from the townsmen and the absolute stunned look on his mother’s face. 

Soon enough, the light and music died down. Elm raised herself, helping the poor old priest who looked absolutely terrified as well. He could see the many thoughts running through Father John’s face and knew that he must be feeling absolutely elated at being the one to find the saviour of the old texts, the Celestial Hero that would save the world.

Elm had a brief look of amusement when she stared at the cool, new tattoo imprinted on her right hand before turning to look at her older brother and waved. Willow smiled wryly as he knew the girl didn’t even know how important this revelation was.

And, it appears that the old priest was about to teach her. Father John called upon one of the guards, relaying a message towards him before speaking with Elm. After a while, Elm nodded and walked away with the guard leading her out of the church- their mother now looking more worried than shocked.

“Er, A mishap occurred during the Awakening. The girl will be relocated for a retrial,” Father John explained, lying so as to not cause a commotion. Willow gave him props since he at least knew basic decency. . .and the consequences if he were to spill the beans. 

Although, none of the people really looked convinced but as simple townsmen, they learned to ignore what they didn’t understand. His mother wasn’t one of them. But, she did understand the priest’s intentions and trusted him for now -- opting to focus on her other child.

Being the only one left, Willow was soon called up to the stage. Willow took a deep breath and suddenly, the world felt a lot more difficult to understand. Is this how people felt when they were forced to step into the world of adults?

He got onto the stage where he was met with the warm smile of the old priest and one of his old friends around the town.

“Ho-ho, you’ve grown yet again, child,” Father John smiled with pride. “It felt like only  yesterday when your little hands were still tugging on my beard.”

Willow giggled. “I don’t remember you ever having a beard, old priest.”

“Hmph. I see you’ve grown to become like your mother,” Father John said. “Feisty and strong.”

“And my sister?” Willow asked, a somewhat worried expression on his face. Father John sighed tiredly as he knew what the boy really wanted to ask. “She is - will be in good hands. Her circumstances have guaranteed her so. You should be proud. You will be when she tells you why. That is all I can say for now.”

“I see,” Willow said. “If the old man says so.”

The priest laughed heartily. “Hoh. I’m not so old yet, little child.”

The both of them shared a good laugh. They then decided to proceed onwards with the Awakening. Willow knelt on the carpeted floor before Father John placed his hand above her head, making his muscles tense up. 

“Relax, child,” Father John guided him. “ Feel.” He chanted in an unknown language before Willow felt a familiar warmth course through his being. 

“Imagine the most vivid thing only you can think of,” He said. “I know you can feel it. Your emblem is what you are -- what you will become. The crystallization of your soul.”

Willow groaned. It was dark. It was so, so dark. But it wasn’t cold. There was a certain warmth that assured that he wouldn’t freeze in this lonely place. A constant wave-like flow of warmth crashed against his soul before flowing backwards. It was calling him to somewhere, no -- it wasn’t just anywhere, he knew exactly where he was going.

For the first time in his dark, dark world, he could see a color. His color. If it didn’t sound weird, he could feel and smell the color as well - a vibrant pink with a light red hue, the colors that most conceptualized his soul. It was youth. It was love. It was lust. It was so beautiful. The ultimate romance and tragedy was what his color stood for, for what he represented.

The color seemed to latch onto him and drag him to the innermost chamber of his soul. At this point, no thoughts crossed his mind for he is the thought itself. Soon, he felt the ground -- a bed of warm flowers, smelt the air -- fresh and beautiful, tasted the dewy drops of the morning sun and finally, he opened his eyes to see that it wasn’t so dark anymore.

Two nymph-like women played amongst a little land of flowers -- only as big as his old room floated in the middle of darkness that stretched as far as his eyes could see. One of them had skin as fair as snow, with eyes like the sky and hair like gold. The other was as dark as the night, eyes of red and hair that shone like the moon. A golden tree, lush with scarlet apples stood tall but lonely in the center of the land, overseeing the nymphs that held each other’s hands and danced happily.

How they could be so happy despite there being only the two of them didn’t make sense to him. No, there weren't just two of them. 

He blinked. Suddenly, a third woman appeared, dancing with the two. He blinked again. A fourth woman appeared. The process continued on until the ninth woman danced with the rest before they stopped and turned to look at him.

Willow was wary when their curious eyes laid on his form - curious as to why a man, as feminine as he may be - was here, in a garden of women. He was a little worried as to what they were planning to do with him. The first woman made the initial move as Willow tensed, preparing for a strike. 

But it never came. Instead, he saw that she was holding out her hands, breaking the circle of hands she had formed with the other dancing women.

Usually, he would never accept such a strange invitation but this time, just this time, he felt that he could trust them as they did him. They felt so familiar, so close -- perhaps even closer than his own mother. Why was this so? Why was he so happy?

Willow grabbed onto her hands and immediately, the woman smiled acceptingly before pulling him inside to dance with the rest of them. The rest of him.

Unfortunately, Willow wasn’t able to dance in happiness as he suddenly felt like a harness had hooked onto him, yanking him back to safety.  It all happened so quick as the scenery quickly changed from the rest of the sisters waving goodbye at him to being back inside the lonely darkness before he suddenly felt suffocated, the warmth long gone as an uncontrollable shiver hit him.

He felt like he was deep inside space under absolute zero while his throat tried to withstand the crushing pressure. He couldn’t tell if his vision was beginning to faint due to the darkness around him but he could tell he was growing faint. And faint would he, if he had stayed even just another second in there. He felt himself passing through the surface of water and finally, he could breathe.

“Hmnf!” Willow gasped harshly, desperate for air. He started to cough as his lungs burned. His vision wobbled and rocked. Everything hurt and smelt like burnt air. He could barely open his eyes from how they stung like someone had poured a bucket of salt over them. His ears were in the worst condition, sounds fading in and out of existence. 

“Are yham kah?” Something unintelligible sounded on top of him, shaking him as if to wake him up.

He grimaced, shaking his head as he tried to speak but felt dehydrated so a couple of gurgles was all that came out of his mouth. “Whargh?”

The voice was silent for a moment. “Fhorgibe mhe.” 

Willow was still feeling pain all over and tried to open his eyes again but something was still inside them. He tried getting up before he felt a cool breeze and suddenly, someone had poured a bucket of water over his face. “Whargh tnha?!”

Luckily, the water did the trick as it washed away whatever curse had been placed onto him as he immediately jumped forward, opening his eyes. Willow’s face and some parts of his shirt had been wet but he didn’t mind it and turned to finally get a good look at his surroundings. 

The first thing he noticed was that there was a man kneeling in front of him. A town guard as identified by the plated armor and insignia of the town on his right shoulder. He carried a sheathed sword on his hip and a relieved look on his face when he saw that Willow was alive as if he was some sort of soldier dispensed to search for survivors.

‘Oh no.’ Willow felt his heart drop as he saw that the event had started. In his immediate surroundings were the broken, roof-less remains of what had been an old church -- only rubble and decimated walls were left, showing him the chaos his beloved town had fallen into. 

It looked far, far worse than what some mere game could portray. 

Fire. The town looked as if a picture out of hell -- where every house, every home had been lit up in flames to the point the sky had been blanketed in ash, making Willow unable to tell how long he was out of it for. As he squinted his eyes, he saw that beings of satanic descent with crimson red pitchforks stood arrogantly in the sky, occasionally flying down to either prey on the humans or to breathe fire onto their homes. 

Fear. Once Willow realized who the overpowering scent of iron and burnt beef belonged to, his stomach dropped. Screams of terror and existential fear terrorized the town as a different festival was beginning to play out under their evil patrons. 

The Demon Wave had started. The tragedy after the Awakening had finally begun. 

Willow couldn’t believe his eyes. He felt like throwing up when he saw a man being carried up, a demon on each of his limbs as he thrashed and screamed before they literally split him apart. A sting on his right hand stopped him from literally spilling his guts. He looked at his hand. The Emblem Of the Maiden. It looked exactly the same as it did in the game, the duality of his emblem being represented by two flowers - a rose and a lily, the rose’s barbed stalk crossing the lily’s pure one. 

“Gir- Girl. Girl!” 

Willow snapped out of his thoughts and screamed in surprise. “Yes?!”

“Shush! Lay down your voice. Do you want to kill us?!!” The guard hissed, calling the boy over to his hiding spot behind a run-down bench of the church.

Willow crawled beside him. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. He had a plan for this exact situation but just to be sure, he needed more information on the current situation.

“Sorry,” Willow apologised first. “I just woke up to this. What’s going on?”

He gave a scrutinizing look at me before his eyes landed on my emblem. “Sigh, I didn’t think they’d leave a child behind but then, who’d expect fucking demons to launch an attack? You were probably left behind in the escape.”

Willow tilted his head. The guard shook his head. “Rowan. The second-in-command.”

“Willow. I would say it’s nice to meet you but,” Willow smiled wryly. 

Rowan chuckled. “You’ve got balls to be making jokes in this situation, girl.”

A twitch formed on Willow’s head. “I’m a boy. But that’s not really important right now. Can you tell me exactly what happened when I was out cold?” He needed to cross-check between the game’s event description with what was currently happening.

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