Of course, thought Eric, of course I jump over all of the guards only to get hit at the end. Some dang half-orc girl with a glaive twisted around and cut his right thigh. He quickly inspected the wound. It looked pretty bad, but for some reason it really didn't hurt, it just started to feel cold. 

"Gah-?!? OW!" Eric shouted back while halfway through the door. The girl removed a bedsheet from her face, and made eye contact with him. She looked surprisingly young for a guard.

"You ever think before you swing that thing?!?!" Questioned Eric angrily. 

She stared at him blankly, finding his question weird. As he kept looking at her, waiting for an answer, she started phasing in and out of focus. Their impromptu staring contest gets cut short by the Elf grabbing Eric's shoulder, yanking him away from the door yelling, "Not the time to talk you moron!"

They began to run, but Eric was slow. The cut on his leg was oozing blood. Even from this slight jog, Eric was sweating profusely, and his leg felt so cold it was burning. Eric's sprint turned into a limping jog, into a quick limp. Eric pushed himself, getting a few one-legged hops in before crumbling, scrambling to get back up. Climbing back up as fast as he could, he managed two more steps before falling back down again, gasping for air. He tried pushing himself back up, but he felt so heavy.

The Elf turned around to see him in this state. 

"Æith!" He cursed, running to Eric's side. The elf said something, but Eric wasn't really paying attention, he was busy trying to catch his breath. A slight jog, and he's sweating hard and can barely breath. 

Wow, thought Eric, I must really be out of shape 

He felt colder and colder, and felt himself getting heavier. Trying once more to push himself up, with one large push he was able to turn over, his back to the ground

His sight was a blur, but he feels like he saw the glaive girl show back up, and started swinging at the elf; the elf dodging the strikes with quite a few close calls. The elf fought back the best he could, punching and kicking when he could, but only came into contact with hard metal armor.

Gods it's cold out. It isn't even winter yet. Eric looked down to see the entire right side of his pants to be wet with blood. 

Oh shit, thought Eric. Am I dying? Huh, that's weird. 

Eric could no longer hold his head up. Everything was so heavy. Heavy and cold. 

I had a good run I guess, stated Eric in his head. 22 isn't the worst age to die at. He just stared at the night sky.

The stars are so pretty tonight. Through the peripherals of his sight, he saw the half-orc girl turn towards him, and run to him. He couldn't really see her that well, but she was pulling something out? He heard her yell, but not the words that were yelled. He turned his attention back to the sky. He saw the tunnel vision kicking in, losing sight and consciousness

I love stars. Then, total darkness.

Thwck....Thwck......THWCK!

Ericson felt something wet hit his cheek, and he finally opened his eyes. His sight was out of focus but started to fix itself after some rapid blinking. The next thing he noticed was the soreness of his right thigh, as well as the pain around his wrists. 

He glanced up to see his arms in manacles, and a chain from each of them to the wall. If he stood, he could move them, but while sitting on the ground the chains pulled his arms up.

"Gods, took you long enough." Came a voice to Eric's left.

Eric turned to look, to see a figure next to him. The elf, but without the hood and cloth covering his facial features. The elf had dirty blonde hair that poofed out in front, reaching about eye level in length if it were going straight down, but it instead projected forward and to the right. He had extravagant, almost purplish eyes and a sharp stubble-less chin. His ears curled back past his head, and his nose was small yet pointed. Rather handsome for a man who was also chained to a prison wall. Or does that add to the handsomeness, Eric jokingly thought to himself.

"Well, good morning to you as well Mr. Shiny Elf." Said Eric, wincing with pain as he tried to stand.

The elf stayed seated on the ground, turning his gaze towards Eric's leg, stating, "Yeah, that's gonna need to heal. She got you good huh?" Asked the elf, semi-rhetorically. 

Eric slumped back down, and turned back towards the elf. "Nah, it's just a graze," said Ericson seriously, "not that bad." 

"Not that bad? You were bleeding out; would've too if it wasn't for that one guard. I think it might've been the captain? She was able to keep you breathing until help came."

"Well, that was nice of her." Said Ericson with a very distracted voice as he began to note their surroundings. Large cell, made for multiple people. Perhaps just a holding cell before moving to an actual prison? 

The elf just watched him for a bit, before breaking the silence with, "I'm Songrin by the way." And started to get to his feet. "We never got to actually introduce ourselves, so yeah, my names Songrin." 

"Ericson." He tried to reach out a hand but it could only make it about three quarters of the way. 

The elf smirked at the movement, stating, "we can shake later," while swinging a dismissive hand towards Eric. Eric was then able to get a good look at Songrin's arms, which were extremely tattooed in the weird language. A mixture of symbols that spiraled around the arm, several spirals actually, about six starting equal distance from each other from the shoulder. The symbol spirals we're all connected by a line that followed symbol to symbol. The markings were not in the same placement on the line. It almost looked like... Music? 

Songrin followed his gaze, "oh yeah, like 'em?" 

"They are... definitely unique. What language is that, Elven?" 

"Nope, guess again." 

Eric paused to think about it, "is it..... Dwarvish?"

"Now why the hell would it be Dwarvish," asked Songrin, obviously just flipping Eric shit. 

"Screw you that's why." Replied Eric with a not so gentle hand gesture. Eric went back way far in his mind. They looked so... so familiar but he couldn't quite place it. He realized he zoned out, snapping back into the moment to see Songrin in a confused smile.

"Did... did you get distracted again?" Asked Songrin, halfway in disbelief.

"What do you mean again?" Asked Eric defensively

"Man, even when we were running I could tell you just get lost in thought." Songrin moved his hand like a jellyfish swimming to emphasize his point. Which is a weird thought on how Ericson recognized it was a jellyfish, because Ericson had never seen a jellyfish before, only read about them in books. Books that were at his parents house. He remembered how much he loved to read, even back then, and how-

"See? You just did it again." Said Songrin, now with a shit-eating grin. However this time, Eric did not answer. 

Books from his parents house! That's where he's seen those markings before! After a moment Eric turned, asking, "hey Songrin? Those tattoos... is that the written language of the arcane?"

Songrin responded by lifting a finger. "Written language of the flow." He corrected. "Good spot though, I haven't met that many people who actually know what these are."

The answer just led to more questions in Eric's mind, such as, "do you mind if I ask why?" 

Songrin leaned his head back against the wall and replied, "give me time, and you'll see." 

"Time? Dude, we're probably getting moved to an actual prison soon, what do you mean we've got time?!?!" 

Songrin just closed his eyes, saying, "be patient, I can tell that's not your specialty but just try." 

"How can you be this calm right now-"

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh" interrupted Songrin. "I'm sleepy, I've spent the entire time in here awake making sure you survived, and spit out basically all of the water in my body to wake you up." 

"Spit out?" Question Eric. "....wait. THATS what woke me up?!?!? You spat on me?!??" Yelled Eric, appalled. 

"Yyyyyyyyup." Replied Songrin. "Goodnight!"