The [Taint] exploded from the tree in the form of a black wind that knocked them back a dozen of meters away. It was more [Taint] than Isyd had ever felt in all his life and the vileness took his breath away. Still, he was the first to get back up. He turned to check on his companions and his eyes first landed on Kazian. As expected, the [Taint] had broken the [Communion of the Minds] and had left the Great Artyst unconscious. Artysta were more sensitive to the [Taint] than anyone else, and at this level of concentration, it was highly possible that Kazian had been killed on the spot. A moan on his right attracted Isyd’s attention.
It was Felyn Moonblessed.
She stood there, shocked and looking down. As Isyd followed her gaze, his face paled. A branch almost as thick as her chest was wide had pierced her through. The branch was still wiggling like the dark tentacle of a monster. Felyn tried to speak but she only spat out a mouthful of blood.
No... Isyd thought. Please God, no... Not again.
Isyd tried to go toward her, to help her, but he turned just in time to see another branch of the tree falling toward him, about to smash him like an insect. He was about to cast a [Spell] when Wolteh appeared out of nowhere and stopped it with his bare hands in a giant CRACK.
“Go! Kill it!” Wolteh roared at him through gritted teeth as he fought to restrain the wiggling branch.
Isyd spun, grabbed the fallen sword of Felyn and charged toward the Queen of the Dusk. Dark tentacles tried to snatch him, but he was too fast and dodged them with ease.
“[Heavenly Needle]!” he shouted. Like for Felyn, the air swirled faster around him and focused on the shining blade. With all the anger and resentment of the past thirty-five years, Isyd thrust forward.
The spear of wind crashed into the corpse of the Queen. Her carapace shattered, spraying bits of it and green blood everywhere. The sword dove until the hilt inside the Obcys. Her gemstone eyes burst with light and Isyd could hear a chilling laugh all around him.
The trunk of the [Tainted] tree split in the middle and Isyd felt himself falling forward inside of it.
He was blinded by a green light and the skin under his bandages was burning him.
Isyd fell and fell and fell for a long, long time.
When he opened his eyes again, he was in a bed.
He must have slept for a full day at least because he felt abnormally groggy. His mind immediately went back to the fight against the Queen of the Dusk. What had happened there?
What about Edmyn? Felyn? Kazian and Wolteh... I must make sure they’re alright!
Isyd threw back his bedcovers and thanked God that he was already dressed. He stopped as he saw Naeht standing there, a confused expression on her ghostly face.
“Naeht! Do you know how the others are doing?”
“Isyd... Something is wrong...” she whispered distractedly.
“Naeht, I don’t have time for—”
Isyd stopped, finally noticing his surroundings. He was in a small room made out of wood. This was weird. After the beginning of the War and all the forests going out in flames, wood had become somewhat a valuable resource. No one would build a house out of it.
“Naeht, where are we?” he asked, his voice suddenly dry.
“I don’t know... Something is wrong, I can feel it...”
Isyd approached the window and what he saw made him fall back on his ass. The sky... It was blue! The Sun was not hidden by ashclouds. The outside was vibrant with colours and people strolling in the streets of the large city. Children were playing outside and horse-pulled cars going around. It was not something Isyd had seen since before the War. Even worse, Isyd had recognized the city at a glance.
I-It can’t be...
He rushed back to his feet, tripped in his haste, then finally reached the door. Slamming it open, he found a newspaper at the doorstep of his room. He took it with a trembling hand and unfolded it then let it fall on the ground after reading the front page.
“Isyd, I’m scared,” Naeht said to his ears. “Please, tell me where we are...”
Isyd turned to her with a blank stare. “We are in Vilriver, the city of my youth.”
Only, Vilriver had been destroyed when the Rifts had opened thirty-five years ago. None of this made sense, and yet...
“We are in Vilriver, years before the War has even started.”
Isyd sat on his bed, eyes closed.
This couldn’t be real.
His first idea was that he was under a powerful [Illusion Hex], but he dismissed the idea quickly enough. Isyd was the only one who could see and hear Naeht and there was no way that whoever cast this [Hex] could have known to include her as well. It could be possible however that his surroundings and his sensations of them were not an outside creation but an inside one and that he was in fact imprisoned in his own mind. After all, Isyd knew that he was weaker than most to that kind of [Spells]…
“Well, there’s an easy way to know for sure…”
He reached down to his boots where a short, sheathed knife was strapped against his leg. He drew out the shiny blade in one hand and put his other hand flat on the bed. No matter how powerful the Illusion [Hex], they were all susceptible to being broken by powerful sensations, specifically the painful ones…
Without an instant of hesitation, Isyd drew a gash on the back of his left hand.
Nothing changed around him.
Drops of his dark blood stained the bedcovers and Isyd let out a sigh of frustration.
“Isyd, why are you hurting yourself?” Naeht asked him, worried.
“I had to make sure we weren’t under a [Spell]…”
“Is it really the past, Isyd?”
Isyd did not answer her. For a brief instant, he considered the idea that everything could have been a dream. The Rifts, the Obcys, the War, the deaths, all the life he remembered living past this instant in this inn of Vilriver, maybe he had dreamed it all and had only just woken up. However, his eyes landed on his new injury and Isyd realized that it wasn’t the case. His blood was darker than any human blood had the right to be. This meant that he had truly lived through all of those events. His left hand touched the bandages that he could feel under his tunic, which covered the right part of his chest and the entirety of his right arm. Those bandages were proof that he still bore the scars of what the Obcys had done to him.
“If we really had rewound time, you wouldn’t be here with me Naeht. And I would be my younger self, not with the scars. It is not that we rewound time so much that my present self was physically transported years before the War even started. For one thing, I remember everything…”
Isyd put his head in his hands.
He remembered his entire life. It had truly happened, he had lived through it. And yet here he was once again in Vilriver.
“Isyd…?” Naeht asked timidly.
“I can’t…I-I can’t l-live through it once again…” His voice was shaking, and the air seemed to stick in his throat, choking him. “Not again… God, please… I-I can’t do it all over again…”
“Isyd…”
“Why me? What kind of sick game is this? Is what I’ve been through not enough? Am I to live through all of it again? They’ll come, I know they will! God, this has to be a joke, right? ‘Tis has to be a jest!”
Laughter shook his entire body. He laughed and laughed and laughed. He laughed more than he could ever remember. He laughed until he thought he would never stop laughing. He laughed at the thought of everything that was to come in the future.
“Isyd…Isyd, why are you crying?”
Shaken by the hiccups, Isyd did not even bother to wipe the streams of tears on his face. Isyd did not know how long he spent laughing and crying at the same time. When it finally stops, he realized that he was thinking clearer. Naeht was standing in front of him, a frown of worry on her beautiful face. Isyd wished he could reach for her and pat her head to reassure her, but she was intangible even for him.
“I’m fine, Naeht,” Isyd told her as he got up from the bed. “I just needed this moment to take it in. It’s going to be alright.”
“Is it?”
Promise me, Isyd… you must save them… Promise me… A woman’s voice, tired and pleading.
“Yes, I promise.”
Isyd gave her a wide smile, then took a long look at the room they were in. “We were brought back in time, Naeht. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but the fact of the matter is that we’re here now in Vilriver, years before the Rifts opened. I assume that it will happen this time as well, but this time we will be prepared. I am here with the knowledge of my previous life, and I swear that I will not let things repeat themselves. We have a few years ahead of us and we will use them to find a way to prevent the War to happen in the first place. I will save this world, Naeht. No matter the cost.”
Naeht took on a pensive look. She flew one way then the other, to finally come back around in front of him.
“It is going to be difficult, I think. Do you have an idea on how we go about saving the world in the first place, Isyd?”
“Yeah. First, we need to go to school!”
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