Read The Lost Prince and The Demon King :: Excuse me, what do you mean by sacrifice?

Perry dreamt of an endless stretch of tall grass that swayed gently in the wind.

A mountain loomed in the far away distance, dark and foreboding. At its base, almost as if hugging it, giant stone ruins rose from the ground.

To him, they looked almost like grasping fingers, trying desperately to reach the slate gray clouds roiling in the sky.

Perry squinted, trying to make out any details. He was too far away. He'd have to get closer and—

"You have finally been found."

Perry turned at the sound of the voice. Behind him, a figure clad in yellow, its face completely hidden under a hood, stood with its hands clasped behind its back.

Perry opened his mouth but found that he couldn't speak. A breeze swept through the grass, carrying a sound that almost sounded like words he understood. Or thought he understood. He glanced around and then back at the figure.

"You do not belong here," it said. "Not yet. Here we lay, the forgotten. You are simply lost."

Perry opened his mouth to speak again, but the sky screamed, almost as if it had been cracked open. Perry glanced up at the gray clouds, and when he looked back down. The figure was gone.

Darkness filled the sky and surrounded him, enveloping him completely until Perry lost all sense of himself.

Someone slapped his face.

"Hey! Hey!" Another slap. "Wake up."

"Is he alive?"

"Doesn't matter. We take him if he alive or dead."

"No, no. Master said not dead. Not dead! We need alive!"

"Hey!" The third slap made him wince and flinch away. "Ha! Alive. Take him."

Rough hands seized Perry's arms and legs, lifting him from the ground as if he weighed nothing. His head throbbed, and the world spun as whoever it was carried him. The smell hit him first – unwashed bodies, stale sweat, and something metallic that might have been blood or rusted iron. His stomach lurched and the air left his lungs in a woosh as he was tossed onto a wooden surface.

He landed hard on his side, grunting, splintered boards digging into his palms and arms. Before he could recover, someone grabbed his wrists, fastening heavy iron shackles around them. The metal was cold and rust-rough against his skin.

Perry tried to sit up, his vision swimming into focus. He was in some kind of covered cart, though 'cart' was a fancy name for what was basically a wooden box on wheels. Thin shafts of light filtered in through gaps in the planks, barely illuminating the people huddled around him.

An elbow dug into his side and he shifted to try and make room, but a foot kicked his leg away. The air around him was heavy and claustrophobic. Perry could almost smell the sheer terror coming from the people staring at him with wide eyes.

He blinked repeatedly, trying to make sense of what he could in the confined space. All around him, men and women of different ages, all wearing torn and stained clothes that looked like they'd been stolen from the set of some kind of historical play, sat and stared. Some were sobbing and some had tracks that ran down their faces as they stared off into space. But they all had one thing in common: their faces were gaunt, eyes wide in fear.

"Where..." Perry's voice came out as a croak. He swallowed and tried again. "Where are we?"

A woman across from him just shook her head, while an old man muttered something that sounded like a curse. The wooden box lurched forward, making Perry grab at the nearest surface for balance. His palm came away sticky with something he didn't want to identify. He pulled his hand back and tried to hold on to his own thigh to keep from toppling onto someone.

Perry's gaze bounced from one person to the next, waiting to see if someone would offer up any information. They all stayed silent.

Perry coughed to try and clear the dryness in his throat. He tried to muster up some of what his manager called 'interpersonal exchange' - which was a fancy way of saying that the customer was always right and outright begging was usually preferable to simple politeness. "Please... please, I don't know where I am. What… what is this?"

He raised his hands to indicate their surroundings. The metal links of the shackles around his wrists clinked and made his stomach clench. He breathed slowly, doing his best to push down the cold dread that was making his extremities numb.

The woman across from him just shook her head again. He opened his mouth to repeat the question, to practice some more of his 'interpersonal exchange', but someone cut him off.

"The Northern Road," a young voice whispered. Perry turned to see a boy, somewhere between eight and twelve - he never was any good at telling how old a kid was - huddled in the corner. "They are taking us to the Temple of the Crimson Star."

"Shut your mouth, boy," an elderly woman to Perry's right hissed. "Don't make it worse for us."

"Why?" Perry asked. "What's at this temple-thing?"

The boy's eyes were wide in the dim light. "The sacrifice, of course. They need twelve for the ritual, and you make—"

"Wait, wait. Sorry." Perry raised one index finger and shook his head. He was sure he hadn't heard what he thought he'd heard. "Excuse me, what do you mean by sacrifice?"

"The Crimson Star Lords must feed," the boy continued, ignoring the elderly woman's attempts to shush him. "They take our essence, our life force, and use it to—"

The cart rocked violently, cutting the boy off. The movement slammed Perry's shoulder into the side of the cart, and he let out a pained groan that was quickly swallowed up by surprised gasps and exclamations coming from the others. Perry coughed and blinked as the sudden movement kicked up dust and clouded his vision.

Shouts came from outside, followed by the clash of metal on metal. Voices rose and fell. More shouts. A high-pitched screech was cut off by a wet, gurgling sound. He scrambled to his knees, ignoring the wood that scraped his skin even through his jeans, and pressed his eye to one of the larger cracks in the wood.

What he saw made Perry question his sanity a bit.

Figures in light robes whirled through his limited field of vision, almost like they were flying, their swords and weapons slashing through the air as they fought people dressed in leather armor. But it wasn't just swords or weapons they were using – streams of blue and white light shot out of their fingertips. One blast hit the cart, making the whole structure shake and groan.

The movement made Perry stumble back and land on someone. "Sorry, sorry," he exclaimed as he tried to shift back to his original position and see what was happening outside.

"Fire!" someone screamed. "The cart is on fire!"

Smoke quickly filled the inside of the small space. Perry glanced desperately around, trying to find a way out of this impossible situation.

Heat spread above them as the wooden roof caught on fire. More smoke seeped through the cracks, making Perry's eyes water and his lungs burn. The other prisoners began to panic, pressing against the walls, rattling their chains uselessly.

Perry looked at the door. It was old wood, probably rotted. If he stayed, he'd die - and burning alive wasn't exactly on his bucket list. Would he be able to kick down the door? Probably not. But he'd still try.

"Help me!" He shouted, pulling his legs back. "Kick the door!" He managed to shout before being hit by a coughing fit. The smoke was getting thicker and his time was running out.

"Are you mad?" The elderly woman demanded. "They'll kill us!"

"We're dead if we stay here." Perry kicked the door hard. Pain shot through his feet and up his leg, but he felt the wood give slightly. "We can burn or we can make a run for it. Up to you, lady."

"I'd rather burn," the elderly woman said between coughs, tears streaming down her face. "It's a clean death, better than what they'll do if we run and they catch us."

"Then don't let them catch you!" Perry exclaimed as he kicked the door as hard as he could.

Most people tried to move away from him, but some moved closer.

"I will help you," the kid who'd answered him earlier said and squeezed in next to Perry.

Two more people joined them, the smoke making it hard for Perry to make out their features. They kicked and threw their weight against the door. The wood splintered, then cracked, and finally burst open.

Perry tumbled out into chaos. The evening air was filled with smoke and shouts. Men and women swirled, kicked, and slashed with swords and axes. There were others further back, moving their hands and making intricate gestures that sent bolts of different colors flying through the air.

"I need to stop drinking the coffee at work," Perry muttered, staring at a man who had just conjured a whip of pure light from his left hand. "Someone definitely drugged me."

An explosion close by flung him back. When he looked up, most of his fellow prisoners had already scattered into the forest surrounding them. The cart behind him was fully engulfed in flames now, throwing an orange glow on the already chaotic scene.

Perry scrambled back, as far away from the confusion as he could get, until his back hit a tree. What the hell was he supposed to do now? Was this one of those 'close your eyes and force yourself to wake up' situations? Should he pinch himself? Whatever he did, it needed to happen fast. His throat was dry, and his eyes watered. The smoke seemed to be everywhere. If he didn't do something, he'd either be caught in the crossfire or suffocate.

"This way." A small hand grabbed him by the arm and pulled. "You said not to let them catch us."

It was the boy from the cart. His face was covered in soot and dirt, and his eyes were as wide and terrified as Perry's probably were. But Perry didn't know this boy, couldn't trust him just because they'd briefly shared the same goal of not being cooked alive in a makeshift oven. But what other choice did he have?

Going with the boy and waiting for whatever drugs he'd ingested to make their way out of his system was probably the safest option. Hell, as far as he knew, that wasn't even a boy. It could be his manager or one of his coworkers trying to stop Perry from scaring all the customers as he huddled in a corner and threw ketchup packets at people.

Feeling completely lost, Perry nodded and let himself be dragged away.

He could either stay there and find out exactly why his hallucination wanted him to be sacrificed to whatever a Crimson Star Lord was, or he could let himself be dragged into an unknown forest by an unknown child.

Neither option was particularly appealing.