Aden and Abel sat on the quiet wooden stairs overlooking the backyard. Overlooking the guarding woods around them in that forest. Aden remembered, this was also the last place where they both talked before Aden received his name and his calling. Abel gestured towards the white dog, sleeping silently on the grass floor. “How long has he been sleeping?”  Abel asked.“He slept the whole trip,” Aden said. Tired from all the recent mess.Abel nodded and chapped his lips. “Must’ve been tired,” he replied.Aden continued to look on, staring at it intently through pondering eyes. “It stopped time…” he said.“What?” Abel said.“The dog, man. It… stopped time,” Aden replied. “When we were escaping. I mean, I don’t even think it’s just a dog at all…”Abel squinted his eyes at him, smirking. He nodded subtly, then stared back a

“Ailan,” whispers seized Aden from an unknown dimension. As if the voices had breached some sort of barrier and has now filled his ears with hisses and sneers. “Ailan,” and other words he could not recognize anymore; it just kept going. His eyes had not recovered from the flash. But he knew anyway, that he wasn’t there with Agapito and the others anymore. This was one of those… memories.The air around him had begun to change. And the voices drew closer. Whispers… of women. Or just one. Repeating his name. Ailan. The bright flash from the torch had now turned into a darker shade. Now a burning orange, as his vision dazed from the watching himself be sucked in to another… vision.Then there he was… in another space and time. In another state. He felt like the wind. Just passing through the plane invisibly, but seeing all. Aden saw—and was now witnessing—some sort of ritual. A far away place, he knew.

The forest was filled with noises within the shrubberies. Gasping, wheezing, looking for air as they squeezed through the forest darkness—trying to find their long-lost target. “Come on!” Aden shouted. “Almost there!” Almost where? He had only heard the rat’s noises but he still couldn’t pinpoint how far… or how close.More sounds emanated from the forest as Aden watched the tall plants and branches fall apart beneath him with his ritual blade. They had hit it. Again. With an arrow. And with enough desire to just end the night and the hunt, Aden and the others were chasing it down.The dog relied on its instinct, on its senses. The beast’s blood was putrid enough for the hound to detect it and stream it with his noise. Between those gaps for air, and those wincing from the shrubberies, another voice like thunder disseminated in the air. Aden wasn’t sure if the others heard it, too. But it was there, for him.

Maria looked over the sunset that shined thoroughly on the village’s overlooking bluff. Aden—Ailan—didn’t understand, she thought. To the man beside him, this was the second or third time they met here on the bluff. To her, this was one of many. With Ailan. She let the morning breeze pass through her for a second, as she thought of what to say. It was approaching noon. Pretty soon, Aden—once again—would need to go. She felt like she was talking to a different person right now. And she was begging, in her heart, for a way to carve Ailan Dei Kastrel out of him. How she felt about him… was still there. And Ailan hadn’t died… but the memories. She hoped, that at some point while they were in that forest: Aden remembered the same memories as her. She looked to him, smirking—squinting and turning away from the sunlight. Maria crossed her arms, “Why delay?” she asked. It was the only words that came to her mind. It had been hours since Aden came back from the hunt, and they

The forest. The forest of the ancient, resurrected dragon, had remained at peace, still. The anciency intact and the silence and the solemness remained. The clouds were still gray, but it had still perfectly completed the green under. The cave had remained with its purpose. To keep Aden safe, while everything ravaged on. A fight he did not even know the scale of. A war to end all things—or to fix it.Aden had almost curled up so hard that he would almost hit his head on the ground. He continued to grit his teeth and close his eyes in constant pain. Unimaginable pain. It wasn’t in his body. It was sort of... mental. His soul was reshaping. Purposely burning to become better. It was how he explained it. It was how the void had taught him to explain it.Everything was coming back to him. He in no sense a god, but he felt like he was slowly learning how to be one—with all the memories, knowledges, and power that was coming back to him. Aden, it seemed, wa