It's been a while since I was escorted into my dorm room. Turns out the building to the left side of the entrance, perched atop a different hill entirely was the dorms. The room I have been given for now is temporary, I had heard someone say. The real rooms, where every cadet will be spending rest eight years of their life in here would be given after the sorting. The sorting into sanctums. While waiting, I had read on the stele that there are four sanctums, and each sanctums contain eight detachments. I think that these detachments must be accordingly the years of the cadet, that makes the most sense to me but they do what they do.

  This room is very small, the four walls together making up a space that would barely contain basic furniture, besides it only has a bed. And the common washroom is supposed to down the hall after at least four turns. It would be an understatement to say that I am no less in a dungeon. I hope the cadets get their own bathing room and washroom once they are escorted into their actual rooms. I miss my room, I miss the hall of raven swan.

  I tried to find the blue haired girl while waiting, and then I got to know that she is the little sister of a sanctum leader, and if i am to kill her, it will most definately, without objection, make my life hell before it even starts. Which is why I am going to do it, either accidently, which is during sparring classes. Or I will do it after her brother graduates. Either way, that bitch isn't passing without getting some bones broken.

  My mind wanders about today's events, and the dragon. It was a close call, I would have died again but thanks to myself for saving myself. Should I just read all the rules of the constitution to pass the time? But that would be boring. I am choosing to keep myself less knowing for now, so that I can genuinly say I didn't know the rules if I happen to break any of them. Although I know I won't break any of them, and even if I do I will be able to not let anyone find out.

  There is something sticking out of bag and I remember that it is my grandfather's journal. Right, I had completely forgotten about it in the last two months due to rigorous training and start up lectures on the unusual things I might find in here. At first I was totally dumbstruck because the things Kyard told me about this war academy. The second thing that got me was that magic here really exists. It's not like I don't know anything about magic, it's just that what he told me about those was very different from what I have heard all my life.

  In this realm, the concept of magic is just about reading some holy incantations, not caring whether they work or not. Some people believe they do, and some don't. Personally for me I never gave it much thought because it made no sense. How can just some made up incantation ruin someone's entire life? Half the time the spells themselves sound like some children's rhyme turned gothic. Although I can't say that I wouldn't have enjoyed performing black magic if it was actually real.

  I would have but I couldn't as the term "black magic" is a big taboo in the common society. Some parts of the folklore has stated that black magic was one of the big reasons why the gods left the ground. And to bring the gods back black magic has to be finished by its roots, which runs really deep. I didn't know about these things that religious people do, only got to know them through my classmates...when they rarely considered talking to me. Apparently the mysts bloodline is also accused of secretly calling the devils from hell to provide them more and more wealth. I don't think it's real but if is were I wouldn't be surprised.

  Over these past two months, the population of the entire realm have decreased so rapidly that the economical development is at its worse. The industries aren't working as they used to, even small workshops are rarely seen while walking down The streets, if anyone is even foolish enough to walk alone. The path is painted with the blood of the civilians, and the air heavy with the smell of metal. There is not much resources left for the poor to survive, and the rich are the only ones still having the luxury to live decently and under some safety.

  The creatures mostly start their hunting at night, and wipe off an entire town overnight. This apocalypse had led the war sovereigns and high commanders from different continent come together, otherwise they have always hated each other. The peace treaty that had been signed between them didn't last long when the Helclairs executed an entire community of xha'thir's natives.

  I have just finished up on writing the letter back to my parents that I survived the climbing. I didn't mention the dragon because the last thing I want them is to be worried sick about me even though I myself have no idea what I am even doing at this point.

  But I can't stop thinking about my brother, and the goodbye we had. I promised him that I will come back, that I will protect him no matter what it takes. I have endured hell for him, and I will continue to. But will I survive long enough for that?

  No. I must not think about this,

  I will not only survive but become strong enough so no one ever look down upon me again.

  The tattoo on my back is yet another mystery I have to solve. It all happened after that eclipse two months ago. I asked Kyard about it but he said that he needs to think what this could probably be. I didn't ask him about it again after.

  I pick myself up from the edge of the old mattress and walk up to my bag, pulling out the journal. My grandfather had hidden his journal somewhere no one could find it, but I knew where it was all along. How hard I had to play pretend that I didn't.

  I walk back to the mattress and sit cross legged on it. Opening the diary, I see a piece of parchment tugged between the first two pages. I carefully unfold the parchment. It is a very frail material, and will easily tear up if not handled carefully. I have done this more times than I care to count. How hard I had to play pretend that I haven't.

  The parchment is a letter. At bottom there is my grandfather's name written, although I don't know who he was going to send it to because the name supposed to be written on top is impossible to read. It is splashed with ink, although it looks like it was done more with an intention rather than an accident.

  When it comes to my grandfather, it is impossible to figure out his true intentions. I have tried, countless of times to find out what he actually wants me. What he intends to turn me into through all those tapestry of agony he makes me go through. He is dead now...And I can't be more glad.

  When I start reading the letter, it slowly becomes quite clear that I was never meant to be born. At least not in this bloodline.

  It is getting closer, and she isn't dead yet. My health is getting worse and worse by each day and the dark is spreading around the world. It's only a matter of time until the order of the high council comes which I am sure it will. My son wouldn't want his precious daughter to step into that hell, but he would have no choice. The eclipse is closer, you have to kill her before-

  I stare at the letter. It politely shows that he was planning to kill me.

  Not planning

  Desperate.

  I am not even surprised by the fact but what I am curious about right now, is what does the eclipse has to do with anything. Of course he knew about the eclipse. He had his personal astral cartographer for goodness sake. But what does this eclipse specifies? What was it that was supposed to happen before which I needed to be killed? He knew when he was going to die. The old man was counting his own breaths before going to hell.

  Who did he want to send this letter to? ....someone to kill me? His advisor? Highly doubt so. The eclipse is closer, you have to kill her before-

  Kill me before what, grandfather?

  I turn the page, only to find a rune of dark drawn upon the page. The runes I have seen carved on the walls of the temple of Y'mer. I have only passed by them once in my lifetime, and that too was because I had gotten forced to go there because I had not remembered the folklore word by word. Just like my grandfather had told me to.

  But this rune is slightly different, it has more shapes and detailed symbols of the flame of Zaekyr.

  On the next page there is yet another picture or the eclipse drawn with such precision that has me wondering how long it must have took to draw. Why would he waste such important time of his life drawing these things other than torturing me mentally? They must have a meaning. Everything has a meaning, I learned it the hard way.

  The eclipse is perfectly structured with timelines already assumed at the side of the page. I am not sure whether they had been right or not when the eclipse really happened. But the date written in right. The duration, I suppose, is also right. At the bottom left, scribbled furious is written, "Qelmyr's mark"

  Who or rather what is Qelmyr?

  I turn the page, and for once there isn't any diagram of things I don't understand. It is a page full of words. Finally something I can understand.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  It had started when the great war had raged between the sane and the dark who were filled to the brim with corruption and the magic of agony. In the era of gods, no such thing was ever supposed to happen.

  It had happened suddenly, without any warning, without any battle cry. Corruption was not supposed to exist then, the gods didn't know how something so unseen and unfamiliar can rise up to the level enough to challenge them.

  Something had happened. Someone had betrayed the gods that they didn't even know until the war was over. That being was the reason why the greater gods had to leave the land and never come back. That being was the reason why corruption had ever arose. That being was powerful.

  Although the war was won by the sane, corruption never left. It became a nightmare everyone used to fear and hope it never comes back again in the form of such devastation. But it will, the day the shadow of that being returns, the dark will be much stronger than ever, and it will end up in blood of both the gods and the vessels.

  I must have read this page at least three times, because I cannot believe that everything written in folklore was wrong. The gods left the ground, yes, but they left the ground because of a war? A war between the sane and the dark? So this is the other side of the mythology no one's ever entitled to?

  It is unbelievable for many, and even for me if talking about the first two paragraphs. But it says that the dark will return. And it already has. What is happening right now, and from what It are has told me, the situation alligns with the one described on the page too neatly. How did my grandfather knew about this? Does everyone already knows and not just me because my family isn't one for the divine?

  No, that is impossible. If it were true it wouldn't be hidden. If it were mentioned in the holy scrolls then no one would have been surprised of the collapse. If it were true, the religious community of the south-west of xha'thir would have never shut up about it. Would have never believed in peace.

  I stare at the page for a good minute before gently tearing it off the journal and shoving it at the back pocket of my bag.

  Too much knowledge to process in one night. I turn around to look outside the tiny window, the only way of ventilation this room has to offer. Outside, I can see the building of the dorms, the real ones. Four towers resembling the four sanctums. Some of the lights are on in some of the rooms whereas some windows are dark. The place where the second years and all the way to the eight years sleep. Also the first years but only after the sorting

  I scoot closer to the window and force my head to look at the right. The bastion of the war academy. It is so beautiful and big, it is like living in a castle in a gothic literature. It is also illuminated by the lights.

  I wonder what is to come tomorrow but right now I am tired. The pain at the side of my ribs has lowered down after the warden in the infirmary wing gave me a pill and washed my injuries properly. I also got a new pair of shirt because mine was scorched down. The only thing the warden asked me was how I survived from Dragon fire. I told her that it's a long story and left.

  I lay on the bed, yawning. My grandfather had unsurprisingly planned to kill me. The folklore is redacted,...there is something wrong with my family history...I am not going to die.

  My eye lids shut down and I spiral deep into sleep.

  ~☆~

  The ground beneath my feet is wet. And the atmosphere is cold. My eyes open and I find myself in a dark room. Nothing can be seen, absolutely nothing. I can move my legs, they are attached to where I stand. I can't even move my arms.

  My eyes are wide trying to see something in nothingness. I can smell something very close to the tides of the salty sea. But the smell is slightly different from that. There is....So a thing else, something that settles inside my ribs and slowly makes it harder to breathe properly.

  There is no wind. Something else is making me have goosebumps. I look down where my feet is planted. The feeling of something wet and cold moving around it. It's like standing on the seashore as the ocean gently caresses your skin and make you forget that pain ever existed. It is comforting, it is excruciating.

  Am I standing on a seashore? I hope I am. If it is a dream, this dream is nice.

  I close my eyes, losing myself in the feeling of having nothing to fear, nothing to question.

  But when I open my eyes, the surrounding has changed. Everything is red now, and now I can see where I am standing. I am not standing on a seashore, it isn't the ocean caressing my skin.

  Blood.

  I am standing on the unending flow of blood.

  A scream threatens to leave me but something is clogging my throat from speaking anything. It feels like something has wrapped itself so tightly around my wind pipe just to make me struggle to breathe but not enough to kill me. My head is suddenly hurting so bad I have to squint in pain.

  I try to move my legs again. Nothing happens. Forcing my head upwards, I finally set my visions on something I never should have. Endless bodies hanging down from the ceiling, endless. I can't see the end of them. They are dripping with black and red blood, their eyeballs dark and leaving trails of black tears down their faces. Their insides completely ruined by something that can only be described as the shape of the roots now dark enough to absorb any light that dares fall upon it.

  My feet is now working, thank the gods. Except for now all the lesser gods are hanging by a golden rope.

  I will vomit, this is a nightmare.

  As I stumble back, my feet nudge at a rigid body. I stop dead in my tracks, and slowly turn around and what I see makes me scream so loudly I start couging blood.

  Bodies again, but this time it's my parents.....And my brother...lying dead in the most brutal way ever.

  No. No. No. No. No.

  This isn't true, this isn't true, this isn't true.

  There is something in my right hand. Turning my head down, towards where my right hand is shaking at my side, the only thing I see is a distorted sight of my hand, and something sharp between my fingers.

  Someone laughs. It is unmistakably the sound of maniac laughing echoing from the distance.

  "You killed them all Ariyene. All of them, you didn't even spare the people you vowed to burn the world for."

  I know this voice, I am very familiar. I hear it everyday bit right now I can't remember whose voice it is. My vision spirals and I slam both my plans on either of my head as if I can anchor it to be steady.

  I didn't

  It is all I can tell myself. It is all I keep telling myself before I feel a plan wrap around my ankle. I don't even have the time to look down before the ground vanishes and I am sinking and drowning and getting dragged down the ocean of blood. My lungs fill with a shadow and I feel it crawl up and up until it speeches my eyes and I am able to see nothing. Again.

  ~☆~

  I am pulling my body up before I am fully awake just to catch my breath again. I can breathe. I can breathe. I am not drowning. There is no blood, there is no dead body.

  I am back in my room, and on the shitty mattress. Gods I can't love it more. I was just having a dream. A horrible dream. Again.

  I am covered in sweat from head to toe. The rhythm of my breaths faster. I stare at nothing for a minute straight before sticking my head out of the small window and retching everything I had eaten last night.

  When I am done, I collapse on my bed again. Grabbing the water bottle and forcing the liquid down my throat. I feel like the nerves of my temple will burst any second now.

  My breathing steadies, my lungs once again experiencing the privilege of functioning properly. I swear to the flame of the ethereal Phoenix I am going to go insane someday if I already haven't.

  A knock.

  A very deliberate and slow knock on the door to my my room.

  I have my attention and consciousness back. Someone is knocking on my door. I should stand up and open it. But perhaps I am waiting for another knock to make myself sure.

  Again.

  There it is.

  I swing my leg off the bed but trip on something and fall down with a long streak of profanity. I have temporarily lost my ability to walk like a normal human.

  Stumbling, I finally reach the door. I palm the handle and sigh exactly once before I turn it about and let it open.

  Tanned skin met red towers over me. Tanned skin, blue hair. It is the girl. But it is weird though, her feet just touching the floor. I look up. She is hanging down from the ceiling, eyeballs scratched out, mouth filled with spiders and skin carved to the bone.

  "Thank me later when we meet, Ari."

  Is what carved on her flesh.