The flames of memories flickered between them like candles in a forgotten temple, each flare peeling back a layer of the darkness that had shrouded Arion's past for years. The gentle waves of the Lake of the Weeping Moon whispered ancient hymns, as if accompanying the story's narration with words of light.
Evelyn sat like a priestess listening to the confessions of a tormented soul, while Arion delved into the depths of his memory to extract treasures of pain and hope. The air was heavy with the scent of bygone days, and the night stars were witnesses to a story never told before.
The scene changes once more... We return to the Lake of the Weeping Moon where Arion and Evelyn are sitting, but this time with a faint smile displacing some of the darkness from Arion's face.
"I didn't know how to handle all that energy..." Arion said, shaking his head with a smile. "Jacob was like an unending storm. I tried to act indifferent, but in reality..."
He paused for a moment, his eyes gleaming with memories of that day. "That was the first real feeling of belonging. For the first time, I wasn't that strange, outcast child. I was just a child playing with my friend."
Evelyn smiled in turn. "It seems Jacob taught you how to be a child."
"Yes..." whispered Arion, his voice carrying a note of aching nostalgia. "In those few days before our trip to his village, I learned more than I had in my entire previous life. I learned how to laugh, how to play, how to share... how to be human."
In the Palace of Kadiant, Alister suddenly stopped tapping his fingers. His red eyes widened as if he were seeing something beyond the palace walls. "He finally found a match for himself... someone who treated him like a human, not a tool for fear or an outlet for anger."
Shadows covered Marcus's face, and his tone became ominous. "This is... where things take a turn for the worse."
The sun was setting over the lake shore near Jacob's village. Arion and Jacob were playing with the other children, their joyous shouts filling the air.
"The loser will carry the other back to the village!" Jacob shouted enthusiastically, running towards the water.
But after a few steps, Arion suddenly stopped. A strange look of an unjustified deep rooted fear appeared on his face. His eyes turned towards the sky as if he saw something the others didn't.
"Hahahaha! Why are you standing like that?" Jacob laughed, emerging from the water after jumping in.
But Arion didn't look at him. Only one word escaped his trembling lips: "The storm."
"What storm?" Jacob looked up at the slightly cloudy sky, but there was no sign of rain.
And suddenly... Arion's eyes widened, and he covered his ears, screaming. A horrifying shriek pierced the calm air.
With his scream, the rumble of thunder began to roar in the distance. The sky suddenly tore open, and rain started pouring down heavily. This wasn't just an ordinary storm; it was a living entity punishing Arion for trying to be a normal child.
Arion fell to the ground, writhing in pain, while the children ran towards the village to hide. Blood began to flow from Arion's eyes, nose, ears, and mouth - not ordinary human blood, but a contaminated ethereal fluid reacting with nature's wrath.
"No... no!" cried eight-year-old Jacob, running towards his friend.
Inside young Jacob, another battle raged. Fear screamed in his ear: 'Leave him! You'll die!' But something stronger - that unspoken promise between friends - pushed him forward.
He lifted Arion with difficulty, but after just a few steps, Jacob stumbled, twisting his ankle, and they both fell onto the muddy ground. Arion's head hit a rock, and he lost consciousness.
With each new stumble, Jacob's body paid the price. His collarbone broke in the second fall, and in the third, his knee exploded on a sharp rock. As for Arion, it seemed as if an evil energy was erupting from within him - his skin cracking like burnt paper, his veins swelling with a sinister black color.
Jacob didn't give up. He lifted his friend again and ran despite the excruciating pain. Blood wasn't just flowing; it was gushing from their wounds like poisoned springs. With every step on the muddy ground left behind a footprint of torn flesh and broken bones.
Lightning lit the sky in strange colors - crimson, black, blue - a surreal scene accompanied by the sound of Jacob's broken cries.
"Someone help us! Please! Help Arion!"
But the sound of the angry storm drowned out his voice. Jacob's clothes were soaked with blood from several places, his left foot dangling unnaturally.
Finally, he saw a distant light and heard a voice shouting: "Jacob! Arion! Where are you?"
Jacob rushed towards the voice like a drowning man grasping for a final straw. His dislocated foot dragged behind him like a hangman's noose, but his will was stronger than all the broken bones. When he fell for the last time, unable to get up, he crawled on his exposed elbows, dragging Arion behind him.
It was the village chief... he was searching for them.
When he reached them, Jacob's condition was horrifying. The scene the village chief witnessed wasn't just two injured children; it was a canvas of cosmic chaos. His eyes reflected the horror of what he saw.
"Jacob! What happened?" shouted the Chief.
Jacob looked at him, his sunken eyes blurred with the winds of death, and opened his mouth with difficulty: "Save... Arion..."
When Jacob whispered these words, it wasn't just a request; it was a testament that would echo in the souls of all who witnessed this tragedy. Then he fell unconscious, leaving the village chief alone with two shattered children and a merciless storm.
In the Palace of Kadiant, Alister had risen from his throne. His shadow on the wall writhed as if it were suffering with the boys in that storm.
"And how did they survive?" he asked in a strange voice, different from his usual arrogant tone.
Marcus shook his head, his eyes reflecting a weight of painful memories. "This... was only the beginning."
Jacob awoke suddenly as if someone had poured cold water on his face. Pain was the first thing to greet him - a multi-headed pain emanating from every part of his body. He tried to sit up, but two gentle hands stopped him.
"Rest, my boy, three days have passed..." the doctor said in a calm voice.
Three days? The words rang in Jacob's head like an alarm bell. "Arion! Where is Arion?" he whispered in a broken voice.
The doctor looked at the village chief with a hopeless gaze, then gestured with his hand towards the dark corner of the room. There, on a surgical table turned deep crimson from the intensity of the blood, lay Arion like a living corpse.
"I can't do any more..." Jacob heard the doctor whisper to the chief. "His body is fighting itself. His veins twist, his bones shatter, his organs burst... then he rebuilds himself. It's a vicious cycle of torment."
The village chief held his head: "Are you saying we should just let him suffer like this?"
"There's nothing we can do. His body rejects all painkillers. With every cycle of destruction, he would open his eyes and look at us... Now he no longer expresses pain. His eyes have become distant, as if he's lost his memory."
Jacob listened, his heart bleeding more than his body. He saw the bandages covering Arion's entire body, making him resemble a mummy. But what caught his eye was that strange tattoo on Arion's arm - simple interlocking rings moving in harmony with his breath, expanding and contracting as if they were a second heart beating under his skin. At their center, a point of faint blue light glowed whenever his pain intensified.
"How will I face Isaac?" whispered the village chief.
The doctor shook his head in despair: "I don't know what's wrong with him, but I'm sure there isn't a doctor in the world who can cure him."
"What about Jacob?" asked the Chief.
"Jacob will be fine. He suffered multiple fractures, but they aren't life-threatening. He'll need months to recover, but he will walk again, hah, only if we had a healer."
For three additional days, Arion's suffering continued. And Jacob refused to leave the room, sleeping on a couch beside his friend, holding his hand whenever the bouts of pain intensified. And he watched those interlocking rings on Arion's arm, contracting and expanding like the ebb and flow of the tide, as if they were drawing a map of a battle only he could see.
And on the seventh day... the miracle happened.
Arion's condition suddenly stabilized. The tattoo on his arm stopped glowing, and the interlocking rings settled into their final form - three concentric circles shining with a calm blue light. And his body stopped shaking. The bandages, once white, had turned brown from old blood, but beneath it all, new skin began to form.
The doctor couldn't explain what had happened. "It's as if his body was waging a war against some curse... and it won."
And while the doctor and the village chief were discussing in the corner of the room, the unexpected happened. Arion slowly opened his eyes, but the gaze they held wasn't that of the child everyone knew. His eyes carried an unbearable weight, as if he had lived an entire lifetime in those seven days.
"Arion!" Jacob shouted, smiling, but his smile faded when he heard his friend's voice.
"You must flee... all of you."
Arion's voice was flat and toneless, like the sound of an old machine. His words were clipped, fragmented, devoid of any human warmth.
The village chief stepped forward, perplexed: "What are you saying, my son?"
Arion turned his head towards him, his cold eyes staring without blinking. "I am no one's son. And the village... will die."
Jacob shuddered when he heard those words. This wasn't the Arion he knew. This was a stranger inhabiting his friend's body.
"The monster tide is coming..." Arion continued in his metallic voice. "I see them now... flowing from the mountains... like black ants. Heading towards the village."
He slowly raised his bandaged hand and pointed towards the window. "Three days... that's all you have left."
The doctor tried to approach: "You need rest, my boy."
But Arion didn't hear him. His eyes were fixed on the void, as if he saw what the others could not. "Blood will fill the streets... and the children will die first. This has happened hundreds of times."
He was silent for a moment, then turned his face to Jacob. The look he gave him held a touch of strange tenderness, but it was sad and distant.
"You... must live."
Then he closed his eyes and returned to his silence, leaving everyone bewildered. But his message was clear: Death was coming, and time was running out.
And in that moment, Jacob realized that his friend might be lost forever. And that the person who had returned from death was not the Arion he loved, but a harbinger of doom carrying warnings of a dark future.