‘Asterion. What are you doing.’

  Forcing his attention away from the beast, he forgot what he was just doing. The whole room rippled, taking him elsewhere and entrancing him in an instant…

  Descending the wooden steps of his childhood home with tenacious speed, he was all too happy.

  He missed a step, nearly falling in the process. That did not stop him.

  Regaining his balance as his momentum brought him farther down, he could not give himself any moment to slow down. He was just too excited.

  Father was coming home!

  Until he missed the next step…

  “Ah!’

  He extended his hands out to brace his fall, shutting his eyes as hard as he could for fear of the fall.

  ‘This is going to hurt.’

  A protective arm wrapped around his stomach, catching his momentum and stopping his freefall. It caused him a little pain, but nothing substantial.

  Feeling something was off, he tried to figure out what it was.

  ‘Oh… right.‘

  He was lifted off the ground, another arm gently supporting his back.

  Floral fragrance wafted through the air, wrapping around him like a hug. He always loved the smell, it was a signature of his mother.

  “Sweetie, how many times do I have to tell you to take your time down the stairs.”

  Eyes shut and held in protective arms, Asterion slowly turned his head, causing her to laugh.

  “You can open your eyes now.”

  Gradually, he opened his eyes.

  “Sorry mama. I saw Daddy from the window!”

  Her smile turned livelier, an eyebrow raised.

  “Did you? Well, why don't we go and greet him at the door, then?”

  She turned, carrying Asterion down from the small landing he was nearly victim through the living space, ending at the door.

  She set him down, allowing Asterion to churn in anticipation as the handle to the door fiddled from the other side.

  The door opened, and Asterion rushed out as soon as the gap in the door widened enough.

  “Daddy!”

  His tiny figure rushed like a fired cannonball at the tall lanky man. He wore a black smudged brown buttoned shirt. That was okay, Asterion was used to him being dirty after his work trips.

  Blinded and darkened by the sun above him, Asterion stared up at the light-outlined silhouette of a tall broad-chested man. The brightness of his edges darkened his features, obscuring them, but Asterion was sure his father was smiling as he wrapped himself around his legs.

  Trying to lift a leg bound in his restricting embrace for a moment before giving up the fruitless endeavor, and putting a hand on his head, his father laughed, before looking toward his mama silently.

  ‘You always try that. Stop!’ Asterion shouted, his voice slightly distorting near the end.

  Warmth enveloped him as the sun was blocked out above him, his mother wrapping her arms around his father in a loving embrace, her legs caging him in.

  Life was great…

  ‘Asterion! Stop!’

  He didn’t know how the thought found its way into his head, but it seemed… foreign.

  He stared up at their tall figures confused. He couldn’t place the thought’s origin. There was so much panic in it to be his own.

  He thought for a moment, contemplating the panic. He just couldn't place where it was coming from.

  Pain radiated from his stomach again, this time much harsher, breaking his train of thought.

  ‘Ouch.’

  He looked down at himself between the embrace of his parents. He was fine. The world was great, his father was finally back from work…

  The pain got worse.

  ‘Ah…’

  It kept getting worse… and worse… and worse.

  Reaching a new peak, higher than he had ever experienced in his life, the vision around him faded, jagged edges ripping it out of his vision like pages of a book as his sight blurred from the pain.

  His eyes shot open, before shutting to combat the bright orange light around him.

  ‘Argh!’

  The sound of heavy metal clambered and rattled on the ground nearby.

  Clutching his stomach, Asterion rolled on his side.

  ‘Damnation… why again.’

  Squinting his eyes open in the fetal position, Peter kneeled next to him.

  “Finally! You’re awake.” He said.

  Behind him, Bellarus stared into his eyes unfocused for a few moments. Regaining their clarity, his brows furrowed. “Deep sleeper.”

  Asterion shifted, groaning.

  “Gah… why do you do that.”

  He slowly moved to his feet, favoring a lean, Bellarus glanced at him strangely, before walking off. Peter, meanwhile, looked at him like he was crazy.

  “Dude! We are leaving soon and you would not wake up. Also, I think you cut yourself on that sword in your sleep. Next time, put it in the sheath beforehand.”

  He looked down at himself, noticing a circle of dried blood circling a small tear in his already tattered shirt near his abdomen. It was small and inconsequential, but still present.

  Suddenly perplexed, he looked around for the sharp blade, finding it at his feet. Its flat triangular point was a lighter shade of red than the rest of the macabre crimson.

  ‘Weird.’

  Unsure why he unsheathed it the night before, he picked up the stained blade by its handle and slid it into the sheath on his hip.

  “We leave in 5,” Peter said, pulling him out of his thoughts, before walking off.

  With that, Asterion was promptly ready to leave the forsaken ruins. He had had enough of them already. Ruins were objectively cool, especially considering his interest in their origin, but this one being within the creature's territory had him rethinking his desires.

  They traveled during the day for the next week, following a route set by Bellarus and stopping to build a temporary camp before nightfall.

  The City of Hope was by that point far behind them, distorted in a colorless mirage on hotter days, and a small blob on the horizon on the colder ones.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Brandon would disappear now and then, returning with a few carcasses of small furless feline-looking creatures. It seemed they were the easy prey since it was all he ever caught.

  Asterion had seen cats before, they were one thing humanity seemingly couldn’t leave behind, and there were strays roaming Hope. These creatures, however, looked like their slightly larger mutated cousins. Their most prominent feature was a muscular split tail.

  Sitting around the campfire with the sun setting, Asterion struggled to take a bite into the charred and half-eaten half of a split tail he was handed. It was his ration of that day's hunt.

  ‘‘This is so gross.’ He thought, looking disgusted at it.

  He brought it up to his nose, sniffing it before recoiling, giving it a worse look.

  Bringing it back to his face, he bit into the flesh. The hide was like biting wood, tasteless, stringy, and leathery. His teeth wrestled the flesh in a battle of will before they pierced the hard exterior, revealing the inside that was far too chewy for his liking.

  He looked down at the meat forlorn.

  ‘We’ve eaten this for a week. There has to be another creature around here that’s edible.’

  He looked up at Bellarus, who was practically inhaling his portion with shocking speed.

  ‘How do you even do that.’

  Bellarus seemed to notice his gaze as if sensing it— or his thought maybe, looking up.

  “What.” He asked with his mouth full, causing Asterion to sigh heavily and look away.

  Traversing Eden was incredibly boring at times. Asterion had to find things to do when the monotony was too much.

  Traveling as a group was much easier than traveling alone, so most of the tasks that benefited the group were usually taken by someone else already, or people doubling up on a task and overperforming what was necessary.

  It made the journey a little more comfortable. Peter and a couple of others joined Brandon on his hunts, bringing back more food as a result.

  In doing so, he learned his role as an ‘assistant’ was not as versatile as he thought it'd be, and usually meant gathering dead sticks to fuel the fire.

  Still, the group traveled, following Bellarus toward a place nobody else knew.

  When night fell, they camped in as safe of a place as they could find. When they got hungry, they ate their provisions and carried in makeshift sacks from a large yellow plant they found earlier. When a beast inevitably tracked them from their scent, Bellarus and Brandon slayed it before it could harm anyone.

  He grimaced, thinking about the guy who got his leg cut a couple of days ago.

  ‘… mostly anyone.’

  In total, Asterion was pretty optimistic about how things were turning out. He was being taken care of, as he was promised. It was a nice change of pace to the last 3 years of his life.

  Finding himself at a small lake’s edge and staring at the water as the morning sun rose. His reflection stared back at him, a victorious smile growing on its face as he felt pride bloom in his heart.

  ‘I look better.’

  The symptoms of starvation were slowly disappearing, leaving Asterion looking a bit healthier. He was sleeping better, too.

  “What’s with the creepy smile?”

  Asterion spun towards Daren carrying an appalled expression.

  “Creepy?”

  Daren raised an eyebrow.

  “Unsettling at the very least. A bath can’t be that exciting.”

  The rest of the group was just a few yards away dismantling the small camp they set up the night before. Asterion decided to rinse in the nearby lake, and out here, it was necessary to take someone with you.

  Asterion smiled.

  “No, it’s not the bath. It’s just kind of funny that now that I’ve left the cradle of humanity, that me, a lowly stray, is finally growing strong…”

  He continued carrying the smile, sadness tipping his tone.

  “I was hungry most days, you know. The days I wasn’t starving, it almost felt like divine punishment the next when I couldn’t find anything to eat. But I can say that in the past week, I’ve eaten more than I thought was possible for someone like me.”

  Daren shifted, moving to stand next to Asterion’s reflection in the rippling water and staring at his own.

  “Yeah. It seems like this was a good path for us, wasn’t it.”

  He furrowed his brows and looked toward Asterion.

  “But seriously, we should head back. Bodies of water out here give me the creeps.”

  Asterion looked toward the lake, seeing a myriad of faint ripples, some larger than others expanding all around the lake and shivering.

  “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  Back at camp, Bellarus kicked rich black dirt over the remains of the fire as they approached.

  “Done so quickly? Good.” He paused, looking around at everyone packing up their belongings, “we’re a day's walk from the place we’re heading. The next place we go is very dangerous and is only passable at specific times, so we will have to camp in the forest that surrounds it till it becomes visible.”

  Asterion was already ready to leave since all he carried on him were the clothes on his back and the sword on his hip. He had a few food provisions he stuffed in his pocket using weaved leaves as makeshift containers, but that was all.

  ‘Visible?’ The end caught his ear…

  Shortly after, they found themselves trekking through a dreadful forest…

  ‘Damnation!’

  Asterion dived to his right, narrowly avoiding the claw of a ferocious beast. He grunted as he hit the ground, just far enough so that Brandon could swoop in and drive his blade directly into the beast's eye as it attempted to right itself for a finishing blow.

  The beast stayed standing as it gave no reaction to the blade lodged halfway in its eye, blood seeping from the edges of the steel as it recoiled too late to dodge Brandon’s strike.

  These beasts were incredibly tough to battle by any standard. Their thick fur would force any steel blade to glide rather than cut, and their skin was durable, too, making any poke a hard endeavor. They were also half his size, with the weight to match. Their claws were sharp and forceful enough to contend with the hardened steel alloy that made up their swords.

  It seemed that its only weakness was its furless face, which grunted before the beast renewed its vigor, backing up a few steps and letting out a howl before charging at Brandon to get its vengeance, blade still morbidly lodged in its right eye.

  It didn’t get a chance to, though. Through its rage, it failed to see a silver-polished short sword arcing down to its side. The blade pushed through its tough fur like butter, eating into its leg and causing it to yelp and tumble.

  Before it could recover, the mirror-like blade came down again, eating into its large head, and killing it.

  The swordsman, of course, was Bellarus. Looking around, three other carcasses of these pack beasts strewn around with different injuries covering their bloody bodies.

  ‘He’s a better swordsman than I thought.’

  Getting up, Asterion wiped the dirt off himself and went to retrieve his sword that was tossed during the scuffle. Losing his grip on his sword seemed to be a common occurrence when using it.

  He grimaced.

  He hadn’t spent these last few days doing nothing in his free time. He wanted to learn how to wield a sword since it was a skill that would likely save him on more than one occasion when he didn’t have the protection of others. He was also gaining strength as he ate more, and allowing him to. The skill would make him less reliant on them, and he would be more capable on his own.

  But teaching swordsmanship was a difficult task, and learning it was harder. First, he had to lift it… which he couldn’t do for very long. Then he had to swing it, which was an exhausting endeavor. Then, when its edge bit into his target, he had to fight the opposite force that bit back… which he was struggling with, he would constantly drop it.

  It was frustrating, to say the least, and why he was currently picking up his sword again. He thought he would ask Brandon or Bellarus, but they were usually busy with tasks for everyone’s survival to have time to spend time teaching a frail boy like him to use one... especially when he couldn’t even hold it up for very long.

  He did watch how they fight when he wasn’t running for his life, though, and tried to mimic it afterward. Their techniques gave him some visual basis to go off of rather than instincts.

  “Alright. That’s the last of them,” Brandon huffed, pulling the now-red grip of his sword out of the beast.

  Bellarus grimaced, extending a hand and dismissing the silver projection. The blood covering the blade fell to the ground.

  “Yeah. This is their territory, we should be good for the rest of the way to the city. How are they?”

  Asterion looked a bit away, where the rest of the recruits — at least those who were far enough to escape the ambush without showing their backs to the beasts. Unfortunately, they only escaped after one of the rabid beasts ambushed the group, targeting a couple of recruits.

  Daren looked back, giving him a solemn look, shaking his head.

  “O’ Malley didn’t make it, he bled out during the fight… and Fernando doesn’t look much better.”

  Bellarus sighed heavily, matching his expression, and walking toward them, Asterion, Brandon, and another recruit who had a sword following.

  Bellarus’s gaze met Fernando’s, who looked pained and suffering, tears welling in his eyes. He held his side as blood oozed through his fingers.

  Bellarus took a deep breath, and with heavy eyes kneeled next to him, inspecting the wound momentarily. After, he put one hand on the man’s head, comforting him, and reached behind him with his other. A dim light began to flicker in his open hand.

  ‘No. He wouldn’t?’ Asterion thought, wide-eyed.

  Just as the man—Fernando, began to tremble, a silver blade pierced his skull, instantly killing him.

  Shocked gasps echoed through the group. Some backed up a step. Bellarus looked up to the group, still kneeling as the sword turned to ethereal light.

  “He wouldn’t have made it… and neither will we to our destination if we take him with us and wait for the injuries to take its course. When someone’s this injured, you give them mercy…”

  Mournful silence enveloped the scene, leaving two more bodies in the forest’s brush. The lesson was harsh but rang true.

  When you found an animal too wounded to heal in Hope, it was a morbid truth that they would be better off dead. People, on the other hand, weren’t much different, it just didn’t happen as often.

  A thought rang in his mind.

  ‘Fourteen now.’

  Fourteen people remained of their original twenty-one. Every person who died to this point could have been him, the thought gave him pause.

  A while later, the expedition went unimpeded for the most part, this time much quieter and more vigilant. The forest itself seemed alive, but most creatures seemed to vanish before they came across them, their noises always at a distance.

  Strong light from the setting sun was fading as the evening progressed, forest floor grew more carpeted in shadows from the canopies.

  Asterion cut down a thorny twig that was in his path, heaving as the blade took him down with it to the ground. He was covered in bleeding scratches from the damned tree and its prickly edifice. He looked at the limb as it fell to the floor, red seeping out of its inside from the cut, shivering.

  ‘Creepy.’

  By now, it was nearly impossible to see, with only the faintest moonlight piercing the treetop. That was why he had so many cuts. He would run into the damn things and grow unusually exhausted, only recovering when he pulled the prick out.

  ‘What would happen if I left it in?’ He thought, nearing another tree.

  He grimaced, then looked to Bellarus who was cutting the largest branches down to clear a path through the thick underbrush.

  Up ahead, light seemed to be more prevalent, its glow fading into existence. When Asterion noticed it, so did everyone else.

  “Alright guys, we’re getting to a place we can camp. Up ahead is a clearing that leads to the place we’re passing through, I’ll explain it more when we’re out of this damn forest. It’s called the lost city.”