5. Serena

What a strange creature.

He grabs me, and I feel a familiar sense of déjà vu as I watch the frozen landscape, terror coursing through me. But there's something different about it this time. It doesn't feel like before, when the dark elves seized me with their magic.

"Let me go, please," I say, my voice wavering. It's incredibly cold out here, the evening freeze nearly starting, and I can't avoid shivering.

Whatever reason the dark elves had for bringing him here, I'm starting to think he might not be from Protheka at all. Fundamental concepts like buildings and compassion confuse him, and he seems poised to only do things when they directly benefit him.

But he doesn't seem evil in a typical sense. He has no problems with snapping dark elf necks, but he also doesn't kill indiscriminately like they do.

Somehow, that intrigues me. What is this creature, if not a murderous monster bent on killing everything?

"Like I said, I'm staying with you until you give me answers," his voice projects inside my mind.

Or perhaps he only kills dark elves.

But he doesn't seem to know what a dark elf is either.

"That's fine," I say. "Just let me go. I won't run."

Perhaps it's rude of me to even assume his gender. He feels male. The voice that speaks inside my head feels male. But it's possible he doesn't have a gender at all.

"I'll let you go if you swear you won't run. If you run, I will kill you."

Panic shoots through me, adrenaline rushing down my spine.

So far, he's only killed dark elves. But something in his conviction tells me he isn't lying.

"Okay," I say. "I swear."

He releases me. I regain control of my body, feeling an unknowable surge of excitement. What is this feeling coursing through me?

The dumb part of my brain that wants to survive at any cost tempts me to run through the wilderness anyway.

But perhaps this is for the best. If I'm honest, I stand no chance in the wilderness by myself.

I'm a strong and capable fighter. But I don't fuck with magic or wild animals. Those will dispatch me just as easily as–

They're all dead.

The realization crushes me. The people I trusted most to look after me, basically my only remaining family… They're dead on the third floor of the tower, little more than crumbling skeletons.

I'm going to come back and give them a proper burial.

"What's wrong?"

The creature's voice emerges inside my mind, and I suddenly wonder if he can read my thoughts.

The moment he let go of my body, I clenched my fists and nearly crumpled to the ground in sorrow.

"What do you mean?"

The idea that he might have insight into my mind that even I lack feels tremendously violating.

"Just now, I let you go, and I felt a wave of sorrow overtake you. Why?"

I turn around to him, returning to his side. He provides a warmth that might guard me against the coming chill, though only partly.

I study his face, or what I think is his face.

A stream of fire connects a series of volcanic rocks, pulled from the tower and made molten. The rocks have created an almost humanoid mask, ribcage, and arms around the constantly swirling vortex of flame that comprises his being.

It's almost as though the first thing he did on entering our realm was to assemble a body that resembled the dark elves, though far more strange and disjointed. There is no singular structure that makes up this entity.

He's rocks and fire that moves through the air.

"Are you reading my thoughts?" I ask.

He thinks over the question as I join his side.

"I can read emotional states, just as you or anybody else can."

For a moment, I almost believe him. But from all indicators, he hadn't met my kind until only minutes ago. He couldn't possibly understand the nuances of human body language. I don't know if he even knows what a human is.

"And now you're angry," he observes.

That's when I hear a wail that pierces through the wind's roar and the falling snow. It sends terror through my soul in a way unlike anything I've ever felt, and I've felt a lot in the past several hours.

There are strange creatures out in the wilderness of Prazh, but that didn't sound like anything I've ever heard. It sounded almost human, but perverted and warped in a terrifying way.

"What was that?"

I look around me, desperately trying to find the source of the disturbance. All I see is the quickly falling snow that blows into my eyes and the trees that cover the landscape.

"If you don't know, why would I?"

It cries out again. I turn behind me, where I think it originated.

Then I hear the same cry in the opposite direction.

Oh, gods. Whatever that is, there's more than one of them.

"You swear that's not you pulling a prank on me?"

This time, the cry is closer.

"I don't know what a prank is-"

I feel the wind knocked out of me, as I'm suddenly knocked to the ground by something very large.

I collect my senses. A rancid smell fills my nostrils.

Inches from my face is another human's face, but it's apparently been stitched into the stomach of an ursain. The jaw opens up wider than any human's normally could, fur surrounding the human skin.

I scream in horror as a strand of its drool falls into my eye.

Then the monster is lifted into the air.

I look up to see my rescuer, the strange extra-dimensional being, struggling. With his mind, he pacifies the monster. But I gather that his powers might be based on weight because I don't think he can hold it forever.

Were these prisoners… human?

I look up and confirm a large hole in the wall of the tower, just as something rams into the fiery being, breaking his concentration. He's sent flying across the frozen fields, leaving me with the transfigured ursain and –

"Oh, no."

The other creature is seemingly several creatures stitched together. I see the hooves of an equu, the fur and torso of a worg, the head of a dripir, and worst of all, several human faces sewn into the monster's body. One of them I immediately recognize.

I almost can't find the words.

"What did they do to you, Ket?"

It's dumb of me to expect an answer. The creature just lets out several high-pitched shrieks, which emit from all of its mouths.

The sheer volume of it causes the tower to crack slightly, and a piece of stone falls down from out of the fifth floor wall, nearly killing me.

It might be just the distraction I need to get away.

As I try to run through the snow, afraid for my life and filled with fury and dread, I wonder what gives them the right to do this.

How does any of this even benefit them?

I'm knocked to the ground again by the ursain, but this time, I'm able to retrieve my dagger from my belt.

I reach up, trying to drive it into the jaw of the face on the monster's torso, but it seems nearly impenetrable. The skin is hardened against my attack, and as I snap out of the way of the biting mouth on the monster's stomach, driving the blade into its fur, I find no purchase.

That's when I immediately feel the presence of the other monster standing over me.

I'm going to die here. I fought harder than anybody's ever fought to live, and I'm going to be ripped apart unceremoniously outside a laboratory.

I close my eyes, bracing for the inevitable.

Then my eyes are filled with a bright glow.

Fire engulfs the monster above me as it's again flown through the air. I try to avoid smelling the burning fur.

"Run," my fiery savior says into my mind.

I kick myself to my feet and follow the instruction without hesitation.

For a moment, I don't look back, aware of the freeze that will surely destroy my body but fleeing anyway. I don't have a plan or any sense of reason left.

Seeing what the dark elves have done to these people, dying unmourned in a frozen field doesn't seem so bad anymore.

But I haven't given up yet. I need to survive this so I can put a stop to it forever.

When I'm far enough away, I look behind me. I see my savior ripping the creatures apart with his mind.

I want to bend down and vomit.

Even from here, with the wild and unyielding wind in my face, I can see the blood and guts that pave the snow in the distance.

I try to steady my breathing, relieved that both of the creatures have been dispatched and that I might still live.

But there could be more of them. I don't know how many monsters escaped the tower or how many more could be in the other towers.

How many more humans are currently the subjects of experimentation? How many lives are being pointlessly ended to satisfy elven curiosity?

I feel a sense of warmth, and I realize that I've lost nearly all the feeling in my body. I have been so overtaken by adrenaline that my body provides its own heat. The noise of a swirling fire is just above me.

"This is why you stay with me," the creature speaks into my mind. "Clearly, you can't survive in this world without me, and I can't survive in this world without you."

I nod, unable to properly convey my gratitude. Am I admiring a monster?

I look up at him, watching him in fascination.

Why is there suddenly something so magnetic about him?

I want to punish myself for the thought.