Arlon woke up on something rough and uneven. He shifted slightly, and the texture crunched beneath him. Straw?
No—something similar.
A makeshift bed of dried, fibrous material. His fingers curled around a handful, rubbing it between his fingers as his mind caught up.
His eyes shot open fully.
He immediately sat up, scanning his surroundings.
A room. One he didn't recognize.
It was dimly lit, but not dark. The walls were made of something sturdy—maybe stone, maybe metal—but he couldn't tell at a glance.
There was no visible source of light, yet the room wasn't shrouded in darkness.
Something about this felt familiar.
It was like déjà vu.
Like when he had woken up in Charon's Moonlight Potion Store after collapsing there.
But this wasn't Charon's store.
Then, memories surged back to him. The house—or what he thought might be a house—on this unknown floor.
The sound that had tormented him for a year. The monster that had opened the door. His attack. The clash.
