A middle-aged man was leaning against a severed arm which belonged to a massive dead creature that lay lifelessly a few meters from him, the creature seemingly resembled a reptile, its body the shades of yellow and black and its back armoured by an exoskeleton.
His Caribbean blue eyes stared into the nothingness behind the bonfire he had made, his arms were folded under his chest. His expression was dark and gloomy, his blond hair swaying in the breeze.
Soon, his arm extended to grab a sizzling hot piece of cooked meat, pierced by more of a stick than a skewer. Bringing it up to his mouth, his teeth bit down on it, the juicy flesh practically melting in his mouth. He let himself enjoy it for a bit, but as soon as the last of it was swallowed by him, the coldness returned to his eyes.
Shadows danced around him, flickering as the dawn's light brought them into existence. Sunlight fell over his left side as his right was covered in deep shadows formed by the dead creature's enormous mass, a perfect contrast between light and dark.
Slowly, his lips curled into a smirk, "She is at it again, huh? What a brat"
He then pushed himself off the severed arm and stepped on the bonfire, extinguishing the flames completely.
He sighed as his arms unfolded. "This world is so beautiful yet so cruel, I love it, yet I hate it. We curse suffering yet we cling to life as if our souls are shackled by both desire and despair. Perhaps beauty exists only because cruelty allows us to see it, would light still be so longed if not for darkness?"
His eyes were staring into the hole in the fog.
He chuckled at his philosophical words, "Have I spent too much time with Alric?" that name on his tongue felt wrong, guilt and regret clawed his heart as his chuckle turned weak.
"What happened can not be changed, just like how time can not be turned back, all you can do is learn to live with it. Regret is a chain forged by the past, but only the present holds the key. If the past can not be changed, then perhaps... its purpose is to not haunt us but rather to teach us." Albert let out a regretful sigh as he took a step ahead.
He unsheathed his sword from his waistband and raised it with one hand to point at the titanic hole. "There," he said calmly.
"I don't know where you are or how you are, but I can say this for certain, you are somewhere out there, still breathing, and I will be the one who is going to find you... Alric" he said as he took another step ahead.
Then another.
Then again.
His body then started to float a few centimetres above the ground as he stepped onto nothing but air, seeming as though climbing stairs.
"And the first place I will look for you? There... right in front of me, if not there, I will look somewhere else, I will tear this entire forest down if I have to, just to find you, and if you are dead and digested? I will search for that mother fucking bird and slice its stomach open, just to find your remains. I will find you even if it means the end for me, that I promise."
The wind around him howled as he said that, growing faster and harsher with each passing second as his hair whipped violently.
His body drifted further from the ground and in the blink of an eye, he was flying through the air, towards the titanic hole in the fog.