The hateful expression on his face and the way he stood alone in front of the fiend, unfazed, made for a sight to behold.
"Get up and fight"
He yelled as he kicked the man in front of him.
But before the captain came to his senses, the damned creature was already attacking sola.
He dashed sideways, narrowly dodging the fiend's claws.
Tightening his grip on the short sword he had taken from the dead soldier, he aimed to pierce the beast.
He did it—the short sword was lodged deep inside the creature. It happened so quickly that he was left perplexed for a moment.
As he came to his senses, he exited his tunnel vision which was only focused on the sword.
Right side of his vision was entirely covered, his eye was about thirty centimeters away from the creature's ugly black eyes and its jaw was closed on his whole right arm.
A second later, a loud, deafening scream filled the air.
His arm was no more.
The pain was unbearable, he was laying down shaking.
He was bleeding and his vision was getting blurry.
He saw captain standing on his knee while someone was putting his hands on the wounds. Green radiant light was coming from his fingertips curing his cuts, while telling him that something was ready.
The last thing he saw was Lily standing behind the warriors, a sword trembling in her hands.
Air was thick with the scent of blood and fear.
While he was largely responsible for the former, he had no hand in the latter.
Then it all went dark.
[A great force ha-
Soothing sound suddenly stopped.
And there was only darkness for a while.
'What's happening? Am I alive?'
He woke up from the sound of wood crackling beside him.
He could not move, nor did he want to. Sola just stared at the fire, deep in thought.
He couldn't feel his right arm which meant that everything that happened was real even though it was really hard to believe.
"You are awake huh"
Lily was sitting next to the fire warming her hands.
"What happened? How did we survive"
"After you passed out, they baited the monster in a big wood contraption and lit it on fire"
Sola let out sight of relief
"So, it's dead?"
He asked the question even though he knew the answer because he was still here.
"No... it run away so we hid here"
Solla looked around.
They were in small section of a cave.
"And how exactly did I survive?"
Lily grinned and scratched back of her head.
"Well, I might have begged the soldiers to heal you and brought you here"
She took a little pause.
"Listen I don't know if you have realized yet but we got teleported in the past"
Sola thought about what lily just said.
She was right, there was no sign of modern technology.
But there was magic, and people had powers, like he and Lilly had.
"People had powers in the past?"
There was no time to think about where they were, monster was angry and it was coming back no questions about it.
What would he do? What could he do? Even though he was swift, he couldn't control that ability well yet, and being fearless wasn't much of a help either.
Awkward silence fell in the cave.
All that could be heard was the crackling of the burning wood and the sound of people outside, talking about something.
"Hey, you know they don't really want you here."
She pointed her finger at his forehead and tossed a small mirror to him.
Before he could look in it, she added.
"They all seem to despise you for that mark on your head."
He still moved as if he had two arms, so Sola wasn't even close to catching it. The mirror landed on his body, broken and dirty. He wiped the stain in the center and saw a curious young man staring back at him.
The young man had an interesting tattoo on his forehead. there was a huge skull which had its mouth open, flowers sprouting from within.
there was a snake coming from its eye wrapped around the entire skull.
The skull itself was large, reaching his nose and covering his eyelids. It also had an ordinary crown on it, though broken in several places. It looked terrifying—just looking at it for a moment sent chills down his spine.
" Do you remember the big guy with the scar? He was the one who gave the order to the healers to save you, and he also went against everyone's decision to leave you there to die."
"Of course, my begging played a crucial part too heh"
She robbed her nose as if expecting a praise from him.
Sola didn't know what to say.
'Why would that old geezer save me? Does he want to kill me with his own two hands?'
"Thanks"
Lilly nodded stood up and began undressing in front of him.
"What are you-"
Until he could finish what he was saying Lily pointed at her naked tummy and said:
"There look I have a mark as well, some of us does as I have learned, so don't be depressed you just have a bad one, I guess? I'm not really sure."
There was a huge half-moon tattooed on her stomach.
He was mesmerized by the mark and her cute body.
"That is… pretty cool, to say the least"
Sola didn't know what to say. Even though they had been classmates for a long time, he realized how little he actually knew about her. They rarely spoke, even though they were neighbors and often walked home together, they were quiet but the silence was natural and comforting. Somehow, just being near each other was enough to make things better.
As the long silence permeated the air, he heard footsteps coming in their direction.
Before he could guess who, it was the man spoke.
"I see you are doing well"