"So boy tell me, just WHO ARE YOU AGAIN?"
Few moments later, a beastial growl echoed throughout the obsidian valley.
Soon the veil of solemn darkness was lifted by misty daylight of dawn. The pristine valley still dormant in its nightly embrace, looked eerily similar to a nascent child that, yet to spread it's wings upon the world.
At the very bottom of this obsidian valley, lay a crudely built hut that's barely standing by, using the valley as its back bone.
The hut itself looked like a triangle from above.
At its rightside, many small holes were built to let the light pass. At the bottom left corner, a hearth made out of pieces of obsidian and Civils sharp teeth, layed surrounding it. Above it an unrefined large hole was made to vent air and look for monsters.
The walls were filled with unceremoniously deep gashes, while some had nails sticking in them like, someone tried to cling to them for their dear life. The pristine obsidian floor was painted red with blood. In the middle of all this a Nameless boy slept unperturbed by the carnage around him.
The Boy looked to be in his mid-teens, having fair to little pale skin with dark wavy hair, soft eyes, deep eyebrows.
Malnourished body with barely visible muscle didn't help him look apart from the trash surrounding his makeshift home.
His broken nails were filled with splinters, which was his main source of pain.
Grimacing in pain, Nameless slowly blinked to the misty light of dawn. Not surprised by the visage before him.
Lazily straining his left arm, he quickly found what he was looking for. A dried black wooden slate with six markings on it and the seventh one was being made.
After sometime, a large grin found its way back his face.
"Ahhh! i don't have to shower today."
Though it was nothing new to him. From the day he came to this forsaken layer, it's been happening to him eversince.
First he shrugged it off as some small monster stealing food, but soon realised, it was he who left all those savage marks.
Just by looking at them, a cold Shiver randown his spine.
"Just what kind of maniac do i become at night," dismissing those thoughts,
Nameless quickly pulled out the spear under his bed and the royd mantle on top.
Hurriedly pulling the tight scaley Breeches and the mantel together, the boy threw one last glance at the mess, 'sighed deeply' and left.
Not taking in the ethereal sight around him, the boy jumped down and moved with measured steps. Thick black mud, peoples feces and all kinds of trash surrounded him from all sight. Holding in his puke, he quickly looked through the trash.
After few minutes of fiercely looking around the boy moved downstream.
"Ahh, thank goodness i didn't find anything there!"
Usually, the only thing there was to find where human feces, purpal juice, some small imps hiding beneath the black mud. And he was not willing to try any of that after three days of starving.
Now the nameless was running as fast as he could towards Rogue. He was fast for his skeleton-like build, a bit too fast. Of course, the wind still assaulted from the rear, giving him some extra momentum.
"Every little bit counts," saying this he ran even faster.
After few hours of strenuous running, he finally reached 'Rogue'.
To his left an enormous crack had opened in the valley. Jagged piece of obsidian layed everywhere in the ground, and a broken obsidian wall stood on top it.
Both surfaces of the rogue had uneven sharp obsidian spike protruding out of them, as if hungry maws waiting for someone to step forward. Even the misty light failed to reach it's end.
Slowly taking a cold breath in, nameless looked around for any source of food. The Royd regularly fought among themself and hunted for food and territory, so there had to be some scraps around here.
Of course he didn't dare to go inside. he hadn't even encountered a royd before, what he did encounter, were mere blood hounds. Though saying 'mere' was not the right word, since he couldn't even kill one.
But now it was a different story, he had his trusty obsidian spear which he picked up from here. In the past, he would climb to the upper layer to get himself safe but his home would be a wreck everytime. But not anymore.
looking around his surroundings cautiously, he slowly moved through the spiky lane.
After some moments of deathly silence, his search finally ended. Few meters ahead of him, a scaley huge silver carcass layed alongside the shore. He had to check a few things before he went all in.
Namelesses body grew taut, then he walked on his toes one step after another, Slowly moving closer and closer until he was only one hand away from it.
First, he had to check if there were any holes in the body where they shouldn't be. Hunters from the upper layer often say -----
'if you see any creatures with unnatural holes in their body, run or better yet pray that it doesn't find you.' neither nameless knew exactly why nor does he care. He just wanted some food.
Second, if the surroundings were clear. It's his first time coming this far and he wasn't about to let anyone steal his food.
Third, check if it's alive. Many monsters still stay alive even after being killed. For example, the other day a hunter cut a blood hounds head clean off from its torso, yet it still kept on attacking.
Thankfully, nun of this had happened to his case. This Civils whole body was viciously torn apart, some parts of his brain, eyes, fins are still scattered all around the obsidian shore. Putting all the strength behind his legs, he was able to flip the civils trunk with his spear.
What welcomed him was a picture of grim survival.
Even as he was getting torn apart, he still managed to roll his back to protect his child.
But to no avail. Inside the hollow scaley trunk
a lifeless body of baby civil layed in ruin.
A bittersweet expression laminated his pale face.
"Even when you are dying, you still tried to protect your kid."
Slowly nameless moved forward, his body twitched, his heartbeat quickened, his throat became dry and he murmured something to himself as if reminding himself.
'I have to kill it,i have to!'
It was easier said than done. Looking at the cold lifeless eyes of civil, he imagined himself in it. What if he was laying there lifelessly and somebody else had to brought down the spear.
'NO,' shaking his head.
The whole reason nameless came this far was for food. And he wasn't about to go empty handed to become a Dog again.
He clenched his shaft so hard that blood started pouring down from the obsidian spearhead. Then gritting his teeth, he brought down the spear.
"PATHETIC."
as soon as the word echoed throughout his mind, he noticed three anomalies.
First, the strange tattoo in his right arm started burning.
Secondly, the civil that was supposed to be dead, suddenly came alive and jumped across the carcass near the silver stream.
Third, his body moved on his own towards the civil, for inertia or hunger he didn't know.
For a split second everything became silent, the nameless who was still running to the baby civil, saw from the corner of his eyes, as two crimson ruby shone in the surface of the water.
Then, all hell broke loose.
****