Nonexistent Hearts
Chapter 1:Part 1
Drip...
Drop...
Drip...
Drop...
It is always the same noise that invades my dreams from time to time, and it always ends the same way. The events play before me as if I see them happening through the eyes of another. The wheezing of an injured Charr echoes across a forest coated in rain water. His bare feet stomp through the cold damp mud as he struggles to maintain his footing. As he falls to his knees he coughs out a pool of blood, immediately wiping away the remaining blood with his hands, he gazes into his palm for several seconds. Light brown fur was visible under the blood stained arm, definitely not my own. His efforts seemed futile, already I could tell that this Charr was on the verge of death, but something drove him to keep moving, something drove him to stand back up and continue his journey. After that instance, the images began to elude me. They jumped back and forth between various settings and landscapes; Ascalon, Lion’s Arch, even Rata Sum. They stopped… and now I was met with the scenery of a calm sandy beach. The Charr from before gazed out towards the waves and breathed heavily as the cool breeze struck his face.
A rustling from a nearby tree caught his attention; he immediately rounded towards the source with his axe ready. But before he could react, a glimmer of silver leaped out of the tree and shot towards its target. The pencil thin dagger sank into the Charr’s chest, and blood began to fountain from the wound.
It was always the same events that would play out whenever I would receive this dream. And yet I had no clue as to its significance. Is this dream of someone I know? Will it ever be clear to me? It was evident that the answers would not be easy to find, but it was something to concern myself about for another time. I was waking up.
“Anavari, wake up already!”
My eyes snapped open at the sound of the human voice. There, I rested on a rough stone floor of the cave we had slept in. It had begun to rain the previous night so I must have dozed off while waiting for it to stop. I could see as soon as I had woken up that small traces of sunlight had managed to find their way into the cave, it seemed that one issue was dealt with. Suddenly I felt a pointy object prodding my thigh; sitting up as I straitened my back, I rounded towards my traveling companion. A mischievous grin was plastered across his face as he continued to poke me knowing very well that I was wide awake.
“I know they say not to poke a sleeping bear with a stick. But I wasn’t sure if it applied to Charr,” said the Human with a smirk, “so I went with poking you with a branch instead.”
I shot an annoyed glare towards his direction. “Daniel, have you ever been punted out a cave this early in the morning?” I said in a most likely irritated rather than sarcastic tone.
The human rubbed the back of his head as he slowly backed away. “Settle down big guy,” he said cautiously, “you can contemplate killing me once we finish our job and find a nice cozy inn.”
I sighed in frustration knowing that our target destination was still a few days away. However I knew that sleeping on the floor for the past few days was no excuse for taking it out on Daniel. “Okay, I might have over reacted a bit, I should not have snapped.”
“Well if you take into count that the first few times I woke you up involved you saying ‘do that again and you’ll end up in a pool of your own blood,” Daniel attempted to imitate my tone of voice by making his own deeper, “I would say that this was a big improvement. But then again I keep ignoring the fact that you’re really not a morning person.”
My gaze slowly moved back to the cave entrance, what little camping gear we had was found scattered across the floor. Unfortunately the existing equipment did not include any sort of bedding. “All this sleeping on the floor is getting to me, sorry if I seem a bit aggressive.”
“Don’t worry about it,” dismissed the human with a wave of his hand, “you act so different from other Charr that I forget that you are one sometimes.”
Daniel stood up wrapping his mask around his face and throwing on his hood. With the subtlety of a feather in the wind he peered out of the cave and surveyed the area.
“At least it’s not raining anymore,” he said cheerfully, “want to eat something before we head off?”
“I am not very hungry at the moment,” I said gathering the equipment around the cave, “we should be on our way since the sun is rising. Best to get the most out of the day knowing that the night will not wait for us.”
“Alright,” said the Human maintaining his cheerful tone, “then lets great this new morning with a smile!” he began to march his way out of the cave as he took in the cold morning dew with a deep breath. I always found my companion’s optimism rather odd… entertaining, but odd. Abandoning the cave behind us we made a brisk jog down the hill where the cave rested over. Our feet were once again met with the road and I took this opportunity to review my map and find the direction of our target location.
“So which way to Divinities Reach?” asked Daniel looming around my shoulder.
“North,” I said pointing over a vast lake. With that we continued our trek towards the unknown, not aware of the danger that was already waiting for us.