Rijda's Chronicles - Mists - Chapter 3 - Captured (Part I), by Rijda

Published: Dec 11 2007

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The first thing he was conscious of was pain.

Unending, excruciating, agonizing pain. His head, throbbing, pulsing, screaming in incomprehensible torment. The light that pierced the shadows - blinding. His vision a field of endless white, so bright, so very very bright. His head throbbed that much harder at having seen it.

'He awakens.'

Rijda lay unmoving, breathing softly, harsh, shallow respirations. Even his chest, as his head, felt like it was on fire, burning, raging with every breath. His body, his skin, his flesh, his bones, his very blood screamed in agony.

He could not discern his surroundings. Everything about him was a blur - his limbs refused to budge. Such pain - such excruciating pain.

'Stripped of his magics and his Goddess, what is he? Pfah.'

Something cool spattered on his cheek, which also flared suddenly, as though stabbed with a knife. Rijda lay motionless, continuing his shallow breaths.

'Ielia, do you have his blade?' the first voice said again, a melodious tone that
Rijda very well might have enjoyed, he realized, had he not felt as though his body was dipped in acid.

'It is here, Channeler,' a third answered. A voice Rijda recognized. A voice so terribly familiar. But his mind was too foggy, too drunk with pain - he felt as though he was trying to push away the ocean as he dug through his memory to find it.

'G-Give me m-my sword,' a voice crackled from his body, a sound Rijda at first did not recognize as his own. It was a harsh, unfamiliar sound, a low, deep croak that sounded as though it belonged to an old man knocking upon death's door.

'Oh my, rather resilient aren't you?' the first said softly. 'The fact that you survived is interesting enough, considering the intensity of those flames.'

'She will be pleased. Oh yes.'

'Give me...my sword,' Rijda repeated, still unable to make anything out beyond the blurry shapes that surrounded him, the blobs of color he assumed to be his captors. It hurt to move, it hurt even to breathe. Rijda's body refused to obey his orders - he remained motionless upon...

...Upon what? It was a cool surface, and perfectly flat, he realized through the haze. Metallic perhaps? A table of some kind, surely. Once realizing that, he also became conscious of something upon his wrists and ankles - restraints, no doubt, to keep him from escaping.

As if he could move in this condition. He felt as though he was being burned alive...

- CONTINUED -