Direction

Breathe deep.

You take a deep breath and roll to the side. Unfortunately you inhale a quantity of sand that was in the air. Your fit of coughing is accompanied by small blasts of fire. The sand phantoms freeze for a moment, surprised. You take the chance to recover from the burns and the attack and settle into a combat stance. Your original attacker charges you again, but you are ready for him this time, you easily dodge his strike and swing your own towards what you assume is his jaw. Your punch never connects. Instead it passes through the loose amalgamation of sand with little apparent effect on the being. It throws another punch but you dodge under it rolling back again grabbing a handful of sand on your way. Your opponents close in on you slowly. You stuff some sand into your mouth as the most aggressive of the bunch leaps forward. You catch it in midair with your flaming breath. Parts of it seem to melt away, others explode violently in the air. Small grains of sand and glass rain around you as you grin in victory. The rest of the sand creatures back up, wary of your flames. The painful burns in your mouth slowly heal themselves as you prepare another handful of sand. The Sand creatures seem shocked at the destruction of one of their own, you might be able to press the advantage. On the other hand there are a lot of them, it may be a good idea to retreat. Either way, you have discovered a powerful weapon.

Now burn the world down.

Let's kill them all

You charge forward aggressively, flames engulfing everything in your path. The creatures scatter as you destroy their kin, the air fills with the smell of molten glass and smoke. You are reckless and vengeful, slaughtering without reservation. Despite the pain on your charred lips you have never been happier. That is until something tackles you from behind. One of the sand beings latches onto you, binding your arms to your sides. You feel another gripping your legs lifting you into the air. You breathe one last fireball, but it dissipates harmlessly in the sky. You feel something hard and cold pulling your hands together and a powerful force presses down painfully on the raw, regenerating flesh of your mouth. You are dragged away. You notice the tower of ice looming above you, slowly getting closer. You are being carried towards it, and then into it. A wide staircase winds its way to the top, every so often there is a landing and several doors radiating from the central cylinder. The climb is long, and though you struggle and kick, your captors have bound you well and you cannot escape. Before long you notice the light dwindling and realize the tower is now being lit by a series of small lamps. Higher and higher you ascend until at last you come to a stop before an ornate archway. You hear a loud creak and are thrown once more into oppressive darkness. You hear the sound of metal striking ice. And then silence.

You struggle to remove the binding from your arms. It is smooth and cold, you guess it must be glass. You feel your way to a wall, hoping to smash it with a good hit, but as you are readying the strike you hear a strange shuffling sound. Someone or something is moving in the darkness. You hear it shuffle and click along the icy floor, coming closer and closer. And then..."Oh how interesting." A female voice cuts through the air. It is cool and melodious and seems to carry a perpetual joyous tone. "Oh yes indeed!" She exclaims, "They found another! Haha! someone doesn't belong do they? Another abomination just like me!"

You pause, a little unsure of how to respond.

Hugs.

Keep smashing your bonds. You want your hands free in case she's hostile. Or in case she's not, but you feel like attacking her anyway.

You slam the glass binding into the wall smashing it into so many jagged shards of glass. Your hands and arms are lacerated severely, but they quickly stitch themselves up. The raw skin itches uncomfortably, your hands remain sticky with your own blood. You hear a shuffling to your left and the voice comes once more, much closer than before.

"So silent, can you not speak? Are you mute as those miserable sand things? Oh I hope not, that would be boring boring boring! You don't want to be boring now do you?"

Direction hums once more in your head.

Be careful, things are not always what they seem.

Scream.

"You call yourself an abomination. Who are you."

"You call yourself an abomination! Who are you!?"

"Who? what is Who?"

"ah...I'm not sure it just...seems like the thing to ask..."

"You ask questions when you do not know their meanings?"

"I think...I think it's what we call things. Like sand, or glass, or ice."

"I think I get it, so you want to know what I am called? I think I told you already, I have been labeled abomnination."

"But that's not a...name?"

"Name?"

"Yeah! It's a thing we call...people? Yes! For example mine is...er...mine is...."

You try to remember but it seems to elude you. As though a great fog surrounds you, an endless obscuring cloud. You try to push through it, but the harder you try to remember the denser the fog seems to get. A sharp pain breaks your focus. A sharp stabbing pain shoots through your arm, as though it had been stabbed through by a shard of molten glass. You scream as it burns up your arm.

"Agh!? Stop that! Stop that sound! It's horrible! Why are you doing that! Stop PLEASE!"

Eat it.

Breathe more fire over your shoulder.

Got it. This is no-name's land. Stop trying to remember it! ...for now.

Stop.

"AAAARGH!" Your arm feels as though it is on fire. You grab onto it with your other hand, or at least try to. It seems part of your hand is made of...sand?

Trying to ignore the pain you pull some of the sand away, an idea slowly forming in your mind. You stuff some of the sand into your mouth. Sure enough a familiar pressure builds within your throat. A fireball leaps from your mouth, for a moment your injured hand is outlined in light, a mass of sand and slowly disintegrating glass. Then it is engulfed in heat and flame, burning brightly. The shadows seem to flee from it as it explodes with white hot heat. It burns quickly and viciously, painting the walls in a bright yellow light. You stumble back as your skin pops and boils. You leave behind a tiny shining point wreathed in flame, an undying blaze suspended in the air.

You feel your regeneration kick in, rejecting boils and burnt flesh, rebuilding lost bone and muscle. You can still feel the heat of the perpetual flame, but it is bearable at this distance. You look around your cell for the first time. The walls are the sparkling sapphire of the purest ice. Water trickles down them in rivulets, pooling on the floor as they slowly melt in the heat. You hear a voice behind you, pleading. "Get it away! Get it away!" You turn to see your cell mate. She is a woman, at least that's what your mind tells you but she is very different than you had expected. Her skin is like frost on a windowpane, her hair is newly fallen snow. Her eyes shine with colors like light through a prism, her lips bear the same cold blue as the walls. She is cowering in the corner, her arms wrapped around herself. Water flows from her face and arms, as though she were melting like the frozen walls of the tower. "please..." she begs "make it...go away.."

Push it.

Pull it back, a bit?

You reach out feeling the heat burning your skin. You give it a push. It is excrutiatingly painful but slowly you move it towards one of the walls of your prison. Water trickles in thick rivulets as you get closer and closer. You slam the fiery orb into the wall, not caring about your charred fingers. With an earsplitting CRACK the wall splits, small slivers of sharp, brittle ice explode outward as the wall collapses into the darkness leaving a large hole. The orb of light follows. You curse silently under your breath for losing such a potentially powerful artifact. The shadows flow in behind its retreating form. once again you are in the dark. The shadows welcome you once again. They wrap around you, gently caressing your form. And then they are everywhere, pushing from every direction. A sudden punishing pressure envelopes you. You can't see, you can't breath. You feel as though you are being crushed. As suddenly as it began the feeling dissipates leaving you feeling almost...light. The feeling is short lived as the sharp pain of your arm's crawling regeneration brings you back to your senses.

There is something else in the dark...not just her...I can feel it...

A bomb.

Trap the darkness. Surround it from the outside and squeeze

You reach out into the darkness, you feel it pressing against your palms. You bring your hands together, forcing the shadows together. You squeeze and squeeze, pressing them tighter and tighter. Gradually, you notice the shadows are feeling very heavy in your hands, they've taken on an odd texture, almost metallic? Suddenly the room is filled with noise and light and fire. You feel more than hear the thunderous crack that rips up the side of the tower, splitting it in two. And then everything is silent. An eerie calm settles around you and a bright white light obscures your vision. For a moment you feel as though you are floating, and then you drop. Your fall with a certain terminal momentum. It's the kind of fall where you can't see your destination, but you know it is there, waiting down below. It will not have to wait long.

You land in a thick sucking mud. It pulls at you, trying to drag you into its depths but whenever it touches your skin it dries and crumbles. You stand, a patch of cracked red mud solidifies underneath your feet. You feel different somehow, like nothing is quite real. It certainly feels real, but it's like being in a dream, something is off but you just can't place it.

The sky is bright white. Light shines down around you, but from where you stand you cannot see its source. All around you the mud grumbles hungrily, thick bubbles rise to its surface and pop with dull splats. As you look around you see there is a whole plain of the stuff, it stretches off into the horizon as far as the eye can see. You notice strange objects poking out of the surface, sinking slowly in the ooze. It takes you a few moments to realize they are human limbs.

Pull on one until something comes out

You grip tightly to one of the muddy arms. You can feel the mud below pulling, hungry. You drag your prize from the sucking sludge. The man gasps as he is lifted from his demise, gasping and sputtering as mud sloughs from his shaking form. All the hair seems to have been stripped from his arms and legs. His body is slight and pitiful, practically detestable. His eyes are full of fear and weakness. They shift from side to side, never staying still for a moment. His lips move constantly as though chanting or repeating some word or phrase. A deep feeling of disgust rises from the pit of your stomach as you stare at his jittering form. What a reprehensible creature. You wonder why you even lifted him from the mud. In any case you hold him now. His worthless life is held in your hands.

What's he saying?