The final whisper

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caligari

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Humans beware, the blood is foul. If thou art living, thou art chosen. Maketh pilgrimage to the home of ancient gods, once thou has proven thineself worthy of ascension, the end of thine curse thou shalt know.

With these words ringing in his mind Rian crossed the border into the land Godrem, a land rumored to house the Gods at its highest peaks. His mind was slipping from him, as it was for so many others; his homeland, his family, his friends, his past... All was lost to him. The plague that had stricken everyone he can still remember had taken a hefty toll on him, seeing as he remembers even less than most. Even now he desperately clings to that ancient legend, hoping that it was more fact than myth.
His journey to this place has not been an easy one, fresh wounds and barely healed scars still echo of battles behind him. If his mind would not recollect them, his body did it in its place. As though the pain wasn't bad enough, even as he finally reached the first step of the end of his journey, his stomach raged in anger at the lack of food. Rian had been careful with his rations, despite the fact he often forgets how many he still has. From his pack he took out an apple and slowly began to eat it as he ventured even deeper into this most ancient of nations.​
 
The sky above was grey, dull darkened clouds stretched far as the eye could see, looming overhead and blotting out most of the sun's light. It looked closer to evening, rather than a few short hours following high noon. Though rain water had yet to fall there was always the ever present threat that the heavens would piss down upon the heads of mortal men at any given moment. The land before him was vast and pretty, though admittedly dull in the light... the forgotten and unworn weed strewn path on which the man walked now forked ahead. One path leading into the forest, while the second wove over the hills to the distant bleached bones of a village that had been forgotten.

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Jacquelyn Faurger adjusted the rucksack she bore on her back, peering ahead from under her drawn hood, stark silver eyes searching for shelter. She was filthy from travel, her leather boots covered in a thick coat of grim, her trousers and the bottom of her knee-length brown cloak were speckled with dry mud. The black haired girl let out a small sigh and brushed her dangling witch's lock behind her ear before continuing onward, it fell back into place shortly. With each step she uttered a word beneath her breath, a name -- either her own or that of someone she knew --, a place she'd been or had once known, or something else that she feared she would forget. That was the worst part of all this, not the lingering sensation that she was dying along with everyone else, but the forgetting... this disease was something almost agonizing to her, she could feel pieces of her drifting away, fading and vanishing.

She refused to let anything go gently, and she scraped and scrounged to guard all her memories, yet still she would find blank space where her tangible history had once rested. It was a hollowing feeling, and she hated it... she hated how weak and helpless it made her feel, she loathed how pointless it all was. But that was why she was here, to add purpose, to make things better, to be her own salvation. A piece of the old song that had brought her to this strange place was on her lips now, and she was doing her best to recite it to the tune she'd learned it alongside in her mother's faded honey voice. For the life of her she couldn't remember her, she'd been on of the first things that Jack had forgotten, she simply remembered that she had a mother once, a faceless, colorless woman in her mind's eye. Nothing was clear when she tried to imagine her, nothing but the melodious voice she could still hear drifting through the air as the dame sung her sleep...
 
Jacquelyn found herself on a quite large flat area in the mountainside with a crumbling ruin of a church on one side and a steep cliff on the other. The view from the cliffs was a sight to behold with a clear view of an aquaduct in the distance leading to a walled city even further. From the distance she was at one could almost mistake the city for being fine and normal with no sign of the decay and chaos that roams every land. Almost.
The ruins of the small, ancient church must've once served as both a waypoint and resting place for the pilgrims that used to travel through these lands, yet now mere remnants of its ancient glory remain with many of its decorative statues destroyed and those that remained having lost their faces and distinct features. All statues, save for one human-sized representation of a woman holding a small child which still stood clean and proud above the entryway almost untouched by the tooth of time as though some strange force has protected it since ages past. A faint glow of a small fire could be seen through the cracks in the walls and the remaining windows, though there was little sound regarding a party of people or even a mere couple. Still, some minor shuffling and rustling could be heard.
Though at the location itself the church was the only thing of note, the area surrounding it served as an obvious gateway for wanderers and travelers as a small number of roads could be taken; be it right, nearing the cliff and down a set of spiraling stairs to depths too dark to see from the edge of the cliff. Another road was visible from the side of the church leading through a graveyard, too big compared to the size of the church, and disappearing around a bend and into a crack in the mountain. Lastly there was the main road she had come up on continuing on along the mountainside and toward the aquaduct in the distance.


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Rian had little interest in walking through rain and mud as the path to the forest opened up, especially since an old village was just as far and promised much more in the way of warmth, food and the ability to remain dry. Still there were risks involved he preferred to avoid such as other afflicted so deeply cursed that even the memory of once having a memory is lost. These unfortunate souls are often quite dangerous as they have difficulty distinguishing friend from foe. Not to mention unsavory types that prey on those clinging to life in the hopes of getting rich even in these desperate times.
The thought of it all caused Rian to stop dead in his tracks and gaze upon the village, should he? Would he? He gave one more look over his shoulder to the path leading into the forest and once more upward to the clouds who were about to weep almost as hard as humanity now weeps. He had no choice but to go forward and venture into the unknown remnants of lost civilization. Still he clung to the grip of his sword should the need arise.​
 
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