The forest was still trembling from the clash of blades and arrows. Screams of battle echoed through the trees, but here in this quiet, distant edge of the chaos, all was still.
The blackened pod pulsed faintly atop its pedestal, once filled with pure darkness — now dimming. The light was slowly returning to it, golden hues seeping in as the life magic of Queen Tara's chosen began to take root again.
But not all eyes were turned to the victory.
Far from the heart of the battlefield, beneath a gnarled and rotting tree, an old Boggan stood in silence, gazing across the distance at the flickering pod. In his outstretched hand, a transparent orb hovered quietly, waiting.
Beside him, a young Boggan girl, his daughter watched the battle's distant light fade. Her voice trembled with frustration.
"What now, Father? The king is dead… and even his idiot son followed him. The prince of darkness that the king dreamed of — it's gone."
The old man did not speak right away. His gaze remained fixed on the flickering pod, where the last wisps of its corrupted magic twisted in the air like dying embers.
Then, without turning, he raised the orb.
Slowly, the black mist that had once filled the pod like ink bled out of it—drawn not to the light, but to the orb in his hand. It slipped unnoticed through the air like smoke escaping a dying fire, unseen by the Leafmen still distracted by their triumph.
The orb darkened first cloudy, then smoky gray, then solid black, as if it had swallowed the last breath of darkness in the world.
The old man finally spoke, voice low and certain.
"Not all hope is lost."
His daughter's breath caught as she stared at the now-black orb.
"We can still create our Dark Prince," he said.
He turned from the battlefield without a glance back and nodded to the few remaining Boggans behind him.
"Let's go. Before the Leafmen see us."
Deep in the Rotwood, where no birds sang and even mushrooms refused to grow, a circle of Boggans stood in silence. Above them rose the dead trunk of an ancient tree, hollowed by time and poison. At its center was a crude stone altar, veined with black moss and old blood.
A body lay atop the altar — once a fairy, now only the husk of one. Male, lean, with shattered glass-like wings folded beneath him and pale skin marbled with decay. The old man stepped forward and looked down upon the corpse with something close to reverence.
"Tonight," he said, "the prince will be born through the body of this fairy."
He lifted his hand, drew a sharp, bone-carved knife, and slashed across his palm. Black blood, thick and slow, dripped onto the chest of the dead fairy.
The wound closed before the last drop fell.
He raised both hands. Two orbs hovered beside them—one the blackened essence taken from the pod, the other glowing a sickly green.
"With the essence of darkness," he murmured, "and the stolen breath of Queen Tara…"
His voice deepened as the orbs began to spin.
"…he shall be forged in rot and born anew."
He began to chant in the Boggan tongue, ancient and cracking like dead bark:
"By root and ash, by blood and breath"
"By fallen queen and prince of death"
"Awakened flesh, with shadow fed
Rise from ruin, born of dread."
The blood on the corpse rippled, as if the skin drank it. The chest trembled. The orbs cracked open with a shuddering pulse, and the black and green mists rushed into the fairy's lifeless form.
The altar groaned.
The corpse arched, once, before it was swallowed in tendrils of black vines and hardened sap. A cocoon grew around it slick, pulsing, layered like bark. The air in the decayed grove vibrated with the beat of something ancient.
Something alive...
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
_______
(??? POV)
My physics teacher told me I had a lot of potential.
Then he pushed me off the roof.
At first, I was angry. Furious. I wanted to scream, to fight, to know why he did it.
But none of it mattered anymore.
I have been in coma for how many years after the incident.
In my vegitative state where I can't move a single thing of my body, I am still concius and can still hear the happenings which make my life much more miserable.
Everyday I hear people beside me like my mother who wish that I was dead, my sister who said that I was just Making their lives difficult,my father saying that we should consider euthanasia.
I even hear a nurse and a patient near me having sex which was pretty terrible for a virgin like me.
I was just 18 having the fun of my life, dreams that I want to get and a girl I want to pursue.
But with just a little fight my professor....
All of it ended
Years pass by
Only darkness. Stretching on forever.
I waited. And waited. For how long, I don't know. I don't even know how old am I. Just me, and my conciuseness in a weightless dark space.
I even began to forget things. At first I tried to remember things — my name, my family.
But they all faded.
Even my face.
The only thing that remained were the stories I watched… the movies I replayed so many times they etched themselves into my soul.
That's all I had. The worlds I escaped to in this darkness.
Until now.
"It's cracking."
"The Dark Prince is going to be born!"
…Voices.
I turned — or tried to — and realized I could move.
I raised my arm. I couldn't see it, but I felt it stretch forward — and then it hit something.
Hard. Curved.
A wall?
I pressed my palm flat. It was warm. Beating. Like flesh.
I knocked, and a faint crack spread beneath my hand. A sliver of light leaked through.
…Light?
My heart or something like it pounded. I pushed harder. Again. And again.
Crack
The surface split.
Light poured in.
Air touched me. Cold, strange, alive.
My body was shaking.
I stumbled out, gasping, half-blinded by the shift in color and texture. My limbs were… different. Too light, too smooth.
The world spun.
But only one thought formed in the mess of confusion:
Where am I?