Dark Resurrection: Shadows of Nekrom

Rebirth was something that no human being could boast of having experienced. It was not even something that one could confirm with logic, nor deny it, seen from an agnostic point of view. The mechanisms that govern life and death were not something that the mind of people could know beyond what one could dream, imagine or philosophize.

Rebirth was one of those concepts within human psyche that will never be understood; a knowledge that no one was prepared to face.

Tristessa was no exception, and yet, she had just returned to life and she knew it. She remembered the moment of her own death, she remembered the aftermath of it, and now she was taking her first breaths of air, like the newborn she was.

"This is not a dream… Nothing is a dream, all of this is the real deal," the girl was forced to accept, her brain working at a frantic speed so as not to give in to panic. Blood other than her own, from that giant wolf lying dead behind her, was spreading in all directions. The light of the Twin Moons shone so brightly against the night that the blood mixed with water was a crimson mirror on the rocky ground, allowing Tristessa to see her own reflection. "I-It's me…"

Her entire bloody body burned with extreme heat, even though the night wind brought very low temperatures with it. Nothing had changed, nor had her face. Even her hair was intact, although saturated with moisture, blood and hair knots.

Only… There was something strange on her chest.

"W-what the fuck…?" Tristessa quickly lowered her gaze and saw, with growing concern, several vascular spider veins, violet and black, spreading in a small area in the space between her breasts. She put her hand on it and felt the restless beating of her heart, without any other alarming sign. However… "This is not good. It's not normal. Nothing is!"

The frustration was such that she put her hands to her head and screamed, not caring about anything else, not even the pain of her new throat.

"SHIT, FUCKING SHIT!" There was no peace for Tristessa. Truly, fate had given her a monumental slap in the face from the moment she lost her memory. Arriving in another world, dying and reviving. The cosmos was laughing at her and her misfortune. "…why me?"

Dejected, anguished and inconsolable, Tristessa looked around. This was the Red Forest, she had no doubt about it. The massive trees and the perpetual rain of leaves stretched out before her eyes everywhere, illuminated by the light of the Moons. She was in a clearing, an empty space with several parts of the terrain raised by rocky geography, but it was not that cemetery where the thorny rabbits had led her to set a trap for her: she knew it by the absence of all those hundreds of bones scattered everywhere, and more than anything by the absolute absence of predators and their symbiotic allies.

The only inhabitant of that clearing had been that giant she-wolf that lay disemboweled, with its tissues cut irregularly from a common origin, as if from that point it had exploded outwards under an intolerable pressure…

"That corridor… The Infinite Corridor, led me to the interior of this beast. One of the beasts that killed me? What is it doing here alone? Maybe…the pack abandoned her?"

Guessing and without evidence, Tristessa tried to stand up and failed epically: her legs surrendered instantly and she fell on top of that pool of blood and organs, crushing her arm and hip with her own weight.

"Ah! Ah… This is…"

Physical pain. That was her body, her real body, sensitive to the changes of reality and not a 99.99% perfect imitation that her soul had made in that limbo that she was going to define from now on as The In-Between.

Her new body, burning with fresh agony before the thirteen years of experience it had been forced to acquire in a few seconds. Another kind of torment that Tristessa found more tolerable than what she had experienced in the immaterial world.

After all, the torment of dying, and being aware of having died, and being aware of her soul being broken, and being aware of its repair by the Surgeons of Death, and being aware of having been resurrected in such an unholy manner under the guidance of that angel and demon couple… There was no possible torment that could even come close to matching the one of Death and Rebirth.

"Never again… I don't want to…" she thought, trying to stand up again, feeling the tears building up in her eyes just thinking about it. "No…"

Tristessa knew perfectly well that she never wanted to suffer that fate again; that agony that every human being feared to experience from the first moment they understood the concept of Death. That's why it was easier to associate Death with ideas of hell, of eternal punishment, in the effort to try to explain the fateful hour of dying and the aftermath. It was much easier to philosophize for millennia in search for the answer to the incompatibility of the human mind around Death.

That was how it had been, for countless centuries…until Tristessa had the dishonor of being, perhaps, the first living being to break that paradigm and find the answer to Death.

And as a result, her soul was marked with the experience of Death, wounds healed but whose origins she would never be able to shake off. Every time she thought of the death she suffered at the hands of the giant wolves, she was going to remember EVERYTHING. From the agony of being devoured alive to the torment of her soul destroyed and denied total dissolution in the Void.

"And this mark, my…" Unlike her soul, behind the spread of dark veins on her chest, her heart was firm, determined for this new opportunity. Newborn, like an infant receiving the blessing of a life that no one asked for. "…my Baptism in Ruins, it will take care of reminding me of the taste of Death and Rebirth."

Tristessa managed to stand up, the joints of her legs shaking and threatening to make her lose her balance. With a hand on her chest, covering the mark, she let out a sigh from the depths of her soul and looked into the forest, in the opposite direction of her morbid altar of Resurrection.

"I need to find people," she thought, her target, and took several tentative steps forward. She didn't fall, that was a good sign. Several more, and in no time she reached the edge with a darkness that was pathetically mundane but just as dangerous as the one in the In Between. Without further ado, she stepped through. "If I fail to find civilization, I'll fall back into the hands of the giant wolves… Or worse."

***

The hours passed and Tristessa continued to wander through the forest, blind to the path, in the dark and at the mercy of the unforgiving nature of this new world. Her naked, bloodied body trembled without restraint, and hugging herself did not help much against the night wind. The hunger she felt was voracious, twisting her unused stomach and penalizing her with extreme fatigue. She was so hungry that the idea of ​​returning to the clearing and eating the entrails of the dead giant she-wolf did not seem bad at all, but reality dictated that if she turned back, she would surely faint from hunger or worse, die of cold, before even reaching her starting point.

"…hello…?"

"Anybody…?"

And if that were not enough, occasional spiny talking rabbits stalked her, tempting her to follow them to their den. Tristessa gritted her teeth and did her best to ignore the false voices coming from the bushes. The paralyzing anxiety; the fatality of a dark omen, her fate sealed again if she dared to follow them.

"I'm not going to die. I'm not going to die. I'm not going to die," she repeated inside her head, as many times as necessary, in order to be able to take one more step forward. "This damn forest will end, I know it. And I'll find a medieval fantasy town out of a videogame, eat in a tavern and then worry about what the hell I'm going to do next. Yes, it will be just like that."

Optimism was an interesting placebo in the face of the extremely unfavorable situation Tristessa was going through. She hoped it would come out that way, just as she imagined, but she had no way to stop crying tears of despair. Tears that carried all her fears; tears of loneliness, tears impregnated with the cruel reality: the moment her tired and injured feet stopped dragging her body, she was going to die again.

"I'm not going to die… I don't want to die… I don't want to die! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

With her eyes covered by the veil of tears and the darkness of the forest, Tristessa did not notice the beam of light that peeked through the trees. She was so frightened of her own ill fate that it had to be a new sound that broke her from her train of thought manufactured out of pure misery.

"By the Goddess of Order… G-girl, are you okay?!"

Slowly, Tristessa turned her head and saw to her left, emerging from the maze of trees and bushes, a human being.

The light emitted by the oil lamp he held in his left hand illuminated the face of a mature man, open-mouthed in surprise. Slightly bearded and disheveled, his blond hair tied into a ponytail and emerald-colored eyes. He was wearing a hooded cloak that made him blend in with the darkness, black pants, and travel boots. In his right hand he held a wooden gunpowder-based rifle, so old-fashioned and basic by the way it looked.

Never before had Tristessa desired the presence of another person so much, and now that she had one just a few meters away, her half-open mouth did not emit any sound. The exhaustion had reached its limit, and it was there that she allowed herself to fall to the ground, having accomplished her objective, for better or worse. A small victory among so many defeats.

"Miss!" She heard the man scream when her legs gave way and she collapsed like one of her articulated dolls back on Earth, falling on wet ground and protruding roots of the nearest tree. "What happened to you?!"

Instantly she had the light of the lamp illuminating her face chaotically, like a dance of stars in front of her cloudy eyes. She saw the man leave the lamp hanging on one of the small branches of the tree and passed the strap of his rifle traverse to his body, in order to leave the weapon hanging on his back and have both hands free. The man quickly untied his cape and covered Tristessa with it, then took her in his arms.

"In the name of Xiliarra, you are covered in blood, but… I don't see that you are hurt. Whose blood is this?" He asked, unable to overcome his surprise at the girl's morbid physical condition. "And you look very weak… Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

Speaking in her own language, Tristessa saw that the man's concern was more than evident. Without compromising the support he was giving her, he took a brown leather waterskin that he had hanging on the belt around his waist and uncorked it with his bare teeth.

"Drink, it's fresh spring water," he told her, and the girl didn't hesitate for a moment to boldly take the mouth of the waterskin to her mouth and drink as if there was no tomorrow. "That's right, have as much as you need."

As she stopped to breathe, Tristessa felt a fraction of her fatigue begin to fade. As soon as she handed the leather container back to the man, he was already offering her a large slice of dried meat.

"Thank you, sir." She accepted the food with a weak smile of relief that was going to be very difficult to erase from her face. She wasn't going to deny that the flavor was very strong, further concentrated by the smoking process, but rather than having nothing at all, that strip of meat was worthy of the very gods.

"Miss, did you…?" The man looked in the direction she had come from and licked his dry, chapped lips out of nervousness. Tristessa could tell he was uneasy. Scared, even. As she swallowed a piece of meat, she opened her mouth to say something but the man pulled himself together, looking at her with a little more serenity. "Let me carry you."

After turning off the lamp and hanging it on his waist, the man lifted Tristessa off the ground with great ease, clearly determined and with a plan in mind, given the seriousness reflected in his eyes.

"Umm… sir…?" Tristessa asked timidly and with a certain degree of discomfort that was insignificant compared to the extreme tiredness that dominated her. Protected from the cold behind that traveling cloak and held firmly in his arms, she even struggled not to give in to the temptation of falling asleep.

"Not here, please, miss." The man, who was undoubtedly a hunter, looked around constantly, frowning and not letting his guard down. "As long as we are in the Sea of ​​Trees, we are in danger."

Logically, with both hands occupied, it would be difficult for him to defend himself from the attack of predators if they caught him off guard. The forest was not to be underestimated, even when accompanied; the girl knew this perfectly well, having believed herself safe while walking straight into the abyss of Death. In addition, she was unaware of other dangers there apart from the giant wolves and their pompous and thorny allies: after personally verifying the existence of inhuman creatures such as that mechanical succubus and her lover, the guardian angel of the Infinite Corridor, there could easily be threats never before seen or thought of in her imagination, lurking among the shadows of the trees.

"Damn spinnaraks, they're so insistent… I'll stew them, for sure," she heard the hunter mutter, several minutes later, when nearby the whispers of the talking rabbits began to sound like the buzzing of a beehive, wanting to attract them with their empty words. "Don't worry, miss. It won't be long before we leave the forest, just less than half an imperial sight."

"Sorry. I-I didn't understand what you mean by 'spinarac and 'imperial sight,'" Tristessa whispered in return, her tiredness evident in her voice.

"What? How could it be that you don't…? Bah, we'll have time to talk later. We must get you safe first."

The hunter quickened his pace and in no time Tristessa managed to see, after what seemed like a perpetual panorama, the end of the forest illuminated by the beginning of the new day. In front of them was the irregular beginning of highlands, with plains that rose slightly to form hills; there were some groups of trees smaller than those in the massive forest behind them, scattered near a river that emerged from the orange rocky horizon to the north and went downhill until it was lost in the darkness of the Sea of ​​Trees.

"Nothing better than home," she heard the man say, relief in his voice, as he walked in a specific direction to the northeast. "I live there with my wife and son."

Tristessa had to turn her head slightly to see a two-story brick house with tiled roofs and glass windows. As they got closer, she saw that around it there were posts of weak artificial light with very old-fashioned lamps and no electrical connection in sight; the house was protected by iron bars and in the back a fraction of what seemed to be a barn could be seen.

"By the blessing of the Goddess I found you at the beginning of my morning routine. Hunting is not easy, and much less in the Sea of ​​Trees," the man commented, distracting Tristessa from her visual analysis by moving her a little roughly to accommodate her in his arms, already numb after so much effort. "If I hadn't seen you walking in the dark, who knows what would have become of you…"

But Tristessa couldn't stop thinking about the house; among the many clues that this simple building gave her about the current state of this new world, there was one detail that caught her attention the most:

"Is this the only house here? Isn't there a town somewhere?"

The hunter looked at her, lowering his gaze a little. The last shadows of the night still darkened his face a little, but Tristessa, with her eyelids weighing a ton, could see the ghost of suspicion crossing his gaze.

"The town is ten imperial sights away. Two days of travel on foot, in the best case scenario," was his neutral response. "You didn't know that either?"

"N-no…"

"You're not from around here, are you? You're not from Lady Eramisaptor's domain."

"I…I-I…"

Before she could say anything else, fatigue finally overcame her and Tristessa lost consciousness.

***

Terror.

Feeling the air build up in her throat and not go down to her lungs, like an invisible hand blocking the way. The candlelit hallway, an ominous sensation that froze the blood inside her veins. And the absolute blackness of the Dark Room, its secrets jealously hidden inside.

"…still here, Tristessa?"

Tristessa woke up startled, bringing her hand to her chest and breathing deeply. Her heart was beating very fast, and she felt cold sweat covering her back protected by a nightgown.

"Ah…ah…" She inhaled, exhaled, and pressed her eyes with her index finger and thumb to calm the throbbing headache that horrible dream had left her as a gift when it ended. She had to wait a long minute to calm herself and look around; an unknown place, dimly lit by the light that filtered through the gaps between the curtains of the window to her left. "Where…?"

Almost the moment she finished asking herself the question, she remembered her encounter with the hunter, how he saved her from wandering blindly through the Red Forest—or rather, the Sea of ​​Trees, according to him—and how she had been carried like a fairy tale princess back to his home.

She was now in one of the rooms of said house. She was not sure how many hours had passed, or days, but she did know that she was safe. No giant wolves or supernatural beings. Finally, only humans.

"Miss, are you alright?" she heard the hunter speak, his voice muffled as it came from outside the room. With renewed energy, the girl instantly stood up, leaning her back against the backrest. "Your screams can be heard throughout the house. May I come in?"

"Oh! Y-yes, of course I can!" At her statement, the man slowly opened the door and poked his head out, somewhat cautiously but smiling in a friendly manner. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I think I had a nightmare."

"No need to apologize. You're my guest, Miss…?"

"Tristessa. My name is Tristessa," she introduced herself, bowing her head slightly in respect as the man entered the room and headed straight for the windows. He was still dressed the same way he had been when she met him in the woods, except that his belt no longer had survival gear attached to it, and his rifle was no longer in plain sight.

"It is a pleasure, Miss Tristessa," he told her, before opening the curtains. "My name is Jin Mercer, at your service."

The morning light illuminated the room, revealing brick walls that had never known what plaster or paint was, a carpet with exotic patterns spread across the entire floor surface, a single armchair on the opposite wall next to a small wooden chair, and a chandelier hanging from one of the ceiling beams.

Beyond the features of the room, Tristessa found the dawn of the new day with true delight. The horror she had experienced and her memory loss offered her nothing but shadows and darkness; now she could finally enjoy the light, in a comfortable bed and in the presence of a charitable soul like that hunter.

"I said there is no need for apologies, when in fact it is I who must apologize to you, Miss." Jin Mercer stood beside her, interrupting her train of thought, both hands clasped behind his back and his cheeks red with embarrassment. "I couldn't let you sleep naked and covered in blood. My wife flatly refused to help me, so… I had no choice but to do it myself."

Tristessa blinked several times before realizing that, aside from the nightgown she was wearing, there was no trace of all that blood from inside the giant she-wolf that had served as a conduit for her Resurrection. The implications made her face burn and it was very difficult for her to look her savior in the eyes again.

"Really, Jin?" A new voice, feminine and stern, cut through that imaginary glacier of awkwardness that had formed between them. "Do you have to explain yourself to a child?"

The woman who entered the room radiated hostility, it was not even necessary to take into account her unfriendly way of speaking. Tristessa's gaze met with strange crimson eyes that, accompanied by a frown, offered a wide range of emotions totally opposite to what Jin had offered her from the very beginning of their encounter.

She was wearing a shirt with an apron, highlighting her very pregnant belly, and a black skirt that reached the top of her high-heeled boots. She carried in her hands a brass tray with a tea set on it, steaming and with a delicious aroma that soon enveloped the entire room. Accompanied with the tea were also slices of homemade bread with butter, and an apple cut into four slices.

"Miss Tristessa, I would like to introduce you to my dear wife…" Jin began to say, with his smile almost hidden in between his beard without diminishing at any time, although he did lower his gaze a little.

"Tiara Archeos," his wife interrupted, stepping past him. "Mother of one child and future mother of another."

She set the tray on the bedside table, pushing aside a dusty picture frame that was face down, nearly knocking it to the floor. True to her taste for beautiful hair, Tristessa was entranced by the sight of the woman's locks up close: chestnut-colored, held back by a black ribbon in front, but loose behind and forming a cascade of curls as they reached mid-back.

"She looks in perfect condition to me, Jin, despite that thing on her chest. A curse, I suppose," Tiara commented, disgusted, her gaze piercing the silent girl, who instantly lowered her gaze: behind her nightgown, hidden but already discovered by the hosts, was the mark of her Baptism in Ruins.

"Curse?" Tristessa thought, turning her attention back to the hostile woman, who returned to her husband and placed her protective hands on her belly. "Did they…?"

"You don't seem to be in pain, so you should be in good health. Please eat breakfast and take all the provisions you need out of courtesy, girl. Then, kindly get out of my house."

"Oh please, Tiara, don't be like that with our guest."

"Ours? I never agreed to let her set a foot in here."

"Excuse me, Lady Archeos." Tristessa decided to force herself in before the couple could start an argument that was clearly her own fault. The knot in her stomach tried to spread to her throat, wanting to extent the fear that was being created by a conflict in an unknown environment. "If I have done something to offend you, I apologize. If you wish, I will leave towards... W-well, I will go in the direction of the nearest town."

"Ha! You say you don't know where the town is? Where did you come from, girl, from under a rock?" the woman mocked, as incredulous as she was furious. "You're obviously lying! Just do it, admit what you really want to do here!"

"I-I don't…"

"Tiara, please!" Jin raised his voice as well, unable to stay out of the way as his guest was insulted. "You don't have to worry about Tristessa, I'm sure she'll…"

"Oh! You want me not to worry? How do you expect me not to?" she asked, staring at her husband with wide eyes, so full of anger that it was surprising that her hands continued to caress her own belly with a calmness that she clearly did not possess. "A girl from the forest, covered in blood from head to toe and with who knows what curse parasitizing her body! Are you a fool, Jin?"

"I know what you're thinking, and you couldn't be more wrong!"

The black-haired girl's desperate gaze went from the woman to the man and back again. Neither of them was willing to give in to their arguments, and the negativity that had quickly taken over the room could be felt, like the heavy miasma that Tristessa already knew quite well.

"Of course, go ahead, lie to yourself! Or do you truly not expect her to give you information about the damn witch?! Or perhaps you expect to know if…if Mellion…?!"

With the utterance of that name, Tiara broke down. Her anger quickly collapsed into anguish, forcing her to cover her mouth with one hand to stifle sudden sobs that sought freedom. Tristessa managed to see her eyes water as she looked away, turning her head towards the door where the small head of a child who could not have been older than eight years old was peeking out.

"M-Mommy…?" the little boy asked, very stunned to see his mother like that, trying to hold back her tears. His short hair was clearly inherited from Tiara, plus the curls at the end near his neck.

"Come, Lucahn."

Tiara was quick and took her son by the hand to take him away from the presence of her husband and the girl who felt guilty about the whole conflict. The door slammed shut, and when the echo of the impact dispersed, the hunter let out the gasp he had been holding within.

"I'm sorry you had to hear that. Don't give it any importance, please. My wife, she just…" Jin shook his head, his gaze carrying a huge weight, and yet, he gathered the strength to smile again at Tristessa, who didn't even know what to say in her complete ignorance. "Just have breakfast and rest as much as you want. I'll be back in a few hours with the day's hunt, unless I run into another lost young lady, huh?"

"Wait, Mister Jin!" Tristessa's scream stopped the man with a hand on the doorknob. "Please help me understand. I want to know what upset your wife. If there's anything I can do to help you, I will."

"…"

The hunter's silence was desolating, a sea of ​​doubt before the honesty in Tristessa's words. Lost in more than one sense, without a path to follow both in the confines of her mind and in this strange new world, the girl needed to hold on to what was understandable, the solidity of something that was finally within her reach to make a decision about it: Jin Mercer was her only option for comfort in the face of so much adversity and she could not afford to lose him so soon.

"…perhaps you've wondered why we live so far from End-World Town," Jin whispered, not looking at his guest's face. "This house, back when the old Kingdom existed, was the home of one of the Royal Hunters. Although I am a hunter myself, and I have dedicated my life to the art, the reality is that my family and I live here because…"

A sigh, heavy and laden with uneasiness, as if it came from her own soul. So many things expressed in a simple gesture, and Tristessa could not even see beyond the tip of the iceberg.

"We were banished from town, by order of Lady Aurelia Eramisaptor, and endorsed by the imperial representative in her domain."

Maybe Jin expected an opinion from her, due to the silence she maintained, expectant. Of course, Tristessa could not judge him, in her absolute ignorance of how an unknown society functioned.

And, after all, she was banished too. From Death.

"Why?"

That was the only thing she could ask, earning a last broken smile from the hunter before he left the room and closed the door gently, unlike his wife.

"Rest, Tristessa."