Shadow Slave: Monochrome

Nero dreamt of a mountain chain. One where an eternal mist stalked its crevasses, where creatures of frightening ranks and classes walked endlessly. 

Some fought, some devoured themselves, and others seemed to disappear into nothing, with their corpses being consumed by the mist.

The sun and moon used to shine here once, but now their light seemed to avoid this place entirely. Even as the wheel of time spun back, they never once made their natural appearance, as if they too feared being devoured by these lands.

And then, time stopped.

[Aspirants! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial...]

It was dark, too dark.

Nero couldn't see anything at all, and to add to that it was incredibly stinky as well. His entire body was half sunk in some kind of black goop, and he could feel himself on the brink of passing out because of the terrible miasma in here.

'Wait a minute, haven't I done this before???'

Nero quickly stood up, and was slightly surprised to be able to feel the bottom of wherever he was. He thought he was falling in darkness for a second.

And not that long after, he realised he was not alone.

He couldn't describe it, but he knew that there were people in here with him. There were 5 others around him. He couldn't see or hear them, but he knew they were there, but more importantly.. one of them was dead.

He didn't know how or why, but one of them was most certainly dead.

"Um.. hello?"

None of them responded.

'Creepy!'

His body then began to shiver, and slowly he realised,

'I'm naked!?!?! Where the hell am I?'

Of course, there was nothing he could really do except walk. So walking was what he did, where too? Wherever the people were. He could feel 5 people in this place, all not very far from him, so he approached one of them first.

The black water was hard to move through, which wasn't surprising as it reached up to his torso. Upon closer inspection even, the dark water wasn't even wet? Or it wasn't making him wet?? Which ever one its was supposed to be, the water wasn't acting like water should.

Was this even water at all?

Getting back on the task at hand, Nero didn't know how to swim, and right now wasn't exactly a good time to learn. Regardlessly, he kept advancing.

Once he reached the first human he sensed, he was a little horrified.

It was a boy, much like him. He appeared to be shirtless, but he may have also been naked too if he was here like Nero himself. The boy had a dead expression, as he looked into darkness unphased.

"Hello?"

He did not respond. Nero tried to a wave his hand in front of him to induce a response, but there was nothing. He couldn't tell if he was simply being ignored, or if this boy genuinely couldn't see him for some odd reason.

It was the nightmare spell, anything was possible.

Nero approached the rest of the still living children, but it was the same for all of them too. They were all unphased and unbothered from what Nero was doing. He even lightly pushed and tickled them, but they reacted to nothing.

He then went to the corpse, hoping it would at least be clothed. Its entire body was sunken beneath the dark water, so Nero had to reach in for a moment, before pulling it out.

Of course, it was another boy, and it was expressionless even in death. Well it would be worse if it wasn't.

Upon investigating the corpse a little, Nero's eyes widened in shock as he noticed the corpse was missing both of its arms, and even its feet. He dropped to body out of shock, and his heart began to race, but once he calmed down for a moment he checked it out once more.

Based on it's wounds, it's limbs weren't simply just cut off or torn by some kind of creature. In fact, it was as if the missing body parts just simply never existed in the first place. Where they should've been, there were little stubs instead.

'Huh.'

There was nothing he could do apart from wait here to die or look for an exit. He doubted he could do the later, as he had no clue how large this place even was, but he didn't want to die either.

'Oh yeah! I need to check my attributes.. How do I even do it?'

And then after a little bit of trial and error, strange runes began to manifest out of thin air, but their glow was seemingly snatched away by the strange darkness. Regardless, he could still see them, although with some difficulty. He had to squint his eyes just to make out the strange alphabet.

**

Name: Nero

True Name: —

Rank: Aspirant

Soul Core: Dormant

Memories: —

Echoes: —

Attributes: [Bond], [Yin], [Remember]

Aspect: [Dark Disciple]

Aspect Description: [There were those who sought out the dark, and hoped to find solace in it. But you were born in it, molded by it. However, while you worship the darkness, it doesn't recognise you. What kind of god communicates with its lowest follower, after all?]

"What the shit."

What did any of this even mean?? Was this Aspect good or bad?? It didn't even have any abilities since he hadn't awakened his Soul core yet.

He was just about to check his attributes since they clearly seemed to be more useful, but then a loud screeching noise emerged from the dark.

Somewhere up ahead not too far from where Nero was, a door began to open. A white blinding light flooded the room, but it was very quickly devoured by the water of darkness, not allowing it to get very far. And then, a single silhouette seemed to stand in front of it.

"Times up, get out."

The other four remaining children finally showed a hint of emotion, as they began to walk towards the light. Nero who was pretending to be one them, followed suit. Finally, he could leave this place, any longer and he thought he would've frozen to death.

Just before though, he quickly walked back to check on the corpse of the boy. Of course, it was still there, but disturbingly the stubs of it's limbs had gotten even smaller. In fact, the whole corpse seemed to be shrinking.