Spirit Shadows: Awakening

Awakening is the first chapter in Stormjay Rider's Generation 2 story.

Memories...

They were all flooding back to him now.

Memories of past and future, of realities and dreams.

He first saw a massive city, filled with massive edifices and conical roads. The sky above was -- what did they call that again? -- blue. Yes, blue. He could see things moving through the sky slowly. As he slowly moved through the paths, he saw two appendages appearing and disappearing in front of him, clad in black and white armor. It didn't take him long to figure out that those appendages were his own arms.

He heard a noise coming from his side, and turned his head sharply to the left. He beheld a figure]standing in the midst of the roads, clad in green and gold armor, wearing an unusual adornment on his face. He is a Toa like me, he heard his subconscious say.

The memory seemed to skip ahead a little -- he saw, in the flash of a second, him talking to this "Toa" in inaudible voices. Then, he saw his black-clad arms in front of him. The hands - his own hands - where glowing with white electricity, but he felt no pain. In a second, the electricity had been flung from his hands at the other figure.

I must be controlling it, his subconscious spoke.

The vision of these events slowly fizzled out, replaced by a scene that shocked him. The once bright sky was replaced by a dreary grey sky for a second, then suddenly fadded into black -- then suddenly lit up again, with a reddish flame.

His heart suddenly began to race, and he felt a burning sensation in his chin. Before he could register what was happening he was kicked onto the ground, and saw a dark figure towering over him, his arms glowing with fire. He then saw him suddenly pushed back by a pair of legs (my own legs, he heard in his mind), and he himself soon standing over the figure, his hand on his foe's neck.

Then it changed again.

The dark atmosphere suddenly gave way to light, bright red and yellow, before he realized that everything around him was on fire. But he had no time to ponder the danger he was in, for suddenly he felt himself grabbed by the neck and thrown against a wall.

Aching from the pain, he caught sight of his assailant. It was a massive creature, a humanoid with crimson armor, but with the head of a spider. The creature's eyes, fixated on its prey, glowed red with anger. Yet almost as suddenly as it had attacked, it drew off, and ran back into another fight. Suddenly, the memory seemed to shift in atmosphere -- everything began to slow down, become more difficult to understand. He saw, in the midst of the flames, a body, partially clad in blue and gold armor, now mutilated and broken. A distance away, he saw two small figures, one black-clad and one silver-clad, hopelessly fighting against a massive monster and a herd of reptilian creatures. For the first time since these memories had starting coming to him, he felt something - something that hurt him, beyond his body.

I've lost them...

Then it changed once more.

This time, it wasn't a memory... he wasn't seeing through his own eyes like a memory. He was quite sure it was the future. He saw a massive wasteland, filled with dust and rock, under a blood red sky. In the wasteland he saw corpses -- the corpses of hundreds, if not thousands, of warriors. He saw the mass of spilled blood, which began to glow, until he could see its shape -- the massive form of a bird in flight. And the middle of the blood, he saw the last standing warrior. Himself.

He heard a single, strong voice, echoing throughout the wasteland.

"The Stormhawk has come!"



Then came blackness.

No sounds. No sight. Simply blackness.

With no more flood of memories, his mind was free to think. Where was he? Who was he? He felt like he had a name -- Jetera? Jerin? Terin? He couldn't put a finger on it.

There came another sensation - but one he felt stronger than the memories. He felt the rising and falling of something cold and wet over his body. He puzzled what this meant for a second, until he realized.

It's water.

I'm drowning.

He at once reached around him for something to get him out of the water. But he found that all around him was some sort of hard substance. He tried above him. With a little push, he suddenly saw something go flying off, and a blinding light above him.

He slowly crawled out of whatever he was in. He felt disoriented and strange. The next thing he knew he was lying on cold mud, panting, while trying to make sense of the world around him. He was on a large beach, with no one in sight. There was sand around as far as the eye could see -- as well as strange plantlife, which was many colors, and gave out a blue glow.

He tried to scrape himself off the ground. He felt something else was wrong. He felt for his face -- and realized what was wrong. I've lost my mask.

He turned around, seeking to find his prison again and reclaim his mask -- but saw only a large black object, floating back out to sea.

He saw another object stuck in the mud beside him. Crawling over to it, he found that it was a knife of some sort -- with a curiously designed blade, and a small spearhead on the top. It struck him that he was familiar with this weapon. He looked down and found a matching blade, sheathed on his left thigh. This must be my weapon, he thought, as he found an identical sheath on his other thigh. After sheathing it, he pulled himself up to a standing position. He was in a strange world, with few memories, little energy, and no memory of how to use the power he had.

But at least he was alive.

And somehow he felt that his destiny lied here.