Everything rushed back to him, and with memories filling his mind, glee and relief took a step back. The realization tasted as sour as rotten grapes. And just like that, the world didn't seem so colorful anymore.
He felt the bitter acceptance and the numbness return to his brain, enveloping it with dark clouds. He glanced back at the weapon in his hands, strangely feeling no hate toward the bearer of the memories he had temporarily set aside. Examining it closer, he searched for the engraving at the underside of the barrel.
Startled, he read: Victor Holloway𓋹. The strange symbol at the end confused him, since he felt a strong sense of familiarity washing over him. It reminded him of something he had seen before.
Something hazy formed before his inner eye, like static on a radio. He could not make out any detail of the image except for six white spots on a dark surface.
Then his old memories overflowed and mixed together, forming flowery battlefields and corpses illuminated by rays of orange light.
He saw the hanged man; this time, instead of a bird sitting on his head, it was a purple flower.
The flower quickly grew large and beautiful and vibrant in color, before, just as fast, wilting and losing its petals.
On his chest rested a simple metal chain, and on its end hung an amulet that resembled the symbol:
[ 𓋹 ]
Then he saw his revolver that turned inside out, twisting and contorting into shapes he had never seen before, always bearing his name and the strange symbol.
As his head started hurting from the sheer amount of thoughts and memories flowing through it, he groaned, taking a deep breath while rubbing his temples, which slowly made the images fade away.
With no plan or idea on how to proceed in his new environment, he just started walking in the direction the constellations seemed to be pointing at. It just felt natural, like an instinct driving him forward.
The grass brushing against his legs and the wild wind brushing through his hair; it all felt so natural. As the emotions he had felt before his untimely demise were pushed aside by the feeling of belonging, he relaxed once more. Now it felt much more like a recreational walk, as he enjoyed the nightly scenery.
After quite some time, having covered a good distance on foot, he left the large grass fields behind him.
Before him lay a quiet and dry meadow, decorated by patches of grass and a few lonely trees in the distance.
The wind blew harsher now, which probably came from the lack of grass shielding Victor from the elements. At the border to the meadows, he let his gaze wander, spotting a lake in the distance.
Treading over the dry foliage towards the lake, he stopped.
"When did I put clothes on?" he remarked in his head, looking at his feet covered with shoes.
The shoes he wore had a simple nature, seemingly made of raw leather and bound by laces made of tweed; they did not represent extravagance. Not that he cared, having spent most of his life in combat boots.
The rest of his attire was also rather simple, as the shirt had a white color and was made of a light fabric that waved in the wind. His pants, on the other hand, were made of a heavier dark-brown fabric, similar to the color of his hair. Confused, he rubbed the fabric between his fingertips. What kind of place isthis?
His head started hurting again, and he suddenly felt very wrong in his own skin. Pushing the prior question aside, as he knew he could not yet answer it, he just started quietly walking towards the lake again.
After arriving at the lake's muddy shores, he admired the reflection of the sky on its clear surface. Looking like a tiny cosmos itself, its surface quiet and absolute, even though the wind should send waves across it.
He squatted down to have a peek at his reflection; he was surprised to stare into the face of his twenty-year-old self.
In awe he ran his fingers through the soft strands of hair. Putting his revolver on the ground next to the lake, he started washing his face. The water felt lukewarm and clean on his skin, like rain on a warm day in spring. After he was done cleaning his face, the eerie feeling from before subsided, and he felt safe again.
Satisfied, laying down again, enjoying the sky once more, and slowly drifting into sleep. In his dreams he was running across the wide savanna. With a spear in hand, he chased after a gazelle, which was already bleeding and injured.
Then, all of a sudden, he sat at a campfire, smoke rising lazily into the sky. Out of nowhere he heard a fierce growl behind him, and as he turned around, a black shadow leapt into his face.
Victor jolted awake, panting heavily. Terrified, he looked at his surroundings but couldn't spot anything suspicious. As he gradually woke up, he noticed that the night had turned into dawn, stretching its morning rays through the valley.
The stars had faded in the morning sky, now barely visible in the colorful orange covering them. Shook from his dreams that night, he quickly gathered his gun and started running in the same direction he had yesterday. It felt wrong in a way he couldn't describe.
The hours that followed went by in a haze, as Victor ran as fast as he could, barely pausing to breathe. His instincts were screaming at him, unnaturally loud. Sweat was constantly obstructing his eyes, and the sun that now stood at the zenith of the sky burned down at him.
The landscape didn't seem to change much, except for occasional groves with strange-looking, tall trees. Constantly his instincts were firing, compelling him to run away from the slightest movement he perceived in his peripheral view.
But eventually he couldn't go anymore; he was exhausted and sweating, gasping for air. As his legs slowly gave out, he stumbled towards a tree, sitting down at its roots.
Why did I run? Because of a dream? No, that makes no sense. Something is compelling me to do this, making my instincts. This place is making me feel so jumpy. But what do I do now? I don't know if I have to eat, and I left the only source of water behind me. Although it doesn't seem to be very cold outside in the night, I should try to find some sort of shelter.
With a plan in mind, Victor stood up carefully as his legs felt unimaginably weak. He thought for a second, recalling his hasty journey until now, trying to think of a place that could have served as shelter.
Ultimately he gave up, though, as all he remembered was the plain grassy ground of the meadows he had run through the past hours.
Ah... I will just have to walk again...
Carefully scanning his surroundings, he noticed something in the distance, probably some two miles away. It was a faint glimmer that was slightly higher than the tree line in the distance.
This immediately piqued Victor's interest, almost compelling him to walk towards it. As he got closer, he realized that the glimmer faintly resembled a rectangular shape, almost like a frame for something.
Finally reaching this illusory structure, he saw that it resembled a grand gate. The ground below the gate had deformed slightly as if pulled towards the door.
As he approached the malformed soil, he felt an aura of weight and importance coming from the ghostly frame. He was just about to touch the shimmering left door when suddenly a symbol made of light appeared at the frame's top.
The symbol resembled a simple square topped by a ball:
[ 𓈌 ]
Just as the symbol appeared, the two doors slowly swung open with a mechanical hissing sound. The ground around him started to tremble, especially at the open dark entrance, kicking up massive amounts of dust in the process.
Startled, Victor instinctively tried turning around, but the sheer amount of dust getting flung into the air obstructed his view. Disoriented, he stumbled, and the vibrating ground swept him off his feet.
And as Victor tried getting back up again, the soil beneath him was ripped apart by some sort of pressure, and he rolled quickly towards the door. Standing up again, he noticed that the doors were closing again, creaking loudly.
The last thing he saw before the doors slammed shut was the air full of dust outside. A loud, dampened sound emerged from the doors like the sound of a lock engaging, and the symbol from the doorframe appeared on the inside door for a few seconds.
Instantly he felt his muscles relax, and his entire body felt as if it were taking a huge breath. All feelings of nature and the need to run disappeared with the closing of the gate. Victor brushed away the dust on his clothes and noticed that the symbol on the revolver had started weakly glowing.
The symbol gave out enough light for Victor to notice that the side of the gate he was on seemed to be much more material, not just a faint shimmer. Looking around, he remarked that the space he seemed to be in felt like a tunnel.
As he tried to touch the walls on his side, he felt a stone-like texture, but he also sensed a pulsating warmth inside the material.
Glancing back at the gate he came from, it seemed to be made of a rather translucent metal. Above this side's frame, the same symbol as outside was etched into the tunnel walls, but beneath it was some sort of sentence made of more strange symbols:
[ 𓇯𓀀𓏥 ]
Feeling curious, he wandered deeper into the tunnel to see what was on the other side. Two hundred meters down the tunnel, he stepped into a slightly larger hall. And on the other side, smaller than the last one, stood another gate.