A boy with a gaunt figure sits on a tree trunk as he looks at the sky. He has evident eye bags suggesting he hasn't slept in a while.
He gets up with visible struggle on his face as he walks towards a tent. There, a man with a towering figure stands with others sitting around a circular table.
Noticing the boy walking in, he has a crazed look in his eyes as he starts to talk to the people around him with a loud voice.
"Today… We shall welcome one of the first awakened of the dream realm into the world and we will show those ignorant fools that their ideas of preserving the old world is foolish"
As applause comes from the people, the man, walks towards the boy and puts a hand on his shoulder before bringing his face towards the boy and starts mumbling about how he is the future.
The boy, however, looks with a disinterested gaze as the words of the man blurs and goes from one ear out the other. The man then finishes his mumbling and brings the boy towards a stone obelisk with the others following him.
"Now that you are of age, we will now send you to your first nightmare where you will put what we've taught you to use and show us that we are right and those stuck on the old world are wrong".
The man then knocks him out and as the boy drifts into unconsciousness, the face of the man is ingraved into his memory.
...
The boy wakes up in a forest and looks around when he feels a sharp stabbing pain in his leg. The original owner of his body has fallen into a deep pit with his leg twisted into an awkward angle.
His thoughts turn as he wonders what happened for the boy to be stuck here with no one helping him out and he hears the sound of footsteps.
"Did we get something with our trap?"
"I think i heard a scream earlier when i came by to check on it before calling for you", a younger sounding voice said.
While they are conversing a rustle is heard as the 2 men are attacked by something and the younger of the 2 runs away whilst the older man is ripped apart by something that resembled a wolf but had a hide of small spikes instead of fur and a disfigured face with half of it missing skin.
The boy holds his breath in order not to be noticed by the creature as he listens to the sounds of the man being devoured by it.
After waiting for more than an hour, he starts trying to climb up but due to the injury on his leg, he isn't able to and just sits there after a brief struggle.
As he rests with ragged breaths, his brief memories playback and he thinks about how much he suffered just to die in a random hole.
His body was tempered by the training which bordered on torture in order for him to survive in situations where he finds himself in dangerous enviorments and he was often starved in order for him to build up a resistance in case no food was available.
But now that was all for nothing as he is going to die without being able to do anything as calling or screaming for help wouldn't work as the creature might be nearby and climbing with an injured leg was impossible.
With the thoughts of death lingering in his mind, he starts feeling around the hole with his hand as he touches a small mound which seemed to be a sort of grave. He digs it up as he feels an animal thats already died but hadn't rotted yet.
He sits there with the small animal undiscernable in the darkness and, with no other choice, eats it in order to get rid of the hunger.