The world of shadows, a once empty and weightless realm, began to change all around him.
First came the trembling, the entire realm shaking around him with the unmistakable force of a trapped thunderstorm.
Then came the rumbling, shaking even his weightless body, and being followed by flashes of light that pierced the world around him with the strength of lightning.
The lightning around his body began to fizzle, its power dimming as the flashes of light grew more frequent and illuminated the world of nothing.
He looked down at the sensation of something slithering up his body. His eyes widening at the countless shadows beginning to climb over his flesh.
It was something that had never happened before.
Through the flashes of light, he watched as the shadows rose over his frozen body, slowly beginning to consume him.
He wanted to be afraid, but in the realm of nothing, emotions didn't exist. His body shouldn't exist.
Yet, somehow, it did.
Because this was no longer the realm of nothing. The world of shadows was no longer singular, but a combination, an amalgamation of primal forces.
His soul burned from within him as the shadows climbed, radiating a unique sense of fulfilment. That alone was strange.
What followed was even stranger.
Because the shadows weren't trying to consume him as he had first thought. But instead, they were covering his wounds, moving to his back and spooling over the open injuries the chimera had inflicted.
The feelings of the outside world began to slowly filter through his body. It wasn't an instant sensation, but a gradual building one, as if his body was trying to remember how to feel again.
It shouldn't have been possible.
But it was happening.
His wounds, which had once burned with pain began to slowly cool, a soothing feeling spreading through them as his healing factor awoke and worked through the torn muscles and broken skin.
Another flash of lightning illuminated the world, the shaking and rumbling began to finally calm, and the realm of shadows finally became whole again.
Except, where it had once been an infinite void of darkness, now, in the centre of its domain, sat a frozen, jagged scar of golden pulsing light, streaking endlessly through the realm with no top or bottom to it.
The world around him pulsed, as if satisfied with itself, before the familiar feeling of his body being pushed out, finally dragged him away.
His eyes spun as his vision cleared, a sense of vertigo invading him and making his stomach roll. It only grew worse as his other senses came crashing back into his body.
The smell of ozone lingered in the air, followed by the smell of burnt flesh and the ever-present heavy stench of corruption which perverted the world.
His eyes widened as he felt the bile in his mouth increase in its quantity, before he turned and threw up, all over the ground next to him.
His body shook as he took a moment to dry-heave, tiny pricklets of pain piercing through his healing body.
Artorias wanted nothing more than to just lay there and rest, but he knew that he couldn't, he had to get up and get them out of here.
Standing up on shaking legs, he prepared himself for the pain that he knew would come…but it never did.
'What…?'
His hands moved to his back, where multiple slowly healing holes were meant to be, but he found nothing but healed flesh.
Looking down at his hands and arms, he couldn't help but be startled when he saw nothing but electrical scars covering them.
'Did…did the shadow realm heal me?'
No matter how much he wanted to stand there and speculate on what had happened to both him and the realm of shadows, he simply couldn't.
Time was not on his side, especially with the chimera undoubtedly still alive.
Pushing the thought and what had happened to the back of his mind, he began to move through the cloud of grey surrounding him, his longsword back in his hands.
Cautiously, he ventured deeper, straining his ears to make out any sound of movement. It wasn't until a few minutes had passed that he could finally hear something.
A voice that he knew belonged to Seirios.
He broke out into a run almost instantly, following the voice, until finally, he found him.
Artorias froze at what he found.
Covered in blood and various bruises, Seirios was laying on the ground, staring blankly at nothing with a wide smile on his face. But it wasn't the superficial injuries that made his breath get caught in his chest.
Seirios' right arm had been torn completely off, whilst his left leg looked too flat, as if all of the bones and muscles in the limb had been crushed and turned into dust.
His body broke out into a cold sweat, memories of a bloodied Solthia, laying in his arms begging him to live, overlaying with his cousins broken body, laying motionless on the ground.
Artorias was moving before his mind could comprehend what he was doing.
He grabbed Seirios by his shoulders and began to pull him up, calling on all the strength left in his body to move his cousin.
It felt like a miracle when he spoke.
"Maren?" his voice was a whisper as he spoke the unknown name, but soon he was screaming it, his body shaking as he weakly tried to force himself out of Artorias' grip.
"Damn it, let go off me! Let get off me you bastard!"
Tears were beginning to build in his eyes, but he didn't let go of his cousin, holding him even as his thrashing became wilder by the second.
'I don't know who or what you're seeing Seirios, but I can't. I can't let you die like Solthia,' tears clouded his vision, but he didn't let go. Even when his nails dug into Artorias' skin, breaking through and causing him to bleed, he didn't let go.
He kept desperately pulling, moving.
His intuition screamed and the smokescreen in front of them parted, revealing the chimera's morning star heading directly for them.
Mentally apologizing to his cousin, he pushed him with all the force he could, sending Seirios tumbling, before vanishing into his shadow.
The morning star hit nothing, crashing into the ground and filling the air with more dust, before he reappeared a moment later, directly next to his cousin.
"SEIRIOS!"
"Huh?" Seirios' eyes cleared for all of a moment as he looked up, before clouding over again, a grin appearing on his bloodied face.
"Art!" he cheered. "Quick! Help me up! Maren's about to start crying and we both know how she can get it." Seirios chuckled at his own words, his head moving to look at something only he could see.
Artorias pulled him up again, his arms shaking from a mixture of urgency and desperation, throwing Seirios' remaining arm over his shoulder and beginning to pull him along.
"Wow! I know it's annoying," he said with a chuckle, leaning into Artorias' body for support. "But you don't have to pull me up that quickly, one look at her favourite cousin and she'll be light as rain, you know this."
His cousin spoke, but Artorias couldn't hear the words.
Clouded with nothing but desperation and trauma filled memories, his mind could only focus on the singular task of getting away from here.
"Art?"
Artorias felt his lips shake as he spoke, the world suddenly feeling smaller, feeling far too enclosed around them.
He could only offer empty promises to his slowly dying cousin.
"You're okay Seirios," he lied, feeling invisible walls closing around him. "You're going to be okay Seirios. You're okay, you're okay, you're okay, well get you all patched up and you'll be okay."
The clouds of dust around them parted once more, but instead of the morning star he had been expecting, the chimera itself now stood before them.
It screeched at him, its once pristine scales now flayed and covered in dark burns. Its once great mane was now hanging on by small tufts of hair, and its body was slouched, its chest rattling as it took shaky breaths.
Artorias met the chimera's singular eye, his mind too clouded to comprehend the mistake of making such an action.
But the abomination didn't bother with any illusions or hexes.
It stared at him, meeting his eyes and willingly showing the anger, it felt. It seemed almost fossilized in the amber, before subtle shifting.
Anger turned to hate, and hate turned to loathing.
Then, it turned its remaining eye to the rambling Seirios at his side, and its still smoking beak curved up. A mocking, gleeful emotion began to burn through its eye before it turned again and screeched at him.
"Move!"
His instincts screamed at him through the haze of his mind, and he pushed Seirios away again, making him fall to the ground with a quiet groan.
The abomination lunged at him, its body tensing the only warning he had been able to perceive before he was forced to react.
He met the chimera in a clash fuelled by bloodthirst and revenge.