In front of Isel was no longer a void littered with Incandescent lights, and instead it was a vast desert of harsh spikes. Tinted red and rocky, thousands of cone-shaped spires rose from the ground. They persisted as far as he could see. An orange dust covered the entire floor of the land as Isel found himself standing in the sharp desert.
He saw a person just a few feet in front of him, but they were pierced by a spike. Their skin was olive with short black hair, laying with a red spike protruding from the ground through their forearm. Yet Isel did not have the capacity to concern himself with that matter at the moment.
Isel immediately stumbled back upon being greeted by the barren red land. His ragged pants got hooked onto a ground spike the size of a small pebble and he fell onto the ground. His hand happened to land on another small spike while he tried to break his fall backwards.
The sharp pain startled the already dazed man.
"Agh, wha?…"
He quickly picked his hand up, though it was already bleeding. As he pressed his hand against his shirt to stop the bleeding, his thoughts flooded in like a wave.
'I… I am in the worst of places, this is my punishment… I must have committed a great crime, and now I deserve great punishment."
Isel attempted to come to terms with his current scenario by justifying his reason for being here, but he failed. The pain in his hand was too grounding for him to delude himself with punishment and crimes he never committed.
No, he knew the reality. He knew much as he could know in the moment at the very least. There was no memory before the void, but he felt that it was for a just reason. He felt fresh, new, and born. He had abandoned the thought of regaining his lost memory before it had even formed, if he even had any to regain.
The sudden sound of a weak voice broke his train of thought.
"Hey… man. I know you've got your own issues but I could use a hand."
The voice was oddly soothing, or at least it would be if not for the extraordinary strain it was going through. Isel looked up to the impaled man — or so he assumed — and realized that the man wasn't dead yet, nor was he impaled anymore. He had since removed himself from the spike and lay against the base of another and much larger one just a few centimeters away.
Isel heard the sound of his voice for the first time as he spoke.
"Uhm, I'm not sure how exactly I can help you."
Just as weak as the olive-skinned man. Actually slightly more pathetic if he had to compare.
The olive man stared at Isel with a look that he found hard to discern. Anger? Confusion? It seemed to be an odd combination of the two, mixed in with a pained grimace.
"Dont fuck around… give me… the bag…"
Isel looked down and saw what he wore. There were layers upon layers of upper wear, a lot of them hardly enough to cover its own layer fully, and they were all secured to by multiple black straps wrapped in a cross-shaped pattern over his chest and back. He noticed his white hair had only gone down to his shoulders now. His pants were ragged and seemed to be in dire need of a replacement. He had already suffered an injury due to the damn fabrics.
A bag also was attached to the left side of these pants. Isel quickly untied the cloth that affixed the bag to his pants and threw it to the olive-skinned man.
Since he had just looked at his own garments, Isel quickly realized that the olive skinned man was wearing something quite similar to him. Multiple rags, cloths, and fabrics of upperwear secured with black straps. His bottom wear was far more effective at protecting the man than Isel's. Metal plates on his shins and thighs covered a thick and black fabric.
The man caught the bag and quickly used his teeth to open and dig into it. He pulled a syringe out and fiddled with it before stabbing it into his arm. After a short while the grimace on the man's face slowly relaxed. He then grabbed a bandage from the bag and tied it around his arm where the spike had poked through. In another quick motion a cloth being held by the black straps was ripped from their grasp as he crafted a quick tourniquet.
The olive-figure had an odd efficiency to the process. Not to mention some kind of mechanical grace. But what good would gracefulness do in a place such as this?
Isel stared as the process occurred, bewildered by the current circumstances. Where was he really? And who was this man? They clearly had some connection. He could only assume one thing.
"Uh, sir… how did you know what was in the bag?
The olive man quickly snapped his head back at Isel, this time has face was not plagued by either anger, confusion, or pain. This time his face was concerned.
"What? What are you talking about? I told you not that I'm not in the mood for jokes. Just cut it out. Please."
Isel's thoughts on the matter had been confirmed. He had known this man in front of him. He really did lose his memories. But where they really his at this point…? Isel reluctantly decided to explain the situation to the man.
"I'm not joking around. I'm serious. I don't know who you are, and I don't know where I am."
The olive-skinned man shook his head slightly in disbelief.
"You really don't know?"
Whatever strain the man's voice was under before seemed to become even more tense, understandably.
"Really."
The olive man remained staring at Isel, his expression unchanging for a few seconds. He let his head down and started to breathe heavily.
"Do you… do you remember your name?"
"My name is Isel."
The man quickly met with Isel's eyes again and his softly dropped. It seemed as if he was about to try and argue against what Isel had said. Instead he bit his lip so hard it got cut and bled. Just as quickly as he had reacted to Isel's words, the man took another deep breath and assumed an indifferent expression.
"My name is Charine Lesvil, I work for the Manichae Department of Expansive Exploration. I left Manichae about a month ago with a man named Leal Solsven. Just a few hours ago, we were caught in a dangerous environmental phenomenon. That man has just been confirmed dead… by you."
Isel took in the information given by Charine, and nodded after he had processed what was said.
"So what? I'm Leal?"
"No, he's gone now. He must have died on contact with a spike. The only thing you two have in common is a body."
Isel felt a sense of pity well up in the back of his mind. The way the man spoke about Leal pained him to hear.
"I'm…. Sorry."
The man took a slight breath in and shook his head. After a few moments of deliberation he spoke up again, with a more stable and relaxed tone.
"It's nothing you were involved with, so don't keep your mind on it. It's best you believe that this is your body, not Leal's. Leal is dead."
More things started to make more sense to him. The rags he wore were bloodied as they had been worn for weeks on weeks. Whatever trials Leal had faced, they made him bleed.
"Well… Charine, you don't seem very surprised about my existence. Is this normal?"
Charine coughed and contorted their face in pain before replying.
"Yes, it's normal. When a person dies, another is immediately born in their stead. That is the mechanism of life and death."
"Why…?"
Charine shrugged.
"Who knows?"
"So that's how you knew Leal is dead? Because I'm alive?"
"You're clearly not the same person he was, so yes."
The olive skinned man continued to speak
"Right now, we need to turn back and head to Manichae. This land is far too intense for just two people to traverse, or at least people of our — as in Leal and I's — capacity, and even less so our current ability."
The olive man paused and seemed to ponder for a few seconds. After a deep breath he continued."
"That being said, we will be safe here for another few hours. I have no reason to deny a response to any question you have about the world."
"Are you serious?
"Yes, someone will have to teach you at some point. Everyone starts from the same place. And if we're going to survive you can't be clueless."
"Thank you, Charine."
"Dont mention it. So, your first question?"
Isel pondered. Ever since Charine had told Isel his name, there was something at the top of his head that was truly nagging him. Actually, even before he heard the man's name, something seemed off.
" Your name confuses me. Not to be rude, of course."
Charine looked up as confusion returned to his face.
"Huh? What's wrong with my name?"
"Charine… isn't that a bit feminine? Perhaps people name things differently here, but that's what my instinct tells me."
As Isel spoke, an odd feeling grew in his gut. As if he had forgetten some important detail. When he got the answer to his question, he finally understood the origin of the feeling.
"Yeah…? It's feminine because I'm a woman."
Isel cursed himself internally. Why had he even assumed in the first place? He stared into Charine's eyes for a few awkward seconds, but could find no response less pathetic than what he ended up saying.
"…oh."