Icarius tasted salt on his lips as a gentle ocean breeze brushed his face. He opened his eyes to an endless beach, sand, water, and a clear blue sky. Grains shifted beneath his bare feet, hiding his toes. He breathed deeply, closed his eyes again, and stretched his arms wide, surrendering to the sun's warmth.
"Sacrifice the Sun!"
A guttural cry shattered the peaceful surroundings.
Suddenly, the breeze turned razor-hot, searing his skin. Salt burned his lips. The sand melted under his feet. Darkness stole the sun's light. Thunder cracked and lightning began to fall like rain. Chaos erupted.
A colossal figure strode from the horizon, a titan of stone and molten fire. Against its scale, the ocean looked like a child's pool. Steam hissed where lava met water, veiling the monster in a wall of white.
Icarius spun and ran. No hesitation. Hot air scorched his lungs. Each breath was agony. His heart hammered like a prisoner against its cage. He stumbled, fell face-first into the burning sand, scrambled back up, and kept running. He didn't dare look back.
"Child of the Sun! Come back! Cut the chains of fate! Set us free"
An ethereal voice spoke beside his ear. Genderless. Ageless. Commanding yet caring.
"H-Help—" His mouth opened, but no more sound came. His throat was sealed, dry as dead tree in the desert.
"Come back!"
The voice repeated, calm against his panic. "Come back!" Again. And again. A relentless rhythm.
Icarius kept running, until a new, different, sound rose behind him, the crash of approaching waves. He risked a glance over his shoulder.
A red tsunami of lava was swallowing the horizon, the dark skies. It reached him in an instant. His scream was incinerated in his throat before it could even form. His lungs were destroyed with a single, impossible breath. There wasn't a feeling of being burned, but a sentiment of being erased out of existence. His skin. His bones. Icarius vaporized in the same microsecond. The wave left only a steam hissing from scorched earth.
"Brother!"
A shout broke through the world.
Icarius jolted awake. His back drenched in sweat, soaking his hay bed. His eyes darted around the room, ready to run. His chest heaved; his heart wouldn't slow. He could still hear the roar of the wave.
"Brother?" The child's voice came again, soft but urgent. "Are you alright?"
A small tug on his hand grounded him to reality. Icarius blinked. His mind and vision cleared: rough-hewn stones and sun-dried mudbrick walls. He was back at the three-room house his father and grandfather had built with their own hands.
His eyes fell on the small figure beside him, wrapped head to toe in clothes, only a round face and crystal-green eyes visible. Clarity returned. "Giorgos," he hoarsely whispered as sweat burned his eyes.
"Here." Giorgos lifted a clay jar toward him, his arms trembling though it held barely two cups of water. Under his sleeves, his skin was a map of dark, purple blotches. A putrid smell permeated the house.
Icarius took the jar quickly and patted the boy's head. "Just another nightmare." He drained the jar in one breath, as if it were holy water. Giorgos watched him closely, eyes wide with worry as he subtly hid his now trembling arms behind his back.
Icarius ruffled his brother's hair and glanced at the wooden windows. Morning light pushed through the cracks. He overslept. "Don't forget to light the fireplace. There is rabbit meat curing outside; hang it up and eat something."
He rapidly pulled on his winter clothes, a heavy bear-fur coat passed from grandfather to father, and now to him. The old man had hunted the beast in its cave one winter, or so the story went. Though Icarius didn't buy it.
"Do you want rice?" Giorgos asked, his eyes following every movement as Icarius strapped a longbow across his back and slid a hunting knife under the fur in a rushed movement.
Icarius shook his head. "I will be back by nightfall. We need more food, and the Temple's due soon. I need to get to the Village while the market is still open."
Giorgos's fists clenched. His hands trembled no matter how hard he fought to still them.
Icarius gave a small smile, tying back his long black hair as he walked toward the door. "Everything will be alright. Don't be outside for too long, it's getting colder." he said, and closed the door behind him, leaving Giorgos to wrestle with his shaking hands.
Outside, the world was alive. Birds chirped in the trees. The scent of damp earth rose with the morning air. Rain dripped from the canopy to the forest floor in a steady rhythm, a gentle contrast to the nightmare he had just witnessed in his dreams.
Icarius lifted his gaze to the gray sky. Branches stretched overhead like a web of spiders, sheltering the small hut behind him.
"I should go to the village and trade the rabbit furs for some rice," he murmured, stepping onto the leaf-carpeted ground. The wet leaves muffled his steps as he headed toward Silva Village.
He and Giorgos lived in a hut deep in the Ciminian Forest. The path to Silva usually took two hours, but Icarius knew these woods as well as the palm of his hands. He spent every second of his life amongst these trees.
Kicking the ground, he moved like a spirit of the forest. His filled his lungs with the clean air of the forest. It tasted like life. Icarius wished he could dissolve into the trees, be part of them. His heart pounded with freedom as he ran, jumping over fallen trunks, swinging on vines, sliding down mossy slopes. Before long, the trees opened, and he burst onto a dirt road.
"You scared me, boy!"