But....the freedom didn`t last that long.
The cold night air brought winds, and Kaelen didn`t have much clothing on him.
And there was only one "solution" to this problem
"Here goes nothing" He tighten the grip on his bark scraping tool and head into the hole. The inside of it was definitely not normal.
Outside was a wooden shell, maybe with a bit of rot and water coming out, but - wood.
Inside was a different story.
Moss everywhere, and the deeper Kaelen went in weirder it got. And wider.
If the opening he made was barely enough for him to crawl in, the inside was basically a cave tall enough for him to stand in.
It even looked like a cave , with stone that replaced the wood after a while. His hands were the only thing that could tell him that, but the cold and sharp bits could hardly be wood.
But in the total darkness, a small pulse came out. A brief and faint, but visible.
"What the.." He walked towards the tiny light. It pulsed more often and brighter the closer he got. When he got to it, the blinking light could illuminate the area enough for Kaelen to see.
And for him to recognize what was he looking at.
The hole wasn`t stone - it was coal. Burned wood that solidified and hardened enough for shards to appear. Some were created under such temperature that they looked like obsidian, shiny and smooth.
Moss couldn`t even grow on them, and the place at the end of the cave looked even less alive than the rotting tree outside.
And of course Kaelen could see the source of the light - a charred corpse laying against a wall. Dark bones , a broken structure and missing the head. But the thing that brought his attention was what wasn`t missing, but what was added.
Wings
Two massive bone structures that would carry the feathers and bring flight to man. They were now stuck to the ground and almost melted with the surroundings.
However it weren`t them, the glow came from something else.
Inside the corpses chest, there was a small, purple-obsidian gem. It was a weird shape long but curved, jagged edges and elongated almost like..
"A Feather" Kaelen whispered and with a trembling hand took the dark gem out of the rib cage. He was trembling for a good reason - if it was an actual feather, if the corpse was an actual angel, he struck big. One of them could buy him out, leave enough gold for him to move to the middle Tree, live a life of a free man. They were rare, and the only one known to own one here was the Overseer.
Kaelen held the gem just like it was - more worth than his own life.
"With this.....I could do so much" He wondered what will all the money do for him, all the food, the clothes, his house.... but then he saw the Overseer in his mind "I could..." The slavers "I could set myself free" years of work "I could set all of us free" Life of poverty
"I could kill them"
The moment this thought appeared in his mind, the feather stopped glowing.
Instead it grew out spikes and those burrowed into his hand, covering it whole and then
PAIN
All the black obsidian went into the arm, black tentacles under his skin went up and towards his head. And when it did, a whisper came to him.
Hear us
"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS " Kaelen started to panick, tossing himself, beating the hand against the wall and trying to dig out the black substance with his fingers, anything.
Welcome us
But the pain didn`t stop, nor did the black feather. And then he passed out.
Become us
Minutes passed.
Hours even.
Time didn`t make sense, as Kaelen didn`t know if anything happened or if he has been stuck in the loop of falling asleep and waking up. The black thing kept reminding him of itself, and then becoming quiet, as if nothing ever happened.
It only stopped when the first ray of sunshine hit his body. At that moment, all of it came back into his arm and created a small black gem on the back of his right hand.
The pain stopped.
Tired, hungry and sweating profoundly, Kaelen stepped closer to the exit.
Sun warmed him up a bit, and slowly he begun to regain consciousness. His hand was resting on the Tree`s bark and he almost felt its warmth coursing through his veins.
The longer he sat and basked in the warmth, the less hungry he became. Looking at the gem, it stopped having the purple glow and was now just pitch black, yet still giving off a feint glow.
Use us
The voice from the gem was now straight in his head, not a whisper but a normal voice, as if someone was talking right to his ear.
Use us and be free
"Sure thing. How" Kaelen felt like talking to the gem made more sense than just saying the words into the air.
If you wish to be free, just be free
His body made the move without his consent - Kaelen crawled out of the hole and plummeted down.
"WHYYYYYYYYYY" his words didn`t even reach his ears as they fell behind him, just a bit slower. The swamps came out of the fog and the roots came very very close towards him.
"STOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPP"
If you wish to stop, you will stop
The wind that just whizzed through his ears now stopped, the words came down and fell under him.
Kaelen in the meantime just....floated.
A few meters above the murky water, suspended in the air.
"oookkkkkeeeyyy....Just...put me down."
And he was dropped to the ground again
"SLOWLYYY!!" which was already to late, as his face was in the water.
gasps
"I hate you already" Just as he pulled himself out of the mud.
- - - - -
The slavers came to work on the morning, set up their food on the table and started with a few drinks. After a while of talking and joking around, they remembered something
"Hey, anyone wanna check up on that guy from yesterday?"
"OH YEAH " all of them excited and grinning all over, went to the edge and looked down.
There was just one lonely rope and a bench tied to it.
"Tsk, I hoped for the corpse at least"
"Nah, he probably jumped after an hour"
"No way, that man was insane. Give him a few at least"
All of them had the same thing in mind. If one is left alone on the bark mining night shift, its obvious he isn`t coming back alive. Either from hunger and lack of water, or the much more common way - jumping off, and ending it all fast.
"Oh well" One of them turned around to see the new slaves coming in for work "Let`s get to work" And they begun the new day.