Vermillion Sun - Prologue. Prologue

It was always so vivid.

It was always the same dream.

He was always walking alone here. Here, where the only color besides black was the burning red of the flaming streams all around him. The raging rivers of fire were never orange, always a constant red. They went on and on forever into the horizon. They sometimes looked like lava snakes hunting prey on blighted land. Like dancing red threads strewn across ebony colored silk. Like the veins of the Flame Guardian himself, coursing through the endless night.

If he hadn't known better, he probably would have thought that the view was beautiful. The stark contrast between the endless black and the glowing embers of red was really a sight to behold. It was truly awe inspiring, the way the rivers ran through the charred land, looking haphazard at first, but eventually constructing a carefully designed pattern.

If he hadn't known better, he would have thought that the scarecrows erected all around him had been put there to chase away the crows that hovered above in the black sky. They flew in circles, way, way up above, as if they were trying to find prey. Endless pairs of glowing red dots, always looking down, were intensified by the reflection of the red rivers streaming below.

He also heard them. The voices, within the darkness. If he hadn't known better, they could have passed for a choir. A melody so unearthly, always sad, always melancholy, and always ripping at his heart. It felt fitting however, given the trail he walked, with the gaping blackness staring in front of him, the bright red zigzags dancing all around him. It felt as if the voices he heard were orchestrated by a very accomplished master, accompanying him and encouraging him to finish his journey to the final destination, an end that he could not see. Instinctively, he knew there was something at the end, someone who was waiting for him.

Perhaps it is because it is always the same dream. Every night. He already knows what he will find at the end of his march. He knows that at the end of the trail, there will be a throne. A throne of skulls and bones. It will be perched on top of millions of skeletal remains like an obscenely grotesque tombstone in a graveyard, with stairs made of ivory leading to it. There will also be someone on it, but he never sees who is there. He just knows that the person is the ruler of this strange land. Maybe it is because from far away it always looks so stoic, so majestic, so regal, and so nonchalant, as if the view doesn't matter. Why would it? It looks only as if there were countless reddish rivers heading toward the throne on blackened land, and scarecrows fending off the birds. Nothing out of the ordinary, right?

The figure up there, shrouded within blackness, would always beckon him toward the throne. Though somehow, he had a sense of familiarity, and of empathy with the entity. It was as if he knew it from some unknown source, a whisper in the back of his mind reminding him constantly, that he was... loved.

And, as always, when those feelings came every night, always at the same time, he realized where he was. He knew it better than anyone. And it didn't make any difference at all, despite any preparation he might have made to brace himself. No matter how many times he had this dream, he never failed to be shocked, horrified, and terrified by the impending revelation.

The scarecrows. The voices. The crows above. They were souls. Souls, screaming in tortured, twisted agony. Flying high in the cloudless sky, vicious demons with huge bat-like wings, swooping down every now and then to stab with their black tipped spears at the countless bodies staked across the land. The screams never could end. It was macabre. And he would realize...

He was in the Realm of the Damned. He was in the Underworld. He was in Hell. ­­And the ruler itself was calling for him.

He knew that it wasn't a dream. It was never a dream.

It was always a nightmare.

Because he always would wake up with a savage scream as if his very soul were on fire.

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