Darkness.
Cold. Silence.
Then Luke woke up with a gasp.
"Huff... Huff..."
His hands immediately went towards his chest, feeling for the wound to his heart but the wound was surprisingly closed.
"I'm alive..?" He muttered, surprised.
He had been pierced by a sword to his heart. How could he have survived that? And even if he did, how could there be no injury at all?
But before he could think further about that, his train of thought was interrupted as his sister came to mind.
"Arya!" He reacted panickedly.
He tried to stand up but he lost his balance, falling to the floor. His body felt weird. It felt Stronger, lighter and wholly unfamiliar to him.
"What happened to my body?" Confusion coloured his face.
Because of the fight, he had been too worried and focused to pay attention to what was happening to him.
He had fought solely based on the instinct the spear seed ingrained in him subconsciously; but now, without the life and death crisis, he could feel that his body was completely different from how he remembered.
He tried to recall what happened before his death, and he was immediately hit with a storm of memories.
"Ughh.." he grunted, holding on to his head.
His mind felt disjointed. Thoughts, emotions and memories that weren't his flooded his mind. Fitting with his own like shattered glass forced into one frame.
Flashes of neon lights. Cramped apartment walls. Hospitals. Cold metal needles. The taste of pills. The weight of hopelessness. A final leap from a rooftop.
"Who... What am I?" He whispered.
He remembered Living. And dying. Twice. Two lives. Two perspectives. Two worlds.
"What's happening to me" he muttered, gritting his teeth. "I'm... I'm Luke Phlego."
He forced himself to focus. He had to find Arya.
His roaming eyes caught sight of the broken spear beside him.
"I guess you'll have to do," he said, picking up the longer shaft.
"Arya!" He called. Using the shaft as a clutch to keep his balance, he moved through the inner sanctum, looking for his sister while taking stock of the situation.
"Arya!" Broken buildings. Destroyed homes.
Walking through the inner sanctum he witnessed the destruction clearly. Memories of those buildings came back to him. His family's home. The parks where he played with his family and friends as a kid. The Central Hall where he attended the family meetings as the Heir. The training halls with the boisterous laughter from his clan members.
"Arya! Where are you?" He knew the answer. But hoping beyond hope, he continued to search.
But leaving the inner sanctum, his face blanched.
He saw them. Dead bodies.
The elders. His uncles and aunts. Their families. His friends. The guards and maids who had taken care of him. His family.
From servants whose names he didn't remember to his uncles and aunts and his closest friends. The members of his clan had being slaughtered, butchered like pigs and left outside to rot.
And then it hit him— the last wisps of hope fading.
The Phlego clan was destroyed. His sister was taken. His parents were missing, maybe dead.
He crumbled to the floor hands shaking.
"Ahhhhh!" A despair filled wail rang from his throat, echoing till he lost his breath.
The memory of the previous night's dinner flashed through his mind and he broke down crying.
***
A few hours later, the sun was hanging over the destroyed Phlego clan. Luke lay on the ground, his tear stained face looked empty.
He had cried all through the night, and he already had no tears left to cry.
Now, he just looked up to the sky. His features lost in a display of hopelessness.
By now it was midday, the sun was up in all it's glory and heat, glaring into Luke's face, challenging him to continue staring at it.
He stood up from where he lay mechanically and he walked away mindlessly, without thought for where he was going. Between the new memories and the all consuming grief, his mind was a mess.
Subconsciously, he reached the door to the family's ancestral vault, it's uniqueness attracting his lost attention.
Looking around he remembered what his father once told him about this place.
He was supposed to come here to acknowledge the ancestors of the Phlego clan when he awoke his seed—gaining access to his bloodline and officially taking his place as the next heir. This was a practice only the direct line were aware of and he remembered his father saying that only the patriarch's blood could open the vault.
After inspecting the vault, the only thing he found was an indent that was likely supposed to receive the blood of the current Patriarch or the official heir. Luke hadn't gone through the official coronation ceremony, but there was no harm in trying. Dropping his blood into the Indent, the vault's doors shine red. Then a loud click rang before the door hinges creaked open.
Luke entered the vault looking around. It was a large circular hall, so wide and big he couldn't see the other end of it. The height of the hall made it feel like it was built for giants with it's dome stretching up dozens of meters.
Luke couldn't wrap his head around how such an underground structure would fit. He had heard of the warping magic born from the legendary space seed, but seeing something like this for himself was too overwhelming.
The ends of the walls were lined with large pedestals with stone statues of powerful men and women standing upon them. The statues radiated astounding dignity, each of them looked like conquerors who were unrivaled in their time. They each held a spear in hand, and gave off the intent to burn down everything. Standing in their presence, Luke felt his blood burning.
Luke endured the suffocating aura of the hall and walked deeper in, but the farther down, he walked, the more suffocating the room became. At first, it felt like the air was slightly more heavier, but as he walked in, it felt like he was going deeper and deeper underwater.
At this point Luke had crossed a great distance into the humongous hall.
The statues here were older with wear, with some of the ones farther down the hall having already lost their facial features. Still, they gave of a lifelike and imposing feeling, almost like even time couldn't trample on their dignity.
Luke could finally see the center of the hall and the sight shocked him.