Within the Forsaken was a manufactured primal experience, crafted by the hands of the Dark Lord. Gene fought to maintain consciousness and not let his mind be subsumed by the creature he inhabited.

  He focused on its thoughts and built a mental space from the creature’s thoughts, giving form to the abstract with his power. Within the Forsaken was a fractured world and its memories became a library full of the torn scorched pages of countless books as Gene manifested the metaphor of its mind.

  He took tentative steps into the dimly lit mind space, fearful to disrupt the fragile construct. There were eleven shelves arranged in disordered rows with books of varying sizes in varying states of decay. He reached out to touch the nearest book and the tome next to it crumbled into ash. He winced. The book he drew merely had a date on its cover but when he opened it, he only found shredded pages that fell from the bindings.

  He sighed, realizing this was going to be harder than he thought. He spread his mental senses wide, reaching further and further still until his focus left the confines of the mind space. Both within and outside of the Forsaken, he saw the flow of battle. They were winning through sheer numbers and raw power but he knew that would only hold as long as the Generals didn’t make their appearance too early in their projected schedule.

  He turned inward, drawing his focus back into mind space. He walked, cautiously, reaching out with his thoughts to make contact with mostly intact volumes of memories. The taste of flesh book 1 of 20. Tantalizing tactile sensations: the feel of rending flesh and breaking bone volume 6. He stopped his search when he found a title that piqued his interest: Forsaken are We within the Spire.

  The book was larger than the others. He hurriedly opened the pages of the tome and dropped to the ground to root through them. He let out a pained groan when he noticed not only were there pages missing but the ones that remained were out of order. He sighed to himself and wished he had a nose bridge to pinch as an astral ghost.

  “This is getting me nowhere,” he said to no one before continuing. “And now I’m talking to myself in the mind of a monster.”

  He groaned again until a realization hit him.

  “You idiot,” he said to himself. “I’m in a mind. Why am I not thinking about what I want?”

  He stilled his thoughts and focused on the Spire and its mechanisms. Seconds later, shreds of paper and ash began to rain down on him.

  He concentrated hard, pulling it together with his will to form a cohesive image. Reformed parchments depicted the events of the past day, the Forsaken’s accursed routine as a creature of darkness.

  Toil and torture, pain and suffering. The life of a Forsaken was not a life. Gene knew all too well the look of chattel slavery, being a descendant of someone who endured it. His chest tightened and he began to realize how wrong he was about the war he was in. The Forsaken weren’t like the evil orcs of the fantasy novels he was accustomed to.

  The further he went back, the more memories he pieced together, the worst he felt about his plan. Did the Forsaken deserve to be annihilated for the Dark Lord’s machinations?

  He pondered this question as he saw its birth, the implantation of instruction and instinct. Laid out before him as an unfurling scroll, Gene saw everything he needed to know about how these creatures operated and maintained the Spires.

  He felt conflicted and then his heart sank even further when the memories of the creature began to stretch further back, before its birth as a Forsaken. He saw someone in a dark cell being dragged away by Forsaken to endure a fate they feared was worse than death.

  Suddenly, pieces of the scroll began to fray, falling away in tatters that flew away from him. In his shock, he dropped the scroll and heard a small echo.

  “W-where am I?”

  A tiny voice reverberated in his gestalt mental space and Gene froze as the fragments of the library began to fly around him. He looked around in the tattered mental library and his eyes went wide.

  Behind a shelf of shredded thoughts and memories was a small girl. She was as confused as Gene was, staring at the charred flesh of her hands. Gene took cautious steps forward. She wasn’t burned. The fragments of memory coalesced into her form and he covered his mouth to stifle a gasp.

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  She turned to Gene at the sound, eyes wild in confusion and distress. She jumped back and he took cautious steps away at the same time.

  “S-stay back!” she yelled and spikes of ice erupted in a wave towards Gene. Driven by instinct, she manifested her fears in an effort to protect herself.

  Gene threw his hands up in defense, erecting a solid wall of psionic energy to disrupt her attack. Their powers collided and in that moment, Gene felt her emotions. Shards of ice fell to the ground and he got a good look at his assailant. She was young and couldn't be much older than 10 or 11, acting on pure instinct in the mind space.

  “I mean you no harm,” said Gene as he struggled to steady his thoughts. The building they stood in began to tremble and he refocused. “Sorry, that was my fault.”

  “Where am I?” She asked again. Tears welled in her eyes, soaking into the pages of her skin. The sensation startled her.

  Gene still held his hands up as he tried to figure out how to describe what was happening.

  “This…is a mental construct within the mind of a Forsaken.”

  She stared at him with a blank expression, trying to comprehend his explanation while he struggled to comprehend what was happening.

  “Never mind all that,” he said as he dropped to a knee to get eye level with her. “Do you know your name?”

  She took a half step back and trembled before saying, “A…Amara”

  Gene smiled warmly.

  “Amara. My name is Gene, Gene Grey. I’m an adventurer,” he said, trying to project an aura of kindness. “Do you remember anything else?”

  Amara stopped trembling and stood still. Gene’s question seemed to spark something within her. When she closed her eyes and tried to search her memories, the ashes around her began to stir. Confusion distorted the space around her, rousing the pages and ashes of decayed memories.

  Gene watched in awe as the particles streamed through the air, joining her frayed flesh, and making her more whole.

  “I remember…” she began, frowning as she struggled to piece together her thoughts. “I remember…mom.”

  Her eyes shot open wide in horror and she fell to the ground. Flames shot up around the mental library, burning away already scorched tomes and scrolls of memories and experiences. Amara gasped for air and in the fire, Gene saw the horrific images of what occurred.

  When the Spire near her home emerged, Amara’s village was hit with a wave of void energy, killing the weak and infirm instantly. Those who survived it were enfeebled and with no adventurers in their village, there was no one left to save them when the Dark Lord’s forces marched on their lands.

  Hellfire arrows reduced wooden homes to cinders along with their occupants. Forsaken marched on the village, ripping families apart and killing anyone too weak to fight. In the chaos, Amara’s mother struggled in vain to evacuate them only to be met with an impenetrable wall of Forsaken. They were captured and then soon after, one by one, they were changed.

  Gene was gripped with horror at the sight of the memory. He didn’t want to believe it. He had fought the realization building in the back of his mind when he saw the earlier memories, but Amara’s memory corroborated his theory.

  The Forsaken weren’t a race, they were transformed people.

  “No,” he said quietly.

  He fell to the floor, thinking of the group he killed when he landed in New Venturis.

  “No,” he whispered, thinking of the forces he killed in Derek’s siege.

  “No!” He exclaimed, thinking of the forces that were being slaughtered while he was in the mindscape with Amara.

  The building shuttered, books clattered to the floor, and stands fell over. His concentration was breaking and he struggled to get a grip. It was all too much. Amara cried in fear and his focus snapped to her.

  He grabbed the Forsaken’s book and raced to her side, grabbing hold of her as he tried to steady his thoughts. No matter what he did, the shaking intensified until suddenly the building began to collapse around them. Walls exploded and Amara screamed in terror. He held her tighter and then his stomach lurched forward as the sensation of the structure moving threw him off balance.

  The roof caved in as five giant columns of darkness blew through the walls of the structure, revealing a dark void above them. Gene covered the frightened child defensively and then he shuddered when he realized those weren’t columns, they were fingers.

  Within the giant palm of a hand, Gene and Amara looked up to see a massive pair of glowing red eyes staring down at them. A twisted smile parted the black abyss above their heads before a thunderous voice spoke.

  “Well hello there. You must be the ‘Gene’ I’ve heard so much about. A pleasure to meet you. I am the dreaded Dark Lord the people of the United Front speak of, but you can just call me Demetrios.”