1 - False World[]
You crack open your eyes and at once they fly open with shock. A huge, unfamiliar stretch of moor is cast out before you. It looks nothing like… What? Nothing like what? It’s all foggy. You can’t seem to remember.
A few names come to your mind, but none your own. Pyrrhia? Pantala? You’re not sure how, but you have a strong sense that those names are not yours.
Horror slowly creeps over you. Nothing bad is happening to you as of now, but you know just forgetting your own name isn’t normal. You press your talons to your temples and cover yourself in your wings, like a blanket of comforting snow wrapping around you.
Snow. You jerk your head up, more memories slamming into your scales. Ice. Storms. You look down at your rigid, blizzard-white claws. You suddenly realize your tribe, even if not your name.
IceWings. You remember serving under your queen, diving into the deep, frigid, oceans, and rolling in the crunchy snow. There were bad memories, too, you realize. Your queen, Glacier, (your head suddenly conjures a familiar name) laying on her deathbed, coughing up dark, ocean-blue blood. Living in fear of NightWings, waiting for a legendary all-powerful monster to strike them down. You shudder.
Another wave of memories and understanding crashes into you.
I am an IceWing. My queen is now Snowfall. Thousands of my tribe have been killed. We’re flying into battle. We fight. We lose.
You recall seeing your tribemates suddenly disappear. Dragons you’ve known your whole life, family and friends, the strongest of your soldiers, just… Gone.
You feel silent tears slip down your snout, but your sadness quickly turns into rage. Darkstalker. Yet another name. He did this. He murdered my tribe. He’s a monster.
You soon decide your angry, saddened thoughts aren’t helping you with getting an idea of where you were. But every step you took brought you nowhere. You seemed to be walking endlessly, stopping not an option.
After you felt you had been walking for hours, you decided to keep walking until you found a stopping point.
As if, You think wryly, although a note of fear slips down your rigid spine. Everywhere here looks exactly the same.
You suddenly spot a patch of pale yellow, soft-looking sand with sharp eyes, and decide to rest there, at least until you make a choice of where to go. Relief washes you as you stumble towards the resting point.
But as you collapsed into the sandy patch, the ground beneath you seemed to sink.
Quicksand! You realize in pure terror. You flail your wings, but it’s no use.
You’re soon almost completely under the quicksand, senses swirling into darkness. In a final effort, you reach your talon as far as it can reach and scream for help, as loud as you can. Almost immediately, you feel cool, puzzlingly wet talons firmly clasp your own. You hear a female-sounding grunt, and you feel the sticky quicksand giving way, and soon you’re back on land.
You gasp loudly, painfully, for breath, shaking. Suddenly, you feel someone watching you. You slowly lift your gaze up, dreading what you would see without knowing why.
An ink-black dragon with teardrop scales next to her eyes stood next to you. She was decidedly horrifying. For the most part, she looked like a normal dragon. A pattern of yellow and orange circles on her wings, sharp, neat claws, basic dragon anatomy.
That was, until you looked up into her eyes. Or, eye.
Instead of two, normal eyes, this dragon had one large eye floating on her snout. The eye holes on the sides of her head were leaking out a strange black liquid with dark red holes where her eyes should be. Smaller eyes were scattered across her scales, all blinking in sync.
Even stranger, she had two tails and six wings, nothing you’ve ever seen before.
More black liquid oozed out of them, scales dripping with it as if her own scales were melting away (which explained her wet talons, you realize with a shudder.)
The terrifying new dragon paused, and made a gesture with her tails. Her voice sounded like a million different voices talking at once, stuttering with a strange glitching noise.
“Come with me.”
2 - Short Encounter[]
You hesitate, then nod wearily, your claws anxiously tearing at the ground.
You and the monster-like dragon walk for a decidedly awkward time. Confusion and fear mingle within you, until eventually the fear wins over.
“Who are you?!” you shriek, stopping and facing the terrifying sight, dropping into an attack crouch with your teeth bared.
The strange dragon paused, and then looked straight into your eyes with that horrifying, large, bloodshot eye. Then it spoke in that strange, stuttering voice.
“I am…” She paused. “My name is Clearsight. I-I think.” Clearsight tilted her dripping head, her eye floating in the same movement. “You must be wondering what in the three moons happened, aren’t you?”
Her tone was surprisingly saddened, perhaps even sympathetic. “Your tribe is gone, IceWing. Darkstalker wiped you out.”
The ground seems to sway beneath you, but you hold your ground. Your tribe couldn’t be gone. There had to be a way to get them back.
“There is,” Clearsight said, as if she’d read your mind. “When your tribe was wiped out, the balance between your seven tribes shattered,” She explained, although it didn’t really make sense. “Leaving all the timelines associated broken as well.”
Timelines associated… You realized. That meant her timeline. Darkstalker's mindless lover.
Your spines arch instinctively and your claws dig into the soggy marsh.
Clearsight’s eye widened fearfully, as if she realized she might be about to be attacked.
Guilt, fear and anger mingled within you, making your head spin with the possibilities.
IceWings are honorable. They don’t hurt innocent dragons. But on the other talon… Killing her could be the key to getting my tribe back, if it’s true that they’re lost.
WAIT! Please read this. The following chapter of Choose Your Own Path is violent and has blood and gore, and fear factors that is not suitable for younger readers. Viewer Discretion is heavily advised. Thanks!
3 - Miracle[]
You leap and neatly slash her throat without missing a single organ. It would be a quick death. It was noble, you remind yourself as Clearsight lets out a disturbing gurgle and collapses to the ground. She raises a single talon, and then it falls back onto the ground. Her single large eye clouded with death. Strangely, you see no blood stain the grass.
It was an honorable IceWing move. Everything would go back to normal now.
Suddenly you remember your name. Landslip. A million names swirl around you, along with the memories they came with. Playing in the snow with your family, asking out the IceWing of your dreams, bathed in moonlight. The death of the queen. The grief of the tribe. The battle.
You feel hope rush through you. It was the right decision! I did it! Happiness surges through you and let out a howl of joy.
You look around expectantly, waiting to wake up and go back into fighting for your tribe. Nothing happens.
You gingerly touch Clearsight’s body, and quickly recoil, pulling your talon back. Nothing happens.
A while passed by. You feel a hole of dread open up in your stomach. Shaking, you pull your talons up to your neck and tense your muscles. This might be the only way. You might just be dreaming, too. It could wake you up. Yes. It's a dream. All a dream. All a dream.
Just as you feel your own talons pierce your flesh, you see Clearsight’s body move. You jump back, then crouch back into a fighting stance. You’d kill her again if you had to.
Suddenly as if turning to dust, each one of Clearsight’s scales seemed to dissolve, and as if carried by wind, they flew towards you. What the-
Fear jolts through you, although you’re not sure why. You desperately pump your wings to fly, but they seem chained to the ground. You suddenly feel white-hot pain bloom on your shoulder.
You feel a strange sensation to find that your arm is gone. It casually laid on the ground with the dissolved black scale particles dappling it while the ground was pooling with dark-blue blood.
A horrible understanding flows through you and you run. Faster, faster, Your terrified mind cries, and then you let out a shriek as an unbearable pain spreads through your back. Your wings were gone, sprinkled with Clearsight’s dust.
The sky, without warning, turns black with no stars sparkling soothingly. The pitch-black urges you to run faster and screams ring out in the moor, although they aren’t yours.
You limp faster, screeching as your tail disappears. Pain sears through you, beyond anything you’ve ever felt. You hear your muscles squelching together to run and you hold back nausea.
Fire seems to enfold your legs as they’re both covered in the dust.
Tears spring into your eyes and you hear yourself sobbing loudly, making your throat pulse painfully. Blood as blue as the ocean pools around you, and you feel life pouring out of you. Still, by some instinct, you keep going. You can't stop. You can't stop.
You only had a single arm left. Only pure fear keeps you going. You numbly pull yourself farther away, taking deep breaths to avoid passing out.
Suddenly a swarm of black dust and it slowly falls down onto your bloodstained, pain-wracked body.
The pain comes again, but it feels soothing. You close your eyes and welcome the darkness.
4 - The Real World[]
“Hey! Landslip! Laaaannnnddddslllliiiiipppppp…” A cheerful voice calls, startling you into the real world.
Your eyes crack open one by one, and you let out an enormous yawn, still groggy from sleep. What a dream…
Flurry rushes into your icy room. “Landslip! Where were you?”
“Just sleeping,” you reply wryly.
Her brows narrowed slightly. “Just sleeping? The whole kingdom’s been worried about you! You’ve been ‘just sleeping’ for two days!” Your jaw drops slightly as she goes on. “Tundra was certain you were dead, and I can’t say the rest of the village didn’t!”
That reminds you… “Wait, Tundra? Has she recovered from the sickness?” You ask, startled, and a little afraid what the answer would be.
“Oh…” Flurry trails off, her wings drooping. “Landslip, the queen died. Glacier’s dead, along with several others.”
You feel like your wings have suddenly fallen off. Queen Glacier is… dead? “Is Princess Crystal queen now?” You ask, desperate to know the answer.
“No,” Flurry responds anxiously. “Queen Snowfall is.” You struggle to push down fear as she goes on. “She’s declared war on the NightWings. We’re leaving for battle in an hour..”
No time to grieve. War with the NightWings… All of this seemed coldly familiar, as if it was a scroll you were reading for the second time.
Despite your misgivings, seeing all the familiar faces around you fills you with determination as you fly into battle.
And there he is. The monster himself. The villain. The enemy. Darkstalker.
Darkstalker flicked his tail, and at once a swarm of NightWings attacked every squad of IceWings at once.
As you slammed into black scales, a strange image of a six-winged monster-like dragon holding out a talon suddenly flashes into your mind. You recoil immediately, and call up the cold inside you to shoot several blasts of frostbreath onto your opponent’s wings and face. They let out a scream of frozen pain and rage, and plummet to the far ground below.
Triumph surges through you and you look around. At once your hope drops like a stone, and you’re filled with a fearful confusion instead.
Every IceWing fighting stood stock-still, frozen in the air. Tundra.. Flurry… Even Queen Snowfall.. What happened..?
Darkstalker grin was so wide you thought his face would split open. All the IceWings turned to stare at you with a cold, merciless stare.
Darkstalker opened his mouth to speak, and the IceWings spoke as well.
“Welcome to my special hell.” They said in unison, making a strange stuttering, glitching noise as they spoke.
Wait. I’ve heard this before. I must still be dreaming. You dig your claws into your arms in midair, trying to bring yourself back to the real world. You visualize yourself waking up on your bed and yawning.
As your useless attempts go on, laughter from everyone you’ve everyone you’ve ever met echoes around you, ringing in your ears. The laughter grows louder as you scream in frustration, lashing your tail. They laugh and laugh, it's hilarious.
Suddenly a painful idea jolts you out of your desperation. If dying got me out of the last dream, it can get me out of this one.
You force yourself to relax as you stop beating your wings and let yourself plummet. The laughter grows into a scream. It's all chaos. Darkstalker has stopped screaming, but the IceWings keep shrieking that horrible scream. Stranger, they’re smiling.
The last thing you see is your family grinning from ear to ear, screaming at you with pure fear.
You wake up in a huge, chillingly familiar stretch of moor. Your home is long gone now. You can barely remember the room you woke up in. What you do remember was the horror you felt when you died. Both the first and the second time.
You realize you have what might be your final decision in front of you. You take a deep breath. It has to end eventually, doesn’t it?
5 - Soul Major[]
You sigh, and stand upright. Your tribe deserved better. You had to keep going.
You walk for hours, pushing away any feelings of dread at the familiar pasture. Everything looked familiar, but nothing looked the same. It didn’t look… Real. The sun shone at an angle always, no matter how many hours you counted to pass by, if you counted them at all. Time moved strangely here.
The grass crunched under your talons, as if there was a frost passing the calm moor, but it was always the same weather; clear skies, the sun shining, clouds lazily drifting across your view. With every step you took, you felt more strongly that something was wrong. You feel yourself trembling with trepidation and shake yourself in a vain attempt to push away the disturbing notion.
A long time passes by. Your limbs feel numb and slightly on fire. My tribe needs me, you keep telling yourself. Only I can make it right.
Eventually, you need to rest, although the thought makes you shiver. You look around and nearly jump out of your scales as you see a familiar patch of soft, pale sand. Come, lie down, it seems to whisper. You’ve been through so much… Everyone needs rest.
Memories fly behind your eyes, faster and more painful than you would have thought. Panicked, you spin around and run.
The soft grass seems to glitch away and the sand from the sinkhole spreads as far as you can see. It’s too dangerous to land. …I can’t stop.
The voice you heard whispering seems to cackle and laugh at you. You spread your wings and fly, fueled by fear, although you’re not sure what you’re scared of. The laughing grows louder the farther you fly, until your ears are ringing with the noise, echoing over and over.
“Why are you doing this?!” You shriek, although you’re not sure who or what you’re talking to.
The laughter stops abruptly, but you can still hear it echoing in your ears, mocking you from an unknown destination. In dreamlike motion, the whole world turns black. You can’t tell if your eyes are open or closed. Bloody eye sockets the size of the Imperial moon appear in front of you, dripping blue IceWing blood.
“Who are you..?” You force yourself to choke out. You suddenly realize you’re standing on an invisible surface, the abysmal darkness below telling you to fall.
Disembodied heads of dragons you once knew stood in place of the eye sockets.
Lynx, Queen Snowfall, Queen Glacier, Tundra, and many more, all eyes clouded with the fog of death. Your breath catches in your throat as you recognize Flurry’s sapphire eyes, glittering maliciously. What have I done..?
The eye sockets reappear, and black liquid pooling out of them. “You have sinned, Arctic,” a voice screamed. It seemed to be made of the voices of every dragon you’d ever known and all of them shaking with anger and disappointment.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m not Arctic!” You try, although you’re frozen with fear… Or is it something else? “I’ve done nothing!”
The voice made a horrifying laugh that sounded more like a million screams of terror built into false amusement. “You will perish here, in a world where no one will remember you,” the voices were monotone, sounding almost bored. Suddenly the eye sockets disappear and you’re... Alone. Alone, alone, alone, alone, the voices whisper. They do not grow louder. They do not grow softer. But they mock you with their whispering, coming from nowhere and everywhere.
There has to be a way out. You run, expecting the floor to suddenly drop out from under you and transport you to a different world, where you’d get another chance. All alone, they whisper.
It's over.
“Wait!” You cry desperately. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”
The whispers stop.
“I’m innocent!”
Nothing happens.
“Please! …Don’t leave me here.”
Nothing happens. You curl into your wings, shaking uncontrollably as despair washes over you.
The only thing you can hear is the sound of your own sobbing.
Epilogue - Ending 3[]
Flurry walks into Landslip’s room, curious. She hasn’t seen them since the battle, and feels guilty she hadn’t been more worried. We’re supposed to be in this together now. She rubs her talons together, feeling for the glittering blue gemstone ring on her claw, and relaxes hesitantly.
Flurry wishes she could have sunk her claws into more NightWings, but the empathy spell that strange SeaWing princess cast had a very guilty affect on her. Then, it teleported both tribes back to their kingdoms, which was super weird. Although, if that spell hadn’t been cast… She wonders how the battle would have turned out instead, and shuddered.
Shaking off the dark thoughts that hung in her mind like frozen cobwebs, Flurry steps into Landslip’s doorway and knocks on the wall.
“Landslip?” She calls. “Honey? Buddy? You there?” Their bed is empty and their room looks untouched. It’s as if they never even lived here.
Looking around, Flurry notices a note left on their desk. A moon globe is floating quietly beside it. Curiosity mingling with trepidation, she picks it up and reads it, squinting.
I have sinned.
It looks like it was written somewhat hurriedly, dark blue ink the color of blood splattered along the note as if the writer had knocked the inkpot over. Or… Ice trickles down her back and she shivers.
At the bottom, in small letters that were barely visible, it says, I’m trapped. I can’t move. This world is taunting me. I need help. Anyone, just remember-
The letter is cut off with more ink stains.
Flurry gasps softly, and slightly crushes the letter between her talons. They’re in trouble. A jolt of fear wakes inside her, but she stomps it down. Landslip was in danger, and they needed help. She balled her talons into fists and took a deep breath, a red-hot determination rising inside her.
Just hold on, Landslip. Help is coming, I promise.
THE END
Ending 3: Hope.
Gallery! (art is greatly appreciated)
