Twelfth Endeavor: Amnesia

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WARNING: This chapter contains mild depictions of blood and gore, so if you are uncomfortable/triggered by such descriptions, you are not entitled to read those sections.

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It all had begun with a simple yearning, a immoral craving that winked a pair of sapphire eyes open to a renewed world. An alleyway had long since been demolished, and with the snow piling high, it was enough to bury a hunter and its dog for an entire Winter.

Suffocating; the air was suffocating and reeked with the stench of massacres and human sorrow. With a vision turned white, the environment has been painted a reminiscent color of ages before, albeit there was no trace of splayed sanguine or throbbing appendages. Something about the frigid endeavor was utterly soothing, and the ivory sight was blinked away into a darker, vacuous one.

It was a memory alright, Erwin had deduced, with he as the main character. What had happened beforehand was but a receding thought, and the Aryan male couldn't quite grasp the aspects of the events before the numbing snow had encompassed him like a polar blanket. Although close to freezing by mortal standards, Erwin was content with the temperature, his feather-laced arms and hands protecting him from the violent weather patterns he had succumbed to.

Shifting his weight beneath the comforters of plush snow, ice, and permafrost, Erwin registered that if he failed to excavate himself at that given moment, surely he would starve to death or begin consuming his own flesh as a form of nourishment. As prideful as he was, Erwin was non-complacent to the idea of resorting to cannibalism instead of saving himself, even if the procedure to return to the surface would be arduous.

Huffing a temperamental breath, Erwin outstretched his arm as far as he could given the circumstance and began to claw away at his surroundings. As much as he could remember, the plumage-covered demon had fallen unconscious on his side before the comatose state had consumed him, so the only logical direction to unearth himself was up.

After a few hours of meticulously digging and prying the antarctic substance away from his body, Erwin squinted when a ray of sunlight shone through a small crack above him, signaling he wasn't far from his goal. With a few more eager swipes at the snow, a joyous expression morphed onto Erwin's features when he was greeted by a desolate landscape void of human contact.

He pulled himself out from the hole he had created and brushed himself off, his outdated clothes dripping with the melted ice that had glued itself in his slumber. Priority-wise, fitting attire for the generation was needed, and a generous feast in order for his body to recuperate from his century-long absence. Perhaps it had been more than one, however, that thought was far from occupying Erwin's conscious. The only thing motivating him now was the drive to acquire what time he had lost napping under the heaps of snow.

Inspecting his jacket, a large tear was noticeable on the left bicep, along with a speckled masterpiece of dried blood and muddy fabric adorning his button-down shirt. No wound remained where his trench coat was shredded, but that was the least of Erwin's worries. He was a mess, considering his daffodil tresses were matted and sticking to his forehead, and a plentiful amount of stubble now dotted his jawline and above his lip.

Bathe, he ached to bathe and wash the fading memories from his figure, to cleanse himself and reap the spoils of the new world. However, whatever the new world had become, a wretched odor had devoured the Earth since his coma, and in regards to Erwin's standards of mortality and death, the aroma was nothing pleasant to inhale. It was a combination of death and despair, with no hints of rationality or remorse.

Unable to breathe with the lingering, putrid air, Erwin shuffled aimlessly through the snow, leaving dense, impacted footprints in a winding trail behind him. Although his muscles were sore and stiff beings, Erwin disciplined himself to trudge onward, in hopes that somewhere, civilization had to be flourishing.

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