Broken Chains

The heart was furious. The delectable meals had escaped its reach, and for now, there was nothing it could do to catch them.

BABOOM BABOOM.

The heart was still beating wildly in its stupor, but slowly it began to power down again. Its master wouldn’t condone the needless waste of its resources.

Anger still held vast reaches of its mind captive, but the planning and scheming part of its brain started to come to the forefront again. If needed, it could be patient and calculating.

The prey would come back to hunt it, and they wouldn’t escape a second time.

As Puck slept and recuperated, dreams and visions, both important and completely irrelevant, haunted his sleep.

In one of them, he was flying through the air, thousands of beautiful shining lights above him and an endless vastness of creation for him to explore. Beneath him, though, lay hell personified. In all directions on the horizon, creatures of all sizes and races of all forms and types lay bound by chains of darkness and blood. Thousands upon thousands of tortured screams reached Puck as he slowly flew away, while an endless number of judging gazes landed upon him.

Another vision dropped Puck into a losing fight where he gave himself for others. After he lost, it was he who lay bound in chains and blood as his allies won the war but forgot him in his eternal prison.

Both the apathy and the terrible horror in those visions felt more real than any dream should.

Another vision was much nicer at first. Puck simply sat in a beautiful garden with an old twisted tree. The exact flow of time remained unclear, but it seemed like eons could pass by like this without Puck moving an inch. The crown of the tree rustled in peace, while the grass and flowers slowly moved in an unseen wind. The realm was peaceful, and Puck could have lost himself in it, but as he fell ever deeper into the vision, he started to feel something more. Silent screams echoed through the walls of the realm, and this small paradise seemed to grow more and more like a prison. Feeling increasingly trapped, Puck tried to move from his sitting position, but he couldn’t. Everything remained the same while he screamed in his own mind until finally the vision faded and was replaced by a new one.

Puck lost himself in the flow of the visions, as each seemed to show him a possible future. Or perhaps not a possible future, but instead a possible goal, path, and mindset for which to strive.

The visions were many, like fish in the glacier rivers, and Puck felt like there was no end to the variations. Whether he was a bystander or a fighter, someone loving or someone full of hate, each vision was unique in its own way.

But was it even a question? Freedom was his greatest desire, but could he truly live in his own freedom if he had to let others be tortured as a price for his wishes?

No, he couldn’t. Puck had never had many comrades, and he had never been one of the most social Gremlins in his tribe. But he had had friends, and for each and every one of them, he would give his everything. More than that, there was also Scarlet and perhaps...

The visions went on, but Puck became more of an observer than someone living through these events. He did not have all the answers, but he was free, and he would fight for those he loved.

When Puck finally awoke, it wasn’t by himself, as his body would have liked to sleep on. But Scarlet was unrelenting. As she told him later, water and food were just as important as sleep after being wounded so deeply.

By all accounts, they needed to recover as fast as possible. Else the heart of darkness would be able to recover its troops too. They needed to find a moment where they had recovered as much as possible while the heart still hadn’t had the time to prepare too many new abominations and traps.

After being forcefully awakened, Puck sat opposite Scarlet on their small ice blocks, watching the flickering flames of a small fire. He couldn’t help but notice the dark rings under Scarlet’s eyes as they ate.

In the last fight, it had seemed like Scarlet had defeated every enemy effortlessly and yet...

Seemingly reading his thoughts, Scarlet scowled and sat herself up straighter as she started to study Puck’s movements.

Yes, Scarlet seemed tired, but Puck was even worse off. Not only was he tired too, but he also had many more bandaged wounds, especially the deep cut on his right arm.

Understanding Scarlet’s intent, Puck tried to look as sorry and downtrodden as he could.

“You fought well.”

Not trusting his own ears, Puck couldn’t believe what Scarlet was saying. Was she truly praising him? She, Scarlet? Over all the time of his training at Scarlet’s hut, he hadn’t received so much as a single word of praise, and yet now...

Repeating herself, Scarlet couldn’t help but add some scolding at the end as she noticed how much Puck seemed to pride himself on the praise.

“You fought well, but you did not fight good. Yes, for your first time fighting a life-and-death battle, you truly held yourself formidably, but in comparison to a true warrior, you were nothing but a squabbling child.”

Deflating a little, Puck still seemed to have gotten some energy back as he tried to move too quickly, only to twitch painfully as one of his wounds got stretched too far.

“First, let me give you the best praise I can give you. After this fight, I truly trust you. Not necessarily your prowess or your skill, but as a companion, for even in a fight to the death, even when you were deeply hurt, you didn’t run away. You held my back clear with all you had.”

Getting truly touched; Puck was unprepared for the later rebuttal.

“Now let us get to all that you did wrong in that fight. First, I’d like to start with...”