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The first thing he feels is heat. Its burning his skin, but it hurts less than he feels it should. All he can see is a field of orange and red around him, and it's making his nerves go numb. The heat feels more like needles covering every inch of his skin. The liquid flames seem to almost shape his body, reform him anew, but thats what catches him. Anew from what? Reshaped from where? And then the memories hit him all at once.
He was stabbed. Stabbed? Betrayed. A knife through his back. The location of the wound, just off-center and to the left on his lower back, flares up in pain. This pain isn't like the ever present needles burning into his skin. This time it hurts. But the memories won't stop. Who stabbed him? A friend? No. Family? That sounds familiar. A brother? It was a brother yes, his memories return to him in a storm. It was Zane's fault. For a second, he's almost shocked, but then he realizes that he really should have seen this coming. Zane had always wanted him out of the way, always treated him as if he were a stranger, a thief, someone who did not belong.
As his memories returned to him, so did the pain of the lava (He was pretty sure by now that it was lava that he was floating in). It started to burn away at him, from both the inside and out. His lungs burned. He had no way of knowing how long he had been under the surface, but right now he needed air. He thrashed around, and started swimming in the direction he assumed was up. He had no way to tell up from down, and no idea if the direction he was going was the right one, but by the time he started to doubt himself it was too late to turn back around. His body felt numb, his lungs felt like weights dragging him down. Just as black started creeping into the corners of his vision, he broke the surface of the pool.
He took a deep breath of air- real air- and coughed up the lava that had crept into his lungs. Sure it was bitter, and acrid, and tasted like ash and candle wax, but it was air. He was breathing. He wasn't dead. Not fully. That thought gave him the strength to pull himself out of the pit of lava and over the edge. The cold air stung against his skin- his armor? Looking down, he was dressed in obsidian black metal with red highlights. It struck him as odd, but not as odd as taking a bath in lava, so he simply accepted it for the moment and just laid there on the floor.
The world around him felt different from the one he knew. He wasn't quite sure if it was the I think I just died or the this is not the world I used to live on thoughts that he felt tangling at the back of his brain. He wasn't quite sure how they'd got there in the first place. Everything that he knew and everything that he'd just experienced warred with each other in his head. He had just died, but now he was breathing. He'd known the Earth, but this clearly wasn't anywhere there. He'd never touched real armor in his life- his father had never allowed it- and yet here he was, laying on the floor of some lava ridden cult in a full suit of it. It was pretty safe to say he had no idea what the hell was going on. He was pretty sure that the panic of the whole situation was so much that it had basically collapsed on itself. He had no strength or motivation to do anything but lay there.
And then there was noise. A voice. A figure stood in the doorway (How long had that been there for? Was the figure always standing there?) clad in a similar armor to his. He stared at the figure cautiously, eyes wide, like a deer in headlights. And then the figure spoke.
"On your feet, soldier."
Soldier? He wasn't a soldier, he wasn't even an adult. He didn't trust his voice to respond, his throat ached and his lungs still felt like they were on fire. Instead he sat up slightly and shook his head weakly, but the figure didn't seem to take that for an answer. Lacking the energy to argue, he decided to tough it out and speak up. His voice was rough and hoarse, as if he had been screaming for the past couple hours. (Which he figured could have been possible. Who knows what happened before he'd regained consciousness here).
"I'm not-"
"Not what? If you aren't going to obey our lord's orders, then I'm sure he'd have no problems with me tossing you back into the lava."
His eyes widened, not so much out of fear, but more out of shock at the situation at hand. He tried not to let the soldier's words phase him. He was well versed in diplomacy (the one thing his father had cared to teach him), and figured that bending to the person's intimidation would only make things worse. He kept his voice level.
"That's not what I meant at all. I just want to know what's going on." Slightly risky, but the person seemed honest so far, if not brutally so. But the soldier rolled his eyes in response, as if he'd had to explain this a hundred times already.
"You are a knight of the Shadow Lord now. You are his blade, his weapon. He chose to spare you, save you from the fate of death, reforge you in flame as any trusted blade would be."
He could've imagined it, but it seemed as if the figure had a mocking tone. Formalities and speeches did not seem to be his point of interest. In fact, he gave up on the fancy speech shortly.
"You know, there aren't a lot that survive that process. I'll be honest with you, there aren't many of us right now. We're building up from nothing. But the fire inside you burned brighter than the fire around you, and that sort of willpower is gonna get you a lot of places. You might just make it around here."
He paused for a second, and then the figure turned around and started down the hallway behind him. He made no motion to follow, but Vylad had no intention of being left behind. He stood up, albeit a bit clumsily, and followed cautiously after him. The other soldier, although he tried to hide it, seemed almost excited to lead. Vylad wasn't very eager to find out where they were headed, but he was reassured by the other person acting less like a soldier and more like an average human.
"I'm Zenix, by the way. Remember it. I'm gonna be the best of this place eventually. You got a name?"
"... It's Vylad."
"Ohhh as in like, the bastard son of O'khasis? Man, didn't know that was a common name. Yikes."
"... Yeah. Rough luck, I guess."
They continued down the hall together.