He was trapped in the void, unable to comprehend what was happening. The forest around him spun wildly, an uncontrollable whirlwind of color and sound. The wind howled like the screams of the dying and shades of gray flashed in his vision. Was he dying? Was he dead? He questioned reality as his sanity was coming apart at the seams. Was it a dream? Some sort of nightmare? The spinning stopped. He was in a dark place. Blacker than black, and cold, unbearably cold. White lights suddenly appeared around him, distant, yet unbearably bright. The expanse he was in had not illuminated, yet these bright objects had the ferocity of the great fire ball in the sky back on Earth.
Earth.... His home. The cold forests of home, the thrill of hunting it's beasts, the beautiful women in his village. What had happened? How had he gotten himself here? In this cold black abyss of lifelessness. This place wasn't anything like home, it felt entirely alien. He thought back to when he last remembered being on Earth.
It was cold, less cold then the abyss he was trapped in, but enough to freeze a man. It was very late at night, the moon shone a light on a small footpath cutting through the thick forest. The forest itself was dead silent, the sound in the area coming from the soft footfalls of the robed individuals. If one were to peek under their hoods, they would each appear to be completely bald, and deathly pale. There was about seven of them in total, six carrying a large coffin on their shoulders with the seventh leading the group through the dark forest path. The six coffin carriers wore robes made of a pitch black silk, almost blending into the darkness if not for the sharp contrast of pale skin flashing from under the hood and sleeves. The leader wore a robe of blood red, a very eye-catching figure for sure.
The man watched these individuals trek through the cold forest, unbeknownst to them. While they took the foot path he crept along silently in the forest, several meters behind. When the robe wearers reached their destination, he stopped, leaving a good 30 meters between them. They stopped upon a great stone tablet, a sort of hidden away platform in a clearing. The group had placed the coffin on the tablet and stood around it, facing towards the box. The red-robed leader stood at the head of the coffin, hands raised to the skies. A soft droning chant began, in some faraway language the man didn't understand. All of a sudden a great wind swept through the clearing, bringing with it a great deal of snow. The snow came pouring down from the mountains surrounding the great forest, chilling the already frozen landscape.
The blizzard didn't bother the man in his many fur cloaks, trophies of past hunts. The robed group, however, troubled him a great deal. The group ignored the snowfall and continued chanting in a monotone as the leader pulled back his hood, revealing a blackened dead looking face. The man was disgusted at what he saw. The chanting grew in intensity along with the storm until the group was practically screaming their strange words. The coffin lid slid away as the blizzard's snow fell to the ground around the unholy site, never landing on the stone, always just outside of it like some sort of protective shield. A deathly pale hand rose from the box, hard to distinguish from the falling snow.
The man held his breath, now terrified for his life yet now more curious than ever about this strange group. He had to get a closer look at the figure within the coffin, it utterly perplexed him. The man crept forward a few feet, ever cautious of the group and their surely dangerous intentions. He rested his weight upon a mighty pine tree, only to have his foot snap a fallen branch. The group immediately stopped chanting and looked in his direction, broken of their apparent trace. The red-robed leader let lose a mighty war shriek and ran at the man. The man had no chance, the group was already upon him, their pale skin shining in the moonlight as they dragged him towards their stone tablet.
They held him at the head of the coffin, two black-robed zealots holding him down while the others took their places surrounding the coffin. The leader stood behind the man, silent yet the man could feel his eyes burning into the back of his head. The man refused to look into the coffin, refused to find out what the pale hand was a part of. Everything was spinning in the man's eyes. The chanting began once more, and the leader began citing different words underneath the chant, but also in the strange language.
The man was pushed into the coffin, gazing into the box for but a second before becoming trapped within. It was pure black, with tiny specks of burning light dotting the abyss.
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