[color=orange][center][h1]*Yakeru*[/h1][/center][/color]
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[i]A soundless darkness. A sudden flash. A silhouette of a man running away. He had seen his face before. Now it was fading away but the eyes, the look they had, remained in his mind. The colour of red on his hands and chest, mixing with rain. No air. Pain. A soundless darkness. A flash of light again. White. An outstretched hand. Pain leaving him. Sleep.[/i]

With a sudden and deep gasp for breath, a young man got up from one of the now open coffins. He kept coughing and gasping for air for some time, seemingly oblivious to what was going on around him, paying only attention to himself. His hands quickly moved towards his chest where he had expected to be wound. Strangely there was nothing to see. His eyes wandered over his clothes, his breathing going from fast to a more irregular speed. He did not recognize the clothes he was wearing. Or did he? Vaguely, somewhere in the far reaches of his mind, he remembered seeing them before. Then he suddenly knew.

Feeling the fabric of the tunic for the first time, the outfit he had created and drawn for Yakeru, the hero of his light novel. It almost made him laugh in disbelief. Everything he was wearing was exactly how he had imagined it to be. Even the sword, that was lying next to him. The details were most impressive. His gloved hand touched the steel of the blade and he was surprised it felt warm instead of the expected cold. 

[i]Certainly I must be dreaming, right? But I remember getting shot...what happened?[/i]

Finally he turned his gaze to the coffin he was sitting in and he scrambled out of it in shock, the smile now gone from his face and his eyes going from bewildered to panicky. [I]Was this some sort of crypt?[/i] In the dimly lit room he could make out other coffins against the wall. He swallowed. [i]Did the dream turn into a nightmare?[/i] He tried to steady his breathing, calm down but he felt that he couldn't. Sensing he was not alone in the room, he quickly looked around to see if he could spot the person or persons there.

A young woman was standing at the opposite wall, watching him and he sighed a breathe of relief glad to see a friendly face albeit looking as shocked as he probably did.

"Uhm...Hello. Do you...know where we are?" He blinked and put his hand to his mouth. This was not his voice and yet he had spoken with it. Even though his heart was racing still from the slight fear, his voice had not sounded like how he felt but more like the voice of someone who considered all this just a nuissance.

His attention suddenly turned back to the other coffins. [i]What was going on?[/i]