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It had taken Eoin Neylan some attempts to jostle the restraints from his wrists before he realized that it wouldn't budge. Knowing this, he tried to rise anyway. He almost slipped once until he stood upright to scan his predicament.

The young wolf saw nothing, still obscured by the heavy smoke, but he could hear the struggle from afar. The clash of steel against steel and padded footwork. He hadn't expected the robed stranger's bodyguards to have survived the explosion, amazed at their sense of duty, but he wondered how long until the bounty hunter had dealt with them.

Probably not long, he thought grimly, already moving in the opposite direction from the fight.

While they were bravest men Eoin had ever seen, silently determined with balls of steel, he knew their likelihood of success was low. He didn't give much hope that they could overpower a veteran from the Invader Wars. And yet, their deaths could buy him enough time to escape and warn the others, probably the nearest patrol.

Shame filled him, but Eoin soon squashed his feelings away, knowing there was nothing that he could do save being a prized meat on an open platter. Fettered in chains and without a weapon, he was a liability to everyone, useless. He hated that. Useless. The feeling was a familiar experience as a sharp stab of painful memories reminded him of his many failures at home. It was one of the many reasons he had left in the first place, away from the ceaseless burdens and making a name for himself. Someone that he could be proud of.

Something tripped Eoin as he plunged face-first into the dirt. He shook his head, momentarily dazed, and turned to see one of the fallen levies that attempted to subdue or kill the hunter. The levy was dead, littered with bolts, a parting gift from the hunter's cruelty.

Cold dread settled in at the gruesome display. Then, after several seconds, that bit of fear turned into confusion. Hadn't Eoin seen the wolf's death back there when he was behind the hunter. Had he gone circles around, stumbled back here into this spot?

Before more questions could circle around his thoughts, they soon died away when the young wolf noticed something wrong with the corpse. While the smoke obscured much of everything around, he could have sworn the body twitched somehow. Not a moment longer, the body spasmed, and Eoin recoiled in surprise. He quickly backed away, pushing his canine feet in a distance, as it convulsed violently with every passing second.

When the spasm stopped, all became quiet. Eoin didn't like the silence. Then he realized it was indeed too quiet, not hearing the sound of combat or anything except the fast beating of his heart.

Eoin stared at the still lifeless body for long moments until he caught a whiff of a foul odour like rotten meat. He gagged as the smell became too much, almost overpowering his senses. His head reeled sideways, the world swam with intense vertigo and, to his growing horror, saw from the edge of perception the levy's black hollowed orbs staring right back at him.

Eoin's heart sank to the bottom, face gone paled from colour and ran. He ran as hard and fast as his craven legs could take him. All wit and reason had abandoned him, leaving only the raw, animalistic instinct to flee the terror behind. He didn't make that far a distance.

A jerk of outburst made the dead levy spring upwards to its feet, muscles twisted, and bones cracked in precarious positions. It soon gave chase on the frightened wolf with terrible swiftness and was already halfway in progress. When it finally closed in on him, its elongated claws, sharp nails that protruded like needle stilettos, struck Eoin from the back.

A comet trail of blood gushed forth from the exposed wounds as a wash of pain overwhelmed Eoin to scream. He stumbled, then fell, as the ghoul levy-turned-ghoul crouched low, pinning his back into place. It continued with its brutal attempts, slashing him again and again until Eoin's uniform soaked wet with blood. His life was slipping before his very eyes, pain and agony swirling from within. He struggled to break free, to escape, but his meagre strength waned with every passing swing of the ghoul's blows until he could not do anything.

His final thoughts before the encroaching darkness would claim him to the gardens of death were one of deep regret and failure for his actions. To end like this before his journey had even begun. He would do anything at this point, begging, pleading in silent prayer to any gods, to save him.

But as his thoughts screamed out to the void, nothing answered his dying pleas, and he was met only with silence.

Darkness came for him, but only for a moment.

A strange warmth surged in his chest, a single spark in the endless dark. It was a soothing presence, inviting and pleasant like the comforts of home or a coat of healing balm, and he felt the pain withering away where the ghoul had struck him. All the unease, the turmoil he had been holding out for so long, washed away entirely from his thoughts, replaced by the overwhelming sense of protectiveness.

Eoin felt a growing exhalation by this sudden blessing, and he praised the Beast Mother for his desperate hour of need. Only, it wasn't the Goddess that answered him. He soon knew this, felt it, as the warmth that circulated throughout his body rose into temperature. He glowed brighter from within, then without came the smell of burnt fur and cooked flesh.

He fumed in an instant, flames blossoming to engulf his entire body and slowly cooking him alive. His cries wailed out loud to none but the void. The pain was tremendous. He could feel every part of his body, every nerve, lit on fire. It was worse than what the ghoul had ever accomplished. He struggled to put out the flames, but it seemed a useless affectation on his part as the pain doubled, tripled in response. It was as if it had a mind of its own, almost congealing his blood into molten stream and pumping into his veins.

So much was the pain that Eoin wished to end it all, to expire from everything. But the flames wouldn't allow it. It seemed determined to keep the young wolf alive and conscious, refusing him a peaceful oblivion. Then, the darkness around him shifted into colour, changed. It filled everything in a crimson, unpleasing red.

That was when Eoin saw a round shadowy silhouette looming closer and larger until the proportions grew on a gigantic scale.

A great, cyclopean eye shuddered slightly open from the sea of flames and madness. It brimmed with a fierce glow of unspeakable malice and fury, well-contained within a massive vessel. Its burning gaze bored down at Eoin and through to his very being, silencing whatever passed for his mewling as it studied him.

As the silence began to stretch, doled out by the roaring flames, it finally spoke.

Not out of words, but a close approximation for transfer of information. It sizzled softly into his very thoughts, scattered, unfamiliar memories that belittle sense or reason, inquiring about its acceptance of its gifts and servitude.

Eoin's eyes bulged wide like saucers, disbelief and astonishment mingling with fear. He felt his heart about to burst apart, and he realized that it might have been the case if not for the thing that kept his existence.

Lingering on the decision longer than was possible, the Great Eye forced an answer out of him, and Eoin screamed as he burned. A single word came out from his mouth afterwards, almost a spat, but enough to sign the contract and seal his fate for good.

Then, his entire world ended in violence, greedy flames consuming everything that was Eoin. When he opened his eyes at last, blazed in concentrated fury, he was a different being entirely.