The Wolf Of The North

Torrhen was baffled as he watched the world around him be torn apart.

'Hey! I just got here! At least explain something!?'

With the world fragmenting around him, he felt his mind tearing at the seems. He started seeing strange colours and duplicates of everything. The word was spinning and up and down had been swapped all of a sudden.

It was safe to say that he wasn't enjoying the experience.

After holding his head and reeling over from the seemingly endless pain, he found himself in a majestic hall. The ceiling was too far away for him to see it at all; he saw only darkness above him.

The walls were made of gold, before them were statures of warriors at least a mile tall. They wore elegant suits of shining white armour and had weapons that gave off the impression of slaughter and chaos.

At the back of the hall stood an unimaginably large door. It couldn't even be considered a door. Its height was comparable to the skyscr.a.p.ers he saw in his past life when he lived in New York. It was completely black, dark to the point where light couldn't escape it. All that could be seen was a giant void of darkness with a door knob part of the way along it.

Within this expansive hall, he was among a crowd standing before a colossal throne. An unfathomable being sat upon it.

It had red and blue markings trailing down from its starry blue irides. His locks of glossy black hair cascaded down to the small of his back and had gemstone trinkets and ornament within it. It wore immaculate white robes and golden shoes.

Upon its head sat a glistening silver crown with 9 gemstones. At the very front was a large star sapphire, and alongside it was a pearl, jade, tourmaline, onyx, topaz, opal, amethyst and bloodstone.

Looking down at all of us beneath him, it gripped his throne and stood up.

"Kneel."

With but a single word, it made everyone in the hall kneel powerlessly before it. The sounds of knees hitting the floor from across the hall created a large booming noise after it echoed through the vast space of the hall.

Torrhen felt like his knee was on the verge of breaking upon impact with the floor. He didn't notice it until now, but he felt it was absurd how was it possible for the floor to be so hard. Simply kneeling f.o.r.c.i.b.l.y made his knee hurt so bad.

'Seems like nothing good will happen next.'

He looked around, but to his horror, he saw the face of his mother Catelyn a few meters away from him.

'No no no no no, why is she here!? What's going on!?'

With a wave of the giant's hand, everyone was moved about, such that everyone was faced with a single person before them.

Before him stood his mother, who smiled at him lovingly.

"Mother-" Torrhen tried to speak to his mother and ask what had happened, but he was interrupted midway.

"If you wish to leave from this place, kill the person before you. All who fail this will die." Its voice echoed through the hall, shaking the walls.

Violet fires suddenly appeared above the statues' heads and a gold light began to shine in their eyes.

Naturally, murmurs broke out among the crowd. People seemed to be unwilling to perform such a task.

"No! I refuse to kill my own father! You're a demon!"

A man stood out from the crowd and ran for the door behind him. Before anyone else could interfere, a colossal halberd came swinging down from above him. A corpse wasn't eve left behind, only a puddle of blood remaining.

Following the handle, his sight came towards one of the statues lining the walls, except it had just swung its halberd downward.

'They're alive! The statues are alive!'

Now Torrhen knew that his situation was really bad. On one hand he had to kill his mother. On the other hand, he would die badly if he didn't.

The hall descended into madness.

There were those who started screaming and running around in fear, tears welling up in their eyes. You could see the fear and hopelessness in their eyes as they dreaded their futures.

There were were some who immediately tried to kill those opposite them. The floor became wet with all the bloodshed and the smell of iron filled the air.

Torrhen's legs began to waver. He wasn't prepared for any of this. He wasn't prepared at all.

'I was supposed to have 2 more safe years! There were supposed to be 2 more years before I encountered anything dangerous! Why!? Why!?'

Suddenly, his mother lunged at him with a knife, slashing down to his neck.

'Knife? From where?'

Upon thinking of this, he received some information in his head. As long as he thought of it, he'd be able to conjure up a weapon, so he summoned a short sword. He didn't have the room for a larger sword, so this was best.

His mother let out a bestial roar as she lunged to him once again. He parried her strike and directed it downwards. Seeing her still bent over, he used his free hand to punch her ribs.

She fell to the side, but as she did so, she threw her knife at his face. He didn't notice it until it was right in front of him. He tried his hardest to doge, but it cut out a deep wound as it sliced across the side of his cheek.

A deep gash formed on his face and blood spurted out of it.

"Why are you doing this, mother!?"

He screamed in his anguish. He had memories of her loving smile and happy face as she would take care of him and play along when they wanted to have fun. He remembered when she would tell him and Robb stories in the garden when they ran away from father and wanted to hide from him. He remembered that and so much more.

So it hurt him far more to see her like this, with her mind deranged and her completely set on killing him.

Seeing her get up, he punched her arms and legs, making it impossible for her to get up.

Out of nowhere, a flying arrow embedded itself in his t.h.i.g.h, forcing him to the ground. Seeing the opportunity, his mother crawled towards him with a hatchet in hand. She tried to swing at his, but he dodged in time.

All the blood from his face and the floor left a bitter taste in his mouth. As he looked up, he saw that the flames above the statues had died down by quite a bit, almost put out entirely.

Seeing this, he had an epiphany.

The test probably never was to kill the other person. The flames were a timer. They were counting down the time for something, but it was probably not for killing someone.

With this in mind, he intended to wholeheartedly dodge his mother's strikes, no matter how injured he was and how chaotic his surroundings.

After a while, the last flame became extinguished and everything in the hall was fixed in place. Even the droplets of blood in the air remained in place.

"Your time is up."