The first chapter I've ever written. What does it lack?
Chapter 1
Mound of Corpses
Agnar awoke drenched in sweat and blood, the deep crimson seeping into his mouth, its taste bitter. He was suffocated by corpses of—what appeared to be—fallen soldiers: some of their bodies torn apart, some split open, and some charred-black; their faces gruesome, disfigured even; their eyes and mouths still wide open in horror, a feeling not foreign to Agnar.
Who did this? Agnar thought, his muscles tense from the bodies encompassing him from all directions.
“You did,” a corpse suddenly replied—its haunting voice echoing in his ears, “you shall now pay for your sins, O slaughterer,” its scarlet spheres stared straight into his eyes, unblinking, crying tears of blood.
Agnar's eyes widened. “What . . . are you?”
“I am your promised doom, O merciless slaughterer,” its voice booming into his ears, making them ring.
Fires roared, glimmers of their light showing through the gaps between the crammed bodies beneath.
“Is this hell?” Agnar grabbed the corpse's head in desperation, his hands quivering, “am . . . am I in hell?”
“Acend, O slaughterer, lest you join the men below,” the corpse said, a smell more foul than the corpses’ coming out its mouth, “though your efforts would be in vai—”
Agnar thrust his thumbs into its eyes. He couldn't bear listening to its acute voice any longer.
The corpse's voice dampened, yet its face stayed blank, reactionless.
Agnar scrambled up the piles of flesh, his footing slippery atop the blood-soaked skulls, pulling up onto a bloody, frail arm, just for it to tear off. The heat became unignorable.
He shoved away a corpse above him, which caused a sword to fall on him—kissing his cheek. He grabbed the sword and started frantically slicing through the bodies above him, blood splattering onto his face, as the hissing of blazes grew louder, its smoke wrapping around him.
Snap.
The blade of his sword snapped off. He couldn't breathe. Scorching smoke crawled into his lungs, clawing at it from the inside. He collapsed onto the corpses, submerging in their blood.
Nicholas . . . Veronica, I'm sorry.
He held his hands out. He accepted the fire. He gave up, remembering all the things he did to his wife and son.
Grow into a better man Nicholas . . . don't turn out like me.
The flames curled around his legs, scorching them from the outside the way the smoke did his lungs from the inside.
Pain. He felt so much of it. He wanted to scream, to let it out, but he couldn't muster up the strength to do so.
Agony nested in his heart, thrived in his veins, bloomed in his muscles, and morphed into something else, into wrath. Wrath that flooded into his mind, drowning all hopelessness and despair, letting hope and determination suffice.
He could live. He could get out. He could see his family again. He had gained hope once more, but hope doesn't make anyone fireproof.
Almost burnt to a crisp, he stuck his right hand in a gap between the corpses above, and then, he turned that abstract emotion within him into a physical substance—Anger Mist. It gushed out of his body thick and red: from his ears, glands, and mouth, shoving the burning smoke out his lungs. He controlled it, making it spiral around his arm and condense at the tip of his fingers.
Snap.
Everything above exploded. The corpses burst into a bloody rain. Agnar took a deep breath as he gazed up at the night sky, where stars competed for which was the brightest, where smoke and red mist danced to the wind's hum—a song that mourned the deaths of some. The moon's blue light mixed with the blood's red, creating a soft, calming violet aura. A wave of serenity washed over him. Burns became no more than tickles. Wounds did no more than tingle. He didn't even realize that he was locked in place, his body unable to budge.
Suddenly, he was no longer there. He was in his wife's soft embrace, the day they first got married, the day she made her promise. The promise she never broke, yet was punished for nevertheless.
Veronica, you're no liar . . . you've never broken my trust . . . you've never deserved any of what I've done . . . I'm sorry.
Suddenly, he was standing over Nicholas's crib, the night he was born, the night he declared him a bastard, his hands curled into a fist as his son's cries echoed; each reflection felt more excruciating to hear than the other.
Nicholas, my son . . . My only son . . . you're no bastard . . . I lied!
He couldn't move. He couldn't stop the fire. He could only promise that if he somehow got out, if he lived, if he got home, he'd tell the truth to the entire world, he'd apologize, he'd treat them well this time.
The fires around him instantly turned to steam, It whistled into his ears like a boiling kettle. The person who made the fire finally extinguished it, but it was too late for Agnar.
As the whistles faded away into the void above, the noise of steel clattering and flesh squelching became loud just enough to be heard.
“Agnar!” a familiar voice yelled from downhill, with a slight crack in it, “it must be you who did that! You must be alive!”
He wished . . . he could only wish he were, Agnar's eyelids eased shut.