Cruising through the maze, we managed to get back all the distance I lost. Building this thing was the best decision I've ever made. Sure, I may have nearly died a couple of times, but it was worthwhile in the end.
I glance back again for the 7th time we’ve been riding, and she returns the gesture.
A smile slips from me, and I get my head back on the road.
“Comfortable back there?”
She takes a second,
Lyanna hums in agreement, and nods.
She’s started to get more comfortable with me. That’s good.
Cold air brushes past me; Sending shivers running down my arms, then down the length of my legs. My nose twitches as a reflex, and I realize something about this atmosphere; The temperature here doesn’t climb or fall. It’s just cold as shit all the time.
Entering into a straighter path, I let the carriage roll on, and open the bulkhead window to the inside of the carriage, and peek through.
The girl laying down on the cushioned seat, windows fully open, I ask,
“How cold is it here?”
Almost as if I took her by surprise, Lyanna jolts upright.
“Uhm. A bit”, I take note of her expression.
“I see”
I shove myself partially inside, hang on using the window frame, and materialize in an Inferno circle. A circle that doesn’t flame but has its effects at a minimal.
The circle embeds itself onto the roof of the carriage, and suddenly it’s warmer inside.
“That should work”
I throw myself back out, and Lyanna stares for a minute. I can’t tell what she thinks about it; Hard to get a read when the person shows no expression half of the time.
Now in the driver’s seat again, I scan the pathways as we move along.
The straight path ends, and we pass through a pathway. A much wider pathway. The walls seem further apart almost curved in an oval, and the pressure drops for a second.
The atmosphere’s the same, but something just very slightly feels off… Or maybe it’s just me.
My senses are on high alert, hoping that I’m right, but that thought is instantly shattered.
To the Right. Incoming—
That signature.
My hand flies to the panel to shut off the engine, and I jump out immediately.
Right.
My head snaps in the direction, and I dash. Pathway right in front of me.
It’s her signature.
Acceleration stacks on me instantly, Thought Perception doesn’t even kick in, but it feels as if time is starting to freeze.
Left.
My body morphs like liquid as I bounce off the wall, and—
Dead ahead.
Straight ahead, at the end of the path… her figure stands alone.
Wind scraping past my skin, eyes drying out, the joy I feel doesn’t even register properly.
My hand passes in front of me before my lower body does, I get to a distance where—
What.
A hideous creature with disfigured human body parts, stands alone.
The realization… kills me instantly.
I halt, hand right in front of its neck. Gaze peering through it. My thoughts wiped out of this plane of existence.
“No no no no no”
My heart starts to palpate harder on my chest.
“No NO NO NO NO NO NO NO”
My hand glides down its neck, my nails ripping its flesh. It screams; In an amalgamation of human voices.
“YOU F-FUCK. FUCK”
My hand drives into its chest. It’s heart beating at my fingertips.
“AFTER ALL THIS TIME.”
Other hand crashing through its skull with every word.
“IS THIS WHAT YOU DO TO ME!?”
Drowning in its own blood, it barely squeals.
“WHERE THE HELL IS SHE”
Frustration starts to cloud me. And I take it out on the creature.
I lose control of my grip, the creature thrown to a wall, its heart is crushed, and I crash through the air.
“WHY CAN’T I SEE HER”
Materialized swords crushing its chest.
“WHY IS SHE. NOT. HERE”
Its arms ripped. Legs sliced off. Barely alive.
“TELL ME”
The desperation for answers; Completely eviscerates any sense of sanity I had.
...
It's body, being dragged behind me, thudding and shaking to every bump of the ground, slowing me down; I walk. Unable to look up. Unable to walk straight. I walk.
For an entire minute. I walk. All the way to the carriage. Mentally deteriorating with every step and every thought.
With all the windows closed, the girl just stares as the dead creature drags behind me.
Letting a sniffle pass to clear my nose, I clean the dried tears on my cheek.
Creatures here are already scattered around. So, it’s likely you can’t even see anything from above. So, she’s most likely still here.
I hold onto that.
Maybe I overreacted.
My grip disappears. The creature drops. The second I look back, it’s already gone.
…
My vision goes in and out between blurs, and I can only but breathe to relax myself.
Fuck’s sake.
Still wobbly on the legs, I hop onto the carriage, and start it back up. The engine shakes on start, which concerns me a bit, but we get a move on.
That has to be it right? The obvious points lead to it.
My eyes don’t flow properly. Blood pressure skyrocketed to the point where my body is shaking.
If that was an imitation type creature, it somehow had her signature. You can’t fake the frequency of a person’s signature that precisely without a source. Which means at some point, it was near her. Which means she’s… been in here. Which means she could still be in here right now.
The logic works.
I steer us back onto the mapped route and focus on the road ahead.
We follow the route I drew out and through my vessel on top, I confirm there's nothing in our path. But the weird thing is there's a dome-like structure in the middle of this maze. Big enough to fit one and a half school buildings inside. It'll take us a few days to get there, so there's time to figure out what we're walking into.
I mark it and move on.
Taking a left, we turn into a path that splits into two with curved walls following their direction.
That's odd. We didn't come across anything like this before.
I slow the cart as much as I can while still rolling.
What should I do here?
The sound of wind against my ear fades as I bring the cart to a stop, and hop off to get a better look.
"Wait— A—"
Lyanna hesitates.
“Aarius?”
“You might want to see this”
The cart tilts as she opens the door, and as she gets a view of what I'm seeing.
She skips a breath.
Both paths are completely swallowed in shadow. I run Analysis, and what comes back stops me cold; It's a barrier. One-way, with special distortion layered over it.
How the hell does that even work.
Lyanna goes still next to me. Her eyes fix on the darkness and don’t move. It's not curiosity. It's something she's seen before or something close enough to it.
Her eyes go red at the edges, expression emptying out like something reached in and switched a light off. Before her legs go, I catch her by the back.
“Oi. Hey!”
She comes back slowly. Her eyes fill.
“Are you ok!?”
She doesn't answer. She sits down. Breathes.
I wait.
“I’m fine.” Under her breath.
“I doubt that.”
“Just don’t worry about it”
Whatever that shadow pulled out of her memory, she's not sharing it. I'm not going to push.
I let her rest and go back to the barrier.
Right in front of it. Analysis again. Same null result across everything; Mana variety, barrier type, activation method. All blank. Either these barriers don't run on conventional mana, or they don't run on mana at all. Both feel right with these circumstances.
I get close to the left pathway and run my hand through the barrier.
It passes straight through.
“SHIT”
Adrenaline shoots. I yank it back. And I stare as it’s still intact.
So the barrier only triggers on a full entity passing through.
“Well. That’s interesting.”
A sudden sensation hits my back and every skill I have tries to fire at once.
"JESUS— Oh. It's you."
For fucks sake, Lyanna.
She's standing right behind me. Closer than before. She glances at the shadow, then at me.
“We should take this path”, her voice a bit brighter than before.
“Why?”
“Just… a feeling.”
I stare at her for a second.
That’s not enough for a decision like this. I don’t know what she knows, but she has survived three months here alone.
A few seconds pass as I process the situation.
“…Ok”
Fuck it.
I get back into the carriage and sit her next to me at the front.
“Eh?” She looks up.
“Just sit there”
“Ok”, her expression back to zero.
I start the engine, take a slow breath, and pull up the accelerator. We roll toward the barrier, and as the engine tip crosses through, I push a little more. The barrier passes over us like a curtain, and on the other side, there's a stone tablet against the right wall.
"Hm?" Lyanna gestures, as I press my forehead against the wheel.
I stop the engine. We both get out.
Writing on the tablet. A language I don't recognize; Nothing in my index matches it. I brush dust off the surface.
Still nothing.
Lyanna moves next to me and goes quiet.
“I know this.”
“What? Huh?”
She tilts her head at the tablet.
“It was sort of— a language my parent taught us. They… made us learn it”
This isn’t native to Earth. Analysis can’t touch it. But she knows it.
"It says, 'To those who wish to pass Ascension, you must first overcome the shackles this verse bounds the mind to.' "
Ascension. Shackles on the mind.
I don't know what to do with that.
Lyanna taps my shoulder. I come back to my senses.
“With everything I’ve been through, there’s likely a trial manifestation here. Whatever happens— don’t stay in the cart when we reach it.”
I get her back in the carriage and start the engine.
We move through the path ahead. I scan from the vessel above and keep both eyes open. The corridors look normal. The dome grows slowly larger in my aerial view as we move. We turn right from the tablet and roll on.
Everything around me amplifies the way it does in a too-quiet room. I can hear the tires, the engine, my own heart. My eyes jump at every shadow.
The cart hits a bump.
Then pressure slams from above. A boom that rattles the frame. And the space folds open into a long corridor, lamps appearing one by one out of the shadow, lighting our path.
"JESUS CHRI—"
The shaking settles. I check on Lyanna through the back window.
She's curled into a ball. Shivering in place.
I shut off the engine and jump over to her.
h̶̻̅3̶̡͋/̵͎̈́p̵̮̀
I swing the door open and kneel in front of her.
She looks like the life was pulled out of her. Pale. Breathing ragged and shallow. Her curly dark hair falls forward hiding most of her face.
"Lyanna."
Nothing. Only the bleeding tears running down her face.
“Are you ok?”
She sits up slowly, covers her face. Doesn't answer.
What should I do here. I don’t.. know how to comfort a child.
I get closer and shoulder her head against mine and pat her back. It's the only thing I can think of.
“What happened?”
She grips her hands around me. Breathing evens out. Slowly.
“…”
I don’t know what to say next. Fuck I’m useless when it comes to these.
"I’m fine." So quiet it's almost nothing.
I... Fuck.
"Come on. Come sit up front with me. I don't want to leave you back here."
I don’t know what to do.
I carry her carefully to the front seat. She doesn't fight it. Her eyes track everything but don't settle anywhere.
"Want this?"
I hold out a switchblade I create; Plastic, weighted like a fidget toy, the blade locked. She stares at it for a second.
Then takes it. I start the engine.
We start rolling again, but I can’t help but check again.
Lyanna sitting there. Staring into the ground. Holding onto whatever the fuck I thought was a good idea.
We move through the corridors. The vessel above can't place us on the map anymore. The geometry shifted when we came through the barrier. We're somewhere the map doesn't account for.
"I can see the end of this corridor." I say it mostly to see if she responds.
An opening ahead. Darker on the other side.
I check Lyanna is strapped in. Then I push the accelerator.
The engine grows louder. The opening gets closer. The space around us starts bending. Not the walls, the space itself, folding inward. I grab Lyanna's shoulder as the ground begins to shake.
The engine's sound becomes a screech and before my ears blow;
Everything goes black with my eyes still open.
I can't feel her anymore.
. . .
I'm floating.
My body's doing backflips in the dark, back curving, arms loose, but my head feels oddly stable. White streaks of light appear around me as I spin, and I land on my feet; A ripple spreading out from where I touch down, like the ground is somewhere between water and air.
The streaks run along the surface and illuminate my skin as they pass.
Dark here. Very dark.
But somewhere ahead, a light I can't locate yet.
This is the trial. Lyanna was probably sent to her own.
I step forward.
A bright light hits my eyes.
"What the fuck."
Chains snap around my body before I fully register the environment. The moon above me is crumbling. Massive fragments of it hanging in the space where it used to be, glowing, slow-moving. The ground beneath me is mirrored and in the mirror are versions of me, myself at different points, reflections without a source.
Creation and Analysis trigger before I decide to activate them. The chains phase out.
Then Spatial Awareness fires and my body is already moving; Something swings at the space I was just standing in.
SHIT!
I catch my step and turn.
There I am.
A copy of me. Same height, same build, same marks from Crimson Bloom faintly visible on the arms. But the eyes are just dark. No glow. Just darkness where light should be.
Ok what the fuck kind of trial is this.
It charges.
I dodge right. It matches me perfectly.
IT COPIES ME?
I dodge right again, sharper. It matches me again.
WHAT THE FU—
I try to read an angle for an attack and it reads me reading it.
Oh COME ON.
I create an Acceleration circle. It creates the same circle at the same time.
So that’s how it works.
Any skill, it mirrors. Any circle, it replicates. I can't outpace it on reaction because it doesn't react; It reads.
Brute force then. I try to hide how nervous I am to myself.
Left foot forward, right as an anchor, I flash toward it. It flashes at me. I aim for its stomach—it already knows—so I curve away last second and put the force into its back. Shockwave ripples out. It flies.
I layer Acceleration and anti-gravity. Then stack Gravity for my way down on it.
It stays resilient. And then it's gone.
Something hits my back. Spine crushing into my lungs. My lower jaw fractures on the ground.
Through my gritted teeth, “FUUUCK!!”
I don't use a healing circle. If I do, it copies that too. I'm on my own with this.
I get up and pause. Don’t move. Then observe.
A few seconds of nothing pass, then it jolts.
I dodge to the left, and it jumps to the right; Matching my direction.
I boost my speed again, circle it as fast as I can go, and using creation, materialize astralite swords in its path, knowing full well the risks.
It slides under and before it attempts to do the same to me, I give myself height.
My senses temporarily go numb, and it uses that as leverage.
It crashes through the circle under me. Arm first. Ready to strike.
FUCK.
My options dwindling, I create an Aero circle in front of me, and It hits the ground before me.
I land and breathe through the jaw.
What the hell do I do here. Whatever I do, it mirrors. Whatever I think, it reads. There's no first-mover advantage because the copy doesn't need to react… It already knows.
Everything I do, it copies.
Every. Thing. I. Do.
Everything I do…
We exchange a stare. I’m barely managing to breathe.
Wait a damn minute.
Spatial Awareness flickers into activation, shifting my vision, and I see it.
Thread-like connections, running from my body into the ground and out in every direction. Like a web of wires, all leading to the same host. All of them leading to the copy.
What the fuck.
It's not reading my movements. It's reading the mana threads between my intention and my action; The line between thinking a skill and executing it. It's sitting right on that line.
Cut the threads.
I mark the clusters. Four of them. Spread across the space.
Circles appear under me.
I move.
Not toward the copy, toward the first cluster.
My trajectory locks onto the cluster, and in the time it takes to blink, I'm through it.
Every skill I have fires on contact. Aero, Glacial, Aquant, Gravity, Disruption, all layered and detonating as I pass through each one in sequence.
The threads snap.
I land.
The copy stands still. Its eyes scan the space around it, looking for the feed that isn't there anymore.
One second too slow.
“Try me now bitch”
Within an instant, Acceleration layers on it. It crashes towards me. But—
A second behind.
I create a cage of swords in its path; Overlapping from every angle. It tries to respond but it's reading intentions after the fact.
The swords compress inward.
Its mouth opens. No sound.
“See you in hell”
I bring one final sword down from above, Gravity circle threaded through the blade.
It comes down. Hard.
Body split, its form eviscerates.
“Fuck you”
I sit down.
Then I lie down.
I can’t breathe.
Barely holding onto my hardly functioning lungs, the pooling blood gets to me.
Then I'm not really conscious of much for a while.
E̵͈͒Ç̴̿Ḧ̵̡́Ö̶̙
...
Sensitivity returns and I can feel grass under me. I can feel grass under me— I CAN FEEL—
Air rushes into my lungs.
"HOLY SHIT—"
Why am I back in our garden…
I look around in confusion, painless from the injuries I just suffered, and realizing this is where I activated the circle, my eyes jolt, and—
"What…"
Kida's body rests lifeless on the ground; Burns everywhere, body turning blue. For a fraction of a second, my heart sinks right into my chest. My nerves fire as I stare. Stare.
…
Her pupils blown. Face pale. Palms half open. Circle traces burnt onto the clothes and skin.
I.
Stare.
“Let me wake up.”
Every thought completely breaks, leaving only fragments left—I finally start to realize why she might not have ended up with me.
She might…
A thought I refuse to accept.
Her body couldn't handle the mana. Crimson Bloom might have not planted properly.
T-That can't be it. I made sure to open a spot in her soul core for the...
“Or was it not enough. Did...”
A thought I refuse to accept.
I cover my mouth before my body decides my stomach should be empty. The afternoon sky shines on her face, I’m brought to my knees, and the guilt and fear I feel…
My world perspective stretches. My brain doesn’t want to believe what I’m seeing, but I can’t deny the sight in front of me.
Tears guttering out, my entire body goes cold.
All the times we’ve spent together, every moment of every second, floods my mind. Like a dam opening, it hits me directly in the chest.
She might actually be... d̸e̷a̷d̷.
/ P̵̘͛o̷̡͘s̴̏ͅt̷͔̋-̶̖̾B̷̭̅r̵̫̅e̸͉̅a̴̛̦k̴̤̍ /
I refuse to accept.
/ S̸̭̎ȅ̵̟t̸͚̏t̵̬̽ȋ̵̬n̵̡̆g̸̡̈́-̸̗͝C̵̣̍õ̴̹n̷̡͊f̵̺̍i̴̲͒r̷̮̆m̶͘ͅẻ̵̞d̶̡̊ /
It’s not real.
—/<I̷͓̎'̵̨͠m̵̺̋ ̵̧̎s̸̼͆o̷̯͋r̷̥̊r̴͎̍y̴̯͑>/—
It’s just the trial.
/ U̴̺̮͆ǹ̴̯̕ȃ̵̩b̶̻͚̔l̶͙͙͘e̸̥͜͝ ̷̦́t̸̺̯́́o̷̪͋ ̴͙͘̚P̴̻̲͌r̵͍̠͘o̶̥͋c̶̰̻͌̆e̶̡̛s̵͉͑͆s̸̳̮͠͠ ̸̬̤̇͘E̴̻̅r̸̠̕r̵̗̄̎o̵̩̓̅r̷͚̓ /
My body trembles as the realization hits. The possibility that the person who’s been here with me for over 5 years of my life, Might not be here anymore.
“Fuck this. Fuck This. I have to know if she's alive.”
Intricate magic circles appear over the house. Each forming a complex stack until the entire sky is taken up.
They turn in opposite directions to each other—the force pulling up debris.
I create a slit in my hand as blood floats up before my hand heals. The circles turn dark red and a wave emanates out.
*Boom*
The ground shakes like a rattle. The trees bending away as if a hurricane just landed next to it.
*Boom*
The circles start converging; Releasing energy powerful enough to cause a black out in the grid. Sparks fly. Everything ignites.
*Boom*
Thunderous ripples spread with each wave.
*Boom*
The sky above clears. A red beam of light crashes down.
The upper base of it glows brighter than the entire beam. It turns black.
A white light swirls down. A hollow crystal starts to form in front of me. The beam ends.
The crystal now in my hands, the fog inside it clears;
It turns black.
"Wait wait no FUCK FUCK. HOW? FUCK IT ALL"
“Wait. Wait. WAIT. WAIT WAIT WAIT”
I can't find any sign of her.
“NO. NO. NO. NO”
Not even the slightest hint of her existence.
“THAT CAN’T BE IT.
The fear, turns into despair as it starts to fill every crevice of me.
“WHY CAN’T I FUCKING FIND YOU”
The last moments I saw Kida surfaces in my mind. My heart disintegrates into nothing.
Gravity becomes meaningless, I crash onto the floor—In front of this replica—the only thing I have left of her.
My emotions turn, everything’s suddenly louder, and I find myself laughing at my own failure.
Was this my fault.
The replica’s face, in front of mine. The memories I thought were casual moments come crashing in.
Was it.
“…”
Everything’s so silent.
My eyes stay locked to hers. I don’t want to let go.
I'll never get to see her again will I.
Holding onto the dead cold hand of the Kida in front of me, my emotions mix together and the only thing left is a forced smile.
"I'm sorry"
It’s as if my body’s lying down in a shallow pool; Slowly freezing over.
My body doesn’t want to get up.
I don't want to leave.
Stuttering in my breath, I let the air out.
"Damn it all"
My eyes close shut as the afternoon sun roams.
I’m tired.
Failure after failure, loss after loss, what's even the point. Every single time I try, poured my everything, I just keep losing.
There was nothing going for me. Now there's nothing left for me.
I’m so fucking tired.
I just want to sleep, get rid of this aching pain, let it all go.
Light bleeding through my eyelids, the darkness oddly comforting.
The nostalgia of sleeping a day off knowing I can just put the rest of my worries for tomorrow finally hits me.
I have no more energy in me to keep moving, there's no point in moving…
My neck loses strength, muscles letting the tension release, but my hands keep its grip.
The silence returns, A woman appears in my vision. Dark hair. Eyes as white as the glare of a star. Black dress. Under a spotlight in my head.
<< Come on, get up. You still have things to do >>
My eyes remain shut even though I can see, and my imaginary gaze stays firm.
Why should I. Is there anything for me in the future? Why should I suffer?
Her expression flattens.
Why does keep happening to me. Why does nothing ever go right. Why. WHY. WHY SHOULD I CARE.
I don’t want to live like that. I’d much rather di—
<< Get up Aarius. >>
Body jolting upright. Senses back to me. I don’t recall anything that just happened.
I take a deep breath and try to process what just happened.
<̵͚̋<̴̠͆ ̷̩̚M̵̥̎o̷͍͒v̶̨͗é̸̥ ̸͉͠o̸̩͋n̵̥̉ ̷̝̀>̷͕̚>̵̘̈
…
<̷̦̔<̷͉̅ ̵̱̈́P̴͚͠ĺ̷͉e̷͖͝ḁ̶̌s̷̮͂ẻ̶̖ ̴̞̈́≯͎͑>̷̠̅
Let the universe fuck me over again.
I push myself up.
Even if it’s a fleeting fantasy—
My forehead on hers. Met with the coldness of her body.
—I’ll…
≮͇̭̹̣͌͘͝<̶͚͍̥̂͑̏͗͜ ̸͓͖́Ǩ̸̨͜͝e̵͎̮͕͔̬͋̓̃͝͠e̴͈̭̞͑͑p̷͙̂̋̂͒ ̸̞̼̗̹̍̄͊͘t̷̢̧͚̾r̸̯͔͉̓͌͒̏͝y̸̗̮̘͊̉̃͊i̶͙͙̽̾͒͝ͅn̸̯͐̿͒͘g̷̬̲̯̑ ̸̞̮͆̚>̷̟̝̮̂>̶̟͖̼̣̼̂̊̓͋̕
Keep trying.
Back on my knees. Hand on the side of face.
“…I’m sorry”
I want to cry, I hold it in.
“I’m so fucking sorry”
But they come anyway.
Maybe one day, when I lose. Lose myself for everything I am. I can meet you.
"Till that day comes,—"
I reach out my hand. Hoping to feel her one more time. Just one more time before this dream ends.
The space breaks. Fractures surfacing.
"Wait for me”.
Bright white wakes me up.
...
I'm back in the seat. Body flopping against the seat.
I stare at the ceiling of the corridor for a second.
Then the tears just arrive; Not slowly, just suddenly there, the way they are when something's been held too long.
"Damn it."
I let them.
There's a grin on my face at the same time, which I can't explain and don't try to.
Then Analysis activates and I see it. A barrier around Lyanna, her essence fading inside it. I break it without thinking.
Fragments scatter like glass.
Lyanna's eyes open. She jolts upright. Pupils shrink to nothing. Her mouth opens and the scream that comes out fills the entire corridor and echoes back twice before it fades.
She wraps her arms around herself.
She has the same look I had ten minutes ago.
I glance at her sideways.
"You saw it too."
My brain's fogging. Everything's dissolving into everything else. Somewhere in the mess, there’s still a part of me holding on, hoping she’s alive, even as my head gets heavier and the migraine from the crying stacks onto everything else, I've put my body through today.
My eyelids give out. The adrenaline vanishes.
"Kill me already."
I'm asleep before I finish saying it.