What This World Has to Offer- Story

[Pokemaniac7000]

Chapter 93. Innocence - Part 1

 

Chapter 5 of 5

Darkness

 

 

Webber's POV

There was nothing new or unique to waking up from nightmares. It was something we had all experienced a million times before, some worse than others. I, in particular, was no stranger to waking from a dead sleep drenched in cold sweat, body shivering violently despite the heat of a fire nearby. Some time ago, we had come to a silent agreement not to wake someone up when they were visibly having a nightmare. It happened to all of us, and while they were never fun to experience, it would be a waste of valuable sleep to be woken from them. Then there was the period of time that it took to relax and calm down, to reassociate oneself to the real world, to get your breathing and heart rate back to a pace suitable for rest... it was a whole ordeal.

So, honestly, waking from a nightmare was fully expected at this rate.

What wasn't expected was how normal my nightmares had seemed. For once, they did not revolve around Wilson or WX, or any Giants or painful situations or any of the sort. They were... just... the kind of thing you would expect a child to be dreaming about. Monsters hiding under the bed or in the closet. A pet dying. Being lost in a field and being unable to find your parents.

I woke up more confused than scared.

The air was heavy and impossibly thick, like trying to breathe through water. I had gotten pretty used to the acidic stench of nightmare fuel, but that didn't stop me from wincing as all of my senses were assaulted with the smell. It was omnipresent, and it didn't take long for me to realize that the grass below me was slick with it.

Huh. So it hadn't been cold sweat after all.

I painstakingly dragged myself up to a sitting position as I rubbed the sleep from my eye. Rivulets of the foul stuff rolled down my back, causing fur to prickle along its path.

I tried opening my eye, and then I tried again because it clearly didn't work the first time. It wasn't until I blinked several times that I realized that this was certainly the real world and not the back of my eyelid, and that was only because I noticed vague shapes in the darkness in front of me.

I turned my gaze back to see my companions still unconscious. Wilbur's tail and hands were twitching furiously as if in some vivid dream, but the others seemed to be in a more peaceful state of rest. The fire that they were in the range of burned gray-white, the crackling muffled as if under a foot of snow. My sword was stuck into the ground, glowing vividly amongst the faded colors. After another moment, I realized that I was not in the range of the light. I immediately scrambled over, entirely unwilling to let the creature in the dark claim me.

Even though the others were asleep, I felt the innate sensation of being watched. Worse than that, though, was the way I could see movement just feet away from me. Not the movement you would see from a creature, but it was as if the darkness itself was a living creature, moving and writhing in time with its breaths.

I heard a sharp intake of breath in the back of my head, and such powerful waves of excitement flooded over me that I didn't even immediately realize they weren't my own emotions. I could practically feel Webber vibrating with anticipation and glee. And yet, strangely enough, he didn't try to take the reigns from me. He was simply watching.

Movement again. Closer this time. Just out of reach of the light.

I immediately bared my fangs and hissed, whiskers curling tightly against my cheeks in fear. Someone was watching me, and I couldn't tell what kind of intentions they had for me.

The others were still asleep. Why were they still asleep?

“What a time to see you again, Young Heir.” The voice came from somewhere else. I whipped around, a deep growl rumbling in my chest as I tried to find the source of it. I knew it was Nightmare. It had to be. A voice of paradoxes and contradictions. The movement was all around me, now, kept at bay only by the fire still burning with its sickly flames.

Every single muscle in my body was tight with terror. When the seconds ticked by without any other words, I couldn't help but hiss again. It was all I could do.

“I should be flattered, really, that you would come so far just to see me,” Nightmare purred. Its voice was everywhere. I couldn't pinpoint it.

“Get away,” the words came out quiet and low, a demand that shook so much it was a wonder the words could be heard. “Get away, get away, get away-”

“I promised I would be waiting for you here, and yet you're so determined to be rid of me so quickly? Come now, it has been such a long time since we truly saw each other. Perhaps come a bit closer, so we can truly get reacquainted~”

Claws dug into my temples, and I only dully realized they were my own.

We'll be waiting for you in darkness.

We'll be waiting for you in Darkness.

We'llbewaitingforyouinDarknesswe'llbewaitingforyouinDarknessWe'll-

Darkness.

It all made sense now. What fools we had been. We had walked right into their trap.

Had Maxwell been trying to save us by keeping us in the previous world?

Was he afraid of Nightmare?

Nightmare's claws were so close to me, how could I be sure they weren't my own?

Claws were digging into my temples, and I could feel a slight trickle of blood from a minute puncture on the right side, but was that blood? Maybe it wasn't warm. Maybe it was cold cold cold and maybe it was Nightmare's blood. Maybe it wasn't even my claws doing it.

There was a strong metallic taste in my mouth that was definitely blood. Was I dying? Had Nightmare killed me?
Maybe it had. Maybe that was why my heart was struggling so hard to beat. Maybe that was why every single breath seemed to catch on the blood in my throat and lodged into my lungs.

Maybe I was dying.

I had to be. My mouth was filled with blood and spitting it out only lead to more replacing it.

A hand touched my shoulder and I choked back a scream. My gaze shot up as low whine escaped my throat.

Instead of any demon, there was only a slightly tired set of warm brown eyes staring at me in confusion and concern. I sucked in a harsh breath at the sight of the prime ape, the terror easing just enough for the growl to taper off.

Wilbur didn't just look slightly concerned. In fact, his face was pale with fear of his own that he seemed to be fighting back. His mouth was set in a firm line, his eyes dark with apprehension.

Somehow, knowing that Wilbur shared my emotions in this case seemed to help my body to realize it wasn't in any immediate danger. The blood was still in my mouth and very real, but the sting that was slowly making itself known from my tongue did well in alerting me where it had come from.

I spit out another glob of blood and rasped out a quick “Bit my tongue,” before Wilbur could panic any further.

He gave me a tight smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. “Are you okay?”

Instead of giving him a direct answer, I chewed on my lip (careful, this time, to keep my fangs from digging in too deep) as I turned my gaze back to the shifting shadows around us. Another shiver of discontent washed over me, but it wasn't the same heartstopping terror that had held me moments before. “Nightmare is here,” I whispered.

Wilbur hesitated, then sighed. “Probably.”

Probably!? I shook my head violently. “It's here,” I urged. I couldn't keep my gaze on both Wilbur and the shadows, but I could certainly try. “Why did we come here? It's- it's going to kill us, Wilbur. It's going to kill me-”
The prime ape hushed me and bumped me with his shoulder. “Hey, Nightmare hasn't succeeded in killing us yet. What makes you think it'll succeed now?”

Because it was furious at me. Because I was here to usurp the Throne. Because it didn't kill me when it should have. Because I shattered it-

“Ty? Hey, come on, you can't just stop breathing on me. We can't have the both of us dissociating, can we? And if you freak out, then I'll probably freak out, and that does not spell good things for Wilson and Winona, right?”

I had to physically force myself to breathe. The air was so thick, I felt exhausted just for the attempt. My nose burned. I spit out more blood from my sliced tongue.

“Did you know we were coming here?” I hissed at Wilbur. “Did you know?”

He raised his hands to stop me in my tracks. “Okay, listen, you're not the only one that's gonna have a whole bunch of questions about this place. Let's wait for the others to wake up before I explain what I know.”

So Wilbur did know about this place. He probably knew we would be coming here as well. Or, at least, he had an inkling... But if he was knowledgeable about this world and as scared as he was, I couldn't even imagine what kind of horrors would be here.

Still, though, I wasn't going to just force him to talk. Instead, I kept my silence as he gingerly led me back to the not-quite-a-fire. It was probably inaccurate to just call it a fire, what with its coloring and the fact it seemed to give off no heat at all.

I couldn't shake off the feeling of being watched though. I found my gaze snapping from side to side at every movement and sound, a feat made much harder by only having one working eye. By the time Winona, and finally Wilson, started to actually stir, I had been on edge for so long that the terror was beginning to dim into a dull background hum. There was only so long you could be in such a state of fear before your body tried to even itself out.

Winona's first reaction to our surroundings was to give a slight frown, a surprisingly mundane reaction. “Oh boy, aren't we lucky. Didn't he already try the super long nights before, though? Kind of retreading old ground again.”

Wilson seemed to have a much more reasonable reaction, which was to freeze completely with dilated pupils and stare blankly into the night. “Darkness,” he whispered.

“Ah, so you're familiar with it,” Wilbur said calmly. Really, it was remarkable just how calm he was able to act when he was clearly shaken by where we were. Wilson's eyes darted to Wilbur, then back to the ground.

“Er... not really. There was something... you guys also experienced those visions, right? In the last world?”

Winona was the first to give an affirmative hum. When Wilbur nodded, I simply murmured a small “yes”.

“What did you guys... er, see?”

A sudden wave of deja vu hit me. The last time we had this conversation, the visions had been very different, and our group had had very different faces.

But I couldn't recall anything prophetic about my own vision. When it had happened back then, the three of us had been sent on the wild goose chase to kill the giants. It had been Webber to appear to me, in one breath giving me the mission and showing me exactly how my friends were to die. Erika, however, had not shown me anything like that. Was I the odd one out here?

Wilbur waved his hand as if to brush off the question. “Typical stuff. Nothing unpleasant, but you know, it's always bittersweet.” At the expectant look on the humans' faces, Wilbur sighed. “I saw Roselyn. But she didn't say anything about Darkness. She just...” He shuffled his feet. “Tried to... you know, get through some of my insecurities. That's how she always was. It was just her as she was.”

“Oh,” Winona said softly. “I... yeah. Same.”

“Winona, are you telling me my mate talked to you about your guilt and insecurities? That's kinda weird~”

“No!” Clearly startled by Wilbur's words, she let out a little laugh. “No, it, um. Was Scarlet. My Roselyn, I guess. For me. But it was just... her. Telling me that she was still waiting for me. That she still loved me. Trying to comfort me about some things. Nothing about Darkness.”

“I didn't know you had a girlfriend,” I hummed under my breath. It was left largely ignored, but it wasn't the point and I knew it.

When they glanced at me, it was to get my own story from me. I folded my knees to my chest and rested my arms on them. “I dreamed about Erika. But as she would be now if she was... still...” 'Alive' wasn't the right word. Especially when Wilson and Winona had already met Erika before, just not as I had once known her. “Human,” I finished lamely. “But it's like what you guys said. I mean, I guess she... acted differently? She wasn't quite herself. But she didn't say anything about Darkness.”

I had heard about Darkness from Nightmare itself, back when it was wearing Wilson's face before we entered Maxwell's Door in the first place. But it hadn't given me any information.

Just that it was waiting for me.

“Okay.” Wilson took a deep breath and folded his hands together. “Well. The person speaking to you wasn't any one of those people.”

Winona didn't seem surprised, and frankly, neither was I. Wilbur seemed unhappy about this, though, looking away with his tail twitching.

“I don't know who- or what- it was,” he continued. “I'm not surprised you guys saw... the ones you did, though.”

“So it actually talked to you, then?” Wilbur asked. He seemed annoyed by this revelation, although that might've been because he had just been told that he had talked to someone wearing his mate's face. “Did it also speak in cryptic riddles? Was it Very Obviously Nightmare and you're just choosing to pretend like it wasn't?”

Wilson shook his head vigorously. “No! It wasn't Nightmare. I think it was... friendly...?”

“Every time a creepy demon creature gives visions and talks to you, it's Nightmare,” Wilbur said confidently.

“It's talked to all of us before.”

That finally seemed to catch the prime ape's attention. He narrowed his eyes at the scientist.

My interest was piqued as well, but I felt as if I knew exactly what he was talking about. Something that had spoken to us before that wasn't Maxwell and wasn't Nightmare. Something possibly benevolent.

More accurately, something that had spoken through us before. Something seemed to click in my mind.

“The lessons,” I breathed, which only seemed to further Wilbur's confusion.

Winona, however, seemed to understand immediately. “In the previous worlds!” She exclaimed. “It couldn't have been Nightmare. It spoke through me as well, and as far as I know, Nightmare doesn't have any control over me.”

Wilson nodded. “I think it was the same thing.”

“And it told you about Darkness?” Wilbur asked. I could tell he was still suspicious, but interest seemed to have been slowly taking over. At least, his lashing tail had calmed to just waving slightly.

“It... helped me, I think. Or it was trying to help me.” Wilson pressed a fist against his chest, but I couldn't tell why. He paused for a long moment as if looking for his heartbeat. Whatever he was doing, he seemed satisfied. “And it told me that it would 'last through Darkness'.”

“What would?” Winona pressed.

For some reason, Wilson seemed to have to genuinely consider this question. In the end, he simply gave a confounded shrug. “Love?” He guessed.

“So there's something else out there,” I said sharply. My voice must have been a bit louder than I intended, because everyone's eyes immediately snapped towards me. I took a deep breath before pressing on. “There's someone else who has been... what? Trying to help us?” The tension in my muscles seemed to finally snap as I drew myself up to my full size, anger momentarily replacing the fear I had felt before. “Well, Mystery Creature, if you really wanted to help us, you sure came late, didn't you? You could've said something years ago and stopped so much from happening. Do you seriously think helping us now would do anything!?”

“Ty-” Wilbur started, but I rounded on him with bared fangs.

“No! I'm supposed to just accept that there was a supernatural entity out there that was strong enough to give visions and speak through us, but it simply chose not to?” I shouldn't have been angry at something that... probably wasn't there. I really shouldn't have been angry at all. There was something out there that was trying to help us, and all I could think of was the things it hadn't done. “Sure, yeah, I guess you helped push us through Maxwell's Game. Thanks a lot! You were a huge help when we fought the Dragonfly. And I can't even express how grateful I am with your assistance against the Ancient Guardian. Oh wait-”

“Maybe,” Wilson cut off. “We shouldn't antagonize the one thing that might want to help us in this world.”

“Fat lot its help did!” I snapped.

“This is not the place to be cursing out the supernatural,” Wilbur chastised. “In fact, I can't even think of any worse place to be challenging Them like this.”

“What, Darkness?” I scoffed. “What difference is it going to make? They've already been waiting for me.” I turned away from my companions and opened my arms to the shadows that surrounded us. “Well I'm here!” I shouted. “You've brought me all this way and I'm right where you want me.”

The shadows remained in their place. Swirling and hovering around us, but not daring to move any closer. Not daring to breach our small circle of light. I sneered at them. I could feel my body shaking, though whether it was with fear, anger, or exhaustion, I couldn't tell. What I could tell was that everyone else was clearly uncomfortable with the way I seemed to be trying to bait Nightmare into the light. Maybe they thought the coward would actually get near me. Laughter, harsh and hysterical, rose in my chest. “Is that it, Nightmare? You're a coward? Preying on people in the dark because you can't stand to see yourself in the light? If you're so eager to get me, then get me!”

The relative lack of movement only served to fuel my rage. For such a supposedly powerful demon, Nightmare seemed to show no interest in collecting its prize. Which meant I had to do it myself.

The second I started to move, though, someone grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the edge. This time, I found myself hissing at Wilson, who looked both unafraid and unimpressed.

“Gonna be honest, didn't think I'd see you like this again,” he said, refusing to release his firm grip even as I struggled against it. “You realize the last time you went insane, we had to force-feed you mushrooms, right?”

“I'm not going insane!” Again, I tried to rip my arm back, but he held fast. “This is Nightmare's domain and I know that because it has been waiting for me to get here! Let me go Wilson, I swear that I'm going to shatter that demon again. You hear that? I don't care how many times I have to stab you again, I will destroy you.”

“Tyler,” came Wilbur's patient voice.

Wilson still wasn't letting go. I snapped forward to bite him, but he caught my forehead with his palm before I could make contact. The stupid scientist was not letting go. Why would Nightmare let him act on his own? It wanted me, right? It wanted me so why wasn't it taking me? “I swear to God I will bite you.” The threat was empty, but its meaning was entirely true. If Nightmare wanted me so desperately, then the only way to get rid of it was to let it have me and then destroy us. I couldn't care less what any stupid scientist or stubborn monkey had to say about it. I would kill it. It wanted to kill me so it was only fair that I killed it first.

“He's at least partially right,” Wilbur hummed. “This is Nightmare's domain. This is where Nightmare is at its strongest. I'm sure it knows we're here.” He blinked up at me, his gaze unwavering under my glare. “But that doesn't mean it's smart to try to purposely catch its attention.” He breathed out a hiss of air from between his teeth. “The best thing for us to do would be to try our best to keep its attention away from us.”

“So... I guess that means I'm the only one that heard that,” Winona said uneasily. My eyes snapped back to her as she rubbed her hands together, looking deeply concerned. “Tyler, what did you mean by 'stab you again'?”

Wilson's eyes widened at the question, an unknown expression coming over his face as his eyes darted from me to Winona. Wilbur's twitching tail stilled; his eyes narrowed.

I rolled my eyes and bared my teeth in a grimace. “I've stabbed it before, and I'll gladly stab it again.”

“When did you stab Nightmare?” Wilbur pressed.

I opened my mouth to answer, but the memory that had been so bright in my mind just a second before seemed to slip away before I had the opportunity to give any details. I closed my mouth again, eyes furrowing in irritated thought. My word should have been enough, even if I couldn't properly explain when it had the chance to happen. “Doesn't matter,” I grumbled instead. “I shouldn't have to explain that.” The audacity of someone so close to me to doubt my word. “It clearly didn't work last time, so that means we'll have to try again until it works.”

I nearly jumped out of my fur as a hand touched my shoulder. I hadn't noticed Wilson coming up on my blind side, and as such, I felt it was quite appropriate to growl deeply at him. I didn't shake him off, though. The weight was strangely grounded, enough so that I didn't even realize that I needed such. I hadn't even realized that Wilson had let go of me in the first place.

“That would be a suicide mission,” Wilson said in a grim tone. “If Nightmare wants you, that means we have to keep you away from it, not throw you into its clutches.”

“So you just want to let Charlie suffer?” I snapped.

There were a lot of things I could've said, and really, I knew that was the exact wrong one. However, I felt that getting just one of the members of the group to agree with me would be enough. It was a low blow going for Winona in that way, but it dripped with truth. She winced back as if I had physically hit her and sucked in a harsh breath.

“You can't save Charlie without killing her.” It was Wilbur who said that. His voice had lost most of its emotion, his eyes dulling as he spoke. “Or at least deeply injuring her. They've been together for so long that I don't even know if she would survive having Nightmare stripped away from her. It's poisoned every ounce of blood in her body.”

“Not if I stab it.”

Winona perked up as soon as I said that. She suddenly gasped loudly and slammed her hands over her mouth as the realization hit her. “Your sword!” She exclaimed. Her voice was tight with excitement, and I couldn't hold back the small smirk that made its way onto my face. Bingo.

“It absorbs poisons, right? It purified the Ancient Guardian.” I tried to keep the tremor out of my voice, but it betrayed itself nonetheless. From an outside perspective, there was a good chance the others would take it as the ever-lingering grief from losing my brother.

I didn't exactly want to fight Nightmare, but the urge deep in my stomach was insanely strong. There was an innate knowledge, bubbling in my chest, that we were brought to Darkness for a reason. It had specifically mentioned that it was waiting for me here, and that meant it wanted to take me.

I had to kill it before it had the opportunity. I had already dealt with one intruder in my mind for years, I wasn't sure what would happen to me if another force tried to take it. Would it kill Webber? Would they both haunt me, exerting such force that the likelihood of me being myself again would be next to zero? Would my body split under the pressure?

Or would something else happen? Something that I couldn't even comprehend?

With the taste of nightmare fuel on my tongue and the crushing knowledge of something watching me at this very moment, Nightmare's death was the only end I could think of that ended in a somewhat positive way.

However excited Winona seemed to be at the prospect of saving her sister, though, Wilson seemed unconvinced, and Wilbur looked downright upset. “Nightmare is stronger than the Ancient Guardian, Ty. If we tried to fight it, we would all die for the attempt. Would you like a conclusive list of all the crap that Nightmare can do that the Ancient Guardian probably couldn't? And if Nightmare didn't kill us, They would without hesitation. Wilson's right. It would be a suicide mission.”

“Then how do you propose we help Charlie?” I asked, sure to add just a little bit of oil to my voice. I didn't care how much I had to manipulate them. “You're okay with just letting her suffer?”

“However much you pull that card, I know you're not thinking about Charlie,” Wilson accused. “How many steps back did you take to end up right back to where you started? You've gotten better about this. If you really want to fight the literal Big Bad Evil God of the world, then don't try to manipulate us into agreeing with you.”

Winona seemed hurt by this, which sent a spear of guilt into my chest. I swallowed hard and struggled to find my words. “It wants me,” I said in a small voice. “I have to kill it before it can kill me.”

“Different card, same deck,” Wilson growled. “I've known you for years now. I know what you look like when you're trying to get what you want. I can't believe you are doing this again.”

“Wilson...” Wilbur said.

“Neither of you guys were around in the beginning,” the scientist immediately interrupted. “This is exactly what he acted like when we first met.”

“Because I was scared and angry!”

“So you're scared and angry now?”

My whiskers trembled as I bared my teeth at him. “Yes! I'm terrified, Wilson! We waltzed right into Nightmare's domain, and none of us have good experiences with Nightmare in case you didn't notice!” My head whipped to the side as the feeling of being watched increased tenfold. It had to be Nightmare. There was no one else it could be. Suddenly, I couldn't even speak if I wanted to around the growl once more rumbling in my chest.

I couldn't see any eyes, but that didn't mean I didn't know they were there. They had to be. I could taste the nightmare fuel that betrayed Nightmare's presence; it was all around us, soaking deep in my fur and trailing icy paths of frost through my veins. It was cold. My teeth were chattering. I couldn't tell if it was from cold or anger or terror.

The others were still looking at me. Could they not feel it?

Of course they wouldn't be able to. Nightmare didn't want them. It wanted me.

Soft shuffling from their position was enough to tell me that one of them was moving, but I kept my eyes straight on the invisible presence. I couldn't look away.

As it turned out, the brave soul who decided to confront me was Wilbur. He immediately stationed himself between me and our observer, and while I immediately moved to keep my eye fixed on it, he moved with me.

“Relax,” he said softly, his voice trembling very slightly. “It's okay.” He inched closer, and I met his advance with a hasty backpedal. His brow furrowed, but he simply moved faster until he was close enough for me to scratch.

Wilbur reached out with one hand to the back of my head, before promptly pulling my face down into his furry shoulder. I instinctively stiffened and tried to pull away, but he held firm.

“Don't look at Them,” he said. “Don't look into the darkness at all. Keep your eyes on us, okay?”

The growl in my throat tapered off, but I didn't loosen into his grip at all.

“Listen, Ty, you've gotten us this far, but for this one, you can rest, okay? I know this world better than anyone else here. Let me handle it.”

I didn't reply verbally, but I gave him a weak nod. Resting sounded nice. The last world had been a taste of relaxation, but the fear of the unknown had kept me from truly calming myself down.

Wilbur could handle this one.

He gave me a quick scratch behind the whiskers before finally letting me free. “Good.”

Instead of letting my eye turn back to the darkness, I followed Wilbur's advice. I kept my gaze firmly on the monochrome fire, forcibly pulling it away from any semblance of shadow and darkness.

Wilbur spoke. “So... yes. This is Nightmare's domain, colloquially called Darkness. This might seem like the worst place to be, but that means we are tantalizingly close to Maxwell's domain. There is no place closer. A few things to note about this place, though.” He opened up one hand to count on his fingers. “It's always dark. This world was made to forever be like this in order to protect Nightmare. Never go out into the darkness. No matter what's going on or what you see or hear. It doesn't matter how dire the situation is. Never let yourself leave the light. They can only live in the darkness, and Nightmare is actively harmed by light. As long as you are near a torch or a fire or whatever, then you're safe from Them.”

I let out a disbelieving scoff under my breath, but I didn't protest. Wilbur had known Nightmare for much longer than the rest of us. He knew how it worked.

“While we're here, we can look for... I dunno. Clues, hints. See if there's any way to save Charlie from Nightmare.” At Winona's surprised glance, Wilbur only gave a smirk. “As if I wouldn't be loyal to her, Winona. She got me through the worst times. It's only fair that I try to return the favor.”

“So then how do you propose we continue at all?” Wilson protested. “If it's always night and stepping away from the light will leave us vulnerable?”

Wilbur's smirk only grew. “The same way we got past the previous worlds.” His eyes darted to me for just a second.

“By waiting.”

[The Starver]

Oh, YES!!! This is leading up to something incredible! ...I can feel it...

Also, what happened to Wanda? Where's she? Is she just being enigmatic and cheating death as usual?

[Pokemaniac7000]

Chapter 94. Innocence - Part 2
 

 

 Chapter 5 of 5

Darkness

 

Wilbur sounded so confident and sure about his words that Winona couldn't help but think they were reasonable. The unfortunate part about it, though, was that just 'waiting' was much easier said than done. The past few worlds they had been through had taken some time, but there had been a little more emphasis on doing something. Either something as simple as 'surviving' or, as it had been in the previous one, 'try to figure out Maxwell's scheme'. And while surviving was definitely still something on the table, naturally, it still felt like there was something else important to be done.

After all, as the others had stated, this was Nightmare's domain. Simply 'waiting' did not seem like it was going to be enough to get them through. They were tantalizingly close to Maxwell, but more than that, Charlie was just within their reach.

At the thought, Winona felt her heart clench in her chest. She closed her eyes tightly and pressed a fist against her breastbone to try to relieve some of the pain. It had been so long since she had truly seen her little sister. Memories and dreams could only sate her for so long.

Since the moment Charlie was born, she had had such a bright and loving spirit. She was always the first to make friends, the kid that brought all the other children together to play elaborate games, the one every parent wanted their own kid to be. She was the opposite of Winona in that way, with the older sister being far more reclusive and absorbed in her own mind than anything else. It wasn't as though Winona didn't like people, but she couldn't stand having idle hands.

And yet, they had been inseparable.

Even with such an age gap between the two, it was rare to see one without the other. Charlie spent much of her free time watching Winona work on whatever project she had that day, asking questions and telling stories and anecdotes to pass the time. Winona would have been willing to sell her soul to protect the younger girl.

But in the end, she had choked. In her attempt to give Charlie the space she needed to truly develop into the adult she wanted to be, Winona had let her be swayed by the whims of a man who meant her harm, and now, her once-bright spirit was cast in shadows and dulled beyond recognition.

Winona wasn't stupid. She knew that saving Charlie was an impossible task. Maybe literally. Her soul would have been so entirely consumed by Nightmare's influence that they couldn't really know for sure if it was possible to banish the darkness without crippling her soul entirely.

Winona knew that Charlie was too far gone.

That bright soul. That big smile and those glittering eyes. That life, once so beautiful. Winona knew that Charlie's only salvation was Nightmare's banishment. And by extension, the ending of her life.

She couldn't focus on that now. Focusing on those things would only ruin what little hope Winona was trying to cling to. Right now, she had to focus on what she could control. Control the controllable. She had to focus on that monochromatic, heatless fire, the cloud-shrouded moon, and the tension of nerves that sparked between her friends.

Wilbur was doing a good job of acting like he wasn't nervous or scared. He spoke with the same bravado he always did, with the appropriate amount of pep and energy. Yet, Winona could see the stiffness of his tail, the weariness glinting in his eyes. Even though he had firmly told Tyler to keep his eyes away from the darkness, he did not heed his own words. His eyes kept flicking back to the shadows, an unreadable expression creasing his face when he did.

Even if Winona had known Wilbur for years, she didn't think she could ever truly grasp his experience with Nightmare. The prime ape had been friends, allies, rivals, enemies with the demon. He had been under Nightmare's influence enough to do terrible things in his past, but he had broken through it.

(Could love save Charlie, the same way it once saved him?)

(Somehow, she doubted it.)

Wilson's relationship with Nightmare was what Winona was most familiar with now. While she had never known Wilson before Nightmare had any control over him, she did know that Wilson had been getting worse the closer they got to this place and the demon that resided within it. His hatred had been primarily focused on Tyler, which was peculiar, but it was clear that Nightmare had something against the boy that caused Wilson's behavior

Admittedly, he seemed to be doing better at the moment, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think that it was the end of his fight. After all, Wilson’s struggles with Nightmare had come and go, waxed and waned. It stood to reason that it would come back with a vengeance.

While Winona herself had never interacted with Nightmare directly, hostility burned in her chest at the thought of the torture it had put her sister through

(The only thing they could do for her was put an end to them both.)

And she wasn’t the only one desperate to save her! Sure, Tyler might have been trying to be… manipulative. Play on her feelings to get her to agree with his desperate lunacy. But it held true that Wilbur truly did care about Charlie. He had stated before that she had stayed with him during some of the harshest times of his life. He had even implied that Charlie was the only one that kept him from doing something stupid to himself after losing his mate and daughter.

It sounded so real, so familiar, so Charlie that it hurt Winona to realize that the torture she had gone through under Nightmare’s hand wasn’t enough to fully destroy her light.

“You’re gonna think yourself into a pit.” Speaking of the prime ape. Wilbur touched her shoulder with the tip of his tail as he came to sit beside her. While Winona turned to glance at him, he didn’t turn his eyes away from the fire. Its faded crackling echoed into the uncomfortably quiet night. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Winona sighed and perched an elbow on her knee. “I’m sure you can guess.”

“Mm.” Wilbur’s non-answer confirmed this. “Don’t be too angry at him, Winona. I’ll lecture him later about trying to-”

She found herself snorting in a sort of amusement. “No, not that. I mean, yeah, it kind of makes me angry that Tyler did that, but I’m honestly more worried about other things right now. I’m…” Winona sighed again and shook her head. She pulled her knees to her chin and rested her head on her arms. “Is… is there any way to save Charlie without killing her?”

Wilbur’s expression soured. He pressed his lips together into a thin line. “...Probably not,” he answered truthfully. “But… it’s important for you to know that Nightmare was never able to really drag her under.”

“Is it bad that that doesn’t… really help?” She picked at a stray thread on her clothing, decidedly keeping her eyes away from the prime ape. “I mean, it should, I know. I should be glad to hear that she never let Nightmare control her. But that also means that…” Winona couldn’t find the words to explain it. Somehow, it would have almost been a comfort if Charlie had no awareness of herself anymore. If Charlie didn’t have to experience the torture that was her current state.

Wilbur seemed to understand, though. He bobbed his head and shifted into a more comfortable position on the ground. Which was, admittedly, hard to do. The grass felt damp and swampy beneath them, and the sharp tang of nightmare fuel made it hard to breathe comfortably, let alone sit comfortably. “I think I get it. You don’t have to explain.”

“Thank you,” she breathed.

A small moment of silence flickered between the duo. Behind her, Winona could hear the others moving around and exchanging words here and there. There was still a tense air of hostility between Tyler and Wilson, but it seemed more awkward than violent. Still, she kept an eye on them, just in case. Or maybe it was a defensive mechanism to keep her from thinking too hard. Who was to say?

“You know,” Wilbur said breezily, causing Winona to flinch at the sudden interruption of her focus. “Charlie was one of the few people to meet Elizabeth.”

“Your daughter?”

He nodded with a smile. “Yeah. Even though I had split myself from Nightmare at that point, we were still…” Wilbur waved his hand as if looking for the words. “She was still my friend. After Nightmare… After Nightmare. She was my only friend.”

Winona had to take a moment to think out her next words. “Did she ever…-”

She was not able to finish her question.

Icy wind suddenly blew from the darkness, whipping the monochromatic gray flames into a frenzy. The slick fuel coating the ground began to bubble as if boiling, despite remaining cold. Winona immediately snapped into a defensive posture, her good hand thrust out in front of her as she flipped around. She was just in time to see Wilson taking several steps back, chest heaving with harsh breaths, and Tyler tearing his sword from the ground and aiming its tip towards the spot where the shadows coalesced into the shape of their captor.

In the previous worlds, Maxwell had acted with an air of confidence. Smugness, if you will. He always had this sort of persona of someone who could never fail, a psychopath who thought it was amusing to see people suffer around him.

In the days Winona had known him, he had had many similarities and differences in that personality. It was impossible for her to not realize that he had dropped ‘William’ almost altogether, and that he seemed to now fully embody the superior, self-serving, cocky persona of ‘The Great Maxwell’.

Now, though, the smugness that once wrapped around him like a cloak had been shrugged off entirely. What appeared to them was not a man of calm indifference or patient confidence.

What appeared to them was hardly a man at all.

“You insolent.” Maxwell lurched forward, his eyes ablaze. “Pitiful.” As he spoke, clear black fluid dripped from between his lips and stained his chin. “Insignificant.” His clothes were torn, exposing swathes of deathly pale skin and mishappen bones. “Ants.”

“Good evening to you, too,” Wilbur snarked, his eyes narrowed.

“Do you not understand what forces you are toiling with? What eyes you draw upon you?

“What do you want, William?” Winona snapped. She stepped forward until she was standing beside Tyler, who stood stock still with his sword still pointed towards the beast of Maxwell’s avatar. To say the man appeared mutilated would be an understatement. His limbs had blackened and his fingers tapered into blade-like claws. His pupil was a mere pinprick in wild, bloodshot eyes in a face sunken with darkness.

“What do I want?” The man’s voice seemed to bubble and gurgle in his throat. “I gave you everything you could want. I carved the perfect little cage for you. And you instead choose to incite the wrath.” He drew himself up to his full height, taller than anyone in the group by several inches (and positively towering over Wilbur and Tyler). “Of the Great and Powerful Maxwell.”

“We’re beating your stupid game,” Tyler growled.

“Yeah! Are you scared of your own rules now?” Wilbur taunted. “You can’t back out now.”

A flicker, and claws tore from the ground and snatched up both of the smaller individuals. Wilbur hung limply in the restraints aside from a furiously lashing tail, and Tyler actively growled and hissed at his. With his arms pinned to his sides, though, it was only a matter of seconds before his sword slipped from between his fingers and clanged uselessly on the ground beneath him. A splash of nightmare fuel followed in its wake. Winona shot forward, but without anything to defend herself (or her allies) she was pushed back with a wave of his hands. Wilson also had no weapon, but Maxwell didn’t actively push him back. Instead, he held a simple hand out towards the man.

One of Wilson’s hands shot up to his chest as his breaths caught in his throat. Even from Winona’s prone position, she could see the agony scrawled across his face as he pressed his palm tightly against his ribs as if struggling to keep something in.

Or struggling to keep something out.

Maxwell’s face split into an ugly snarl. “Little Scientist, what deals have you gotten yourself into?” He stalked closer to Wilson, fuel weaving around his feet and building into writhing tendrils. Winona dragged herself back to her feet. Now that Maxwell’s focus was elsewhere, she sprinted towards the restrained Wilbur and Tyler

“Are you guys okay?” She whispered harshly as her hands hovered over them.

“I’m not the one I’m concerned about,” Wilbur muttered, which at first was an obvious claim, but it wasn’t until she realized it was Wilson that his concern was on that she realized the situation might be even more dangerous than she thought.

Even though Wilson seemed to be fighting back against whatever Maxwell was trying to accomplish with him, he stood unnervingly still, refusing to move away even though it would have been the reasonable reaction. Instead, he let Maxwell come right up to him without even trying to back up.

“It appears you have been dancing with the fates, Scientist.”

Wilson just barely managed to look up before Maxwell was throwing the other man’s arm to the side

Maxwell plunged his arm into the scientist’s chest.

With that, a dozen things suddenly happened at once.

Wilson let out a loud, harsh gasp and his chest shuddered as if suppressing something. Drops of blood dripped from the point of entry.

Wilbur started to struggle violently against his binds, letting out some of the worst noises she had ever heard anything make as he fought to get free.

Tyler shrieked. His body ragdolled against the restraints, his eyes suddenly growing wide and distant.

Before Winona could even think to move, several of the tendrils that had formed from the fuel wrapped tightly around her wrists and ankles and dragged her back to the ground.

And Maxwell.

Maxwell screamed.

It was the taller man who ended up stumbling away, hunching over a hand that had been burned horrifically up to the wrist. Similarly, it left an awful, red-black burn directly in the center of Wilson’s chest. He fell to his knees, his face twisted in agony as he helplessly covered the wound that had carved away at his skin.

Though, honestly, it appeared in that moment that Wilson was the lucky one.

For Maxwell, the burn seemed to go straight to the bone. For only a moment, the stench of burnt meat overpowered nightmare fuel. Winona didn’t need any form of medical experience to see the way the skin of Maxwell’s hand seemed to slough off of the bone.

The emotions that poured over Maxwell’s face were a sight to behold. Agony, rage, shock, but it all settled into something so potent, so familiar, it could only be one thing.

Pure. Unbridled. Hatred.

“You useless creature,” Maxwell hissed, still clutching at the wrist of his injured hand. “You absolutely, useless, wretched, ABOMINATION!”

He raised his uninjured hand, murderous intent clearly visible on every inch of Maxwell’s face. Wilson remained still, too deep in the shock of his most recent injury to even notice the threat. The shadows wreathed around his arm and obediently formed a blade in his hand.

Winona shouted helplessly. She begged him to just look up. To just move. But it was as if he didn’t even register that she was there.

The sword was brought down upon Wilson’s head just a second after Tyler successfully slipped free of his binds.

…

Tyler’s POV

The sound of metal on metal echoed into the starry night. Despite the shake of my weak hand, I managed to hold my sword strong against ‘Maxwell’’s, even though it caused a grunt of effort to escape my chest. With a low snarl, I managed to push him back into a stumble. The dark sword whipped back behind ‘Maxwell’, as he caught his balance once more.

I let him do so.

“Are you so much of a coward that you have to hide behind someone else’s face?” I spit. “The play-acting is over, Nightmare. Come out and face me if you’re so desperate for blood.”

‘Maxwell’ narrowed his eyes, then let out a low chuckle. “You are keen, Young Heir.” He waved a hand, but I was ready for the restraints this time. I cut them down before they could even make contact with my skin, and they fell limply to the ground with the hiss of boiling liquid.

It didn’t stop them from wrapping around my friends, though. Winona and Wilson were both scooped up in the shadow’s embrace, thicker than the ones they had used on me, and Wilbur’s grew thicker to accommodate. Wilson still did not move, although it was clear he was still alive and conscious. The wound on his chest was ugly, but not very deep. Still, it had to be painful, if the faint cry he let out at the pressure against it meant anything.

This, I was fine with. I always intended on fighting Nightmare alone.

“If you are so desperate to fight, then let us make the field fair, hmm?” Nightmare’s grin on Maxwell’s face was unnatural and eldritch. The gray flames of the fire that had kept us from the darkness’s reach until now began to fade until only a small circle remained.

I had an idea that this is how it would want to fight. It could control the whims of people it had its claws on, yes, but if I was to truly fight Nightmare, it would have to be in its own battlefield.

“Wait!”

The call came from Winona. My gaze shot towards her, widened in warning, but she didn’t seem to care. She probably couldn’t even see me anymore.

She struggled against the tendrils binding her arms to her sides, but it was clear that they were far from the biggest stressor of her’s.

At the sound of crunching movement, I took a step back and pressed the flat end of my sword against my chest. Its glow wavered against the darkness that thrived all around me.

“Where is Charlie?” I growled. I knew it was what Winona wanted to know, even if she seemed to struggle against the words. She looked as though she could barely even breathe. “Is she here?”

“Charlotte is always here,” Nightmare purred. “Would you like to see her?”

Movement towards my right. I twisted around to face it just as claws came threatening close to my face. In any normal circumstance, the proximity would have been enough to send me into a panic.

This time, though, I felt nothing but a cool calmness sweep over me. I bared my teeth, letting the sword’s glow glint against too-sharp fangs. “Let us speak to her, then,” I demanded. “I will not give you any fight without that.”

“You behave as though you have a choice, Young Heir.” The voice came from behind me, and I turned just in time to see a figure etched from the shadows. As cloaked in darkness as it was, it was only the faintest glint of blue light that highlighted some of its features.

I had never seen Charlie myself. The only things I knew about her were taken from the words of Winona and Wilbur.

This, though. It had to have been her.

There might have been a time you could describe the person in front of me as beautiful. Now, though, all I saw was a too-wide grin plastered on a face dripping with darkness. One time, this might have been Winona’s sister.

But this. This was Nightmare.

I was facing away from my friends now, so I wasn’t sure what they were seeing, but I did hear Winona’s wet gasp. Wilbur shouted incoherently.

“Do you like what you see, Young Heir?”

I swallowed hard against the dryness in my throat. “Let her go.”

“Soon.”

It immediately melted back into the shadows. My instincts screamed at me to scramble for the faint light still present from the dying flames, but I stood my ground. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I had experience with a lack of sight. This was no different.

My whiskers stretched to their full length as I took in the area around me. Listening. Waiting.

A twitch. Air from an attack stopped in its tracks by the sword deflecting claws. I found myself grinning at the low hiss that seemed to emanate from the shadows around me.

Just one hit. If I could just hit it once, I could end this. I was the only one who could.

(It was my duty to fix what I had broken, all those centuries ago.)

The next time I heard movement, I was the first to lash out. A growl rumbled in my chest as my blade moved through empty air, nearly taking me off of my feet with the force. Fur pricked on the back of my neck, dampened slightly with a thin layer of sweat. For a long moment, the only thing I could hear was my own heart pounding in my ears.

“You will tire of this dance eventually, Young Heir.”

Shick- something that came so close to my face that it nearly took one of my whiskers with it. Movement from below, sliced apart with just a few more cuts. Despite the strength it contained, it was keeping its distance from me, instead using the shadows around us to do its bidding.

“Coward,” I hissed beneath my breath.

The crunch of a footstep caught my attention. I twisted to face it just as air brushed against my side from another direction.

Then, pain, as something cold and sharp tore a line across my chest. A cry tore itself from my throat as I stumbled back, one hand clutching at the wound.

Nightmare’s approach seemed to have slowed. Or perhaps I couldn’t hear it over the sound of my panting breaths. Hot blood dripped from the slash, caking into uncomfortable clumps around my midsection. Still, though, it wasn’t debilitating. Even though I couldn’t hear it, I predicted its movements well enough to barely duck under another attack. I whipped my sword out, catching just the sight of blue light against its figure before it darted back into the darkness.

“Coward!” I repeated in a shout. “Don’t wanna get any closer? Are you scared I might hit you?”

It gave no response. Perhaps it had already tired of the sharp wits of verbal battle.

The smirk that was growing on my face fell as something cold and viscus latched itself around my legs. Something that would have been a minor annoyance if it weren’t for similar tendrils whipping through the air and pulling my arms away from my core with a violent pop of my shoulders.

My sword slipped from my fingers and clattered to the ground.

My limbs were roughly pulled at again until I was held in a starfish position, every inch of delicate stomach and neck flesh exposed. Still, though, I growled and hissed as two minds struggled helplessly to come up with a way out of Nightmare’s grip.

The demon approached me slowly. At first, it was only the soft footfalls of a creature moving through the inch of sludge that covered the ground.

Then, a too-long set of claws settled against my chin and gently pulled my face upwards.

The shadows remained just as thick as before, but the longer it made contact with my skin, the more and more I could make out of what had become of Charlie.

Nightmare fuel seemed to leak out of every orifice on her face. It dripped down her cheeks like the tears of a grieving sister and stained her teeth with ink. Once upon a time, her hair might have resembled Winona’s, but now, to even call it hair would be a stretch. It was darkness, pure and solid, wavering gently and resembling fire in every way sans color. Black markings marred her jawline, each one intricately carved from her skin and weeping the same black fluid as everywhere else.

It wasn’t the mutations that caused my heart to stutter a cold fear in my chest, though. It was how human the creature still looked. Its eyes, though narrowed and slitted with red, were uncannily similar to Winona’s. The face shape, too, was similar, and it was impossible not to notice the way that its twisted body still held onto its former shape. The soft collarbones and gentle curves.

There were other markings on its face, something that caught me off guard as I noticed them. Little white spots dotted around its eyes, lined with a sort of off-gray fuzz. The pattern was immediately familiar to me, though I couldn’t tell why until it reached out a single claw and traced the scar down my face. It was a gentle, thoughtful movement. Something so impossibly tender that you couldn’t even guess it was the one to give it to me.

(The spots mimicked Webber’s eyes.)

I could feel it. The way my blood turned to icy slush. The weight that settled, fiery hot and icy cold at once, in my chest. My heart struggled to pump between the terrified, random fires of nerves desperately telling my body to run.

My cocky bravado slipped away with the tears that wetted my cheek.

One second, a warrior desperate to defend my friends.

The next, a tiny child suddenly hiccuping and whimpering on sobs that were unsuccessfully stifled before making themselves known.

The claw on my face moved slowly towards the other side, inching uncomfortably close to intact skin and stopping just millimeters before plunging directly into my only good eye.

“All these years,” Nightmare hummed gently. The claw twitched but did not break skin. My stomach lurched. I had to clamp my mouth shut around the sickness. “All these years, and still, you so closely resemble them.”

“I’m not their Sibling!” I snapped. The words were raw and harsh, and spoken before I had the chance to comprehend their meaning. I twisted in my binds, but they remained fast. In fact, the ones around my wrists grew tighter. Dark tendrils wrapped around the scarred flesh on my lame hand. Their intentions remained docile, but I could almost sense the hunger piercing through them. Whatever it was, it wanted nothing more than to pierce the skin.

“It was never the Sibling’s blood that I tasted.”

The binds grew tighter still. My hands and feet were beginning to go numb.

The demon’s eyes glittered with ravenousness.

“Once, you were mine,” it whispered. “I consumed the heart that beat in your chest. The thoughts that rose in your mind. You were mine. And nobody else’s.”

I couldn’t stop the violent tremors that had taken my muscles. Flashes of memories, locked behind years of nonexistence, pierced my brain. They were only impressions, nothing more, but that didn’t stop the pain that seemed to tear my body to shreds.

“And yet…” It continued, with a musing hum. “Never could I quite break through the light in your soul. As consumed by darkness as you are now…” The claw on my face moved to rest against my chest instead. My lungs seized entirely. “Perhaps you will finally allow me a taste~”

I couldn’t see what happened after that. As suddenly as it had crowded into my space, Nightmare drew back. It looked… perplexed.

Then suddenly, I was able to move my hands again. The bindings fell away as if they had been slashed, and although my legs remained stuck, I was suddenly much less helpless than I was a moment ago.

Something. Someone. Touched my shoulder. A firm grip, cold to the touch. And a voice whispered something in my ear.

“GO.”

The next few seconds would soon disappear from my memory. But in the moment, they were clear as day. Nightmare seemed to recover from its confusion just as I twisted to recover my weapon.

Its glittering eyes flooded with rage, and all pretenses of gentleness vanished.

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

Blood rose in my throat and pooled around my feet.

Claws tore through chitin and flesh and muscle. Shredded all in its path. Deeper, deeper. Razor sharp.

 

It’s a funny thing.

To be wounded.

In such a way that your body immediately shuts down.

Shredded nerves cease to properly transmit their signals.

Your body recognizes it’s in pain, but somehow, the message is lost somewhere along the way. It makes the motions. Your hands still try to cover the wound. The cry still erupts from your throat.

Your body knows it.

Yet your mind.

Just.

Chooses to ignore it.

Ringing ears.

But no pain.

Blissfully painless.

Blissfully blank.

Yet. Yet.

I still had the strength.

And the mental ability.

To look down.

And see something.

Spilling from my stomach.

Yet I could only recognize what had happened.

Because I had seen it before.

In animals I had butchered.

And I was able to see my hand.

Wrapped tightly around the hilt of a sword.

And the blade of that sword.

Plunging just as deep into my opponent’s stomach.

But before it could even fall.

I simply.

Turned to my friends.

(My friends, my family, my home.)

And say softly.

(Could they hear me? Would they hear those words?)

“I’m hurt.”

(Blissful.)

(Blank.)

(Empty.)

 

[The Starver]

Wha'...

Oh, yeah, leave me hangin'

Edited March 16 by The Starver

[Pokemaniac7000]

8 hours ago, The Starver said:

Wha'...

Oh, yeah, leave me hangin'

Hhehe, it’s my job!

[The Starver]

On 3/16/2024 at 8:50 PM, Pokemaniac7000 said:

Hhehe, it’s my job!

Great answer. Actually, it's not often I find a cliffhanger as epic as that last one. Keep up the awesome job!

[Pokemaniac7000]

Chapter 95. Innocence - Part 3


Part 4: Dust, the Void, and Them

 

Chapter 5 of 5

Darkness

 

At first, none of them knew what had happened. Even Wilbur, who had better night vision than most, wasn’t able to see anything past the small circle of light left from the fire. What he did know was that the darkness binding his limbs suddenly loosened, then fell away altogether. He landed heavily on his chest with an oof as the air left his lungs.

Winona and Wilson, too, were released, with the former landing on her feet and the latter immediately falling to his knees as soon as he was no longer being held. Winona immediately rushed towards their companion’s side, but the flutter of anxiety in Wilbur’s chest faded slightly as Wilson blinked up at her, his face still held in a grimace but fully aware once more. Still, the burn-like wound across his chest was ugly and certainly needed to be tended to as soon as possible. With proper care, though, it would heal just fine. And really, it would just blend in with the terrible scars already etched along his skin from a battle long ago.

He left Winona to take care of that situation in order to establish the chain of events that had happened.

Nightmare had power over Maxwell. That much was obvious. Wilbur had known that for as long as he had known the two of them. What he had never seen, though, was Nightmare actively using that power to control the man’s image, avatar or not. It was strange for the demon to do such a thing, especially when, in a place like this, it was fully capable of remaining in its normal form.

Nightmare had likely been trying to pull on the strings wrapped around Wilson’s heart, leading to the injury that now stretched across his chest. Somehow, it had failed. Possibly from the interaction with the strange creature that had talked to them before? At the moment, all of these were unknowns.

Then, there was Tyler and his repeated reckless behavior. Taunting the demon while staying out of its range of motion was one thing, but actively challenging it to a fight in the darkness? It was a move that was either impossibly brave or stupid, and knowing the kid, it was probably the latter.

Any sounds that had come from the fight had been muffled, so Wilbur couldn’t even begin to predict how it had gone. Nightmare wasn’t actively gloating and their binds had fallen, so hopefully, the boy had managed to chase the demon away for now.

Then… Wilbur noticed something.

It was something small at first, but as it grew it became more and more noticeable.

It was becoming brighter.

Not daytime, no. Night still hung cold and heavy over the world. But as the seconds ticked on, the moon’s silver light began to trickle down from the sky. It was plump and round and bright, lighting up the eternal night with an ethereal glow.

From Wilbur’s vantage point, he was slowly able to make out the details of the world beyond the fire. Blades of grass dipped with nightmare fuel were outlined carefully in silver. Scraggly trees seemed to shed the liquid from their branches, growing stronger and healthier with every second.

Charlie’s dark visage, Nightmare itself, stood stock still. Frozen in every limb, eyes wide and pupils constricted. A glowing blue sword pierced its stomach, held firmly in place by the boy almost half its size.

Tyler released the pommel of his weapon and stumbled back a few feet. His hands cradled his abdomen.

Wilbur was frozen. His mind had gone completely blank. At first, his attention landed on Nightmare as the demon collapsed, the sword stuck fast in its flesh. The blade eagerly consumed the darkness that held it in its grasp, causing its body to deteriorate and crumble. It thrashed helplessly, mouth half-open as if gasping for air it didn’t need.

In the span of a single heartbeat, Nightmare was dead, fizzling away into wisps of darkness that were promptly absorbed by the Sword of the Martyr.

Then, a tiny voice pulled his attention back to his son. At first, it was a bubbly whimper, wet and choked. Then, it was a harsh swallow that failed to keep dark blood from dripping from between his fangs. Then, it was two, quiet, impossibly weak words.

“I’m hurt.”

Wilbur couldn’t move. Tyler trembled terribly in place, his hands desperately clutching his stomach. And yet, it was impossible for such small hands to hold everything together. To hold everything inside. It spilled from between his fingers and peaked out from his palms. It was blood. It was gore. And, Wilbur realized, it was viscera.

The sounds from behind him went silent, but whether it was because shock was settling into his bones or because the others were suddenly realizing what had happened, he didn’t care.

And like a puppet with its strings abruptly cut, the boy startled to crumple.

Yet still, the night wasn’t done with its stream of surprises, because before Tyler even completely fell, a person standing next to him suddenly lurched forward and grabbed onto him. They lowered him the rest of the way down with surprising gentleness.

It was a cruel joke. It had to be. That was the only explanation for why this person had a massive hole in their own abdomen, now mirroring the one that had ripped the boy nearly in half. Tyler’s hands had fallen away the second his consciousness left, but this person was now desperately pressing their own hands against the wound, whispering something repeatedly under their breath.

Their gaze snapped up towards Wilbur, harsh and angry and… terrified.

“DON’T JUST STAND THERE!” They demanded. “HELP ME.”

Their voice was what finally broke Wilbur from his trance. He shot forward to press his own weight against the laceration, ignoring the sticky blood and cold nightmare fuel that immediately dirtied his hands as he did so. Unbidden, tears slipped down Wilbur’s face as the blood leaked from between his fingers. It pooled on the ground beneath them and mixed into a near-black solution as it made contact with the damp grass.

“NO NO,” they hissed. “ABSOLUTELY NOT. YOU ARE FORBIDDEN FROM DYING NOW.”

“...WX?”

The voice came from somewhere behind Wilbur. Despite the interruption, neither of them turned away from the pressure they were applying. Yet Wilbur didn’t miss the way it was laden with so much hope and confusion it was clear that whoever spoke had no idea what was happening.

“LATER,” they said quickly. “WE WILL TALK ABOUT THIS LATER.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Wilbur breathed. “This happens all the time!” Tyler always nearly got himself killed! This was practically a daily adventure at this point!

The other times, he had looked so much more peaceful.

“GREAT. WONDERFUL TO HEAR. GLAD TO KNOW THAT YOU LET THIS KID GET EVISCERATED ON A REGULAR BASIS.” They let out an angry huff, then turned their attention to the space behind Wilbur. “ARE YOU JUST GOING TO STAND THERE BEING USELESS? DO SOMETHING.”

“What do you expect them to do?” Wilbur said. His voice cracked. He desperately tried to uphold his facade of bravado, but the fact of the matter was, Tyler had lost so much blood already that shock would claim him soon, and that was only if he didn’t bleed out completely before that could happen. Even if they got him to stop bleeding, what then? Wilbur did not know how to treat internal injuries.

They stared at Wilbur for only a moment before promptly reaching out and smacking the prime ape across the head. It wasn’t a hard hit, just enough for Wilbur to feel it, but that didn’t stop him from yelping in response from the suddenness of it. Only a second later, though, they cursed again under their breath and pressed down again.

“I HAVE WATCHED YOU PULL THIS IDIOT FROM THE BRINK OF DEATH HALF A DOZEN TIMES ALREADY. THIS IS THE TIME YOU CHOOSE TO CHICKEN OUT?”

“Y-yeah, but-” Wilbur swallowed. The past times hadn’t been anything like this. There hadn’t been so much blood. The previous times this had happened, anything that was bleeding was a secondary concern to something else. It hadn’t been a matter of holding his body together with just their hands.

They had come up with solutions to missing certain medical necessities, but most of them took time to prepare. You couldn’t just pull bark off of a tree and expect it not to give someone an infection. At the moment, they had nothing.

“WILSON!” They shouted. Their voice rang with fury. “GET OVER HERE.”

“There’s nothing we can do.”

The voice came from much closer than Wilbur anticipated, causing him to jump in surprise. Without removing his hands, he craned his neck to see the last two members of their group behind them. Wilson’s face was twisted in pain, and he was leaning a good portion of his weight against Winona, but he was standing, and his eyes were dark. The wound he had sustained from Nightmare was burned and blackened, and it wouldn’t be able to be properly treated until they could scramble together some supplies, but it had stopped bleeding almost entirely, and it appeared as though it had been bound at least by strips of cloth torn from Winona’s sleeves.

“DON’T YOU DARE SAY THAT,” they growled. “YOU ARE NOT GIVING UP ON HIM LIKE THIS.”

With Winona’s help, Wilson was able to crouch on the ground behind Tyler’s mangled body. The boy’s chest shook with shallow breaths that barely reached his lungs, and it was clear by the flow of blood that his blood pressure had tanked. Despite the heat of the blood soaking into Wilbur’s fur, the boy’s skin was already too cold to the touch.

The scientist barely even looked at the wound. Instead, he opted to gently cradle the boy’s head in his lap and run his hand through fur slicked with blood, sweat, and nightmare fuel. Tyler gave no sort of indication that he even realized Wilson was present.

“Is there really…?” Winona started. Her voice wobbled with pain.

Again, Wilson shook his head. “These kinds of wounds take so much more than we can even do. Occlusive dressings, surgery, sterile environments. That’s assuming that it’s only deep enough to affect muscle. Evisceration… I can’t imagine this being able to happen without significant damage to vital organs. Even if we managed to stabilize him now, sepsis would do him in.” His sorrowful eyes landed on the slowing flow of blood. “And I don’t think there’s any hope of stabilizing him.”

There was a moment of silence as the group took in Wilson’s words. Considered them.

The robot screamed.

It was an awful sound, piercing and loud. Harsh and rough. One of their hands tore away from Tyler’s abdomen and reached for their neck, towards one of the necklaces hanging there.

It was something that Wilbur had only ever seen a few times, worn by this very person, but he had seen one a lot like it quite often. Instead of yellow, though, this one was red. Like its counterpart, it gave off a faint glow, although while Tyler’s necklace held a steady, soft light, this one seemed to pulse.

They ripped it off with an audible snap and pressed it against the boy’s chest with a harshness that was probably unnecessary. “ABSOLUTELY,” they hissed. “NOT.”

“Yes, fantastic idea, I’m sure that’ll help,” Wilbur said with absolutely zero confidence. He had no idea what the robot was doing, but the determination scrawled across their face told him that something was up. Perhaps they had simply gone mad

They leaned forward slightly, pressing on the gemstone harder than before as if they were trying to shove it through his ribs.

And for the longest time, nothing happened.

There was an unbelievable silence hanging over them. Wilson, giving space for them to come to terms with what was happening. Winona, shocked to silence with pupils shrunken to pinpricks. Wilbur, swallowing back the tears that welled in his eyes at the sensation of life slipping out from between his fingers.

Her body was slick with blood, her ocean blue eyes wild with panic and agony. Wilbur helplessly pressed against the wound bisecting her body, but he was all too aware that she was bleeding too quickly, losing too much blood. He was losing her. Her name settled in his throat, choking him until he whispered it over and over, just to get it out.

The longer it went on, the longer the terrible moments dragged out, the more tremors began to appear in the robot’s limbs. It started as a faint tremble in their hands before slowly enveloping their arms. They ducked their head away and refused to meet anyone’s eyes.

Wilbur cried the tears that they could not.

It happened all too quick and yet, far too slowly. Little by little, the quick, shallow breaths deteriorated into barely noticeable wheezes. A flow of blood impossible to stem slowed of its own accord as it slowly began to drain empty.

The boy’s life slipped from between their fingers.

Not like sand, but like water. Like blood.

Wilbur stepped back. His extremities felt ice cold. His mind hovered somewhere else, far disconnected from his body.

It took the robot longer to give up. They still seemed to cling to the hope that their gemstone amulet would do something, refusing to back away or relieve the pressure they put against it. Slowly, though, the desperation drained from their face. Their arms began to grow slack.

“IS THIS REVENGE?” It was a question asked tentatively. Guiltily. “IS THIS REVENGE FOR LEAVING THE WAY I DID?”

Movement from Wilbur’s side, and a quiet, disconnected voice. “WX…”

“I DID WHAT I THOUGHT I HAD TO,” they whispered. “I DID WHAT I THOUGHT… I THOUGHT WOULD SAVE YOU.” They drew their arms back and curled miserably into themselves. It failed to cover the gaping hole in their own abdomen, exposing sharp metal and disconnected wires that had long since stopped sparking.

“IT WAS SUPPOSED TO SAVE YOU,” they repeated.

They reached towards their brother again with hesitant movements. As if they weren’t sure they could touch him, even though they had already demonstrated the physical ability to. Instead, they let their hand rest on the amulet still resting on his chest. It pulsed under their touch.

Wilbur blinked at the sight, his mind and body suddenly slamming back together. He stared at the amulet for a long moment and winced when its light seemed to pulse again.

With each flicker of its glow, the color seemed to dim, the light fading.

Fading?

…no.

Draining.

The light, the glow was draining. It seemed to leak from the crystal and into Tyler’s chest. Lines slowly spiderwebbed away from it, tracing veins and arteries with slow progress.

And yes, the progress was slow. Inching forward by centimeters at a time. Wilbur could only watch, curious despite himself.

The robot said something again, but Wilbur wasn’t listening anymore.

The second the lines reached the terrible wounds across his chest, they seemed to recoil. Then, they stretched beyond the confines of the injury.

Wilbur didn’t miss the joy suddenly lighting up the robot’s ‘eyes’. The hope and excitement as bands of red light carefully pulled him back together.

They didn’t even wait until the wound had fully healed over. After only a moment, they pulled their brother to their chest, hands grasping his shoulders so hard Wilbur was sure they would bruise.

And yet, nobody told them to stop, or to loosen their grip. There was a good chance that the robot would actively harm anyone who even suggested they might pry the boy’s body from their arms. They held on like letting go would cause Tyler to fade away again. Like it was their grip holding him together instead of bands of tough tissue.

They remained in silence, holding vigil for someone who was still alive.

Or perhaps, they were holding vigil in acknowledgment of the moment happening in front of them. Two brothers finally reuniting after so much had happened. The miracle that the robot had been holding on to for far too long.

The only thing to finally tear Wilbur’s gaze away from them was the sight of faint movement in the direction of the amulet that had since fallen to the ground. The red light was entirely gone, the gemstone itself cracked. And from the crack, a delicate, glowing blue flower had grown, bright and beautiful.

A Glowing Tear Root.

(The tears of a god.)

…

Tyler did not wake up after that.

Even when the robot finally released him after a minimum of half an hour, the boy remained silent and limp. His breathing was fast and shallow, his heartbeat so faint they kept thinking it had stopped entirely.

The amulet had healed the wound that nearly killed him, but it was clear that his body was still in a bad way. Wilbur couldn’t help but worry that the massive amount of blood loss had led to permanent brain damage, and if that was the case, then it was impossible to know if he would ever wake up.

Wilbur fell into silent agreement with the robot to not mention this possibility, even though he was sure they would be aware of it as well.

There were a lot of questions that needed to be answered. Questions buzzed between them, but it took much longer than expected for any of them to be asked.

Predictably, it was Wilson who managed to gain the courage to speak.

He had been staring at the robot pretty much the entire time, even while they were properly cleaning and treating the wound on his chest. Each time Wilbur looked over, there was another question burning behind the scientist’s gray eyes as he looked them over. His gaze would always land on the hole in their abdomen, and the words would waver and die.

Wilbur was almost impressed when he managed to actually choke them out.

“You’re alive,” Wilson said. He sounded choked, like they weren’t the words he wanted but he couldn’t think of anything better. The robot simply glanced at him before turning back to their protective vigil.

“ON THE CONTRARY,” they said. “I HAVE NOT BEEN ALIVE FOR QUITE SOME TIME NOW.”

“But you’re here,” Wilson argued. “You’re… right here. You’re standing right in front of us.” He shook his head. “How…?”

“HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF A GHOST, WILSON?”

“You are not a ghost.”

They shrugged. “USE YOUR SCIENTIFIC METHOD, SCIENTIST.” As he opened his mouth, they quickly cut him off. “DO NOT PRETEND THAT YOU HAVE NEVER DIED BEFORE. THAT IS THE STATE I AM IN. EXISTENCE DOES NOT END WITH DEATH.”

“I’m not surprised to see you here,” Wilbur said to the robot. “I knew you were a weird one. You weren’t stuck in the Prison. Since you were able to move freely around Checkmate, it stands to reason you’d be able to come here, too.”

They nodded and pointed towards Wilbur with their thumb. “PRECISELY.”

“You… knew WX-78?” Winona forced out after a moment. The woman had been unnaturally quiet, something Wilbur kept in mind for later. He wasn’t sure how much she had seen since she had gone to check on Wilson as soon as they were released. He desperately hoped she had not seen the demon fall.

“We go wayyy back,” Wilbur said breezily as WX said:

“WE HAVE MET TWICE BEFORE.”

“Glad to see you’re still rocking-” Wilbur waved one hand towards the hole in their abdomen. “That ‘hole’ thing. Looks great on you.”

They almost seemed surprised by this, one hand moving to trace the shredded metal at the edge of the wound as if having forgotten about it entirely.

“Where did you get that necklace?” Wilson asked.

Again, they seemed startled. Had they really not expected any questions about their appearance? They tugged uncomfortably on the string around their neck, seashells clinking together musically. “I…”

Wilbur stepped in. “He means the magic one, Wix.”

“DO NOT CALL ME THAT.”

“Your name is unfairly long for only being four letters.”

“YOUR NAME IS UNORIGINAL AND UNINSPIRED.”

“Well I think it would get tiring to just keep calling you The Martyr,” Wilbur pointed out. “Especially since you’re kinda not. ‘Tyler’s Brother’ is cute but way too much of a mouthful. I know your full name is-”

“Guys.”

“Right, yeah. His question. The magic necklace?”

“A LIFE-GIVING AMULET,” they said. “RAW LIFE FORCE. IT WAS… AN APOLOGY.”

“An apology,” Wilson repeated dubiously.

“YES.”

“You were given a magical necklace with the ability to… what? Resurrect the dead? And you didn’t…?”

WX scoffed. “I CAN SEE YOUR CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS HAVE NOT IMPROVED. I WAS NEVER A LIVING CREATURE, WILSON. IT WOULD NOT HAVE WORKED ON ME. IF IT HAD, I WOULD NOT STILL BEAR THE WOUND THAT KILLED ME.”

“So you saved it for your brother?” Wilbur finished, eyes widening. “That’s adorable! Oh my goodness, he always talks about you like he thinks the world of you, and clearly you’re the same way! He’s gonna love hearing that.”

“I LOST MY LIFE PROTECTING WEBBER,” WX reminded him. “AND I HAVE SPENT MY DEATH LOOKING FOR WAYS TO SAVE HIM FROM HIS FATE. YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD UNDERSTAND.”

“He goes by Tyler now,” Wilbur said. “But yes, don’t mind me squealing on the inside. That is adorable. I had no idea what I was missing out on until now.”

“If the life-giving amulet was supposed to heal him, then why is he still unconscious?” Wilson interrupted. As soon as the tension started to melt from WX’s shoulders, it reappeared full-force. They glared at the scientist as if it was somehow his fault.

“IN CASE YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN BASIC BIOLOGY,” they growled. “YOUR ORGANS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE INSIDE.”

“Well, technically-”

“BEING EVISCERATED,” WX continued as if he hadn’t even spoken. “TAKES A LOT OUT OF YOU. TAKE IT FROM THE EXPERT.”

“But will he wake up?” Winona asked. Her voice was quiet, timid almost. Wilbur suspected his earlier hopes of her having not seen Nightmare had been dashed. “That… that was bad. Bad bad. Even with something like that amulet, how do we know…?”

WX seemed to puff up in anger. It was honestly amazing to see how much emotion they could put in their eyes while actively lacking such things, because Wilbur swore he could see rage glinting in their gaze. “YES. HE WILL.”

It was defensive. It was angry. It was… unsure.

Wilbur would not be the one to correct them.

“NEED I REMIND YOU HOW MANY TIMES HE HAS ALREADY NEARLY DIED? ON YOUR WATCH?” They gritted out. “STARVING IN A COLD RECEPTION. POISONED IN THE GAME IS AFOOT.” They squared out their shoulders. “SUICIDE IN THE KING OF WINTER. I HAVE BEEN THOROUGHLY UNIMPRESSED WITH YOUR ABILITY TO KEEP HIM ALIVE. I HAVE CLEARLY SHOWN THAT I AM SUPERIOR IN MY DUTIES, SO I AM LIBERATING YOU ALL FROM EVEN TRYING.”

“Nah, you can’t chase me away that easily. That’s my son now. Hmm.” Wilbur tipped his head. “If Ty’s my son, and you’re his brother, does that also make you my kid?”

“NO.”

“You’ll come around.”

“So that’s it?” Wilson demanded. Wilbur separated himself from the conversation and drew up next to Tyler again. If it weren’t for the faint movement of his chest, he would have believed the boy to have gone. As it was, though, he settled himself next to the boy and carefully started to clean his fur of blood and debris. “You died, WX. You’ve been gone for almost an entire year now. And then you just… reappear, like none of it ever happened? You’re not going to explain anything?”

“WHAT IS THERE TO EXPLAIN?”

Wilson threw his hands in the air. “Everything! Why you did what you did! What you’ve been doing for the past year! Why you just now decided to show yourself!”

“THOSE ARE THE QUESTIONS YOU HAVE?” They looked unimpressed. “TRULY, WILSON?”

“What questions do you expect me to have when you suddenly come back to life?”

“I AM NOT ALIVE. YOU HAVE SIMPLY ARRIVED IN A PLANE CLOSER TO DEATH THAN LIFE.”

“That only raises further questions.”

“THAT SOUNDS LIKE A ‘YOU’ PROBLEM.”

Regardless, they straightened themselves out and turned their gaze towards the others around them.

“THE PAST YEAR, I HAVE REMAINED FREE OF THE PRISON FOR… UNKNOWN REASONS. DURING THIS TIME, I HAVE DEALT WITH FORCES BEYOND WHAT YOU ARE USED TO. ‘NATURAL’ DOES NOT DESCRIBE WHAT NIGHTMARE  IS… WAS.” They glanced at Tyler. “CHARLIE WAS THE ONLY THING STOPPING IT FROM COMPLETE CONTROL.”

Winona twitched, ever-so-slightly, but she did not say anything.

“WHILE NIGHTMARE’S BACK WAS TURNED, I SPENT EVERY SECOND OF MY DEATH RESEARCHING. READING THE SOURCE CODE OF THE WORLD.”

“Spending an unhealthy amount of time watching us,” Wilbur piped up. “Considering you knew exactly what had happened to Ty in the previous worlds.”

“OBSERVING,” they corrected harshly. “WITH EVERY MEMORY OF THE WORLD AT MY FINGERTIPS, WOULD YOU EXPECT ME TO IGNORE THE GROUP THAT I ONCE WAS A PART OF? EVEN IF I HAD NOT KNOWN YOU PERSONALLY, YOUR… ESCAPADES… HAVE GENERATED BUZZ NOT SEEN IN THE PRISON FOR CENTURIES.”

“What were you trying to research?” Wilson asked.

They were quiet for a moment. They wore a contemplative look on their face, as if considering their options for a response. “I WAS HOPING TO FIND A WAY TO DEFY FATE.”

“Defy fate.” Wilson raised an eyebrow and chuckled. “Really? You’re turning poetic on us?”

“I AM NOT LAUGHING.”

“Well, then… what did you find?”

They did not immediately respond.

“WX?”

“NOTHING,” they said, and the defeat was obvious in their voice. Their shoulders slumped as though holding the weight of the world on them. “I FOUND NOTHING.”

 

[Pokemaniac7000]

Chapter 96. Innocence - Part 4
 

 

Chapter 5 of 5

Darkness

 

WX-78’s POV

I stood, just out of the reach of the monochrome fire, and waited. The night air was oppressive and heavy, tendrils of darkness weaving in and out of the ground like snakes. I was lucky to be unable to smell the nightmare fuel, as I had seen just how badly it seemed to affect the others.

My companions? Would they even still consider me that, even after all this time?

The nervousness had been there, but now, it was beginning to overwrite the excitement. I wasn’t expecting to be anxious for this moment.

“WX?”

“CHARLIE,” I hummed in acknowledgment without looking in her direction. I didn’t need to; I could sense her standing beside me without even glancing.

“Are you planning on trying to talk to them?” Charlie asked, and her voice was gentle. I tipped my head towards her, surprised at the hesitance I could hear.

“OF COURSE,” I said. Did she expect me to try not to?

Neither of us were really sure if we would be able to interact with them, even as they passed through Darkness. No Survivor had ever been here before, as it had been almost exclusively inhabited by Nightmare and Charlie herself until I came along. There was no precedent on how this would go.

There was the possibility that we would be as invisible to them as ever, only capable of interacting through dreams in the best of times. Then, the possibility that we would be visible and/or audible, but unable to touch them. This one was preferable, if not the best outcome. I was little more than a ghost, after all; it would make sense that I would behave as a ghost in the presence of the living.

Then, there was the possibility that we both secretly hoped for.

That we would be fully corporeal to them, capable of appearing, speaking, and physically interacting. The thought was too good to be true, but that didn’t stop the hope that it could happen.

“Are you nervous?”

I scoffed. “WHY WOULD I BE NERVOUS?”

“You haven’t talked to them in almost a year,” Charlie said, still keeping that gentle note in her voice. “You’ve seen them grow without you. Are you worried that they won’t need you anymore?”

There was that pang of doubt in my chest, sharp and painful. It was true. I had never been a member of this group. The second Wilbur joined, they became a group now far removed from the one I knew. There were so many things that I was not there for. So many things that I wasn’t there to stop. Would they hold that against me?

“Are you worried that he won’t need you anymore?”

This was the point where I fully turned to glare at her. Charlie normally wasn’t one to be so pessimistic about something like this, which is why I was so surprised to see the serious, pitiful look on her face.

“WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME THIS?”

She dipped her head just an inch. “It was just a question, WX.”

It was then that something clicked, and I suddenly understood why she was asking a question like this. “ARE YOU ATTEMPTING TO COMFORT YOURSELF WITH THE KNOWLEDGE THAT I AM NERVOUS AS WELL?”

Charlie let out a soft chuckle at that, and she smiled sheepishly. “Well… you got me there.”

“I WOULD NOT HAVE EXPECTED THAT FROM YOU.”

“I don’t know how long it has been on Earth,” she said. “But to Maxwell and I, it has been hundreds of years. I can’t even remember the last time I saw Winona face-to-face.”

“AND YOU BELIEVE SHE WOULD HAVE FORGOTTEN YOU?”

Charlie hesitated at that, and I let the words hang. Perhaps I was also trying to draw comfort from our matched uneasiness.

“I… don’t know,” she admitted after a moment. “If she knew I was the one to bring her here…”

“SHE WOULD NOT CARE.”

“And you know that?”

No. “YES.”

Again, she laughed softly. “Thank you for that, even though you’re lying.”

She still looked deathly nervous, which I supposed made sense, if it really had been so long since she had seen her sister. I would never be able to fully grasp her emotions, and I knew that. She was human, or at least once human, and emotions were something natural to that kind. As I had learned, both from my personal experience and from watching thousands of years of history in the span of a few months, humans were naturally far more emotional than I was capable of being. Likely due to the nature of real versus simulated emotions, although that was not something I felt necessary to debate. She had grown up alongside Winona, raised in one family as a pair. Not only was I much younger than her, only a handful of years old (younger than Webber, even), but the first couple of years of my life had been lived under the thumb of a creator who held no love for me. The only person I would have considered my family I hated for the first year or so that I knew him, and only really understood the depth of our bond after I was unable to act on it.

Lastly, it had been a year since I last really had contact with him, and Charlie had been entirely isolated from everyone but Nightmare and Maxwell and the occasional Survivor since she was taken from Earth. Trying to make friends out of the toxic circle she had was futile, because no matter what, she would always outlive them. Even if she aged like a normal individual, nobody survived in the Constant.

Even if any of the circumstances were different: were I human, were I a semi-immortal being, were I capable of understanding emotions in the same way- I could never fully compare my situation to Charlie’s.

I hadn’t really understood the relationship between Charlie and Winona until recently. Winona had expressed to us, once upon a time, that she had come to the Constant in search of Charlie, but Charlie seemed to avoid speaking about her sister at all. The woman had been too concerned with the Hell that her life had become. She never was in the mood to share fun childhood stories, and I was often not in the mood to listen

She had grown visibly fond, though, seemingly remembering a life that I couldn’t imagine, as we waited just out of sight.

“She practically raised me, you know,” Charlie said.

I had heard Winona speak about this, but I had never heard it from Charlie. It seemed the situation at hand had finally brought on enough nostalgia for her to speak. “DID YOU NOT HAVE PARENTAL FIGURES?”

“We did,” she said. “But… it was never them I really listened to.” The fond smile grew more wistful as she spoke. “I refused to do anything that Winona wouldn’t do. I never had the same interest in mechanics as she did, but that didn’t stop me from trying to learn it… never stuck, but I certainly tried.” Charlie laughed, and I couldn’t help but give a faint smile as well. “I didn’t really have my own opinions until I was in my late teen years, I think. It wasn’t anything she did, it was just… you know. The way I was. Red wasn’t my favorite color, but Winona said it was her’s, so you’d better believe I told everyone my favorite color was red.”

She looked down at her hands, each finger tipped with claws. I didn’t need to ask her to know that she was looking over herself, the monster she had become since those days.

“You know I convinced myself that I liked chicken?” She chuckled. “For years, I genuinely believed I loved chicken. It wasn’t until William noticed that I never finished anything with chicken in it that I realized I never did enjoy it. Just convinced myself I did because Winona loved chicken.”

“I STRUGGLE TO SEE YOU SO DEPENDENT ON THE OPINION OF ANOTHER.”

“Peculiar to think of, right?” Charlie said wryly. Then, she sighed, and she suddenly seemed so much sadder than before. “The first thing I really did by myself was get that job as a magician’s assistant.” She clenched her fists. “...things would have been a lot different if I had continued to follow her lead.”

“SUCH DEPENDENCY IS NOT CONDUCIVE TO A FULFILLING LIFE,” I said. “IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT THAT A LUNATIC TOOK ADVANTAGE OF YOUR NAIVETY AND EAGERNESS.”

“...I suppose that is true,” she conceded. “...I really loved him, you know.”

Maxwell. William. I was aware. I did not answer.

“She always told me that there was something wrong with him. We had a fight, once. About him. I thought she was just mad that I was trying to become my own person. I didn’t really consider that she might be right…”

“DID HE LOVE YOU?” I asked, because I just had to know. William, before he had become Maxwell, was someone I knew even less about. For all I knew, he was exactly the same, and Charlie had been manipulated into falling in love.

She tipped her just, just a bit. “I’d like to believe so, yes. He had been the one to propose, after all. Before things went… poorly.”

“PROPOSE?” I echoed, a bit in confusion and a bit in surprise. “YOU WERE MARRIED?”

“Not quite. Engaged, but not married. Things got… pushed back a lot.” I began to ask another question, but the woman cut me off by raising one hand and shaking her head. “Let’s not talk about this now. Some other time, but not now.”

Which meant that Charlie was at the end of her willingness to speak. That was fine, I supposed. There were more important things to worry about, after all.

“Surely you are not awaiting the arrival without me, hmm?” The darkness materialized on Charlie’s other side, amorphous and grinning widely. I could see the faintest of flinches in Charlie’s shoulders as Nightmare rested a hand on the back of her neck. “Charlotte, you must be so excited to soon meet your end.”

Without even really thinking about it, I put myself between Nightmare and Charlie, practically forcing the demon back and planting myself firmly in place. Nightmare chuckled, a grating sound that made my hearing modules ache.

“Come now, Little Pet, you must understand my own excitement at the events to unfold.”

“BACK OFF,” I growled. “NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN.”

“Are you sure about that?” Cold shadows wreathed around my feet as Nightmare inched closer. “How can you control the narrative of this story, Little Pet, when you can’t even truly figure out what part you play in it? Were you ever really a part of the group you are so desperate to be a part of again? You realize that Alter created souls to befriend the Sibling, correct?”

I wanted nothing more than to push Nightmare away again, but I couldn’t deny the interest I suddenly took in its words. I recognized that name- Alter. If I remembered properly, it was the Moon God. But creating souls, that part I was unsure of. My lack of immediate response elicited a soft chuckle from the demon.

“Oh, Little Pet. You cannot even fathom the information you are lacking about this world. The Sibling was the first, but they were not the last. They begged Alter for companionship, and that is what they gave them. Four souls for four people. Born again and ripped apart, but brought together for the end. But without a soul, Automaton… what makes you think you were ever meant to be one of them?”

“Tyler is not the Sibling,” Charlie growled from behind me.

“No, perhaps not. But would it not make sense for the four original souls to come back to defend the Sibling’s successor? And if three of those four souls are now doing exactly that…?” Nightmare crowded further into my space, enough that I struggled to keep myself strong and steady in its wake. “Then what does that make you, Soulless Automaton?”

“WHAT IS YOUR GRUDGE AGAINST HIM?” I demanded, which only served to amuse the demon further.

“Oh, you have it all wrong!” It proclaimed. “I have no such grudge against the Boy, Little Pet! Grudges of that variety were not passed on to me. Did you ever consider that I just… particularly enjoy the sound of that Boy’s screams?”

“That’s enough Nightmare,” Charlie snapped, which for some reason, seemed to delight Nightmare.

“Oh, Charlotte, that reminds me!” Without expending an ounce of effort, Nightmare phased past me, instead pushing up against Charlie and grinning wildly into her face. “You see, with my new host coming straight to my door, I came to the realization that I have to dispose of the old!” Charlie took a step back, chased closely by Nightmare. “Come now, don’t resist. You know I enjoy the thrill of the hunt, but time is running quite short now, hmm?”

She stiffly turned her head away, but it didn’t stop writhing darkness from wrapping tightly around her neck and dragging her to the ground. The second I moved, Nightmare easily pushed me away without even looking in my direction. Charlie, to her credit, did not make a sound, but I could see the way her shoulders trembled as Nightmare looked down at her.

“Do not worry,” it cooed. “It will all be over soon, Charlotte.”

And with that, Nightmare’s visage fizzled out of existence, leaving me alone with the woman on her knees, staring down at the ground. I already knew it had taken full control, even before it slowly dragged itself to its feet and stretched its arms out, face stretched into an unnaturally wide grin and eyes twisted with pinprick-red pupils.

“That is so much better, now isn’t it?”

…

I knew the night air would be cool, though I could not feel it myself. The landscape glimmered eerily as the moonlight caught on dew-covered blades of grass. Normally, the presence of nightmare fuel would have rendered the moonlight useless, but most of the fuel had melted away by now. All that was left was congealing puddles that slowly absorbed back into the earth, back into the core of the world.

It was quiet. So, so quiet.

Nightmare had lost its grip on Darkness, which should have invited a bright, warm feeling over the land. Instead, it felt still and silent, as if the world itself was mourning its oldest resident.

It had been so long since I had interacted with more than one person at a time. I found myself overwhelmed by it, needing just a few moments to myself. I needed some time to come to terms with what had happened, just twenty-four hours ago.

Charlie was gone.

Her presence had once been my only solace, separated from life as I was. If it weren’t for her, I wasn’t sure I would have been able to hold my own against Nightmare’s suffocating presence. Still, in the puddles of nightmare fuel that crept at the edges of my vision, I still thought I would see her. I knew she was gone, and yet… I somehow struggled to come to terms with it. I struggled to truly grasp the idea that the long-reigning Nightmare Captor was gone. Destroyed.

Alas, my desire to be left alone was not going to be fulfilled. I stiffened as I heard footsteps from somewhere behind me, but I did not turn around. It didn’t matter who it was. It wouldn’t be anyone that mattered.

“HAS HIS CONDITION CHANGED?” I asked, assuming that the one thing that would cause the others to seek me out to be something related to Webber.

“No, sorry.” It was Winona. She sounded strangely… timid. Nervous. At the sound of her voice, I glanced over my shoulder.

The woman, for lack of better terms, looked like crap. Deep bags had sunken in under her eyes, bloodshot from lack of sleep or crying or both. Her sleeves were tattered and torn from using them for makeshift bandages, which only really added to how tired and miserable she looked. I could see her eyes flicker down to the wound in my stomach for just a second before they settled back on my face.

“THEN WHY ARE YOU HERE?”

“What happened?” She blurted, wincing back at her own question. When I simply stared at her for a moment, she folded her hands together and fiddled uncomfortably with her own fingers. “I… Charlie. I just want to know what happened with… my sister.” She swallowed hard, once again casting her gaze away. Suddenly, her haphazard appearance made much more sense.

With a grunt of effort, I pushed myself back to my feet and offered her a hand. “COME WITH ME.”

Again, she winced, even though my movements were not at all hostile. Did she think I was going to hit her?

“Is… there something you have to show me?”

“NO. BUT IT APPEARS THAT I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO NEEDS TIME TO GRIEVE.”

With that, Winona nodded hesitantly and took the offered hand.

I had lost the ability to feel a lot of things, but strangely enough, the living was not one of those things. I could still feel the warmth from her skin, the prickling knowledge of being observed, the heat of blood caking my fingers-

They were clean. Washed off of any blood. But in the back of my mind, I swore they were stained red-black for just a moment.

“SHE HAD BECOME A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE,” I mused to the empty air in front of me as we walked. “IT WAS DIFFICULT NOT TO ADMIRE HER. I DO NOT BELIEVE I SHARED THAT WITH HER ENOUGH. I SUPPOSE I LET MY OBSESSION CLAIM ME JUST A BIT TOO MUCH.”

“When Tyler… stabbed Nightmare. Would that… could she have survived that?”

“NO,” I answered immediately. I was not about to give Winona false pretenses that her sister was still alive after that. “CHARLIE WAS STRONG, BUT SHE WAS NEVER STRONGER THAN NIGHTMARE. IT WAS SOMETHING FAR BEYOND HER ABILITIES TO FIGHT BACK. IT CONSUMED HER BODY, AND WITH NIGHTMARE’S DESTRUCTION, IT WOULD HAVE SIMPLY CAUSED HER TO FALL TO PIECES. YOU DO NOT SURVIVE BEING NIGHTMARE’S HOST.”

“You could have stopped that fight from happening, though, right?” She pressed. Suddenly, her voice had hardened and turned very, very serious. “You could have stepped in. You could have forced Tyler to back off. Why didn’t you? Why did you just let her die?” Accusatory. I should have reacted with anger to it, and perhaps I would have under any other circumstance, but instead, I just felt defeated.

“YOU WOULD NOT UNDERSTAND-”

“Then make me understand, WX-78.” She stopped abruptly, her grip tightening on my hand and forcing me to stumble back from the step I was in the middle of. Her voice cracked. “Make me understand why you just stood by and… and let that happen.”

“WINONA-”

“And what about Tyler?” She threw her hands out, a flare of anger lighting in her brown eyes. “You could have stopped that from happening, too. He nearly died, WX-78, and you just let Nightmare get to him. Don’t you care about any of that? Any of them-?”

I swung around with a violence that I had not possessed before as rage flooded my system. The woman was grieving, I understood that, but I couldn’t help be blinded by the fury her accusations made me feel. I managed to keep my hands to myself, but I wasn’t able to keep myself from forcing myself into her face, shoulders stiff and voice low. “YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO ACCUSE ME OF NOT CARING ABOUT CHARLIE OR WEBBER. I HAVE DONE EVERYTHING I CAN TO SAVE HIM. I DEDICATED MY DEATH TO SAVING HIM. CHARLIE WAS TOO FAR GONE BEFORE I EVEN CAME TO THIS WORLD. SHE WAS LIVING ON BORROWED TIME, IT WAS NOT MY DUTY TO BABYSIT HER.” Winona took a step back, but I followed it. “DO YOU EXPECT ME TO FIGHT OFF NIGHTMARE, WINONA? DID YOU EXPECT ME TO STAND IN THE WAY OF THE MOST POWERFUL BEING IN THE UNIVERSE? DEFENDING AGAINST NIGHTMARE, NO MATTER WHAT, WOULD MEAN HARMING CHARLIE. WHAT HAPPENED TO HER WAS NOT MY FAULT.”

She seemed to falter at this. The fire faded back into the melancholy state she had been in prior and she let out a sigh. “I’m- sorry. I didn’t mean to… I just…”

“I DID WHAT I COULD FOR WHO I COULD. I WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN STRONG ENOUGH TO SAVE YOUR SISTER.”

The quiet moment after that seemed to stretch on for far too long. Winona seemed to be waiting for me to continue.

“I WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO STOP THE FIGHT FROM HAPPENING. IF I HAD TRIED TO STOP NIGHTMARE, I WOULD HAVE BEEN DESTROYED FOR THE ATTEMPT. OR TORTURED,” I added, just in case she didn’t realize how dire the situation was. “IF I HAD TRIED TO STOP WEBBER, I WOULD HAVE ONLY DISTRACTED HIM, AND HE WOULD HAVE BEEN DESTROYED BY NIGHTMARE WITH NO HOPE OF SAVING.” I noticed a moment too late that I was toying with the seashells around my neck again, but I didn’t force myself to stop. My neck felt bare without the life-giving amulet that had hung from it for so long, but at least the flower tied to the string of my necklace simulated the glow of it.

“Then… why didn’t you reveal yourself when we first got here? Before Nightmare appeared at all?”

That… was a question I had been anticipating, really. Wilson had asked it as well, although I had been more concerned with other issues at the time. And it wasn’t an answer I felt entirely content giving. The reasons weren’t world-shattering but they weren’t… the most flattering.

Still, I had a feeling I would be asked this a lot before they finally just accepted me back, so it would be better to get it out of the way now

“I WAS SCARED.”

A simple answer, but one I hated all the same. Winona seemed to come to what most would consider to be the logical conclusion. “Of Nightmare? It was only able to attack in the darkness, though. If you had stayed in the light…”

“OF NIGHTMARE, YES.” I couldn’t even try to deny that. It was the mark of a moron to not be scared of Nightmare. (Webber.) “BUT OF YOU AS WELL.”

“Of… us?”

“YES.”

Winona seemed completely baffled by this.

“YOU MUST UNDERSTAND. I HAVE WATCHED YOU, AS A GROUP, SURVIVE EACH OF MAXWELL’S WORLDS. I HAVE WATCHED EVERY TRIAL YOU HAVE COME ACROSS, AND EVERY PROBLEM YOU HAVE SOLVED TOGETHER.” I kept her gaze evenly. “WHO WAS I TO BREACH THE BOND YOU HAVE CREATED?”

“What?” She blurted out. “What are you-? WX-78, why would you-?”

“I WAS NEVER A PART OF YOUR GROUP,” I pointed out. “I FAILED TO BOND WITH ANY ONE OF YOU, EXCEPT FOR WEBBER. IF I PRESENTED MYSELF WHEN YOU FIRST ARRIVED, THERE WAS NO WAY FOR ME TO BE SURE I WOULD BE ACCEPTED.”

“You were scared,” she repeated, slowly, as if she could understand it. “That doesn’t…”

I smiled wryly. “SOUND LIKE ME? YOU DID NOT GET TO KNOW ME VERY WELL, WINONA, BEFORE MY UNTIMELY DEATH.”

She let out an awkward laugh, although there was no joy in it. “Haha, yeah, I mean… I suppose.”

“IF YOU WISH TO BLAME ME FOR CHARLIE’S DEATH,” I said. “THEN THAT IS YOUR CHOICE. I WILL NOT BLAME YOU FOR IT, AS I COULD HAVE ATTEMPTED TO STEP IN EARLIER.” I let my face harden as I continued. “BUT I WILL NOT TOLERATE BLAME FOR MY BROTHER.”

Her eyes widened in surprise, which only served to irritate me. Did she expect I would gladly take blame for his injury? For his near-death? Wilbur thinking such, I could understand more, but Winona had seen how I had died. She had been the one to tell Webber…

“You… you called him your brother.”

Oh.

The irritation immediately switched to embarrassment. I finally backed away from her, letting my gaze drift elsewhere as I mumbled: “DID YOU BELIEVE I FELT OTHERWISE?”

“It’s not that,” she argued. “It’s just… I never really expected you to flat out say it.”

“AS I SAID. YOU DID NOT GET TO KNOW ME VERY WELL BEFORE MY DEATH.”

“It’s not just that, though, is it?” She pressed. “You’ve grown since then. I think even Tyler would agree that you never would have called him that before.”

I let out a noncommittal hum. “PERHAPS NOT.”

The next pause was less awkward than the previous one, which I felt eternally grateful for. Eventually, though, Winona sighed and crossed her arms loosely. “I’m… going to head back. You coming with me?”

I hesitated. While I wanted to keep an eye on things going on, I was not eager to be surrounded again by people. Are you worried that they won’t need you anymore?

Still, I had been out long enough. I had learned my lesson about trusting these people to keep Webber from running off and killing himself. Sometimes literally, apparently. We have to talk about that, I realized with an internal groan. When he wakes up.

‘When he wakes up’. I was being awfully optimistic these days, wasn’t I?

The truth was, I had no idea if he would wake up. I could have been too late in giving him the life-giving amulet. The immense blood loss could have caused him to go into a vegetative state that nothing could repair. The amulet repaired the most visible damage, but I had no way of telling if it fixed everything internally as well. One missed nick, one single scratch that hadn’t been healed, and the boy’s body would be riddled with sepsis. He could simply fade away again from organ failure. Literally anything was still up in the air, and we wouldn’t be able to truly know anything until he either woke up, or…

Until he woke up.

Because he would. He would.

(He had to)

I didn’t say anything to Winona, but I allowed her to lead me back. The monochrome fire had long since burned out, but it wasn’t really necessary anymore for light purposes. The moon was bright enough to allow them to see without it. Still, though, the others weren’t entirely idiots. A normal fire was burning, warm and bright. For them, it might have been an instinct thing. For me, I was just glad to see there was something protecting Webber from shock-induced hypothermia.

Speaking of which, it appeared that Wilbur was the one tending to the boy at the moment. Given, that was true more often than not, but I was still glad to see it. I had seen the way Wilson had treated him up until now, and no amount of potentially divine intervention was going to make me trust that man with him again.

Wilbur had taken to practically sleeping on top of the kid long before the injury, so it wasn’t a surprise to see him curled around him, but Wilbur was being surprisingly gentle about it. The amulet had healed the wound, yes, but the new scar tissue was still fresh and unappealing to look at. There was no doubt it would be causing pain even now, but Webber seemed entirely oblivious to it. Still, Wilbur was careful to not touch the scars except to check for the heat of infection, which I couldn’t help but be thankful for.

As soon as I came over to them, Wilbur started to speak. “I’m worried,” he blurted. He didn’t look at me, instead focusing on dancing fingers that carefully cleaned Webber’s fur of mud and blood, but I could see the tension in his shoulders.

“WE ARE AWARE THAT HE IS IN A COMATOSE STATE,” I said as I settled beside them. It was peculiar to see Webber’s face so slack and at peace. Even while sleeping, he often held a scowl on his face, or even sometimes bared fangs. Even though Wilbur had clearly been religiously checking, I couldn’t help but check for his pulse. It was present, but weak. Fluttering and slow, always feeling like each beat took just a moment longer than the last.

“It’s not just that,” Wilbur pressed. His face creased with worry and I noticed him tugging a little too hard on a knot, even if Webber didn’t react to it. “If that wound was supposed to kill both of them… who would be coming back? Webber or Tyler? Or both? What if all of this was for nothing and we still lose Tyler anyway? What would we even do if it’s Webber who wakes up?” At this, he looked up at me. “What would we do?”

I was well aware of this risk. In fact, this risk had been running rampant in my head on repeat for months now. It had been the very reason I hesitated to use it in the first place.

I had personally seen a discussion between Maxwell and the spider about this very topic. This was exactly what he had wanted.

And yet, there was a chance that my brother would be the one to prevail. That was the chance I had to cling to. Just because the spider wanted to use the life-giving amulet did not mean it would succeed in that. It simply meant that I had kicked the ball into Webber’s- Tyler’s- whatever- court, and it was up to that boy to take it and win.

“THAT WILL NOT HAPPEN,” I decided out loud. “HE HAS ALWAYS BEEN FAR TOO STUBBORN. I HAVE NO DOUBT IN MY MIND THAT HE WILL WAKE UP, AND IT WILL BE HIM. NOT A SPIDER.”

Wilbur pressed his mouth into a thin line, his expression innately uncomfortable and unconvinced. And, before I could stop him, he said those words that I was tired of hearing, tired of thinking, tired of believing. “That’s assuming that he wakes up at all.”

“HE WILL,” I snapped. I looked at the boy- at my brother. His fur mostly cleaned of blood but still slick with nightmare fuel and sweat, the fresh, ugly scars that bore three long, wide portions of skin on his stomach, the too-slow, too-weak heartbeat, the shallow breaths that were so faint you could barely even see them. And I felt that familiar ache settle in my chest. I had to come to terms with the possibilities, but I couldn’t give it up. If it took a day, if it took a year, he would wake up.

He had to.

 

[Pokemaniac7000]

Chapter 97. Innocence - Part 5

 

 

Chapter 5 of 5

Darkness

 

 

Tyler’s POV

 

The world was warm, and the air was still. I felt like I was flying… or perhaps floating. Yes, floating, that was it. Floating in a void of warm, comforting black. It was soft, comforting. A sigh of contentment left my chest. When was the last time I had felt such comfort? Such safety?

The inky darkness around me cradled my body like a pillow. My thoughts were slow and drowsy, but I was able to make small observations. It felt like this little place was carved out for me. Perfectly formed to my shape.

The memories it brought back were of an easier time. It was the sensation of being held close, the gentle heartbeats of my parents thrumming in my ear, or drifting off to the rhythmic sound of someone breathing near me. It brought memories of crowding next to a hearth blazing with contained flames after staying out in the snow all day.

The urgency to leave this state was nonexistent. I was warm and content in a way that I hadn’t been in years, and I was not keen to leave it soon.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was aware that I was dying. And yet, I couldn’t find it in myself to care. In the past, I had never been given this comfort. The one time I had come this close, Nightmare had dragged me away before I could truly find peace.

But now, Nightmare wasn’t here. It was just me, floating endlessly in a void, as my senses drifted, one by one. If this is what it felt to die, then I would be happy to do so. More than happy. This was what I had wanted all along, wasn’t it?

And now, I felt no pain, no worry, no fear.

And then… there was something solid beneath me. The sense of incorporeality fled in a moment’s instance, causing my body to suddenly feel heavier than before. Sensation gradually spread to my limbs again, until I was aware of every finger and toe, every wisp of hair and inch of skin.

I opened my eyes.

The place before me held a strange sort of familiarity. Warm, golden light streamed through an open window and landed delicately on my skin. My back was pressed against wooden flooring, worn down by years of foot traffic.

The walls, though, and ceiling, were not the same as my old childhood home. Instead, thick swathes of silk stretched across them, concealing the old colors entirely in a sea of white. As I slowly pushed myself into a sitting position, I noticed that the webbing was entirely around me. Here and there, I recognized little things from my old life, like the mantle with its collection of cracked picture frames and the window that was always just a little too tall for me. The rest had been consumed by silk.

I swallowed hard. Why did it still feel so… familiar? Like an itch in the back of my brain?

As I climbed to my feet, I recognized that I was taller than I would have been in any of my old memories. Given, I was certainly not as short as a five-year old anymore, but to be both my current age and in a human form… it was unnatural for me. The window was no longer too tall for me to look out of, and I didn’t have to strain at all to grab the pictures from the mantle.

The last time I had seen this place, in the vision given to me by the unknown entity, these frames had been smudged and cracked. Now, they were entirely blacked out, like someone had dumped them in black paint and left them to dry.

My movements felt clumsy and stilted. The floor was uneven, a messy hodgepodge of wood and clumps of built-up silk. On top of that, my feet felt numb and heavy, as though I was wearing cement shoes instead of soft socks. Still, I pushed forward, making my way towards the opening that I knew would lead to the kitchen.

The second I stepped out of the room, though, I found myself outside. Still human, still nine years old, but now looking out over a hilly landscape that had once been familiar to me. It had always been dotted with holes, some wider than others, but I couldn’t help but feel the twinge of nostalgia as I recognized the opening that had formed when WX and I, long ago, had fallen through the ground. The memory was faint but fond, of stalking the robot and pouncing on them to frighten them. Of convincing them to explore and finding this patch of hollow ground. That was when we had first found Erika again, before I even remembered who she really was.

Wilson had been furious when I returned home. It hadn’t been my fault that the fall had injured me, and that the cave spiders had been so willing to patch me up!

I started forward, careful to avoid the sinkholes that had formed over time. It appeared as though there were more than usual. A little bit further ahead, I was easily able to find another recognizable sinkhole.

This one had come later, I remembered, and the memory was fresher. This was when I had met Winona, when we had been chased down by the Bearger. It had been the first time I had learned how to really use my whiskers to make up for my vision difficulties. The woman hadn’t even known me, but she had immediately tried to help me, even though I had become so used to the dangers of living in this world and she had only been here a week. Realistically, she should have been terrified of me. And yet, she had never pressed about my condition, had only calmly waited for me to explain things instead of bombarding me with questions about my appearance.

I couldn’t help but wonder: how would things have gone if she hadn’t come around when she did? I could see her trying to downgrade just how much her presence had helped me through the tough times. I would have to tell Winona how much I appreciated her when I saw her again. And I would have to tell her that I was sorry. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but I knew that it was important for me to do that.

I continued walking, although I wasn’t sure of what my destination was or if I was going in the right direction. Something simply tugged me along, and I felt no choice but to follow it to see where it took me.

The hills turned to trees, and soon I found myself in a clearing that just barely teased the edges of my memory. There wasn’t anything special to behold, simply a patch of bare grass surrounded by tall pine trees. And yet, I recognized it all the same.

We had woken up here. The original three of us. I had only been seven years old, entirely on my own for the past two years, and I had been so scared of them that I immediately lashed out. I had growled and snapped, all the while desperately hoping they wouldn’t realize that their mere presence brought me more fear that I could express. Fear was weakness. Weakness was death.

Our very first interaction hadn’t been hostile, but it had been anything but polite.

“Whoa… can you speak?”

“WHAT ARE YOU?”

I stood there for a long moment, frowning lightly at the grass. Another memory sprung into the back of my mind, one that I had long since forgotten about. A dream, a nightmare, call it what you will. Voices that I had heard before waking up.

At the time, I wasn’t familiar with the voices. There had been four people speaking, and only two had been in front of us. Even then, I would not have been able to recognize them even if all five of us had been present, if nothing more than just because of how different they sounded.

The voices drifted to me again, although they no longer felt as though coming from a dream. They echoed from beyond where I stood, people speaking about me from a place I couldn’t presently observe.

“How is he doing? …Do you think he’ll be okay?” Winona. The first one to speak. Her voice was pitched with concern, but dull with pain and grief. Whether it was aimed at me or not, I couldn’t tell. Still, though, I longed to reach out, to let her know that I heard.

“I... no. I can't say that... that I think he'll pull through. That wound…” Wilson. He sounded uncertain and defeated… and distracted. Like he was answering a question that he didn’t care too much about, or a question that he didn’t want to acknowledge. Perhaps a mixture of both. I felt my hands clench involuntarily as harsh gray eyes and a glittering gray knife flashed behind my eyes, but… I had forgiven him for that. It didn’t mean I wasn’t scared of it anymore.

“He can't die... I won't let him. Please, we can save him, right? Right!?” Wilbur. He was trying to hide it, but I could hear the panic in his voice. I couldn’t quite remember what had happened to land me in this place of sunlight and memories, but whatever it was, it must have been terrifying to cause Wilbur to be so terrified.

It was the fifth voice to speak that caught me most off guard. The one that I expected the least, if nothing else than because of how impossibly soft it was. “I JUST GOT BACK, KID. YOU CAN’T LEAVE US NOW. DO YOU HEAR ME? YOU WILL PULL THROUGH, I SWEAR. I’LL DO ANYTHING TO MAKE SURE OF IT.” They sounded so gentle, so unnaturally not them. Yet, I still recognized my brother’s voice. If I was dying, then what would happen to me? Would I see them again, or would I…?

I reached out towards the sky, blinking against the sunlight and grasping uselessly for the voices that I could no longer reach. My vision blurred for a second, and I was confused until I blinked and a single tear rolled down my cheek, which was an unfamiliar feeling all on its own. I was used to my tears soaking into my fur. It tickled.

Either they had stopped speaking, or I had drifted further away. Either way, I couldn’t reach them. I couldn’t hear their voices anymore.

So, I did what I had been doing the entire time, and continued onward. What else was I to do?

As I walked through my old stomping grounds, little events that happened at each of these places came to mind.

That was the hill I had tackled WX down once, when we angered the tree guard and received our very first set of ‘possibly fatal’ wounds. The memory was amusing now, and I couldn’t help but chuckle faintly as I remembered that stupid fight. Then again, had we really had any legitimate fights? It had all just been petty drama, really.

That was the place where we were attacked by hounds and adopted the little pup Popsicle. Even just the thought of the ice hound brought unexpected pain to my chest. Even as he had gotten bigger, he had never shown any sort of violence or wildness towards me. He had always been loyal, to the very end.

What are you doing now, Popsicle? I wondered faintly, pausing for a moment to think. Some part of me hoped that he had found a new pack to be a part of, but then what of Chester and Pyrite? Chester, surely, would go back to whatever life the little creature had been living before coming to us, but Pyrite…

I sighed and shook my head. I hoped Popsicle was taking care of her. He always had a fondness for the lavae. I couldn’t imagine him abandoning her for anything.

Further still, and the ground shifted from mud and grass to cold, clean flooring. The chill of marble immediately sunk into my feet, but it was far more than that that caused the faint shivers that wracked my body. I pushed through it until I stood, once more, in front of the Teleportato.

What a name for such a device. A machine that had always been present in our world- what would have happened if we had used that instead of Maxwell’s Door? Where would we be right now? Would it have taken us home?

Even though rain and wind would have washed away all signs of what happened here, it still felt like very wood was soaked with agony. I reached forward and ran my hand over the smooth wood until I found the small notch that I was looking for. It was thin and narrow, just wide enough to indicate something stabbing into it, like a knife. It was lower down than I remembered, something that really struck me as I realized just how much smaller I had been back then, when that notch was formed.

It was strange to realize that Wilson never would have been able to kill me. Nightmare never wanted me dead. It wanted me weak enough to control. And yet… how did it fail back then? How were the injuries done to me not enough for Nightmare to possess me?

I turned away from the Teleportato, unable to look at it any further. Such terrible things had happened here, things that would forever leave me scarred and broken. But I survived this event, if nothing else than because of the dedication of my best friend. My brother.

Soon, I left it far behind, where it deserved to stay. The tug continued to pull me onward, pulling with increasing intent. I was nearing my destination.

The trees suddenly broke away, a small stretch of grass overlooking the sharp drop into the ocean. I felt my breath catch in my throat as I inched towards the edge, the ocean’s mist speckling my hair and eyelashes with fine droplets.

The waves were quieter than they had been that day. They were calmer, lapping against the smooth rock like a catcoon cleaning its kittykit. It was nothing like the torrent that had so eagerly claimed me.

Then again, maybe it just seemed that way because of my eagerness to meet it. At the time, I had not realized the aching desire lurking in my brain. The black stain that had twisted a fundamental part of my being into wanting nothing more than to simply stop existing. I hadn’t understood why my feet kept bringing me closer to the edge. Why I was so desperate to taunt the world that had taken so much from me, and was fully capable of taking everything I had left.

Popsicle had tried so hard to save me, but he should have known it was a futile effort. He should have known that the only way for me to fully grasp the situation was to stare death in the eyes and realize that I wanted to live.

And it was true. I wanted to live. I wanted to live.

I want to live.

I want to live.

If only I had realized that sooner. If only I had come to terms with that dark part of myself so long ago, then maybe it wouldn’t have festered for so long. Maybe it wouldn’t have spread so far and burned so deep.

A sharp pain in my stomach jolted me from my thoughts. I groaned lowly and doubled over, pressing hands against the spot that the pain was originating from.

Nightmare. The sword. Looking down and seeing… seeing…

A wound, so different yet so much like the one that had killed my brother.

The laughter that bubbled in my throat was more than a little hysterical, and every single laugh jolted sharp lines of fire through my veins, but what else could I do? I had looked death in the face once more, and this time I fought back.

And look where it got me.

Laughing hysterically on the edge of the cliff where I once tried to end my own life.

I wasn’t even sure if my attempt had worked. I had no idea what happened after I thrust the sword through Nightmare’s body. I didn’t know if it had even done anything

But I had made an attempt… that was more than I would have been able to say before. I had fought back against my death.

I turned on my heel, away from the cliff, and just as I did, the scenery changed. The smell of salt that had permeated the air vanished in an instant and the pebbles beneath my feet softened and spread

Until I stood, alone, facing a towering pile of silk. And at the very top of the den crouched a spider, fangs bared and claws ready to strike.

I simultaneously felt too young and too old. Too big for the body I was in, too small for the world that surrounded me. Had I felt like that back then? I… couldn’t even truly remember what I felt back then other than piercing grief.

But then, the spider paused. It lowered its claws and straightened its stance, eyes narrowed as it surveyed me.

And I realized, just a moment too late, that this was not how the memory went. That this was not a memory at all anymore.

“I remember this day,” said the spider. His voice was low, hoarse almost. Just a whisper of a growl on the breeze. “My colony was starving, Tyler. The settlements crept closer, and with every new construction, more animals fled. The beefalo and volt goats were captured and placed in pens, while humans would kill every spider that they laid eyes on.” He inched a little closer, the web trembling under his weight. “The beefalo we did find were wild and lean, not the pathetic plump creatures overfed by the humans and butchered for meat. Meat that was stolen from us.” A hiss rattled in the air, but I wasn’t sure if it had come from him. His mouth didn’t move to make the noise. “My colony was starving. My queen was starving. I was starving. Because of what your people did to us.”

“I… I had no part in any of that.”

“Rubbish,” he spat. “You grew fat from the food you stole from us. You wasted food that would have fed my colony for weeks because of your pickiness. And your family took to the fields and slaughtered hundreds of us, simply for trying to survive.” Short, wiry fur prickled along his body as he inched closer still. “And in the end, you stole everything from me.”

“I didn’t do anything!” I protested. “Do you think I specifically chose for this to happen?” It was always this argument. Always the same points.

At that, he only chuckled. Light on his claws, he jumped to the ground in order to brush past my legs. Somehow, his fur felt thicker and more wiry than my own had been. “Well, luckily for the both of us, none of that is important anymore.” I didn’t respond but he must have known how the comment would leave me confused, because he glanced back and smirked. “Because we’re dying now, right?”

I stepped away, severing contact. Is this truly what was happening?

“It was quite the spectacle, really,” he mused. “Who would have thought that there was so little really holding your body together?” He clacked his front claws together, the sudden sound making me jump.

That was what had happened, wasn’t it? And my friends would have to see me…

“Don’t worry, though!” Suddenly cheerful, the spider turned again to face me with a positively amused expression. “Because a little birdy told me that one of your friends had a life-giving amulet. Doesn’t that just sound splendid?”

All of the information in that one sentence hit me at once, and I struggled to unpack it. I decided to focus on what I deemed to be the most important part of it. “A life-giving amulet,” I echoed flatly. “What is that?”

As I asked the question, the tug in my chest returned tenfold. I gasped out loud at the sudden sensation. It felt as though it was attempting to tear my heart from my chest. As such, it beat frantically and out of rhythm. I immediately grasped at it, fingers sinking into fabric and skin instead of fur and chitin.

It was an urgency I had never felt before. When I had been compelled towards the Teleportato in the past, it had been an urge. Like someone had tied a string to my heart and tugged at it whenever I tried to get off track. This, however, felt more like something had grabbed directly onto the organ and yanked. I stumbled forward a few paces even though I still struggled against my own lungs and heart.

I couldn’t breathe.

I knew with an undying certainty that the pull was leading me towards the only thing that would make my lungs work again.

So I followed it, as best as I could while stumbling helplessly into trees and bushes. My legs were suddenly too weak to carry me; my knees trembled with every step.

Would this truly be my end? After everything that had happened, everything I had gone through, was I doomed to suffocate due to the failings of my own body?

At some point, I wasn’t exactly sure when, the scene gradually melted back into the web-covered living room I had originally woken up in. The tree that my shoulder slammed into turned abruptly into a wall, and the force of the impact nearly sent me spiraling to the ground.

From just a few paces away, the spider watched.

He seemed to find amusement in my failing body. Even as I stood still, I could feel liquid building in my lungs. My throat seemed to close in on itself and I fell to my knees, heaving. Blood was blocking my airway, and I couldn’t breathe.

Splatters of red stained the webbing, but there was always more coming up.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I felt my own organs decaying inside of me until it felt like my body was nothing more than an empty shell. I was drowning in my own blood, and it covered my hands and dripped from my eyes. Through blurred vision, all I could make out was a splotch of black and specks of red.

Red like blood.

Red like anger.

Red like life.

One hand grasped at my throat, spasming wildly, and the other desperately reached forward. I tried to speak, but all that came out was wet, choked sounds. Still, the words rose in my throat, over and over again, as desperation gripped me.

I need it.

I need it.

IneeditIneeditIneedit-

Another gasp, more blood in my lungs, but I needed it, so despite the way I could feel my body failing, I gathered my remaining energy and lunged.

The spider let out a startled hiss as we collided, the life he clutched spiraling away from his grip. As soon as it did, I felt air rush back into my lungs. Without even touching it, I could feel the way it wanted to breathe life back into my body. I could sense it.

But it was clear that he could sense it, too. Keratin claws struck out, sinking deep into my sides as he pushed me back. I was human in this form, but years of arachnid instincts did not just fade away in an instant as I hissed back at him and lowered my center of gravity.

He didn’t try to attack me, though. In fact, he almost entirely ignored me in favor of pouncing towards the life on the ground. I was just a tad slower than him, but I managed to latch onto one of his back legs and send his body slamming hard into the floor with a deafening crack. He didn’t hesitate to retaliate, kicking out and just barely missing my good eye as he tore a gash into my cheek.

In my shock, I released him, and he scrambled forward once more, claws grasping the amulet with excited determination.

Immediately, I could feel the effects again. The blood in my throat. The fluid in my lungs. Now, though, I knew that it was directly caused by the life, when held in the spider’s claws.

It would only save one of us. Whoever lost this fight was doomed to drown in their own fluids.

And I was not going to let that be me. I had to fight against the rising lethargy to renew my attack. The spider scrambled away, growling all the while as he held it just out of my reach. He could only get so far away before he backed into the wall, but he didn’t cease the deep rumble from his chest.

I bared my teeth, spat out another mouthful of blood, and shot forward to corner him in his position.

In any fight, I had grown used to being the fastest person. It was true for the giants and it had been true for any skirmishes I had with my friends.

But the spider was smaller than me, something I was not used to, and he was faster than me, which I certainly wasn’t used to. Oh, and of course, I was actively choking, which wasn’t the best way to hone your fighting abilities.

He darted between my legs and my inertia caused me to crash into the wall he had been standing against. Stars burst into my vision and pain raced through my skull. I stumbled, eyes struggling to decide which spider I was seeing was the real one and which one was just my double vision.

He sneered in amusement, fangs glinting in the low light of the room. The pain from my wound flared back up. My knees hit the wood hard as I moaned in pain. I was burning alive from the inside, that had to be it. Fire was scorching my veins and burning the inside of my skin. Through blurred vision, I saw blood leaking from my stomach.

“You took everything from me,” Webber hissed. His claws shook, but I couldn’t tell if it was from concealed laughter, anger, or fear. “Don’t you think it’s only fair that I take everything from you?”
“Please-” I wheezed. Liquid rose in my throat immediately after, and it was all I could do to choke it out. Iron coated my tongue. Something was coming from my eyes and smearing the world in red. I swallowed more fluid back and choked on the words I tried to speak. To plead with him. To make him understand that I didn’t mean for this to happen. That I didn’t want our lives to collide in the way they did.

Instead, all that came out was a feeble: “I don’t want to die.”

“Liar.” His body rumbled with the force of his accusation. “You’ve tried so hard to kill us in the past, and now you stand afraid of it?” Webber’s claw curled around the life, and pulled it closer to his core. I was beginning to fade. “You have always been nothing more than a coward, Tyler. It’s time for you to take a step back and let the adults play.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. My chest had grown heavy and solid, so much so that my lungs spasmed under its weight. Warm liquid dripped from my nose, my eyes, my mouth. “Please.” I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to see this to the end. I wanted to be there for the people that had helped me so much. I wanted to tell Winona how much I appreciated her, to learn to be completely comfortable around Wilson again, to spend just one more night curled into a pile with Wilbur, the soft rumble of his snores harmonizing with the low purrs that shook my chest and throat. I wanted to see the sun again. I wanted to spend just one more second splayed out in the grass with the warmth of the day soaking into my fur.

I wanted to live.

As I curled into myself further, I could feel my body shutting down. The energy to clear my throat was quickly fading, but the flow of blood in it only grew in pressure. It leaked down my chin and stained the webbing at my feet red. I was becoming hollow, empty. Everything that had once made up my body was turning to liquid and dripping from my face.

I prayed for a miracle.

The next stilted inhale I took was clear of liquid. After the first, my waning breaths quickly increased to violent, gasping inhales. Fingers tangled in the fabric of my shirt and my head snapped up, if nothing more than to clear my airway better.

At the sight before me, my body decided it was the perfect time to stop breathing again.

The life was no longer in Webber’s grasp. Instead, it was being held aloft but a gentle stream of what appeared to be magic. The spider hissed furiously, but his advance was quickly halted by something akin to a hoof pressing his body into the ground. Still, he scrambled, tearing up silk and carving deep gashes in the wood, but he was ultimately stuck.

My eyes traveled up the hoof to see… one of the most gorgeous creatures I had ever laid eyes on.

Outlined in a faint blue glow, its very skin seemed to swirl with the light of galaxies. Stars winked in and out along its body and fluffy plume of chest fur. Even standing perfectly still, eyes watching me steadily, its form seemed to shift and waver with tiny pinpricks of light. Peering through glowing red eyes and down a short yet graceful snout, it spoke.

“There you are,” it said softly. Its voice reminded me immediately of Nightmare, but somehow distinct. It held the same quality of paradoxical descriptions, of a layered voice that wasn’t quite layered, but the tone of it was entirely different. It flicked a long tail, and the red markings on its leg, stomach, and said tail pulsed with warm light. Great, fingered wings stretched out from its side

I couldn’t exactly talk at first, as occupied as I was trying to regain the breath I had lost, so I simply stared back. My eyes only briefly glanced over its form before landing squarely on the antlers that sprouted from its head. Like most of the rest of it, they seemed to give off light. These colors were unique to the rest, though, and achingly familiar: Yellow at the tips, then orange, green, and purple at the base.

Once I connected those with something familiar, many other aspects of its appearance seemed to tug at my memories. The markings, the tail, the wings, the eyes. I swallowed hard, and in a whisper, I uttered a name that I had not spoken nor heard in hundreds of years. “Constant?”

This seemed to amuse the creature. It tipped its elegant head as if in thought

“I do not identify with that name anymore,” it said after a long moment of consideration. “Although… you can debate whether I identified with that name at all.”

This was fine. This was totally fine. I was only face-to-face with an actual God of Creation, that was all. The knowledge I had of it was vague and fuzzy, remembered through lifetimes that I surely would forget the second I thought about it too hard, but I knew to be scared of it.

As soon as I got my wits about myself, I quickly backed away until I physically couldn’t anymore. But then, it continued.

“I am as much Constant as Nightmare is. Born from the soul, born from the body, that was us.”

“I don’t care what you are,” Webber growled. The creature seemed surprised at this, as if it had forgotten that it was pinning the spider in place at all. “You have no part in this.”

“I would argue I have as much of a part in this as any,” it replied calmly. “For this is the boy who once created me.”

Darkness. Fluttering terror in my chest. A glowing blue sword held in shaking hands, then thrust into my stomach with a wail of pain-

“When… when I stabbed myself. To destroy Constant. It didn’t destroy it, it created you. It broke into pieces. It-” The realization hit me, and my stomach turned in horror as acid coated my tongue. “I- I created Nightmare. Nightmare is- is my fault.” My legs suddenly couldn’t hold up my body weight anymore. I sank shakily back to the ground and grasped at my head. It felt like my brain was threatening to explode, and the pressure against my temples was the only thing keeping it together.

“You did not know the consequences of your action, little one,” the creature cooed. “You acted as you were commanded to. The fault cannot be placed onto your shoulders.”

As it spoke, the life- an amulet, I now recognized, gently floated down until it was placed against my chest. The second it touched my skin, I heard a choked gasp coming from the spider pinned beneath its hoof. One of my hands drifted towards the amulet, and I rubbed my thumb gingerly against the smooth surface.

“There were many things beyond your control. And there are to be many more. Your story is not over.”

The knowledge still pounded deep in my chest, and I wasn’t quite convinced by its words, but I was able to recognize that it was helping me nonetheless. So many explanations came into light.

The colors of its antlers were the same that had followed me through the worlds.

“You’ve been helping us this entire time. You were the one that spoke to us in the last world.”

“Indeed I have.” It bobbed its head in agreement. “But this is the first time I have been able to speak to someone as myself.”

“But why? Why are you suddenly able to do that now? Why didn’t you-” I swallowed hard and clenched my fists. “Why didn’t you help us before?”

“Nightmare and I are one in the same,” it said. “When Nightmare gains power, as do I. I did not have the strength to do more than I did.”

Warmth was starting to seep into my fingertips. I tore my gaze away from the creature and turned it towards Webber.

I could recognize that he was quickly suffering from the same inflictions that had consumed me when he was holding the amulet, and to see it on someone else was horrifying. Blood pooled around him from his mouth and eyes and his helpless struggling had turned desperate. I subconsciously clutched the amulet closer, even though it was clear he was not about to get free any time soon.

“You have been given chance after chance at life,” the creature said. “Through rebirth, resurrection, and resuscitation. This is your last chance, Tyler.” I shuddered at the sound of my name in its voice. It sounded too much like Nightmare. “Do with it what you will.”

“You…” Webber hissed. Bubbles formed around his mouth as he spoke, and his voice was so distorted. “You favor… him?”

“You would have made a good king, once,” it said, partially responding to the spider but aiming it at me. “You would have been loved. It was our rage and jealousy that stood between us and the future you would have led us to.” It seemed to stare directly into my soul. “I am righting the wrong we caused so long ago.”

Had that been what had caused the war between us, so long ago? Kingship?

“Time is fleeting, Young Heir. Wake soon, and lead us into the future we should have had long ago.” The stars seemed to grow fainter as it backed away, leaving nothing but the corpse of a bloodied spider behind. Blood still trickled from between his fangs, but his eyes had grown dull and lifeless. To the contrary, strength was quickly returning to my limbs. I could finally fully breathe again, the fluid having finally exited my lungs entirely

To a point, I knew I should grieve for the spider. He had been a part of me for years now; his thoughts and I had been one for a handful of those. Really, his fault was the anger that permeated every inch of his being. It had twisted me into someone entirely different from who I should have been.

Instead, looking down at him… I really felt nothing more than apathy.

My fingers curled around the amulet protectively. I was unfamiliar with it, I realized now. You’d think I would remember seeing a glowing red amulet somewhere, but now as I looked at it, I realized I had never seen it before in my life.

“Where did this come from?” I asked the creature, turning my gaze back up for an answer.

It did not answer my question with anything other than a gentle, knowing look through vibrant red eyes.

I opened my mouth to press it, but the second I did, cold air rushed into my lungs.

Everything slammed back into place with such violence that I ached from the force. A harsh sting rose from my abdomen, enough to elicit a faint groan of misery. My ears rang with tinnitus, and when I opened my eyes, my vision was so blurry that all I saw was vague colors.

I noticed other things, too. My whiskers curled inward, no longer stretched out or sensitive by any means. I raised one hand to tug at one of them, only finding the limb to be stiff and cooling. I felt distinctly gross, suddenly far more aware of the body I was inhabiting and the way it looked.

It was that wound that really pulled me back, though. It didn’t feel wet, so I could assume it wasn’t actively bleeding, but it felt raw and exposed and ached fiercely. I struggled to sit up to examine it closer, but a cool hand suddenly pressed against my chest and pushed me back down to the ground.

Someone was speaking to me, I knew that, but the colors swimming in my vision were only just beginning to form definitive shapes. I dug my fist into my eye to wipe away the remaining gunk and blurriness, but even then, it didn’t make any sense to me.

The creature had said I was alive. It had promised me that I had one more chance to live my life. I was supposed to live.

But I had to be dead. There was no other explanation.

How else could I be looking directly at my best friend, my brother, the Martyr?

How else could I be staring into the eyeless gaze of WX-78?