My eyes snap open, my breath catching in my throat as I choke on nothing but the metallic, rusty air. Is it from the remnants of the viscera and blood? I’m not sure. But one thing is certain—I’m back in this realm, the same unchanging sky greets me, featureless and bnk. Something has changed too, my body notices it immediately: I am no longer swimming in a sea of gore, I’m lying on solid ground.

  “This is nice for a change…” I mutter, sitting up and feeling the floor shift ever so slightly. It’s like sand, but damp, crumbly, and firm. Y’know, the type of sand you’d use for making sandcastles, it is cool to the touch too, almost piercingly so.

  A shiver runs through my whole body, unsure if it is from the cold, or just how barren this pce looks now. There are no more rings of intestines, no more bits of sinewy skin and flesh, and most importantly—no eyeballs watching my every move. There’s only sand as far as the eye can see, covered by the oppressive red hue. In other words, crimson—or probably bloody—sand.

  “Why do I feel kinda lonely without them?” The moment I realize the words coming out of my mouth—I immediately shake the thought away. ‘Wow, I’m beginning to become one of those freaks.’

  “Let’s just go, the sooner I save this maiden the better.” I stand up, my legs wobbly. “Woah, they’re back.” Indeed, my legs are back. But the surgical lines that stretch across my thighs and knees are hard to miss, I look like a doll now. Porcein skin with stitches across its body? Yeah, that’s the type of creature you’d see in an old antique shop. “Thanks, unknown maiden.”

  And so I start walking.

  “One would feel overjoyed at the sight of their limbs being back, but I’m feeling numb to this…” After going through realms of suffering, and fighting a literal abomination, your feelings kinda die down with time. Or that’s what I’m telling myself anyway. “Speaking of, where is the Wall of Flesh?” Yes, it has been killed, but something huge like that couldn’t just fade or whisk away. I wanna treasure the feeling of seeing its corpse more.

  Maybe it’s faded away, reduced into nothing but atoms, just like the endless sea of viscera that has been dried out, somehow. The unknown cosmic voice must’ve been really powerful—hell, maybe she controls this realm, she did tear apart skies and shape the sea out of her own will.

  Now begs the question, why does she need my help then? If she is all this powerful being, why ask for me? I’m just a gal who’s trying to survive, no skills that make you go “wow!” and most importantly, I’m a pretty useless husk of a human being. I’m just… here.

  My mind travels back to her words. ‘We are simir to one another.’ Are we though? Maybe that sentence was directed at the Wall of Flesh, but… I have a feeling it is resonating within me instead. Has she suffered like I did? That’s why she wants me to save her—a companion who has gone through the same thing.

  It isn’t too much of a stretch, considering my eyes have only seen death, death, and one more, death.

  “I’m here now, so please just give me a hint. Or talk to me! I don’t know… I’m feeling lonely I guess.” That feeling is inevitably going to rise again. I’ve been brushing it off, pushing it to the back of my mind ever since I first awoke in the Void. I’m alone, yes—but I fully deserve it. I can’t have others pity me, I am the problem.

  ‘Or maybe I’m just that cool that people know their pce? Heh.’ A smile surfaces, those thoughts help to keep me from spiraling down. Which I’ve learned, you absolutely cannot do. The Void feeds on your existential dread, and it grows happy of it. I’m just annoyed it doesn’t make the feeling go away, if you’re gonna leech off on me, then at least be useful, even just a little.

  “Ouch…” My legs start protesting from the constant feeling of dragging myself through the sand, it’s fring up now, screaming, “Rest! We need rest!” But I can’t really do that. I am oddly determined to help this maiden, the moment she speaks to my mind—I just have this feeling that I need to do so. You may call it manipution, but I think my feelings are genuine, and that is what matters.

  “Vilge!” Sure enough, after traversing this endless stretch of sand, something comes up in the distance. Breaking the same monotonous sheet of sand is a vilge. “…Is it one?” I squint my eyes, trying to get a better look. “It is shaped like one but uh…?” The odd thing is, that they’re built with the same materials as the porcein statues that are scattered throughout. Marble.

  If it isn’t shaped like those old medieval vilges with straw roofs, I might think it’s normal. My eyes might be pying tricks on me though, I need to get a better look.

  Nope, they aren’t. The walls, the thatched roof, they’re all carved with stone. It just makes it more… eerie, like it’s been reduced to soulless statues. Especially when they’re imitating a bustling life, too. Statues of kids running about, merchants trading in their stalls, a lovely couple holding hands, a single mother carrying groceries—it all resembles a peaceful, bustling life. All in pristine condition too, with no chipped-off pieces, spotless.

  “Feels… nostalgic, even though I’ve only experienced anything but.” The city life surely can’t compare to this. Especially when your parents committed a mass suicide, but that’s beside the point.

  May you witness what I see.

  “Fuck, could you not just jump into my mind like that? It hurts like hell every time you do it!” No answer. Yeah, this maiden is being a little bitchy. “Yeah yeah, and how do I see said truth?”

  I take another step forward, and then the scene behind me ripples. Like a drop of water disturbing the calm pond. It travels far to the edges of the realm, distorting everything in its path. “Hey now… Feels like I just entered a boss area or something.” I joke, trying to go back and test my theory. And I was met with another invisible barrier, and more ripples whenever I touched it.

  “…Now I have to move forward,” I grumble in annoyance, particurly for a petty reason. It feels like I’m being told or forced to do x, instead of me finding out on my own. It’s not anything big but it kinda removes your free will you know?

  ‘Technically, my privileges to that were revoked the moment that bitch of a Goddess colred me as hers.’ I wouldn’t mind getting colred, by a girl no less. But if it’s the Goddess? Yeah, I’d pass—if I was able to.

  “Alright, enough of inner monologue me, you’ve gotten a good chunk of screentime already.”

  Another step.

  “Ha—?!” Something pierces through my brain, everything blurs within reality and dreams. For a brief, disorienting moment, I see her — the girl. The first thing I notice is her pale, azure hair, like moonlight reflected on water. But her face… it’s obscured, wrapped in a haze of shifting fragments like a shattered mirror trying to reassemble itself.

  “You’ll save me, won’t you?” This time, her voice is crystal clear. It’s childlike, teasing, almost pyful. “Hehe, I know you will,” she adds, her tone brimming with an unshakable confidence.

  I smile, I can’t lie if her optimism is giving me a little buff in myself. “I’ll try.” This is what I only manage through the searing headache.

  “That’s enough for me.” She smiles back, taking a small step forward. Just enough to be out of reach of mine. I want to hold her hand and say that everything will be okay. But she’s so far away, yet so close at the same time.

  “Don’t worry…” she whispers, more to herself than to me. The area surrounding us shifts, and flickers, changing every second. A vilge, then a city, then something nightmarish—it’s too fast, too jarring for my mind to process. The scenes bleed into one another, a rapid-fire slideshow of madness. Shouts, and whispers, all accompany each area, they’re all hostile. Hostile towards her.

  The girl stands in the eye of the storm, her form flickering, dissolving, reforming. “They don’t want to hurt me. And yet I’m scared.” Her voice trembles, losing that pyful edge, turning vulnerable.

  My heart tightens into a knot. I want to protect her, so badly that it hurts. ‘What’s with me today?’ A part of me seems to scream out, I never felt something like this. Not to anyone, and especially someone I’ve never met before. But I throw that rational piece of mind.

  “Be better at lying, I know fully well that isn‘t the case.” My attempts to get closer are met with failure. I can’t move. “Please, just get behind me. I’ll save you.” A desperate cry. But she simply smiles.

  “You’ll get the chance. Be strong for me.” She steps forward and caresses my cheek. It feels… weird. Buzzy, sharp, and yet comforting all packed into her touch. “May our paths meet again, Anasera.”

  “No! Don’t—”

  And with that, reality stops. For a few seconds that is, before everything starts rebooting back to normal. I found myself sprawled on the ground, heaving gasps. “Why…?” I whimper, tears starting to roll down my cheeks. I’m annoyed at myself for failing. Even if there’s no chance to win, or to save her at the time. “I just… fail at everything huh?”

  I let myself drown in that moment of self-loathing, the tears flowing freely. But eventually, I wipe them away with the back of my hand, forcing myself to stand. “I’ll save you,” I murmur, but this time it’s not for her. It’s a promise I make to myself.

  The scene has been woven into anew. The once peaceful bustling vilge is now filled with rage. Statues of kids running to their homes faces stuck with fear, riots of porcein statues, holding and brandishing their forks and torches. They all encircle something. All of them are in disarray too, many of the pieces are incomplete and cracked, like the broken souls they are.

  And in the middle, there stood a stake, an empty one. Made out of wood, not carved out of stone. My detective senses are tingling—that’s where my next clue is.

  “Thanks for paving a new path for me,” I whisper to the air, to her. “And don’t worry, I won’t feel forced. I take back what I said.” I wipe away the st of my tears, letting out a small, shaky ugh.

  ***

  Notes: Another chappie! Just a day te than what I expect, hehe. This was another really fun chapter to write, hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did. As usual any feedbacks are really appreciated! <3

  I also may be takin a lil break, currently stuck with another fever. But who knows! :p