The last girl laying on a branch above the two reached down to ruffle the downcast girl’s hair. Once her hand was swatted away, she grinned, then resumed her posture after yawning, keeping her words to herself.

『I don’t know. We’ll pray to Naheil before bed tonight.』

Said the girl with her back to the tree.

『Not Lumen?』

Responded the girl dangling her legs.

『No. Lumen has forsaken his godhood, prayers to him will only result in bad omens and ill tidings. Us Ulri should not add to the misfortune that bodes ill will to the tower.』

She was befuddled by these three girls as they chatted amongst themselves. Her ghostly appearance circled around them with curiosity. 

Words bubbled inside her, wishing to come out, to talk with these girls…but her lips remained empty. 

It seems even her ability to speak was failing her, her tongue numb to the point of incontinent, it almost felt like the appendage was not her own. Instead of a tongue, it was a rock glued inside her mouth to choke her.

『We should go.』

Startled, she takes a step back, watching the three girls jump down from the tree and walk back through the forest. 

One girl lagging behind, yawning and scratching through her bright orange locks. Ahead of her the other two walked side by side, one clinging to the other's arm, the last girl upright and solemn.

What should she do?

She looked left then right, back to where the man vanished to and to the girls slowly getting further and further away.

For a moment she stood there, frozen stiff.

Eventually in a panic between the choices, she followed the group of girls, listening to conversations she couldn’t understand, joining the group that paid no attention to her.

It was fine. She quite liked this. Imagining herself amongst a group instead of coldly wandering alone eases a pain she hadn’t even known was there.

She slowly began smiling.

But…that wasn’t the only sensation which was eased away into the morning glow flickering through the trees.

All her emotions kept changing, losing their color, and falling back into a muddle state, quite like the mist that had thickened over the days without that man in sight. The gray has gone black, the white a subtle hint of blue, so vague that only after long exposure would you be able to notice.

She felt like nothing. Her mind, emotions, feelings, even her eyes and ears. It all felt like a black blur eating away at her existence.

It was almost like…

…like she was dying.

She felt herself slipping away as the days passed. So much so that drool slipped from her unclosing mouth. Her shoulders pulled forward, her back hunched, and her head swirled in several directions, aimlessly searching with a dull glow in her eyes.

All her senses had shut down at this point and all she saw was black, all she heard was fuzz.

How many days have passed? 

She doesn't know.

Has it been years yet she's been unaware this whole time? 

Maybe…

Is she breathing…? 

…no.

Is she even still here…?

…

「I don't know……」

「I don't……」

「I……」

Just as her final shred of consciousness was about to fail, slipping from a table to shatter to pieces, a glaring light bursts into her vision, setting off a cacophony of drums, pushing out a rush of air from her throat.

"Hgah! Hgah! Heegah! Hgah!" (*Coughing)

All her organs felt as if they were rushing to escape from her esophagus. Her lungs felt fit to burst.

Wheezing and choking to breathe, the scenery spun past her vision. Disorienting greens and browns sped by at an alarming speed until finally…it stopped…

…right in front of a pair of red boots.

Right in front of the man who had vanished from her sight so long ago.

When had she come to the edge of the forest? When had he returned? And why…why did it seem like…he was looking at her?

Laying on the ground, bracing herself with one hand whilst the other reaches out, struggling to grasp onto the lifeline that had seemingly pulled her out of the water, she looks up, up at the man looking down at “her”.

What kind of look is that? 

It twists and churns, his teeth gritting, his brows scrunched tight, his eyes…cold…hot…luke warm? A harsh color of black was forming beneath those orange irises, underneath those long red lashes, becoming darker by the second.

Her hand fell and he stepped over and through her, callously walking away as if that feeling, that vague belief he could see her, did not exist at all.

「Don’t go……」

"Please don’t leave me here……!"

He left. 

He left her there to freeze beneath her swirling emotions that hadn’t a single outlet. He left and she was once again alone, by herself with the siren whispering in her ear.

'You have to remember. Why aren't you remembering?' 

Everything after that felt like a blur, the days seemed to merge together as she shamelessly stood up and followed that man. On days he left she would follow those girls instead, hoping her state of mind would not deteriorate like it had before.

But as her feelings slipped away and the cold tip of the knife scratched her heart, she felt the weight of her naivety.

She still felt herself slip away, dying down like a candle wick on its last leg. She saw the ledge between life and death, the cage she had no key to escape from once more.

Not again…not again…!

Please not again!

Right when she felt herself moments away from vanishing, that man returned and she would cough herself back to life. 

Again she would stare at his twisting face. 

Again she would watch him callously walk away.

“Why…Why is this happening?”

This torturous cycle seemed dead set on repeating numerous times to the point she could not ignore the coincidences any longer. The two colliding points that met each time without fail.

Fury blossomed inside her heart, the fire raged with no water to put it out.

「You……you……!」

Surely it was his fault she was like this! If not, then why would her sense of self only fade, her life flickering before her eyes when he left and come back to her when he returned?

Once is a coincidence. Twice is by chance. But thrice is a pattern! There was no way she was wrong about this!

Looking at him now a shiver crawled up and down her spine.

Here she thought that monster in her mind was terrifying when she hadn’t met the nightmare of nightmares.

At some point that anger warped into fear.

She fell to her knees numerous times at the edge of the forest, begging, pledging, slamming her forehead into the ground.

“Don’t go! Please you can’t leave me here! Don’t make me fade, don’t make me die again I beg you……!”

Of course he never listened. Even if he did, by some chance if he heard her, the language barrier sat between them, a wall that seemed too mighty to climb, especially when one was willing while the other remained indifferent.

After suffering one too many times, she became numb, accepting her fate she seemingly had no way of changing. 

Therefore she got used to hanging on the edge of death and it didn’t seem to frighten her anymore. In fact she laughed and waved.

“Hello death, it's not nice to see you again. When will you stop being an uninvited guest, mmm?”

She joked and teased, making light of a situation that she knew was beyond terrible.

“Oh you’re back? Tsk tsk tsk, you don’t know it, but I’ve been cheating on you with death. He’s such a cold turkey and I don’t like him one bit, but he’s much better than you. Say, how’s it feel to have a head of green made by something below your notice, mmm?”

She got in that man’s face with a snide remark followed by a jest to poke and prod. One day, she felt, one day she’ll get a reaction out of him.

And when she does…!

When she does…

What will she do?

「I think…I think I may cry……」

Still despite the complicated emotions she had towards this man, someone she held immense anger towards, someone she wishes to pick up a thick branch and knock his brains out, that initial feeling remained.

Why was it that through this cold, murderous man, she could see so much of herself? A monstrous existence that she should have long kicked into the category her “father” sits comfortably in.

She's seen so much of what he's done and the consequences of said actions, the ramifications of his cruelty.

All who came before him trembled, their faces visibly paling at an alarming speed. 

Heads flew through the air at the smallest inconvenience, the blood like a gruesome fountain to the nightmare he lived in.

And when he grew irritated by the sight, the blood boiled and vanished into clouds of red. 

Death and isolation, these two extremes exist with him, completely contradicting that small memory she had of this man. The first appearance that was seared in her mind.