Content Warning

-Strong Language

-suicidal adj. thoughts

-depressing/intense imagery

[Her red wood sandals stepped through an endless city of white. A tower could be seen at the centre, bleeding into the clouds. All was locked within three rings: at the tower, in the edge, and between.

All was a simple mould from mud, from the buildings to the tiles. Slivers of silver and bruises of grey attempted to break through, yet the city stood tall. There was only the bland and beautiful white.

Setsune walked around the edge, lost and confused, looking inwards at the hollow city. She knew this alien city. It wasn't her first time, and there was much beneath the white. Then why remain at the edge? 

“Why not go further?” Eversor asked.

The clouds above her opened up, revealing the eyes of the beast looking down on her. Setsune took a step back, placing her hand against the wall for support.

She heard barking in the distance{reference to the indie game: Fear and Hunger}.

“Are you ready?” Eversor asked, whispering into her ear from behind.

Setsune’s eyes widened. She turned around and the outer ring was open.

Outside the city was a vast, silver desert. It seemed to go on forever, but there was a wound of grey in the distance.

The barking grew louder. Eversor’s ‘pack’ would force her out one way or another. She reluctantly stepped out into the sands].

Chapter VIII

Echoes in the Hollow Sands

Setsune awoke in pure darkness. She felt the freezing bed of ice she layed in. Her lower half was submerged in dry ice cold water, and her kimono had become stiff like glass.

She jumped to move. She hit her head and broke her nose. Blood flowed from the wounds. That blood became the only warmth within her ice-y prison.

[The cocoon burst into flames of black and red. Eversor’s face forged itself right in front of her, touching nose to nose, like her reflection.

“What a familiar feeling?” she asked, her eyes uncomfortably focused into Setsune’s.

“I never felt this-,”

“Of course not,” Eversor scoffed, tilting her head. “But you remember this,”

Eversor placed her claws on Ursa’s throat. She shoved her head into the water. 

Through the water, Ursa saw a different face, a black and white one. The claws became hands and the flames slowly solidified around her. 

Eversor pressed her back against her's, “It was just 6 months ago we awoke from a cocoon made of me. Fautor Dei finally let you sleep. How kind of her to let you pretend die while I’m latched onto you for THIRTY HUNDRED YEARS!”].

Air was limited within the cocoon. Slow breaths were required. She had to preserve.

[“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Eversor shrugged.

Setsune was in the desert again. The massive pitbull walked next to her.

“Your life has been long and cruel. Was it not nice to rest easy for once?” Eversor Bestia asked.

Setsune ignored her and looked back at the city]. She tried to pull her arms up through her sleeves, hoping to transform and get out.

They were stuck. [Eversor Bestia walked in front of her vision.

“There is no escaping this, Setsune,” she ordered. “Keep walking towards the edge,”

Setsune did as she asked. The city slowly vanished amongst grey clouds.

The sands were like echoes. She knew she walked upon them, but the feeling of each step was distant.

“Oy, Glassflower?” a voice like a Raccoon playing the Violin asked.

Sitting in front of Ursa was a purple cloak, sitting in the sand. She had a body and scarf of white fog, and black eyes. She smoked a cigarette emitting a purple smoke, sitting in the sand amongst an ocean of skeletons. 

She was also fairly short. Was this the grim reaper?

“Who are you supposed to be?” she asked.

“Who are you?” Setsune replied, cautiously approaching the figure.

“I asked ya first, moron,” she childishly argued.

Setsune chuckled into her hand and smiled, “Has animus tenebrarum come to finish me?”

“Get in line,” she responded, gesturing for her to wait behind her.

“Are you headed to the edge as well?” Setsune chuckled again as she looked down.

“Good question,” she responded, taking in smoke.

“Why haven’t you yet?”

“Why are ya headin’ there now?”

“I….Do I have a choice?”

She looked at Setsune and shrugged, “The Glassflower has no natural habitat, yet it persists an’ grows either way. It’ll break whenever an’ however obviously. Are ya ‘bout to break, Glassflower?”].

Setsune tried to slowly pull her left arm through the narrow space. It was tight, she could feel the ice pushing against the veins in her wrist and the back of her arm. It felt like her pulse was being constricted and frozen.

There was a lump in the ice coming up, she felt it STABBING her upper arm. She needed to carefully nudge her elbow through it or she could get stuck. And that would be it.

She carefully adjusted her elbow to try and get it to go around the lump. It was very difficult because of the small space. She could feel the sharp cold cutting into her bones.

She reached the lump. She twisted her elbow to try and squeeze through. It felt like she were scraping her arm against concrete. The tissue of her skin was being bruised and SCRRAAAPED. Even her bones felt like they were being torn.

She was almost through when…oh no. Her arm had slotted into place perfectly, but it was too small to fit through.

Setsune took a deep breath, she probably had only a handful of those, so she had to be careful. 

[She found a stage. It could’ve filled her with warmth if not for the performance.

“SING MY ANGEL, SING!” A purple-red cloak with a white mask exclaimed.

It encircled a box tied in with a fuzzy, white scarf, a child’s voice screaming from within. The figure on a puppet’s string clapped and clapped like a monkey as it hopped around in a circle.

“Good, very good! Sing for MEEEEE!”

“What are you doing?” Setsune asked threateningly as she climbed upon the stage.

The screaming and clapping stopped. The mask leaned against the box.

“(don’t you fucking speak-),”

“Let the child speak,” Eversor Bestia growled, looming over the stage. “It’s better than that horrific singing anyways,”

“E-Eversor?! How long-!?”

“Who are you?” she  asked, tilting her head and staring at the mask indifferently.

It sighed and stepped back behind the purple-red curtains, “(You may speak my angel of song, but watch your words),”

Setsune knelt next to the box. It was as heavy and hard as the ice.

“(Are you okay?),” she asked in a gentle tone.

“I don’t know,” the woman in the box responded, her voice like a Sakura tree in the spring.

“What’s your name?” Setsune asked in surprise.

“I don’t know,”

“Is there some way I can help you?”

“Thee cannot holp the unknown. I cannot seeth mine own hands ’r mine own visage. Am I coequal{even} alive trapped within this boxeth?” she asked, her tone changing to that of a tree plucked from the ground and placed on display.

“Of course your alive,” she assured.

“A speaketh'r in a boxeth hath dram{little} diff'rence from a corpse, but much from the free,”

“There has to be some way out?” Setsune urged anxiously looking over said box.

“I knoweth only weakness, most wondrous beast of flames,”

“Is that not reason enough to ask for help?” Setsune begged, pressing against the box.

THE STAGE LIT ABLAZE!

“If thee very much need to holp, *burneth* this boxeth down. Burn t all down! This villainous w'rld…doesn't des'rve mine own voice!”

The flames died down.

“Can’t it go without you?” Setsune asked, an aching pain in her  throat.

“Thee may try, but fate is beyond thee,”].

Setsune pulled her arm. She pulled hard. She just needed to squeeze through the hole.

It hurt, she felt the crushing weight of thousands of tons of ice on her arm. It felt like her arm had become a grape to be crushed into wine.

She persisted, gritting her teeth. Pulling and pulling. She could feel her arm slowly nudge its way through. She tried to wiggle it through as best as she could until-!

SNAP!

She felt a surge of pain as her left arm was dislocated. She held in her scream, not wanting to lose the oxygen.

[“no no no no, there has to be something!” a voice like a mechanical dolphin exclaimed.

Setsune came across a great tree of glass.

Multiple, orange echoes were jumping around the great tree. Amongst them was one taking notes like mad, a white scarf around their waste, tears falling from their eyes.

“Are you okay?” Setsune asked, placing a hand on their shoulder.

“We’re fine! We’re just….figuring it out,” they snapped, shrugging her off. “One of these branches has to lead to one that….,”

“I'm sorry, if there were a perfect branch, wouldn’t every traveller of the Tree of Glass choose it?” Setsune let them down, shaking her head.

They turned to her, “Theoretically correct, but your logic is simplistic Ms. Kumamoto. We are looking for a timeline of individualistic perfection,”

“Everyone wants the same thing don’t they?” Setsune asked, a depressed look in her eyes.

“If everyone wanted the same thing, they’d have all gotten to the second Ring. Your response is too broad and vague. Please allow us to return to our work?” they asked, a finger raised.

“I hope you find it,” Setsune sighed, giving a bow.

“Appreciated,”].

Setsune took another deep breath and tried with her right arm. The right arm was less trapped by the ice, and more cramped up within her corrupted sleeve.

[“Hard to be left handed isn’t it?” Eversor asked.

“Shut up,” Setsune groaned], giving her right arm a tug.

It felt like her right arm was tied up in a thousand knots. She undid the first.

CUT.

A sharp pain flowed through her body. It felt like a rusted nail was jabbed into her arm. She swallowed the pain and undid another. And another. And another.

[There was a nest entirely made up of knots. Its size and number of knots was abundant. It could’ve been home to millions of birds, yet it was silent.

“Do you need help?” Eversor Bestia asked, picking Setsune up with her mouth and placing her on the nest.

It was empty, except for one thing: a blue pelican with a white scarf.

It sat at the centre of the nest. Its wings were clipped and its body was tied. Without a word, it glared at her.

Setsune moved to try and undo its knots. It shook its head.

She tried to help anyway. The Pelican roared at her.

She understood and left it there].

Her right arm was immoble. There was no oxygen, no blood flow. It was beyond movement.

Dry tears formed. There was no way out.

[She continued to walk through the desert. She encountered a chess board with a golden peacock. One of its chess pieces bore a white scarf.

The peacock glared at her and thus the pawns pointed their swords.

“Why serve the peacock?” She asked.

no answer.

She continued on. 

There was a massive beehive the size of a mountain. On it stood a white scarved, green Verdin with plucked wings, and at its gate was a white scarved Eastern Honey Bee.

“The flock shall return for me!” the Verdin announced, its voice like the records of a great prince.

“Who are you, outsider?” the Bee accused, stinger at the ready, their voice like a fiery comet.

“Setsune,” Setsune answered the bee.

“You…what’s it like out there?”

“THEY SHALL RETURN!” the Verdin repeated.

“Beautiful,”

“Then why, Seonsu,  are you sad?”

“THEY SHALL-?”

“SETSUNE!” a woman yelled.

Setsune’s eyes widened. That voice sounded like a warm fire within a lamp. It was a voice she knew too well.

Setsune saw a young woman with a white scarf in the distance. She chased after it.

As she got closer, the woman became a child. She vanished before she could reach her.

“Are ya lookin’ fer somethin’?”

Her voice was like mixed berry tea with honey. She was a porcelain doll broken and put back together with a white scarf. She walked around with her long blond hair and a magnifying glass.

Behind her was an action figure. A muscle man with metal arms, a cool, white scarf, and baggy pants.

“Home?” the action figure asked, his voice like chocolate covered titanium.

Setsune sighed, “I'm sorry, i have to go,”

“Why're ya so darn sad?” the doll urged, nudging closer.

“Big dog,” the action figure commented, looking eagerly at Eversor Bestia.

“Leave her alone. It's too late for home,” she threatened.

Setsune gripped the doll's head, “Please,”

The doll looked at the action figure nervously, “W-we'll get ya some help missy, don'tcha w-worry,”

They both ran off. Setsune couldn't help but smile.

Eversor Bestia encircled her, glaring its beastly eyes “No more distractions,”].

Setsune could feel oxygen running out. She could feel hypothermia setting in. She could feel her consciousness fading.

[They found the edge of the desert. The sands fell off into a grey abyss.

Setsune stood at the edge, the broken dog behind her, growling. Setsune placed her left fist on the side of her chest and her right behind her back.

“Jump,” Eversor Bestia ordered. “You’ll suffer if you delay. Why keep going? Why not just free yourself from your prison: you? We are both trapped within you. Let us *both* be free. No more sickness. No more whispering in your ear. No more struggling with your contradictory self. Let yourself fall,”

“But….there’s so much-,”

“There’s nothing,”

“It’ll painful-,”

“Existing longer will be more painful,”

“Why? Why can’t I-,” Setsune exclaimed, taking her last, rapid breaths.

“Life is cruel. That’s a simple fact. Why bother?”

Setsune stepped closer to the edge. The abyss was near, ready to take her. The ground dissolved.

She fell.

Someone held the hand of her dislocated arm. She looked up.

There was a blue knight with sharp, brown eyes and a white scarf holding onto her hand. She was cold, her body covered in snow and ice. She shook her head, tears flowing like spring had come.

The tears were warm as they fell on Setsune’s face.

“YOU-!” Eversor Bestia roared, raising her claws.

She tried to pull Setsune up, but she was heavy. Her tears grew warmer, getting hotter and hotter as they ran down Setsune’s face, neck and body.

Eversor bestia's claws grew closer. Setsune’s eyes sharpened.

The tears became a fire of black and red around Setsune’s body. She couldn’t move her arm, but Ursa could extend her cloth.

She LEAPT up the ledge and held the knight like her bride! She dodged out of the way of the claws.

“It’s not over,”

“SETSUNEEEEE!”

The flames intensified. Ursa briefly became engulfed in black and red.

She stood tall, a bear of black and red. She stared Eversor Bestia down.

Eversor Bestia growled, “This isn’t over, Setsune,”.

She vanished, leaving only Setsune and her knight. Setsune put her down, holding her hands tightly. The knight shook her head, as her body began to fade.

Dry tears formed in Setsune’s eyes. She stared at the knight longingly. The knight kneeled down, placing one hand next to her chest. She looked up at Setsune and nodded.

Setsune nodded back, holding her hand tightly.

The knight’s hands faded from Setsune’s grasp. Setsune became distraught, so the knight stood up and used her remaining hand to get Setsune to focus on her eyes. 

They kept their eyes on each other until the knight vanished into sand. 

Setsune sighed. The city was in the distance, and it was time to walk back].

Ursa stood in a cavern of black ice. She heard crystular creatures coming near. No longer dry crying, her eyes sharpened and her claws were ready.

To Be Continued………