Breathe. Bleeding. A lashing wind, the ash raining from the grayscale sky, a measureless onslaught upon the oppressive world. Each step muffled by the hefty bleached carpet flooring which now lined the path the spectre travelled, with each lifting of the feet debris, flakes of numbing dust flew into the gale. Turbulence, the world only grew into violence, constant resistance which the figure forced himself through and what a fitting place for him to cease his journey for only a moment.
Decrepit and rotting, the tree bent ceaselessly to the skies hate, creaking with each consecutive blowing of the world. Yet its branches held high, repositioning and reorganising after each assault, the vines hung meekly, leaves picked off the vines with each attack. In the end the tree would fail in its defence, though it wouldn’t collapse, such was in its nature to be stubborn, none would fight against themselves. Why would it allow itself to die? To an observer this dying, blackened trunk was a willow tree, but in the end all it did was prove what was already known, this place was lifeless.
The white eye hid, for the first time it had ever chosen to fall below its soldiers, had it lost the gall to lead them into failure? Though he knew, the phantom knew, it hid in its shameful display to allow the meeting to finally occur. The dream-boy shifted around the carcass of wood, only to see another, another.
Endless, the line of trees seemed until they culminated in a central point from a secondary row, not far from where he had positioned himself. This central point was a structure doused in ash, flakes and failure.
A sight the phantom experienced time after time. It was lovingly decorated with shattered windows, torn paint and a lockless door hanging on by threads of wood, metal, perhaps hope. Step, after step, he approached the door; perhaps this will be it, after walking this path for so long… The door fell open, with a feeble slap it shattered into the indented floorboards, pieces flew across the room travelling akin to a liquid into the cracks, inconsistencies and recesses in the floor.
“Where was she? Where was he?” The phantom thought. An abrupt and unforeseen development graces his sense, compounded in an audible question from afar.
“Who are you?” Aaron asked. In less than an instant, the world had been cut, severed, departing from the plain which both of them stood upon, a devolving spiral which never ceased, nor did it have an end.
Both left in a shallow mess of translucent particles, infinite in scope, feeble in scale. The ghost stood still, his all-familiar black attire contrasted the world no longer, instead blending into the void which transpired the breaking of the sky, but only one detail remained: the white eye stared. The apparition finally swivelled, ending facing Aaron though nothing would be met with Aaron’s eyes.
“Answer me!” Aaron desperately shouted across the abyss, an endless reverberation bouncing off the world which gave no reply. The smoky space flowed carelessly, goalless, and yet it headed further into the void, unimpeded by the chains which encapsulated both the phantom and Aaron. Silence followed the end of the echo into the void, and then after what seemed like an eternity a voice followed.
“Aaron?” The phantom squeaked, softly, feebly into the abyss. Luckily nothing was present to overshadow its volume The smoke began to squeeze, combining, infusing into the careless infinity. Aaron could feel himself beginning to be crushed by an overwhelming absolution.
The apparition broke into a meek chuckle, sickly, feverous, and pathetic in its execution, yet genuine. The white eye began its final assault, a gambit which was followed by its array of deadly lights being torn and ripped asunder.
The white eye was rendered into a glint, a distant star, and then it folded into darkness. Finally it matched the cold it emitted. The wraith approached, after each step a lingering, agitating sensation followed. Though Aarons fears did not come to fruition, instead they were subverted as the phantom granted him a hateful, considerate gift. A gift which would consume them all, with one last breath exiting the ghost’s mouth he spoke, “A Truth.” The phantom slowly whispered. Then the crawling of water spread from his eye, bleeding, bleeding, was he breathing?
--
An eye opens, ringing, ringing. His arm twitched, numb, dazed, his head buckled in a sudden instant of awareness. The ground was bitter, littered with blades, reflective, and damp. Crawling across the ground before gripping onto the grass, forcing his upper body upward then forward to his knees.
The sky was cloaked in a cosmic shadow, which he hadn’t seen before, dotted with specs of white it was a fantastical sight if for only a moment. Shallow beams graced the ground, and he was surrounded by trees which blended into wet shadow, the leaves swaying in the slight night breeze.
Aaron’s head turned to the sky, where a new eye gave him solace, it’s alluring, staggering, its light a miraculous feeling. It gave no heat, yet it didn’t sour the eye instead bathing the world in a pacifying light. His other arm approached the right side of his head, the weightless feeling he’d once felt confirmed, though unrecognisable. The blood was gone, missing skin, flesh and bone replaced with a foreign tissue, his skin replaced with a coarse rubbery material.
Aaron began to survey the surrounding area, cautiously taking in each and every crack in-between the tree line which formed a barrier between him and the seemingly empty ocean of cave-like pathways deeper into the forest. The mutterings of someone's speech was slowly encroaching in his right ear, and the other remained constant in its ringing.
Until his brown had met grey, his eye gazed into another, startled, confused, Aaron leaped back falling on his backside before picking himself back up as his feet pushed against the crumbling dirt below him forcing his body back. It was not who wore grey eyes who concerned him truly, it's what he hadn’t seen, though a corridor in the mind revealed the lurking beast to him.
Aaron couldn’t understand it, only to know it either way, the predator took three steps forward, each one compounded the pressure Aaron felt but couldn’t know not yet. The beast stood still, before a sensation pounded against Aaron’s head, a pulsating heat which granted the devil a voice.
“I don’t desire anything from you.” The audible sensation blasted upon Aarons consciousness, and then another blast followed; “Your fear is misplaced, you should be thanking us.” This unexpected tremor against Aarons mind was not appreciated, the message itself though was reassuring to say the least.
The beast stepped back, allowing Aaron to pull himself to his feet. Aaron looked at both the beast and the boy with grey eyes, their height varied irritably, though the predator wasn’t much to look upon, it was a hollow empty shape.
Aaron could not help it, “What… happened?” He asked. His question was met by an awkwardly long silence, and both of the individuals turned to each other for a brief moment, and then the grey-eyed boy would turn back to Aaron, as the beast looked elsewhere.
He was then met with a gaze from the grey-eyed boy, “Even if we would tell you, it’s too confusing to put into words.” The boy answered. He spoke with arrogance resting on his tongue, and eloquence in his speech. “But please, indulge further.”
An excuse given which Aaron was not satisfied with, to complicate the circumstance even more, the boy spoke with such vocabulary and fluidity that it was unsettling, his visage did not match how he spoke. Before Aaron could rebuttal his deflection the boy interrupted his thought.
“Though I know your pull to truth, 012, I can only tell you so much.” The boy told, which immediately silenced Aaron’s thought allowing the boy to continue further; “Have I piqued your interest? Good. I had seen beforehand you were with 018’s group, and you’re here because I have a deal to maintain.” The boy said, his words were vague and patronising. Yet he went on; “It would be captivating to shatter your understanding here… But, I think that’s a job for someone who wants to stop you.” The boy's expression would not change from its demoralising stone-like indifference, though his words cut, tore and had all the indication Aaron needed to understand. “018, or Kira as she annoyingly suggested for me to call her went westward, toward the hills. I’m sure you know what hills are, as isolated as you were.” The boy then shrugged, his eyes rolling in indifference to Aaron’s blanket confusion. “Always question in moderation, you don’t want to hurt yourself, do you?”
The boy was picked up by the devil who stood nearby, and put upon his shoulder. They began to depart, leaving Aaron stunned in his spot, but through all he had learnt and been told to learn he managed to speak.
“Who…?” Aaron would suddenly be struck with a piercing heat into his mind, speaking to him one last time, imprinted into his eyes in the heat of light were the numbers ‘017’. Though the grey-eyed boy had signalled something different, he had raised his arm with just his pointer finger.
Then they disappeared into the underbrush. Aarons mind was left burnt, his eye widened, a question pressured him. One he would have to answer himself, but he had to start westward to find his first answer.
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The forest felt repetitive, as he passed each branch, each bush, it was only collecting in the feeling of pointlessness. The only feature of the world that seemed to adjust was the sky, slowly dulling from its dull blue into a deeper form, which plummeted into a shadowy abyss. He had never kept track of the time, it had always seemed worthless in the white box, and yet it seemed to be told through the world itself.
Step, after step. Fascination, the environment he found himself in was euphoric, though his skin was coarse, bumpy and frigid the world he found himself in was truly remarkable. His eye consumed each dish of colour, plant, and animal he could discover in his exploration of the fauna. His objective still clear as he passed through a repeating flurry of trees and brush, he found that he could hear the audible sensation of rushing water.
With each step over the shallow, smooth, wet rocks the purity he’d find himself in was indescribable. Aaron crouched down, the liquid clear, reflective, and enlightening, his face was now irregular, unaccustomed as now a large black mass congregated at the right side of his head, his eye still missing leaving a limp eyelid in its place.
His skin was damaged, and covered in goosebumps, a reaction to the cold winds which flowed through the environment, his skin itself seemed as if it had aged a few years in just a couple of hours. Well, what he believed had been a couple of hours, his sense of time had been warped and casted aside in the bid for survival for now.
Smooth liquid graced his skin, it seemed like a lifetime had passed since it had done so, he stood and continued his travels as the world bent upward. He had found the hillside, and up in the sky a stack of thick, grey mist directed skyward could be seen, only visible due to the dispersal of the fog, and the scattering of the trees.
His path wouldn’t be so simple, the gale rode up the hillside, pushing Aaron onward up the hill before he heard the unwarranted rattling of interconnected metal. Bouncing into each other, forming an incoherent melody which burnt the ears with unwanted sensation.
Aaron, unprepared for any kind of confrontation, began to run uphill, which turned out to be a terrible mistake as he found himself tiring, he hadn’t eaten, let alone given himself a chance to properly rest. Injured, shivering, his only option was to hide and he found a bulky, ancient-looking oak, though sparse with leaves he found it could hide his body effectively, so effectively that he could have stood next to himself two or three times.
Calm down, his breathing was overcompensating, revealing and heavy, his breath visible in the cold air a white retreating vapour. Beating, his chest was sinking, pounding into his ribcage, an unpleasant falling feeling compounded his confidence.
All he could hear were the chains, growing no closer or further, attached to which his breathing almost silenced other noise. All he could see past his eyes were his ghostly fumes, steadily dissipating into the blackened sky, he couldn’t focus himself, and yet he attempted to silence his body. He couldn’t. A deep breath.
“Breathe slowly” his mind audibly told in a soothing, soft, and amicable voice. Focus, his eye was focused, but on another goal, resolve waning, his breath now shallow. In a moment, within a moment, Aaron was calm, his body comfortably warm but so rigid. Blinking, his eyes began to waver until finally a saviour came.
Salvation? The swirl of cosmic colours dressing the sky, they present themselves to him openly, welcoming to a heaven he didn’t believe. This heaven, an arena, to dance with another’s desire for his existence, a battle he never contemplated.
Though Aaron remained still, the corridor in the mind had opened though he couldn’t comprehend to travel through it, to him an unknown crescent of the world that stood just out of reach. Impossible to understand, only possible to know. Another breath exits, the white exhaust of his mortality danced, trickling into the collage of infinity above him. What was this?
“Found him…” A figure up the hill announced as if communing with another, his steps and voice filled Aarons whistling ears with variety, though not unfamiliar.
It was Jason, clad in a furred camo jacket, warm, sturdy, which Aaron had wished he had the privilege of possessing. His form oddly congealed with a mass of flickering lights, swirling runic pattern, a gravitational sphere which was morphing and bending the environment around his figure.
“And found him.” Jason seemingly told himself again. Aaron infatuated with the sky, consciously he felt time slowing as he observed its hypnotically chaotic movements. Unknowingly to him, this was no natural phenomenon, unobservable to others eye, a circumstance one could experience only once in their lifetime.
Rattling, rattling, the chains come closer, an ill-timed omen in Aarons ears, one which devolved his hope into a desperate gamble. Aarons legs become untethered, the rigidness which plagued them faded, replaced with a pulsating heat which circulated throughout his body. A second wind, and a final gambit. Springing to life, he leapt out of his position, too late in his consciousness to realise what he’d done.
The old oak floated, its trunk torn asunder before the world could even respond, the sounds of snapping and violent crackling was unpunctual to the damage sustained. The window which perceived the event through his cognizance noted its lightning movement, though his body was not in the state of his mind. Luckily, the chain flew over his hair, snatching loose strands of hair from his scalp, leaving him unharmed.
The geologic rumbling, the violent explosion of wind which followed, came after the fact. Someone had attempted to take his head, Aaron powerless fell upward facing upon the hill, though somehow Jason had reached his position though he seemed distant moments before. It was then Aaron realised how unreliable his senses were to the events, only his alertness could predict and percept the insanity unfolding before him.
Another assault persisted, a flurry of shadows and reflective dances of light encompassed all his vision, incomprehensible, to his natural sense. The environment around them warped with scars, canyons, and shrapnel-like debris launching across the scattered brush. Jason however, stood firm both him, and Aaron being greeted by the source of the rattling metal, the figure surrounded in the eye’s limelight.
His eyes a dead-beat brown, joyless, and bored though his mouth told a different story, his lips parting into a joyous smile which could only be described as horrifyingly insidious, and sadistic. His hair a stiff short muddled brown, coated in the dirt, dust and bark raised from the surrounding area. His skin a darker tone, though with the dancing shadows, a description couldn’t be properly obtained for such a detail. He was staring down at them both, not an audible word was said, though they spoke, a known sensation to Aaron due to his previous interaction with 017.
“You have some nerve protecting a sock puppet.” His voice flew, slashing into the mind of Aaron, though it’d be met with no reply.
Aaron looked up at Jason, noting that his expression held discomfort, strain, and quiet panic. Aaron knew that this was not a sustainable situation being supported by someone so young, and Jason was clearly out of his element.
“Wh- '' Aaron began to speak, only to be met by a sudden wind lashing which met his senses but not his vessel.
“Incapable? Figures, it’s the kid doing all the lifting for you.” The foreign thought revealed, as it had somehow invaded his mind.
A light shot above in the sky, gracing the battleground for a moment, illuminating all three of them in a thick green light. After which the figure which was assaulting them vanished, his presence replaced with a feeble running wind which shot into both Jason and Aaron. He had left them, Aaron was in such distress, he was barely surprised by what had happened. His eye had begun to falter, though he tried, tried, to stay awake. He needed to know more, the only question was if he could.
Moonlight radiates overhead, encircling the hilltop, which was temporarily shot with holes of green, red light and shadow. The other colours drizzled into soft, sparkling ash. Aaron saw a congregation of silhouettes formed over the top of the hill barely visible through his eye, Aaron’s skin was graced with a patient hail of heated ash momentarily, though it's comforting heat developed into a painful, burning sensation as it rained upon him.
Aaron was practically being dragged up the hill by Jason, his legs barely able to keep up with the pace at which they were moving, and as they ascended the figures became more visible in the backdrop of the swirling colours of purple, red, and black palette which made up the skyline. Jason looked back at Aaron, his eyes representing a mix of relief and concern for him, he turned back raising his arm at the individual who stood ahead.
It was Kira, the expression she wore was close to indecipherable to the eye, though Aaron knew what could be the truth; she was clearly disappointed in something, perhaps him or the fact that the perpetrator who caused this rallying had escaped without a trace.
Aaron didn’t understand how he could predict this, all he knew is that his mind's eye held confidence in his conclusions. Aarons arm raised to his left ear; it was not adding to his senses, the world around him seemed still to his ears. It was then Aaron realised that he couldn’t hear a thing, all that he could audibly hear was a sluggish flowing sensation in the ear that lacked an origin, or one which presented itself to his other senses. He was practically deaf, though he could see their lips moving as they conversated, and he could comprehend all that they said.
Not that he could reconstruct it, but he understood what they were conveying to each other, a sense which hadn’t revealed its presence to him until now. Both Kira and Jason had turned their attention to him, though he didn’t attempt to reply as he simply couldn’t muster the resolve, nor the desire to do so.
With the rest of the group who as far as Aaron could see, who were increasingly undefinable in his ever devolving visual prowess in the current moment, began their journey down to the collection of structures below.
The collection of tents were clearly improvised, though effective, and all encircled a central area of the camp. He had little energy to properly comprehend the area around him. Though something caught his eye, a fire burned in the centre of the camp, its smoke slowly rising upward into the night sky, filling Aaron’s lungs with an unpleasant crispiness. There he was brought into one of the tents, carefully laid upon an uncomfortably thin strip of rough, itchy cotton.
Though not irritating enough to force anymore than an instinctual reaction from him, it paled in comparison to the abominable pain present in his skull, as if his head was being battered back and forth. His chest felt as if he had swallowed a handful of rocks, dry and shredded. These feelings were only complemented by the overall feeling of fatigue, heaviness, and piercing heat which danced around every finger, to every toe.
Aaron’s eye once again began to shut, though he had attempted to remain awake for so long, something, or rather someone was calling. All he could do was answer. A sinking sensation.