No molecule or string of reality had the power to move. Moments stretched into fragments of time where the basic concept of truth was stillness. Breath and thought were gone, turned into nix. Blood. With all of its vitality, it flowed out, dark droplets dipped down to make crimson puddles. Kenan couldn’t peel his eyes off the dagger. The wound. It was like it was mimicked onto him. But the pain that stabbed his chest was emotional in essence.

Ozzy’s hand fell onto his shoulder. It was a warm comfort that was lost. Knowledge came to Noctis. He had been hiding from it, he cowered behind mental walls as if he was still a weak child. A direct attempt at deliberate ignorance. While the piece of truth was so simple, it burned with the ferocity of fire that it was too hot to be ignored.

When death came, it took his parents and reached for him. He thought. He had hoped. That the rapacious clutches of Lamech were pushed away through the determination of his will. His forced innocence had led him to think that his soul had the strength to shake off his demise. Kenan was wrong.

His parents had given their souls. Tyris pushed him through his burning home. Ava carried him onto Jefned. Both would never reach the afterlife. Never to return to the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Both of them were well and truly gone. Forever.

Noctis tried to breathe but it was suffocated under the overwhelming pressure of sorrow. Tears formed at the corners of his eyes. Kenan fell forward and his hands just managed to catch him. He grimaced and his face crunched as if he was trying to reverse the drops falling from his face. The pit in his stomach widened and consumed everything else. From the hole, something was birthed with the insidious infectious grip of loss. It reached upwards. Churning while it forced its way out.

Rage. Inferno. Anger. Blaze. Hatred. Fire. Mana was subconsciously used and flame was formed. Kenan let it burn inside with an odd, desperate hope that it would incinerate his sadness and wrath. The flame did use his emotions for fuel, but it begat the creation of a denser temper.

The pressure was too great for Kenan to hold, much less in his perfidious state. Fire exploded in a wave and devoured. It did not hunger like Nonesthic. No, this fire was dark red that matched the fury that built inside. The crimson inferno ate everything for totality. To make sure nothing else existed. It evaporated the sky, turned the ground into ash, and ripped the air apart. Where the red devoured, black was left behind.

The flame he had used to face down Shell’s twisted puppet was a pale imitation of this. Tiny wisps of anger had been implemented into it as a result of his disgust for her corruption. This was different, it had more substance and more meaning. His frustration built, but it had no direction to drive the fury. So he did the only thing he could’ve done and reached for more.

Beyond the emotions that boiled, was his core. A dense ball of magical force that was emptying at a precipitous rate. Farther from that, deep in a realm that was just above the physical resided his soul. Wrapped in that, was his will. An inner strength. It was separated from any forms of power and mattered when everything else was gone. It was forged from convictions and shaped with perseverance. Noctis grabbed it and forced it to feel the flickers of the flame. Then the fire turned. It grew in intensity and volume. The red darkened even further to an almost black.

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And then something flickered. A spark. At its origins, a question was thrown into the fuel and the inferno hadn’t decided how it wanted to react.

His anger and mania. Sections of it drifted toward Ozzy and Barren. That didn’t stand. Ava and Tyris? He wouldn’t let it near them. Nonesthic? The void that resided inside of him. It let him devour souls and find the path for the lost ones. That was baseless. It didn’t pick its targets, and it didn’t corrupt Kenan. No. There was only one viable option that attracted heat. It was himself

Something shifted. Noctis pushed himself to his feet and yelled. Pain erupted along with torrents of fire. Destruction and Death. A switch flipped and all of the inferno popped to a blinding white. His mind drifted off, Kenan anchored his strength to it and forced it back. He wouldn’t allow himself the pleasure.

As fast as the bleached heat came, it was replaced with the void. His mana was wasted and the flame wasn’t even an ember. Kenan deflated and the previous roaring energy in his body was dulled all the way down to a solemn ache. Not even the coldness of Nonesthic helped. Tears formed and fell, but were devoured by the endless black into nothing.

There was a ban on sound. Only left by the punishment of an inferno. Slow and steady steps broke the awkward stillness. Kenan felt Nonesthic. It did not reject the alien. Not that he could do anything if it did. The depth of his sadness dipped to the point he was almost catatonic.

A weak dam was made from curiosity and his mind started to stitch itself back together. Then the stability of stupefaction was toppled as an unfamiliar man sat beside Kenan. His mind shook, it reared survival instinct in the warning of death. Yet something about this person was beyond it. Noctis felt the slaughter and the passing of life, an aura of murder that was so dense it betrayed itself in a single mote of life. Kenan didn't, couldn't look at him. He did not want to risk the thin veil around his mind.

“He will never feel the embrace of Chauntea.” His voice was rough. Aged. The sentence was simple and as ruthless as it was true. “His soul, it's stitched to you. Others you absorbed. But what he and your mother did. They expanded it.”

Noctis’ tears didn’t abate, but his lungs did manage to capture a breath. And from what he gathered he tunneled into a question. “That means?”

“When you absorb a soul, you take the efficacy of the life’s journey. Your parents joined yours.”

“What? I..” He breathed out. It was like a long sigh and he shivered while he let it go. “I don’t know what your saying.”

“Tyris will feel the earth through your feet. Ava can watch her daughter grow through your eyes. All that they were, was stripped away. Given to you. But, somewhere in the chaos of you. Parts remain.”

“Wait. Does that mean…”

“Silence that child. Not only do you disrespect what they have done for you but that excitement is fruitless. It is the mortem's burden.”

“Then…” Noctis said the word but didn’t know where to take it. “Will it end?”

The man took a deep breath. “Nothing is set. Everything changes. Cause and effects are ruled by chaos.” A pause. Thought. “But some things are to be observed. The end. It will come and claim it all. You and your sorrow.

“But not yet. Your path wasn’t chosen, it was thrust on you. Yet you had the chance to step down and now you have clung to it. Claimed it. Stop thinking, let go of that emotion, and take the step. Reach. Kenan Noctis. Reach.”

As the last word was said, it was faint and far. Kenan looked. The man, whomever he was, left. In his wake was an absence of nothing. The void of void.