For a moment, Lily had thought that the black rain would not have hurt her much, that perhaps it was just an elaborate trick of the mind to scare her. Instead, she soon found out how foolish this psychobabble she had conjured was.
First, the black rain fell on her head with the impetus of molten metal droplets, immediately burning through the most superficial layers of her skin. She screamed as her scalp quickly corroded, but then the ‘water’ touched her face, her arms, and the rest of her body.
That’s when Lily realized she had never known pain before that day.
Each drop of rain that touched Lily’s skin seemed to seep into her, burning and dissolving, leaving behind a pale shadow of her former self. She could feel it inching deeper, a voracious force wanting to consume her.
Her once radiant eyes were clouded with pain now, her pupils dilated in sheer agony. Parts of her hair disintegrated, revealing raw patches of scarred flesh beneath. Her clothes clung wetly onto her, drenched in that malevolent black liquid that was also eating away at them. In places, it seemed her very bones might be exposed, her skin getting eaten away to such an extent.
Yet amidst the pain, Lily’s focus was taken back to the dark apparition hovering before her. Its voice seemed to echo in her mind, a twisted lullaby amidst the cacophony of torment.
"Embrace it," it whispered a voice, silken and cajoling. "This is who you are. This is your truth."
Above the figure, a symbol manifested – two serpents coiling around a cross, all kept within a circle. The snakes’ scales shimmered in shades of midnight blue and deep purple, and the cross glinted enticingly as if made of gold. The figure reached out, offering the symbol to her.
"Take it. Accept yourself."
But just as Lily's fingers almost grazed the cross, a strange sensation washed over her. Time itself seemed to slow, the raindrops hovering mid-air, the very molecules of the atmosphere growing sluggish. Lily's eyes, despite the torment she was under, were drawn irresistibly to the peak of the mountain. Above, a glowing ouroboros – a snake eating its own tail – illuminated the darkened sky. Its light pierced through the rain, creating a beacon in the otherwise bleak environment.
Lily felt a magnetic pull toward it, a deep-rooted sense of purpose and belonging. She wanted to reach out to it, to become one with it. But the dark figure was insistent, its voice growing desperate.
"Look at me, Lily!" it cried. "It’s you. I am you!"
The ethereal ouroboros above seemed to pulse with energy, calling out to her. With every ounce of strength left in her disintegrating body, Lily stretched out her hand. She didn’t know if she was reaching for salvation or further torment, but she felt a connection, a link to something far greater than herself.
As darkness closed in on her, her senses dimming and her awareness of the world fading, Lily felt a sudden jolt, like the sensation of being yanked out of deep water and into the air.
When she opened her eyes, she was no longer on the treacherous mountainside. Instead, she found herself in a vast expanse, the sky painted with hues of gold and azure. Beneath her feet, there was water, barely ten centimeters deep. The water extended beyond what her eyes could see.
The pain, the corrosion, the black rain – they were all gone. Her body was whole once more.
She felt a sting in her palms, however, and she looked to find them sizzling slightly. On each hand, a symbol was carved in blood: the serpent entwined around the chalice and a circle with a cross within, intertwined by two serpents.
What is this? Where am I?
Before she knew it, the symbols were gone.
However, a familiar energy pulsed below her feet, and she felt the same aura the ouroboros had emanated moments before washing over her from below. That’s when she narrowed her eyes and saw that below her feet; there seemed to be yet another layer of much deeper, black water instead of sand or solid earth.
Stolen story; please report.
She didn’t know exactly what went over her, but she willed her feet to sink in, and so they did. Slowly, she submerged into the black abyss beneath. The gentle azure waters above offered a stark contrast to the inky void she was entering. It was cold, eerily silent, and seemingly infinite.
The darkness enveloped her, and weightlessness took over as if gravity held no meaning there. For what felt like hours or perhaps mere seconds, Lily floated aimlessly in this nothingness, with no sense of direction or purpose.
Then, far in the distance, a faint, shimmering light began to pierce the blackness. It was the same radiant glow from before, the ouroboros. Guided by the light, she swam toward it. As she approached, she found a massive white seashell with a huge black pearl in it.
She blinked, and the ouroboros was gone again, leaving her alone with the pearl.
For a moment, it was as if she could hear her father’s voice across this vast darkness, “find yourself. Your true self. Find the Aurora, who has been covered by the gunk of her instincts. Find who you are.”
Within the pearl, Lily saw a version of herself. She remembered all the happy moments that she had treasured in her life, and, surprisingly enough, they weren’t the things she had previously thought she enjoyed.
There was no school. No family.
She remembered seeing her favorite fighter with his massive white fur coat and hugging him for a picture. She remembered browsing medical articles in her free time and taking some quizzes meant for medical students dealing with their entrance test. But most of all, she remembered wanting to just follow her heart—to carve her own path.
To her dismay, there was no student of hers. Not even the ones she had seen herself in. Terrified, she realized she had forgotten the name of the last student she had ever seen, the girl who needed help with the science project.
I can’t remember her name, Lily thought, feeling some tears flowing from her eyes.
A gentler voice streamed around her, not her father’s, though.
"It's not about realizing a specific dream. Those things that you didn’t choose for yourself are slowly erased by fate—at times, we die before realizing how well our true self has already carved and communicated the best path for us.”
The voice paused, and Lily suddenly felt like she had just recognized it.
Hadrian?!
She couldn’t speak underwater.
“Even when those choices lead us to what’s forbidden.”
Now, everything had changed.
Instantly, the previously warm water became hostile. A biting cold, almost paralyzing, enveloped her. It felt like thousands of icy needles pricking her skin, trying to force her out and reject her intrusion. To make it even scarier, it felt like it all came from the black pearl, the same black pearl that had shown her the happiest moments of her life. She struggled, her instincts screaming at her to retract and retreat from the freezing grasp of the abyss and the shiny object. But amidst the panic, a thought anchored her: the best path is in front of me, not behind me.
With newfound determination, Lily ceased her resistance against the numbing cold and chose to embrace it instead. She imagined wrapping herself into the waters, letting them seep into her pores, entwining with her very being. Slowly, a warmth began to radiate from her core, fending off the once-overpowering cold.
As she descended closer to the pearl, the hostile grip of the waters began to relent. The chaos of the storm above became a muted echo. Surrounding her was a profound silence, broken only by the rhythm of her own heartbeat. In this newfound calm, she sensed something—a pulsating energy, a life force, perhaps the very essence of her problems.
She was suddenly reminded that she had extremities, even in this weird inner world, as her feet touched the bottom of the ocean. Lily opened her eyes and found that the darkness had receded, leaving behind limpid waters.
For a second, she got excited.
Is this where my Light Magic went?
But as she looked around wildly, there was nothing like that. There was only the black pearl, still nestled inside the white seashell.
The pearl gleamed with an otherworldly luminescence, casting a soft glow through the water around it.
Hesitantly, Lily reached out, her fingers inching closer to the pearl. As she touched it, an immediate surge of energy coursed through her.
I am you. I am not someone else. I am just you.
Listen to me.
Not everything is Light.
Inside you, inside everyone, there’s more.
You can’t reject a part of you unless you want to be mutilated.
...
[*Ding!* Adjunct Skill – Seven Worlds of the Soul Beginner Stage → Master Stage!]
[*Ding!* Adjunct Skill – Seven Worlds of the Soul {Master} hasn’t been paired with an equally Master Stage Skill!]
[*Ding!* Skill – Seven Worlds of the Soul locked to Beginner Stage, Level 100!]
Then came the notification she had been awaiting until this moment.
[*Ding!* Skill - Meditation level 1!]
Together with that, she heard something else from the pearl. And it completely stunned her.
Lily, I am you.
The real you.
I am Death.
[*Ding!* Skill – Death Magic level 1!]