Ellian's Perspective

Ellian couldn't do it. She wouldn't.

She had to.

She would rather swallow molten glass. Rather bathe in acid.

She had to.

Ellian made for the door of her studio apartment, the walls strewn with calculations and hieroglyphs. The closer she got to the door the worse her nausea became, as if her body was warding her against what was to come.

"Just forget. Move on. She's basically dead anyway." Her demons told her.

She knew better. That if she left without seeing her mother once more, she would regret it for the rest of her life. She turned the doorknob.

---

Ellian sighed. Before her was Firgrove Sanitorium; a place that was the source of so many of her nightmares in her youth. She hadn't been here in half a decade, and her own memories of the place had twisted it into something unrecognisable.

She entered, walking past several medical professionals in white coats. In her nightmares they always seemed to sneer at her, but now in their eyes all she could see was sympathy.

"I-I'm here to see Cypria S-Starborne." She stammered out to the clerk at the front desk.

"Your name?" The clerk asked.

"Ellian.. It might list me as Ellian Starborne." She mumbled the last part. The name Starborne was an inside joke she shared with her mother, the city required a family name, and they had simply chosen it because they liked how it sounded.

She hadn't called herself Ellian Starborne for a long time.

The clerk winced perceptibly.

"You can see her, but I'm afraid we don't allow visitors to talk to her anymore. Three psychiatrists had to take mental health leave after trying to help her."

He sighed, "I'll call someone down to escort you."

Ellian waited an agonising five minutes for her escort to arrive, an extremely tired looking young man that under different circumstances might have tried to hit on her.

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Fortunately he seemed to have been working there long enough to understand that a psychiatric ward wasn't the best place to pick up women.

"Come with me." He monotoned.

They walked past rows and rows of identical white rooms, occupied by dribbling ghouls of people, destined never to feel the light of day upon their skin.

At the end of the corridor stood her room. The room where her mother had spent the last decade of her life, and the room where she would spend the rest of it.

Inside was the woman who used to be Cypria Starborne, seated in a wheelchair. She looked more like an older sister to Ellian than a mother; the well of Void inside her keeping her body hale, if not her mind.

Unlike any of the other patients Cypria wasn't restrained by cuffs or jackets, it was widely acknowledged that if she wanted to leave, she simply would, and no mundane measures would stop her.

For whatever reason she chose not to; for ten years Ellian's mother had done nothing but stare directly at a distant point in space with a morose expression. Very occasionally she would offer a single sentence of advice or wisdom, these remarks would often have a profound effect on whoever heard them.

A scientist became a priest.

A cleaner discovered a passion for astrophysics.

One psychiatrist stabbed himself through the chest with a screwdriver, upon searching his house the civil forces found evidence that he had been abusing patients for years.

Despite this her mother hadn't spoken a single word to her.

She gritted her teeth as she took a last look at the woman she loved more than anything.

"I'm ready to go."

Chiros' Perspective

Chiros swung his blade at the imaginary heretic at a speed invisible to a human eye.

Millions shared his dream; to become pioneers and descend the manifold. Millions of hopefuls that would be crushed under the engine of entropy and chaos.

He was better than any of them.

He was from one of the greatest families in the inner folds. He had the best techniques, he trained longer, he was tougher.

And it wasn't nearly good enough.

He wouldn't tell Avakian, but he was afraid. Chiros wasn't ashamed of his fear, but the boy needed someone unbreakable, someone who wouldn't be moved an inch by the engine of chaos.

He was afraid he couldn't be that person.

Chiros bisected another imaginary infidel with increased fervour, trying desperately to activate something he knew was there, but struggled to find.

He upped the number of imaginary enemies he was fighting. Imagined bullets and arrows and spellfire hailing down upon him. He strained his mind to try and keep up with everything that was happening, but it wasn't enough.

He simply didn't have enough...

Time.

It clicked. Something changed within Chiros' mind. Time expanded, multiplying a single second into far longer. He could feel the eddy currents in the air striking his skin, feel his heart beating far slower than usual.

He smiled briefly, maybe it wasn't so hopeless after all.