“Focus, Leo!” Yissle shouted, yanking the dazed boy by the shoulders to keep him away from the shadows.
Whatever this creature was, they couldn’t afford to get caught up in its web. Surely it had to have some sort of weakness, some sort of physical form to rend, but if there was such a simple solution, it did not present itself, which meant he’d have to be more clever.
At the center of the Academy existed a secret room containing a magical core layered with defensive wards of every kind. It hollowed the grounds in their entirety, banishing and keeping away monsters from the Academy. Under no circumstance was it meant to shut down, nor did anyone have the authority or capability other than him and Era, but the means didn’t matter at the moment. If something like this was able to enter the premises, whatever it was, someone must’ve shut the core off. It was the only explanation, which meant the only solution was manually restarting it.
Yissle picked Leo up by collar, bounding his way through the darkness to get to the building’s center, “We need to get to the Academy’s core. Pull yourself together, Leo!”
But Leo was too far gone. He could hear the cries of the little girl screaming out in pain, tears disappearing beneath the waves of undulating blackness coating the floor, walls, and ceiling. Everytime he tried to speak, his voice died far back in his throat, nothing but a slight moan escaping his quivering lips, his face twisted with grief, anger, confusion, and gods know how many other emotions tearing through his soul as Yissle ran.
“What’s happening-”
“Where are you-”
“Please, I’m sc-”
“Don’t leave me-”
“Why is it so dark-”
All around them, students staggered through the darkness, shadows bursting from their every orifice. They shambled about mindlessly, mumbling their confusion, agony, sorrow, almost as if they were only half possessed. What kind of magic was this? Were they even still alive? Who turned off the core? Was this an enemy attack? Was this by chance?
Question after question burrowed their way through Yissle’s conscious, distracting his mind at a time when he needed focus most. The student’s weren’t just sitting there passively. They leapt forward at Yissle and Leo as they passed, desperately reaching out with everything they had to grab either one of them. It took everything Yissle had to weave his way through the massive crowds, forming stairs and platforms from the stone of the Academy’s structure to aid him, jumping from wall to ceiling, to platform, and beyond.
“Leo, I need more light! I can’t see where we’re going!” Yissle cried again, Leo offering no response.
It didn’t seem like the boy was…why did his hand feel so light? Yissle’s head whipped back, and where once the tall red haired boy had been gripped, nothing remained. Yissle clutched onto nothing but air.
What happened? His grip never loosened, and he was certain he would’ve felt if a student had managed to grab one of them. Shit, Leo wasn’t in the mental state to survive alone in this maelstrom. Yissle needed to find him, and quickly.
Yissle skidded to a halt, eyes desperately searching the unnatural darkness as he tried to recount the steps he took to get there. But just as he was ready to double back, the scene shifted.
No longer did Yissle stand amidst the stone of the Academy, no longer did he wade through shin high dark waste. Now, he hung amidst the stale air of a dimly lit dungeon, arms shackled above his head by impossibly thick steel chains.
No…no no no no NO NO NO NO NO
“Ah good, you’re awake. I was really hoping you’d be conscious enough to feel this.”
Before him, garbed in his usual flowing robes of red, stood the Collector wearing a mask of human flesh with the mouth stretched into a wicked smile far wider than it should ever go. He loosely held a sharp goldenrod with a glowing blue tip, levying it towards Yissle’s helpless form.
He stepped forward, “From this day forth, you will serve me as a puppet, do exactly as I say, and forever more remain my property. I know you wish for death, boy, I’ve heard those wretched thoughts which ill your mind, but you will love life soon, you will love me…because I demand it.”
He stopped in front of Yissle, savoring the sacred moment, delighting in the glare of pure hatred Yissle looked at him with. Then, he slammed the rod into Yissle’s chest, and just like so many years before, Yissle felt the tip of the rod dislodge in his chest, burrowing deep into his core, his being. And instantly, the hatred faded, his will subsided, and love bubbled painfully to the surface.
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The Collector dislodged the rod, casting it to the side as if it was worth nothing more than a handful of dirt. From his belt, he grabbed a jewel encrusted dagger, plunging it into Yissle’s stomach, blinding, boiling mercury raging its way through every little blood vessel in Yissle’s body–agony nearly blinding–unimaginable, the kind that makes a man beg for death.
“Speak, tell me your will.”
“...”
The Collector twisted the dagger, “S. P. E. A. K.”
“...”
The Collector withdrew the dagger, thrusting it into Yissle’s leg, his arm, his neck, over and over and over again, “SPEAK, BOY! YOU THINK YOURSELF GREATER!? WHO DO YOU SERVE!? WHO OWNS YOU!?!?”
Yissle could feel his skin peeling away from himself, his muscles seizing at the sudden shock. He could feel the sting of the cold air pressing against his fragile flesh, a thousand winter airs all pressed into one. He could feel the shame, the failure, the desire to cry, without the ducts to do so, and the shadows knew this. They crept ever in, slipping their way around his legs and up his torso, seeking the ultimate prize once they thought him sufficiently broken.
Yissle’s life was one marred with disgrace. He wanted nothing more to help his family, to carve a better future for them by any means possible, and what did he get? Torment. Agony. Torture. How many years did he spend locked up in that thing’s playhouse? How many years did he serve at that thing’s toy?
“How many years did I suffer just to be brought back by a writhing little worm?”
From Yissle’s shoulder, and arm burst out, physical fingers which gripped around the black neck of a creature that wasn’t there, not in the vision, anyway. The false world melted away before Yissle’s eyes, replaced with reality he knew to be true.
Yissle’s right arm extended backwards, finger’s squeezing the life from the shadowy entity come to claim his soul. Slowly, he turned his head, eyes wild with a rage he hadn’t felt in many, many years. In his hand, a unique humanoid figure made from the shadows surrounding them squirmed, its black eyes wide with fear and shock. Did it truly believe he would just sit there and allow himself to suffer again?
“I’m going to kill you.”
Yissle squeezed, attempting to snap the figure's neck in one swift motion, but the moment he did, its form dissolved like water, spilling over his arm and back into the shadows coating the ground
“My, oh my, you lot are just so full of surprises aren’t you?”
The voice echoed all around him, emanating from the mouths of students standing somewhere beyond his field of vision, some of which he even recognized. Of course, he should’ve guessed. This thing had no physical form, or at least not an easily accessible one. The entirety of the darkness was its body, meaning to kill it, they’d have to erase the entirety of its form simultaneously.
“Especially you Boulregaurds,” the chorus continued, Yissle helpless to stop it. “Oh, you should’ve seen the fight that Trenton boy put up. It was like the harder I pressed, the more he resisted. With a history like his, I thought I was certain to break him, show him all those innocent people he tore apart, all the friends he watched helplessly reduced to puddles before him, each and every agonizing death he experienced, but it only redoubled his resolve with every vision. And you, I thought for certain you’d fall to madness! But I couldn’t even begin to crack your shell. To say I’m beyond impressed would be an understatement. In all my millenia, only one other man has managed to shirk my influence through pure force of will, that old elven king. What was his name again…something with a W…ah, but I digress. Your resistance is meaningless. I exist beyond time, beyond life, beyond death. You can not kill me–I am eternal. If I can’t break your mind, then I’ll just have to break your body. You’ll fall in time, just like everyone else.”
Of course Trenton resisted. Even back when they were just little children, his mettle was something of legend. It didn’t matter how many nights they went to bed hungry, by day break he’d always be gone, prowling the streets for the next opportunity. It didn’t matter how badly the guards whipped him, strapping him to the highest peak of the gallows just to let him hang, bloody and broken, his focus never once faltered, eyes always set on what was next. It didn’t matter how much the world pushed him down, he always, always, sprung back up. And he would be damned if he went down without a fight.
Trenton might not be Yissle’s blood sibling, but in his heart, Yissle always considered Trenton his brother. And even if Yissle was older, he couldn’t help but look up to Trenton. When times got rough, when the world felt like it was caving in, he was there, an unwavering pillar to lean on.
“Yissle…what is…this…?”
Oluerut stumbled from the darkness, overtaken, just like everyone else.
“I didn’t mean to…”
“...helpless…”
“I’m so sorry…”
“Please…spare them…”
One by one, each of the department heads, except Y’yorilye, stepped forth, driven by the impulses of the shadows. Good, she must not have been able to make it back yet. With any luck, she’d take the whole night. But as for the others, they looked tortured, shaking limbs stretched beyond their usual limitations, twisted in ways unnatural and certainly agonizing. Suffering, they were suffering, his friends and what little family he had left.
“It took so long to reclaim this body, this life. I refuse to lose it again,” Yissle spoke aloud, resolute, drawing from the depths of his core a colossal multicolored greatblade and laying it over his shoulder with a single hand.