In some sick and twisted way, the pain was a good thing.

It was twofold, by which it spoke to his own self-preservation and served as a scathing reminder. To go back now was dangerous at best and suicidal at worst. They’d already implied the latter in passing. Even being so near to the steps was pushing it, and he looked over his shoulder regularly to verify his isolation. It was needed, for what calculated pleas would have to leave his lips. He’d get one shot. He knew them well enough for that. They knew him well enough for that.

Josiah brushed his fingertips against his cheek. It still throbbed, warm to the touch and every bit as horrifically tender. It was nothing compared to what she was going through, surely. He could always ask for another strike to match, if that got him any closer to being her mirror.

It really had been his idea. That was, by no means, a lie. So, too, was his one directive in the Velpyre Church still more than applicable. His safety was a concern, granted, for how eviction would leave him formally homeless in the dark. The passport would do him little good, and he’d simply be much the same with only sunlight to show for it. Even so, he was--for now--somewhat irrelevant. He was disposable. She wasn’t.

If he strained, if he pressed himself flat against the doors, he could perhaps make out her screams. He hadn’t yet tried, nor did he particularly want to. He still hadn’t completely stopped shaking. Once more did Josiah touch the same wound. It was definitely swelling, and he pushed the slightest bit harder. It was still far from what Selena felt at this very moment.

He’d more or less lost track of how long he’d been standing perfectly still, helpless to do more than glare down the doors to the church and cycle through every possible excuse he could conjure. Josiah strung them together like feeble stitches, by which his words would surely be slashed to shreds. His eyes drifted high, clinging to the dull stained artistry sprawled along the front walls. In the earliest hours, the humble leftovers of sunshine hadn’t yet seen fit to pity him from above. So, too, was the world below equally dim, and so, too, did not a drop of natural light spill onto the iridescent glasswork. It was fitting.

He’d respected it, at some point. He’d thought to throw rocks at it, once, in the hopes it might shatter with such severity that the imagery would rain upon every step. It was tempting to do so again. It was tempting to burn the entire place to the ground. He’d planned that out long ago.

Josiah inhaled. He exhaled. He was still shaking, balled fists at his sides and anger oozing where he knew there should’ve been tears. To rip his eyes from the church was miserable, and to turn his back on it was even more so. It left nowhere. It left nothing.

He stuffed his hands into his pockets, not daring to close his eyes as he embraced the uphill climb. That, too, was tempting, and it would’ve left him with only his racing thoughts for company. It was exceedingly dangerous, for how easily it could’ve gotten him assaulted. To be fair, he could find plenty of that if he simply turned around. He hadn’t bothered to leave the walls of the church in a considerable amount of time, and each foray into the Cursed City at large felt raw. If he radiated enough raw ire, perhaps they’d leave him alone. If the prying eyes that already poked at him captured his anxiety, he’d simply turn his gaze to steel. They weren’t the clergy. He’d already seen enough.

Every step away was miserable. The temptation to sprint in reverse, to backpedal and plead and fall to his knees on behalf of the acolyte, was borderline irresistible. For all she’d done, this was new territory. There was a morbid part of Josiah that drew lines between sins and punishments, and yet there was no precedent for a failed escape. He struggled not to entertain the thought of what was left to take. Selena had nothing left to give that hadn’t already been stolen once.

He focused on the dull aching in his face, multifaceted and widespread as it was. He still tasted blood, a bit. If he stopped clenching his teeth so hard, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so severely. It was more of a motivator than a deterrent. Still, even now, there was no way that he matched with Selena.

He thought to keep his head down, and yet settled on more or less not caring. What befell him, befell him. He was fairly certain at least two people had tried to claim his attention thus far, and he’d already decided to sting the next person who tried with what venom his pupils could hold. Josiah mouthed every practiced word silently, dissecting and rearranging carefully-spliced sentiments in the darkness. It was his idea. He’d pressured her. He’d forced her. He’d threatened her, maybe. For what they knew of Selena, he strongly doubted they’d believe several of those.

They needed him, then. He could do what they couldn’t. He had done what they couldn’t. It was his one weapon, and they were powerless to refute it. He could hold it high above their heads and forever be correct. Without him, they’d struggle. Without him, there would be no promised song. He was indispensable. Even if he was disposable, it would put them right back where they started with her. It would be the clergy’s loss.

Josiah’s blood was burning. It was enough to make him dizzy, almost. Either he took the fall or he made a threat. He couldn’t do both. The thought of failure, in both instances, was enough to make him nauseous. He’d already failed Selena enough. She couldn’t be alone. He wanted to scream. Something beat him to it.

He thought he’d hallucinated it, at first, distant as it was. The second time was definitely legitimate. It still wasn’t enough to break his stride, although he knew ignoring it was surely cruel. For what was to pass so often beyond the walls of the church, it was one of the only benefits of his false sanctuary. Were he a better person, maybe he’d help. As it stood, he could hardly help the one person who mattered. He didn’t so much as turn his head.

The third time, by comparison, was much too loud. It was enough for him to jolt, somewhat, and he lamented the prospect of being caught off guard in the open. He’d heard every scream imaginable through walls both thick and thin. He’d pounded on chapel doors and pleaded for mercy on behalf of an acolyte so aflame, rewarded only with cries and shrieks ever louder. This was new. This was piercing, eternal. It was enough to make him stagger, at least for a moment. His darting eyes chased nothing before him, and he threw them behind instead.

To be fair, it was dark. It was dark enough that he blamed the absent church on a trick of the light, or at least a failure of his eyesight. He’d hit his head earlier. It made enough sense, and he blinked heavily several times over. Still, the church was all but gone. Still, he had his screeching, steadily louder and diving into the depths of his soul. There’d been air, once. Now, there was violet. Again, he blinked, and again, it was still there. There was more of it, maybe, doubling and tripling in quantity with each passing second. Josiah froze perfectly in place, slowly withdrawing trembling hands from his pockets. He squinted, for what little luminescence the pitiful streetlamps gave him to work with.

If he could afford the tiniest glance upwards, he’d still steal no tumbling droplets of sunrise. It was a deeper darkness than he was keen to in the Cursed City, and the distantly-broiling cloud was an immediate suspect. Josiah briefly suspected something was burning, and yet all that was alight in the flame was the haphazardly-cobbled radiance speckled along the roadside. The smoke, then, was utterly inexplicable, and he watched with mild horror as the writhing fog billowed high and cleared every roof.

It ambled aloft enough to kiss the ceiling, flat and sprawling along the stone boundary between the blossom above and the flame below. Something was still screaming, painfully loud and more than enough to wrack him with biting chills. He took one step backwards. It came forwards, and his heart threatened to stop.

Josiah’s eyes snapped to his left and right accordingly, chasing strangers he’d fought to escape the attention of mere moments before. Of those who faced the same swirling smoke, unfathomably towering as it was, not one flinched. Not one screamed a true, genuine scream. In the wake of the piercing and intolerable screeching that drowned his eardrums, some at least raised uncomfortable hands to aching heads. Several faces fell, just barely strained in a way indiscernible. It was the closest he got to finding anything even slightly reminiscent of acknowledgement. He felt sick.

Again, he stole one step backwards. Again did the writhing wall of violet move forward in the slightest, billowing and gushing as it swallowed the sloping road into artificial darkness. He reversed exactly once more, and no longer was it slow.

Where once was a cloud now came the sky, explosive and swelling. Screeching smoke scattered far, rushing in every direction as the Cursed City was engulfed in its foggy embrace. Fanning and pushing, true boundaries were irrelevant, and Velpyre may as well have been a humble box filled with pouring violet. If he looked to the furthest reaches of the left, he found only smoke. If he looked to the furthest fringes of the right, Josiah only found more of the same. The sky became the sea, and the sea crashed heavily to the streets below with only sickening screams of its own. It surged much the same, fast and horrific.

For at least a moment, he was powerless to do little but stare. Where the world filled with violet, his eyes filled with the same. He left room for terror. He left room for panic. There’d been oxygen in the air, once, and yet now came pressure that crushed his lungs. He fought to catch breaths he’d already lost, and still found nothing to show for it. The longer he stared, the closer it came. It was unbelievable, the threshold of surreal long since passed. Even as it screamed, he couldn’t bring himself to do the same.

Josiah turned sharply on his heel, and he refused to surrender his terrified gaze to the sea.

He ran.

It was instinctive. It was all he could do, and his body moved before his mind could catch up. He hadn’t had time to gauge the gap, if one existed. He didn’t have time to do so now, and he could’ve sworn the screeching was getting louder. He could feel the impact of every incredibly heavy footstep as it beat upon the cobblestone below, a sharp shock he kept to himself where the sound was lost. Even of those he passed who turned their heads, their eyes fell only to his fleeing panic. Not one followed, nor did one call out in his wake. Of some, he saw yet more hands rise feebly to blighted ears. It was never enough to spur them into motion, and every last one was rooted firmly in place.

There was at least one brief moment where he truly believed he was going insane, alone as he was in his sprint. It was never enough to still him. He could argue with one sense at a time, perhaps, and yet all five in tandem was a stretch. If he couldn’t trust in what he saw, he could trust in what he heard. If not that, then he’d trust in what he felt, brutally crushing as the atmosphere slowly became. His lungs threatened to burst long before he’d hit the apex of his sprint, and it left every breath far more shallow than he would’ve liked.

Josiah couldn’t summon the strength to turn his head left nor right, whether relative to expending energy or finding what he prayed not to see. What glances he’d already stolen of it had been expansive and all-encompassing, a city enveloped in a black hole far below the earth. He tried to unravel it, let alone to process it at all. Each time, he failed, and self-preservation won out above all else. There was nothing left but to run, his heart long since drained of blood and pumping solely fire in its place. It wasn’t a conscious thought, and he didn’t stop to piece together the consequences of stalling. He had suspicions. They were more than enough.

He could hear it. It was most definitely there, although he wasn’t certain for how long it would pursue. To not have the capacity to turn was agonizing, for what precious distance it would’ve stolen from him. Was there distance at all? How close was it? Could he turn and be free? Would he turn and be dead? To know so little in the dark was its own Hell.

Josiah could hear his own breaths, at least, desperate and gasping with every frantic step. He could hear what blood rushed through his ears, somewhat louder than the screeching. There was ringing, a bit, and it was somewhat painful. His stomach hurt. His head hurt, and not from the prior impact alone. His suffering was not born of physical pain, by which the Velpyre clergy could never hope to seize him with such terror--try as they might, and for as near as they’d come several times over.

Selena was still back there.

What blood had been set ablaze by fear alone ran cold, frozen by the thought of another flame entirely. Even now, she was bound to the church, perhaps physically as much as symbolically. For all who were content to simply stand and ignore, he liked to imagine she would’ve seen it. It didn’t change the fact that she couldn’t run. Maybe she couldn’t breathe, either. Maybe she was just as sick and just as scared. Maybe she felt alone, and maybe it was the one thing he wasn’t supposed to be doing. To turn around would kill him. It was slowly becoming a settling belief, unsubstantiated as it was.

Josiah couldn’t stop. It was a reflex. He was no longer conscious that he was running at all.

It was louder. He still couldn’t turn--or, if he could, he very much feared doing so. If she was still in the church, he could do nothing for her right now. He’d go back, certainly, without question. He could do little to help her if he was dead. It was one motivator, although it stung his heart as an excuse more than anything. Part of him wanted to stop. Part of him wanted to screech to a halt in the middle of the road. Part of him wanted to gather what courage his trembling hands could hold and dive into the screeching sea that chased him down. He’d lost track of how long he’d been running. If he went backwards at the same pace, how long would it take him to reach the church? Would he have to hold his breath? Was it poisonous? And if he made it there, if he had the acolyte in hand, what was then to be done?

As it was, he was already suffocating. He already had so little breath to hold. His breaths were ever more shallow, and slowing was no longer his sole fear. Josiah was fueled by dread alone, a terror burned into his heart and soul unlike any he’d ever conceived of. He’d entertained the idea of death before. It wasn’t particularly pleasant, granted, and he was in no general hurry to die. Still, of every method of dying he’d ever mentally processed, he’d never settled on one so utterly petrifying. Running was futile, maybe. It was all he had. He did it anyway, his thoughts as blank as they were racing.

Bang.

It was on his left, metallic and violent. He didn’t have time to inspect it visually, nor to cling to it audibly. Glass shattered, somewhere, and it was a sound equally fleeting. At his back was a cacophony of scattered noises, mundane and destructive speckled amongst the most unnatural screeching he’d ever heard. They weren’t constant. Still, when they came, they did so loudly with bang after bang.

Some were aloft. Some weren’t. He could swear at least one was directly over his head, and still he couldn’t find the drive to look up. He doubted he could’ve tilted his head back that far. It was amazing he was still moving, immense as the pressure was. Were he to fall still, it was perhaps gravity that would do him in, crumpled like paper and crushed into dust. It was another reason to run.

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He had little aim, in truth. His logic was instinctive, much the same as his movements. There was nowhere to go but up, and it was all Josiah had to work with. What lay beyond that was irrelevant. What consequences that came with, mortal as they were, were irrelevant. The Velrose Acolyte was one thousand times more preferable to this. The blossom had oxygen. That alone was enough. It was the second time today he’d had to make a break for the exact same place, and yet his rationale differed wildly. The irony would’ve made him laugh, in a time of peace. That time was not now, and he could hardly think as it was.

He clung to the main road, pressing uphill with all he had. Ascending at such a speed was a nightmare, borderline impossible to maintain steadily. Of all other pains, he was fine. He could tolerate them. Of his legs alone, he was horrified. The moment he felt himself faltering, the lightheadedness came second.

Adrenaline was a short-term solution, and he’d leaned on it for far longer than that. Even now, he was holding fast to it with everything he had, a lifeline in a dark place. His calves were burning, and his body was following suit. He was straining. The oxygen flow was of absolutely no help, and the universe railed against him with every step. He wanted to scream. He didn’t have the luxury.

He knew he wasn’t supposed to, and it was solely on impulse that he did it anyway. Josiah threw his gaze over his shoulder.

There was no Velpyre. In its place was violet alone.

There had been a city at his back, once. The very atmosphere was stained by smoke alone, forever tinted agonizingly dark. Everywhere his eyes could’ve touched was marred by screeching smog, a surging ocean that had long since surpassed a tidal wave. It was Josiah who was the outlier, unblemished air that was the exception. At his front, at least, he had streetlamps. They weren’t perfect, and they only offered so much. Behind, he had nothing, swallowed as all had been. He stared into absolute darkness, and absolute darkness stared back. Absolute darkness screamed at him, and Josiah did the same in his heart. There was no Velpyre. There was no world at all to be seen, overtaken only by blackened nothing. It was far, far too close.

Never, for even a second, did he stop running. He didn’t slow one single step, his sprinting as desperate as it was consistent. Still, still, in the face of clouded destruction that swallowed a city whole, no one moved. No one ran. No one screamed, nor panicked, nor cried. Where he’d dreaded touching it with every ounce of his soul, they drowned sooner than he could blink.

One moment, they were there. The next, they weren’t, devoured by raging violet in utter silence of their own. Josiah could hardly register their disappearances to begin with, unaware bystanders merging so seamlessly and rapidly with the tides of Hell. He thought to cry out to them, to warn them, to berate them for their inaction. It wouldn’t have mattered. He wouldn’t have had time for one single word to leave his lips.

His gap had been stolen. The distance had shortened. The ocean was at his ankles, and every wave lapped much too near to his back for his liking. It was the most disgusting chill he’d ever been shocked with in his life, and he doubted he’d ever come close to another--if he lived to experience more. It couldn’t have been more than three feet between himself and violet annihilation.

Josiah’s eyes snapped forward. He refused to look again. What panic had been forsaken by those around him, then, he offered up in their wake one thousand times stronger. He was afraid. He was terrified. If this was how he died, choking to death and crushed in the dark, then maybe--just maybe--he could outdo Selena’s pain, if even for a moment.

There was a part of him that thought to chide himself, lest his panic steal precious oxygen he could barely harbor. No amount of steadying his breaths was helping. No amount of reiterating a mental need for focus was helping. Running was all that was helping. To check again would be suicide, and he knew his steps were sure to falter from fear alone. It was a wasted effort, possibly. Everything hurt. His legs were weak, his entire body burning in the worst way.

He was screaming. He wasn’t supposed to be, and it was as much a reflex by now as running was. He caught it quickly enough, gritting his teeth in its place and swallowing what of his vocal panic he could stem. It wasn’t as though there was anyone left to call him out on it. If there was, there wouldn’t be for long.

This wasn’t how he wanted to die. Of all the ways Velpyre could’ve killed him, this was the one he’d least expected. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. This was inconceivable. This was Hell. This was the worst that Hell itself had to offer, and he was left to recount every sin he’d ever committed with each step. As to which of them had warranted such a punishment, he still hadn’t figured it out. He had no God left to pray to.

At the very least, he’d go out fighting. It would be his one comfort on the way down.

Either he was faster, or it was slower. At some point, one of those was true. Josiah was straining fervently as he sprinted, every muscle crying out in agony as his steps doubled and he laid waste to the incline. He’d never so much as attempted to run this quickly, and he doubted he could keep it up for long. He didn’t have a choice in the slightest. Josiah’s soul had long since left his body, and he was looking down on a boy running for his life from above. There was no room for any emotion but fear, as nice as it would’ve been to cheer himself on from up high. He couldn’t see the gap from there, if there was one. It would’ve been helpful.

The stairs were visible, by comparison, with wide and terrified eyes he did truly possess. How long he’d been running meant nothing. It was all he knew how to do anymore. It was all he’d ever be able to do again, surely. The guards were absent, although it made sense relative to previous Maestro-inflicted head trauma. His eyes flickered upwards. The border was sealed, the plated iron serrating the blossom from the flame unforgivingly. In that way, the compressed city below grew more so with every bang of straining metal and crushed debris.

Things were breaking. Not all of them were at his back. If he’d come this far forward, then so, too, had the smoky sea. The pressure was unfathomable. With each passing second, his most likely cause of death became snapping his neck. To be fair, his potential methods of lethality were taking turns.

The terror that seized him at the sight of the unmoving iron was enough to make his veins burst. Josiah’s eyes fell beside the staircase. He’d used the lever earlier in the day, granted. It had been heavier, more impeded by rust and wear. It had taken almost his full body weight to make it budge, and he’d felt every last bit of resistance underneath his straining touch. Something had given way eventually. He liked to imagine it would be easier the second time, having no longer languished uselessly forever. It would still leave him extremely vulnerable for several seconds.

He had no room for vulnerability. To be vulnerable was to die, and he hadn’t yet established exactly how much room he’d made for himself between his own skin and the black hole in his wake. He’d find out the hard way. It would be the first time he’d stop running in an eternity.

He’d pull it and run. There was no choice, nor would he have the chance to even verify that the entrance was opening at all. He didn’t have the luxury to remain idle for a moment. Even simply stopping for this long was a luxury itself. He couldn’t submit to staring, nor could he embrace rest and reprieve. He’d have one chance.

Josiah didn’t bother to pray. He caught himself screaming again. It took longer to stop it this time, and the way the world had started to spin wasn’t helping. He bolted sharply from the main road, throwing every ounce of adrenaline directly into his lower body. The gap was precious, and surrendering it meant death. He needed as much as he could get. Josiah gave his eyes to the lever alone, every streetlight behind him just barely enough to leave the sprinkles of corrosion sparkling against the ground. He’d almost cut his hand on it earlier. If he did so this time, he strongly doubted he’d feel it.

Josiah didn’t register actually pulling it. Again, he was disconnected, watching someone else strain and struggle to open the entrance as quickly as was possible. To his credit, frantic as he was, his laborious gasping and panting betrayed the physical strength he offered up. It was enough, and he caught the taut click that came with success. He’d only heard it a few times in his life collectively. He’d heard it today, he knew it was correct, and that was more than enough. He didn’t wait for iron to kiss stone, nor for the sounds of scraping metal to begin their endless echo down the steps. Above all else, Josiah didn’t dare cast his eyes behind him.

He nearly stumbled as he scrambled upright, staggering somewhat upon recapturing his footing. His muscles loathed him, and he loathed himself for pushing onwards. Every bang that followed in his wake sincerely left him wondering if he was going to explode. There was a morbid curiosity that came with wondering exactly what had been crushed so ruthlessly beneath the pressure of a sealed city, captured somewhere in the depths of the swirling sea churning so viciously behind. Clearly, the ceiling cracks were doing nothing. This was plenty to work with.

The moment he touched the steps, he was robbed of light in full. What streetlamps had been left behind, if he could hazard a guess, succumbed to darkness not meant for the Cursed City. The tiny, precious luminescence he’d begged for the entire sprint here was gone. Josiah was plunged into pitch-blackness, for a moment, with zero light for his horrified eyes to grasp. It didn’t stop him from running, invisible as the ascending stairs were.

He knew of the delay. It made for the worst several seconds of his entire life thus far, marred by complete and total darkness with only screeching to show for it. He’d trip, maybe, and tumbling down into Hell unseen would’ve been agonizing. Once more, he was screaming. This time, he’d earned it. He gave himself a moment before he bit his tongue.

The tiniest crack of light that finally prickled the steps was salvation from Heaven, spilling down into the dark and kissing his skin. It came with the natural screech of metal upon stone, contrasting sharply with screeching far more unnatural below. Every step took him further from the sound, and he wondered exactly how wide of a gap he’d managed to make. If he turned, he’d likely fall. It was enough of a deterrent to keep him from trying, even elevated as he now was.

With each passing second, the moving plate blessed him with just the slightest bit more luminescence, candlelight once so feeble now his only lifeline in a world with nothing else. If he had to claw his way through the cracks, he would. If it were to get stuck, right there, right now, he’d sooner tear his own skin apart than be left to die in the dark.

Every step brought him closer to the light. Every step took him further away from Hell. That was all that mattered. He ran. He’d never stop running. When it opened in full, flickering flames dusting the staircase of a different flame below, Josiah could see enough to steal every step two at a time. He could hardly feel his legs anymore, and yet he was still moving forward regardless. He could hardly feel anything anymore. He could hardly think straight.

As to where he’d go once he was out, he had no idea. This was the furthest ahead he’d thought, and his only continuing plan from here was to run. If it followed into the Blessed City, that was their problem. At the very least, the sky above was infinite. His wasn’t.

And when he burst into the light, it was the first time he’d been above in ages. He wasn’t alone. This time, for what she’d already given up, he’d do everything he could do to warn at least one person.

“Josiah?”

“Run!”

He couldn’t stop running. He couldn’t even slow down, and that was as frustrating as it was natural. It was behind him. It had followed. He could hear it coming, and he could hear the screeching flood devastate the world above just as relentlessly. He still feared looking, and he fought not to. When Octavia, too, was still, Josiah didn’t blame her. He’d had the same reaction, to be fair.

Josiah reached for her as he made for the steps, once more claiming them as quickly as was possible. He missed her arm. He went for her dress, and yet his fingers faltered as his skin solely brushed the material uselessly.

And in leaving her behind, he’d be condemning her to the same death. He’d stopped running. He was still supposed to be running, probably, and yet he was scathingly still. His eyes fell to her first. They fell to the violet beyond second.

It was explosive, erupting from below in the manner he’d more or less expected it to. Every drop of black in the universe crashed down upon them in one room, funneled from Hell with nowhere to go but up. It hadn’t been his idea alone. The ocean screamed where he’d fallen silent, and the most sickening darkness surged at his front for once. He was still, and what precious distance he’d struggled to ensure had been dashed in seconds. Octavia would go down with him. It wasn’t a comfort. Josiah didn’t look away, and eyes surely burnt forever by horror drank in his death head-on. He gave up on breathing. He gave up on thinking. He wondered, above all else, exactly how badly it would hurt.

Death was not dark. Death was brilliant. Death was radiant, and death was warm.

He didn’t even realize his footing was gone until the contrast of cold stone and searing air struck him, vividly hot and all-encompassing. It was a light that sliced through the black, carried on the notes of a racing song. He was at her back, and she was crying out. Josiah could do little but watch, for how he’d already given up on praying entirely. Octavia’s light was incredible in every way. He didn’t question it. He held his breath, eyeing her cautiously as her fingers flew and her luminescent melody screamed back. The shimmering shield she’d offered up left him ensnared by the translucent sun, a hollow star sunken to the depths of a screeching sea.

He was trembling still, fingernails scraping steps so uselessly scaled. Even now, a voice in his head just slightly softer than her radiant song pleaded with him to run. Her resistance, as successful as it was fragile, made little difference. He didn’t count the seconds. He didn’t count his heartbeats. He couldn’t still his breaths, his lungs freed of crushing pressure in a way that left him gasping. He watched on every side. It was all he had.

It was above them, beside them, beyond them, behind them. His eyes snapped in every direction and trailed every droplet of surging violet far. It went up. This time, he didn’t, powerless to so much as move. He met Octavia’s gaze exactly once. If the look on her face was any indicator, whatever panic he’d brought along as a souvenir was more than visible. Josiah couldn’t help it. He couldn’t explain, and no amount of hunting for his words right then and there would’ve left him with one syllable.

And where he’d run, she walked. She took her time.

For a moment, he was convinced he was hallucinating a second time over. Even above, weak as the light was, it was better than the pitch-blackness that lay down beyond the gaping entrance. Octavia’s light helped, and he counted that blessing. It was on the vestiges of her brilliant bubble alone that he stole the steps of another, soft tap after tap scaling stairs he’d just beaten upon so brutally.

She came with violet. Somehow, there was yet more. In lieu of an ocean, she was the hallmark of a gentle tide that kissed the floor and spread along the stones below. Josiah couldn’t decide if he was horrified or relieved. For whatever reason, he was leaning towards the former. It was the first time he could ever recall, and it was a feeling not meant for her. He didn’t have time to hate it.

She had her robes back. She was fervently disheveled, and yet very much alive. Lilac was buried in true, unnatural violet, and the dichotomy was as ironic as it was disgusting. Josiah couldn’t decide which he hated more on her, clinging and constrictive as they both were. Eyes just recently so desperate spoke to nothing of the sort. Really, they spoke to nothing at all, and he could find no light behind her gaze as her hollow glare crashed into him.

His painfully-racing heartbeat was irrelevant. The unforgiving throbbing in his bloodstream meant nothing. He let the acolyte burn holes in his soul, and he didn’t dare look away. He couldn’t see her in there, her gaze veiled in bubbling darkness as it was. It was still unmistakably her, and she was unmistakably here. She was out. That was all that mattered.

If he could’ve pinned her with his eyes, he would’ve. Josiah never got the chance, and she stole the steps he never had the chance to claim. The resting river at her back followed, and violet left his view in full. It accompanied that which he begged to take back, and his panic changed flavors. It was bitter on his tongue. He watched Selena upon every stair, screeching be damned. Dragging the rising flame down with his gaze alone was impossible.

Her light was warm. Her light was gone. Octavia stared at him, and his suffering finally outdid someone else’s. It was a competition Josiah loathed winning. He was supposed to be running. At the very least, his heart would never slow down again. Maybe he’d never catch his breath again.

He envied Octavia, then, for how her focus fell sharply forward. He’d struggled to do the same, recently. Even so, with every hurried step, he broke his own rule again and again in the light. In the gaps between her words, he hunted for another gap entirely. He couldn’t help it. It was a reflex that came bundled with sprinting. His attention fell behind, each and every time, and Josiah’s eyes would be over his shoulder forever.