FOLLOW YOUR HEART—no, Trey followed everybody else’s. He was faithful to this mission since the start. Before Ruby’s minions attacked him. Before the sieve. Before the shadow of a dark-borne Swishy rose to prominence.
It started with Ruby’s latest pursuit.
With Swishy and Myst at risk, Trey directed the Sling-raven trio to fly after them. One bird carried him in its feet, gripping both of his shoulders, while the other two were bodyguards. Trey had come a long way since his first kidnapping, the thrashing indignity of it. Now he rode in style, feeling like the VIP he was.
The hearts of his friends would be guarded with speed.
He didn’t care that Ruby was away seconds from ending his days, that she, in her rage, had thrown the kitchen sink at him to keep him from getting to Swishy. He found himself in a hell simulation, one version of his demise conjuring on a second-by-second basis. The dual-headed wrathraven one moment and a flurry of snitchtalons the next. Afterward, a rain of nails. And then scarecrows springing upward to reach for him.
But Trey was fast. Trey had [Zlide]. He continued to teleport from hell to hell, from close call to close call. Every time he arrived at his portal exits, his pulse jackhammered in his throat. He was so anxious, always so anxious, anticipating the danger aimed at him upon his reentrance into the world.
There were enemies everywhere. No escape, naturally. But then he felt the heat from Ruby’s presence. Even though she was dealing with Swishy and Myst, far away, her literal eyes nowhere near him, he knew that she was there. That she could definitely see through the snitchtalons. That’s why they were snitches. They were so attuned to her that she didn’t need to speak with them. At least that’s how it was when her darkness was unleashed.
Instead of Trey’s warps landing him near enemies by happenstance, he discovered portals surrounding him.
“Uh oh…”
Even the Sling-ravens were scared. They tossed him away as soon as the first snitchtalons poured from the portals.
It was an attempted drowning, a talon mauling.
But Trey was tossed away, juggled from one Sling-raven to the next as Ruby’s flock came after him. He’d gotten comfortable with this mode of transport, too, reaching for their legs. His forearms weren’t so sore anymore. His shoulders eased into the steady burn of his hangtime.
“I better be buff as hell after all this.”
The Sling-ravens made these distorted clucking noises.
Trey was pleased to make them laugh, even if their voices were ugly as hell.
He stared far off—Swishy and Ruby were distant, slinging spells at each other. Darkness swelled. Frost chips rose upward. A growing fog of shadow and ice obscured their combat area.
“I have to hurry—”
Portals. Everything came upon him at once. Back into the vortex with Trey—he was thrown by his allies, caught, and chased down. He used a [Zlide], reemerged into a thicket of blackwheat-infused enemies, and then warped off again.
All the while, the icy miasma spread ever outward, his friends’ hearts inching closer to lost by the moment.
Follow them, seek them, be with them…
These were his thoughts, his prayers, his deepest wishes. A cooling breeze washed over his soul every time he considered them. Hell was upon him but his compassion pushed forth like a fountain.
The enemies proliferated in equal if not greater measure to his goodness. Their numbers were proportional to Trey’s light, always pushing him, testing his good-boy-God-boy fortitude.
The snitchtalons darted at him—from trees, from portals, from bushes down below.
Even when Trey dodged, they only disappeared into another portal, never staying for long. He was locked in place, caught in a bird flurry where he and his Sling-ravens fielded attacks from every angle. All of his zaps were for the henchbirds and none made it close to Ruby. But in that moment of panic, of knowing that Ruby had deconstructed Swishy’s body, she upped the mania of her reinforcements. When she was winning, she made sure to win by a lot.
The portals were endless—and so were the snitchtalons—and that marked the first darkening of Trey’s world. He soon couldn’t tell how close to Swishy he was. There was no concept of the sky, of light, of his allies. Ruby’s orchestral madness muddied it all. Yet as the world was stolen away, replaced with black feathers and shadow aura, Trey’s mind clung to the follow-your-heart maxim even stronger than before.
No matter what appeared, Trey experienced 90 parts terror and 10 parts relief that the new combatant wasn’t Ruby. The Clayborne continued to reel from the mental damage of her teleporting.
A witch-on-her-broom silhouette slashed across the horizon, diving into the iced darkness.
[Zix-zhooter]—he unleashed a barrage of [Zap] beams at her, arcing lobs that landed near her.
Please hit, please hit, please hit, please hit.
A snitchtalon had shot from a tree at Trey—and one of the Sling-ravens intercepted it with its mouth, gulping it down.
Trey, well-guarded, relaxed momentarily for the end result. He didn’t know what he was looking for. The faith in him wanted the ice to thin, the shadows to disperse. He wanted to see Myst’s snake across the skyline, and for Swishy to fly in acrobatic loops.
A sign, a sign, all Trey wanted was a sign.
And a sign was exactly what came to pass:
[Rise]—Ruby’s voice echoed. A rippling effect occurred over his head, one that equaled the size of a pool. What was rising? It certainly wasn’t his lord and savior. And it certainly wasn’t any Swish-borne tree either.
A portal tore upward, stretching from the surface to the night sky.
And a twin-headed wrathraven burst from that gate, roaring with both its heads, one with a deep cadence while the other head screeched.
“Okay…not the worst.”
The beast came after him but Trey had [Zaps] ready, five fingers full, more than enough for him to shoot into their eyes.
Before the writhing beast cried out its anguish, Trey used a [Zlide]—both he and his wrathraven trio had retreated into it. During the warp, the beasts were worried. He’d never seen a wrathraven shake before but it made sense. They were midway to their full growth, domesticated birds now that Swishy had beat the violence out of them and Sling had nurtured their now loving foundations.
“I got you guys, don’t worry. Just like how you got me.”
The Sling-raven trio nodded their massive heads. One even patted Trey on the shoulder with a wing.
And then they flew through the exit gate. The surroundings were oddly…clear. No ripples, no portals, no snitchtalons, and no outcries of rage. The wind whistled a tune of light. The scarecrows that had grown from the ground were sleeping, T-posing as if they’d been taught by Swishy himself.
The icy mist was closer, its sparking crystals visible from where Trey now flew.
“[Sieve].” Ruby’s voice—echoes, ripples, and all—resounded. One word. One command to the shadows. And Trey’s worries were once more validated. Ruby drifted through his head and danced within his soul.
A mix of black and purple dots tinged the air, faint, out of focus. But the spots thickened, finding each other. The strange darkness even buzzed with mosquito cadence. The spell cast its grid of shadows on his body and it felt like he was being touched for real. From those bars of shadow, he detected heat, itchiness, pressure.
“How could you!” Swishy’s voice from meters and meters away. Straw—how healing it felt to hear the bristling, even if it were laced with panic and fury.
Purple bars, purple corners, integrated around Trey and the Sling-ravens. As soon as the spell appeared he could feel the press of wire against his soul. No matter how he moved, the pressure gripped him. There was no damage from the sensation. A chill ran through him. Trey wouldn’t have been surprised if those ice crystals had populated his soul.
What is this? A net? I don’t like this…
[Zap]—Trey shot at the corner but his light vanished, as if slurped into the darkness.
“That’s not good.”
The Sling-ravens self-soothed with their wings, crooning softly.
Now was Trey’s turn to pet them, smoothing down their silky plumage. Their shadows were cool to the touch.
The sieve lines had multiplied, the ominous netting reinforced.
And then it began to close.
(…)
Above, laterally, and even from below—the gridded box shrank. Its pressure continued all over his body, from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
A Sling-raven picked him up by the shoulders to carry him away, the cube ascended with him. The Sling-raven did everything it could to try to dodge the energy, flying upward, downward, weaving around the trees and buildings and scarecrows.
But that box only phased over the territory. Nothing physical would impede its progress. The sieve touched Trey’s soul but interacted with ghostliness with the surface world.
The cube of death was assigned to him. It belonged to him. His forced imprisonment was like a tattoo, a brand if he were being quite honest.
From afar, Ruby’s gaze could be felt. Without even seeing her, Trey well knew the expression that Ruby wore. His impression of her was finely honed by the pervasive aura she’d released through the city. He envisioned the shape of her outstretched palm, the sudden clenching of it—which released the other-worldly sound of a clasped gauntlet. And the [Sieve] pressure, its shadows on Trey’s body, started to hurt. There was burning. An itchiness radiated over his skin—and under it as well. The grid went beyond his skin and organs. Her sieve wiring dug into her soul.
“That’s cruel!” Trey screamed.
The woman, from wherever she was, had laughed.
He knew this because the grid of the bars reflected those feelings, the mockery, the I’ve-got-you-now-die cockiness.
The sieve bore down with intensity.
But there were gaps in the grid for him to shoot through. He pointed to one of the closing squares and his Sling-raven flew him toward it.
Trey escaped, momentarily, but the grid followed him, sticking to his soul.
The [Sieve] began to expand again, now spreading into a large cube. The spell’s priority was to encompass him, making sure he remained in this room-sized area. He was flown onward but the cube stayed around him. He was caught in this room, in this moving grid of a realm, and had no choice but to keep moving. By moving, he could at least prevent the sieve from closing on him completely.
That was condition one that he’d deciphered.
“Okay, okay, now we’re getting somewhere.”
A thumbs-up to the Sling-ravens—but the beasts were still nervous.
Trey responded with a [Zip], grabbing his Sling-raven’s legs and infusing it with the speed boost spell. They flew around the boundaries, trying to spread the room again, but it remained firm, the shadows of the sieve laughing at them.
Rippling portals opened in some of the patches and Trey paused in anticipation of the next attacker.
A costly delay.
Ripples opened to divert his attention and that’s when the punishing heat came from the grid shadows on his body. Every time his skin started to seer, he knew that the sieve was getting closer. The sieve pressed inward, starting from the ceiling, forcing Trey to dip downward. And it was only the ceiling. The spell increased the gravity of the zone. The wrathraven tired out a little. Huffing breaths came from its beak.
[Heart Strings]—Trey didn’t mean to use this technique but he did. For him, it felt right. So he didn’t ease off. His glowing fingers massaged the Sling-ravens, searching for their cores.
Through the threads, he felt that knotted mass of shadow, pure ice. But this was strictly an anatomical difference.
Because Trey knew their warmth, how their carrying of him became gentle. How they even tossed him in consistent, non-stomach-turning arcs. He wrapped the string around their shadowed hearts. He wasn’t Swishy by any means. There were no words of calm or nurture or resolve to force into the birds. But he knew a lot about love. Giving it was something that required no extra magic, no manipulation. Together they built this bond, their style of movement, and Trey took pride in that.
“I’m here, I’m here,” Trey said.
The beasts cooed, they purred, and the movements sharpened once again.
“Good, good, now let’s get out of here.”
The sieve shrank, a steadily collapsing room.
And darkness filtered through the gaps in the netting—portals, it turned out, those familiar foreboding ripples. Ruby was a fan of giving her enemies personal eclipses, of making them suffer alone.
Once those clouds solidified into the sieve’s deep violet edges and grids, Trey lost his sensation of Swishy and Myst. The [Sieve] had settled around the perimeter of his soul, barring him from the world. Nothing had happened to him yet but once he saw that box, that aura container, he knew that he was taken out of the battle once more.
He and the Sling-raven trio, for the moment, were jailed.
And the wardens were everywhere. A sizzling sound popped and fizzed from the shadows, the distinct language of their unified movements, their souls deciding upon a shared goal: to capture Trey.
The dual-head was out there somewhere, its bellows drawing closer, increasingly thunderous. The beast served as its own war drum, more psychic damage to the nerve-wracked Trey.
A snitchtalon darted by them—which Trey head-slipped—only for the bird to disappear into a portal on the opposite side of the [Sieve]. It was their way of jabbing him, a tester attack. More birds came and went, attacking from one portal while escaping into another. Trey and the Sling-ravens remained on edge, flying along in their death box.
The sieve became smaller still.
There was chaos all around him. Ruby’s grid proliferated with crisscrossed bars, sudden clusters of hash marks bound into a wire cage. The [Sieve] was the same size as a room. In theory, others should’ve been able to freely enter and exit it at will. The squares were open-air, after all, so ingress should’ve been a thing.
Trey found that the truth of the matter was a bit more complicated than that.
Every time she activated a technique, her energy doubled as a spiritual jammer. The woman’s presence was immense. She was always the first thing on every spirit’s mind when was near—just the way she liked it.
It was scary, to say the least.
But above all the feelings that he endured in that strange, gridded realm, Trey was taken aback by how depression had upstaged them all. There was fear, of course. And there was him drowning from the inside in flight response. But there was hollowness too. There was emptiness. The Clayborne had become equal parts depressiveness and blood.
Because once Ruby targeted him with the first [Sieve] and enforced her magical powers upon his soul, that effectively put a true bounty on his head, marking him for harvest.
Trey cringed when thinking of what, functionally, they could harvest from him.
Organs? No. Skin, teeth, hair? No and no and no again.
The young man’s soul trembled.
His soul…could they steal it?
When Trey looked around—at the scarecrows, the sentient trees, and the shadows without a home—he knew that it was likely. Yes, Ruby could steal his soul, definitely, and do with it what she pleased.
His fears started to choke him. There was something about a fight that made his mind go blank, allowing him to go forth with bravado and get through these horrible parts of life. Even death wasn’t the worst of the worst even though he was scared to die. But the logistics of the soul…it terrified him.
If Ruby took his soul did that mean he wouldn’t make it to Heaven?
As soon as he had the thought, the darkness laughed. Were they reading his mind? Or had they already infiltrated him as a person
The answer was that yes, they had.
Now the sieve was here, closing further.
“[Zlide]!” Trey yelled.
And the teleport was successive—only for him to find the [Sieve] waited for him on the other side.
“[Zlide]! [Zlide]!” Two more warps, yet there was no escape from the narrowing box.
His faith whittled down with every teleport but his spirit had fight. The Sling-ravens were anxious and Trey refused to let his nerves show. He stayed strong for them. His confidence would become theirs—in a perfect world at least.
Trey realized that a thread flowing from beneath his nail bed and wrapping itself around his index finger. The string went around and around like a bandage. His spell was warm on his fingers, a gentle flow of energy that somehow encouraged him. Was it a magic effect? Was it just how he felt about light? He didn’t know. The only certainty that availed itself to him was that the thread end pointed him beyond the [Sieve].
There!
He exhaled a heavy breath. Even though he couldn’t see them, he knew where his life was again. The compass had pointed him home.
[Heart Strings]—but a new usage, a passive, low-energy ability. It was like sight. Like breath.
Reaching forth with heart was just something that he explicitly did now. His little finger cap with the loose thread was a compass, a guide, to where his cherished hearts were. He loved watching it work without his input. The reliance on hearts made him closer to Swishy and Myst, or at least that was the emotional logic that resonated with him.
Another modification of the spell, an explicit restraint of its probing qualities. There was no need to go inside anyone’s heart. Finding hearts came first, and looking after them came next. His golden thread wrapped around his finger, w cap searching for hearts.
The Sling-ravens were soothed when they saw it, recognizing their latest comfort thread.
But the thread only pointed ahead and slightly downward, weaving toward Swishy and Myst.
“That way!” Trey called to his birds, “When we get past the next trees, let’s land okay.”
The trio plunged into the woods, then kept flying, refusing Trey’s orders.
“Come on, homies, let me down. I’ll be fine.”
They shook their heads in defiance.
“Take a break, watch, I got this.”
[Zoom]—a discus of shadow gathered around his feet and carried him along the ground.
The beasts watched, appraising his ability.
“What? Do you want me to audition? Fine.”
Trey weaved in the area. He even did a kickflip, the flexible shadows twisting like a helix before they returned to their Trey-carrying form.
He took special pains to glide around the ever-chasing sieve boundary, keeping it spacious enough. And the wrathravens followed him, speeding as fast as they could around the netting. Their flight disrupted the sieve’s integrity in parts, cutting its wire—which self-healed—but the damage kept it from closing, buying Trey some time.
Onward, they went, Trey shadow-skating as the Sling-ravens kept tornado’d the perimeter.
Fortunately, this new maneuver kept it at bay in multiple ways. Not only did the sieve provide more give, but the portals in the gaps were devoid of activity, the snitchtalons too scared to hop out for an attack.
“You’re like a blender!” Trey said to Sling’s pets. “These birds don’t want to mess around to catch a stray talon.”
The beasts jeered in their ugly, screeching tones.
“Yes, whatever it is ya’ll said!”
Now that Trey didn’t have to watch the ripples himself, he relaxed. He enjoyed watching his heart string dance, worming forward. For a moment, following the hearts was quite fun.
His worries, though, were returned to him in the form of empty scarecrow stakes.
Cracking. Snaps. Breakage. The ground made an uproar as more stakes rose from the ground, twisted roots sprouting without scarecrows attached to them. Each skewer resembled grave markers. And they were memorialized specially, a floating font of what Trey recognized as his latent emotions. FEAR. DOUBT. PURGATORY. UNHAPPINESS. The words populated vertically as he traversed past them. These empty stakes behaved the same as the everytree fruits, their empty nuclei responding to the proximity of his presence.
He came to terms with these feelings. Danger was danger, after all. What the stakes missed was the part of him that wanted to prove his worth.
Trey suffered from the nagging notion that he needed to offer more. Now was the time to be more valuable, to assert that worth in a material fashion. Swishy was being asked for his everything, his heart, his soul, his servitude, and Trey knew that to get him out of the situation he’d have to put in more.
The Clayborne knew that he had to put in his part to change the world with Swishy.
He looked around at the environment, the enlivened trees, the buildings, the scarecrow flowers that were rooted to their stakes and thankfully out of reach. Evidence of Swishy’s body functioning as the seed of life was everywhere that Trey could see. To his knowledge, he didn’t have any growth techniques and he scoured his mind for something that could help. He brainstormed in cartoony ways. He went through the suite of his Z-themed abilities. How, he wondered, would he make the most of Swishy’s contribution?
It was time that Trey put his investment in the world.
His life wasn’t the only one at risk. The chance that he might die wasn’t enough of a cost anymore, not for what Swishy aimed for, and not for the ambitious soul that Trey was anyway.
Now, he’d gift Swishy more.
A tiny gold mushroom lay at the base of a tree.
Trey hovered up to it, levitating on his [Zoom]. He’d all but stopped, leaving the Sling-ravens on sieve duty. Around and around they went—with Trey feeding them bubbles of [Zip] fuel, easing their time. He shot at them, mouthing ‘pow-pow-pow’.
And the wrathravens issued their ugly laughs.
“Hey little guy,” Trey bent over the mushroom.
The shroom just shined.
“Normally, I’d eat you.”
It dimmed, trying to hide.
Other nearby vegetation also dulled, retracting their light and glitter. The world knew that Trey had told the truth.
“I got you, I got you.”
Sparks gathered on the tip of his finger gun. He aimed and pointed and released.
[Zip]—the orb traveled to the shroom in a bubble and then popped.
The bubbles spread from all his fingertips.
The land started to grow a little more, burning through its fuel, accelerating its growth processes.
“There, something nice.”
All around, mushrooms glowed.
The skies were another story.
He tried not to look. Enemies were coming but at least there was peace for now.
Then, an eclipse.
“Alright, now look!”
Twin-head, who he’d now dubbed Duo, portal’d into the clearing.
And above that, a scarecrow rose, Swishy ascending to the scale of a gothic castle.