The rain splattered around Glenn, a lone figure in the crowd surrounding a grave. He was dressed in a black suit and didn't have any umbrellas to protect himself. In his right hand was a flower bouquet, red roses to be more precise, but they were in a pitiful state after their petals were washed away by the rain. In the young man's left hand was tightly held, another, smaller hand.
Next to Glenn was his little sister, Lina. Her face was blank, and similarly, she was drenched in water, her black dress weighing on her frail body. The two were standing there, receiving the rain silently, while the priest was saying a few last words. In the grave, a brown, wooden coffin was resting, completely sealed.
Neither of the two could hear what the bald priest was saying, their eyes fixed on the coffin, unable to leave it. Their ears were filled with memories, memories that they'll never be able to reenact, memories that were previously happy now only inviting sadness and tears. Thunder rumbled around the graveyard, flashing white lights from time to time.
No one was offering the two an umbrella, and no one would ever do anymore, worried about them catching a cold. Because the only person who would do that was resting in that grave, her last breath already spent a while ago. Three days, to be more exact. Some legislation problems caused the funeral to be pushed back three more days than it should have been.
Thankfully, the cor–
Glenn took a deep breath, as he looked up at the dark sky pouring water on them. Thankfully, their mother had been safely waiting in a room specially made for these kinds of circumstances. The young man was completely lost. He couldn't even muster a tear, feeling as if whatever was in his chest, beating loudly before, was completely gone. Around him, friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, whoever they were, were all crying pitifully.
But he couldn't bring himself to weep. He felt like if he started to cry now, he would never stop. His sister was probably the same. And here they were, still silent, their faces still void of any emotions. His ears cleared up a little from the constant buzzing it was filled with, letting him hear a conversation between two...whoever they were. Glenn couldn't recognize them, and his vision was strangely blurred. Nonetheless, he couldn't help but listen to the exchange.
"It happened so suddenly...How could he...?" A first whisper, filled with incomprehension and worry. A female voice, it seemed.
"Who...Who would have thought? Everyone thought that she was done with him...And yet..." The second whisper was even weaker, this one filled with grief and sadness.
"Yes...But here we are...So young too...Look at her kids!"
A small silence took place for a few minutes, before being broken by another discussion. Glenn suspected that only he could hear those under this torrential downpour, thanks to some unknown reason.
"Do we know if he got captured already?" This whisper was dry, and a male one.
"They...They say he's dead, but no one saw anybody...My best bet is that the bastard is himself in another country..."
"Tsk... and God only knows how good he is at that...After all, we all thought him dead for twenty-one years..."
"But why..? Why would he come back only to do...that?"
Glenn couldn't take it anymore, and his ears filled back up with the almost comforting buzzing, accompanied by his slow, shaking breath. His sister's hand tightened on his, making him understand that she probably heard the same thing as he did. His knees finally gave way under his weight, and he crashed onto the ground, kneeling silently while holding his sister's hand. He did invite a few worried gazes, but, as if there was some kind of mutual agreement, no one came to check on him. And he was thankful for that. If there was even one more person who would ask him how he felt, he didn't know what he would do to them...
The priest finally finished his elocution, his face dark as he closed his Bible and stored it in his black, clerical robe. Glenn weakly looked up, meeting the priest's gaze, who nodded at him and painfully pushed himself up. He stepped slowly forward, throwing the unkempt rose bouquet on the coffin, the time almost slowing down until the flowers finally hit the lacquered wood. His sister, who was holding a similar flower bouquet in her other hand, did the same, before snuggling at his side, tears welling in her eyes. Glenn felt a weird feeling in his stomach, but he knew that it wasn't time. He couldn't cry yet.
One after the other, silently, their steps echoing in the rain, people dressed in black came and threw their bouquets, giving one, last, final word. Seconds, minutes, hours, he had no idea how much time passed until they were finally all done. The rain was stronger than ever, and he forced himself to ask someone to shelter his sister under an umbrella. He didn't care about himself, but he couldn't let his sister tremble another second.
Someone gave him a shovel, and taking it, he stared at the pile of dirt beside the grave. It wasn't one of these stone caskets, no, she wanted to be buried in the dirt, alongside the worms.
Finally, he threw down the first shovel of dirt/mud on the coffin.
She was gone.
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Glenn painfully opened his eyes, groaning in displeasure.
'That was one thing I didn't want to dream of...' He thought, shaking his head slowly. Suddenly, he understood the situation he was in. There was no ground under him, and he was currently falling down the deep hole that they found earlier. Darkness surrounded him, and the only thing he could hear was the wind storming up in his ears.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
…Maybe not only the wind.
Stabilizing himself by spreading his limbs as most he could, he turned himself with his front body facing the direction of the ground. IF ground there was. A glance toward the direction of the scream made him understand that its source wasn't Tarana like he had automatically guessed, but Wilbur, who was turning extremely fast in the air, was unable to stabilize his fall. Thankfully they were pretty far from the walls of the hole, so the knight didn't hit them, but his fall certainly seemed fear-inducing.
"HOW LONG... HAVE WE... BEEN FALLING?!" Glenn yelled in a croaked voice, trying to get a look up to see how much distance they covered but couldn't see much, besides a blue point far, far away. The sky, maybe? He wanted to rub the pain off his throat, but now wasn't the best time for that.
"AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPPP" Wilbur answered, twirling and turning in the air ridiculously.
"AT LEAST A MINUTE!!!" A voice yelled in response to his other side. Tarana was falling in a much more controlled way, even if her face was filled with fear.
'EXACTLY THREE MINUTES AND TWENTY-FOUR SECONDS!!!' Diamanes yelled in Glenn's mind, making his head ring with the voice.
'Fu...You're in my mind, why do you need to scream???'
'To bother you, of course. You were gone for the whole time.' The entity calmly answered with a hint of mockery in his voice.
Was Diamanes still bothered by the three previous months of loss of control and sanity?
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'Of course, it still does! I'm still waiting for excuses, you know?'
'...I already apologized.' It seemed fundamentally wrong to apologize for a mental issue, but Glenn knew that he could have done things in much better ways, even in his madness.
'I know, but I'm not satisfied!' Diamanes retorted, his voice full of contempt.
'Do you think that's the time for that?' Glenn asked desperately, trying to find a way to slow his and his companions' fall.
'And why wouldn't it be? You're going to die, anyway, so let's at least empty our feelings before parting ways!' His friend exclaimed, inviting a pale complexion on his host's face.
Barely a few seconds later, the ground suddenly appeared in front of them, a centimeter away from their faces. They seemed to have stopped just in front of it, all the momentum and kinetic energy of the fall dissipated mysteriously. Their bodies crashed against the cold ground, inviting quite the cacophony from Wilbur and his heavy steel armor.
Glenn panted, his heart racing in his chest. He quickly pushed himself on his feet, trying to get an understanding of his surroundings. Darkness surrounded him, and only the sound of their gasps and pants let him situate his companions.
"Lux!" A small orb of white light appeared above him, letting him shine light in the obscurity. He quickly checked on his companions, before studying his surroundings with a closer look. The light wasn't strong enough to let him see much, besides that the ground was perfectly flat, and made out of a black stone that reflected light. It was as if he was walking on the cold surface of a dark mirror, or some kind of dark ice.
His eyes tried to figure out anything that could be hidden in the shadows, but those seemed too profound for him to pierce with his gaze only. Tarana was already on her feet, using a similar spell to his Light to illuminate the surroundings. It seems like the young lady also knew of a few spells. Wilbur was still struggling to push himself up, sweating profusely while swearing all kinds of words.
'How unbecoming of a Knight of the East Town! His Rampart would be ashamed of him,' Diamanes commented in a judging manner, taking on the same tone that the knight used each time he spoke with Glenn.
"Wow, you remembered the name of his shield?" Glenn muttered, a small smile hanging on his lips. He pulled the knight to his feet, ignoring his gaze, before turning back to the darkness.
Wilbur coughed, before dusting off his armor as if nothing happened. He looked at them weirdly.
"You...You guys did scream too, right? It wasn't only me?" The knight asked with an uncertain voice. Sadly, only silence answered him.
Tarana got closer to Glenn, nudging him on the shoulder with a curious gaze.
"How did you know we weren't going to die from the fall?"
The young man shrugged, his eyes still fixed on the darkness surrounding them.
"...I didn't," Glenn said softly, trying to not hurt his throat any more than it already was.
The young lady's eyes widened before her mouth opened in a shocked manner. She finally let out an unbelieving chuckle, shaking her head in consternation. Wilbur quickly joined them, afraid to be left alone in the dark. It seemed like the knight didn't have any magic to light his surroundings, and depended exclusively on them to see in the dark.
The group carefully walked in the darkness after picking a direction at random, their steps echoing on the cold ground. They didn't meet anything for a good thirty minutes until a red light finally appeared in the distance. Glenn scowled when he saw it, his hand mechanically going to his waist to take his sword, but it seemed like he lost it when he jumped into the hole. He didn't have a spare as Giselle's shortsword had always been perfect for him and never looked like it was going to break.
The trio halted after the young man shared what he saw. Tarana and Wilbur couldn't see it yet. His eyes seemed to have improved a lot these past months, but he had no idea thanks to what.
Diamanes made a hesitating sound, as if he was about to say something, before shutting himself up. Glenn raised an eyebrow, noticing the abnormality.
'Is it because of you? That my eyes are so good?' He asked, already sure of the answer.
The entity in his left hand smacked its lips.
'Become a True Initiate and we'll have this conversation.' He stated after a while. The young man was unsatisfied with that answer, but every time he tried to pry information "locked" behind the Third Circle, Diamanes would just shut himself in, and not talk until Glenn was done questioning him. He couldn't do anything but wait to jump in rank.
"Are you sure of what you're seeing?" Wilbur asked, his previously condescending tone gone, replaced by uncertainty and fear.
Glenn nodded, his eyes fixed on the red light in the distance.
"Let's go there then. We don't have any choice anyway. Perhaps we will find what remains of the civils and Silver Fixers if we go there. And hopefully, a way to get out of this hole." Tarana quickly decided.
The two men simply nodded at the proposition, not seeing any other choice anyway. Glenn led the team, Tarana close behind him, and Wilbur closing the walk. They progressed slowly through the darkness, an uncomfortable feeling settling in their hearts the closer they got to the source of the light. After another thirty minutes, the other two were able to see the red light, Tarana first and the knight next. Glenn couldn't help but feel like there was something wrong with that light.
He couldn't pinpoint the source of his unease; maybe it was the tone of the light or the way it spread in the darkness, he had no idea...But the one thing he was sure of was that the closer he got to the light, the worse he felt. Like a knot tightening in his stomach. And seeing the faces of the other two, he wasn't the only one feeling that. Suddenly, one of his steps sounded...different from the other he took. As if he stepped in a puddle. He looked down to see that the mirror-like ground they were walking on was covered in some dark liquid.
A black goo with the same consistency that of water that obscured the leather or metal of their boots. Reacting to his foot, the liquid recoiled brusquely, leaving a small zone around his boot without any black goo. It looked almost alive. Glenn tentatively took another step, only to see the liquid scurrying away once again. With a glance, he invited the others to step in the liquid, only to see the same thing happen to them.
"How frightening..." He muttered, not reassured by this strange matter. His Mana reserves weren't enough to cast a powerful attack, and he had lost his sword. In the worst case, he'll have to ask for one of Tarana's falx swords. Being uncomfortable using someone else's weapon would be the least of his problems if things came to that.
They continued walking toward the red light, the black goo parting under their steps. Fifty meters in, the dark water was pulled in a point in front of them, taking on a strange shape. The trio prepared themselves for the worst, their weapons taken out or ready to use spells at a moment's notice.
The goo struggled for a minute before finally stabilizing. It was vaguely shaped like a human, but it would be evident to anyone that this was a strange creature and not a fellow man. The creature raised a drippy arm toward the group, a cavity opening where their head probably was.
"JACK!!! JACK!!! JACK!!! JACK!!!" The creature began yelling, no, cheering, its voice strangely distorted, like a corrupted...recording? It tried to take a step forward, only to have most of its shape destabilize and fall in a splash of black water. The trio was staring dreadfully at it, trying to understand what the creature wanted.
"H...HELP..." That phrase, no, recording, sounded more distraught, strangely.
Tarana and Wilbur exchanged a worried gaze, Glenn still staring at the creature in readiness.
"Is it...Asking for help?" The young lady asked in a whisper, uncertain.
The black-goo creature seemed to react to what she said, trying to nod but only losing most of its countenance.
"COME...COME ON...IF YOU CAN'T... WHO WILL?" Black, as Glenn decided to quickly surname it, sounded once more different, its voice cheery and encouraging. The young man nodded slowly, before turning toward his two comrades, who nodded in turn.
"Lead the way," He asked with his crooked voice. The creature dissipated in black water, forming a small wave that headed toward the red light.
'Do you have anything you could tell me?' Glenn mentally asked his companion. Diamanes, had he been able to shake his head, would have probably done so.
'I told you...It's something that even I have a hard time fathoming. You need to be extremely careful,' The entity hesitated, before adding, 'I'm restrained here, so I'm not exactly sure about what this is. You need to take care of it without me helping...'
Glenn stopped himself from sighing and followed the creature.
The two balls of light illuminating their way suddenly flickered, before disappearing. The only light available was the red one far away.
"Lux" Glenn tried, but a second after the ball of light appeared, it got swallowed by the darkness, disappearing alongside the Mana he invested in it. Tarana tried in turn, only to fail similarly.
They'll have to do with the red light. Things were only getting better.