11. Vision and Follow-through

The closer Serac got to the top of the Aviary, the more hectic her adventure became, with an ever-increasing density of meanies barring her way. As such, she couldn’t help but foster a grudging appreciation for Zacko’s company, almost enough to forgive him his grating personality. Almost.

For her appreciation was counterbalanced by a persistent undercurrent of Karma envy, a state of mind she didn’t know existed until just minutes ago. It was shameful. It was exactly what Trippy had warned her about.

But it was also undeniable, and the feeling of petty inferiority and ineffable FOMO only grew and grew as her Cartridge dwindled—fight by fight and bullet by bullet—all the way down to the dreaded [0|0].

She was then forced to take a backseat in every encounter, concentrating simply on staying alive while Zacko had all the fun and took a lion’s share of the dropped Karma. Occasionally, Zacko would even slow down in the middle of an action and wink in Serac’s direction, as if to say, have at it; get your piece of the pie.

The first time this happened, she declined the opportunity, her pride refusing to let her stoop to the lows of Karma-leeching (another concept she’d only just become cognizant of!). Which then prompted Trippy to chastise her in short order: “And you call yourself a ‘pragmatist’? It’s free Karma! Get it while the getting’s good!”

And so, for the last several fights atop the Aviary, Serac swallowed her pride and allowed herself to be hard-carried to victory, all while getting in PULVERIZER punches where she could.

Her contributions were dismal, at least mathematically speaking, but Pathsight didn’t seem to care. The Karma flowed in at a set ratio that felt far more generous than she deserved ([120 क] from Jailers and [32 क] from Frenzied Penitents), and she ended up leeching much more than what was needed to balance the books on Zacko’s earlier smite steal.

What was more, guilt and self-reproach weren’t the only strange emotions she wrestled with. For she heard again those echoes of nostalgia from a previous life. The echoes were never louder than when she holstered REVOLVER and went full melee, fighting back to back with a Manusya master of the NINEFOLD DAO.

All things considered, it came as a massive relief when she finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel: an aperture at the Aviary’s apex that connected to a circular, cartilaginous footpath. So much so that she left the final Jailer all to Zacko and bounded on by herself, intent on making that final push toward prison break.

And so much so that she barely noticed when the footpath forked in two directions: one that leveled off onto a lumpy cavern of sorts and a narrower tube that continued to lead up. It was the latter she dove into without hesitation, acting on the pure and irrepressible desire to breathe outside air.

Indeed, so singularly focused was Serac on climbing that she failed to realize that the air grew staler and staler as the space around her became tighter and tighter. Eventually, the footpath could scarcely be called one, as it shrank into narrow grooves between walls of swollen gelatinous tissue. Still, the Rakshasa climbed, now having to wade through the bulging walls as if she were swimming in jello.

“Wayfarer? Something tells me you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere. Might I suggest you double back and see if you can’t reunite with your Manusya friend?”

“He’s not my friend!” Serac protested, her voice muffled by the walls that wrapped all around her. “And how do we know this isn’t the right way? Maybe this is the mouth of the Damnatorium trying to spit us out!”

“Mouth? Somehow, I doubt it. The tortuous course. The spongy consistency. The numerous and continuous grooves upon the walls… as if they’re meant to exponentiate the surface area of this particular structure. No, this is much more reminiscent of a—”

“Oop!”

The breath caught in Serac’s chest as she suddenly lost her footing. Before she knew it, she was lifted off her feet and conveyed through the gelatinous corridor in a stop-start manner, as though an invisible hand was repeatedly picking her up from one place and dropping her off in another.

The peculiar (and involuntary) mode of transportation was also accompanied by flashes of mental images. She sensed right away that these were distinct still from Pathsight’s metaphysical overlay. Rather, the images—or at least her perception of them—were real and of the material world, sent directly into her visual cortex by signals that fired from the synapses all around her.

Cortex? Synapse? Where did she even learn these words? Wherever and however Serac had gained the ability to understand what was happening to her, one thing was clear: she’d been wrong, and Trippy was right. This structure wasn’t the Damnatorium’s mouth. No, it was its brain.

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And true to its anatomical analogue, the Damnatorium’s brain offered a uniquely eclectic brand of torture. In fact, when Serac first began to experience it, it didn’t feel like torture at all. If anything…

… If anything, it was the best damn time of her life.

As Serac was carried deeper into the brain, its structure ‘appeared’ to fall away. Gone were the tortuous course, the spongy consistency, and the numerous grooves upon its walls. Gone too was the entire Damnatorium, leaving its erstwhile inmate in a seemingly endless space of pure nothingness.

Indeed, even Serac herself had been stripped down to her bare essentials. Gone were REVOLVER and PULVERIZER. Gone were her ragged prison clothes and their stains of battle-muck. Best of all, gone was her Penitent’s Circlet!

She’d never felt lighter nor freer than she did in this Ksana, trapped as she was inside an illusory space. And if the illusion had stopped there, with her bare and pure self floating aimlessly in endless space, she would’ve gladly stayed. Would’ve traded the toils of her afterlife for a Kalpa of burdenless nothingness.

Only, it got even better! Soon the space filled with sights and sounds at once startlingly novel and profoundly familiar. A lush mountain teeming with all manner of fruits and wildlife. Cloudless skies that stretched as far and wide as the eye could see.

Home.

Before she knew it, Serac’s physical eyes filled with tears—real and burning.

Home. There, amidst a lush mountain, her family roamed and frolicked. A thousand strong of the fiercest, loyalest, and noblest souls she’d ever known. Together, they were unstoppable, indomitable, and invincible. With the power to topple any mountain in the universe at her behest. Yes, any mountain…

… Even Mount Meru itself.

The breath went out of Serac’s chest, consumed by the sheer force of her memories. Memories of freedom, of power, of rebellion. And if she were to reach out now—reach her bare and pure hand toward the lushness of her and her family’s mountain—she could grasp those memories and never let go.

She was sure of it. She was this close to becoming her freest and truest self. If she just held out a hand and—

“Snap out of it!”

The mountain fell away, along with the cloudless skies that stretched all around. The endless space returned to its physical form: that of the Damnatorium’s brain matter and its numerous gyri that served as a pathless corridor to trap a too-hasty fugitive.

The fugitive in question still held out a hopeful hand in vain… and had found something at the end of it. A masculine hand of sallow copper complexion now held Serac in its unyielding grip. Mr Hand’s voice too, muffled as it was, carried across the gelatinous walls that closed in from all sides.

“Swim, Serac! I’m not strong enough to pull you out all by myself. You need to do some of the heavy lifting!”

Serac obeyed, slowly and groggily at first, then with rising urgency as the daze from her illusions fully dissipated. She kicked with tired legs and paddled with an arm weighed down by craggy rocks. The rocks proved useful in this case, abrading the walls and tearing a new path amidst their confines.

With a final heave from Zacko, Serac found herself back on the narrow footpath that had led her into the trap. She fell face-first onto the floor and stayed there, allowing herself a short spell to catch her breath and reckon with the humiliating turn of events.

“I told you not to go further.”

“Oh, shut—” Shut it! Not like you had any idea what was coming.

“No, I can admit to that. And once again, I’m in awe of the intricate craftsmanship that went into constructing this prison. It’s artful is what it is. Whoever was the original architect of the Damnatorium clearly had a bold vision and the means to follow through in spectacular fashion.”

Well, I’m glad someone’s enjoying it, Serac grumbled in her inside voice as she gingerly pushed her physical self to her feet. Fully alert now, she turned a somewhat grumpy scowl onto Zacko, who… didn’t look half as smug as she would’ve expected him to.

The Manusya had just rescued Serac from her own run-in with a torture device, which meant that, as far as favors went, the two of them were now even. For a quid that had just pro’d his quo, however, Zacko wore a rather subdued and grim expression, a far cry from his usual flippant self.

“I take it you know exactly what that thing was,” Serac ventured, sensing that her Manusya companion might be in an uncharacteristically candid mood.

“I do,” Zacko answered candidly, though he didn’t elaborate on how. Instead, he raised a tentative eyebrow at Serac and asked in an unusually quiet voice, “What did you see in there?”

The Rakshasa was momentarily taken aback by the question, though on reflection, she might’ve expected it. She then considered for a brief moment before somewhat checking her own candor.

“Something that reminded me of home.”

Zacko nodded, his expression changing very little. He then went on to explain, “Of all the gory and heinous ways the Damnatorium tortures its inmates, this one might be its… most sadistic. It immerses you in an illusion of the object of your greatest desire. And every time you try to grasp that object, it shifts away… staying within sight but forever out of reach. They call this one—rather poetically, if you ask me—the Hanging Fruit.”

Hearing this, Serac’s honest first reaction was: that’s not so bad, is it? Sure beats boiling in the Furnace or being crushed by the Pulverizer. But then the more she thought about it—and the more she tried and failed to recall her freest and truest self—the less she wanted ever to return to that world of beautiful illusions.

Serac shuddered involuntarily. Zacko, who’d been watching her intently throughout the exchange, nodded again.

“I’m glad you’re quick on the uptake,” he said with uncharacteristic candor, “and for this last portion of our prison break, I suggest you stick close to me and save yourself from more nasty surprises.”