I felt my chap lips touch each other slightly. A quiver ran down my arm, along with an immediate sense of goosebumps. “F-Fright?” My voice was squeaky yet quiet. Why was she here? What the hell is going on? My self deprecating, and sarcastic thoughts seemed immature now. What had I been doing all this time?

Is she dead?

I didn’t want to believe that. Yet I found myself unable to move. I was scared. If I go up to this corpse…and it’s real. If she’s really dead…would my purpose be gone?

Purpose…it was a funny thing. Not until I saw it, bloodied and seemingly dead in front of me did I ever think there would be a day where I would lose it. I’ve never had a purpose, which in the clear state of mind that I was currently just forced into, I acknowledge as a lie now, I still have never been so inclined to live.

Until she arrived.

I realize now though, that…promises aren’t absolute. I harmed this girl. If I die, and I never meet her again, what will she think?

If this is her, which it definitely isn’t,

it can’t be her.

I realize my purpose would be lost. Just like that. I value my friends, and although I did not know this girl long enough, I believe she is a special person. Someone I can value. I don’t want to see her as just a driving force to push me to live.

I am worthless, while she is not.

My purpose has not yet been found, I have simply made a promise with her to find it. I will live until I can confidently say I have a reason to, and I will live until I can confidently tell her that purpose.

I promise I’ll value my friends more, and I’ll search for this one girl for my entire life if I have to.

So please God…please don’t let this be her. Laying in this ashen forest that I’m unfamiliar with, and that she is too. I beg you…don’t let her fears come true.

I felt a warm sensation trickle down my face. My vision blurred with tears that fell unevenly. I did not cry however, I was simply letting the tears fall. I walked a bit closer to the corpse. It was seemingly unresponsive.

I fell to my knees, ignoring the cold sensation of the insanity inducing ashes. I reached out towards her neck. It was pale, and I was afraid. I slowly reached out, eventually I arrived at the base of her neck, and then…

I blinked.

Suddenly she was gone. The red stain on the ashes as well. I was reaching out towards nothing. I sat there. Frozen in disbelief. My tears hadn’t stopped falling, and I felt my eyes turn puffy. However I stillI felt relief explode from deep within me. The warmth of it filled me with vigor.

Thank God.

More importantly, I rose to my feet as fast as I could. I had to return to the altar. Slowly the ashes once again began to filter themselves out of my very consciousness. It was as if slowly they were making me forget they existed. My vision flickered, with one blink I saw the maddening ashes, and the other…a simple grassy forest.

I ran.

I had to return to the stone altar. The ashes were too dangerous. As I sprinted in the direction I came from, my vision toyed with my mind, sometimes I saw a forest, other times I saw a grassy field. Near some trees I saw silhouettes, other times I could see the very same scene of Fright’s corpse. My vision was filled with hallucinations.

The Grey Mourner. Fright. The restless villagers from my hometown.

My mother.

I ran and ran, as fast I could towards the stone altar. My muscles ached, and my throat screamed for water. I could not fathom another day where I would be able to perform a task as harrowing as getting to that altar before it consumed my mind, however…I slapped my hand on the barbs of the crown again.

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My shriek was horrible. My hand did not bleed, instead the pain was more ethereal.

The crown stabbed into my very soul.

Worse of all…I felt it consuming me. It was growing. The crown was piercing deeper into my forehead each time, and each time the pain was more harrowing than the last. My screams echoed throughout the forest, however I continued to run.

Eventually…I had reached the beginning. The altar lay in front of me.

I jumped up on its base, and lay on my back. The bright, cloudless sky loomed far above me. It had witnessed my madness.

As the ash no longer influenced me, memories rushed into my head. “W-what the.” In between my gasps for air, and my groans in pain, I felt them enter my head slowly. My memory of the forest was different than what I had seen. Truly there were no silhouettes. Fright had never been there.

There was never any grass in the forest.

However an even more harrowing memory appeared in my head. One of the scenes I had scene seemingly completely was omitted from my mind. As I closed my eyes and visualized what I had seen, I felt terror.

The ashes had omitted a memory from where I saw fauna. It was a deer. However…the fauna was, to say the least…mangled.

I saw a scene of a deer’s corpse. Torn open by a strange white vine. The vines spread upward, where a lotus bloomed from the deer’s terribly torn body. The horrid scene was made even more terrifying as I realized what the lotus spewed from its core.

A white ash.

The damned thing was spreading. It was trapping things in a mind hex, parasitizing them, and then consuming them. I had almost been subject to this. I lightly brushed my hands over the crown of barbs. “If that Mourner didn’t shove this on my head…”

I bowed towards nothing, however I knew who it was meant for. I thanked the Mourner innerly, even if he might not be aware.

I rested for a bit. The turmoil in my heart slowly settled. “She's not dead…” I quietly whispered. In truth no amount of rest would allow me to recover from that run, not without food and water.

My throat burned, and my stomach ached. I had no water or food on me, so I could not simply sit and wait for it to come for me.

I pulled the fragment of the mirror out of its covering once again, and brought it to my head.

“Ah…” I expected something like this.

The crown of barbs was not ordinary, not that I ever thought it was. It was piercing deep within me before, but now it was truly at a different weight.

The crown truly was absorbing some part of me. The beautiful grey bulbs on it had grown in size. It's complexity increased as well. It's barbs and design seemed deeper and more genuine.

It emitted a mournful presence. I felt grim as I wrapped the piece of cloth around the glass again. Somehow I didn't really hate that it was growing. Considering how it could harm what I assume is the soul, it was only natural I imagined it could serve as a truly powerful weapon eventually.

“I'll have to find a way to use it effectively though…” The image of me throwing a crown around to my enemies like a Frisbee entered my head. A pained laughter echoed in the forest. It was too silly.

I laid and looked towards the sky for a bit. There were small differences apparent in the surrounding world that contrasted it from Earth, but truly it was different.

The Vast was not exactly one place however, If I'm being honest I'm not really sure how to describe it, even to myself. Mainly because of its confusing nature. The basics of it, and the most information I could get from one little lesson by the Faded who raised me, was that each individual region has properties that stem from its original world, however these are prevented from influencing other regions by the borders which are designed around them.

These borders have very mysterious properties, as the passing through them is extremely easy for many, and for specific people the passing through can be deadly. Other methods of traveling through them other than simply going through them exist, but they are not orthodox, and 9 times out of 10 could lead into an even bigger loss.

Basically this means that this sky, which was similar to Earth, was unique to this region. It was impossible for it to stretch beyond the boundaries of its region. The Vast was ultimately and amalgamation of specific points of different universes, and although all were part of an amalgamation, and DID have some similarities, they were each isolated by their regional walls.

It was confusing, and I honestly don’t care about what I have to do, but I really wanna get out of here.

I wasn’t afraid of the ash as much as I was afraid of whatever else it may do to me. The unknown properties of the Vast, and its immense size were definitely the most horrifying things about it, at least from the perspective of someone who just entered this hell.

I understood my situation however. My emotions were a liability. I wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with bottling up emotions, but truly I understand how bad of an experience it really was.

Fear was natural, and I know I’m a hypocrite for putting my emotions behind me, as inhumane as that is. However my morals, or correctness does not matter in a situation where I will die if I take one wrong step.

I sighed, and stepped off the altar.

The ashes crunched under my feet once more.

I did not have a long time left until sunset. I had to get moving.

“I let time get ahead of me…” I rubbed my chin. I needed to find an efficient way of exploring and not getting lost. I crouched down, and felt around the bottom of the stone altar. “Here we go.” I picked up a chipped off piece of the altar. It was not exactly sharp, but it would allow for marks on the tree bark.

I decided that running in a random direction would suffice. I did not want to exhaust myself, as such I jogged in a random direction. Slashing at trees to make a mark of where I had come from. The influence of the ashes was still horrible, and I felt my mind weakening due to the madness they induced in me.

However the crown of barbs was even more treacherous.

The pain kept me awake. It kept me moving. I came upon a clearing. The forest’s impenetrable veil of leaves broke off here, allowing for the light of the bright sun to shine down on the maddening ashes.

However my center of attention was not this. Instead I faced downwards.

Footprints.

I had a choice. Either to continue to walk towards these footprints and risk meeting something I shouldn’t; or returning to the altar, and waiting out the night in stillness. The darkness of the Vast was something horrifying to me.

Not that I was afraid of the dark…

Totally.

“Fuck…I don’t wanna fight anyone though…” My stomach grumbled. It was too much of a liability to meet a person, but it was also too dangerous to stay still in the Vast. Usually waiting for something to come to you didn’t end well here.

I took a step forward.

“Footprints it is, I guess.” I shrugged my shoulders. Hopefully they speak English. The shard of stone tightened in my hand, it would serve as a minuscule weapon should I be attacked.

I wasn’t sure why, but I felt excited to meet someone else.

I hissed, the crown was really starting to get annoying. I could feel it slowly growing...consuming me, it was as if the ashes and the crown itself were fighting over the right to consume me. My annoyance was displayed in a sigh.

The sunset had began.