Huh! Huu! Huh! Huu! Syllis carefully eased her breathing back to normal. She looked down at her chest, which had been filled with burning pain only a few seconds ago. She found that her hand was instinctually clutching at her heart.

The woman pulled her shirt forward slightly. She was searching for any signs that her episodic pain had truly emerged. If not, then it was purely psychological, remnants from her dream that felt all too real.

Her skin was unblemished, lacking the signature red tones that spread out from beside her heart. It was really only a nightmare.

‘What was that?’ She wondered. ‘Could it really have been my ritual? But, I don’t remember most of that ever happening?’

She decided to believe it to be true. The mind was a miracle in itself and produced dozens more. The entire act of a kindred using their bond, leaving lingering corruption within, was proof of that.

There were instances where a person’s memories were locked away by their own brain due to traumatic experiences. Though, they never revealed themselves again, unless they experienced a similar situation or had them goaded out by a professional.

What bothered Syllis the most was the crystalline creature and its seafoam eyes. Had her eyes really been a deep blue at the beginning? It was only reasonable for her to assume. This was an insignificant detail so she could not comprehend why her mind would change such a fact.

‘Properties of the transfigured anathema can manifest in a kindred…’ Syllis committed the rule to memory.

The more important matter remained though. ‘Why did these memories reveal themselves now? Is it because of the space that I’m in? If so, then why after a month of me rotting in here?’ She wondered, turning to face the wall where she had tried to mark the days.

This space she was stuck in was more than bizarre. Originally, she had been worried about food or water. There were not any creatures to kill for food aside from the baby in the center of the room. That was much too vicious for Syllis though, inhumane and evil. Besides, even if she had been the villain to do such a thing, it clearly had some supernatural aspects to it. Her worries had been unfounded though as she never grew hungry or thirsty. Similarly, the baby never grew hungry or thirsty either. On top of that, its vocal cords never strained…

Every few hours, the walls would repair themselves from any damage. It led Syllis to suspect she was trapped in a sort of time loop. It was good for her in the fact that she would not die of hunger but it was poor in the sense that, in order to try and escape, she needed to use whatever was inside of the loop. On top of that, her progress would reset every few hours. Oddly enough though, her position did not change as well as her memories, they remained intact.

This contributed to a dilemma of hers. Syllis had scoured every inch of the room in the month she was trapped. She had found nothing of use. Now, her days were long and arduously boring. She could not even improve herself. Working out to try and build muscle would only result in her body being rewound to the state it was when she first entered.

‘Well, there is one aspect I haven’t delved too deeply into…’ Syllis turned towards the white crib in the center of the room. She remembered the pain she felt and also a slight, longing for the child. This pain prevented her from investigating further. ‘It’s worth looking into. How would a baby even get here? Perhaps this area became suspended due to an incident?’

Syllis did not want to feel the same burning pain that she always tried to avoid but, this was her only remaining option. She had already spent the last week doing practically nothing out of fear.

The baby’s cries grew louder as she approached. Its tenacity increases with each step. By the second, Syllis felt the pain set in. By the fourth, she was almost gritting her teeth and after another, she found it getting difficult to breathe.

Syllis made sure to walk slowly. Despite the length of the pain being longer, she was unsure of how it would work if she jumped straight to the side of the crib. There was a chance she would end up taking the entirety of the pain she would have sustained in an instance. Perhaps it would kill her on the spot. She had no way of knowing. Perhaps she would be resurrected as part of the loop. There was nothing pointing to or against that either.

As she reached the side of the crib, she held her breath. It was hard to breathe, impossible to breathe.

Syllis looked at the baby. It would look plain and unassuming to the average person but to Syllis, she felt the flame of nostalgia wafting within her heart.

The baby had a pale complexion with short cerulean hair. What shook Syllis to her core though were the two, deep blue eyes that seemed to hold an acute innocence within them.

‘This!’ Syllis thought as she hastily jumped backwards. She gasped upon gaining control of her breathing again. She took a couple deep breaths before laughing. A string of coughs then broke out.

Syllis laughed crazily as she finally understood and said, “It's me.”

It made sense, she had not originally recognized the baby and its blue eyes because she never remembered her own, blue eyes. Or rather, her mind had locked the thought of them away. Every time she thought back to looking in the mirror, her traumatized mind would filter the blue pools out with seafoam colored gems.

‘This pain in my chest… could I really figure out what the cause is?’ Her seafoam eyes swirled with maniacal waves as she wondered. If she tore into the baby’s flesh, would she finally uncover the mystery? If she tore into it, would she feel the pain?

There were a plethora of questions and only one way to answer them. She knew that there were certain precautions she needed to take first though. There was a possibility that she could kill the baby and potentially—by extension—herself. This also meant she could not test the possibility of her sharing the baby’s pain. With a baby and its lackluster amount of blood, losing any amount before the ‘surgery’ was a huge disadvantage.

Syllis pondered the moral and ethical implications before tossing them aside entirely. ‘What use do any rules have in here, within this fable? This is an unprecedented case. I can’t possibly bear the brunt of every guideline. Yes, the only rule I need to follow is to ensure that I do all that I can to escape.’

Quickly, she formed a plan. She would tear the front of the crib apart, allowing her easy access. She would take a blanket from within and sink her teeth into it to bear the pain, sparing her teeth from shattering. As for her instrument to perform the surgery… a pristine knife of icy-blue.

Then, as a potential backup plan if her surgery did not lead anywhere or give any clues, she would leap into the great expanse of black. She harbored no hope or clue how it would help her escape but the fate had peculiar motives. Maybe there was a chance.

Syllis began to work on her plan. She took eight steps to reach the crib. It was a simple process to pull the front of the crib apart. With the strength of a kindred with what she assumed was a well nurtured anathema, she required only half of her total effort to tear the wooden frame apart. After finishing and making sure to grab one of the blankets, she quickly moved away from the crib to catch her breath.

Then, she began to form a knife formed of icy-blue. She made sure to form the blade to be as small and possibly. The smaller the blade, the lesser her chance of rupturing something important. The tip of the blade was difficult, it needed to be sharp, thin, and durable. Balancing these three aspects was almost impossible.

As she worked and worked at it, minutes faded into an hour. By the time she was done with the rest of the knife, fine tuned for her specific needs, at least another hour passed.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Syllis breathed in and out. The reality of the situation caused the dread in her stomach to grow heavier and ensnare the hope in a trap. “Calm down, Syllis,” she said to herself.

Eventually, the sense of impending doom subsided and she worked up the nerve to approach. First though, she needed to check her scar. She removed her shirt, examining the scar that she never remembered getting. It had been there for as long as she remembered, causing her immense pain an immeasurable amount of times.

This was going to be her guideline. ‘If someone could carve this into me and have me survive then surely it will work with this… past self?’ She was not too sure what to call it and she had no evidence whatsoever that this would confirm anything. Inside though, she had a deep feeling from inside the very depths of her soul, a feeling that this was finally it.

Syllis committed the exact position of her scar to memory. There was going to be no time to check it once she made her first cut into her past self.

With a few deep breaths, she began to step closer to the crib. She was afraid, but ready to push through that fear. It was not a matter of wanting, it was her need to escape. She was slowly losing her mind, of herself, who she was as a person. It was deteriorating inside of this perpetually looping box. Several times, she had wished her knowledge would reset along with the modifications. At least then, her identity would be protected.

‘There are some advantages to this though…’ It was much better for her to arrive at this point, then rely on the chance that she—armed with zero knowledge at the start of every few hours—would eventually find a way out.

‘Besides, it could have taken me a hundred years. In a time where Clyde and Aura would have long died… would it even be worth it, to return home. No—it would not be home. I would be returning to a foreign place with foreign people, unrecognizable from the time I left it. That wouldn’t be worth returning to!’

Syllis bit down onto the blanket and took the final couple of steps towards her past self. She looked over herself with a mix of pity and sympathy before brandishing her icy-blue knife above. Steadily, she mentally placed the scar onto the bottom of the baby. Her hand hovered just above the mental scar as she began to press down.

Immediately, crimson liquid began to seep around the edges of the icy-blue knife forming a sort of beautiful sight. It was much like the abyss rising through the cracks in the ground.

Simultaneously, she felt sharp pain radiate from her chest, as if someone had been tearing into her own flesh. She made a couple of muffled grunts, steeling herself for the pain that was to follow.

‘I really hate fables…’

Syllis wiped away the blood and dug deeper. If she was lucky, the source of her pain and—by extension—her past self’s future pain, would be close to the surface. The secare nymph she was cutting into could only have been six months old at the latest. There was not much flesh to carve through.

Her vision ebbed and flowed in a rhythmic manner, much like the stars as she cut further into her past self. At the same time, almost in tune, the baby's cries grew louder than Syllis ever thought a person could scream. Syllis felt like the room was shaking around her.

Battling this ‘shaking’ along with her blurring vision, burning pain from within and the stabbing pain that she was causing, Syllis nearly found it impossible to keep her bearings. Yet, she did not waver. There was no chance for her to mess up. Now that she knew that her pain was her past self’s pain and vice versa, there was no room to fail. She would die.

Syllis continued to wipe the blood away before tearing further and further into her own flesh. As she did, the cries grew even louder. She heard cracking sounds as she looked forward, taking shallow breaths through her nose.

Writing began to form on the wall behind the crib, it read, “the child, destined to—”

It cut off abruptly.

Syllis flicked her gaze away from it and back towards her past self. There was no time to ponder what was happening around her. As far as she was concerned, the only two things that existed were herself, and her past self.

More blood rushed out along with more horrific and prolonged screams. They were blood-curdling. Syllis understood the pain and had the urge to scream the same screams.

Syllis continued to tear into her past self’s flesh and muscle. She could feel the heartbeat to the side of her hand. The more she cut, the more of her hope was swallowed mercilessly. Slowly, dread began to take over.

‘Hah… I’m starting to think that hope is not included in the fabric of fate.’ She thought, self-deprecatingly.

Then, a slight glimmer shone through an opening in all of the blood, flesh and muscle. It was a slight golden chunk of something. Syllis threw the thought of wondering away. There were not many times she openly cursed her habit of over-thinking. Now though, this was certainly one of them.

Syllis understood though that this must have been the source of her pain. Or rather, it was the source of her past self’s pain. She herself would need to remove whatever this was, from her own body.

More crimson blood flowed out as Syllis tried reaching in to grab the golden object. Frustrated, she managed to refrain from using the knife to try and remove the object. There was a high chance of causing great damage if that happened.

Two objects of icy-blue had begun forming just above Syllis’ right hand. Amongst the shaking, cries and overwhelming pain, she fused them together. She hastily held them overtop her past self. There was not much time left, a lot of blood had been lost and she herself felt like she was going to pass out.

Syllis gently maneuvered the icy-blue tool around muscle and bone as she grabbed a hold of what appeared to be a golden needle around four inches long. She then gently guided both the tool, along with the needle back through muscle, bone and flesh before tossing them to the side.

Immediately, she began to pull the torn flesh and muscle together with icy-blue patches. They operated like stitches, only with less efficiency. Then, after diligently putting in the effort to seal every bleeding area in the inside of the wound, she froze over the top before falling backwards.

Syllis stumbled on the ground, her world spinning around her. The pain that she felt, along with the burning sensations were gone. The disorientation remained though. She grappled with her surroundings which felt like they were swirling around her.

Then, she glanced around the room, first to the golden needle, covered in blood and successfully torn from the inside of herself. She felt a sharp sense of accomplishment within herself. Then, she looked to the wall that was inscribed with what appeared to be blood. It had grown and was more perplexing than she ever could have thought.

Completed, it read:

“The child, destined to pierce the Ether.

“Accompanied by her Golden Needle. She, a fated spirit.

“Outside, storm, together, escape, lost, bleeding, ethereal, protection, potential, divinity.”

Syllis took a couple of moments to think before saying, “those damn random words again, huh…”

The woman rose to her feet while saying, “fate… Do you really think I’ll let you play around with me still? Like I’m some puppet.”

Syllis walked to the door, the originator of the ten, random words. She examined them again upon swinging open the door. They were pulsing faster and had moved position. Now, they seemed to make up an image, doing away with their random spots. They formed what appeared to be the needle that she pulled from her past self. She swung the door shut before grabbing the golden needle.

Without any care for her appearance at the moment, she used her shirt to wipe all of the blood from the needle. What was left was a shining golden needle, about four inches in length. There was a small hole on the end of it for thread to be pulled through.

“This is the ‘golden needle of a fated spirit?’” Syllis said out loud. Inwardly, she remarked on the lackluster appearance of something with such a grand name.

Syllis swung it in the air in front of her. She felt the world around her be pulled slightly. It was an odd amount of resistance for a needle so small. Still, it did not seem to ‘pierce the Ether.’

Then, she focused intently on the thought of returning home. She swung the needle again. It left a slight tear in the air in front of her. “Neat, then…” She swung it again, this time, intercepting her previous cut in the middle.

This time, the world in front of her fell open. It almost looked like a flower blooming. Within this blooming flower, this man-made fable, Syllis felt a strong call in her mind.

“Destined to pierce Ether huh?” Syllis laughed heartily and said, “who gave them the right?

“Why would I listen to this text on the wall? Who thinks they can force me to do such a thing? With this needle, I could do anything I damn well please. With this needle… I could bring destiny to its knees and break the one I’ve been given. With this needle I will shatter fate.”

“Wait for me, Aura, Clyde,” Syllis said. “I’m coming.” She stepped beyond the formless and torn space in front of her, leaving her past self behind, along with all of her dread, regret, and anything else she felt like casting away.

Volume 1: Secare. End