Hope's left foot stopped in mid-air, hovering just over the patch of glass as his reflection waited for the two likenesses to become one.

"..."

Hope remained still.

Neither moving forward or backward.

His insides intangibly reached out for any evil aura lurking beneath. But it felt only empty.

And…curiously…a part of Hope wanted to step on it anyway. To see what possible danger could be produced from this tiny choice alone. What chaos could ensue. No doubt a question like that defined the saying 'curiosity killed the cat.' Whatever the hell a cat was.

Hope hesitated. A second or two passed before he obeyed his instinct and pulled his foot back.

He then carefully knelt to the ground and inspected the surface.

Twice his instinct alerted him of his steps. Logical thought was that the surface wasn't stable and would crack open. But another part of him said that wasn't it. If he was alerted twice, how many more of these dangerous patches were spread throughout his way forward?

Hope stretched out his gloved hand toward it.

His fingers twitched before touching the surface to swipe the shards of glass to the side that glinted like broken stars or stolen silver light. But the patch beneath revealed to be intact. No spider cracks, or marred veins fissured on its surface.

"Mm…" Hope frowned.

At that moment, as his eyes hardened and his focus narrowed, the world tuned out.

Only the sound of his memory's hum and his breathing reached his ears.

Hope stretched his hand out once more. He swiped away the rain puddle as if he were caressing his sister's sheets from the bed wrinkles, clearing as much water as he could. Closer, something else said. He wouldn't know if he didn't come closer.

Hope gritted his teeth.

But he leaned down, his face warping on the mirror's surface almost like a ripled sea distorting his image. Wavering two blue orbs for his eyes shook beneath, and it all closely mirrored the time when he knelt in his Soul…Sea–

"Oh fucking hell–" Hope reared back.

'Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it.'

But that memory already threatened to surface.

"Arg!"

The murmurs rose. The cacophony returned like its own storm howling in his mind. Bad time. Bad time. It was always a bad time. Damn useless to have these thoughts now.

'Forget it dammit!'

"Urg…!"

Forget?

'You know what I mean–'

"U-urg…"

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Hope groaned and forced himself to stand.

Clutching the side of his head with one hand, the other with the spine sword, Hope moved around the glass patch and stumbled through the cold drizzling rain.

He tried again to think of something else but it was futile. The memories barked and snarled, twisted and slithered. His thoughts were swallowed. Swallowed before they could even settle. Fighting like ravenous wolves.

But his instinct burned through the midst.

He identified it, and it forced him to stop in his tracks. The warning rattled inside him like a creature in a cage.

And for that, he was able to spare a moment of clarity. Danger. Danger. But what danger? What the hell did this fallen building have?

Step. Step. Step.

Hope bit down on his tongue, the familiar warm metal taste filled his mouth as he trained his eyes forward.

The blinding mist closed in once more, not even the crater's yawn broke through to his left, or the haunting buildings to his right. It was as if some storm god had wrapped their hand around him, making his world much smaller than it already was.

!!!

As Hope was about to take another step, a hot and cold chill spiked through his leg and up to his chest.

It was like the feeling of being caught, caught in a mistake one's parents would disapprove of, or when an officer catches a stupid lie out of the trainees. No words necessary this time. His sense grappled him instead. Hope flinched and immediately pulled his foot away from the spot as if he were about to step on fire.

But when he stepped back–

Step– CracK!

A crack ripped through all sound.

The memories immediately squatted to murmurs.

His focus pivoted to the panel breaking beneath him. At first, a skeletal-like hand cracked on the glass, but then his whole image splintered.

"Shit!"

KSsKshKSH!

Fwoosh–

All support beneath disappeared.

The ground shattered like reality being broken into a void.

"Erg!"

Hope immediately fanned his arms out and pressed his arms down on each side.

Hqrooooowwwl!

The howls returned, stirred by the noise.

The jagged edges needled through Hope's combat sleeves and pinched his skin. Hope gritted his teeth, noticing his elbows were slipping inward till his hands gripped alone instead. His head went under the surface, sunken inside the building where thick darkness wrapped around like night.

But what was replaced for stars was something else entirely different.

There was light. But not from the pockmarked holes, but from strange red blinking lights.

Hope felt himself stiffen.

From the glass panel Hope just avoided, there was a planted fist-sized red light beneath it. Yards away from it was another red light. Then another. And several followed underneath the surface with varied but great distances in between, pulsing like a threatening heartbeat.

"Fucking hell…"

Hope looked back towards the sky.

And he tried pulling himself up. His muscles spasmed as he struggled. His legs kicked slightly as he attempted more leverage, but that didn't work either. The sword he dropped to the side was too far as well.

'Come on. Think think think think.'

Stronger grip.

He needed something he could hold enough of.

Hope blinked from a fleeting thought. Immediately, he moved all of his strength to one hand while the other moved towards his mouth.

He undid his glove with his teeth, then quickly grasped the jagged edge once more.

A cold stab sunk into his palm, and something thick and warm dripped. But Hope held on even tighter as he pulled himself up.

Pat!

One elbow over.

Then the other.

His clothes and back weighed on him from the soaked rain as if wanting to drag him back down. But with one more push and pull, Hope ordered his body to move. And it reluctantly did so.

Put. Put.

He crawled forward, careful to avoid the other glass patch.

Groaning as a quick ache came to pass.

And leaned back in a sitting position, spitting the glove out of his mouth.

"For…fuck's…huff…huff…sake…" Hope said between pants.

But as he began recollecting his thoughts again, he supposed it wasn't an entirely unfortunate thing that happened.

'Wait…'

Hope blinked from a sudden thought.

Then he gazed forward through the rain.

Hope looked on ahead at the rest of glass planes, the rest of the spire that stretched and vanished into the drizzling wall. The image of the blinking lights that already burned into his memory he let again veil across his eyes. It was like placing a transparent image in front of another. And before the memory could melt away, or form completely, it was placed over the current view he saw now.

In that split moment, Hope was able to estimate the rough positions of the other red lights.

"Give or take…" Hope muttered as he ran a hand through his wet hair. "Ninety percent accuracy."

The angle was different, but it should be close enough.

Hope let out an annoyed sigh.

"Found the fucking traps."