Ash’s POV

Whenever Leo killed an animal for us, he would always keep the bones, and the large ones he would generally fashion into various shapes and styles of knives. Most of them, he then immediately started working on engraving a wing into them, leading to him having a rather obscene amount of flying knives. I asked him one night on watch why he made so many when he could only control two at one time, and he told me all about what he called Project Horizon, a plan where he would control a whole army of flying knives and use them to constantly be able to see everywhere, attack anywhere, at any time, all while staying in a safe location far away from the action. Given how enthusiastically he gushed about it, I had no choice but to admit that it did in fact sound cool. As a gift, he gave me a bone knife of my own.

Because he didn’t really care about how his equipment looked as long as it worked properly, he ended up giving me the one that had turned out looking the best. It was about a foot long, and bladeless, instead tapered to a fine point. More of a fang than a knife really. This one he hadn’t yet carved a wing into, so that I could design it however I wanted to. I had decided to play into the whole fang motif and spent a month carving an intricate snake around the handle, the added texture making the knife easier to hold. This enchantment of mine allowed me to inject mana into what would otherwise be a purely physical attack. If I stabbed it into a person, then my own mana would flood into their bodies, preventing them from using their own.

If I stabbed it into an elemental, however, I’d be able to damage them, really damage them. With that in mind my plan was simple enough. I used the concepts of light and dark to invoke a spell I called ‘unfindable’, and calmly walked up to the center of the elemental, bent down towards the ground, and stabbed the gift Leo had given me into it. I wasn’t sure how much mana it would take, so I just sent all of mine in, hoping beyond hope that it would be enough. And if it wasn’t, that it would weaken the elemental enough for someone else to easily finish it off.

I stood back up, but completely draining myself of mana had exhausted me. The blood rushed to my head, and I started seeing spots dancing in my vision, before losing my balance and beginning to fall backwards. And there, in the middle of the dancing spots, was…Long brown hair, suspended as though gravity no longer had sway, a warm smile spreading across the face, telling me everything was going to be alright, that no matter what, I would be safe. Is that you Sam? You came to take me? How are Mom and Dad? Are they alright? Do they know how sorry I am?

But it wasn’t Sam coming to lead me to whatever exists beyond death. It was…Leo? When did he get here? Sharp agony ripped through me from somewhere in my arm, and he pushed me away. Did he just stab me? What the fuck-

My entire existence was consumed with a deafening Boom, and a brilliant light. Shadows of boulders flying chaotically up and away, and Leo flying right towards me. He slammed into me, the pain in my arm now excruciating, bringing the spots back to my vision, but I fought to remain conscious. I needed to know what had just happened.

It took a few seconds to stabilize myself to ask Leo, “W-what the hell-”

But I stopped.

Leo’s head was on my chest.

Why was it wet?

I touched it and looked at my hand.

Why is my hand such a bright red? Shouldn’t it be pale?

Wait…

My heart threatened to burst out of my chest, and my head threatened to explode as I sat up, my arm collapsing under me, refusing to take my weight, so I switched to the other side, causing the world to spin under me. I had to see. I had to check. I had to know.

Leo was lying on top of me, but…he wasn’t moving. Did he pass out? Then where had the blood come from? I looked at my useless arm, and saw a knife inside of my shoulder. Oh, that’s where the blood came from…

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No, wait. The knife is still in there, stopping the blood from coming out, so there’s not a lot on me from there. So where? I turned back to look at Leo, this time fully comprehending what I was seeing and… He was a mess. All along his back and legs, there were chunks of him missing. Blood was seeping up and out, flowing down his sides and onto me. Even on the parts of his body that didn’t have holes gouged out, there were horrifying cracks in him, bright red, almost glowing crimson, like he was seconds away from completely shattering and falling to pieces right on top of me.

After a second, I realized that I heard screaming. After another second, I realized that it was mine. I couldn’t stop looking at Leo’s trembling back, almost seeming to pulsate slowly, getting ready to collapse…no…wait…rising and falling….he’s just breathing….that means…

He’s still alive. For now at least. I only knew one person who might be able to fix him, to save him. An all-powerful being could surely save him right? As fast as I could, I rose shakily to my feet, and ran for where he’d left his bags, stumbling over myself the whole way. I rummaged through one specific one, before finding it. The weird stick he called a ‘beacon’, and I shouted into it,

“SOPHIA, IT’S LEO, HE’S DYING, PLEASE HELP HIM.”

I looked behind me to where I’d left Leo, but…he was gone. Now that there was nothing more I could do, sheer physical exhaustion took over, and I collapsed.

Leo’s POV

Darkness, and silence. Have you ever wondered what it would be like in space without a suit? An infinite void of nothingness, no light, no sound. Just adrift in oblivion, with nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to know. That’s how I felt. Was this death? If so, it was everything I had feared it would be. Eternity of nothing, fully conscious yet unable to do anything. How long before I would completely lose the last shred of sanity?

“Leo? Are you awake?”

I know that voice. “Soph?” I tried to respond. But nothing came out. I tried again, “Sophia, is that you?” But still, when I spoke, there was no sound. As though there was no air for my words to travel into. But if there was no air, then why could I feel myself breathing? I felt for the soulbond, and to my relief, I found it. I’ve heard of ‘til death do you part, but apparently this soulbond makes that look like chump change. Though it does kinda suck that she’ll effectively be haunted by my ghost for eternity, but I guess if I go nuts she can always just cut the connection. Man that’ll suck.

“Thank God you finally woke up, Ash and I were worried. You’ve been unconscious for over a week.”

Wait, was I not dead? Then where the hell was I? “Where am I? Why can’t I see or hear anything?”

“Activate your blindfold”.

Oh, yeah. I’m blind now. I almost forgot. That would very much explain the endless expanse of nothingness in front of me. I ran my mana through the blindfold on my head and…A beautiful woman was looking at me, tears running down her face. I reached up with my hand to wipe them away, and my body did not like that. It groaned, yelling at me to stop moving. Tough shit, I told it, and continued what I was doing. She caught my hand and held it next to her face.

“How are you feeling?” She asked. But…There was something wrong with it. Why hadn’t her face moved when she spoke?

“Why are you talking through the connection, and what happened to my voice?” This time I could feel my mouth and throat moving, working. But there was still no sound.

“Do you remember fighting the elemental?”

“Sure, it was about to kill Ash, so I teleported in, pushed her out of the way, and blew it up.”

Sophia nodded, and said, “That’s good, at least there’s nothing wrong with your memory. The problem is, you were standing too close when you detonated your knife. You almost killed yourself Leo.”

An inappropriately timed joke popped into my head. “Try harder next time huh? Dang even dynamite didn’t work, maybe I should go for nukes next.”

Sophia did not find it funny, “Don’t fucking joke like that. I’m pissed at you Leo. You almost DIED. Can you take this seriously?”

I nodded and repeated, “So what happened to my voice?”

She sighed and responded, “Nothing. The problem isn’t your voice, it’s your ears. My healing magic only speeds up your own recovery, but fundamentally it doesn’t do anything to you that your own body can’t do. Apparently the human body can’t repair ruptured eardrums. I managed to repair and restore some of the muscle mass that was blown out of you in the explosion, and bring your blood count back up to where it should be, but you still have a bunch of fractured bones that even with magic will take a couple weeks to heal completely.”

Blind and deaf huh. Y’know, I have a new appreciation for Helen Keller now. The few minutes of existence I had experienced of that infinite nothingness was absolutely horrifying, and yet she managed to thrive despite it, even in a world without magic blindfolds. I tugged lightly on Sophia’s wrist, trying to get her to lie next to me, but my bones wouldn’t let me pull too hard. Luckily, she understood, and slid into bed beside me, holding my head to her chest.

“I know I have a bunch of things I need to do, alter my blindfold to make me able to hear, check in on Ash and the gang, and let them know I’m alive and all. But for now, can we just do nothing for a bit?”

Sophia finally let out a light giggle. “So permanent disability and breaking damn near every bone in your body is what it takes for you to take a day off of enchanting? Good to know.”

I laughed silently, my ribs aching. My shoulder and arm under her torso burning, my head in her chest pounding away. I turned off my blindfold for a bit, and laid there, letting my new reality sink in, the endless abyss of nothing but the warmth of Sophia’s embrace.