Chapter 23 - A Cycle of Fear

After a couple of days of following the glowing trail in the ground, Adam wondered whether he’d permanently see the leaf-vein-like pattern whenever he closed his eyes. However, the effort wasn’t without results. When Adam passed another turn in the twisting tunnel, he ended up at a giant hemispherical cave: a new Node.

Although it was approximately a fifth the size of the previous Node, the sight of the underground civilization took Adam’s breath away.Yellowish light from up above, and the goldish-green patterns in the ground, cast shimmering shades on the hieroglyph-covered stalagmites. Unspoiled by Overgrowth vines or signs of battle, the fortified obsidian aqueducts, fortresses and vaulted halls stood tall in all their glory. At the centre of the town was another pyramid, smaller than the last one, with a goldish-green spiral on top. To Adam’s relief, the statue in the spiral’s centre wasn’t of Catherine, but of some tower with a balcony.

The silence was deafening. As the group carefully made their way inside, even the crunch of their footsteps seemed to echo through the open space. A flock of birds flew up, cawing and flapping their wings with an uncaring racket. Adam rubbed the scars on his wrists and looked around skittishly if anyone had noticed them.

“Ah, another Node, just like you said!” Oliver said softly, padding Adam on the shoulder. “Grand work!”

“Thanks, thanks,” Adam whispered. With an uneasy feeling as if he was being watched, he scanned the town and the bushy slopes around them but couldn’t find anything.

“Finally,” Emily sighed. “Now we can check out the top of a pyramid! Let’s go!”

Adam frowned. “Wait. The light at the previous Node was a reddish-orange, right? Why is it yellow around here?” He explicitly kept his gaze on the ground for now.

Emily raised an eyebrow. “So? Creative tastes can differ, you know?”

Adam smiled and pointed up dryly. “Ah, of course. I’m sure nightmarish monstrosities like Schultora, who like to replicate the sun, come together on weekends to make sure their colours match the latest fashion.”

Emily rolled her eyes. Hmm, still pissed.

Oliver fiddled with his lips as he looked around, deep in thought. “Sharp observation, maybe there’s a variation of that Schultora you mentioned. We should devise a plan, hmm? One of us can see if the source of the light is dangerous, while the others stand guard?”

Emily stepped forwards and looked up. She scrunched up her face in disgust and turned away, squeezing her eyes shut. “Urgh, damn it all… That’s definitely no Schultora, however.”

“Well, I just said we should make a plan!” Oliver said indignantly.

“No need, I’m fine!” she said, trying to keep a straight face.

Adam sighed. Although he could name quite some things he’d rather do, he knew he had to see whatever was up there.

Hidden between the trees on the slopes of the newly discovered Node, Adam closed his eyes and let his head hang back. He loosened his shoulders a bit and mentally prepared himself to look at the mysterious source of the light. To behold Schultora in the last Node was, without a doubt, one of the most confusing and disturbing experiences of his life. Although all the extinct animals around here were strange, their existence was easier to grasp than a gigantic creature with such a disgusting effect. Adam still felt filthy since his heart carried Schultora’s scorched mark, hinting at a disturbing relationship he wasn’t sure he wanted to understand.

However, he couldn’t afford to take the easy road. Every bit of information could be vital to unravel the mysteries of this place and come up with a way out. Adam clenched his hands into fists. Eric, Cath, this is for you.

He opened his eyes.

A grand hemisphere hung from the centre of the cave’s ceiling, shining brightly in a yellow-brownish light. The hemisphere consisted of a dense mass of small figures that continuously squirmed from its lowest point towards its edges. As Adam looked at it, his stomach lurched and a sour, filthy taste formed in his mouth. The figures were small animals that ran in mindless panic. Rabbits, insects, lizards—all kinds of species kept on emerging from the lowest point, and frantically fled for their lives. Wild-eyed, with mouths open in blind terror, they screamed their soundless cries as they crawled over each other towards the edge, where their bodies joined into the mass again. There seemed to be no end to the continuous cycle of fear up above.

“Osaehin,” echoed a voice like a thousand screeching animals, which seemed to emanate from inside Adam’s head. “Osaehin.”

Adam grunted, baring his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut. Real as the days they happened, old memories flashed before his eyes. The sounds, scents, and painful emotions of his troubled past overwhelmed him with unparalleled intensity.

He was a kid again and pushed his skinny legs to run as fast as possible. Young eyes darted over Gotterburg’s alleys to find a way out. With a raspy laugh, Joshua and those shady friends of his chased Adam. Earlier, Adam had always looked up to his dear older brother so much, in awe of his skill with knives. Now, Joshua held one with an entirely different intention.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are…” Joshua’s smoky voice sing-songed. He twirled the blade between his fingers in one of his sickening show-off tricks, while Adam desperately hid behind crates of garbage. “Better not be pissing yourself again, eh?” Joshua’s friends chuckled as they looked through the alley.

Everything changed around Adam. Suddenly, he lay down on an old, clammy mattress. He was back at the dark, abandoned storehouse near Gotterburg’s river wharves. The beggars, orphans, street rats and others who sought shelter, like Adam, scurried away in fear. It was the night when city guards came in with torches, clubs, and tridents. They yelled, kicked over the meagre possessions of the poor, and beat up anyone who was too slow. Like rats escaping a sinking ship, everyone fled towards the window. The mass of panicked people swallowed Adam like a sea of stinking bodies. The crowd became tighter and tighter, hotter and hotter until little Adam was squeezed tight between yelling adults. He prayed for all his life that he wouldn’t be squeezed to death.

Adam was vaguely aware his real body had fallen down. A searing pain emanated within Adam’s left heart as if a red-hot branding iron was pressed into it. The scorched brand of the gruesome hemisphere remained, beside the mark of Schultora.

“Osaehin,” his left heart whispered. “Osaehin.”

Something stirred, deep down in Adam’s subconscious. Something forbidden, like a dark bestial form that slowly made its way up from the forgotten depths of Adam’s mind. It swam closer and closer to Adam’s panicked consciousness.

Begone! Adam almost yelled in his mind, a vain attempt to gain control over the maelstrom of flashing memories before his mind’s eye. All of this was years ago! Leave me be!

Everything changed around Adam again. He was older and lay behind the corpse of the moose he had ridden to battle. Holding his breath, he tried with all his might to keep his quivering limbs under control. With loud stomps and nauseating squelching noises, the enemy came.

Knights in plate armour, richly decorated with the golds, purples and whites of the Pure, thundered past. Even the heavily armoured rhinos they rode had the empty white light in their eyes. Many comrades of Adam’s army ran for their lives, screaming for their loved ones and jumping over corpses and dropped equipment. With euphoric, relaxed faces, as if they enjoyed a casual ride in the countryside, the Pure knights gained on them. One of them blew his gold-rimmed horn in victory and the others raised their battle standards in honour of the Prophet. Squirming in his hiding place, Adam clenched his trembling hands over his mouth. He screamed soundlessly as the knights trampled or speared his comrades with ruthless efficiency.

THIS ISN’T REAL! Adam squeezed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth in his attempt to gain back control. Slowly, he became conscious of his real body again. However, the stream of memories that came in quick succession was relentless. He saw with horror how Eric’s terrified eyes peered at him from behind Catherine’s legs. Then, an avalanche-like roar of breaking stone filled his mind. The tower-sized living statues of the Pure broke down city walls right in front of him. Suddenly, his mind was filled with intense fflash of green light which felled soldiers left and right.

All of a sudden, the suffocating water was all around him again. As his lungs burned for air, he could see the sun shining high above him. He even saw the people who watched him squirm. There was no escape…

NO! LEAVE ME! Adam grunted, trying to ignore the terror that flowed through his veins. He focused on his physical body, on his clenched fingers that dug grooves through the dirt, in an attempt to block out the memories. And slowly, gradually, the images and sounds subsided. With chattering teeth and sweaty palms, he lay in a foetal position on the cold ground. The forbidden, dark mass of the past sank back into the depths of his subconscious. Instinctively, Adam repressed any memory that it ever existed.

“Osaehin,” Adam’s heart whispered. And all was silent again.

By the damned night... If Schultora is linked to guilt, Osaehin is linked to fear, no doubt.

“—dam! Adam!” Oliver said, holding the side of Adam’s head. “Wake up, buddy! Can you hear me?”

Adam opened his eyes with difficulty, it took a moment before the blurry images coalesced into a worried Oliver. Emily stood at his side.

“Yes, yes, I’m back,” Adam said absent-mindedly. His mind was slow and muddy but gradually started to work again. He sat up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ugh, damn that thing. Did you two feel that? All those memories?”

Oliver frowned at him. “What memories? Now that you mention it, it reminded me a bit of, err… unpleasant times. But what in the world do you remember that made you roll over the ground?”

“What? How could you even stay standing?” Adam got up with Oliver’s help. “All of it was so real… Times when I had struggled to stay alive as a kid. Multiple fights from the War of the Prophet, even some that I thought I’d forgotten already.”

Oliver hung on Adam’s every word, studying Adam’s face with a peculiar mix of worry and stern attention. “From the siege of Ziecherhein?”

Adam grimaced. “No, fortunately.”

Emily’s face was paler than usual. She held her arms crossed and avoided Adam with her gaze. “I remembered all sorts of things as well. Somehow, I heard the word ‘Osaehin’ over and over.”

Adam smiled, relieved to hear he wasn’t the only one. “Yes! Exactly!”

“It wasn’t nearly as bad for me, though,” she continued, still refusing to look at him. “I wasn’t rolling on the ground or anything.”

Oliver’s eyes didn’t leave Adam’s. “Did the same happen when you saw Schultora?”

“Uhm, sort of?” Adam said.

Oliver looked up at Osaehin again and squinted with a distasteful curl in his lips as if he looked at some dirt under his boot. “Was this Schultora you told me about an unsettling ornament like this? Hmm, I wouldn’t let Caine decorate my home if he places things like that, I think I prefer oil lamps.”

Adam brushed some bits of grass from his coat. There is some connection between my heart, emotions, and these beings. Schultora and Osaehin. Maybe they don’t have the same effect on Emily and Oliver as only my left heart has Awakened? Because only I have an active connection with the Forbidden Arts?

“So,” Adam said, eager to change the subject. “Shall we investigate the top of the pyramid and see if we can find out what ‘to associate’ means?”

Emily clapped her hands softly and started walking. “Yes! Finally!”

Oliver huffed. “Wait, we need a plan! It’s a whole town we don’t know! Thalers might be everywhere! We need to investigate what we’re up against!”

Adam nodded. “Fair, but there’s no sign of the Overgrowth or Roots and the whole place seems deserted. This might be our only chance to find an unguarded pyramid.”

Meanwhile, Emily crouched behind bushes and trees and was already on her way into the town. Adam dragged an indignant Oliver along to follow.