Chapter 8
The Enlightenment
“Ahh! Ahh!” Meredith didn’t want to scream, but she felt like she had no choice. Backed against the wall, with the Reaper bearing down upon her, she was trapped, and the only outlet she had for that was screaming. She tried to shut her eyes and block the menace out, but it did nothing. He was still there: that fearsome specter that was the source of her fears. “Go away. Go away.”
“Is that all you can do? You think a mantra will banish me from your heart?” The Reaper’s hand traveled down, pointing to her chest with a breath that rattled like death. “You haven’t grown an inch.”
“Shut up.” Meredith’s limbs shrunk in, tightening up around her body as she clasped her ears. If she couldn’t hear it, then it didn’t exist. If she pretended, then she wasn’t afraid. “You’re not real. You’re not real.”
“Ahahahaha!” The Reaper’s malicious laughter echoed, bouncing off walls and back to her. Every reverberation was a dagger to her heart, driving the stake of fear further within her. “When will you accept me, Meredith? My vision? My place in your soul?”
“I don’t want you here!” she screamed, but she couldn’t get her body to move, frozen in place. “I don’t want your vision. I don’t want your future. You took Eddie…”
“And look at you.” The Reaper grabbed her head, throwing it down until it smashed her against the floor. She felt a warm trickle of blood immediately start running down her face. “You can do nothing against me. You’re so scared you’re but a puddle.”
“Not…I’m not…”
“Just accept your fate. Sink into the abyss. Become one with my soul. My will. My body. Serve me, as he does.”
Meredith felt her fingers twitching, reaching over to her blade. His words were lashes, but his callous taunts about Eddie made her body coil and tighten. She gripped the hilt as tightly as she could and stabbed upwards, expanding the blade to strike into the center of the Reaper. He allowed it, the area around the sword becoming smoky, the being unharmed. With a tilt of his head, he considered her curiously. Meredith didn’t give him time to do anything else.
Adrenaline and fear mixed together, pumping through her legs to make her stand. Soon as she was able, Meredith was off and running down the nearest hall. A chuckle pursued her, the Reaper reforming where he stood. His cloak fluttered behind him as he swept after her, slow and looming. Meredith tried to put more speed behind her steps, but she may as well have been running in place for how little she was getting ahead of him.
The walls looked like they were closing in, the way ahead of her becoming a narrow sieve which threatened to keep her locked in. It was as if she was thread trying to pass through the eye of needle, inside a vice that would clamp around her and keep her from escaping. Her breath became gasps as she struggled her way down, and with the walls getting ever closer to her, it was as if they constricted her lungs. She didn’t dare activate her Soul Vision, knowing it would avail her of nothing in the way of fighting back. Not that she was sure she wanted to; the Reaper was too strong for that, even as little more than a vision. All she could do was run.
So, run she did.
It became difficult, the walls intent on tripping her up and leaving her as mere fodder for the Reaper, but she pushed against them, hoping for the slightest leeway. The light was beckoning her, and she used it to spur herself on.
“Keep running, Meredith, but you can’t escape. I’ll always be with you. In your nightmares, in your deepest regrets,” the Reaper cajoled, amused in his pursuit of her. She kept her mouth shut, her lungs starting to hold their breath, in the hope it would allow her to slip through the crack of the wall. “You can do nothing but cower.”
Shut up! she screamed to her head, her hand extending out. It made it past that final gap in the wall, and with a loudly expelled breath, she tumbled into the newest room before the walls sealed shut. Silence reigned.
Meredith took a moment, swallowing and gasping in air to restore herself on the ground. Carpet was beneath her feet, and the blue hue of the flames tinged her skin in its colors. The Reaper had left her, but his words were there. She felt so weak and helpless, as she had that day at Corps Castle. Ray’s back continued to walk away from her.
Biting back the negative emotion, Meredith looked up and blinked in surprise.
She had found it already: the altar. Dragging herself on her knees, Meredith watched it. It was made of a beautiful white marble, as if it was a pulpit of days past, from which priests and priestesses would offer praise to the goddess and her glory. That had to have been a time long past, for where they must have once placed objects of worship was now an undulating blackness. Like the goo that had threatened to trap them before, it flowed and bubbled atop the altar. Meredith approached it as best she could, remarking on its liquid properties, but she didn’t dare place her hand atop it, for she was all too sure of what it was.
“There’s nothing here…” Meredith came to breathe. She’d reached the location of their search, but nothing awaited her except darkness. “Does that mean there’s more to discover? Or is this a fake…?”
Turning her head, she hoped to examine the room, only to find her backing herself into the altar. She was careful to not touch the magic core, but her eyes were transfixed and unmoving as her brain took a moment to catch up with what her eyes were seeing.
Two orbs, each made of darkness, were transparent and hanging in the room, the blue flames managing to reveal their contents. Pushing off, Meredith approached the first of them, her fingers outstretched. She was wary to touch them, afraid of what she’d see inside, but she already had a guess. The closer she approached, the clearer the picture became.
“Vivian…”
Inside the orb was her friend, running down one of the nondescript halls of the palace they were in, trapped inside a nightmare of her own making. Meredith leaned down and saw Vivian collapse to her knees. In front of her wasn’t the Reaper, however, but that of her father. His eyes were dead, demanding and full of scorn. He despised her. Meredith wished to comfort her friend, and she touched to the orb. Sound was blasted at full inside her brain.
“No, I’m not yours!” Vivian screeched. “I’m me! I’m me!”
“And what you are is a tool to serve the Lacroix name.”
“Why should I serve someone who doesn’t give a damn?!” Vivian yelled, assuming a fetal position as she dropped to the floor, cradling herself. Her words were those of defiance, but to Meredith, she saw that little girl again, the one that had shut down when her father had looked away. For all their running, they’d each gotten nowhere.
“Vivian!” Meredith shouted. She reached back, banging on the orb, but hardly rattling its contents. Vivian didn’t hear her, and didn’t respond. Her father had kicked her in the stomach, reminding her of the plaything she’d become to serve his whims. The mist inside obscured her friend, never dissipating no matter how much Meredith struck the orb. Inside that mist was a very clear vision, however, of Vivian turning away from Eddie, tears in her eyes on a rain-soaked field. How would things have turned out if she had taken his hand that day? Vivian’s regrets hit Meredith full force. “Don’t give in…you’re not your father’s…”
“But isn’t she?” The Reaper’s voice startled Meredith, causing her to fall back again. This time, her head hit the other orb she’d yet to look inside. More voices echoed, this one Emil’s. He wasn’t cowering, but had remained still, confronted with the weight of his sins.
“I know…I’m sorry…” he was muttering from within. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I just wanted a home…I just wanted a family that didn’t expect it of me…Aah!”
Meredith looked up in time to see a vision of herself and Vivian slash across Emil’s figure, sending him towards the floor. He tried to pick himself up, but was ground beneath the visage of Vivian. Or was it a memory? Meredith wasn’t sure, but she knew the regret he was holding inside.
“Don’t give up…” she whimpered quietly, telling them more than herself. She wanted them to know they’d grown past that. That she was there for them, as they’d been there for her. It didn’t work. Their hallucinations still came for them, and Meredith’s reformed inside the altar space.
“Giving up? That’s the human condition.” His step resonated in the small room, and his cloak blotted out the blue flames. The Reaper’s return made Meredith back even farther away, trying to escape until her back hit the altar. She pushed, like it would move out of the way and permit her to continue running from the thing which haunted her. That didn’t happen, and her panicked breaths gave way to sagging limbs of despair. “When faced with a challenge that surpasses them, humanity gives up and runs. They turn to those stronger than them to guide them and lead them, and when those leaders fail, they give up.”
“That’s not true!” Meredith yelled. She felt so small, oppressed by the sheer presence of the figure. The Reaper swept over, leaning down on her lithe frame. She couldn’t see his teeth, but knew he was grinning with the perverse pleasure of breaking her. “We…we don’t give up. That’s what Guardians do. They stand up and fight, even when it seems hardest. They keep going forward. They get…they get stronger.”
“Is that what they did? Is that what you did?” the Reaper demanded of her. Meredith felt like she’d been stabbed in the heart, and once again the memories came, only this time of herself, seated alone in a room, broken and inconsolable. “No. You see, when it comes to the possibility of things changing, of having to think for oneself to make a better world…it’s easier to stop caring. Easier to run. Easier to die. Self-preservation over the whole is what matters, and fear is what drives that, makes you weak.
“That’s why you’ll never be a Guardian, Little Meredith.”
Meredith felt something break inside. She wasn’t sure what, but her sword hand, which had lifted during her enemy’s taunts, suddenly began to fall, clattering to the ground. They were the words that she hated the most, bringing her back to that childhood of doubt and watching her brother walk far out of her reach. She would chase after the future, but always was she rooted in the past.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
And it hurt because it was true.
Here she was, nothing but a little girl, who couldn’t use magic. Alone.
Weak.
Meredith tried to raise her arm, steadying it on the altar while she pushed. The Reaper stepped back, watching her, hoping she’d act.
Afraid.
Her hands trembled, the sword rattling back and forth with every minute movement.
Alone.
The Reaper’s words were railroading themselves into her mind and soul, stealing her will from her. She was confused and lost, adrift on the tides of fate and easy pickings for the one that had dismantled her.
“I’m…I am…” Meredith tried to say, but her mouth wouldn’t let her as her teeth knocked against each other. Her knees were knocking, with her legs slipping. She could barely stand. She was never a Guardian; she only played at being one. When it came time to defend and protect anything, the Reaper was always there to rip it away from her.
“You’re nothing,” the being seethed. He came close and she swung, only to find the blade blocked. “You’re a weak little girl who can’t make decisions on her own, can’t pull herself out. You can’t guide the future. You can’t protect anything. So, go home and wait for the will of the world to consume you.”
Meredith screamed, pained rage erupting in her breast. She wanted to fight back, needed to fight back. Her sword pushed against the Reaper’s hold, breaking his grasp on it before she jabbed it forward. Once again, it met nothing but smoke, the apparition advancing to slap her across the face. Meredith’s feet slipped, her head banging on the altar. She cried out, and then felt her short locks being yanked up high by the Reaper, his face so close to hers she could feel the rotting breath of his darkness.
Desperate to break free, Meredith switched her blade around in her hand, just as she’d been taught, and stabbed backwards. It did nothing; unable to tame the Reaper, and unable to conquer the fear. Each successive stab got weaker until, eventually, she stopped trying altogether.
“You understand now, don’t you? That you cannot overcome my will.”
“I…” Meredith didn’t know what she wanted to say or convey to the looming death before her. She was lifted higher until she was level with the magic core. Whispers came from within, screaming for desperate release and wracked with tortured pain. “I’m stronger than…”
“Strong? How laughable. You couldn’t save Silva. Couldn’t save your best friend. Couldn’t save the Corps.” His face was there, lips close to her ear, and he whispered enough to shake her core. “Who have you saved, really?”
“I…I promised…”
“To take on pain? Yes, let’s see how much you can take before you break. Let’s see how weak you are!” He didn’t hesitate to plunge her face into the magic core.
Meredith screamed.
It felt like her brain was being pried open. Her eyes twitched in the confines of their sockets. Veins pulsed along her face.
Pain…so much pain…why is there so much? Every regret that had come through there poured into her. Loss of family. Walking away from loved ones. Failing at something important. Breaking a leg, or an arm. Lies and lying. Sending someone to their death, knowing that you would live on.
Each of these emotions battered Meredith’s tiny form, each inflicting new pain upon her body, twitching inside the Reaper’s hold. Her screams couldn’t be heard as her body crumpled under the pressure. She tried to reach out, to put a stop to it, but there was so much she couldn’t even keep hold of a fist. It didn’t stop the nails forming crescents on her skin. Her pores were screaming, her mind yelling that she was done. It was enough. She didn’t want this anymore. She was too weak to handle it.
Just like that, the Reaper pulled her from its depths and tossed her back on the floor. She felt like a rag doll, rolling along until she was back under the orbs of her friends. Meredith coughed. Her fingers and toes twitched, her arms and legs flailed about, and the Reaper came closer. Looking up at the pitiless face of fear, she cowered.
Come on, Meredith! Erase my pain! If your Corps is so great, do it!
Rico’s demands took residence inside her head, taunting her. She shook, refuting it. Not anymore, she couldn’t. There was too much pain of her own. She was afraid. Always afraid. Now, she was just afraid that the pain would tear her apart from the inside.
Because she wasn’t a Guardian.
She was just a little girl at fear’s mercy.
The Reaper stood over her while she coughed, on her hands and knees. She looked up, and his boot soared out to her stomach, kicking her into the wall. She cracked its surface, sliding down in a slump. He said nothing and indicated nothing, but no more words needed to be passed.
“I’m…so scared…” she whispered. Her eyes glistened, and her hand lifted towards the orbs. She wanted to see them. Meredith just wanted to be with her friends. It didn’t matter if she was a Guardian or not; she just wanted to cut this fear out of her.
Yet, as she stared in the direction of where her friends were, that didn’t seem right.
Vivian was standing, cut and bruised, but approaching the apparition of her father, hands glowing with her own magic. Hers.
Emil was bowed low, before a vision of his parents, hugging them both, as if he was apologizing.
Weakness…
Meredith’s arm began to move of her own accord. Her soul began to shine. It pierced through the darkness, all the way to the two that were waiting for her. They were scared, and full of regret over their past actions, and all the things that had molded them into who they were.
They were standing, though.
Vivian and Emil had hope, and instead of throwing away what made them into who they were, what gave them all that regret, they took it in themselves. They made it who they were. It wasn’t wrong. It was just…them.
“I’m afraid…” Meredith said once more. The Reaper surveyed her with curiosity. She clasped tighter to her sword, and thrust it at the ground, holding her body as she pulled herself up. “I’m afraid.”
“Your weakness.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. Her hair whipped back and forth in front of her eyes as she continued to stand. Her Soul Vision was vacillating between the darkness of where she stood, and the light of hope that rested in her friends. She liked to believe it was reaching them, too. “I spent all this time running from fear, wanting to overcome it.”
“You cannot run from fear.”
“Mm, you’re right.” The Reaper was surprised by this admission. Meredith finished getting to her feet, breaths labored with the pain inside. Every inhalation, however, felt an easing of that pain, replacing it with the endurance she had to carry on. “I can’t just…cut this fear out of me. I can’t quiet it, or overcome it. So much of my life I spent running from it, refusing to acknowledge it, and it made me think I had none at all. I was going to be a Guardian. I was going to do all these things, and fearing I wouldn’t was just the road to weakness.”
Mera! The shouts inside her soul urged her to take a step forward. It was heavy with burden, laced with fear, but Meredith could feel a weight beginning to lift in her soul.
“But I was wrong. My fear is a part of me. My fear of failure, of giving up, of being unable to accept pain,” she declared. She felt stronger than before, Vivian and Emil’s souls buoying her forward. “My fear isn’t weakness. It helps me realize what my weaknesses are.”
“Then you are weak all the same.”
“You’re wrong, Reaper. Marcus. Shadow,” Meredith shouted out. This time, her step was filled with purpose, and her blade glinted with strength. The Reaper acted in kind, a nexus of dark energy forming within his hands. “I have weakness in me. I stumble. I fall.
“But in the end, they pull me up all the same.”
“They?”
Meredith sucked in a breath, closing her eyes. She could feel every breath and nerve; every pulse of magic that lined the halls of her illusion. Clarity arrived, and with it, an assuagement of grief that had tried to suck her dry. “My fear will always be there. I will never not be scared, but that just means I have something I lack. Something that makes me weak. Something they make up for. That’s why I need others. To push me and pull me. To correct me when I’m wrong. To make up for my weaknesses, so I can cover theirs with my strength in kind. And as long as I’m afraid, I’ll never forget that I need them, even if it hurts to fear losing them like I did Eddie. That’s better than thinking I’m everything this world needs, and it’s better than giving in to despair.”
Promise me you’ll live, Mera!
Just remember, you’re not alone.
Yes, Meredith realized, a smile coming back on her face, I know that now more than ever. Thank you, Terrill…I now know what it means to be a Guardian.
“I’m not going to overcome fear!” Meredith shouted. The Reaper was taken off-guard as her entire body glowed red and blue, and her hair stood on end, suspended by gravity. His attack seemed to fade as Meredith fixed him with a grim expression that became a grin. “I’m going to stare it in the face and acknowledge it! I’m going to know who I am, and the kind of Guardian I will be: someone who protects others, and takes on that pain! Someone who will look after them and guide them to that peaceful future, chosen by their own will, using my strength to support and defend them from what would destroy them. Someone who lives, and sees the world to its future, no matter the hell we go through! Because I know that no matter how much pain I’ll have, there will always be someone there to hold me up and keep me standing, even if their bodies or souls are taken from them!
“I’m not alone, after all. And that’s why, I’m moving forward!”
With a cry of tremendous strength, Meredith leapt upwards, the magic that came from Emil springing her into the air. She twisted around, still screaming, and her blade was thrust downward towards her enemy’s head, its metal shining with an enchanted, holy light. The Reaper, as always, did not defend and did not evade. He took the strike head-on, his attack flickering in his hands. Meredith gave no pause and no quarter, continuing to push forward until the blade was buried to the hilt inside her foe’s skull. Light burst from the wound as the Reaper looked down.
“Well…spoken…”
It wasn’t the Reaper’s voice, but a chorus of voices. To Meredith, it sounded as though all of the lingering souls of pain and regret inside the core were resonating with her clarity and her decision, taking solace from it. They were accepting her. Meredith breathed slowly, looking down to that crumbling visage before she placed a hand atop it. Her lips couldn’t stop the words that spilled from them, as strange as they felt to say.
“Thank you.”
The Reaper never looked up, and never said a word. He just melted like the rest of the room, trickling back into the shadows. Meredith dropped to the floor, landing on her feet, and she watched the magic core shimmer. The orbs to the side cracked, as did the air around her. There was no need for further action until the entire room shattered and, all in one burst, it brightened.
The blue flames turned orange, their warmth washing over Meredith’s skin. The core became little more than a small orb, about the size of an apple. Most importantly, however, were the footsteps Meredith heard, both Vivian and Emil dropping on either side of her.
The darkness was gone.
“Mera…? It is you, right?” Emil asked. He was tentative in walking forward, his hand touching to her face. She let him, feeling his warmth there, knowing he was real. “I could…feel you reaching out. The real you.”
“So did I…”
“Yeah…you guys really helped me there,” she said. Her sword retracted, and her hand found the back of her head. “Did you…uh, find your answers?”
“No answers needed to be found,” Vivian said with a scoff. Emil rolled his eyes, but Meredith knew Vivian wasn’t telling a lie. She’d already had her answer from the beginning of the trial, and just needed to face it. “I found you guys instead.”
“That’s cheesy, even for you, Viv,” Emil shot back. She looked ready to whack him over the head, but Meredith being between the two of them prevented that. “But nah, I get the sentiment. I’m not running from the past anymore. This is my road forward: moving to the future and re-examining the past.”
“Done with parent problems?”
“What about you?”
“Yeah. I don’t need him, or his stupid tools. Not when I’ve got people by my side.”
“My sentiments exactly!” Meredith said, walking forward. Her heart leapt within her chest, feeling free. She closed her eyes, taking in the warm air of enlightenment that soothed her soul. Then she spun, grinning with all she could. “We’re not alone. So, let’s move forward together!”
Her hands were held out to both of them, causing the two to share glances between one another. Despite the seconds that hung in the air where they didn’t take her hand, she didn’t worry. There wasn’t hesitation. Just a reminder of what they’d been through, and what they’d overcome.
What they were going to overcome.
“Together to the future.”
The three clasped hands, and then walked forward to the shining marble altar, into the void of light that appeared. They’d passed the Trial of Enlightenment.