I open my heavy eyes and stare straight up at the sky above me, only a small part is visible. Most is covered in the smoke-like oil. I’m lying on glass shards and the big tower is leaning against the opening, from where I fell.

Orchid!

I carefully roll over on my stomach. My body is aching and it’s hard to move around without causing shivers of pain climbing up my back.

I’m alive, is all I can figure out to say.

I start to climb the towers but it’s too slippery and I’m too injured to strategically climb the towers. I slide off and end up at the large shards of black glass again.

I saw it fall, Nine says.

I don’t know if he means the tower or the platform.

We lost the mask… Clover he–

Are you hurt? He interrupts me. We can talk about the mask later, what’s most important is to get us out of here.

I look up at the sky and the darkness again. The entire world is shaking. I have to get out of here before it reaches me. I hope my decision to trust the Raven was the right one, that Clover is safe, or as safe as he can be considering the circumstances. I force the thoughts away. I don’t want to think of him right now, I’m too scared of what my choices could have caused. Worrying now does nothing but secure my second death.

I cannot get back up, I answer.

It’s not a regular hole of earth and mud, I can see the beginning of what looks like an underground corridor beyond the black glass shards.

Where are you? What are you seeing?

I carefully climb down; the shards cut my leggings and skin. It feels like I have a body. One that bleeds and aches in the same way it did when I was alive. I would likely have died by this fall if I had been alive.

The corridor in front of me is narrow and on each sides hang light orbs that lit up the path forward.

Some sort of underground corridor, I say and carefully stand on shaking legs. Each step I take sends out a wave of pain through my body. I whimper as I move forward, if slightly slower.

The corridor is likely connected to the dead garden with the greenhouse. I didn’t see much of the corridors I mentioned. When you told me to flee, I got back to the surface as quickly as I could.

I lean against the thick stone walls with carved figures. I tumble forward when the entire underground shakes.

And what makes you think it’s the same corridors? I ask and slowly get up from the floor.

I don’t know, but we don’t have much choice here. We have to get you out, and soon.

There is a big chance I’ll just get lost in these corridors – if I can even get that far before my legs fold and I can no longer get up. No matter how much I think of it, I cannot see this place as anything else but my own personal tomb.

I saw, he quiets down for a few seconds, I saw Clover. What happened with him, it wasn’t your fault, Orchid. You did what you could.

My chest burns. He had seen everything. I cannot think of it, or I don’t want to. I shut it out and focus on each step my aching feet take.

I don’t want to talk about it. Not now. We can deal with it later. If I get out of here.

I’ll meet you. I sent Sage to Sun, he’ll help her out while I get you.

It doesn’t sound as clear anymore, his voice is getting hollow, like it’s disappearing into the void.

I lean my head against the wall when I carefully move forward. I don’t think I’ll ever make it out of here.

I’m coming.

I can barely hear the voice anymore. I can understand him, but it sounds unfamiliar and distant.

I think it’s better if you leave me here, I send out.

When I receive no answer, I’m unsure if he ever got that message before our connection broke. I don’t know if he’s forcing himself to continue and ignore the exhaustion and darkness. I don’t want to give up yet. It doesn’t matter if Nine is forcing himself to continue or if he’s returning to the surface, I want to fight for survival. I’ll walk as far as my legs will take me.

The world shakes again, I lose my balance when I carefully move forward, pressed to the wall. My breath becomes heavier and more difficult. I keep going deeper into the underground passages.

It’s in a hall – with the same beautiful murals of the man with the long white hair that I saw in Arkaros – that I can no longer continue. I fall to the floor and stare straight into the man’s face. These murals are showing his face. Paler than a human’s skin should be. It’s no longer covered by his hair – I look straight into the white eyes. They’re filled with tears. I can feel the sorrow and anger in them. What have they done to him? A single thought that scares me to my core.

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I lean my head against the wall and breathe deeply, it feels like I have a large lump in my lungs.

“Breathe,” I tell myself and it makes my entire throat burn.

I wish the jewelry had held on a little longer. There’s something terrifying with dying alone, to know it’s coming but having no one next to you to hold your hand, telling you everything will be alright. I feel lonely, like I’m the only person in this world and that no one will remember me once I’m gone.

I close my eyes and think of Emma. I imagine her in front of me, but all I can remember is the hair. The details are impossible to see, it’s just an empty face surrounded by blonde curls. The details of her face are either fully missing or are hidden in black oil. It doesn’t get any clearer than that, no matter how hard I try to remember them. Yet, I’m thankful I still remember her name.

My skin feels like it is burning, I know it’s close now. When I open my eyes again, I imagine that the man in the mural is sitting here with me and can hear me. That I’m not alone.

“When I was alive, I didn’t think there was anything after death.” I breathe in deeply. “Nothing.”

My eye lids feel heavy, I have to strain myself to keep them open. “I was content with that… I didn’t need anything else; I didn’t need to believe in anything… No paradise or resurrection. It’s different now.”

I lean my head towards the wall. And my mouth becomes dry as I say the last words on my mind, “I don’t want to die.”

If this world has shown me anything about myself it was how much I fight for survival, and for the desire to not disappear. That I don’t want to die.

I stare into the man’s sorrowful eyes and prepare myself. I wonder if it will hurt even more, or if I’ll disappear before that. No pain, nothing afterwards because I will no longer exist.

The ground vibrates and I hear the corridors collapsing. The darkness is coming; I feel it burning my skin and soon I’ll be able to see it.

The sound of the earth crumbling and filling up the paths before fully disappearing fills my ears.

A hand grabs my arm. I’m met by Nine’s face and he throws my arm over his shoulder as he helps me up from the floor. We run as quick as we’re standing on two legs. We’re able to get into the other corridor while the hall behind us crumbles and disappears within the darkness as it devours everything it touches.

I can see the exhaustion and in Nine’s pale face. He’s pushing himself hard to be able to run with me and not getting crushed by the corridors or taken by the darkness.

My calves throb as he leads us into another long but brighter corridor.

“We’re almost there, hold on,” he breathes.

I cannot help but to think – then what? Even if we’re able to get out of the underground corridor, how would we get out of the city? How can we get anywhere when the only road we’re aware of will be devoured by the darkness long before we can reach it?

It feels like my throat is filled with hot ash that burns and dries out. I don’t want to die. I repeat the sentence in my head when we run through the narrow corridor while everything is collapsing behind us.

I part my lips and force out the words covered in ash. Careful, pleading words. “I don’t want to die.”

The hand around my wrists gets tighter.

We can see it now – the stairs that lead up to the dead garden. The darkness is burning us, it’s close enough that it burns our entire back. A hollow emptiness and I can also feel death, not the same that I once experienced. This one end everything and destroys each little detail of you.

We finally reach the stairs when it feels like my legs are about to give up. It’s falling around us when we’re running up them and small earthy stones hit our backs.

And then it abruptly ends. The underground corridors stop collapsing like there’s something still holding up the little part that is left.

We stop and look behind us. The darkness has stopped moving. Now it stands completely still. It still moves like it’s alive, but it’s not moving forward.

Even though it has stopped it burns our body and sucks out all of our energy. We cannot stay here. Nine holds tightly around my wrist, with my arm over his shoulders, and we carefully and slowly climb the rest of the stairs.

We’re met by the dead garden on the surface. Brown grass and large withered flowers covers a large area in front of us and paths of stone tablets are visible behind the mud. Even the black green house is at the other side of the garden. Behind us there’s a wall of pulsating darkness, it reaches the sky where large clouds of smoke and oil hangs above us. I look towards the gate – the one we came from – it doesn’t exist anymore; the area is covered by darkness. I hope that Sun and Sage were able to get out of the city before it disappeared, and that the Raven somehow saved Clover.

Nine’s arm is covered by the blood that is pouring out of his open wounds, in the same way Clover’s face had been covered in blood when the creature hit his face against the platform.

“We need to find another way out,” I say.

My entire mouth tastes like ash.

“Can you walk?”

”Not by myself.”

If Nine wasn’t holding me up I wouldn’t even be able to stand, I can walk thanks to him supporting me. For each step I take it feels like my calves are torn apart.

“Alright, keep your eyes above us,” he says.

I look up at the sky, on the smoke and oil that has made its way out of the darkness.

“Keep watch. We cannot be hit by those drops.”

It was the same drops that looked like oil or black paint that we had seen at the dead fields. I had known from the beginning that we couldn’t touch it. It would have been like touching the darkness. Nine limps towards the green house in hope of finding another way home.

****

It takes an hour before we find a way out, one that leads us through the distorted forest, so we don’t have to worry about the black drops. It’s easier to get through the forest then it was the first time, like it leads us home. We rest a few times when our bodies cannot handle it anymore, but never more than half an hour in case the darkness start moving again. We’re too exhausted to run like we had done in the corridor. Sometimes Nine is the one who is carrying me, and other times I’m the one supporting him.

When we reach the steep hill both Sun and Sage are waiting for us. Both are unharmed. I feel like crying, I had hoped both survived and had made it out of the city. To see them standing there – their clothes covered in mud and dirt, their faces exhausted – feels unreal. Because deep down I didn’t think they would be standing here when we got back. Both me and Nine collapses at the beginning of the steep hill. Sage helps Nine while Sun lays my arm over her shoulders. Her hand holds my wrist tightly and that’s when I notice it. The dark mark on her hand. A black circle, like a single drop has fallen onto the back of her hand. It’s dark, blacker than the blackest color I could think of.

She leads me up the hill and my body aches for each step. Sage and Nine are walking in front of us, no one asks about the mask or Clover. They know both are lost.

I can see the gate – the one we came from. My eyes are burning. We can soon leave this cursed world. I long to breathe an air that isn’t suffocating. To not feel pain anymore. For the first time since reaching the Realm of the Dead I don’t want to feel anything at all.