The Advent of Madness: My Twin Sister And I

Black pearls splattered across the sky as tonnes of black liquid crashed down in a curtain of waterfalls upon the still, black moat surrounding the citadel.

With the light of the fragment grazing our backs, Hildekar and I stood facing the waterfalls.

The man's eyes were glued to the phenomenon; whatever it was that drew him to gaze upon the wonders of this citadel was also drawing him towards the waterfall. This would keep him here for the foreseeable future unless I or someone else moved him around.

"Take care, I'll see you again in 3 days." I tapped his back, then darted back to the rope leading upwards to The Canary about 100 metres away from where I'd dropped Hildekar off.

Grabbing hold of the rope, the urge to break everything tedious apart soothingly retreated.

I was safe from the temptations again.

This tediousness is insidious.

I only realise how deeply it's affecting me after I grab hold of a rope. If not for these ropes, I'd have fallen into the spiral of tediousness, just as the others have also fallen into their own traps.

"...If only that thing didn't reside on The Canary." My eyes flashed upwards, remembering the vibrations sizzling through the ropes that jolted my heart each time.

It wasn't a threat to the others.

But to me, it's beyond a threat; it would crush me beneath its purpose were I to fall to it.

I don't know why or how, but I know it would be the end of just me.

"Heh."

I chuckled.

I couldn't help but chuckle.

Be it due to luck or fate, I have survived it so far.

I don't know what it is.

I can't see it.

Can't hear it.

Can't sense it.

But I can feel it.

I can feel the aftermath of its movement-

"Huh?"

But mocking me.

Laughing at me.

Was fate once again.

Rumble...

"..."

My white pupils' calm facade cracked; the horrors seeped deep within them, the insanities hovering endlessly in my shattered little self oozed outwards as I sensed the rope in my hands shudder.

I moved my eyes upwards.

At the rope above me, leading to the unobservable Canary.

Rumble...

It-

Rumble...!

"Fuck."

-it's coming.

It's coming down.

It's coming to the citadel.

This has never happened before.

It has never left The Canary before.

Is it because the 60 days are almost over?

Is it these final 3 days?

Do they hold special meaning to it, too?

I have no extra ropes.

I only have one singular interconnecting set down here.

I cannot switch.

I can't.

How?

How do I get away?

It's coming down, it's coming to me, it's coming straight at me-

Rumble!!!

The rope in my hand shuddered violently and precariously, as though it were about to be slashed to pieces at any moment.

It was approaching quickly.

...I had already been planning to enter the core of the citadel today, but it seems like I'll have to speed up my plans.

No more wandering and searching about.

I must go directly into the sepulchre.

Curses gushed from my pores, Manifesting the Book of Heresy directly in front of me. Grasping the Quill with my spare hand, I splodged an Order onto the pages and endured the euphoric rush of strength into my veins.

[Alora - Body Amplification - 100% - 10 Minutes]

10 minutes is enough to reach the sepulchre.

Sensing the familiar rush of strength pulsing through my veins, my heels cracked the ground as I, Fwish!, darted backwards. The air rushed around me, shrieking with intensity as I whipped through it and afar.

Away from the first set of ropes and towards the closest rooftop containing one of my ropes.

Jumping up the exterior of the building, I came to a halt by punching my fist into the ground beside the rope and grabbing hold of it.

Rumble.

It was still coming.

Coming for me.

For the first time, it was going to look for me down here, in the citadel. This game of hide and seek just turned from dangerous to deadly.

My feet slammed on the red, crumbling bricks that made up the industrious architecture of this citadel; a fortress laced with industrialisation yet entirely lacking in life as each section either sat in ruin, was covered in dust and ash, or was completely wiped out by an unknown phenomenon.

It's the rooftops of these very buildings that I built my network of ropes around.

Sliding my hand over the ropes, a film of Curses cloaked my palm to prevent friction burns; my body soared across rooftops, leaving behind a trail of dust as I zipped from building to building.

The surroundings melted into one vague haze as I sped by.

Rumble...!

It was approaching faster than I was running.

It's quicker than me.

Can I escape it?

Sweat oozing with Curses squeezed out of my pores. Not from exhaustion, but from an intrinsic fear and worry ingrained within me; perhaps a hint of my madness was also the cause of this outbreak of sweat.

I double-checked the ropes behind me, focusing my pupils on the distant waterfalls, and on the rope leading downwards from The Canary, but alas...

Nothing.

I can't see it.

I can't hear it.

Can't smell it.

Nothing.

Zilch.

I'm in the dark.

...Hehe.

Literally, and figuratively.

Thank the fragment for the light it creates, else the horrors lurking in the depths of the Sunless Skies would have long been the end of me.

Rumble-!

Not that it matters.

This thing was about to end me any moment now.

And my end... would be Esme's end.

I can't die.

No matter what.

No matter the cost, even if I lose all else, I mustn't let my heart stop beating.

-that'sright-

-can'tdie-

-mustlive-

-wemust-

They speak the truth.

We speak the truth.

Live.

Improvise

Endure

Survive.

Anything and everything.

I tucked my hand into my pocket and grabbed hold of my card; stay focused, Alora. Stay grounded. Nemora didn't pull us all together for me to falter here. Vanessa hadn't passed me her message for me to fumble it here. Yulei-

Yulei...?

I shook it off.

I was thinking too hard.

And while I was thinking too hard, I had rushed deeper and further into the citadel. Piles of crumbling buildings stained in red ash zipped by me, while, somewhere within this city, my companions resided.

But, just then, I crossed it.

A zone.

A calm, empty zone containing one singular building.

It stood to my left, a distance away from the rooftop I was standing atop.

And, even from here, from this point, I could smell it, even sense it:

The aroma.

The heat.

The lust.

The sensual scent that was wafting through the air, I could feel it.

I'll be there soon, wait for me.

Curving my eyes off the solitary house, I hopped over a guard rail and promptly proceeded with my journey to the centre. Vibrations echoed through the rope, warning me constantly of the incoming threat. But it didn't change my goal; I had to run, run as fast as I could.

The warning of death, of both mine and Esme's, pushed me harder than anything else.

My movements grew more precise, reducing the gaps between each step and increasing the efficiency of each switch to a different rope, which led me deeper towards the sepulchre.

It's not much, but I'll take it.

Bricks crunched beneath my feet, reminding me of the echoes of history lingering in the citadel; history that mattered, history that possibly contained the beckoning of the Sunless Skies.

Each of these checkpoints, each Archaec Ruin, teased the dreaded yet ironically mesmerising history of the world.

I was intrigued, yes.

Heavily so.

I want to know, how could I not?

History is so fascinating.

How do these Archaeic Ruins exist?

What are the checkpoints?

How about the traces of those who came before us? Where did they come from?

Alas...

Rumble!

...It's getting close.

I turned my eyes backwards for a brief moment, and the rope that I'd been holding to began rattling violently; whatever it was, it was terribly close to me.

Practically a breath's distance away at the pace it was approaching.

However, I made it.

The centre of the citadel appeared before me.

An impact like that of a scorched meteor strike spread from the centre for a hundred meters in all directions, caking the earth with ash and dust. And in the middle of the destruction was a half-standing building.

A sepulchre.

A tomb.

A plaque hung above it, carving words in an unknown language.

This is always the furthest I've gone; I'd never dared to head deeper. That sepulchre, the burned land surrounding it...

It was all that was left.

No more ropes were leading me to the sepulchre.

Here on out, I'd have to drop from my rooftop and walk through the open air to the sepulchre, to where I'd dared not approach for almost 2 months.

I released my grasp of the final rope.

I jumped over the ledge and down onto the scorched earth.

The light of the distant fragment of absolute heat singed my imperceptible shadow onto the black scorch marks.

So, I ran.

I ran to the sepulchre.

To the only place I could go to change my fate.

The ash beneath my feet throbbed like flour through a sieve as I pressed my way to the sepulchre. The thing was right behind me; it was on my heels.

But, within moments, I passed beneath the plaque.

Beneath the illegible carvings of a forgotten language, naming whomever or whatever lay to rest within the dilapidated, marble-carved sepulchre.

Thus...

I entered.

My body passed through the boundary.

Then my vision flashed.

I dropped.

I fell.

And alongside it...

The world ran backwards.

The bricks littered around the sepulchre, the ruins of ash and dust...

All of it retreated in time.

And, with this reversal, the memories flashed by.

The memories of the Third Checkpoint.

Of the Third Archaeic Ruins.

Of the release of the first seal, the first leak, that damned us to the brink of insanity.