Chapter 60: Darkness
Ryophlira POV
There was nothing. No sky, no ground. Just an absolute, abyss of pitch-black ink that seemed to stretch into eternity. I was trapped inside darkness so dense I couldn’t even see my own hands in front of my face. Yet, I was moving.
It was a terrifying, disconnected sensation. I could feel the ghost of my physical body sprinting, leaping, and swinging with a mechanical precision, but I wasn’t the one driving. I was a passenger locked in the deepest, darkest trunk of my own mind.
Every time my outer body clashed with something, a dull, rattling vibration echoed through my teeth and body but I couldn’t stop it. I had completely lost control.
Inside the dark, my head was splitting open. Shards of memories were flashing behind my eyelids. It was the conversation. The horrific, heartbreaking words I had overheard through the crack of the study door before I snapped.
*...strapped down..... our baby being ripped from my womb...*
Ari’s broken sobs echoed like a haunting chorus in the blackness, mixing with the muffled, distorted roars of my mother’s voice and Yue-Senn’s snarls. The sounds were warped, sounding like they were underwater, vibrating through my skull until I wanted to scream.
"Hello?!" I cried out into the emptiness, my real voice trapped inside my chest. "Can anyone hear me?! Please! Please let me out!"
I started to run. I sprinted blindly through the shadow, my legs pumping, my chest heaving as the ache of my breaking heart throbbed with my panic. I ran for what felt like miles, desperately searching for an exit, a door, a single spec of light in the maddening dark. But there was no end.
There was only the weight of my family’s sick, twisted ways crushing me alive.
Then, cutting through the distorted noise of the battle outside, a voice pierced the abyss. It wasn’t underwater. It was clear. Desperate.
"Ry... I need you to come back to me, please. I need you. I am so scared."
"Ari? Ari!" I screamed, my voice cracking with a raw panic.
My heart throbbed so hard it felt as though it was physically tearing open. My knees buckled, and I collapsed heavily onto the invisible floor of the darkness, clutching my head as the shadows seemed to close in on me.
"LET ME OUTTTT!" I shrieked into the darkness, pouring every single ounce of my remaining sanity into a desperate attempt to summon my magic, to shatter the cage of my own mind. But nothing came. The darkness swallowed my power whole, leaving me entirely helpless.
"Ry..." Ari’s voice called out again. This time, it wasn’t a panicked scream. It was soft. Feathery light. Draped in a quiet, devastating hint of shock.
The moment her voice registered, the absolute darkness around me began to crack. Thin, fractures of light tore through the ink, and suddenly, it was as if a veil was being yanked from my face. I was seeing through my own eyes again but at the exact same time, it felt completely detached, like watching a horror film play out from behind a glass screen.
The smoke cleared in a sudden, jarring shift.
I was standing dead center in the ruins of the palace courtyard. Directly in front of me stood Ari. Her wide, eyes were locked onto mine, and a thick, dark stream of blood was actively spilling from her lips, painting her chin in a horrific streak of red.
"No. No, please, God, no." My soul screamed from the inside, desperate to yank my body backward.
But Ari didn’t look at me with fear. She didn’t look at me with anger. A soft, beautifully tragic smile touched her blood-stained lips, her chest heaving a ragged breath against mine.
"That’s it..." she whispered, her voice a fragile, breaking thread.
"Come back to me, Ry."
Suddenly, Ari’s entire body gave way, shaking as she leaned her dead weight heavily against my chest. My outer hands the ones that had been possessed by a demon of pure vengeance abruptly lost their rigid, killer stance.
Driven by a sudden, terrifying instinct, I looked down. The breath completely died in my throat. The world stopped spinning.
My magical weapon was buried completely and entirely inside Ari’s stomach.
The blade had sliced clean through her abdomen, and I could see the gruesome, bloody tip of the metal protruding out from the center of her spine, dripping her life’s blood onto the fabric of her dress.
I swallowed hard, a metallic, suffocating taste rising in my throat. My hands began to shake with an uncontrollable terror. The glass screen in my mind shattered, and with a jolt, I was slammed back into full possession of my physical body.
The darkness was gone. I was entirely myself again. And I was holding my dying friend.
"Ari..." I choked out, a raw, inhuman sound tearing from my lungs.
My knees hit the ground with a painful thud, my hands frantically gripping her shoulders as I guided her collapsing body down into the slush with me. The sheer horror of the reality rushed into my senses all at once.
I looked around the landscape was unrecognizable. The palace was a ruined tomb of ice and roaring, untamed fire. A few yards away, my father was kneeling on the shattered ground, his face covered in deep gashes that we’re healing. While my mother’s, blood-covered form sit on his lap against his chest.
On the opposite side, Yue-Senn was standing over Riegthar, physically restraining my brother, whose face was distorted in a silent, scream of pure grief and anger.
They had all tried to stop me. And Ari was the only one who succeeded. By putting herself on my blade.
Ari’s trembling, blood-slicked hand slowly rose from the ground. With an effort, she pressed her small palm against my burning, tear-stained cheek. Her skin felt entirely too cold.
"Welcome back... Ry," she whispered, her eyes softening with a deep, peace.
Then, her hand suddenly lost all its strength. It slipped from my face, falling heavily onto the ground. Her eyelids fluttered, and she slowly closed her eyes, her breathing fading into a terrifying, absolute slow shallowness.
"Ari?! Ari, open your eyes! Look at me!" I screamed, my voice turning into a shattered shriek as I shook her shoulders.
"No, no, no, you can’t leave me! Ari, please! Wake up! Somebody help her! Please!"
The sheer, overwhelming magnitude of the trauma struck my brain like a physical blow. A sudden, blinding wave of dizziness washed over my vision, the landscape tilting as a darkness threatened to pull me under for a second time. My strength failed me completely.
I began to fall forward, my grip loosening around Ari’s torso. Through the heavy, fading blur of my consciousness, I could see two figures, Riegthar and Yue-Senn breaking away from each other, sprinting frantically toward us through the smoke, their faces masks of pure terror.
But I couldn’t hold on. Before their hands could reach me, the blackness claimed me entirely, and my head hit the hard blood-soaked ground, plunging me into silence.