Volume 1: Awakening – [Awakening Arc]
Chapter 8: Denial
Caelus stood frozen as the truth took form before him. His eyes locked onto the mutilated corpse, torn, disfigured, and pierced by jagged shards of mirror glass. Her body was riddled with holes, gaping, grotesque wounds that passed clean through from one side to the other. Blood flowed in thick rivers across the cold floor, soaking the earth with a crimson grief.
But what shattered him wasn't the gore; it was the eye that identified the body as belonging to Uriel. One eye was gone, a black hole where it should have been, but the other remained wide open, almond-shaped and glowing with vivid gold irises, trembling in death. This identified the person who was the corpse, and it was Uriel.
His knees buckled.
"No... no, no, no!" he gasped, his voice breaking.
Caelus collapsed beside the body, hands trembling as he reached out, as if his touch could undo what had been done. Tears spilled from his eyes, unrelenting, hot, and aching. He screamed as the sound echoed through the space in the mirror world. The screams of the sound are filled with agony.
"It can't be...! This isn't... this isn't real!"
His body shook violently, convulsing as sobs overtook him. He pressed his forehead against her bloodied chest, whispering her name again and again. His fingers curled into fists against the floor, knuckles white, nails biting into his palms until they bled.
His voice turned hoarse. "Why... why did this happen...?"
He beat the ground beside her, desperate, helpless. His entire body trembled beneath the weight of unbearable loss. His mind refused to accept it, and every part of him denied what was in front of him. He searched her face for something or anything that could prove to him that this was not Uriel. But the hole through her skull, the exposed brain matter oozing from the wound, and the sickening way her body lay—it was all real.
Even a prankster couldn't achieve this much success without a real body. However, in those few seconds, placing this body is impossible.
The tears wouldn't stop coming out of his eyes as the pain wouldn't fade away.
"Yeah, this is just a dream. There's no way she would confess to me... it can't be real. This is just a dream. Just like those nightmares I had every day, I must be in a nightmare today," Caelus whispered, his voice cracking, trembling. He gritted his teeth, and his shoulders shook with silent sobs as his fingers clenched into fists.
Then, without warning, he struck himself... once, then again, his knuckles slamming into his cheek with a dull thud. Each punch landed harder than the last, his skin reddening, swelling, and his body refusing to wake. Blood trickled from his split lip. He screamed as his voice, broken from shouting, echoed in the hollow space.
"Wake up! Please! Let me wake up!" he sobbed, collapsing forward once again. His voice was muffled against the cold, blood-soaked floor, drowned in sorrow, crushed beneath the weight of impossible grief.
Within minutes, his consciousness slipped completely beneath the weight of denial. The sorrow swallowed him whole, and he collapsed into unconsciousness. His crimson red eyes rolled back, leaving behind only the ghostly whites as if even his sight had been consumed by grief. His hand remained clenched tightly around Uriel's lifeless form, unmoving, as if the mere act of holding her might anchor her soul to his own.
Through those unconscious, rolled eyes, tears continued streaming down, refusing to dry even as his mind slipped away. The dress he wore was soaked in blood, clinging to his shirt from the corpse of Uriel. His silvery hair had become a tangled, matted mess, sticking to his sweat-slicked forehead and stained with crimson streaks. And even in that distant, unconscious state, his lips continued to murmur her name, "Uriel," again and again, like a broken prayer.
Even in his unconscious state, his body remained rigid with sorrow, locked in place as though the pain had frozen him in time.
Just then, the entire place quaked violently.
The mirror shards scattered across the ground began to shudder, vibrating as if something unseen pulled at them. A piercing screech rang out shrill and sharp, like nails dragged across metal, forcing the air to tremble with it. SKREEEEEEEEE! It wasn't just a sound; it felt like a scream of multiple people.
Even the shards embedded in Uriel's mutilated body responded, rattling against her broken form, echoing her death with every tremor. One by one, they began to rise, slow and solemn, drifting upward as though summoned by a forgotten force. All around the room, every shard in the vicinity obeyed, pulled toward a single point in the air above them.
Tch... chink... clink... The shards scraped together as they moved, their glass edges catching fractured glimpses of Caelus and the corpse he held. Light bent strangely through the shards as they began to coalesce into something unnatural.
The sound continued to rise higher, sharper, and more unbearable, like a hundred glass violins shrieking in discord. WHEEEEENNNG! The entire mirror realm groaned under the force, and the shards aligned, forming a vast, jagged circular shape. Crack... snap... twist... It resembled a massive and menacing gateway or portal crafted entirely of floating mirror fragments. Its edges spun, cracked, and reassembled constantly, like a living wound in the fabric of space.
The portal, or gateway, began to drift eerily across the space, its jagged form spinning as it consumed everything in its path. Its swirling edges crackled with ghostly energy, growing louder with every inch it moved toward Caelus and the bloodied body of Uriel.
Caelus was in a far worse state than before. The piercing screech had ruptured both of his eardrums; completely dark, thick blood poured freely from both ears, trailing down his neck and soaking into his stained collar. Even with his hearing already failing, the noise had torn through the last of it, leaving only silence. Total, suffocating silence.
But he didn't react, nor did he even twitch. He was still unconscious, his body limp but locked in its final moment of despair.
The portal drew closer, and with a gentle pull, it consumed Uriel's corpse first. Her shattered body lifted as if in slow motion, weightless in the air, the blood that soaked her dripping upward like time had reversed. Caelus's hand remained tightly wrapped around her, and because of that, he too was taken. His arm rose, his limp frame following, dragged together into the spiraling maw of mirror shards.
The instant both were fully engulfed by the gateway, it sealed shut. _KRREEEEEHH!_ A final, hideous shriek burst out as the mirrored gate folded in on itself, imploding into the void.
Just as the portal sealed itself shut with a final, screeching implosion, a group of masked individuals burst into the mirror world. The shattered landscape groaned beneath their feet as they moved swiftly through the floating debris, but what they found rooted them in grim silence.
Each member wore a mask, concealing their identities. The one leading them had his entire face covered in black cloth, topped with a striking tiger-shaped mask that gleamed dully in the fractured light. Behind him followed others, similarly cloaked but donning different masks, one shaped like a fox, another an owl, and others bearing beastly visages.
"Damn it, we're too late," the tiger-masked man cursed under his breath. "The seal must have collapsed."
Another masked member, voice low and grim, added, "We couldn't have predicted the Thousand-Faced Spectral Ghost's presence here. We sealed it, yes, but never located the exact breach. If it escapes completely, the entire continent is at risk. Sir, what should we do now?"
The tiger mask turned sharply. "Send a report to Master. Tell him the young miss's life signal from her pulse device has gone dark, and the young miss has likely died."
One of the wolf-masked figures nodded. "If her body is intact, we can still recover her. The revival protocol is possible. I'll start the search immediately, Sir."
"Move quickly. We don't have much time. Before the revival protocol time is over, we need to get the body back." The tiger mask said sharply.
Just then, a thick black fog began to seep through the cracks in the shattered mirror world. It slithered across the blood-soaked floor like the breath of a dying god, swallowing the fragments of light in its path. The air grew frigid, every breath tasting of dread.
Suddenly, as though the fog had blades woven into it, it began to tear through the area, slicing the walls, the ground, and whatever remnants remained in sight. Screeches of shearing echoed as it carved through reality. In mere seconds, the entire amusement park was engulfed.
A barrier formed, towering, swirling, invisible to the eye yet suffocatingly present. A ring of fog, vast and absolute, encapsulated the park with a radius of 30 kilometers, sealing everything within a 60-kilometer-wide dome of suffocating gloom.
It was 12:00:01 AM.
Tiger Mask and his masked allies froze, instantly recognizing the signature of the phenomenon.
The Tiger Mask's voice rang out with a calm expression. "Mist Demon... what the hell are you doing in Viremont City?"
[End of Chapter 8]