Up above, away from the fight, Eva sat alone close to the edge of the waterfall.
Her feet dangled freely over the ledge, toes brushing against the thick mist that rose from the pool below. The soft gust tossed strands of her hair into her face, but she didn't bother to brush them away. Her arms hugged her knees to her chest, chin resting atop them, and her body was trembling—not from the cold, but from everything else. She lifted her gaze.
The moon above—the strange glowing sphere—still loomed high over the underground sky.
And Ren was gone, swallowed with no chance to say goodbye.
Her lips parted slightly.
"I'm sorry…" Eva whispered to herself, resentment for tears heard in the knot in her throat.
There was no one to hear it. But she said it again anyway.
"I'm so sorry..."
She dug her nails into her sleeves, gripping the fabric tight, pressing her knees harder against her ribs like she could keep herself from falling apart by holding herself together.
"I should've done something. Anything..." The pain in her throat burned as more words tore their way out. "I watched him disappear right in front of me. And I just stood there…"
She paused for a moment, tapping her finger repeatedly on her knee.
"But could I have done something? I can't fight like him...He can come back like it's nothing, but I..." She swallowed hard. "I'm just me. Worthless..."
The words slipped out before she could think.
"I can't remember the last time I wasn't afraid. The last time I wasn't…alone."
Her breath hitched, and her tapping stopped.
"...Until you showed up."
She looked down at the body of water through the crease in her legs.
"And now you're gone."
She felt tears rising, but swallowed them back down.
"I barely knew you..." She shook her head in disagreement. "But it didn't feel like that. It felt...like we'd met before. Like we were already friends..."
Her voice cracked on the last word.
And then, from her closed eyes, a single tear slipped down her cheek.
She turned her head away from the cliff's edge and wiped it away quickly with the back of her hand, like maybe if she moved fast enough, she could pretend it hadn't happened.
But more came.
Her chest heaved once, and more tears spilled out.
She clamped a hand over her mouth and curled forward, burying her face into her arms.
"I want to believe you're still in there," She whispered, the words muffled. "Somewhere. Still fighting. Still standing. Still…you."
She sniffled hard, dragging the sleeve of her dress across her eyes again.
"But it's her you're up against," She said shakily. "That...that monster that ruins everything. I've seen what she can do—how she breaks people. How she...gets inside them. If she's still in there with you, then—"
Eva pressed her palm to her forehead.
"Then you're probably already—" Her voice caught in her throat.
She couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't let herself say it out loud.
Because if she said it, then it might be true.
"I don't want to think like that. I don't want to think that you're just…gone." Another tremor passed through her limbs. "But I-I also don't want to pretend like you're going to come back out like nothing happened. Like you're going to smile at me and say everything's fine..."
Her shoulders hunched further as she sat in her own sulking.
So much that she almost didn't hear the shift in the water below.
It was subtle at first—just a tremor in the stone under her.
Then another, stronger.
The pool of water far below began to ripple.
The mist rising from the waterfall grew dense, swirling into a large spiral. The air buzzed with a low hum, like something beneath the world had awakened.
"What..." Eva began to stand slowly. "What is—"
Then, a rumble erupted from beneath the pool below. The sound was so deep that it sent vibrations into her. She stumbled back to the stairs, back against the moss-layered wall.
And then—it burst.
The pool at the base of the waterfall erupted, shooting a violent column of ink and water into the air. The geyser exploded toward the ceiling of the underground sky, covering the glowing moonlight for only a moment. Chunks of stone were hurled from the impact, and the sound was deafening, like a constant sound of lightning cracking into the ground.
Eva shielded her face with both arms as the shockwave struck the walls.
Ink-filled water droplets hit the wall right behind her.
The stairway trembled just beneath her.
But she herself remained untouched.
And then—
Silence
The geyser stilled just as quickly as it came.
Eva's hands trembled as she lowered them from her face.
"Is it...over?"
Slowly, she stepped toward the edge.
The waterfall that flowed from the cracks next to her halted completly.
Eva crept back toward the ledge, gazing over the side.
The base of the falls—the pool that had once stretched across the entire expanse—was now gone. There was no basin anymore. What had once been a shimmering body of water was now a hollowed-out bed of cracked, darkened stone. Even the mist floating above was gone.
And in the center of the hollowed basin.
A lone figure, soaked in ink-filled water.
It was small from this distance, but she could make out the rough silhouette—the outline of a body lying facedown and unmoving, with its limbs sprawled out. It looked just like him.
Her voice was barely a whisper, but her lips trembled from the effort of speaking his name.
"Ren…?"