[January 8th, 2024, Miami, Florida. Two nights ago. Shortly after the Empress was revived.]
The empress held the metal gate open for me, and so, without any other choice, I stepped through. Her radiant smile still plastered on her face, her ruby red eyes observed me as I strode.
Being watched so carefully by a woman was more embarrassing than I thought it would be. Not to mention being observed by a beautiful empress...
My heart pounded in my chest as I stepped through the metal gate, the Empress's gaze boring into me. The air seemed to crackle with an unseen energy, and I couldn't help but shiver slightly.
As I walked, I tried to keep my expression neutral, not wanting to show any signs of nervousness or hesitation.
Exiting the bleak perimeter of the graveyard were two distinct figures. Leaves crunched underfoot as we exited, the brittle sound echoing into the unnaturally quiet night.
It felt like that sound was the only thing that welcomed us back into the world of the living.
Though I stepped through first, Cacophony soon overtook me with long, confident strides.
She walked with unshakable grace, her steps certain and swift. In stark contrast to her, I marched forward with my head slumped and a face that didn't hide any of the worry I was feeling.
It was a ridiculous contrast.
'And I'm her first servant...'
I was supposed to be her 'guide' to the modern world, and yet I looked more like a lost pet she'd scooped up from an alley.
I mean, it's fine for her to take the lead. After entering the Null Streets, the path to get to the graveyard was a straight path. All I did was go down this street, so for this part of the journey, it didn't matter.
"First servant..."
I lingered on that term.
How was I supposed to take that title seriously?
Just because she said it? Was that enough to give it credibility?
The logical side of me can't just accept such an audacious claim made on such a faulty basis.
I couldn't see any connection between this woman and me. We may have spoken of things of similar grandeur, but we couldn't have been more different.
The icing on the cake was her frightening nature.
I definitely had to keep my guard up around her.
Definitely...
...
And yet...
And yet... here I was, following her.
I was being dragged along by this wild woman's whims.
My fingers were going numb from gripping the orb too hard, but I couldn't seem to stop myself from clutching onto it. There was an uneasy feeling clawing at me that I couldn't ignore. Even so, I found myself being led by the valiant Empress.
Once Cacophony started marching forward with such conviction, it seemed foolish not to follow closely behind.
There wasn't any deep meaning behind it... It just felt correct.
Which made it all the more unsettling.
This woman just tried to kill me. Isn't this like blindly putting my trust in her?
But, is there another option in a scenario like this? What am I supposed to do? Try to shake her off and run home?
My thoughts tangled together like wires in a busted machine. But still, my legs kept moving.
Without even noticing, it was like I'd become her follower. The scary part of it all was just how natural that it felt to me. No matter how many doubts I had, following her just seemed so... normal?
No matter how many doubts screamed inside my head, her presence made them all... quieter.
'They don't call her an Empress for nothing... Her presence is frightening in more ways than one.'
Attempting to drown out my thoughts, I tried focusing on what was directly ahead of me.
The first neighborhood we entered after leaving the graveyard was the same one I'd passed through not even an hour ago.
I remembered it clearly.
It was a wasteland of muted greys and blacks. The entire place felt detached from the rest of the city that it was connected to. It was hollow and devoid of any kind of life; it was like god had forgotten to complete that singular part of the world.
And what unsettled me most was that no one had ever mentioned this place. I'd lived in the city my whole life, and yet this neighborhood had never come up in conversation, and never appeared on any map I remembered.
It's like it only began to exist today, as I first stepped into it.
So when we stepped into it again, I braced myself to see the same hollow version of reality.
I froze.
What met my sight was something even more shocking.
Buildings draped in darkness and shadows now gleamed with chipped paint and lush green in their overgrown lawns. Palm trees swayed lightly in the frigid night air, each of which seemed to be attempting to reach out to the sky. Streetlights hummed softly, casting warm pools of yellow light. Faint noise filtered through the air. The pleasant sounds of distant laughter, the murmur of conversation, and the clatter of unhurried footsteps.
I had to stop and rub my eyes.
Was this really the same place? How could it be? It had only been twenty, thirty minutes at most. Maybe a couple of differences would've been reasonable, but this was on another level.
How could things have changed so drastically?
The entire place suddenly felt normal.
No, it was more than that. Even the air here seemed to be throbbing with a certain kind of vitality. It was brimming with an invisible force of life. The atmosphere itself had been reinvigorated.
I blinked, doubting my senses.
"How…?" I whispered, barely audible.
What was it that caused this place to suddenly become a real estate agent's wonderland?
Turning my head to the side, I began to wonder if thinking of it that way was backwards.
'What was it that caused this place to become so depressing anyway?'
The only form of color that had existed in this place before had been the otherworldly blue cracks, but now that Cacophony had been released, those cracks disappeared. And now that the cracks were gone, the true color of this place had been restored.
It didn't take a genius to wonder what the connection between it all was.
The cracks had felt like bleeding wounds in reality, the only thing proving the world still remembered something wrong had happened here. But now? They were gone. Like the wound had healed. Or—
'It's more like those wounds have been forcibly cauterized shut.'
So the cause of the cracks was... the coffin? Something about this neighborhood? And they disappeared because Cacophony was unsealed. Or maybe her release caused some unseen chain reaction?
I rubbed my temple.
As much as I regretted it, there was little that someone like me could piece together on his own.
I had too few pieces. This wasn't a puzzle that I was capable of solving.
I was far too detached from it all. Referring to me as an 'outsider looking in' would've been an apt description. No, even that might be too generous.
I turned to look toward Cacophony, my mouth beginning to open as I prepared to speak, but I was stopped in my tracks. Marching down the moonlit sidewalk without a care, the Empress was already a good distance ahead of me.
Somehow, without realizing it, I had stopped walking. I'd just been standing there, staring blankly at a palm tree for who knows how long, caught in my mind.
Slowly, a wave of embarrassment washed over me.
If someone had passed by right then, they would've seen a teenage boy rooted to the sidewalk, eyes glazed over, looking like he'd just glitched out of reality.
I would've looked like I was having a mental episode.
Looking down at the ground, I was standing over a crack in the pavement in the shape of a thunderbolt.
Trying to shake off my sudden embarrassment, I focused on Cacophony. Not losing sight of her was my top priority.
'The Null Streets... That's what I'll call this place. I'll worry over the details later.'
I started to jog toward her silhouette.
"…Empress?" I called out.
Honestly, a part of me hesitated to call out to her openly. But, even if I didn't, it's not like she'd just go away somewhere and I'd never see her again. Based on her words, she's not planning to let me out of her sight so easily.
'Is that a blessing or a curse?'
Despite my call, she didn't stop moving forward; in fact, she didn't even react. Her silhouette kept on drifting down the sidewalk, barely visible now under the honeyed light of a streetlamp.
"By the decree of the Lord of the Night, I demand that you halt your advance!"
"..."
I attempted to call out to her again, but she didn't answer.
'It's like watching a statue walk away...'
Without much choice, I picked up the pace.
My jog turned into a light run as I caught up to her, the orb bouncing slightly in my grip. It was only when I got within a few feet that I slowed down.
With a confused look, I moved to her side.
Even as I did, she didn't even glance my way.
The two of us were on a normal stretch of sidewalk, nothing unusual in front of us, and nothing unusual behind us. The only sources of light nearby were the faint moonlight and the shine of the street lamp a few feet in front of us. To our left, the neatly trimmed lawn of a quiet home. To our right, separated by a thin road, a row of similar houses lined the block.
Cacophony stood still, though not because of my shouting or my approach. Her head was tilted upward, ever so slightly. Her eyes weren't focused on me, nor on the path ahead.
Tracing her line of sight, I shifted my head until I saw what it was that had gripped her attention so tightly.
But, there wasn't anything there.
Just a simple, modern-ish looking home with a couple of unnotable features. As I looked it up and down, I couldn't see anything special or unique about it.
When I turned back to the Empress, her face displayed an emotion that I didn't understand.
Her expression, which was naturally composed and regal, had softened considerably.
By no stretch of the imagination could it be considered warm or pleased. There was no smile on her face or light in her eyes. Her face displayed something odd. An emotion that I couldn't name.
Like a painting left out in the rain, it seemed smudged around the edges with its vivid colors blending into one another.
I watched her lips move as she muttered something quietly to herself.
It was so faint that even as I stood next to her on a silent street, I couldn't hear a word.
Whatever it was, it wasn't meant to be known by anyone other than the Empress herself.
Suddenly, her eyes flickered, and she finally looked directly at me.
"For a boy in the prime of his youth, you're surprisingly slow."
"Huh? Slow...?"
"We haven't even walked far, and yet you still can't manage to keep up. Humans nowadays must live cushy lives to turn out so relaxed."
I blinked, caught off guard by how quickly she shifted gears.
I slowly nodded and gave an awkward smile.
"Well, as time advances, it's human nature to innovate, pushing things further and further. You'll find that life now isn't quite as hard as the one you're familiar with."
Cacophony's lips curled ever so slightly, "That sounds amusing. This may truly be an era of weaklings. That would explain why my revival wasn't met with the kind of grand event that I'd have expected."
She turned her gaze forward again and resumed walking. I quickly fell into step beside her, following closely.
"…Yeah, you really missed your big red carpet moment," I muttered, half under my breath. "Could've at least gotten a brass band or a confused priest or something."
Cacophony raised an eyebrow but didn't respond. Clearly, she didn't understand my short quip, but in a way, I'd count that as a win for me.
As we walked, I glanced over at some of the homes that we passed.
They weren't in pristine condition and seemed like hollowed-out versions of their original forms, but there were still some remnants of what they once were.
One was covered in flags, stickers, and all sorts of paraphernalia for Florida International University. Another, more irregular-looking home had a mailbox shaped like a cat, with its mouth open wide, like it was mid-meow, ready to swallow all your bills and junk mail.
A break of normal, mundane homes then followed this.
Then came the weirdest of them all.
The fence surrounding its backyard was partially collapsed in one particular spot. From the looks of it, it seemed to be the result of a car crashing into it at some point in the past. Peeking inside, you could see bits of the owner's eccentric personality.
Absurd as it was, there were dozens upon dozens of plastic swords stuck in the dirt. There was no pattern or design to their arrangement. Instead, they jutted out from the grass at odd angles. The swords varied in color and size: bright red ones from dollar stores, knockoff medieval blades missing their hilts, and many other weird kinds.
At the very center of this sacred battlefield?
A lone, weather-faded plastic lawn chair sat on a patch of grass. Its surface was bleached from years of sun exposure, its armrests cracked like ancient bones.
If I had to guess, that sad-looking lawn chair was meant to be a throne.
"What a weird hobby... Who lived here?"
I was weirded out for a second, but then I had another thought.
'This is Florida after all...'
Cacophony looked back at me with slanted eyes. "You seem to have calmed down considerably."
"Ah... Really?" I said with a shrug.
The Empress's voice was far too casual to pass as sincere. "You no longer look like a beetle that's been flipped upside down and is squirming as it tries to get back on its feet."
"Calling the Dark King a beetle... I should have you executed..."
She wasn't wrong. I wasn't anywhere near as stressed as I was a couple of minutes ago.
It wasn't because I figured everything out, or because I'd suddenly grown brave. Nothing like that.
I just… adjusted.
Maybe my nerves were just fried from being so worried. It doesn't make much sense to me. Just glancing at Cacophony leaves a swirl of emotions in my throat, but it wasn't as overpowering anymore.
We continued our march through the forgotten neighborhood, taking long, speedy strides. Before, I'd been walking at my own pace, but I changed to try and better match Cacophony.
"My legs are starting to hurt..."
"How pathetic. Is this not your city? Didn't you walk this way to get to my coffin?"
"I did..."
Guess my body is weaker than I thought. Even my sense of time is getting dulled.