Have you ever tried to silence a thought?
A thought that's plagued at you...that's cut into you, piece by piece.
The harder you press, the louder it screams.
Maelis used to say, "Silence was power."
I think he lied.
From the very beginning I was forced here.
Thrown into a place I had no knowledge of, for no reason.
...Did I ask for this?
I may have welcomed the idea, but did I greet this reality beforehand?
hehehe
I still remember when he'd first gifted it to me.
Mael's Fang.
Told me, "A blade without a wielder is as useless as a wielder without a blade."
...Maybe I should've turned around when I was walking away from that dojo.
Maybe I should've stayed....
Stayed, and not gone to something I hadn't even signed up for.
I was naive.
The truth is crueller than the mind can fathom.
Click.
I can still hear the sound of the door sliding shut behind him.
That hushed click.
Stepping out of that room, and heading to the pod station...
It was instantly louder.
Wzzz!
Eldris Academy.
That place...
A cage painted in silver and flame.
They called it, "opportunity"...
Is opportunity throwing someone in a derelict tower for weeks?
Is opportunity not letting me out to see sunlight?
I still remember its smell:
Room 311.
I was subjected to a prison because of a phrase?
They talked.
Laughed...
Even whistled things for no reason.
For a phrase their own Princess doesn't understand.
A "Silent", they called me.
A rugged term.
One that was slapped onto me with no warning.
...The South Tower wasn't a trial.
It was a sentence.
And I had to serve it quietly.
It was from that tower, I watched...
The screams.
The cheers.
The clash of emotions.
They all reached me through the pull of a projector.
...It was like the world wanted me to see just enough, to remind me I wasn't part of it.
It was there I saw him.
I'd truly saw him...
Jacob Lacura.
The crowd called him perfect.
It seemed like it...
He smiled, moved, triumphed; whilst I was forced to sit in a decrepit room plastered with spots of mold and darkness.
I remember thinking...
'That's what they cheer for?'
A boy who looked untouched?
Who seemed to have everything at his grasp?
The longer I stared, the stranger it became.
That smile? Too still.
Those eyes? Too certain.
It wasn't envy or awe watching through that holo-phone.
It was wrong...
He strolled through the competition they held, ease dressed on his face whilst the crowd chanted his name.
I didn't feel anything from that...but I did at that last fight.
Kalen.
I didn't know him much, to at all. I could count how many times we've encountered on my hands.
Did that matter?
He stood there, barely holding his stance.
Sceptical looks ran from the crowd...but I didn't care.
A storm caged beneath his skin as I watched.
Crack!
When the sound came...that brittle, fragile crack, it wasn't just his 'core' that broke.
Something inside that arena, inside that live feed, fell silent too.
I don't know if anyone heard it.
But I did.
...It was the same sound that followed me after I graced the 'Soul Resonance Pillar.'
It was a sound, I'd heard countless times in this place...
Now that I think back...
Watching from that tower, judgement had only changed its face.
The crowd cheered.
Names were shouted.
Creak.
And I asked myself:
'Why did I step out?'
I didn't have a clear answer then.
Maybe I still don't.
It wasn't for them.
It wasn't to prove anything.
It wasn't just to stand up for the unfortunate.
...I moved because no one else would.
Because someone had to.
...Maybe that's all a lie.
Maybe I stepped out because I saw him; the way they looked at him, the way they whispered and scorned, the way they waited for him to fail.
It was a familiar look.
The same feeling I felt, being paraded out of those dorm rooms...
So did I move to help him?
Or to spite them?
...I don't know.
Tap. tap. tap.
After that... it all blurred.
I don't remember much.
Just flashes:
The noise, the faces, the blood.
The ground breaking.
The feeling of breath leaving the body...
Maybe I forgot.
Maybe I didn't want to remember.
It doesn't matter.
Before I knew it, I was here.
WOOOOOH!
Was it the cold that bit first... or the fear?
When did the snow start whispering?
Why can I still hear the choke sounds of his gargling?
When did hunger become so hollow?
Was it before the stalker came?
Or after the village rose...bringing those stiff, wide eyed faces to view?
The more I think... the less I know.
It slowly got louder.
That voice.
Those rhymes.
It was an abyss.
Every time I close my eyes, I see those ember slits.
Drenn.
Wrong.
Evil.
Hunting.
"Blood."
He hunted for her.
Her voice. Her light.
Saphira.
He wanted her.
I don't know why...
Maybe I never will. That thought seems most likely.
Blubblhh....blurrrhhh...
But she's a reason I'm still walking.
A reason I'm still walking through this void.
So where is she now?
Out there...forever gone?
I don't think I can do this alone.
I don't think I can last this time.
This forest.
...This Bleeding Forest.
The moment it separated us, was the moment it started.
How?
She was right there. It was the same as that Whiteout. The same heaviness that pulled at me.
Splosh!
Everywhere I look, is the same colour that tugs at my stomach.
Red.
Crimson.
Whatever you call it...
It wore my skin.
Spoke my voice.
It crawled into my mind.
'Worthless.'
'Pathetic.'
'Even death doesn't want you.'
You're reading this like you're safe.
Like my thoughts can't touch you.
But you know this place, don't you?
The pressure that won't leave.
The silence that screams at you when you're alone.
That's what I am now.
hehehe
It's funny really.
Don't pity me.
You're just quieter about your own decay.
'I'm still here.'
'I'm still here.'
Would repeating it make it any true?
The snow.
The blood.
Staring at the monster in front of me; those long limbs, the red circling at his fingertips.
The pale mask shining through the dark.
'Saphira...'
Thump!
'I hope I see you again.'