Luciel stood there solemnly, wiping sweat and blood from his brow. The creature lay broken, limbless, but its chest still rose and fell with labored breathing. Those twin abysses tracked his movement—no longer predatory, no longer menacing, but pleading... like a spirit too lost to move on, still anchored to the world by the weight of what it couldn't let go.
And there, carved into the rotten flesh of its face, was her smile. Again.
He rubbed his eyes. It looked more real than ever. It was Mira. That same look when she'd drag him to that stupid seesaw, grinning like she'd finally be able to find balance on it.
"Luciel..." the voice was soft now, achingly familiar.
"You came back for me." Tears that looked too real rolled down corrupted cheeks.
Luciel resisted the pull and walked forward to end it once and for all.
"I knew you would. I knew you wouldn't abandon me."
Her sunflower smile burned in his sight, but something in those words struck deeper than intended. They resounded through his skull like a cathedral bells tolling against stone.
"You wouldn't... abandon me."
The echoes thundered through an unending tunnel, each reverberation more deafening than the last. Luciel clawed at his head as his knees buckled, legs going numb beneath him.
"Abandon me..."
The tolling continued as he collapsed, completely helpless. He slapped at his thighs, trying to rouse them, but the pain receptors had shut down unannounced.
'Shit. Wake up, damn it. I refuse to die like this!'
His exasperation burned against the growing helplessness. Paralysis steadily crept upward, all the while whispers assaulted his already fragile mental state. Yet, beneath the panic lay a desperate hunger.
Even knowing that control over his body and mind were slipping away, Luciel found himself drawn to her face, her smile. It was the desire to be the last witness; one desperate attempt to search for hope, to wash away this unwanted burden.
Death's scythe pressed against his throat, but it felt infinitesimal compared to this burning need. He had to see past the illusion and find what remained of the real Mira buried beneath the lies.
Against the world's weight, Luciel lifted his head.
'Even if it's fake... show me once more.'
Mira's soft, elusive eyes answered with a spark that blinded him. The world churned, pressing its weight against his chest and flooding him with searing white light.
He half-expected another trick from the abomination, but before he could register anything, he'd found himself somewhere else entirely.
The auditorium was gone. The broken stage, the scattered limbs, the creature's pleading face—all of it dissolved into pure white expanse that stretched beyond the periphery, further than vision could reach.
Luciel didn't panic. His breathing steadied, and his mind calmed. The last thing he wanted was to die a stupid death by losing himself here—wherever here was.
Time felt elastic in this space. Minutes bled into hours without meaning, so it didn't take long for Luciel to lose track of time. Not much would change, however. He'd always considered patience his greatest virtue. This was child's play for an Outlander like him.
And not to mention his best friend—the flame—was here to accompany him, albeit dormant right now.
'When I need you the most, you disappear. Funny.' Luciel shook his head and scoffed.
He slowly tested the functionality of his body. He wriggled his fingers, then moved down to the toes, until he finally regained complete control. Everything responded normally, though there was nowhere to go and nothing to look for except endless white.
Then, without warning, color seeped into the void. His senses were quickly overloaded by flashing lights and bizarre noises. A wave of nausea engulfed Luciel, but he steadfastly endured. The unceasing assault only settled down after the blank space had finished building what seemed like a giant town.
He quickly collected himself and scanned the area, and it didn't take long for him to realize what he was seeing.
'Aurelleth.'
Gray stones. Crumbling mortar. Burning wood. The familiar scent of morning air pressed against his lungs. Aurelleth had rebuilt itself around him as if it was still alive. The picture was vivid: smoke curling from chimneys, warm light painting the windows, and the streets buzzing with voices he'd thought were lost forever.
Maybe too vivid...
Something was amiss. The colors were too intense, the sounds too sharp. It felt like someone had turned reality's saturation beyond natural limits.
Then Luciel heard it. A voice that made his chest clench.
"Luciel! This way!"
His head snapped around, and there she was. In the flesh.
'M-Mira? Is that you?' Stunned, he swallowed in his words before they could get out.
It wasn't the creature's sloppy recreation or some faulty reflection, but exactly how he last remembered her. Braided hair bounced as she ran, and that stubborn grin that lit up her smudged face.
"What's got you so dazed? Run!"
Luciel turned again, just to see the colors had vanished, the streets burned, the screams of neighbors swallowed by guttural wails of Hollow Creatures. Shadows poured through broken doorways like living nightmares.
"Ah."
The massacre was beginning again, and Luciel was watching it through the eyes of his younger self.
No... he was in the body of his younger self, and the flame had disappeared.
This memory was his. It wasn't a false memory to deceive him. It was the memory. The one Luciel had buried so deep he'd convinced himself it was lost, essentially removed as a part of him. But now it was playing out in such perfect, agonizing detail that he felt like time actually had reversed.
Luciel was too stunned to move even an inch, unable to process the turbulent feelings that he'd believed he never had. Aurelleth being shattered into pieces again, right in front of his eyes... and then stood Mira, alive and sound. But he knew what her ending was... all too well.
His heart wrenched. It wasn't physical pain but an emotional one. It felt as if someone dug into his chest, pulled the arteries, and played with them like a bow string. Compared to the slight pain during the battle, or when the flame burned his soul, this was a thousand times worse. Luciel wanted to vomit and just shut off entirely.
However, he was soon jerked awake by Mira, whose face was all sunshine and rainbows despite the destruction of her precious family and home.
"Don't stop!" Mira then grabbed his hand, her fingers small and real. "We have to keep moving!"
Luciel quickly snapped out of his self-inflicted torture chamber and focused on running. He didn't answer. His mind was still struggling to form a thought, uncaring of the destruction around him.
There wasn't a goal here because... the ending was obvious, wasn't it? Luciel had only set on floating through this ordeal to escape from this misery of a show. He figured the overwhelming resonance from the tether was the cause of this reenactment, so as long as he accepted the memory as his, everything would revert back to normal.
He just had to malinger blindness.
Hand in hand, they ran with their tiny legs through the ruined streets while Aurelleth died around them. Snow and ash blurred together as they picked up speed. His small lungs burned. His legs, brittle as sticks, nearly gave out.
But Mira never let go. Dainty as she was, her grip was surprisingly iron.
Luciel, now numb again, watched her closely as they slowly left their home behind. He'd been studying her expression from the moment he woke up, and he was baffled. He knew Mira to be an extremely bright girl, but in the face of the most brutal tragedy, she still marched on with the same fierce grin that screamed hope and victory. This time, it was burning even brighter.
The corners of her lips were slightly lifted, her nose flared, and her eyebrows converged, showing incredible defiance against the world.
Then Luciel noticed something out of place. His eyes traced down from her eyebrows and stared into her dirt-brown eyes. And what he saw was—
'You're... scared?'
Fear.
Despair.
The silent cry of a soul railing against the world's cruelty, against its senselessness. People always said the eyes were the doorway to the soul, that every fiber of a being could be understood through them. Yet, Luciel had never read her eyes before. He was too young to understand, too weak to even think properly.
It should've been obvious. But he had looked past it, convinced Mira was indomitable, unbeatable, while he was pathetic and sheltered. That—
'Wait a minute.'
All of the sudden, Luciel's breathing came to a halt.
'Pathetic... Sheltered? Me?'
Never had these unfamiliar concepts been attached to him. But the moment these words were invoked, they clung to him like indisputable missing pieces to the puzzle of his deepest nature.
'Who the hell... was I?'