kpwu
long
tale
The sea. A deep ocean, its blue alone enough to make her suffocate. Yedor was suspended amidst the unmoving flows, feeling her hair wave about in the still currents. High, high above, a small circle withstood the role of sun. Deep below, a dark abyss, its blue veering more and more to a deep, undeniable black.
She could feel herself drowning. She could feel the water in her lungs, tearing her apart, blocking her breath, eating her life. She was drifting down, in this blue void, slowly entering the maw. Up above, the dot of the sun became fainter and fainter.
There was no hope. All hope had left her, once again. How many times had she been here ? How many times had the abyss eaten her alive, filling her chest with water, dragging her to the depth of despair ? She felt her mind drift, as it did everytime she came. "Welcome back," said a voice, "I'm home," she answered.
She thought of the past. Of her mother. She thought of how she had to fight to get her diploma, and then how that victory was rendered moot by the death of her mother. She thought of the walks she'd take with her mother as a child, about how she would play, and how beautiful her mother was when she smiled. She thought of the rare friends she had made.
She thought of waking up in that room, a few days ago. Of meeting the others. Of how fearful she had been of them at the time, but how she wanted to see them now. She thought about how the world before was over forever.
She wanted to see anyone now. Even if they somehow resealed the dream devourer and remade the world, the world before would be gone. Forever. She thought about how many times she had had things taken from her, forever, and about how even now... how even now she felt nothing.
Everything had been taken from her, but she didn't have anything that could be taken.
She closed her eyes. The darkness came to meet her, hold her, to wrap itself around her. A final nail in her coffin of water.
And then, in the stillness of the ocean floor, something moved. Never before had anything moved in this place. This was not a place of motion, but one of dead silence. And it moved again. She opened her eyes, slightly. She could feel the sting of saltwater on her nude eyeballs.
A hand, contrasting with the night around, a hand that was reaching towards her. She had been here, in this domain, before. Multiple times. But how did she get out ? She fought. She fought the world if she had to, and she knew she had to do it. She reached out.
The sunlight was blinding. She was in a desert, sopping wet, and someone was dragging her by the hand. "We have to hurry !" She recognized that voice. It was Feaser. They were running in the desert, the sun scorching them and bleaching their hair.
They were running in a forest, a humid jungle where they jumped above trunks and ducked below branches.
They were running in a steppe, the flat landscape like a mirror to the beauty of the sky.
In a tundra, with cold winds that felt like a knife in their guts.
They ran, and ran, and ran, in all of these places they had never been to before, in all of these realms of nature they had never set foot in, but that all felt so incredibly familiar.
Trees like black pillars rushing past, streams like blue strands rushing past, clouds like white wool rushing past. They knew this. They knew where they were.
And, eventually, they reached it. They reached their goal.
Above, clouds. Clouds in grey, in purple, in blue, in orange, in pink. Below, clouds. Clouds in white, gold, and silver. Far, far away, towers, lost in the cloud, donning the same vestments as them, dominating the skyline.
They were on the rooftop of a tower. Finally outside, a fresh breeze greeted them. On the horizon, the golden light of the rising sun weaved strands of light in the edge of the towers.
On the floor, panting, Esgol and Devan lay as well.
High above, in the sky, a structure. It decended. It was a large crystal, like a huge piece of glass, and in it, the five part circle of the seal.
They formed a circle around it, and held out their memorabilia. But before anything could happen...