Following the Darkness

There was a hole in the library.

Svector was dumbfounded at the gap in space that seemed to suddenly exist inside of his own house. He had come home from work, and he hadn’t even gotten out of his suit yet. He walked into the library, standing just beyond the hole.

Broken pieces of a doorframe were scattered around the rift. The air flowed with a magical form of energy. Entire bookshelves were dislodged from where they were, and the books themselves were thrown onto the ground. Adelyn would never have allowed such a mess to happen.

Adelyn! Svector remembered that Rumia and her didn’t come to greet him at any point. Where exactly were those two? Are they okay?

“Adelyn? Rumia?” Svector immediately called out. “Where are you two?”

He began his search for the two. Calling out their names as he walked, he began with the library. As disassembled and disrupted as it was, there was no success in finding them here. After that, he searched the rest of the mansion.

Due to this place being so large, it was quite inconvenient to search. He loved this house, but considering the situation, he wished he could go faster.

The kitchen, the bedrooms, and the living room all turned up with nil results. He couldn’t find anything in the bathrooms or the garden either. No matter which floor and no matter which room, it felt like nothing was coming up.

At the tail-end of his search, Svector returned to the library. The source of all of this strangeness. He sat at the edge of the gap in space and sighed.

“I didn’t lose them, did I?” the man said, staring at the void. Before getting back up again.

“No, I didn’t,” he reaffirmed himself. “They have to be somewhere. Just think. Think. Where exactly would they be?”

He looked around the library. Large amounts of scattered books littered the floor. A massive mess. This was unusual for Adelyn, as she always liked to keep things tidy. There’s no way someone got into the house either, Adelyn was a strong girl who was also trying to learn magic too, there’s no way she would…

Learning magic.

That was when it finally hit him. This entire scenario had something to do with magic.

Svector was never a skilled magic practitioner. He had books on it, but those just came with the house. However, Adelyn seemed to take an interest in the art almost immediately. Not that he minded.

The gap in space in front of him. That may have come from her practice. But does that mean he should fall into it? He needed to know what happened to Adelyn and Rumia, but he had to be safe too.

Svector picked up the lost books that were littered in the library. Near the broken door frame he found a familiar cover. A journal, he’d recognize it as belonging to Adelyn. He opened it up, and flipped through it.

He was hoping to find something to explain what Adelyn was planning. However, for the first couple pages it didn’t seem like they provided much value. She detailed her favorite stories, her favorite heroes, and her ambitions for learning magic. Telekinesis to reach the top shelves, summoning to create a new friend, and an ideal weapon for battling monsters. Svector wondered why she liked the idea of a chainsaw so much, but that’s not for him to question.

But, on the last written page, there was a drawing of a door. It called itself “A Gift to Mr. Svector and Rumia”. The plans detailed a door that would be able to send someone to anywhere they wished. A cute scribble of himself was depicted going through a door and ending up at a bar. That was where he worked.

“Wait… oh no,” Svector said. He looked down at the void in the library, and the shattered door frame. The drawing all but confirmed it. Adelyn and Rumia were most likely within that crack in space.

He stared at it for a moment, before breathing in and accepting his fate. He would have to go after them. There was no other way to get them back.

So, he stepped into the void.

***

Svector hit the ground hard, though not as hard as he should have. A bed of glowing flowers broke his fall, though it still hurt badly.

“Eurgh,” Svector grunted in pain as he got up. He noticed that when he pushed himself off the ground, his suit was stained with a glowing aqua liquid. He took in his surroundings and tried to get a bearing of where he was.

The main thing he would notice is that it was incredibly dark. The only light was coming from a glowing flower patch beneath him. He was surrounded by trees, but he could only see their outlines, distantly illuminated by the single light source.

“Adelyn? Rumia?” Svector called out once more. “Are you two here?”

He began to walk to the edge of the flowerbed he was spawned upon, trying to get closer to the trees. He was hoping he would find something beyond the curtain of trees that surrounded him.

But as he took a step forwards, he immediately heard a growling sound coming from directly in front of him. From the dark forest, two glowing eyes appeared between the dark trees.

“...woah-! Hey there,” Svector slowly inched backwards. He immediately sensed danger at this encounter. The eyes were at around half his height, and glaring at him harshly.

A growl came from the eyes once more, and then it revealed itself. Illuminated by the light of the flowers, it revealed a rather large canine, sporting pure black fur. It looked more like a shadow than a creature. The beast then barked at Svector.

“Calm down, boy,” Svector said, trying to remain still. He knew about monsters from the books in his library, but he was woefully inexperienced with actually meeting one in person. Though based on what it looked like, he guessed that acting aggressive or fearful would incite it to attack.

He put his hand forward and tried to keep that distance between it and the beast. He slowly backed off from it, trying to not incite anything that would initiate a fight. The beast looked at him, its eyes still piercing through Svector.

Another step back, and then another. He was about to reach the trees, before suddenly… the beast lunged at him!

Caught off guard by this sudden attack, Svector could only move one arm in front of his face as a hasty block. He felt sharp teeth dig into the skin of his arm, tearing through the sleeve of his suit and spurting blood out of it.

“AAAGH-!” He shouted as he fell on the ground, but grit his teeth. In his free arm, he began to form a small flame. He was never the best at magic, but what little he did learn might be useful now. He slammed the flame into the beast’s face, knocking it back off of his bloodied arm. The beast stumbled backwards a little bit and shook itself off. The flames didn’t seem to bother it that much.

Svector scrambled to his feet, his arm still hurting from the recent wound. Then, he immediately ran into the darkness of the woods. That was his best chance of survival compared to staying with that monster.

While running, he raised one hand once more to pull out a flame to get a bearing once more. It was a deep forest, lots of thick trees and very little light to go off of. However, he heard very swift rustling from behind him. He didn’t even need to look back to know that the creature was chasing him.

He kept on looking forwards, trying to navigate through the dark maze with his limited field of view. However, his light only went so far. Svector felt his feet misplace themselves, and he tripped over a root, tumbling to the ground.

“Damn it!” Svector cursed himself for his poor footwork. Before rolling over and seeing the approaching glowing eyes. He felt everything flash before his eyes as the beast approached at breakneck pace.

He figured that if he was going down, he wouldn’t go down without a fight. He raised one hand and began to form a flame. With a throw, he shot that flame out towards the beast as it leapt through the air!

Even through the flame, the creature powered through it, and was about to land to pounce. However, just before it landed on him, Svector saw the figure of a person slam into the beast with a large weapon. The beast was sent flying to the side and into the outline of a nearby tree.

The flame dimmed, and he couldn’t observe more of it. What little he did see was the figure raising their giant weapon and slamming it into the beast’s head. It did so multiple times, until the glowing eyes began to fade, melting into the darkness as well.

Svector laid against the root he tripped on, breathing heavily in and out. He could barely see anymore, and his mind was racing in many different directions.

Though, suddenly, he glanced back at the figure, and it was approaching him. His eyes opened, both in caution and in worry.

“Hey… what do you want from me?” he said, unable to get up. Suddenly, he felt lifted up, grabbed by the figure and pulled up to his feet. The figure had grabbed his injured arm, and began pulling him along.

“Hey!” He said a little bit more concerned. “Explain to me who you are!”

The person dragged Svector to the direction he was running from, and eventually pulled him back into the glowing flower bed. The two of them took a step into the only beacon of light in the dark forest, and Svector finally got a clear look at his savior.

She was a girl, the glowing light reflected off of her short white hair. She looked significantly younger than Svector, likely on the verge of just turning twenty years old. She had a hammer on her back, and wore a dark leather jacket and blue jeans. She was cautiously surveying the area around them before turning back to Svector.

“Relax,” the girl said. “You should be safe now.”

She looked at him, and he looked at her. Before she immediately dropped Svector’s aching hand.

“Oh, I did not see that your arm was that bad. We need to fix that right away!”