Ray - Voices (2)

The voice was low and filled with bottomless spite. For a moment, she thought the words were echoed by another voice, a female one, as if someone else had surfaced for an instant, but the second presence vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

“Of course shadows are always evil. They’re the opposite of Light, of good. They belong to the night and all the malice that lurks within it. You’re a creature like the one Let saw, aren’t you?”

A rattling laugh rang out, joyless and cold.

“Yes, just like that. Only now I walk here with you in this realm, and no longer rot in the place I came from… craving,” it hissed and gagged.

Ray pressed herself against the wall, trying to put as much distance as possible between her and that piece of ruinous shadow. She was trembling now, yet the fear only fueled her revulsion.

“I won’t let you stay here,” she hissed, and the room flared with the force of her will, a brightness that rippled through the air.

Everything blazed bright—everything except the spot in the corner, which remained black.

“Your Light showed us the way… I only wanted to travel with you, but you cast me out. You will pay for that!” the darkness thundered back.

There was pain in its voice, and rage, and terrible threats.

Us? Ray thought, confused.

A piercing scream split the night.

It came from next door.

Ormir! The thought shot through Ray, and she no longer held back. She couldn’t afford caution, not when this mass threatened to surge and spill out from that corner.

Another scream rang out from farther away, and it only fueled her anger.

Flowing light streamed from her aura, cascading like a cleansing flood that scoured every evil shadow it touched. Hissing, it surged toward the corner, but the darkness had already vanished.

“It’s too late… I only wanted to make a connection… This terrible Light…” Those were the last words, booming as they echoed off her walls.

“You cowardly piece of shit! You lying monster!” Ray shouted furiously, yet she still let her blazing Lucidity rage on, surging against the wall until it burned a gaping hole in the stone. The opening was clean; only at the edges did molten rock drip onto the floor.

Through it she saw Ormir, pressed against the opposite wall, staring at something in her room.

The young student trembled violently, silent, sparkling tears streaming down her face. Her hand stretched toward Ray, groping helplessly along the wall. Ray rushed forward, a cloud of white mist swirling around her, meant to shield her. She looked around, extending the mist to envelop Ormir as well, hoping it would calm her. It didn’t work as Ray had wished. Only faintly could she sense Ormir’s own Lucidity, letting her draw close.

Demoa could have soothed her, Ray thought bitterly, scanning the room.

Nothing suggested that Ormir was being confronted by something pressing in on her, yet her trembling unsettled Ray deeply.

“Ormir, what’s wrong?” she asked as gently as she could manage.

“He… he’s there… outside…” Ormir gasped, suddenly clutching Ray’s arm.

“What? What’s out there?” Ray shot back, alarmed.

Another scream, then a sharp crash tore through the night. They came from farther away. Ray stared at the window, but nothing seemed unusual—except… the wind seeping in felt cold. And now that Ormir had said it… wasn’t there something? Someone? They were on the ground floor; it was entirely possible someone was lurking outside the windows.

“The… I think the Empty Man is there…” Ormir wailed, covering her mouth.

“The Empty…” Ray echoed in shock, and then her whole body prickled—irregular, as though thousands of fingernails were dragging across her skin.

The window looked stranger than it had moments before, and the night carried the scent of a disturbing neutrality. Flat, almost like she smelled nothing at all. Then, outside, came a crackling sound and a high, quivering cackle that seeped into the room.

Ray shoved herself farther in front of Ormir, who was now sliding down the wall, weeping silently and shaking her head again and again.

“Go away, get away! I didn’t mean to disturb you!” she wailed.

Ray searched the night beyond the window. There had to be something out there—something that had shattered Ormir’s composure so completely.

Then she saw him.

The Empty Man.

He stood there, just outside the window, staring into the room with a face that was nothing but a blind spot. Ray could see the porous skin as he laid his hand on the sill. She could hear the cackling, though she couldn’t tell what produced it, since the creature had no visible mouth.

“No, go away, no! I didn’t mean to call you, no!” Ormir screamed, scrambling toward the door.

“Blind… I’ll take your eyes, your ears, your tongue, so sweet…” the thing slurred.

Ormir screamed and stumbled desperately away, while Ray tried to wedge herself between her and the creature. Slowly, it climbed into the room. It was naked, covered in porous gray skin, its arms and legs and emaciated chest and stomach gaping with holes—holes of nothingness that made Ray’s stomach churn and filled her with a nauseating sense of blindness that repulsed her. Its body was wrong in a way that felt deeper than disgust, as though her mind refused to finish perceiving it. She had to force herself not to retch, yet Ormir’s terror also sent a blaze of anger rushing through Ray’s thoughts, so hot it made her sweat.

The thing before her was grotesque, surely a perversion of the Dream, summoned by Ormir—or perhaps by Ray herself—from another realm. But it was the same kind of being as the darkness, the cowardly parasite that had latched onto her.

The one she had destroyed.

“You misshapen, heretical abnormity! Begone!” she shouted at the creature. Her hands shook, and she had to clench them into fists to keep a shred of control over her fury.

“Ah… you… you brought us here, didn’t you? You and your... Sun. You gave us the chance to surface into this realm… Thank you… thank you, for letting me torment Ormir even better now…”

Ray screamed in rage and unleashed the energy within her. Radiance erupted outward, unfurling like a vast shroud that engulfed the gaunt creature, which shrieked in fury. She felt her Light touch the filthy thing, felt the alien depths of malice woven into its body. Disgusted, Ray pictured the creature being crushed, and the glowing cloth of Lucidity she had cast around the Empty Man drew tight, merciless.

“NO! NO!” the creature howled, part rage, part torment, as it was crushed.

There was a hideous, wet crunch as Ray’s Lucidity squeezed tighter until the being collapsed into black sludge and dark blood. A crystalline dark stone clattered to the floor. Foul-smelling remains oozed out of the light-shroud, and Ray drew the glow back into herself, trembling with grim satisfaction that another piece of the vile darkness was gone. The room still stank of death, yet her thoughts were already searching for the next threat.

Only then did she notice the screams still rising from outside. Determined, she strode to the window.

The lights she had seen before were gone. In their place, flashes and hissing sparks erupted at scattered points, and twisted, shadowy figures were visible in the moonlight, chasing fleeing monks and students.

Demoa! The thought shot through Ray as she sensed the warmth that always marked Demoa’s presence drifting farther away. Desperately, she scanned the slope where the warmth was moving, and at last she spotted a figure sprinting toward the fields by the lake. Nothing seemed to be pursuing her, yet she was still running like mad.

“Ormir, are you all right?” Ray asked over her shoulder without turning.

“Yes… thank you… he’s… gone…” came the whisper from the hall.

Ray vaulted out the window and rushed down the slope, straight toward where Demoa was. As she ran along one of the platforms, a body was hurled in front of her, crashing into the railing. It was Novis, who sprang back up with a furious snort and bolted away again.

Ray was startled that he had survived the impact without a scratch, yet there was no time to wonder. A statue-like creature with countless arms, each wielding a crooked sword, was chasing him and tried to cut Ray down in passing.

She instinctively spread her Lucidity before her like a shield, and the swords slammed into it with a grinding crash. But the monster wasn’t truly interested in her. Novis was already hurling blazing spears at the thing, careful never to let one strike Ray. The monster batted them aside with its swords, which now began to glow with a black light.

Ray kept running and left Novis behind. She would only slow him down. A river now ran beside her, swollen and violent, and from it rose a snakelike creature with twitching black eyes that headed straight for one of the nearby pagodas, letting out a scream. Water splashed across the path, making the ground slick so she advanced more slowly than she wanted. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glowing orb on a tether strike the writhing monster, which only made it hiss angrier. All around Ray there were screams, bangs, and flashes of light, but she couldn’t focus on them. Demoa was close; she seemed to have slowed her pace. Ray squinted and finally swept past the large pond, now empty of animals, its surface lapping with small waves that shimmered in the moonlight.