Chapter 36:

Chapter 33 - On the Wall

An Original Sin

Sy laid asleep beside Ame. But, his consciousness was wide awake. He just simply wasn’t in this reality. He opened his eyes, and closed them. He was in a forest. The sun shone straight into his eyes, making sure he was conscious of this.

“Eh? Where am I?”

He looked around. This place felt familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

He kept walking forward.

He stopped in his tracks. He was in the backyard of a mansion he knew very well. He didn’t know when he reached this area, but he was there. There was a small plastic red slide that he used to play on when he was a kid. He was too large for it now. If he had gotten the same treatment as Ame, he would have been able to slide down it. But his body hadn’t changed.

He looked to his house, through the window, staring into his room. The window frames were gold plated, and the house was large enough to rival Aqlli’s castle. It sat on top of a bright green hill of grass, with no other houses in sight. His mind was foggy. He knew what he was experiencing wasn’t real.

He tried to slide down the slide, but was too big.

He sat down to think.

Unsurprisingly, he came to the conclusion that he was in the past. He remembered getting attacked by the black wire creature, but didn’t remember anything else.

He tried to think back farther.

“Let the preliminary round… begin!”

He remembered what Marē had told everybody.

He looked up into the sky and shouted.

“Am I passing?”

And he came to the conclusion that it was a test.

He wasn’t necessarily wrong, but if he kept that way of thinking, he would never escape this place.

He sat there for a moment, but nobody responded. He decided to stand back up and walk towards the front door of the house.

Knock Knock

A maid soon came running to the door, bowing when it opened.

Sy spoke to her.

“Hey, Lisa.”

He looked at her blankly until she responded.

“Welcome home, Zbrke. Dinner has been prepared.”

Sy looked rather uncomfortable with being called that. He took a deep breath to reassure himself, and walked past Lisa without saying a word.

He thought to himself.

“What do I need to do to go back?!”

He walked over to his room to brainstorm. He shut the door and locked it. His pet beetle was crawling in the enclosure beside him. Only seconds later, there was a knock at his door.

“Come in.”

It was his mother.

“Zbrke, you’ve been rather distant lately. Did something happen at school? Are you feeling alright?”

Sy struggled to respond. It was for one reason and one reason alone.

He looked to his left at the calendar hung on his wall.

It was the day he left his home.

“I’m fine, Mom. I’m just a little tired.”

“Are you sure? Do you want any money on your game? You didn’t even glance at dinner.”

Sy smiled softly and looked down.

“I’m fine.”

“...Alright… Just tell me if you need anything, okay?”

Sy nodded. He was about to close his door again, when another person came through the door. It wasn’t any of his siblings, because he was an only child. It wasn’t any of the maids, because they didn’t have the authority to enter his room.

It was his father.

“I heard yar Mom talkin 'about you bein sick or somethin’. My good buddy Eric’s a doctor’! He’ll get ya up and ready for school outta the good o’ his heart… and a bit uh blackmail.”

Sy responded.

“You must have heard wrong. I was just a bit tired. It’s alright.”

The dad coughed.

“Alrighty, Zbrke. Nuthin to be worried bout’, eh? Sleep well.”

Sy remembered this conversation word for word. He had said all of this before.

And, an hour later, he would never see his parents again.

He ran away from home.

The feelings from the day he left lingered in his head.

“Welcome home, Zbrke.”

“Zbrke, you’ve been rather distant lately.”

“Alrighty, Zbrke. Nuthin to be worried bout’, eh?”

He clenched his fist. He hated that name. He hated what was attached to it. Zbrke Beckwith, the son of the richest man in Jeti. Zbrke Beckwith, the prodigy of wind. Zbrke Beckwith, the man with nobody who cared for ‘him’.

He hated it more than anything in the world. But he loved his parents.

If he was faced with the same decision, what would he do?

He didn’t know, even though the decision was due within less than an hour.

He gripped his head and pulled his hair while kicking his feet.

He got to see his parents again. Wasting this opportunity would cause pain unimaginable to anybody. And he knew this. But, he also knew this wasn’t real.

He got up out of bed and walked towards his mother. He stood in front of her and spoke.

“Mother. Who am I?”

She smiled softly.

“You’re my son, of course. Zbrke Beckwith.”

He grit his teeth.

“I know I’m your son. I-I…”

He didn’t know how to word it. He wanted to say that he hated his status because it left him isolated. He wanted to say that he loved her, and that none of it was her fault. But he would be lying.

And a prodigy tells no lies.

He broke down in tears.

His mother hugged him, but the hug was cold. Wires began to creep down his neck. And before he knew it, they had gripped his heart.

His mother spoke to him in a language he didn’t understand, and yet the words came through clear as day.

“Mirror Mirror, on the wall. Who’s the most loved of them all? It’s you, Mirror! Valued people don’t run from themselves, though. You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit! That’s what you’ve been told all your life… Zbrke.”

He didn’t want this.

He would rather die than accept this. He would rather fail than accept this.

He grabbed his ‘mother’ by her neck and broke it.

He smirked.

“Kill me.”

He didn’t care what the answer was. Leaving or staying, he didn’t care. He didn’t want either.

He wanted to kill Zbrke more than anything.

He wanted to be the mirror he knew as Sy.

His mother transformed into the same monster from earlier and spoke into his brain, using its wires to transfer the sound.

“Congratulations, Sy Beckwith.”

And he pierced Sy’s heart.

______________________________________________________________________________

My vision blurred, and then a moment later, it returned to normal. I scanned the area around myself. I… I was sitting against a tree in the middle of a dense forest. Grass and wet soil surrounded the entire area.

Around me was a circle of white flowers. There was a kitchen knife beside my body as well.

I didn’t know where I was. My mind was racing. Was this L’eau’s doing? Or that wire creature? This place felt familiar. It didn’t feel like it was a part of my reality, but it was familiar. It was a familiarity I wished would leave me.

I needed to find Ame. I needed to find him and get out of here.

Drip

I heard a drop of water under a footstep. It sounded just like Ame.

My eyes widened. My body felt as if it was holding back tears, and yet I wasn’t sad. I had no reason to cry.

I tried to stand up, but my body was paralyzed. I just hoped that Ame could find me.

And my hope paid off.

“Ame-”

From behind a tree, a figure came out.

It was L’eau. Her eyes were caring but terrifying. She was staring into my internal world, making my body shiver.

She stepped closer to me. I tried to move.

I couldn’t move. She needed to stay away. I didn’t want her to get any closer.

Tap.

She walked closer. Her steps sounded identical to Ame’s.

Shivering, my hand moved to the knife. But, she pushed my wrist into the mud, holding it there as she crawled down to my level, face to face with me.

She brushed her finger against my bottom lip.

I was scared. My hand trembled as I tried to grab the knife by the blade. It cut my hand.

She moved her head forward, and put her lips against mine.

I wanted to leave. I wanted to leave now. I wanted to stop thinking.

But I couldn’t move.

She pulled back away from me, a blank expression on her face.

“I love you, Nell. There’s only one way to pass this trial.”

I hated this. I hated this. I hated this. I did. I hated this.

Why couldn’t I hate it?

I hated myself for not being able to hate it. I hated it, but it felt like there was another person in my body, another person in my soul, that didn’t. It didn’t feel like it was me. I was scared. The warmth from it wasn’t a comforting one. The warmth invaded me instead of surrounding me.

“You passed, Nell. Because you love me back.”

I didn’t. I didn’t love her. I didn’t love her. I didn’t lov-

…

I was back in the hallway, with the monster nowhere to be seen. A voice shot through my head. It was the God of Time.

“Don’t be afraid, Nell. Your trial is over. A little patience and you’ll be back with everybody. You don’t have to worry about L’eau.”

“R-Really?”

“Really. I promise.”

I sighed, fell on my back, and started to sob.

______________________________________________________________________________

Kaya and Inda stood in front of the dragon, perfectly still. Not because they were scared, though.

“IS THAT A DRAGON?!” Kaya yelled.

Inda burst out laughing.

“You probably just woke it up! Bahahaha-”

The dragon’s eyes shot open as it stared at Kaya.

Kaya held her dagger up to it.

“You will become my pet! Your name will be Big Man!”

The dragon was female.

Kaya gripped her dagger and dashed forward at the dragon. She knew that it wouldn’t submit to her without a show of strength. She stabbed the dragon and dragged her dagger through it until she ran out of kinetic energy.

She jumped off the dragon and watched proudly as it fell over.

But, it got back up immediately. It healed its wound, and stomped its foot onto the floor.

Inda yelled from the corner.

“WATCH OUT!”

The dragon darted forward, headbutting Kaya and smacking her into the wall. She couldn’t move anymore as the dragon opened its mouth.

BANG!

Inda blitzed towards the dragon's head, knocking its lower jaw off. Seconds later, the jaw had healed.

Kaya saw this and thought.

If this thing was in the wild, no other animals would stand a chance. That's how the world works.

But why? Other animals would suffer at the hands of predators, all because they were weaker? That wasn’t moral. It was unjust. This creature made the laws of the natural world seem evil.

“KAYA! WAKE UP!”

Inda shouted, continuously knocking the dragon's head away.

Kaya opened her eyes. She didn’t want to kill it.

But this thing couldn’t live. Killing it wasn’t justice. It was balance.

She grabbed her dagger and propelled herself under the dragon's head, only to propel herself back up and rip a hole in its neck.

She yelled out to Inda.

“Don’t let it regenerate! Test its limits!”

Inda nodded and shot forward so fast that she created enough kinetic energy to split the dragon in half. The durability of the dragon was unremarkable, but it just kept healing.

Kaya thought it could only regenerate one thing at a time, but was proven wrong as it healed its neck and body at the same time.

“What the hell?! How do we kill this thing?!”

Inda sat down. The dragon began to walk up to her, but she held her hand out and shot it with lightning.

“Let me think.”

She closed her eyes and thought.

Kaya yelled out to her, but she ignored her.

The dragon began to charge something.

“INDA!”

A blast of energy shot towards Inda, who was sitting with her eyes closed. After hearing Kaya scream, she jumped up, but wasn’t quick enough to avoid getting hit.

She was pushed back into the stained glass, but it didn’t break.

“I got it!”

Kaya tilted her head.

“Huh?”

“We just have to vaporize it!”

“HUHHHH?!”

______________________________________________________________________________

Nell's Notebook: Page 56

A creation calls for destruction

A life calls for death

Joy calls for suffering

Eyes call for the ability for all to be lost