Chapter 22: Her shining self.

We keep running and stopping on every detour, where we use the staff to indicate the right way. I can hear stomps behind us and weird noises creaking in the darkness. Luckily, our pyl rocks work wonders, lightning everything five meters ahead.

"Watch out!" Ellie screams.

We stop at the edge of a dead end. Before us, there's nothing but a great void of darkness.

"Let's go back to the closest detour!" I say, taking Ellie's hand and starting to run.

Ellie doesn't move.

"What 's going on?" I ask.

"The staff keeps indicating to go forward," Ellie says, leaving the staff to levitate. The staff stays unwavering, pointing at the great void.

"There's no way," I say, moving my head. "Maybe if we take another path, the staff will detour us through a less deadly track."

The stomps behind us start growing stronger and stronger.

"I can hear some water," Ellie says. "Maybe there's a river beneath that we can't see."

The floor starts shaking with the strength of the stomps.

"There's no time," Ellie says. "We have to do it."

"But Ellie…" I say.

"Follow me!" Ellie says.

Ellie puts the staff on her backpack, adjusts it, and takes a few steps back.

She extends her hand, urging me to grab it.

"Ellie…" I stammer.

"Thrust me, Rin!" Ellie exclaims. "If there's a river down there, we should not drift away one from another. Now take my hand!"

The stomps resonate closer and closer.

Ellie shakes her hand, urging me to take it.

Oh my! I stand next to Ellie and grab her hand tightly.

"Ready!" Ellie asks.

"Only if you are," I say. My knees are shaking, and my hands are sweating.

"Then let's go!" Ellie screams.

We start sprinting to the nothing. I take a look back and get a glimpse of a cumulus nietravs stampeding towards us.

"Jump!" Ellie shouts.

I startle and take my best leap with the last step before the floor turns into nothing.

Our impulses last very little before we start falling.

"Aaaaaah!!!" Ellie screams.

I laugh. When did I accepted to do this so carelessly?

We're falling into the nothing, unsure of what's ahead. The darkness eats any light, but somehow, I don't feel in the shadows. Her steady grip is all the light I need as we fall into this endless void. Her presence that shines with no light but yet illuminates me. I feel safe next to her.

I can hear water flowing.

The darkness dissipates, and we fall into a river.

Cold water covers us and starts taking us downstream.

We swim to the surface without easing our grip. We gasp for air. We’re alive.

"Aaa!" I shout. "It worked!"

Ellie sighs and laughs with relief. Out of nothing, I kiss Ellie on the cheek.

"Hey!" she says, but she doesn't sound angry.

"Now what?" I ask.

Ellie looks away.

"I guess we'll have to see where the river takes us," Ellie says. "Unless you wanna climb one of those crags."

I look at the towering walls that frame the river on both sides, illuminated by the lilac glow of the river.

"I think the river is a better option," I say, and we laugh.

"Wait," Ellie says. "Do you listen to that?"

We stay quiet. There's definitely a sound of stirring water, growing louder as we get closer.

"Those must be rapids," Ellie says. "Hurry! Let's hug. We cannot risk getting separated by the current."

As the current starts running faster, I hug Ellie. Then a violent current wallows us up, down, to one side, swirls, up, down, breathe, and keep repeating.

The cold water numbs every inch of my body, but I don't lose my grip.

When the current starts slowing down, we fall down a waterfall.

After impacting the water below us, we hurriedly swim to the surface to take a breath.

"Are you okay?" I ask Ellie.

She nods, shaking with cold.

"We need to get out of the water," Ellie says.

We start swimming.

A peaceful lake surrounds us. Its lilac glow lits the towering walls surrounding it.

I try to find a shore, but there's none in sight.

We keep swimming until the water level gets below my knee.

As we start walking, I let go of Ellie's hand.

Here, the water shines with a more intense glow, but it doesn't get any warmer.

"Okay. Mr. Staff," I say, taking it out of Ellie's backpack. "Now, where?"

The staff points to a group of rocks to the left. I pack it again, and we continue walking.

The water gets colder. It's below my knee, but I feel like it's running up to my heart. Everything starts getting colder and colder.

"Ellie," I say, suddenly falling to my knees. "I don't know if I can go any further."

I feel the cold crawling into me, numbing my senses. I don't know why I want to give up so badly.

Ellie falls next to me.

"Sounds good to stay here," she says, looking lost.

"Who needs to get back home," I stutter. "When we can stay here and freeze."

"Yeah," Ellie says. "But can I freeze next to you?"

"No problem," I say with reluctance.

Ellie moves closer to me. As she leans by my side, her hand accidentally lands on top of my crotch.

A sudden surge of energy hits my body. I jump up to my feet and away from Ellie.

"Ellie!!?!!" I shout, blushing harder than ever.

"Sorry," she mutters, tired. "I didn't mean to…now come back, let's freeze together."

Wait a minute.

I can feel the cold crawling back up.

"Ellie, give me your hand!" I say and rush to take her hand.

The delicate warmth of her hand pushes the cold back.

"We have to get out of here!" I say, taking Ellie's arm behind my neck and lifting her up.

The water level descends, just like when a tsunami is about to happen. The bottom of the lake uncovers, and I watch terrorized hundreds of bones covering it.

"Run!" I exclaim.

Without letting go of her hand, we start running to the group of rocks as the lake churns behind us.

When we get to the rocks, I take a glimpse of a ladder behind one.

We start climbing the ladder when a massive wave of water hits the wall, making Ellie lose her grip.

I catch her hand.

The water moves violently beneath us, hungry for prey.

Tensing my arms, I help Ellie get back on the ladder, and we climb away from the water.

The ladder takes us to a narrow tunnel.

Ellie takes my hand.

"Pom. Dry," she says as a warm breeze takes away all the water. “Thanks for helping me back there.”

“Well. Nobody wants to get eaten by a psychotic pond, right!” I smile at her, and we walk in the tunnel.

We wander for some time until the tunnel opens into a gigantic vault.

A petrified dragon stands in the center, looking helplessly at a glowing gem on top of an obelisk made out of dark stone.

"We've made it!" I say, hugging Ellie.

"We've made it!" Ellie repeats with incredulity.

We walk closer, and I stumble upon another petrified dragon. This one is smaller. As we go on, we find more and more prettified dragons.

I step on a piece of parchment with intricate notes that catch my attention.

"Rurn. Do you know what this is?" I ask.

"An experimental spell for control," Rurn says.

"So Abhag the First wanted an army of dragons," I say, breaking the parchment.

"That's great news for Ignis!" Ellie says. "The dragons weren't extinct as she thought."

"Now, the question is," I say. "How do we get that stone down?"

I look up at the stone. The obelisk must be twenty meters tall.

"Look," Ellie says, getting her pyl rock close to the obelisk, revealing some holes carved on its surface.

"I think I can use those holes to climb…" Ellie says before a giant pack of nietravs tackles us to the ground.

I didn't hear them. Were they waiting for us?

I'm immobilized by the weight of hundreds of nietravs pilling on top of me as I get a final glimpse of Ellie's helpless expression, a nietrav covering her mouth, keeping her from casting any spell.

Then the nietravs cover me, their slimy skin strat scorching my skin.

Is this how it ends?

I think about Ellie's face, tired and defeated, of the way she encouraged me to cross the bridge, how she disinterestedly helped me at Mama's party. The warmth of her hand back in the lake. She stayed even when I tried to pull her away. She likes me by who I am. She sees through me someone not even I am able to see. She's always been light, a light I no longer want to let go of.

This is not how it ends.

Anger starts rising inside of me.

My mouth is covered, but a blaze of blue flames spreads from my chest and covers all the nietravs around me. They scatter away, whaling as they burn into ashes.

Fire surrounds me, but it’s not burning me.

I look at the other pile of nietravs and the blue fire instantly covers them.

I run to Ellie as the nietravs spread away from her.

The surviving nietravs clump around a red gem on a table nearby. We watch helplessly how the burning nietravs melt into a two-meter-tall humanoid.

The humanoid takes a large rusty sword from the ground and raises a hand, daring me. The gem shines brightly red in the center of its chest.

"I'll take care of it," I say to Ellie. "Get the staff's gem. Maybe after taking it off the obelisk, that thing will run out of energy."

Ellie kisses me on the lips.

I look at her, startled.

"Good luck!" she says before turning to the obelisk and starts climbing.

I take the dragon sword out of my backpack and start walking to my opponent.

Let's get this over with.