Move! Move, move, move, move!
That one command was all Cal could think of. Not directed towards the man. Not towards Vincent.
Just himself. Just his own body that refused to budge despite all things telling him to do so.
Come on! You saw what you wanted to see! Nothing matters now!
He tried to put one leg behind the other. He tried to backtrack and make his way out of this depraved tunnel. But something had rooted his feet to the ground.
The man continued to rise, looking so disfigured and mangled, that it was if a corpse had life breathed into it.
With great effort, Cal turned his eyes to Vincent, who didn't seem to fare any better. Vincent's eyes were unblinking; his gaze fixed on the man whose blood continued to fizz and bubble.
The man's head twitched. A sickening, jerky motion — like his skull weighed too much for his ruined neck to support. Then another twitch. And another. Each movement brought his body a fraction higher until he stood… or something close to it.
Cal felt a sound rise in his throat. A gasp? A scream? No matter. It never came out. His mind begged, ordered, commanded his legs to move, but the fear anchoring him was far heavier than his body.
Vincent staggered back a half-step, but that was all. He didn't run. Didn't shout. Didn't even breathe, from the look of it. His hands hovered uselessly at his sides, trembling in tight, erratic bursts.
Cal swallowed hard. "We need to-"
The words crumbled the moment they hit his tongue.
Because the fugitive — the monster, that... thing — had finally straightened. Both boys recoiled instinctively, backs brushing the cold stone wall behind them. The tunnel seemed to constrict, pulling tight around the three of them.
A raspy breath escaped the man's throat, though his lips barely parted. His skin was peeling from his body, likely a result from the injuries he sustained before he made it here. Be it from his captivity, or something along the way.
Cal's gaze caught on the man's left arm.
It lifted.
Slowly.
Purposefully.
The way one might raise a blade. Or reach for a throat.
Vincent sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. "Cal…"
We're dead...
The man took a step. A dragging, wet shuffle. Then another. His arm reached higher, fingers contorted into something claw-like, joints cracking as they bent at angles no human limb should.
Is this what they are? Is this... what ecliptics become? W-What the hell am I... even looking at?
Cal could feel the nausea rise in his gut. The sight of something so mutilated, yet deadly made no sense in the most repulsive way possible, and it was here that Cal wished he had never thought of venturing to this disgusting tunnel.
And yet... He couldn't look away.
There was fear, yes — enough to drown him — but there was also something else curling beneath it. Something hot. Something curious. Something that whispered, "watch him".
Vincent seemed caught in the same spell. His eyes were too wide, too focused, as if some part of him needed to see what the man would do next despite every sense screaming in protest.
The fugitive's shadow stretched long across the tunnel floor, bending and twisting as he came closer. Cal could see the man's breath now — slow, ragged wisps leaking from a half-open mouth.
His hand was inches from Cal's face.
Cal shut his eyes. He didn't want to die. Not here. Not like this. Not in some forgotten tunnel beneath a shabby corner of Lamnor!
Cal closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, bracing for the inevitable pain of death to swallow him whole.
WHRRRRRRRRRRRR-
A piercing whine cut through the air, so sharp it stabbed right through the inside of Cal's skull. He gasped and instinctively ducked, hands flying to his ears. The sound vibrated the walls, rattling dust loose from the ceiling. Vincent did the same, his face showing that of immense pain and bewilderment.
Then...
CRACK!
A shockwave tore through the tunnel, blasting a gust across Cal and Vincent's faces. Something concussive had seemed to have hit the man, sending him flying into the wall with a sickening sound.
Crunch!
His body slammed into the wall of the tunnel, drawing out a scream of pain and shock from the injured body. The impact was almost bone-shattering, which further shocked Cal when he saw that man was still alive. The fugitive then crumpled onto the ground in a heap of limbs and shredded cloth.
Cal's breath shuddered out of him. His legs finally gave way, and he found himself dropping to one knee. Vincent stumbled beside him, coughing, hands shaking as he tried to orient himself.
"What—" Vincent rasped. "What was that?"
Cal blinked away the blur in his vision and forced himself to turn.
At first, all he saw were silhouettes of a few men. Tall and rigid figures that had casted shadows over the area from the lumenveil mushroom's light. Armor gleamed in the very same brightness, with motes of dust getting caught in it from the impact moments earlier.
Then Cal's eyes widened in recognition.
The platoon. That insignia was all too clear. A sigil of the Evervoid Empire etched into their cloaks.
"Secure him!" one of the men barked, his voice bouncing off the walls with anger and urgency.
More soldiers pushed past, moving in practiced formation. Two grabbed the fugitive's limp arms, locking them into shackles; another checked his pulse; another stood by, waiting for the worst-case scenario of another escape, if that even seemed possible.
Cal continued to stare at the scene, his heart racing like it had no limits. Vincent's condition was much the same, only he seemed to look like he was sick.
"V-Vincent," Cal started. "You... alright?"
Vincent blinked once. Twice. He turned his head slowly to Cal before nodding with an unsteady gait. "Y-Yeah... I-I think so."
Cal slowly walked up to him before hesitatingly placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Thank the Moon," he said, trying to steady his voice. It was of no use. The fear clung to his chords like dust on an antique found in the Hollow Anvil's workshop.
Vincent slightly relaxed when he felt Cal's hand on his shoulder, but his gaze continued to switch between the soldiers and the collapsed fugitive, as if unable to decide which was more terrifying.
Suddenly, a voice of shock and slight rage sounded from behind them. A platoon member.
"What," he said slowly "are you two fools doing here?"
Cal had no answer. He barely had breath.
And for the first time that night, the tunnel felt even colder.
The man didn't speak for a moment. A suffocating quiet settled in the tunnel, almost as if all the voices had been manually turned off by something that no mortal could perceive. The soldiers of the Evervoid Empire stood still, their formation half-broken, eyes wide, jaws clenched. One by one, their expressions shifted — first disbelief, then irritation, then something close to outrage.
It wasn't directed at the fugitive on the ground. Not anymore.
It was directed at them. Cal and Vincent.
"Are you two fools?!" the man barked. "Did you both wish for death?! What is wrong with you?"
Cal and Vincent could feel the stares pierce through their bodies and into their souls, prickling like cold needles. Vincent tensed beside him, shoulders rising instinctively as if bracing for a blow.
"...You two," the man continued, his voice increasing in shock, exasperation, and fury. "You find something like this, and you just stand there?!"
His tone landed somewhere between anger and disbelief, the kind reserved for children who touched fire after being told not to.
Another soldier — the one trying to restrain the now compliant fugitive — snorted. "Commoners. Should've known. And considering we're in this decrepit excuse of a town; this shouldn't be surprising."
That sparked a low mutter among the platoon — voices layered in irritation, judgment, and fear. They kept glancing between Cal, Vincent, and the unconscious fugitive whose blood continued to fizz and bubble, albeit much slower and less noticeable.
Cal felt the words whip him like a slap across the face. He felt the shame and resentment from their voices burn into his skin like molten lava. His heart thudded and he felt it in his ears, the sweat pouring uncomfortably down his body. He could feel his clothes binding to his skin from the slickness.
Another one of the soldiers — a tall man with gray streaks in his hair — narrowed his eyes at Cal longer than the others. Not with overt hostility, but with an unsettling sharpness, as though he were trying to peel back his skin and see what laid underneath.
Cal felt the man's gaze, confusion stirring in his mind. What was there to see? He was nothing like this fugitive.
No...
That guy... He wasn't human! I didn't even do anything wrong... and yet they're making me look crazy!
The man barked order sliced through the tension. "Enough."
"But Lieutenant Rilehart-" someone protested.
"That is an order," Rilehart snapped, his voice iron and smoke.
He turned his gaze to Cal and Vincent, his eyes showing that of skepticism and dismay. "You two do not even comprehend the matters of what you have seen today. How on earth did you two even find this man, let alone live to tell the tale? Are you two-"
"No," Cal interrupted, his voice carrying a sense of urgency. To leave this place and never return. "No, we're not... ecliptics or anything like that. We... just heard some commotion, and..."
His voice drifted off.
The lieutenant's eyes widened, his visage contorting further into that of confoundment. He then sighed, his voice turning serious.
"Do not mistake my words as praise or approval," he said. "Let it be known, that had you taken any step closer, you'd have not lived to see tomorrow."
Cal felt his heart sink to the pits of his stomach, and he could've sworn he saw Vincent tremble in his boots.
The man cleared his throat, before continuing. "Under no circumstances will you both speak a word about today. If you do, not only will you tarnish the reputation of our Empire, but you both will be stripped away from everything you hold dear. Am I clear?"
Cal felt as if he had no control over his body, but somehow, a nod came from his head. Vincent did the same in response.
"Leave. Immediately," the lieutenant replied.
Cal looked at Vincent before trying to make their way out of the tunnel. The two had no idea how one leg was put in front of the other.
But at this moment, questions seemed like death. And more of them would leave them worse for wear.
As they left the tunnel, they saw the sun had slowly begun to reach the west. They had lost track of time, and who knows what awaited them when they made it back home.
Vincent was the first to breathe out. "Cal… what the hell was that?"
Cal didn't answer immediately. He couldn't. His chest felt tight, like the air didn't want to go in all the way. His mind kept replaying the moment — the roaring pressure, the violent rush, the way everything snapped into a strange clarity he'd never felt before.
"I don't know," he finally murmured. His voice cracked in the middle. It was all he could manage.
He could see the shaking in Vincent's frame, the steps irregular, and the eyes widened in fear. Cal put his hand on Vincent's shoulder again, not even caring about what he would think of it under normal circumstances.
"Don't pass out on me," he said.
Vincent inhaled deeply before looking at Cal. "Thank you..."
Cal nodded, with no words to be said in reply.
They continued down the dirt road until the lights of the settlement began to flicker through the trees. Warm windows. Familiar shapes. A place where things were supposed to make sense.
But tonight, nothing felt normal.
------
By the time they reached the shop's wooden steps, Cal's legs felt like they were filled with wet sand. Cal and Vincent saw the doors to the Hollow Anvil. Relief and exhaustion slammed into their bodies like the force of a tidal wave, their expressions softening into that of tiredness.
He pressed his hand to the door, eased it open... and froze.
There he was. Darius was slumped in his old armchair, chin tucked to his chest, arms crossed. The lantern beside him had burned down to a weak ember. His breathing was slow, steady… asleep.
Cal's shoulders dropped in a long, shaky exhale.
His granddad hadn't noticed a thing.
He'd probably assumed Cal was still locked in his room, still stewing after the argument that morning. The old man must've waited a while, then simply nodded off from the exhaustion of the day.
Cal heard the sigh of relief from Vincent, his gaze drifting to the boy. "We should go sleep..."
Cal nodded before silently creeping to their shared bedroom. "Way ahead of you."
The two successfully made it to their respective resting spots in the room without any noise. No perturbations were made to Darius' rest.
No words were exchanged between the two now. No goodnights. No questions of concern.
Nothing.
The day had already taken too much of their energy to even have them formulate words. Especially when they were now so close to accepting sleep's caress.
And with that, Cal felt the weight of his eyelids force his eyes to shut, and soon he drifted off to sleep.
------
Darkness.
Then white. Everywhere stood light.
A blank, soundless expanse stretched in every direction, weightless and without edge. Cal blinked, but the void didn't change. If anything, it simply existed, cold and endless. His thoughts echoed inside it like distant drops of water plinking against glass.
W-Where am I? I was just-
He looked around. Nothing was to be seen. Nothing was to be heard.
And nothing felt right.
Why am I here?
Why am I so weak?
Why can't I do anything right?
He felt the questions tumble out with no inhibition whatsoever. These words were his own.
And yet, they didn't feel like they were.
His lack of strength, his inexperience, the years he'd spent stumbling behind Darius because of overprotection. Overprotection that made no sense.
And knowing.
His lack of it.
What did he know?
Nothing... I don't know a damn thing about this world! I don't even know who I am!
What I am...
All of it pressed against him, coiling like a tightening band around his chest.
Then...
He heard it. A voice.
Faint choral whispers drifted through the emptiness — soft at first, like breaths drawn behind a far-off door. They grew clearer, weaving around him in concentric spirals of harmony and dissonance. The air trembled with the sound.
"Hello?" Cal turned in place, but there was no ground, no horizon, no figure.
Only light. Pale, shifting, breathing light.
The whispers merged into syllables, indistinct but calling to him. Something stirred beneath the surface of his mind — a pressure, a pulse, like a voice waiting to be heard.
Cal's frustration surged.
His fear.
His longing to know.
His desperate will to change.
The void responded.
A ripple tore through the whiteness. The whispers swelled into a single, resonant voice.
"Those who wish to fix everything... Those who wish to understand everything... will soon begin to realize that it cannot be done with the act of pillage. Cannot be done without violence..."
"It cannot be done without you..."
Cal's eyes widened, and he felt his heart start to accelerate once again in its rhythm.
"This is now here, presenting itself before you. And in your most pressing hours... call upon it."
"But do so... at your own peril."
"Blightless..."
"Dominion!"
The void shuddered. The light brightened, burning without heat. A second voice — less a whisper, more a tolling note — vibrated through the air.
"Voidless."
Cal jolted awake with a violent gasp.
His heart thundered. Sweat clung to his skin. A sharp, impossible brilliance seeped from his palm.
The sight before Cal's eyes seemed nothing short of impossible.
Thin strands of white light bleeding between his fingers like leaking radiance.
He stared at it, breath trembling. And the last words he heard from the dream continued to resound in his ears.
Blightless Dominion...