Chapter 26:Alone in The Rain
The sunny skies darkened, clouds gathering like shadowed mourners, weeping grievous tears that took the form of a whiplash torrent. They kissed the ground in the perilous rhythm of a disarrayed note played on a keyboard of melancholy.
Upon the surging flood of ichor, they landed with a hiss, dissipating into mere vapor. Then, on the bloodied and lifeless bodies—forms buried under heaps of debris and stone, impaled by shards of glass from the clock or its bronze arms—the scarlet hue of blood mingled with the colorless innocence of the rainfall.
In the desolate stone-slab street, save for a few crying figures hugging lifeless bodies, their tears and screams lost in the vestiges of the rain, the flooding ichor slowly climbed the incline. With urgency, the wailing figures hastened their steps, fleeing rather than mourning.
Yet, crouched on her knees stood a battered figure, her head slumped, her long hair matted by the rain and folded over her dull sapphire eyes. Her hands reached toward a form completely buried under the debris. Silent flows of salty moisture danced from her eyes and nose as her hands removed sizable chunks of rubble in a broken, hastened rhythm. Her fingers dug through rock and stone, searing her flesh and birthing crimson trails that were washed away by the torrent.
"M... Mom..."
That was the only broken sentence—the one word. A perfect culmination of what she had lost.
But in the end, her efforts met only larger debris, chunks that couldn't be hauled by her weak frame. The sound of a half-collapsed bakery drowned out by the internal screams of her predicament. Her hands exasperatedly collided against the mix of metal and concrete, slamming the charred stone.
"Why won't you budge... why..." Her voice broke further into hysterical wails as she slammed it again, this time with a wince as her wrists snapped in a bloodied dislodge. "Why... why won't you budge... why..."
Her form slumped to the floor amid scattered debris, into a puddle of crimson diluted by the relentless rain. Her bloodied wrists and fingers were washed by the torrent cascading over her figure. Her eyes, brimming with tears, wandered to the skies—the dark, uncaring skies.
"It's all gone," moisture poured further. "Mom... if you can still hear me..." Her voice hitched, breaking in rasps. "It's all gone. Everyone... everything... every..." Her words were interrupted by the choke of a hiccup that racked her form. "The slums... Mephis... Dad... and now..."
Her figure turned toward the huge chunk of concrete where a flow of scarlet trickled from beneath. Her eyes burned as her blood-matted hands reached below, but she couldn't—it was sealed by the weight of the debris. "You too, Mom. Why'd you... why..." She sniffled back her tears. "I'm all alone, Mom... left behind... discarded." Then, more to herself, she muttered, "I'm all alone." Her eyes widened as if her brain had just registered the meaning behind her own words.
Like a broken, faulty machine, her disjointed sentences pierced the air—the fog, the rain—even as the tides of scorching viscera swept meters nearer.
All alone in the rain.
"I'm all alone..."
"I'm all alone..."
Not until, from the vestiges of nothing behind her form, a figure clouded in a dark three-piece suit with Victorian flourishes materialized. He held over her crying form a black umbrella with golden rims. His purple eye, framed by a silver-rimmed monocle, glinted as he smiled—a compassionate one.
Her eyes wandered to the man, riddled with shock at the sudden interruption of the rain, then with a slight tinge of awe in her dull pupils.
The Priest.
He was here, but why?
In apathy, her mournful eyes danced back to their normal reverie, still brimming with hot streaks of tears. What mattered was that she was all alone. They were all gone.
The figure in black crouched down beside her wailing form, paying no heed to the surging sea no less than seven feet before him, already scorching to oblivion all it touched. His dark-gloved hands emerged from his pockets, producing a purple iris. Her shocked, teary eyes traced it as he placed it beside the huge debris.
His condolence to the one lost in death.
Then, with a majestic spectacle, more flowers sprouted in different colors, petals, and sepals, filling the air with a dazzling scent of nectar as they covered the entirety of the fallen clock. Her eyes glinted in awe—not from the flowers, but from the surge of golden nectar that pooled from the veins of the petals. It drifted upwards, defying the rain, before coalescing into a feminine form.
"Mom... m..." She croaked, her eyes drowned in childish longing as the smiling visage drifted toward her form. With a smile, it pulled her into a hug.
And in the midst of that, she felt warmth.
Not the real, authentic warmth of her mom.
But still...
Her blurry eyes burned more as the golden figure in her arms dissipated past her weeping form, further above, until it vanished into nothingness.
It was the only warmth she had felt in this now-cold world.
"Accept my condolences, Auriel," the figure in black spoke. The weeping girl looked at him with a sniffle, then a shift of hate.
"You could've... you could've saved us." The scorching sea drifted closer, but more slowly, as if repelled by an invisible barrier. "You had the power to... I don't understand." She shook her head as she muttered more to herself. "Why did you let them die?" Her lips parted as her teary eyes wandered to the piles of bodies on the street, then to the puddle beneath the debris. "Mom... m... And now you think just displaying some theatrics would ease the pain..." The anger in her eyes intensified.
The monocled figure spared no glance at her form, locking eyes with the purple iris, caressing it with his gloved hands.
"I couldn't, Auriel... even if I wanted to." Then his gaze wandered to the burning spires far beyond. "I'm bound by rules that..." His eyes, now possessing a sad glimmer, locked on her form. "I sincerely apologize for."
The weeping girl just cast him a sad, tearful glance before receding her now-distant eyes to the debris again. It was as if she had run out of tears—or had decided not to shed them.
"Rules... they were more important than the lives of thousands." Her voice broke in a mournful, quiet rhythm, words directed to herself. "Guess rules were more important than my... mo..." She sniffled, her lips now tightly pursed as if holding back her tears.
The only reply from the figure in black was momentary silence. Then he spoke, his eyes addressing the surging sea of ichor creeping two meters nearer.
"I suggest we leave for somewhere safe." His gloved palms retreated from the purple flower. His monocled eye darted to the girl, who stood still, motionless, like she was dead—like she hadn't heard a sliver of what he said.
No urgency.
No movement.
Only pregnant silence.
Then her voice, hoarse and broken, finally spoke.
"Tell me, Priest..." Her dim blue eyes darted at him in a side glance. "How powerful would I be if I undergo the Hypnoapotheosis?"
________________________________________
"Is that you... Solarus?"
The winged figure, his form shrouded in the blinding brightness of the light—something he could see through—shifted his eyes behind the mask to his pawn, still locked in an endless ouroboros... or so he had thought.
A chiming sound, like a thousand gears, pierced the brightness and reverberated in the white expanse as the halo behind the winter monstrosity began a reverse spin. The small concurrent circle spun clockwise before the great encircling halo responded with an counterclockwise rotation.
Then, as if shielded by some invisible barrier, the towering creature stood, no longer erased by the purifying radiance. Unfazed, it took a tectonic footstep on the still air, making toward the winged figure, undeterred by the light.
It had adapted.
It had broken out of the cycle.
Truly intriguing.
A smile spread across his cracking features. That monster had perhaps retained this ability as its checkmate, deeming this puny sparkling god a worthy opponent to unleash it on, rather than him.
Just how low had he fallen?
"Master... I mean no imposition, but I suggest you leave. This essence imposes much on thy mortal vessel."
He knew, and he was certain that lowly threader wouldn't spare another weave.
But still, this figure intrigued him.
If it truly was a god—Solarus, the son of the Primordial Sun—how then could it unleash its essence in the mortal realm? For he was certain the Creator had woven a veil deeming this impossible.
It was the Rule... one that stabilized the universe.
Gods, no matter how powerful or lowly, lacked the capability to break this rule—only perhaps govern their devotees through influence.
Then could it be... did this man bear within him the divinity of a god? Or was he a mortal created from its shadow?
The winged form in front of him did less than answer his question. It stretched its hands—its dark palms—before clamping them. In response, the entirety of the radiance retreated, coalescing into a sphere of brightness within its grasp, bringing into view the untouched visage of the surroundings.
So, what next? He tilted his head.
The sphere coalesced into a white sword—more like a great white lance. He couldn't yet make out its features due to the brightness, but he could tell apart the ethereal wings and the blazing halo behind the figure.
Then the sword moved, drawing a horizontal bright cleave across the expanse. And the attack... the effect... it didn't travel. It "happened."
Space rippled like fabric as the perfect cleave severed in a horizontal chasm all things within that dimension of space—the veil, the winter monstrosity... even a perfect line drawn across Dream's silhouette, across his torso.
Simply because he had willed it... it happened.
The Domain of Chivalry. The Essence of Faith.
"Purgatory."
The entirety of the expanse—all of Valen behind the monster and Dream's form—cleaved buildings and cathedrals suspended in stillness in the air, detonated into a purgatory of crimson flames, along with a rippling shockwave of entropy... like a supernova.
His brilliance dimmed to reveal a faceless silhouette with a dark sphere rimmed in blaze for a head. His form leaned on his sword.
He hoped the east wing of Valen had been evacuated, as Lyra had speculated.
His form overlooked the east, cast in a glow that lit up the skies.
After all, the sun rose in the east. Perhaps this could measure up...
To the true sunrise.