A bright, emerald-green blade pierces straight through my chest, sliding between ribs like silk cutting through paper. The world around me cracked as shattered glass, and a feminine silhouette made entirely of glitching green light stands in front of me. She, or most fittingly, it had no face or details. Just a shifting, unstable outline of a woman.
Her blade is buried all the way into her wrist in my heart.
I tried to stare down at the blade skewering me however, I can only now watch her fragmented hand into my chest. I had no choice but to watch my own blood spill in glowing sparks, and for some bizarre reason… my lips twitch.
A broken chuckle escapes me. Then another. And suddenly, laughter....sharp and unhinged erupts from my throat like a dam bursting open.
"Hehehe… haha… ha—HAHAHAHA!"
I grab her forearm with both hands and grin straight into the empty, static filled haze where her face should be.
"What's wrong?" I say, voice shaking with exhilaration. "Is that all you've got?"
And before the silhouette can react, I shove her arm deeper. Deeper into my chest.Into my heart.
Green fractures ripple across my torso as if my entire body is made of glass.
And God, it feels incredible.
The silhouette's head tilts, and though she has no expression, I can feel the grin in the shift of her pressure. A playful malice. A delighted agreement.
"Nope,"
It whispers, voice layered, glitching, and beautiful.
"Not at all."
A surge of force slams into me. Addicting and utterly euphoric. Like a mountain collapsing in a single heartbeat.
My body cracks. My knees buckle. The world bends, folds, and twists as if someone is rewriting reality stroke by stroke.
"Ah ....hahaha… dis…appointing…" I rasp, stepping forward despite my fractured chest, despite the blade carved through my heart. "You can do better than this."
With every step I take, her forearm burrows deeper into me, first sinking past her wrist, then her elbow, until I feel bone grinding against the torn muscle inside my ruined torso.
I keep walking anyway, slow and deliberate, letting her hear the wet squelch of my own insides shifting around her arm. Step by step, I close the distance between us until my face is only inches from hers.
I stare directly into the bugged, flickering form of the primordial green's silhouette.
"Admit it Verde" I whisper. "I win this bout."
The silhouette stills. Energy ripples around her like a silent storm, and she smiles, a smile I feel, not see.
_______
Everything before the madness began.
After I inquired about my status to the receptionist, she handed me the forms like she had handed a thousand others the same thin stack.
My name, my age, my background. Checkboxes for every little sign people in this world use to identify themselves as something more than ordinary. Had I noticed strands of hair with odd colors? Any marks appearing like tattoos? Any sudden glow in the eyes? Any dreams or voices calling me? Any urges toward elements or places?
I had combed through my hair in the tiny bathroom when I first woke up in this world. Black hair fell into my face the way it always had. My eyes were the same turquoise shade that had looked back at me the first morning. No weird sigils pulsed at my wrists. No rings of light circled above my head. Nothing wrote itself onto my skin while I watched.
So I checked the boxes for no. The were still countless questions here and there, but my mind was elsewhere again.
My mind tightened around my plan. Judging by the dates on the forms and the notes I had forced myself to memorize from the fragments of this world's memories, the protagonist had not yet made his bargain with Verde, the primordial of color green. A month remained, and Finster's awakening was still a horizon off in the original timeline.
That was my opening. That was the sliver of chance I had been hoping for since the phone lit up and told me not to fail this time.
Verde chose Finster at the lowest point of his life. After his usual way of becoming a weaver, he was exhausted, half-conscious, and drifting in and out of hallucinations. Verde took this as a chance and sneaked into his dreams, taking the shape of the family he had lost. In that vulnerable haze, Finster accepted Verde's blessing in exchange for a single request.
That request branded him as an enemy of the kingdom of Salem. From that moment on, he became a wanted man, destined to see his own face printed on posters across the land. The choice he made in that delirious moment changed the entire course of his life.
I wasn't going to let that happen. The thought came to me sharp, unmistakable, and cold. I would step in. I would take the bargain in Finster's place, accept the binding so he could keep moving forward without paying the price himself.
I'm not naive, I knew it would cost me something. Maybe it would cost everything.But it was my decision. And I had made a promise to that small light inside the stupid phone that I would be there for him, and I will withhold that promise no matter what.
I handed the completed paperwork back. The receptionist slid a final sheet across the desk. Legalese, bold text, the kind of flat words that try to swallow fear.
You accept the potential for injury, psychosis, permanent rupture, and death. You will hold the institute harmless.
I laughed under my breath and sighed. The danger they warned about was child's play. It was nothing compared to primordial. The ceremony itself felt a billion times easier.
A staff member led me to a fitting room and handed me the suit. It smoothed against my skin like water. The material was engineered to monitor and stabilize, to compress feedback loops so that the process did not immediately tear someone apart. They strapped a band around my wrist. It was small, a dull metallic strip that fit like jewelry and a clamp. It was the emergency device and the timer.
"Hit it if your vitals drop," the technician said. "It will compress a field long enough for extraction. It will also record and transmit vital information for monitoring. Keep in mind that everything you do inside will not be monitored and recorded except your vitals so be careful."
I flexed my fingers and felt the cold weight against my wrist. I wonder if it will also monitor my heartbeat. I don't want them to pull me too early.
They escorted me through a corridor that smelled faintly of dust and ozone until we reached the chamber. White tiles under my boots, white tiles up the walls, white light that made every color sharp enough to be painful. The center of the room had a circle of runes that hummed with a slow rhythm. The instructor explained.
"One minute inside after I get out and it will start. The procedure will last for four hours, during that time, the atmospheric thrum will be compressed and it will be the ideal time to awaken. Your wrist device will vibrate before the field engages. That is the start signal. Any last questions?"
"No questions," I said.
"Are you ready?" the instructor asked.
"Bring it," I said. "I am ready."