"Ahhhhh!!!... No... No! Mom! Curtis!"
Neo woke up screaming, his voice raw and torn. He thrashed, but his hands met only empty air. Total darkness pressed in from all sides—thicker and more complete than any night he'd ever known. His own scream echoed back at him, reminding him of the silence he'd lived in for months, but this was different. This wasn't an empty world.
This was well, nothing.
"Huh?… Where is this now?"
The absence of light felt threatening. It was almost the purest horror he'd ever experienced—a void where even his own hand, waved frantically before his face, left no trace in the blackness.
His panic surged, dizzying.
Chill.
It washed over him, swift and merciless, dousing the fear like a bucket of ice water. His breath evened. His heart slowed. He was still alive. The realization was almost a disappointment.
Still afraid to move, he stayed where he'd woken up, sitting on what felt like… nothing. No floor, no surface—just a sense of being suspended. He squinted into the abyss, searching for a crack of light, anything at all.
But..... nothing.
After a few futile seconds, he gave up. And then the memory returned viciously, biting at his mind.
Waking in that room. The sounds. His mother's voice. Curtis, limp in that white-robed bastard's grip. The kick. The orb. The dagger—
The dagger- stabbing into his mother's forehead.
"No… please, God, no. It was a dream. It had to be a dream—"
Chill.
The soothing cold cut through his rising dread. Anger erupted in its place, filling his mind again.
"Let… me… fucking… think!!!" he screamed into the dark.
The chill was almost like a wall. It smothered every feeling that felt excessive. His shoulders slumped at this point; he had no control. Not over this place, not over the people who took his brother, not even over his own grief.
He sat motionless in the endless dark, his expression blank beneath the curtain of his brow, long, dark hair as he replayed every second from waking in that room to waking here. He couldn't even cry; the chill wouldn't allow it.
"Hepburn… Mev… the Temple," he whispered, the names like ash on his tongue. "If I ever get out of here…"
The thought was cold. Hard.
He breathed out slowly, finally observing his surroundings in closer detail. "How long have I been here?… Am I dead?" A hollow, quiet laugh escaped him. "Maybe I died too. Might be fun meeting Mom in the afterlife…" The laugh died.
"How do I even face her without Curtis?"
The guilt arrived then again with a slow, crushing weight.
The memory played in perfect, torturous clarity. The orb, glowing. Curtis's pleading eyes. His own stubborn rage. Idiot. All you had to do was comply; the thought was a poison. The Chill surged, freezing the toxin in place before it could spread, leaving the cold, hard fact of his failure suspended in his mind.
His mind, forcibly calmed. The silence of the void ceased to matter to him. The only things that existed were the loop of his failures and the chill that hammered down any emotion that threatened to rise too high.
In the darkness, his blank stare deepened as his thoughts rolled through. His will, his rage, his sorrow—all were being pressed into a single, cold point.
A resolve, quiet and absolute, began to form in the frozen dark.
"If I ever get out of here..... If I ever get out of here..... If I ever get out of here."
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"How long has it even been?" Neo thought, his face a blank canvas in the dark. "Who even cares… Mom's dead… Oh, Curtis…"
He spoke his words tonelessly. No reaction touched his features.
He finally stood—or at least, assumed the posture of standing. There was no ground to feel beneath him, only a perpetual, weightless suspension.
"Where is this…?" he'd asked himself this question several times already.
He took a cautious step forward. Then another. He could see nothing. If not for the chill and the sensation of his own hands being able to feel his body, he might have come up with several new theories. When he brought a finger close to his face, he could almost see its faint outline, but nothing beyond an inch. The rest was absolute, consuming black.
He changed direction every couple of steps, walking without a destination, driven by a feeble, stubborn hope that somewhere in this nothingness, there was a way out.
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The Temple central continent— Zafyrus' Quarters
"Zafyrus. You have been summoned."
A black-robed figure draped in darkness materialized in the room, its presence announced only by its voice.
Zafyrus didn't look up. For four days and into this fifth morning, he had torn through every record, every trace of energy from the summoning in Zekaa, seeking the God's Relic. His desperation was almost a living thing, gnawing at him. To step before the Emperor again empty-handed meant ending up like Belius—a dead man on the temple floor.
He barely registered the invasion of his privacy.
"A little more time… just a little more… I'll find it… I swear," he muttered, fingers clawing through his disheveled hair.
Knock. Knock.
His head snapped up. Hope and wildness, lit his eyes. He scrambled from his chair and lunged for the door, not caring for his ragged appearance.
Hepburn stood there, white robes impeccable.
"My Lord Red-Blade—"
"Did you find it?!" Zafyrus's voice was a strained shout, cutting him off.
Hepburn paused, startled by the desperate state of his superior. "Yes, my Lor—"
Zafyrus's knees buckled. A wave of dizzying relief washed over him. Hephburn rushed forward, catching him before he hit the floor.
"My Lord, are you all right?"
Zafyrus, clinging to Hephburn's arm, turned back toward the open doorway of his chamber, his voice gaining strength as he addressed the unseen presence within. "I accept my summons! The God Relic has been found and shall be presented before the Emperor shortly!"
"Understood." The black-robed individual's voice floated from the room, faintly tinged with what sounded like mockery.
Hephburn stiffened, confused. Zafyrus brushed it aside, his focus razor-sharp. He turned back to Hepburn, urgency returning. "Quickly! Bring me to the Relic-bearer!"
"My Lord, he is already being brought here. I felt it necessary to report his… Relic's element to you first, after his testing at The Academy." Hephburn still spoke with hesitation.
Zafyrus's face twitched. "The academy? That's on the Northern Continent. When did you find him?"
"Three days ago, my Lord."
"Three days?!" Zafyrus stared, incredulous. "You found him three days ago and are only reporting this now?" A hysterical laugh threatened to bubble up. He had been grinding himself to dust, facing the threat of execution, and the solution had been found days ago? The delay was maddening.
He steadied himself against Hephburn, the rush of fury and relief leaving him trembling. "Take me to him. Now!!."