At this point, I’m too dream-starved and weak to numb myself properly. I’ve not bothered to ask Crane how he waltzed in here, nor how long I’ve been in this twisted abyss of unrelenting memories, since none of that matters. However he came to be here, there’s no escape for either of us.
Death, I would've embraced, for it would have brought me to her.
The goddess of reaping must have known that, because this punishment for harming the temples of the gods and their servants is far worse.
“Anh hoc uair tempore,shut up!” Crane shouts, ripping at his dark curls and staggering slightly. The blood-red aura around him flickers like a candle on the brink of going out.
Mad as a fucking hatter.
I might’ve found his meltdown hilarious if I felt anything at all right now. Instead, I watch him and feel nothing as the scene around us changes to the first time I slaughtered predators disguised as foster parents, before Hearst tracked me down and put me through hell for it.
I merely exist in this void of emptiness with a madman at my side until I see it.
That heart-stopping aura.
Only now, it’s ever so slightly different. It's more of a dark, vibrant violet than shadowy mauve—but still shimmering and so magnetic that the metaphorical barricade guarding me from this web of misery trembles, weakening further.
Was Crane spewing truths earlier despite his madness, then?
Deep down, I've craved that aura.
Cravedher.
But no. It doesn’t matter. There’s no godsdamned escape.
I begin to resent that aura more by the second as it permeates this space, tainting these abominable dreams and tempting me to let my walls down. Obsession teases the peripheries of my mind, a small reminder of how much I yearned to share this subliminal space with her from the moment I first saw her on that stage.
I need to get closer.
I need to run so I’ll continue to feel nothing.
The nearer she draws, the more my past addiction tries to drag me back. I fight it, looking away and clinging to the nothingness that’s protected me throughout this cycle of hell.
“Thanafluir?”Crane says from beside me, and promptly sets out to look for her in this maze composed of my mind. “Come on, she’s this way.”
“No.”
“Crypt. Maven is looking for you.”
No.
It will hurt.
It will crush me, finally feeling everything I’ve tuned out since that cursed moment on the battlefield. I didn’t numb myself to survive losing her—what use would survival be without her, anyway? No, I did it to pause the inevitable agony.
I’m still not ready to face that.
Right now, when I wish to feel nothing, I cannot face the woman who so effortlessly makes me feel everything acutely.
Crane is irritated with my unresponsiveness and leaves to find her, his presence fading until I no longer sense him. I’m left to watch as the cycle starts again, a crowd of bland legacies surrounding me as that potent aura beckons me from the stage of the Seeking.
But this time, as I approach, I sense the difference. This isn’t a watered-down memory of my keeper.
It’s her.
Here. Alive.
The moment my gaze falls on Maven, standing in my subconscious with those bewitching dark eyes trained steadily on me, I force myself to stop walking.
