“We’re here,” Nyx called from ahead.
Brooks pulled his thoughts from the woods and focused on the task at hand. The cave entrance was overgrown with thorny vines and foliage that was woven in deep layers. From their vantage point, it seemed almost impenetrable.
“How are we supposed to get through that?” Xia voiced from beside him.
“Afraid to get your hair tangled, princess?”
Xia set her brow and pushed forward until she stood before the tangled mess blocking the entrance. She only needed a moment to study before she smiled, looked at Nyx, and stuck her hand straight into the thorns.
Brooks lurched forward. “Xia, what the hell are you–”
“It’s an illusion,” she said to Brooks before turning back to Ny who continued her stomp up the hill, muttering under her breath the whole way. Brooks just stared, a combination of awe and pride welling in his heart, along with…
Insecurity.
Are you afraid she may use her brain to leave you behind?
“Shut up,” he told Chaos. “She’s been through a lot and needs someone to watch her back while she’s vulnerable. You’re supposed to be with me, not against me.”
We want different things. I want to rush to her side to catch her should she stumble. You want to throw her over your shoulder and weather through the obstacle for her. She is not helpless.
“No. She’s not,”he submitted.“I… I can’t lose her.”
Then stop hovering.
He had no words. ‘Fuck off’ didn’t feel powerful enough. Instead he decided on silence as he stepped up to the illusion of thorns. Instinct roared to turn back, but the electricity of chaos fueling the illusion begged him to stay. Chaos sighed, a satisfied sound rumbling through his psyche.
This place feels like home.
Brooks stepped into a dark cave mouth that narrowed into a single tunnel. Footsteps reverberated off the walls and he followed the sound through the dark. He inspected the walls and was intrigued by the drawings marking nearly every inch. When he’d walked this path in Nyx’s memory, she’d been so forward focused that he hadn’t seen them.
They resembled ancient scrawlings of a mad man. Hundreds of different languages were layered on top of one another in every direction.They didn’t care if they were marking through someone else’s words, as long as they had space to write. Every line, though, had one thing in common. Each sentence ended in the eight-pointed star. The star of Chaos.
“How do they know about the star?” Brooks whispered out loud.
Of the many sentient beings I’ve molded, this planet houses the most observant of all. There was a time when I showed myself freely. Never walking among them, per say, but not hiding either. I would create from the ground rather than the sky. The mark is forever carved into my skin. Evidently, it had an effect on the first of them.
Brooks chewed that over before a realization hit. “I suppose we’re lucky for it. Had they not passed it down, these sacred places may never have been built. If every point of access to chaos had been found by the taint…”
We would have never woken.
The weight of the statement sat heavily in his stomach, nausea making his mouth water.
“Can you read this junk?”
Brooks jumped, incoherent curses echoing off the tunnel walls. “Fucks sake, Nyx.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I scare you?” Her smile mocked him.
“You know, sometimes I wish I could hug you so hard that I accidently kill you. Assume that I mean ‘accidently’ in the loosest sense of its definition.”
“Well you can assume that the feeling is mutual.” Nyx rolled her eyes so hard she nearly lost them.
Perhaps we could just snap her neck and call it an accident.
“So can you?” Nyx motioned to the scribbles on the wall. “Read it, I mean?”
“At one time, maybe.”
