Chapter 20: Kaleidoscope Haze

To intrude upon the twilight mist, where existence fell; that was their forbidden goal. To survive the journey that he knew nothing of and perceive the light at the end of this perilous tunnel.

A concealed conclusion that none but Willow withstood, and hopefully, he would join her as a survivor of the infamous mist.

He yearned to live.

The wisp made her passage countless of times as the augury fog left her to be alone, yet her kin could not claim to be the same.

He predicted that her stature as a Replicator imparted benefits that allowed her safe travels. That was viable in theory. Perhaps the same would apply to him as he was a Replicator... maybe.

‘If only that was true, then I wouldn’t be so damn anxious right now’

That was but a dream, as he couldn’t think so otherwise.

There could be other factors in play, ones that didn’t rely on the unique title he possessed. Factors such as her capability to control time, though he’d yet to see her in action.

Or perhaps her physiology differed from the rest of her kind, which begged the question, what made her different? He knew better than to ask this, however.

Especially when they’ve recently entered the Black Fog.

‘My perception of the surroundings has become practically null’

Just as Willow commanded of him, he deprived most of his senses, robbing him of the various sensations that once brushed his consciousness.

It was terrifying to a certain extent. The incapability to do anything at all.

He could not numb his touch as skin veiled his body. His imperceptible nose did not need to be blocked either, as he could breathe through the strange visor instead.

Yet his remaining senses were important factors that enveloped his entire capacity to think, and they were the ones he had to suspend.

To see what he saw, to hear what he heard, and to speak what he spoke... he couldn’t do any of that. Trapped within the confines of an erratic mind, his thoughts became more audible to him.

Such ideas were quite elaborate, clearly contrived in their formation of mental concepts.

His awareness of the current situation only gave him unease.

‘It doesn’t help that we’ve been walking for ages already. How long until we leave this place?’

His strange habit of keeping count served a purpose for the ongoing state of silence. While his senses remained dulled, time passed by. And he could already define the number of hours past.

Nonary felt the ground beneath his steps. It bore the same soil as before.

A single string tied to his arm as it dragged him to where the wisp strode forth. An abandoned path where empty earth stood, and the two of them strove further.

The pair were its only inhabitants, or at least that was what he assumed. He had no way of knowing if it held true for them.

A few more hours passed by, with silence ever present in his mind. Previously, when he moved to block his hearing, a visor stood in the way.

He had no visible ears, though his hearing was functional. His head was a black box, an impenetrable cube that blocked his attempts at unearthing its hidden secrets.

Yet he deafened himself.

His knowledge regarding object permanence was quite basic, and he could fumble around easily without his eyesight.

As he studied the aspects of his strange head, he found that there were miniature holes in the lateral side of his visor. He obstructed the miniscule gaps with his hands, silencing any sounds he heard.

A suitable definition of deafness.

While he needed to hold his hands in place, it was a meaningful tradeoff as he accomplished one of Willow’s requests. The next task he needed to accomplish was one of visual interference.

It was another undertaking done, as he was already aware of how his ‘eyes’ worked. He simply needed to close them off with but a thought, it was all it took.

And for her last request, it was to mute his words. For someone with such a glib tongue, it proved to be such a behemoth to tackle, as his offhand remarks often caught the wisp’s attention before they stepped into the fog.

Yet he dared not speak, no matter how curious he was. He knew not what the fog hid, and did not wish to discover its depths.

He remained silent.

Though with every breath he took, the air grew frigid. A wintry chill ran through his skin, an omen of what had yet to come. A glacial climate acclimated the misty grounds until ice seeped into his form. The soil was quite hard now, and it was far too cold for him to overlook.

‘The air... it’s cold.’

He took notice of the progressive environment, brushing off the ice that glazed his attire. The crystal ice was encroaching on his personal space, a fragile patina of frozen water that broke off at the slightest touch.

Thankfully enough, a slight flick was all it took to remove them as the thin veneer bothered him.

The sudden departure from temperate ambience to frigidity beheld his concern, as it was a precursor for whatever the place had in mind.

His disposition towards sensitive and minute changes had always been in full throttle, a product of the lunacy he experienced within the castle’s walls. And now, the cold gave him the same sense of dread, a vexing account borne of his delirious adventure.

Like the jester said to the king, there was bad news to be had. The ice that struck his clothes clung to his figure, like needles that struck through silken cloth.

What the algor climate brought with it was numbing cold, a frozen breeze that ushered out the tenuous warmth he possessed.

It hurt him.

‘Why is it so cold?’

With each breath of his, ice formed. The fine mist, once a black haze, cohered into piercing daggers, turning his journey into a thorny path where blood spilled.

Every needle that struck him shed his blood, an unbearable ordeal that begged him to cease his march. He felt his blood flow, and he yearned to see what color it was.

Would it be green, like the emerald flames?

Or perhaps red, as the scarlet darts were?

‘It hurts...’

His thoughts grew distant, impaired by the pain that assailed his hazy mind. The numbing cold and the needles of ice that besieged his frail body debilitated him.

However frail it may be, he would always recover from the devastation he lived through. He did not need to be worried. The pain would disappear once they left the haze.

He only needed to survive.

It should be a simple task, one that required little input from him. His body had received a self-preservation mechanism in relation to the black box he wore.

Though his mind would lie abashed at the adverse reactions of hastened regeneration, it was a trump card he possessed, and one he would make use of if it came to be so.

There was no need to hide it from Willow, as she already grasped his capabilities. The wisp wouldn’t be surprised if he were to drop dead, only to regain his physical competence after a few seconds.

It should be reasonable enough if he were to take advantage of his abilities, as he could feign death with ease.

As long as no one else saw it, he should be safe.

Unbeknownst to him, his thoughts were quite complicit with himself. The solitude numbed his mind.

‘How long till we leave this place? I’m tired...’

Nonary’s body grew frigid, his hands no longer warm. While the string remained attached, guiding him in place, his entire body ceased to move.

Too much of the boy’s blood had been spilled, and his faint breaths grew weak. Whilst the pain rattled his thoughts, he was aware of how his death came near.

He couldn’t mouth out a single word, as his body was on the verge of collapse.

If he were to open his eyes, then marbled red would be his skin. A myriad of hollow wounds stippled his weakened frame, as the blood had frozen from the cold.

A dark facade glossed with ice, humbling him to his fate. An unavoidable, irreversible event; and he would join the lost ones.

If this continued, he might...

‘Am I... going to die?’

Instead of languishing at his cruel fate, the boy accepted his circumstances. It couldn’t be helped. He already did his best. It wouldn’t be wrong of him to give up when he’d tried so hard.

He couldn’t be blamed for it.

‘I was so close too...’

Those feeble limbs of his, the arms that silenced what he heard, wavered in their grasp. Weakness already took hold of him, and his arms wouldn’t be any different from what his body showed of itself.

Yet he couldn’t hear anything. He was breaking down.

‘I wonder what she’s doing...’

His companion, Willow, was his guiding light. She promised him a reprieve, to leave the Twilight Forest... alive. Her guilt wasn’t his to be concerned about.

He failed to protect him. He felt no inclinations to be indebted to her, not when she would inevitably fail in her promise to keep him safe.

That, and the ravens. Even when death loomed close, he hated the birds.

‘Heh, those stupid birds...’

He awaited the finality of his death, one that he had been expecting for quite a while. It was idiotic of him to assure an inviolable crossing.

The Black Fog was an anomaly that devoured its travellers, and he shouldn’t fare any differently from them. Willow was the sole exception to this, and she would emerge without him.

While the sapphire string tugged his arm, he never moved. He couldn’t move anymore.

Though he waited, his death never came. Many moments did he stand still, as he noticed something strange. The ice that once sheathed his form was melting. He felt the drops of water on his skin as they fell.

And for that strange sensation, it was the familiar warmth that she emanated. She came for him.

‘Is it Willow?’

But of course, his thoughts remained to be thoughts. Even with the ice now gone, he couldn’t just spout off whatever came to mind.

It was one of her requests, a task he still meant to follow. Now that he withstood the freezing cold, he feared what might come for them if he voiced his intentions. The dangers became apparent to him, as the glacial chill brought him suffering.

He knew better than to tempt fate, as it was already quite fickle with him. His venture with the wisp seemed to have taken a dark turn, which led to the hazardous cold.

He simply moved on as the wisp tugged his arm anew, leading him once more.

The once frigid grounds thawed in their mold, as soft soil bequeathed his steps. They were nearing the black fog’s end. He would be free soon, from this sensual deprivation which he withstood for a considerable amount of time.

It was enough to drive one insane, yet strangely enough, he kept the capacity to maintain his composure.

‘Is it my suppressor again?’

The strange device affixed to his head exhibited behaviors regarding two facets of the human mind. The logical portion representing rationality and the emotional portion representing derangement.

On one end, it negated any emotional disorder once it exceeded a certain threshold, eliminating any irrationality that plagued his mind.

And as for the other, it seemed to magnify the weight of his emotions, overriding whatever rational thought he may have. Their respective ideas were opposites.

Each manifestation embodied two novel concepts, yet they were trapped within the confines of a certain black box. With said object being the boy’s head, it took little to assume that the device’s manipulation of his will constantly hounded him.

It was as uncanny as it came to be.

He was unaware of what triggered the device to act, though he had quite a few guesses. Every time his mind deviated towards a certain extreme, its polar companion would influence his thoughts, henceforth bringing him to a regulated form of thought.

This must be the threshold where his cognition most commonly reflected in.

‘I don’t even know my own mind... Oh how woeful can I be?’

It was a pitiful state to be in. His authority over himself was quite weak, as it left him to be swayed by his frame of mind. Any external stimuli could affect him with little difficulty, triggering one of the established extremes he possessed.

Debased by what he could perceive, it brought on a depressive state. The lack of control over his thoughts, when his body belonged to none but him, terrified him to no end.

‘Hm?’

As he continued his silent stroll, the string he’d been strung to have snapped, leaving his arm barren. He enjoyed the string’s warmth for quite some time, and its sudden disappearance left him in disarray.

His mind gripped nothing but chaos as it either meant that Willow had fallen or...

‘Am I outside now?’

A dark figure, whose skin it marred with wounds, opened its eyes after hours of enclosure. The Twilight Forest, whose trees were quite dense, had become sparse in its greenery, leaving way for the boy to gaze at the unfamiliar sight.

A view that stood beyond the other side.

★[Willow... where are you?] His breaths grew faint as he searched for his companion. She kept her promise, yet she disappeared. ★[Don’t tell me you’re still in there!]

He turned to see what became of the black fog, though the sight became the portent of his astonishment. It differed vastly from before.

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Kaleidoscope Haze [Inheritance]:

An anomalous formation of mist that bisects the Twilight Forest into two divisive sectors of differing origins, aptly named Dusk and Dawn.

The mist employs false perceptual hallucination tailored towards the individual’s experiences. And once the individual has fallen, it dissolves them to become constituents of the Kaleidoscope Haze.

From the hands of those who conceived the irredeemable notion, from them this haze was bequeathed. And from there, the fallen king would pass through, with a legion that followed his every command.

___

Excerpt from: [Library of Ruin - Archived]

[Modifiers]

+ It is one of the worldly plagues.

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The pitch-black manifest had all but disappeared, with a wall of mist dyed in various hues taking its place.

★[Ack...] The foreign sight assailed his mind, as new knowledge forced its way in. ★[Help me...]

The boy clutched onto the black box as if it were his head, oppressed by the agonizing pain. None could assist him as he surfaced from the fog, alone and without her.

Writhe he may try, but it left him to fend for himself.

If something happened to her, then was he to blame? Her previous recounts informed him she was its sole survivor when it struck the wisp and her companions.

If a Replicator status granted her immunity, what if a pair bearing both titles entered? Would both individuals leave, or perhaps only one lived? Her promise was selfish of him.

If it was the latter, then her death fell upon his shoulders. She kept her promise, yes. Yet she died for him. His previous thoughts regarding his animosity for her were untoward, and he only regretted them now.

Of when he veiled his wicked thoughts upon the wisp who saved his life. Was it too late to mend his ties with her?

★[It’s my fault...] At the revelation, he held himself accountable, considering his evil thoughts for her. ★[She's gone because of me...]

She was innocent.

Here he was, squirming in pain, facing the slayer of his companion. He barely kept himself conscious, pounding at that visor of his.

A spectral interlude for the forest of twilight, where he once seated himself in.

From the castle of dusk, where he previously slept. To the haze that devoured the will o’ wisp, as it stood before him, mutely judging his fate.

★[Where are you...] He wished for her salvation, that the person who protected him be saved in return.

As he pleaded with the heavens for an answer, a familiar figure emerged from the spectral haze. A flickering blue flame, at only a lantern’s size.

His self-proclaimed guiding light lived, and that was enough to ease his worries.

He wouldn’t be guilty of her death. She wouldn’t be guilty of his death. They both survived the ordeal. It was all that mattered to him. And as for Willow, she surveyed her surroundings to find her missing companion.

The boy went ahead of her while she remained inside and, thankfully; he seemed to have left the place.

☼[I wanted to make sure that nothing went wrong with our journey so I stayed there for a bit...]

Willow took no notice of the boy’s collapsed form as he was far from her position, and she was distracted by her spiel. He hid well beneath the shrubbery, though it was an accident in doing so.

☼[I’m quite certain that you left the place. So um, where are you?]

She searched the sparse woods with her eyes, scouring the place for where her companion had gone. Nonary had collapsed amidst heavy foliage, so the environmental factors hindered her search.

★[I’m glad you’re safe...] With a sigh, he drew out a tired breath. The journey took a toll on both aspects of his health, and he yearned for rest.

Willow turned to where the voice hailed from as she searched for him.

The boy was quite happy, as his newfound friend had survived with him. He had nothing to worry about, as the dangers already came to pass. The obstacle that barred him from freedom was behind him now, and he had the wisp to thank for.

As his eyes grew weary, so did his tired mind. Sleep was but a moment’s breath away, and he direly needed it. And so, his thoughts slowly halted, his body joining the inactivity.

Until finally, he fell asleep.

Willow stumbled upon the foliage, of where he fell as she pulled the shrubbery away from his form. And after seeing his battered state, she screamed.

☼[Nonary!]