They arrived at the deserted campsite. Genik recognised the tracks they had left. He still checked the marks he had carved into some of the trees, to make sure they were at the right place. “This is where we had set up camp,” he stated to Ramon. He grunted something back. Ramon was scanning the place with a certain amount of anxiousness that he held tightly in his chest. A corrosive energy that would eat him up if he didn’t find a way to unleash it. He suppressed it for now.

Genik rummaged through the forested area surrounding the clearing. “Ramon, follow me.”

They moved through the dense foliage. “Did she stray this far off?” Ramon asked.

“Yea, who knows why, maybe she wanted to be alone for a bit.” Genik answered the question.

“Are you certain she was alone? If someone did something to her then I'm going on a fucking warpath. I’ll scour the far ends of the world, and once I find the bastard. I’ll make him wish he was never born.”

“Calm down Ramon, no one was with her. At least not to my knowledge.” Genik said carefully, he could feel the tension rise in the man’s aura. The dense, chaotic energy leaking out. He swallowed a lump in his dry throat. Genik wasn’t entirely sure he’d walk out of here alive if Ramon decided that he didn’t believe him after all.

He let out a breath he was holding: “we’re here, this is where we found her severed hand.” Genik pointed at an area with a perfectly round bite out of the ground. It was only two meters wide. A puddle of debris filled water had formed at the bottom. A rock at the edge of the perimeter was sliced through as well. “she must have extended her hand just outside the bubble, likely to pick something up... I’d like to think that she crouched down just beforehand, perhaps that saved her in some twisted way. I can’t help but imagine what could have happened to her if she was standing upright at the edge of that sphere.”

Ramon was silently staring at the gaping crater in the ground. A picture formed in his head, about the reality of the situation. It seemed everything Genik had said so far was true. He never wanted to doubt his friend, yet he also wasn’t trusting enough to just blindly believe everything at face value. He tried to stay calm, and analytical: “These instabilities in the fabric of space haven’t occurred here before. That’s something we’ve only seen in the Blightlands, and only sparingly in Dresia. Why would it happen now in the middle of Kamanut?” Ramon pondered out loud.

Genik cleared his throat: “I have no idea, the anomalies must be spreading. It’s bad news, is what it is.”

Ramon cursed: “This is all the fault of that Gazinov Tarah, that lunatic tarnished our world… If I could go back in time, I’d annihilate every cell from that man’s cursed existence.” Ramon aura flared up again.

“Eazy there, Gazzy was a mad cunt alright, but he’s been a dead cunt for a while now.” Genik tried to soothe the situation. “Hence the need for time travel.” Ramon hissed between his teeth.

He took in a strained breath: “I never would have thought that his fuck up would affect me so personally. Curse his name for all eternity.” Ramon sighed, frustrated with his inability to do anything meaningful right now. Pain was etched on his face.

“It affected us long before this incident. You think we would have been drafted to fight the Helveti otherwise?” Genik reasoned.

“Fuck, you’re right.” Realisation dawned on him. Ramon’s time in the army flashed before his mind’s eye. The continuous ringing in his ears suddenly became a lot louder now that he was no longer ignoring it unconsciously. “Thanks for reminding me, man. I had stuffed those memories in the darkest corners of my skull.”

“You're welcome.” Genik said with a sad smile.

~

Thulla shook awake. She inhaled a deep breath that filled her lungs to the brim. Her eyes sprung open wide. The last thing she remembered was the explosion of light inside of her.

Little white specks danced in her retina, short blips that faded out of existence as quickly as they had come. She rubbed her eyes with her right hand. Frederic had retreated inside of her. Leaving her exposed to the outside world.

Her vision had returned, however she was sure that she was seeing the world in a different light.

She checked her surroundings. She was still in front of the mysterious abyss. The shimmering aurora was reflecting something familiar to her, flashes of the outside world.

She noticed two figures in the middle of a forest in kamanut. They were standing around a miniature crater. “Is that you dad???” she asked, shocked at what she was seeing.

The images shifted, into a vague array of colours. Thulla growled in frustration. Did she see it wrong? Was she imagining things? She clenched her shirt in her fist. Another flicker happened, the view returned.

It was unmistakably her father standing there on the other side. He looked frightening. She had never seen him this distraught before. She screamed out: “Dad!! I am right here! Can you hear me?...Dad?” The image flickered away again. “NO! No, no, come back here.”

She blasted a pulse of her mana into the shimmering veil. It reverberated through the ephemeral vapor, disintegrating it entirely. “Gaz Tarah! What did I do? No, no, no, not like this” She shot a chaotic bubble of mana into the space crack. It exploded in a bright flash. In the micro seconds after it expanded. the spell construct completely imploded and disappeared into nothingness.

~

Genik had already turned around. There wasn’t much else to accomplish here. “I’m going back to the road. Are you coming?”

Ramon didn’t respond right away, he was staring off into the distance. He blinked his eyes back into focus. What could he really do right here, and now? He had no idea how to manipulate space. That was a forbidden research topic for obvious historical reasons.

He clenched his jaw. Took a short breath in, and exhaled out forcefully. Right as he was about to turn his head, he saw an iridescent shimmer in the air. He blinked his eyes once more. “Was there an opening still?”

He noticed a white flash rippling through the thin layers of space. Without thinking his mana surged. Blades of dark red energy lashed at the fabric. Destruction attuned mana tore away at the seams of reality. He let out a primordial scream. Ramon was pumping every bit of energy that he had into his target. Birds in the vicinity took flight. all bugs and small rodents scampered out of every nook and cranny. Afraid of the violent magic.

~

Genik immediately reacted to the eruption happening behind him. He rushed back to see what the hell was going on. His eyes widened at the sight of Ramon going completely berserk. A dark aura radiated from his back. His long hair moving menacingly in the magical currents he was emitting. Thundering cracks lashed at the air. Flashes of red painted his silhouette on the foreground of the scene.

Shards of ice floated in front of Genik. Steam rose from his own back. Out of sheer instinct he had entered his own battle mode. “Ramon! What the fuck is going on?” His voice not loud enough to overcome the wall of noise. Unsure what to do. He stayed at a safe distance.

~

Thulla had watched her meager spell blip out, like it never even existed. She felt utterly bested by this bizarre tear in reality.

Her hope deflated, she had been going strong on her own. Well only for as long as she willfully ignored the nature of her predicament. The sight of her father had stirred a suppressed emotion she didn’t know she had. Tears were streaming out of her eyes. An intense longing for a hug gripped her heart. She wanted to smell his familiar musk when she buried her face in his chest. Feel the safety of being in his caring arms. She wanted so badly to be a happy little girl again, to simply laugh at his awful jokes, and that everything was going to be alright again… Thulla bawled like a newborn baby.

It physically hurt her face to ugly cry like that, yet it felt good to finally let go of a lot of angst that she had been carrying. Her shocking breaths turned into a hiccup. The disruptive contractions helped her gather herself. She started to chuckle at her own squeaky sounds. Her paps was out there looking for her. That filled her up with enough courage to continue. She sniffled the snot back up her nose, and wiped the tears of her puffy cheeks.

Thulla looked at the abyss once again, this time it didn’t unsettle her as much. For a split moment she had wanted to jump right in. Risk it all right then and there. She barely kept herself from doing something so utterly insane, that she quickly had to tear herself away from this place.

~

Ramon’s mana fizzled out. He had thrown everything he had to create an opening into the inversium. He collapsed to his knees. His breathing was haggard, his heart racing in his chest, and his head felt like it was getting caressed by a sledgehammer. The edges of his vision started to blur into a swirling darkness. He looked profoundly disappointed at his trembling hands.

“Are you approachable?” Genik asked carefully.

“What do you think I am; some kind of rabid dog?” Ramon responded gruffly, his voice grated in a low rumble.

“Yes, well for a moment I thought you were a young maiden making herself presentable, but then you started barking.” Genik joked.

Air snorted out of Ramon's nose. He cleared the slime out of his throat, and spit it out.

“I don’t know how I ever could have mistaken you for a pretty lady though.” Genik said as he was slightly disgusted by Ramon’s uncouth behaviour.

“Ok, now you are just insulting me.” Ramon reacted defensively: “I’ll have you know that my legs look absolutely stunning in a summer dress.” He stated that with so much confidence that it must have been factual.

Genik raised his eyebrows at that.

“I said something weird didn’t I?” Ramon asked meekly.

“No, not all.” Genik could barely contain his laughter: “nothing wrong with a little crossdressing on the side. I promise I won’t make fun of you.”

“Ah you dickhead, Thulla made me dress up as Auntie Ramone for her tea parties. Any father worth his salt would happily oblige to any odd request made by his daughter... I guess you wouldn’t understand.” Ramon pinched his nose. He’d fallen right into that one.

“Auntie Ramone! hahah you can’t make this up.” At this point Genik was wheezing. He clenched his sides. “Hahaha, aaah, you’re actually hurting my stomach.” Tears rolled out of his eyes. He doubled over laughing.

“She is adamant, and highly imaginative.” Ramon added in an effort to make him understand, but it was futile.

“Ooh, sure, blame it all on your daughter. You know it’s perfectly okay if you want to feel like a lady sometimes. I’m not judging.” Genik managed to say in between his laughing fit. A dark shadow was looming towards him.

Ramon was standing over his ‘friend’ with his hands on his hips: “Sure looks like you are being judgemental to me.”

“I'm sorry but this is just too funny.” Genik coughed out dry air at this point. “Auntie Ramone, ooh! I’ve got to hand it to you man, I haven’t laughed this hard in years.” Genik scrambled himself together, still clutching his painful ribs.

“Do you want me to bury you with this secret? Or what.” Ramon threatened.