"Damn it!"
The word ripped from his throat, hoarse, broken.
His head lifted.
Through blurred vision, he saw her.
Celia.
Still standing.
Barely.
Her exoskeleton bio-armor pulsed, iron-touched blue, its dark metallic sheen warped by the sheer force bearing down upon them. Her legs trembled, her posture tight with resistance... but she stood.
Her breath was ragged, her face twisted with effort, but her voice... her voice still carried.
"Agon! Snap out of it! Get it together!"
A scream of raw desperation.
A plea.
But he, the thing levitating above.. did not answer.
The Wanderer Who Laughs hovered there, arms loose at his sides, weightless in a way no human should be. White-gray hair drifted, untouched by wind. Skin darker than void. Eyes... deeper than yellow, something more than light, something unknowable. His exoskeleton, white-ash in texture, metallic yet breathing, pulsed with something organic. Something alive.
He did not speak.
He only smiled.
