Sheila's hand trembled on his cheek.
Behind those abyss-black eyes, that boy still held the flower. A faint flicker of light in the endless darkness.
Sheila's breath hitched. She spoke softly, her voice raw with emotion, "You'd have done the same for me," the edges of her lips tugging up in a painful smile. "weirdo."
Her words seemed to break through the shadows in his gaze. A sliver of recognition flickered behind the blackness—like a child lost in the dark, remembering who he once was.
---
Kael floated in darkness.
He couldn't sense or feel anything, yet it felt like he was drowning — not in water, but in darkness.
Time twisted. An eternity passed, or maybe a moment. His memories scattered like smoke. He tried to hold on, tried to escape whatever this was, but without feeling anything, he couldn't.
At the cusp of giving up, he noticed a faint light — and a scream — which then disappeared, as if it was a figment of his imagination.
His finger twitched. He felt something — and then almost instantly he lost the feeling again. That couldn't be a coincidence, he thought. Maybe there is hope.
Kael clung to that hope for what felt like a thousand years. Then he noticed a bright light — this time not a flicker — and a voice saying:
"You'd have done the same for me."
Who's that? he wondered, staring at the light, his senses still shut.
The next instant, he heard the voice again —"Weirdo."
Sheila.
Had to be, only she ever called him that. His mind bloomed with the memory of her — standing in a field, holding out a small purple flower with a bright, trembling smile.
His first friend.
His lips curled into a faint smile.
Wait—
A smile. He felt it. He tried to clench his fist. His heart skipped a beat as a teardrop slipped from his eye. He could feel it — his hand clenching, the darkness brushing against his skin.
It felt so foreign, yet familiar.
"How long has it been..." he muttered.
"But where is sh—" He paused, as the memory surfaced — giving control to the guantlet, forgetting himself.
I have to get to the light, he thought. He pushed himself in a swimming motion. Surprisingly, he was propelled upward, closer to the light.
The closer he got, the more he felt the darkness pulling him back. He gritted his teeth and fought, as if swimming against a raging current.
J..ust a.. few..." he groaned, putting everything into his legs. His muscles burned, his body heavy with invincible weight.
He gazed at the light, a circular doorway flooding brightness into the darkness.
"A f..ew moore," he gritted, "meters!" he roared, lunging forward, fingertips brushing the edge—
But—
He jerked, stopping in his tracks.
The darkness clutched at his legs, pulling him downward — away from the light.
He screamed, "No! please!" his voice breaking with frustration and sorrow. But the light drifted farther away.
Then—
A smile. He saw a smile. Sheila's smile. She was in pain.
Who was causing her pain?
The words — "You'd do the same for me" — rang in his head.
He screamed, and something broke loose inside him.
He surged forward — the resistance vanishing — the light pulling him through.
He burst from the dark, shielding his eyes against the blinding brilliance.
***
The miasma around him thinned.
The edges of his eyes turned white, burning away the darkness. His grip slightly loosened from around her throat.
But—
The dark miasma flared, furiously.
A guttural scream — two voices, one human, one inhuman — tore from his throat.
"Noooo!"
Kael's hands twitched in rebellion — but his grip tightened again, choking her.
Then—
Kael flung her body like a ragdoll, crashing her into the piece of the obelisk that had crushed the house where she'd rescued the girl.
Kael dropped to his knees, clutching his head, pounding it against the ground. Blood matting into his hair.
Each impact spread a slight tremor through the ground.
He lifted his head, arms limp at his sides, his face a bloody mess.
"Get out!" he screamed — voice wholly human.
The dark miasma recoiled, draining back into the gauntlet.
Kael's eyes cleared. The gauntlet slipped from his hand.
He turned toward Sheila's motionless body, reaching for her—
A familiar figure landed beside her.
"Nyric," he whispered, before collapsing into darkness—unconcious.
---
The dust settled in the ruin of the crushed house. For a moment, the only sound was the faint crackle of the dying miasma, curling away into nothingness.
Nyric knelt beside Sheila, two fingers pressed lightly to her neck.
Alive. Barely.
Relief flickered across his face — quickly buried under the cold focus of urgency. His eyes, sharp turned to Kael's crumpled form.
"You stubborn bastard," Nyric muttered under his breath. He yanked off his cloak and covered Sheila's body, shielding her from the bitter wind that was starting to pick up.
Kael didn't move.
Nyric approached cautiously, every step deliberate. The gauntlet lay discarded near Kael's limp hand, its black surface steaming as if cooling from a forge. He could still feel it — the wrongness radiating off the thing. Ancient. Hungry.
For a heartbeat, Nyric considered crushing it then and there.
But then Kael stirred — a soft, broken sound slipping from his throat. His fingers twitched weakly in the dirt.
Nyric sighed, rubbing his temples. "No time." Reinforcements would be coming soon — whether friend or foe, he didn't know.
"This better not be a mistake," he said.
He ripped off his shirt, wrapped the gauntlet in it, and tied it around his hip.
He hoisted Kael's unconscious body over his shoulder with a grunt.
He shot one last glance at Sheila, swaddled in his cloak, the faintest breath rising from her chest.
"Losing two coats in one day…" he muttered. "This is getting ridiculous."
"Hang on, both of you."
The wind howled louder now, carrying the smell of burning stone.
Somewhere in the distance, sirens — or something worse — began to rise.
Nyric tightened his grip and ran into the wreckage-strewn streets, heading towards the woods, Kael's blood dripping down his back, the gauntlet back to it's normal harmless almost mundane form.
For now.