I stared at the looming shape of the Monster silhouetted against the crimson sky. My muscles screamed, sweat stinging my eyes. Of course it wouldn't be that easy.
"Come on," I muttered. "Really? Right at the fucking exit?"
The Monster's crystalline body refracted the ruddy light, sending prismatic patterns dancing across the tunnel walls. Its thread-like limbs undulated, blocking our only escape route. It had herded us here, I realized. We weren't escaping; we were being funneled.
I glanced down at Eliza. Her face was slack, eyelids still fluttering with whatever nightmare played behind them.
I couldn't leave her—not here, not now. The moment she left my protection, I knew instinctively the Monster would strike.
"This is a real shit situation, princess," I whispered to her. "You picked a hell of a time to check out."
I backed deeper into the tunnel, mind racing through options that dwindled with each step. My Essentia reserves were volatile. I had maybe enough for one decent charge, and my cards were gone—shattered when that crystal entity had touched me.
The Monster advanced, its movement almost beautiful in its horrible efficiency. Crystal threads extended toward us, feeling the air.
"Fuck," I hissed, backing up further. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
Most people would've frozen. Most people would've dropped the unconscious girl and run. A small, ugly part of me wanted to. But I couldn't.
It wasn't just that I'd saved her before. It wasn't even about being a decent human being, though that factored in. It was about choices. All my life, choices had been made for me. Born in the slums. Brother abandons us. Mother gets sick. The world had been dealing me shit cards from a marked deck since day one.
But this—right here, right now—this was my choice to make. And I wasn't leaving her.
"Alright, you crystalline bastard," I growled. "Let's dance."
I eased Eliza down against the tunnel wall, positioning myself between her and the advancing Monster. My legs shook as I straightened, but I kept my stance wide, balanced.
The Monster paused, as if surprised by my defiance. Its faceless form tilted, thread-limbs weaving complex patterns in the air.
"Yeah, I'm still standing," I said. "Disappointed?"
I reached into my pocket, fingers closing around one of my metal spheres. Not much, but better than nothing. I'd need to get close—too close—but if I could charge it with enough kinetic energy, maybe I could shatter part of the thing's core.
The Monster surged forward with sudden speed. I dodged the first lashing thread, rolling beneath a second, but a third caught my ankle. It yanked, sending me sprawling. I hit the ground hard, the impact driving air from my lungs. The sphere rolled from my grasp, clattering away into shadow.
Crystal threads wrapped around my legs, cold as ice and strong as steel. They began to pull me away from Eliza, toward the Monster's towering form.
"No!" I shouted, clawing at the smooth tunnel floor. My fingernails broke, leaving bloody streaks on the crystal surface.
More threads shot out, wrapping around my torso, my arms. I strained against them, muscles burning with the effort, but they only tightened. The Monster reeled me in like a fish on a line.
As I was dragged closer, I saw what waited at its center—a pulsing core of liquid crystal, churning with the same impossible colors I'd seen in the altar chamber. Memory tendrils extended from it, reaching for my face.
"I said NO!"
I summoned every scrap of Essentia I had left, channeling it into my right hand. Orange-magenta energy crackled weakly around my fingers. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
『Well, this is disappointing.』
The voice rang inside my head, clear as a bell. I knew that voice—had heard it in the altar chamber, and somewhere else, some time before...
『You're about to die because you're too stubborn to accept help. Tragic, really.』
"Who—?" I gasped, still struggling against the crystal threads.
『Your salvation, obviously. Though I'm beginning to question that investment.』
A window of light materialized in the air before me, floating impossibly in the space between my face and the Monster's approaching core. Text scrolled across it in elegant script:
『EMERGENCY PROTOCOL INITIATED
ESSENCE CORE ACTIVATION AVAILABLE
TEMPORARY POWER BOOST: 300%
WARNING: SIGNIFICANT CONTROL TRANSFER REQUIRED
ACCEPT? Y/N』
The Monster hesitated, its threads loosening fractionally as it studied the glowing text that only I could see.
"What are you?" I managed to ask.
『Currently? Your only option. But the offer expires in approximately three seconds, when this thing absorbs your consciousness. Choose wisely.』
I knew what this was—or at least, what it meant. Power never came without strings. Accept help now, and I'd be trading away something precious. My autonomy. My self-determination. The very thing I was fighting for.
But Eliza lay unconscious behind me. She'd never make it out if I died here.
The Monster 's memory tendrils were inches from my face now.
Two choices, both terrible.
"No," I said.
『Excuse me?』
"I said no. I don't accept."
The window flickered, text changing:
『RECONSIDER. DEATH IS IMMINENT.』
I laughed, the sound harsh and strained. "Death's been imminent my whole life, lady. I'm still here."
The Monster's tendrils brushed my cheek, cold as the void. Images flashed through my mind—memories being drawn out, examined, consumed.
But in that moment of connection, I saw something else. The Monster's own memories. Its purpose. Its weaknesses.
These creatures weren't independent entities. They were extensions—probes sent by the Choir to collect experiences, emotions, memories from intruders. They fed on the novel, the unique.
And they couldn't process contradictions.
I stopped fighting. Stopped struggling entirely. Instead, I opened my mind, focusing on the most conflicting, paradoxical thoughts I could muster.
My love for my mother alongside my rage at her weakness.
My hatred for my brother tangled with desperate admiration.
My fear of death interwoven with my longing for rest.
The Monster's movements stuttered. Its threads twitched erratically as it tried to process the contradictory emotional data flooding its system.
『What are you doing?』 The voice sounded alarmed now.
"Giving it indigestion," I gritted out, pushing more chaotic thoughts forward. The joy of finding a safe place to sleep mixed with the terror of being found. The comfort of hunger as an old friend alongside the desperation to never feel it again.
The Monster's core pulsed rapidly, colors shifting in distressed patterns. Its grip on me loosened further.
With one hand now free, I reached into my pocket and found my mother's crystal pendant. I'd never understood its properties, but I'd always sensed power in it—a stabilizing influence on my erratic Essentia.
I wrapped my fingers around it, pouring my last reserves into the crystal. It grew warm, then hot against my palm.
The Monster recoiled as if burned when I pressed the pendant against one of its threads. The crystal glowed with intense orange-magenta light, my Essentia amplified beyond anything I'd managed before.
In that moment of confusion, I tore myself free and scrambled backward, snatching up the metal sphere I'd dropped earlier. One chance. I poured everything into it—not just Essentia but intent, desperation, need. The sphere hummed, vibrating in my palm, glowing like a miniature sun.
I hurled it straight into the Monster's disoriented core.
BOOM!
The explosion sent me flying backward. I hit the tunnel wall hard, stars bursting behind my eyes. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard a high-pitched keening as the Monster thrashed, its form coming apart in sprays of liquid crystal.
『Impressive improvisation,』 the voice admitted grudgingly. 『But this isn't over.』
"It is for now," I gasped, pushing myself to my feet.
I staggered to Eliza, gathering her into my arms once more. The Monster was still disintegrating, its remains creating a gap in the exit just wide enough to squeeze through.
I ran, ignoring the screaming pain in every muscle, the blood streaming from a dozen cuts, the emptiness where my Essentia reserves should be. The gap was closing fast as the Monster tried to reform.
"Hold on," I told Eliza, though she couldn't hear me.
I lunged through the narrowing opening, crystal threads scraping against my back, tearing my jacket. Then we were through, tumbling onto the uneven ground of the outer cathedral ruins.
The crimson sky was darkening at the edges—night coming, or maybe just my consciousness failing. I staggered forward, Eliza clutched against my chest, navigating the maze of broken crystal spires by instinct alone.
There—ahead—a shimmer in the air. The gate boundary. Our way out.
Behind us, movement. The Monster, reformed, pursuing with single-minded purpose.
"Almost there," I panted. "Just... a little... further..."
My vision narrowed to a tunnel. One foot in front of the other. Don't drop her. Don't stop. The boundary grew closer, rippling like heat haze.
The Monster's keening grew louder. I didn't look back.
Three steps. Two. One.
We crashed through the gate boundary, reality warping around us in a nauseating swirl of colors. For a moment, we were nowhere, everywhere, suspended between dimensions.
Then solid ground slammed into my knees. Real air filled my lungs—polluted, stinking city air. The most beautiful thing I'd ever smelled.
We'd made it.
A figure stood over us, mouth open in shock. Young guy in an FBH uniform, probably an intern by the look of him. Clipboard clutched in white-knuckled hands.
"Holy shit," he breathed. "You guys okay?"
I tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace. "Get help," I managed, arms still locked around Eliza's unconscious form. "She's hurt. And tell them... tell them the Cathedral has a Choir."
His eyes widened further, but I didn't see his response. Darkness rushed in from all sides, swallowing the world.
As consciousness slipped away, I heard that voice again.
『This conversation isn't over, Pierre Hayes.』
I fell into blackness, still clutching Eliza close.
***
The darkness resolved into a vast chamber, walls of polished obsidian stretching up toward a ceiling lost in shadow. I stood on a floor of black marble veined with orange-magenta light—the color of my Essentia.
Before me rose a throne carved from the same stone, intricate and imposing. And upon it sat a figure that radiated cold fury.
She appeared human—mostly. A woman with skin like porcelain and hair that shifted between silver and black depending on how the light hit it. Her eyes were the most unnerving part—entirely orange-magenta, lacking pupils or whites, glowing with inner fire.
"Welcome to your inner domain, Pierre," she said, her voice the same one I'd heard in the cathedral. "We need to talk about your defiance."