I took a breath, but something felt wrong with the air. It wasn't just due to my sudden realization of the warped world. It was also due to the woman standing beside me.
This woman.
This beautiful, inhuman creature.
My perception of her—what little I thought I understood—was rapidly coming into question.
I stared, jaw clenched, but she didn't return the look. Instead, she calmly surveyed our surroundings. She didn't even look at me as she spoke in a cool, unhurried voice.
"If there's something that you want to say, then I'd advise you to say it. There's no point in the two of us not communicating."
I found my voice before I found my courage.
"What do you mean, enemy?"
Though I asked the question, I hardly registered that the words had come from my mouth.
She waved her hand.
"I just mean the person who prepared this twisted space in order to trap us. It's not something you should worry so deeply about."
She spoke in a dismissive tone. It was like she didn't care at all to answer the question. Like the air she'd used to speak the words, they were worth more than the words themselves.
My eyes narrowed.
There was a lump in my throat as I glared at the beautiful woman in front of me. It took a moment to even will the words into my mouth.
"Why would your 'enemy' set this kind of trap?"
"It's likely assurance for if I were to escape from the coffin someday. And as fate would have it, that day has come."
I paused. "But… why?"
"That's simply how things turned out."
I furrowed my brow.
What kind of half-hearted answer is that?
Was she some kind of graceless dancer? She's dancing around every single question that I ask. Whenever I dig, she buries the answer deeper and deeper.
Why even seal her in the coffin in the first place? If they were willing to set a trap like this, if she got out, they clearly don't want her running around. Even so, they decided not to kill her.
"Is it that big a deal if I know who your enemy is? Didn't you just say that silence wouldn't help us? We should communicate and—"
Cacophony shook her head. "I mean what I said, communication between the two of us is important. With that in mind, I will still choose not to disclose any more information regarding my enemy. In this matter, you can consider my silence a form of mercy. Knowing who set the trap won't guide us toward salvation; it wouldn't even be helpful. It would only cloud your mind with useless thoughts. On this, you have my word. If it were important or relevant, then I would tell you, but as things are, it'd be best if you didn't know."
She looked at me at last, and I felt the weight of her gaze. It held a sense of finality. It was like a door being gently closed behind you.
'And I didn't even know where it led to in the first place.'
My curiosity regarding this 'enemy' didn't disappear, but pressing her would get me nowhere. The iron-clad Empress wouldn't bend the knee to simple interrogation.
At least, not from someone like me.
I looked away from her, my gaze now pointed to the street.
"How long has it been? How long have we been looping here?"
It was a pointless question to ask. After all, the Empress should've been in the same boat as me. She should've been shocked to even learn that this place was looping and that we were stuck.
From where I'm standing, I don't think that she should have an answer to my question.
Cacophony didn't answer immediately. She stood still, her back straight and eyes unworried.
"That question doesn't have a definite answer, " she said slowly, "We're not in the normal plane of existence. We're cut off from the rest of the world in a specialized subspace. Here, a concept like time is distorted."
"Okay." I muttered, "That's helpful, but at the same time it isn't. Time flows differently in here than it does outside, I understand that... So, we don't have any way of knowing how much time has passed out there?"
"That's correct. It could be the blink of an eye, a couple of minutes, or perhaps hundreds of years have passed. We've got no way of knowing."
"And there isn't any way for us to contact someone on the outside? Someone in the real world?"
Cacophony looked at me with a hint of amusement. "Not unless one of your countless secret arts is capable of breaching spacetime, which is nearly impossible. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if it were coming from a great ruler such as yourself."
I took a step back.
What a mess this had become.
Trapped in a space separated from time and reality, where I can't even communicate with anyone on the outside...
I exhaled, sharp and quick.
'Peace of mind... If I maintain peace of mind, I'll be able to work my way through this...'
How many times have I told myself that today?
Today? That's just how I saw it. It didn't even seem like there was a way of knowing how long it had really been since this all started.
Entire days could've already passed since we stepped out of that graveyard, and even that might've been wishful thinking. Weeks, years, decades—We could already be in a whole new millennium.
My heartbeat sounded too loud in my ears, like I was underwater. The weight of it all pressed against my chest, and I swallowed the rising panic.
Cacophony watched on silently. Not a hint of stress or worry.
"Okay... so we're gonna be trapped here... forever?"
"At present, that seems to be the case."
Forever.
That word echoed through my skull.
"But…" I started, then stopped. "No. That can't be right. If we were truly trapped here forever, wouldn't we... die? From starvation, thirst, or... I don't know! But, we'll definitely die here, won't we?"
Cacophony's lips curled into a smile. She shrugged her shoulders and gave a relaxed reply.
"There's a chance of that. We don't know the full scope of the ability being cast here. There's a chance that all of our bodily functions have been frozen."
"But," she added, and this time her tone shifted, "based on the fact that you're sweating and feeling the effects of exhaustion, I'd say that they haven't been frozen."
I shifted. "Meaning...?"
"Our bodily functions are still operating as usual. Meaning that we're still aging, our hair is still growing, etc. That's not the important bit. As you guessed, eventually, we'll be killed due to our lack of resources."
My breath caught in my throat.
My head flung left and right. I peered at the urban landscape surrounding us. I attempted to think up some sort of solution to our plight, but a single thought stopped me.
'These houses... They're all empty...'
That thought struck me harder than it should've. Not because it was new, but because it'd gained a different meaning.
We'd walked through three houses already, and they were as lifeless as the doll houses in some kid's toy box. They hardly showed any signs of use or having been lived in. If someone had lived there sometime in the past, all traces of them had been scrubbed clean.
No people. No furniture. No supplies.
Like stage props meant to fool the eye. A backdrop meant to simulate normalcy at a glance, but crumpled under scrutiny.
Why didn't I notice that earlier?
I raked a hand through my hair, my scalp damp with sweat.
If we'd been trapped in an ordinary neighborhood, scavenging might've been possible. Something—anything—could've been salvaged. But here?
These houses held nothing.
We wouldn't be able to get anything out of them, and without resources, we wouldn't last for very long.
I turned my head, scanning the suburban sprawl again.
Maybe we got unlucky. There's a chance that one house on the street will have something inside...
Even as that thought drifted through my mind, I didn't believe it myself.
Horrible emotions were flaring in my chest... and yet...
"…You seem pretty calm about this."
Cacophony's ruby eyes flicked to me, curious. "Should I be screaming and raving instead?"
"Maybe... Compared to what you're doing, at least that'd be something."
"Aren't you the one attempting to force yourself to remain calm and collected? Complaining when someone other than yourself does the same is the definition of hypocrisy."
I frowned, but I also couldn't argue with her on that point.
She let the silence linger a little too long, then added, "You're free to scream, if it'll make you feel better."
She spoke as though that was meant to be some expression of empathy.
"Yeah, I'll pass," I muttered.
I placed a hand on my temple. Everything that she'd said so far was swirling in my mind. The weight of it all was holding me down.
I whispered under my breath as I spoke to myself. "A Dark King can't just stand still..."
Without much thought, I turned and began walking. This time, it wasn't down the street. I walked perpendicular to the sidewalk.
Cacophony didn't stop me. She only shook her head slowly as I stepped off the concrete path and onto the unkempt strip of grass that separated the street from the line of houses.
"That won't work." She said softly.
I ignored her words. They hadn't exactly been helpful so far, and they certainly weren't helpful in that moment.
If the street looped perfectly, then fine. Let it loop. Streets were only one part of a city. There were alleys. Side yards. Paths between fences. If we walked off the main road and cut between the houses, maybe we could avoid dealing with the street altogether.
Just walk past the houses and go through an alley or something.
'We'll just walk away from the street... Then we'll be fine...'
My feet crunched softly over the yellowing blades of grass. I pushed forward, breathing evenly.
I kept my breathing even—deliberate—but the rhythm felt artificial, like I was mimicking the motions of calm rather than feeling it.
As I walked, there was a feeling telling me to turn back. Having just come off a near-death experience, I could tell that the feeling was different than some vague sense of danger.
The feeling was closer to a strange taboo.
Like I was doing something that was against the rules.
I pressed on, my feet thudded softly as I climbed the porch and slipped through the front door—unlocked, like all the others. Not stopping to analyze the empty scenery inside the house, I continued until I got to the screen door at the back.
I moved quickly through the hallway and into the kitchen, where the faint scent of synthetic wood and unused drywall clung to the air like dust that had never settled.
Without pause, I reached for the screen door at the back of the house, pulled it open in one fluid motion, and stepped out.
The creak of the hinges felt strangely loud in the silence, and it echoed faintly as the door clicked shut behind me.
I stepped out into the backyard.
The backyard was fairly ordinary. Just a large patch of grass with a small red grill near the screen door and a large oak tree seated snugly in the corner.
I moved past it all.
The grill. The tree. The mild, motionless air. All of it felt placed, like background scenery in a simulation.
At the far edge of the yard was a silver gate, polished and neat, almost too clean. I stepped up to it and placed a hand against the smooth metal.
I looked down and placed my hand on it.
For some reason, I expected resistance.
But the latch clicked open without effort, just like the doors in every house we'd entered so far. Nothing was locked here.
A bead of sweat rolled down my temple, but this time, it wasn't from exertion. My legs still ached from our endless wandering, but this was different. A chill crept under my skin.
With a breath I hadn't realized I was holding, I gave the gate a gentle push.
Beyond the gate was a short backstreet.
It was average. A narrow lane paved with uneven cobblestones, flanked on either side by the wooden fences of other suburban backyards. To the left was a dumpster with one of its flaps opened, and to the right was a telephone with its wires hanging low.
I stepped into the alley.
Two slow steps.
Then I turned my head, glancing toward the right—and stopped.
Thud
Before I could even take in what I was seeing, I was stopped in my tracks.
I stumbled back as if I'd walked face-first into a wall.
"What the—?"
I lifted my hands and pressed them forward into empty space.
There was nothing in front of me—nothing I could see. But the moment my palms extended outward, they met resistance. It was strange. An invisible substance that was soft, yet extremely firm. It gave slightly under the pressure, then pushed back.
My brow furrowed.
What... is this?
I slid my hands along its surface, feeling for an edge, a seam, any weakness. But the strange barrier was uniform. No matter where I touched, I was met with that same quiet defiance.
The invisible wall was uniformly solid, and it had seemingly no end. It likely stretched throughout this entire street.
A chill trickled down my spine as I began to apply more force onto the invisible surface. It was like pressing against the skin of a bubble that wouldn't pop.
At my fingertips, I felt an odd sensation. It was like a sudden, quick surge. It didn't come from outside, but from the wall itself. Like a strange pulse.
Quickly, I pulled both of my hands away from the wall.
I turned slowly and looked back toward the yard, then beyond it, to the street we'd started from.
The realization crawled its way up from my gut to my throat.
"We can't leave," I whispered.
From behind me, I heard Cacophony's voice floated over with that same cool, refined tone as always.
"Did you think it would be that easy?"
I didn't answer.
I only clenched my fists. My heartbeat pounded like a drum in my ears.
A searing, harsh voice escaped from my lips.
"How the hell can you be so detached?"