Everyone's pupil shrank, the last shred of hope slipping from their grasp like ash in a storm. The Spirit Realm itself seemed to mock their fleeting dreams of salvation. Before them, the Mighty Black Knight King loomed, its colossal form a shadowed deity.
Arty and the leader whirled toward Rilli, seizing her trembling shoulders to snap her from her trance. "Rilli, wake up!" Arty wailed, his voice a jagged plea.
Rilli stirred, her gaze slowly shifting towards Sezel, filled with a guilt that was quickly being overshadowed, perhaps by the relief that she was going to make it out of this.
Arty's lips curled into a vicious grin, a predator cloaked in false piety. He turned back to the King, dropping to one knee like a groveling supplicant.
"Mighty Lord of the Black Knights," he intoned, his voice dripping with feigned reverence, "we offer our beloved companion as your sacrifice. He will trade his life for our freedom." The words were a blade, twisting in Sezel's gut.
"No," Sezel whispered, the word a dry rasp. Then louder. "No. You don't get to decide that."
He tried to lunge, but the leader and his subordinate were on him in an instant, their bodies forming a wall. "Get out of my way," he roared, his voice weak. His frail frame trembling from starvation and exhaustion.
"It's for the best, Sez," the leader said, his voice laced with a sickening pity. "You're weak. You wouldn't have survived anyway. At least this way, your death has meaning."
"My death has meaning?" Sezel laughed, a harsh, broken sound. "My death is your ticket out of here. Don't dress it up as some noble sacrifice." He spat at the leader's feet. "You're just cowards, looking for an easy way out."
The leader's face twisted with rage, and his fist met Sezel's cheek, sending him sprawling. The earth was unyielding, a perfect mirror to the Spirit Realm's cruelty.
The Mighty Black Knight laughed, a soul-wrenching sound.
[Tie the sacrifice], it commanded.
Two of the Black Knights advanced towards Sezel, the makeshift rope in their hands a direct resonance to death. Sezel surged to his feet, desperation fueling his flight. He darted to escape, but collided with another knight, its shadowed form an immovable wall.
'Shit...Shit...Shit' his mind churned, heart wrenching with terror. He pushed himself back on the ground, "Stay away from me." he bellowed, terrified.
But all his actions were futile, the Black Knights captured him, heir ropes binding his wrists like chains of fate, tightening until his skin burned.
He looked at Arty and the others, enjoying their lease at the price of his life. Rilli's small frame trembling, but does it hide the fact that she had also abandoned him and chose to go with the pack?
Well it isn't simple to defy the heard when your life is on line.
"Look at you," he sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. "So quick to throw away a life that isn't yours. What happens when the next comes, and there's no one left to sacrifice? Who's next on the chopping block? Rilli? The big guy? Or will you finally have to find some courage of your own, Arty?"
[I will now open a gate for you, as soon as you step out you will forget everything that happened here]
Then with a flick of its finger, the air itself receded, a frail swirl of energy started forming an ovel shaped tear in the fabric of reality, soon a gate just like the one they entered from loomed in front of them.
[Go on]
Arty's eyes lit up with solace, a coward's joy at survival. The leader and his subordinate clung to each other, their fear melting into desperate hope. Rilli's gaze lingered on the gate, distant, as if lost in a memory she could not grasp. Her hands trembling.
Sezel's eyes burned, hot tears falling like shattered crystals onto the ashen ground. Yet, in the midst of the searing pain of betrayal, a strange calm settled over him. He had accepted his fate. The weak were always abandoned in the end.
"You treacherous bastard!" he roared at Arty. "I swear, if I somehow survive this, I'll bring ruin upon you!"
Nothing changed, it was not like someone was coming to help him here, no savior was answering his call. Arty dismissed his words, a dead man's threats were meaningless.
The group stepped toward the gate, their silhouettes blurring in its violet glow. Rilli paused, her gaze meeting Sezel's, her eyes a storm of guilt and sorrow.
"Sorry, Sez," she whispered, her voice barely a breath, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Sezel's stare was cold, but the pain in his heart was a thousand needles. "Don't look at me," he bellowed, his head bowed to the earth.
He hesitated, his voice softening to a whisper. "You'll forget me beyond that gate. Live well, Rilli. Never return to this cursed realm." It was a farewell, a final gift to the one he loved, a love now poisoned by her betrayal.
Before she could speak, Arty seized her hand, pulling her into the gate's swirling embrace. In moments, they were gone. The gate sealed, its light extinguished, leaving no trace of their passage.
Sezel knelt alone, bound and weeping, surrounded by silent, black-armored figures. He was dead. This was the end. There was no way of surviving.
A miracle? Sezel was the last person to be intervened with such fateful incidents.
He looked up, at the Mighty Black Knight, sitting on the throne like a God, the God of death to him. He scanned the clearing, the lifeless trees and pulsing Spirit Essence mocking his solitude.
Why? What sin have I committed to earn this fate? His thoughts spiraled into chaos.
Did i kill someone? Did i ever do wrong of someone? No. Just because i am weak, just because i can't do anything. That is the reason why i am here. At the end, what am i? An easily replaceable orphan.
He was drowning in a sea of despair, each passing second a step closer to oblivion. He was trapped, a lone soul in a realm of monsters, his death a certainty etched in the Spirit Realm's heart.