I woke with a start—flailing like a half-drowned dog trying to cross a river it never should have entered. My movement lacked grace. It struck me, in that instant, that perhaps I had none to begin with. A bitter realization, small as a splinter, buried itself deeper.
Perplexity wrapped around me, thick and staining, like ink spilling into water. I was no longer in the forest. No longer surrounded by death. The weight of weakness that had once pressed on my shoulders was gone—or had only been replaced by something heavier, unseen.
Clank!
My hand jerked forward, only to be snapped short mid-stretch. Shackles. A cuff bit cold around my wrist. The sound rattled in the silence, cruelly loud.
"Ah… how nostalgic," I muttered under my breath, though no one was there to hear. It had been some time since iron reminded me I was not free.
Finally, my mind caught up with my body. Where was I? What kind of afterlife was this? And why did it feel less like heaven or hell, and more like a holding cell?
I sat upright slowly, taking stock. The room was narrow, its walls timber. Darkness claimed most of it, save for the faint mercy of light seeping through somewhere—just enough to reassure me I still had my sight.
Strange runes shimmered faintly across the floor, walls, even the ceiling above me. They glowed like small gems pressed into the wood, calm yet watchful. Their glow gave the illusion of a cave lined with stars, though there was no beauty here—only the sense of something measured, deliberate, and binding.
Then the smell struck me. Or rather, the lack of it. A sterile nothingness, so unnatural it felt wrong but breathable. And only then did I realize—something was over my face. A mask. Not cloth. Not leather. Heavier, harder. Like a bag thrown over the condemned before the noose.
I tried to lift my hands, but the chains held. The mask remained. Its weight pressed against me, not just physical, but suffocating.
Finding a posture that was almost comfortable—enough that my bones stopped screaming—I let my mind wander. Questions bubbled up, grotesque and eager, like bloated corpses rising to the surface of a river.
What happened to the fight? To that creature? Why was I still alive? Am I still alive?
I had no answers.
Not a moment sooner, the door creaked open.
Fwoosh. Sunlight streamed in, a sudden golden blade slicing the dimness apart.
Boots struck wood like timber crashing down on earth. A man entered—no, strode, as if he owned the place. Which, by his manner, he very well might. His coat was long, blue with threads of gray woven through like faint storm clouds. He carried himself not like a guard, but like one with rank. He reeked of acohol and something sweet and fruity.
"I see you are awake," he said.
His voice was deep, hoarse, weathered. His eyes—blue, still, cold—regarded me without warmth. Not cruel, but clinical. The gaze of a man watching a dangerous animal in a cage, calculating.
"Do you remember what happened to you?" His boots stopped just shy of the doorway, as though the threshold was a line he had no need to cross. He was short in stature, enough that the light pooled around him rather than upon him, his figure casting shadow instead of presence.
I stared. My thoughts dragged like molasses, his question barely registering. My lips parted, my throat moved—but the mask swallowed my words. All that escaped was muffled nonsense.
He tilted his head slightly. "Ah. The mask," he murmured in realization. His gloved hand slipped into his coat, though he made no attempt to remove it from my face. A choice I hadn't expected.
It was then I noticed—he too wore one. Sleeker, fitted to his face. Whenever he spoke, or even breathed, faint markings lit up across it. Strange runes, glowing in rhythm with his words, flickering with each breath like tiny fireflies.
So. The mask wasn't simply restraint. It was something more.
Cough. Cough.
Clearing my throat, I forced sound through the barrier. My voice came out strange, warped, but still comprehensible enough. "And who… might you be? Where is this?"
Confidence was armor. I tried to wear it now, though it hardly fit.
Thud. Thud. Creak.
Another set of footsteps. Lighter. Quicker. They rang almost like small bells against the wood.
From behind the man, another figure half-slipped into view. Smaller. Diminutive. A girl, her head poking also with a mask but more elegant and refilled into the room before her body dared.
"Captain—she's awake then, I heard!" she blurted, her voice too eager, trying to wedge herself past the doorway.
"Lady Kanezumi," the man—Captain—said without looking back. His tone was warning, steady as stone. "Restrain yourself. They may be more dangerous than they appear. Recall the state in which we found them."
The girl froze mid-step, chastised, though her curious eyes still flickered past him toward me.
His head turned back, his cold gaze locking onto mine once more.
My mind swam anew, drowning in fresh questions.
What state?
What happened?
To me, to those creatures?
Where even am I?
Where was Omega and Mésos?
The answers stayed silent, locked behind masks and shadows.