The world beneath the bridge was a fog of confusion. Kael pressed his back against the cold stones of the embankment, his only way of staying conscious.
He shut his eyes and was back in the warehouse. His thoughts jumped from the crumbling wall, to Valerius's sword, and then to Finnian's death.
He opened them again, forcing himself to look. The opposite bank of the canal still shimmered in his vision. A cobblestone didn't just sit there, it seemed to shake, as if it could be at a dozen different locations at once.
Then, he remembered his confrontation with Valerius. Why had the sword stopped? Had his arms given out? Did he spare Kael? No. Kael had felt it. An unseen resistance in the air before him, a space that had denied any movement.
He recollected another similar anomaly. The wall had dissolved. He was strong, but he wasn't a tank. He had run at walls during training drills and bounced off them with nothing but a bruised shoulder. This wall hadn't just crumbled, its core had been weakened. It had dissolved like wet sand, as if the wall was forced to obey his desperate thoughts.
He shook his head, a desperate gesture to clear his dizziness, but it just got worse. This wasn't magic. Magic was a mage's expertise. This was as if the fundamental rules of existence were bugged, and he was the only one who could see it.
He tried to stabilize his mental condition by focusing on things he could confirm.
My name is Kael. Now the name was tied to the title "Fugitive," and the mental image turned into a terrified stranger. Not really helpful.
I am a Guardsman of Veridia. He remembered the weight of his helmet, the pride he felt when achieving that status. However, the armor was now filthy, and his status was all a lie. This was not only a fault, this was dragging him down.
Every certainty he ever had was now shrouded in confusion. His entire past had been re-written to the point where it's useless to try and separate the truths from the lies.
Panic began to bubble in his chest. The shimmering intensified. He was losing his grip. He was going to go crazy right here in the mud.
He needed something else, something to grasp onto for clarity.
His mind, searching for anything certain, went to the image of Finnian the baker. He saw the flour in the baker's knuckles. He saw the genuine terror as Valerius pressed the dagger into his hand. He saw the life drain from his eyes.
And he found it, the one thing he could cling onto at the moment.
It was a truth that stood on its own. The murder of that man was fundamentally wrong.
He clung to the thought, not as a philosophy, but as a reassurance. He focused on the feeling of pure injustice.
And for a second, Kael's vision regained its clarity.
The shimmering on the opposite bank turned back into a solid, muddy wall. The pain in his head faded to a minor ache. He could finally breathe. It was the first, smooth breath he'd taken since the incident at the warehouse.
But the effort needed was intolerable. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and his nose began to bleed once again. He realized, with horror, that holding onto that simple truth took a draining effort. His own sanity was now a necessity he had to actively satisfy, and it was already scarce.
A shout from the bridge above him jolted Kael back to the present. "Down here! Check the canal!"
The temporary feeling of peace evaporated. Kael pushed himself up, his legs trembling. He had no plan, no help from a mysterious stranger. There was only a search party behind him and a maze he must navigate ahead. He scrambled away from the bridge. His brief moment of clarity had already become a fading memory. With no idea of what to do next, he fled deeper into the darkness.