In the suburban home of the Mortalle family, Elyas was going room by room, turning off the lights. On the second floor, from the room next to his, small footsteps echoed.
Michael soon appeared in the doorway in his pajamas, eyes sleepy but hopeful. It was as if the conversation from a few hours ago had never happened. "Dad… can you tell me a story?"
Elyas smiled tiredly. 'How can I say no to that?' he wiped the residue anger off his face and said as he walked inside Michael's room, "Alright, but you have to stay quiet." The boy climbed into bed and bundled under the blanket.
He began softly.
"Once upon a winter's day, in a forest full of foxes, wolves, and deer. In a canopy full of dangers and fears, a man was gathering firewood. There, he found a fox. Alive but limbless. The man pitied it. "Who did such a thing to the poor soul? How did it even survive?" He thought."
"As the man pondered, came into view, a lion dragging a carcass along. The lion ate until satisfied, then, almost mercifully, pushed the remains towards the helpless fox."
"The man was amazed. "Ah, the gods are impartial. They put the fox here so the lion feeds it. If they let kings share with peasants, surely, I can wait for them to feed me too." So he sat and waited. But no lion ever came, no king ever passed by."
"One day, an old friend found him on the street side and asked: "What happened to you?" The man told his story, making the friend laugh in response.
"The fox was born to be a leech, but you chose to become one. Don't blame the divine for your empty dreams, friend." He tossed the man a single coin and as he left, the man murmured under dry lips: "I was meant to be a fool."
"The end."
Elyas smiled faintly. "This is a story your grandpa loved to tell me. So the take away is to not be lazy—" His son was already asleep.
Turning off the lamp by Michael's bedside, Elyas walked to his own room and lay in bed. After a few minutes, as he too was drifting into sleep, he heard the faint sound of static.
So he opened his eyes.
The reality around him was cracking. Tears formed in the walls of the house, revealing the scenery of a town engulfed in fog and flame. The scene changed, showing Ralf, his body beaten and bloody, crawling towards Elyas and Michael who were running away.
With each new crack, the image Elyas saw changed.
Sometimes he saw one of the corpses of his friends in the station. Sometimes it was just their screams as the cracks showed him hiding, trying to keep silent as Figments passed by.
With each new crack, with each scene, one thing was becoming more apparent.
They were getting closer.
The tears broke through the walls and floor boards, sending flat shards of splinter flying everywhere. Elyas's room shattered like porcelain as a giant tear broke through one of its walls. The smaller cracks didn't linger either, they tore through everything they could.
Soon, he was left with nothing but his bed and the scattered glassy fragments of his life. Like shards of a broken mirror, each reflected Elyas's twisted expression as he faced the horrors.
In a final rush, they reached him. Elyas closed his eyes as the cracks bit into his flesh, chopping pieces and tearing him apart bit by bit.
There was no pain.
No fear.
Only silence and a static hum.
He didn't want to be right, but when he opened his eyes, Elyas was met with the vista of an endless gray void.
He stood in place for a moment, unmoving and dazed. "I'll never get used to these dreams," As he came to his senses and looked around, he saw gray. A hint of recognition and understanding formed in his eyes.
Right, I can leave now.
... I guess the most logical thing would be to make sure I actually have a way out. Elyas said to himself as he "walked" while yawning. This was the first time he had slept well in the void.
"Wait... did I just willingly move?!" Elyas's shock at this discovery was enough to stop his train of thought. And with it, his movement ceased.
He froze. 'Why did it stop?' He stopped to review his actions. It took a bit for him to come up with a hypothesis. It sounded crazy, but trying didn't hurt. He concentrated on moving forward, and just like that, he did.
"Okay, so for the color, I need to say something. For me to move, I need to think about it. What's next? Do I need to cast spells just to breathe?" Elyas laughed, harder than ever before, his dry throat almost cracking because of it.
Remembering his nightmare, Elyas shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Let's break out of this hell."
…
There was an exhausted man covered in sweat, lying on nothing. It had been hours since Elyas's first escape attempt. The exhaustion and the headache he felt every time he tried, made it mandatory to take a break.
Elyas's head thumped with a horrible migraine. Accompanying which, was a sharp piercing pain in his brain. It was as if someone had thrusted a needle in it. On top of that, despite his heart's hard work evident by its loud, incessant thumping, his chest was getting colder and colder with each try.
He stood up, determined to finish it this time. He raised his arms forward, each finger placed precisely where they needed to be. He tried again. Elyas envisioned the void glass. A window. A thin wall behind which lay his home, Vernis. As soon as he did, it was as if his very life got sucked away, and his chest went colder.
But he didn't mind it.
Elyas pushed and the void gave in and shattered like porcelain. Fragments of it started to float around, but he didn't let them run or fade away this time. Elyas collected and controlled each shard with his fingers. Not long after, from the pieces, a small window was made.
The window wasn't small, but not big either. It was just enough to let him pass through. "Finally, a way out…" Elyas said barely through strained breath as he swiped the sweat from his forehead.
He hurriedly willed himself towards it. But he stopped, doubtful of what he saw."…wh-where is that?" On the other side, he saw an entirely new world.
There were three suns in the sky. One was the old bright ball of fire. Another looked like a distant shadow of the original. Its hollow and empty light exuded a feeling of need and hunger, a hunger that could swallow everything in a moment.
The third was the biggest and brightest. Seemingly made entirely of blood. It was constantly dripping and reclaiming droplets from its top and bottom in an endless loop. They rotated and circled each other like wolves in a stalemate, trying to decide who would fall prey to the others.
Elyas was familiar with them, everyone was. Beneath the three was the reason for his dismay.
The door he opened hovered just above an overgrown forest which stretched to the horizon. As far as the eye could see or the fog allowed, it was all green. Except in the middle. Where the lush vegetation parted, his field of view opened to thousands of collapsed buildings.
Some once towered over the clouds, but were now buried under dirt. Some, although decayed, still managed to stand tall. Through the fog, one of them could be seen all too clearly.
It was a familiar police station.
Without respite, his imagination gave form to the worst possibility.
They're gone…
The sight of his home town reduced to ruins…He couldn't get the image out of his head.
It felt as if a massive clump of sand and grit clogged up his throat, making breathing a nigh impossible task. Despite this, he wasn't panicking anymore. Elyas was… accepting.
If his son, family, and entire life was gone, why should he cling to life?
He had turned blue by now, just staring at the vista with a blank expression. But as if someone had stepped on the needle in his brain, his headache worsened. The piercing pain multiplied several fold in just a moment. His heart sank as every nerve in his body screamed for air.
Elyas involuntarily drew a heavy, long gasp. He began to breathe again, albeit slowly. Michael's smile appeared in his head, making his already grim expression turn even more sour. In that short time, to calm himself Elyas came up with two explanations:
First, the City of Fog's line of defense broke in the span of a few months, and I am the last one here.
Second, I have been trapped here longer than I thought. Maybe a few years… maybe decades.
With those thoughts, he "walked" towards the window and stepped outside. Elyas raised and clenched his palm, closing the window behind him. Immediately, his headache dulled, and the needle thrust in his brain seemingly vanished. Defeated, his hand dropped to his waist, swaying back and forth.
He gritted his teeth. His eyes showed nothing but resolve as he took his first real step in ages. Elyas had to make sure, he had to get out of this forest as soon as possible.