The scene before Alex's eyes was a nightmare—one that he felt he'd had before. He pried his stiff fingers from Nychta's…

From… Nychta? Who was Nychta?

He shivered, then hurriedly nudged the body he'd felled, fearful for a second that it wasn't truly a vampire; that he was back in Misting Valleys somehow. But this wasn't Nightmare. Nor could this place be Earth. This was Hell.

He cast his eyes about as the blood mists faded. In them they'd fought, killed, and died for a torturous eternity. Bodies now littered the draconian chamber—vampires and vampire-hunters both. Wounds riddled the survivors. The cost showed in their fewer numbers, but the vampires they'd come to kill were dead now. Anne had been kept busy; the Blood Mist Assassin had been fought by Eric and finally succumbed to his wounds. Galvan's plan had gone as he'd envisioned in almost all ways.

Except one.

"No matter the age, humans are always the same," an old voice rattled. "Captivated by rumor and bewitched by opportunity."

Footsteps echoed down one of the side passages. Alex raised his Sunstone-sword defensively. He inched closer to his party, gripped by fear. By a palpable terror that everyone in that room could feel. A hunched elderly man walked calmly into the bloodshed and tossed the head he held. Galvan's lifeless eyes stared back at them.

The Elder didn't smile. His eyes pierced their souls and only Laura and Eric dared to stare back defiantly. The rest of them quailed under the gaze of an ancient predator of man.

One of the hunters collapsed, pointing shakily. "You… you shouldn't be here—"

Something flashed by, and Alex knew whoever had just spoken was dead.

The Elder sighed. "I find it sad that the same trick has worked thrice now, just a few centuries removed. Spill a little blood in the water, and they all wriggle out thinking they're sharks. It proves, I suppose, that the world has forgotten what we are capable of. "Nightmares", "Top Rankers"… Humans are so quick to forget that monsters have always walked the Earth."

The Elder, whose name Alex didn't even know, looked at the vampire who knelt in a tattered shape before him. His face twisted.

"Anne," he said.

"Yes, Grand Elder!"

"I entrusted this task to you because I thought you capable. What do you make of this failure?"

"The Seven Sisters sent one of their—"

"Excuses."

Anne clutched her throat. As she choked and wheezed, the Elder turned his attention onto Laura. "You have ruined much, Priestess. More than you could even know. Was it worth it?"

Alex gulped, trying to place himself in front of her, but Laura stood proudly. Her gaze fixed the Elder's and she remained as unwavering and certain as she had months prior, staring down the coming storm from the beaches of Thule.

"It was," she said.

Alex couldn't help but hear what she left unspoken: No matter what happens next.

"Very well," the Elder said. "This is your mess to clean up, Anne. The Death Priestess is at our gates, and she'll require my full attention. I've removed the only one who can threaten you. So prove to me you are not just a failure."

The Elder turned his back on them all and Anne gasped for air. He tossed the Blood Mist assassin a murky vial. The assassin, who'd been on death's door, took it, somehow finding new strength. Then the Elder vanished into a flurry of bats, gone.

Alex took a sharp intake of breath as he suddenly felt countless more gazes from deeper within the tunnels. Over a hundred.

"Eric—"

"I know," he said.

But his eyes were trained ahead of him, on the Red Mistress as she staggered to her feet, coughing and hacking violently. Tears welled in her eyes, an angry snarl on her lips as she glared—not at Eric, but at Laura.

"You…bitch!"

It happened in an instant—faster than even Eric could perceive. But in that instant, Alex reacted. He grabbed Laura's arm on instinct. Then the two of them were swallowed up by shadow.

* * *

There was darkness. A familiar darkness; a familiar stench. Iron—metallic and thicker in his nostrils than in any massacre he'd taken part of. Even the Blood Mists. He moved and heard the slosh, felt the ripple of liquid at his shins, and feared the sight he would see if he weren't blinded. Bloated things floated in this shallow ocean. Corpses. He nudged them aside as he waded through.

"Laura!" he shouted. "Laura, where are you?!"

He didn't know if shouting was smart. He didn't know if he cared. She'd been with him just seconds ago but now they were separate. He stopped walking and preened his ears for any sounds of movement. None. He chose a direction and stumbled forward, uncertain if it was the right one.

His boot scraped someone's exposed ribs. Something predatory and chilling permeated the air with its gaze. With her gaze.

No. He grew frantic, running with his Sunstone sword in hand.

"Laura! Laur—"

"I'm over here!" she called.

Alex peered out at the darkness to his left then rushed forward. He heard her doing the same, their splashes quickly approaching. He saw her shape in the dark and embraced her. She heaved for breath, terror in her cadence.

"Oh, Alex," she cried weakly, "Why did you follow me?"

"It'll be okay," he said. He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince. "Wh-where is this?"

"We're in Anne's domain. The Seven Sisters can't reach me here."

Alex froze. "My… inventory isn't working either! How do we… how do we get out?"

Laura didn't respond. No. He held her tighter, squeezing.

Then there was light. Fires lit up all around them, surrounding a throne of bones where the Red Mistress lounged. She smiled—a wicked, angry smile. "Wait—what's this? I only meant to get one of you, but there's two?"

Laura looked up at Alex, quivering. He'd never seen her fear anything like she did now. She was infallible, steadfast in dedication to her cause. Yet, without even intending, Alex had become her greatest weakness. And she, his.

He drew his sword, shielding Laura, fighting not to hyperventilate. Fighting not to look down and imagine her body floating with the others. He still held her hand, too terrified to let go.

"Oh no. Are you two lovers?"

Anne's callous laugh echoed as she stood from her throne, splashing down the dais in high heels, blood staining her dress. "I was very furious when I summoned you, Priestess. I had every intention to torture you endlessly, but this… this is even better. Tragedies are just my favorite."

She blurred and the fires flickered out. Alex's dangersense lost Anne's whereabouts until a voice whispered sweetly in his ear.

"Say, are y—Oh my!"

Alex spun. His sword sliced like a whirlwind but Anne was no longer there. She was back in the direction of her throne, laughing weakly. "You're a prickly one, aren't you?"

He glared, threatening her with his sword's tip even as he clutched the wound at his side. Laura pressed her hands together, healing it, but cut off from her Constellation's power, she provided only minor relief. No access to his inventory meant Alex had no access to his arsenal of weapons, or his potions either. Not that Anne would give them time to use one.

But she was giving them time for some reason. She watched Laura seal his gash, getting almost misty eyed. "What a loving display," she said.

She wiped a tear, deriving a sadistic pleasure from them that frightened Alex.

"Should you really be wasting time like this?" he said. "While you're messing around in here, Eric's out there making short work of—"

"Oh darling, can you be any more transparent?"

Anne licked her lips and her expression flickered from one of feigned grace to sheer malice—then back in an instant. Alex instinctively reached for Laura's hand again, but stopped himself. To protect her, he'd need both his—

Cold. Anne's malicious intent had blown through and past him like a midnight wind, leaving him cold. The fires flickered again and the warmth from Laura's healing touch just… disappeared. Her touch was gone.

"Laura…?"

Alex turned around, his heart creaking like a broken door. Laura stood ten paces away, caught in the Red Mistress's grip. Anne's spindly finger wrapped her head, exposing her neck at an awkward angle.

"Laura—!"

"Don't. Take. Another step," Anne said.

She pressed her sharpened nails to Laura's heart.

"Good boy. And… Laura, was it? That's a beautiful name. Would you care to share with me your lover's?"

Laura didn't answer. The only words she gave were conveyed by her gaze as she looked at Alex. The nails dug into her flesh. She groaned but held firm.

Anne slapped her. "My patience is running thin, dearest. Tell me, or I'll start hurting him now."

Laura stayed strong, and silent. As Anne tortured her, her eyes conveyed that this was her final will. Her last wish. But no… it couldn't be. He knew who'd they'd been trapped in here with. They both knew it was over. He knew, and yet…

"Please," Alex pleaded.

"Please?" Anne tilted her head. "Oh, are you that kind of beggar? You really bagged a good one, Laura darling. These types are the biggest sweethearts. 'Please don't kill her, please take me instead, oh pretty, pretty please!' Please… what?"

Please kill her. Quickly.

But he couldn't bring himself to say it. If he did, it would never happen. He charged Anne, praying she would plunge her hand into Laura's heart and end it. Instead, Anne flicked her hand and he heard the rattle of metal. Something stirred beneath the waters, then chains rose from the blood at his feet. Manacles gripped his wrists and ankles, trapping him where he stood then lifting him an inch, defying gravity. Chains wrapped up around Laura too, splaying the both of them wide, in clear view of each other.

Anne disappeared, manifesting in Alex's face with an angry snarl.

"The stage isn't ready yet!" she yelled. "So impatient. How am I supposed to run a play when I don't even know my characters! Boy, what's your name."

Alex strained desperately against his bindings. "You underestimate Eric if you think a hundred goons can—"

"Tell me your name."

Her red eyes bore into him. She bared her fangs in a snarl, inches from his face.

"Or-or what?! You really think that half-dead assassin will—"

Alex went silent as Anne disappeared, then re-appeared like a spectre back at Laura's side. She'd stripped Laura of her armor and robes, and now pressed her nails non-lethally to the right-side of her chest.

"Your name," Anne repeated.

Laura shook her head, even the nails gouged into her.

"...Alex!" he said. "I'm Alex Smith!"

"See? That wasn't so hard, was it? And Laura, this boy obviously loves you dearly, but the nature of your relationship… It's a little too ambiguous. Clarify this for me, darling, how do you feel about him?"

Laura's lips remained sealed. She'd long since accepted that nothing good would happen to them before their deaths.

"Tell me!" Anne seethed.

She extended a finger and a tendril of blood pierced Alex's thigh. He grit his teeth, thrashing against his chains. He seethed to not give Anne the satisfaction of his scream. He could endure this. Maybe if they held out long enough, Eric could… he could…

Alex met Laura's eyes. Tears fell but she didn't say anything. Not to him, and not to her. He screeched as another hole was drilled into him. She pried her eyes away.

Her lip quivered. "I…"

"You…?" Anne asked leadingly.

Alex was sure she'd been about to say. I'm sorry

It's okay, he wanted to tell her. It'll be okay.

Anne shot a blood bullet through him again and he screamed. Then she exhaled in angry exasperation, and stalked his way once more. As she reached up, Alex braced himself for more pain. A violent shiver coursed through him as all she did was unfasten the straps of his armor. The metal pieces splashed uselessly to the ground. Alex thrashed again as she tore his clothes, exposing his chest.

"Please…" Laura said.

"Oh, two pleasers! How delightful." Anne's words echoed both far and near as her vestige trailed shadows behind them each. "Your tight lips were really ruining my fun, Laura, so it's such a relief to hear you beg. Everyone does eventually. But oh, please, do you really think begging is enough? After you've humiliated me like that?!"

"He was uninvolved!" Laura pleaded.

But she probably already knew it would do no good. Anne's voice was behind Alex's ears again, her body pressed against him, her hands on his chest, nails slowly raking. "And what does Alex mean to you, that you would trade your life for his, darling?"

"Please!" Laura begged.

"Please what?! Phrase your requests in a full sentence, will you do that for me?"

Alex moaned in agony, his flesh peeling in streaks. Her nails gouged deeper as she dragged them down both sides of his chest.

Laura sobbed. "Please! I'll do anything! I'll—"

"Then answer my questions honestly. How do you feel?"

Alex screamed again and Anne skinned his flesh even slower. Laura looked to be on the verge of breaking. She'd always been so strong, but seeing him like this… her will was beginning to shatter. She opened her mouth.

"Don't…" Alex rasped. "Don't give her what—argh!!"

"Silence, darling," Anne whispered. "Only screams from you."

He screamed; he couldn't not scream. But Laura caught his eyes. He could endure this. He would endure…

"Well, if you don't want him, darling," Anne said with delight, "then I guess I'll take him."

Alex blinked. Her nails had stopped. Except now her hands trailed gently up his chest, wrapping around his face and chin. Her hot breath molested his nape. She kissed him, her lips traveling to the atlas of his neck, then she opened her maw, her fangs—

"I love him…" Laura whimpered. "Please, I love him…"

Those fangs froze, a pinprick of Alex's blood drawn. Laura's words were a dagger in his heart, and her expression as she'd said them twisted it. Anne's killing intent lingered for a moment, and Alex knew that all she wanted to do was devour him. Her fangs dug deeper and he couldn't breathe. Then Anne licked the ichor from his neck, and she pulled away reluctantly.

"Good girl," she said. "But… say, lovely, what exactly is it you like about him? Why him?" She tilted Alex's head, her clawed nail tracing his eye's scar. "He's certainly not a looker, that's for sure. Is the sex that good?

"...Or what, should I have him after all?" Anne asked after a silence. She began to head back toward him.

"He makes me happy!" Laura said. "He's caring! He's thoughtful! He—"

Another blood bullet pierced Alex's thigh. He thrashed in pain.

"I didn't ask for clichés!" Anne chided. "Oh dear, dear, dear. Laura, sweetie, is your heart really that shallow? I want to know what makes him special. I already know what makes you special, Laura. You—such a strong, devoted girl—what boy wouldn't fall in love? Now what makes you love him?"

Anne moved so they were facing each other again. They were both exposed, gored and bloodied. He couldn't bear to look, but he couldn't look away either. Laura cried uncontrollably, wailed and sobbed—all because of him. He'd weakened her. Then their eyes met and Alex realized those tears were because she could tell exactly how he felt at that moment.

"I… I love him because…"

Alex's bladder was pierced. He began to urinate from his stomach.

"B-Because he… m-makes me…"

Laura choked on her words, sobbing. She was tormented and broken as he was. Tarnished.

"He… he makes…"

And he was the one who had done this to her. If he'd known it would've ended like this… If he'd known… I never would've…

"Out with it already! He makes you…?"

"…Feel seen," she finished.

It'd been uttered from her lips like a dying rasp.

Their restraints were released and they both fell to their knees, staring in horror at one another. None of this changed them, right? They shouldn't be looking at eachother like that.

But he regretted it. He wished it never happened. Because even tarnished like this, she was still the most beautiful person he'd ever laid eyes on.

"I'm… sorry," he sobbed.

He reached out, but she was out of reach. He cried in pain as he rose and soon collapsed over a corpse, sauntering barely forward. He fell to his knees again in front of Laura and tried to touch her. She recoiled, her eyes wide and shocked. Then her lips twitched into a broken smile. Her arms wrapped shakily around him. Dying from blood loss, yet somehow still warm, they hugged with their bodies. His trembling hand cupped her cheek. She touched it, trying—despite the guilt and hurt, to smile for him, reassuringly. This was her love.

Then a hand caressed her other cheek. Laura's neck tilted, and Anne bit into it, sensually devouring his lover in front of him. He was chained again, he couldn't even move his hand. He couldn't look away either. The Red Mistress moaned, drinking in Laura's lifeblood. A squirt of blood splattered his cheek. He brushed Laura's tears with his thumb as her eyes clouded over.

"Please…"

He hardly even heard himself speaking. "Please… just…"

Anne kept his gaze, seeming to smile as she ripped flesh with her maw. Her tongue slithered into Laura's open wound as the light left her eyes.

"A-Alex…?" she rasped.

"...I'm here," he told her. "I… I'm…"

She died fast.

But just before Laura could depart for good, Anne ripped a gash in her own wrist and forced open her mouth. Blood gushed from her veins and Laura gasped back to life. She thrashed, struggling futilely in Anne's grip. Blood spilled messily from her lips as she gargled and choked until she had no choice but to swallow. Her eyes turned red and ravenous. Her fangs grew longer. Her nails sharpened.

"Please," Alex wailed. "Please, Anne! Please just… just kill her."

But Anne released her instead, and she wobbled to her feet, towering over him. Just like that, Laura became a vampire. No, a thrall. A slave.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Anne licked her lips. She wiped, smearing blood. "Oh. So you're that kind of beggar. I take back what I said about him being a sweetheart, Laura. Alex here is the most pathetic kind of man—a defeatist. Feel free to kill him now."

Alex stared at the bloody ocean that he knelt in. Hollow. He was more hollow now than he'd ever been. It was the first time he'd felt Laura's killing intent. Or any ill-intent at all from her. His life wasn't his own to discard as he pleased. He knew should move, and he tried. But blood spurted from his thigh just from tensing his muscles. Laura was gone. She'd shown him a new life, but she'd left him. He couldn't go on living it without her.

Yet, as he looked up at her looming presence, he realized something even more horrid. She was still in there.

"A-Alex… ple—"

She lunged and he threw himself back, collapsing on his shoulder in agony. Her nails were sharpened to a point, and stopped right before where his chest would have been. She was fighting this, he realized. Each movement she made was withstrained. But when she looked at him again with those loving eyes, he sensed only one thing.

Hunger. Such agonizing hunger.

Laura took a shaky step forward. Then another. It was only then that Alex realized he wasn't chained anymore. There was no need for him to be—he couldn't even move his body. He laughed. Cried. It was all for nothing. What would Douglas, Oscar or Julia think, knowing that their sacrifice would lead to this kind of end?

It didn't matter. His life was his own, wasn't it? That's what Laura was always saying. If it was, then… then he'd… But not yet. He couldn't. He'd given Laura his heart and while her's continued beating, he belonged to her.

He heard another splash as she trudged closer. He realized where he'd collapsed and thoughts of his party moved him to action. He searched desperately beneath the blood's surface with his only working hand, his fingers coming free with a stranger's entrails. Anne laughed in the distance. All these bodies… this blood… How many stories just like theirs had played out in this world? Were these just the lucky ones?

Laura's boot splashed gore onto Alex's face. He looked up, hearing her whimper as she wound back her hand. He'd never known she was an ugly crier. He'd never had the chance to learn.

But maybe… just maybe, there was an afterlife. If there was, would he even find her there?

He would soon find out.

Her motion blurred. Alex unleashed a primal scream as he lunged beneath the blow, then ripped his Sunstone sword from the blood, driving it straight through Laura's heart. He pulled it out and her body went slack. She coughed, blood bubbling from her lips as she tried to speak.

"Y-You don't have… to…" he said.

But he wanted to hear her say it to him directly, just once. He embraced her. He fell apart as she lost warmth. I love you, he told her. He didn't know how many times he muttered it before her voice wheezed from her torn open throat. Except… the Laura he loved would never waste her last words on something he already knew.

Her eyes grew unseeing and cloudy.

"L-live…" She sputtered. "F-For me…"

Then she died.

Alex… collapsed again. Cradling her. To the sound of slow applause.

"Wow. I really didn't think you had that in you, Alex. But oh dear—"

Anne picked up his sword, eying it with disgust. "Sunstone? I knew one of mine shouldn't have broken that easily, but this… Alex, who forged this? I promise, this all can get worse if you don't tell…"

Her gaze passed over him. She paused. "Wait, a blacksmith? It was…Oh-oh dearest—you—you're the one that got away, aren't you?!" She slapped her forehead, cackling. "You two really did deserve each other! Two massive thorns in my side! Haha—"

Alex barely registered Anne's words—only the fact that she'd come and torn Laura's body from his grasp. She held her like a ragdoll as she sighed. "Aww, it would've really been worth keeping you as a pair. And I was looking forward to Laura. But… I suppose having a priestess of the Seven would've been too risky anyways. Oh well…"

Alex reached out weakly. His body was growing cold.

"Oh? You still want her? Even like this?" Anne laughed, shaking Laura's limp body. "I'm touched! In most of my plays, love doesn't persist through to the end. I think you've earned a memento, darling."

Laura… Laura…

His hand was still grasping as Anne gripped Laura's hair and wrenched her head from her body. Tears appeared along her neck where blood gushed like a fountain. There was a wet squelch as flesh tore, a sharp crack as her spine snapped, a series of groaning pops as her ligaments stretched taut and ripped. Then, with a final pry, her head wrenching free; those ligaments dangled from Laura's open neck like tendrils of a jellyfish—white, yellow, and pink. Her head thudded against Alex's chest and rolled, half-submerged in blood. Her lips hung ajar, slack-jawed. Her eyes stared blankly.

This was Laura's head. This was…

He picked her up. She didn't belong with all the other bodies. Laura… He held Laura's…

A whisper brushed against his ear. A caressing touch. Breath on his neck; the light scrape of teeth. "So love does persist. How beautiful…"

Anne peered over his shoulder, lifting his chin so he faced her. Distantly, he heard her voice. She was saying something. Something funny. He started to chuckle.

"Ugh!" Anne recoiled. "Catatonic just from this? I knew it… you really are boring. Maybe a few decades will—"

Suddenly, she jerked back, her expression grave. She peered out into the dark, stumbling back.

"No…" she murmured. "No…! N—"

Finally, she disappeared.

And it was all over.

Alex was alone in the dark now.

For a long time, nothing coherent passed through his mind.

Laura was in his lap. She wasn't beautiful like this.

He reached over where Anne had dropped his Sunstone sword and turned the point toward himself.

He had the vague sense that he'd done this before. In another place, with another sword. At another time. That once, his hand would've trembled, and he would've recalled her last words.

He didn't now. He didn't tremble. He calmly drove the tip into his—

A steady hand rested on his shoulder. "Wake up, Alex. None of this happened."

Alex stopped. The sword clattered to the ground. The man's voice was familiar. Older and deeper than he recognized, but similar to the one that came from his own throat. His hands were scarred by burns, his body was slightly more built. There were faint wrinkles, a thin, patchy beard along his jaw. But the scar across his eye was the same. He'd grown into it.

Slowly, his words penetrated the fog in Alex's mind. He wasn't catatonic. Not today. He stroked Laura's hair with blood-slicked, trembling fingers. He gazed across the endless sea of blood, where bodies neither decomposed nor aged. Each corpse told a tale like his own—a tragedy frozen in time.

"None of this… happened?" he muttered. "How can you even say that?"

"Because it's true," the man said. "This is just a memory, Alex. Do you remember what happened after?"

After?

He felt as though there couldn't be an after to this. And yet, he somehow knew time had once gone on without him here. The domain had collapsed; he left this place at the same time as Anne. An empty husk of a person.

"So I guess this is it," Eric said over the campfire. "You won't be joining us, Alex?"

A silence had passed between them. Eric nodded in understanding. Nothing else had to be said.

"I remember."

The older man grunted, glancing at the spot where Anne had stood over him, laughing. "Yeah… she shouldn't have left Eric to his own devices out there, huh."

No, she shouldn't have.

But there was no solace in that fact. Anne was a monster. She didn't care for anyone the way Alex cared for Laura. Even that assassin of hers was just a tool—a favored appliance. What Eric did out there paled in comparison to what she'd done to them. She'd been so joyous, she probably wouldn't have even noticed without the Divine Intervention Laura had pleaded for to the Seven.

"But none of this happened, right? If that's true… then remembering is meaningless."

The man shifted, lifting his hand from Alex's shoulder. "That's not exactly what I said. It's long past time you opened your eyes, Alex."

"Wait, where am—"

The man faded from sight.

Where am I? Alex had been about to ask. But he already knew the answer. This was his inner world—his true inner world, buried several layers deeper than he had ever ventured. He suddenly remembered why he was here.

Remember, the Lost Souls had demanded. Now, he had.

He remembered, too, the spell they had activated, and he gradually became aware of the storm of energy building within his body—so vehement it could tear him asunder. For all that it mattered. He felt nothing but a numb tingle in here. His existence had been split; his soul removed from everything else. Vaguely, he also became aware of his body's desperate fight to contain that storm, to compress it into a core. Here, the currents of blood didn't so much as ripple. At this rate he would just die on his own.

Death…

Sanity's words echoed in his mind: None before you have survived. Though none before you have been so uniquely suited for it…

He could only presume death was what they meant. Was the reason he could separate his soul to this degree because he'd died before? He shouldn't even be alive.

Doubly so, if it was all meaningless. Afterall, none of this had happened. How had he ever convinced himself otherwise? And why? Because he hadn't splattered against the sidewalk outside his Seattle apartment? Did he somehow imagine he'd brought all those souls and their wishes back with him? If he'd really returned to the past, then the future didn't even exist. Laura had never met him, never loved him—never died. This revenge he needed so badly didn't matter to anyone. Not Eric—he hardly knew Alex. Not Anne. He could rip her to shreds and watch her die slowly, but she would never know why. He could never teach her regret.

He'd come here to remember. And now, he had. So what now?

His life played before his eyes. Laura's last wish had been for him to live, so time had gone on after this. She'd known probably, that he'd have killed himself in that moment if she didn't force him not to. Instead, he'd lived, and for a time it became his life's mission to hunt down Anne. He ultimately failed. She disappeared from the world without a single trace or rumor.

Maybe Laura would have said that saved him. Alex eventually made friends again, formed connections with others. But then watched them die, often on his orders. What happened with Laura only repeated with others. But hers had been the worst. He'd held delusions toward her, toward a future they could've had. And he'd loved her, in a way he'd never been able to do again. Moreover, by the time war came to Earth, he'd come to expect death. And he still came to be surprised by how much of it there was.

Laura would've been disappointed. The man he became in those years was far worse than the one she'd known. He'd tried for a while. He'd improved the world the only way he knew how. But after a time, blood just felt like blood, no matter the reasons for spilling it.

And now, blood rippled. Slowly, Alex saw the shallow ocean begin to rise. It submerged his thighs, then swallowed half of Laura's face where she lay on his lap. Distantly, he heard the Lost Souls chant. And maybe a few of the souls he fancied taking back with him were in there too. He was running out of time.

Time?

Then maybe time can run out without him, if his life was ever truly his own. He'd remembered, as the Lost Souls demanded. And as Nychta had urged him to do.

Nychta…

Her name faded from his grasp, her voice muted.

Why was it he'd wanted to remember? Really. He couldn't even remember such a simple thing anymore. To integrate his Divine Core? So he could do what? Take revenge? The ocean of blood had flooded to his chest now. It wouldn't even matter if he tried. His legs and wrists were still chained. Anne was gone, but her chains remained. He still couldn't imagine beating her. And even if he did…

I can never put it behind me.

The blood swallowed him, flooding his inner world in an endless stream. Laura's head floated in front of him. He struggled against his chains, watching the moment Anne wrenched it off again and again, as he had countless times in his dreams. The moment always stretched eternal until he woke up in cold shivers. He wondered why it was always this he had latched onto. She had died before this moment, from his own sword no less. Or maybe that was exactly why. Nothing good had come from their love. Why would he ever want to remember any of it?

It wasn't just Laura now either. Alex saw countless others die over many battlefields—fates he couldn't affect because he was too weak, because he was chained. He scrunched his eyes shut.

This never happened, he told himself. And that was an undeniable fact now.

Yet Anne still laughed at him, a joyous cackle that scratched like nails against his ears. He coughed, out of breath, and the sea of blood flooded his lungs.

It never happened. It never happened.

It literally couldn't have.

He remembered it all so clearly, but this scene, these feelings that had been permanently etched into his heart came only from a dream. None of it held any meaning. Laura and Anne didn't exist—at least not like this. Revenge didn't exist. Here, he was the only one haunting the past, and he was well and truly alone.

That was the undeniable truth.

And with that, Alex finally set himself loose from his chains. He violently kicked his way to the surface. His head bobbed above the flood and he gasped, sucking in untainted air. Finally, he was free. That none of it had happened—why had that been something he'd feared? So many had died, but that had nothing to do with him anymore. His life was his own. He could do anything he wanted with it. How was that anything but a relief?

Yet when that relief passed, Alex was left hollow. He floated there, an empty husk. His emptiness was such that he felt that years could pass him by, and he wouldn't care.

Maybe years did. It was hard to tell, with nothing but endless darkness out there. Funny that, he'd always imagined there was a sun in there somewhere. A fire. But he supposed that, too, had withered over the years. He thought he'd found it again. Embers, at least. But maybe that had just been a spark. It had gone out without starting anything.

Rifts opened in the dark, and red eyes peered in. If so many Lost Souls were already this deep, then he was pretty much resigned to his fate now. Core formation was imminent. The build up of energy would kill him. He still felt nothing.

"Hollow is not nothing, Alex," Laura's voice echoed.

He winced.

"Hollow is the despair of one who wallows in the shadow of darkness, and darkness must be cleansed."

Laura… always had her way with parables. Another one came to mind unbidden.

"Shadow and darkness are not the same, Alex. Darkness passes. Shadow lingers and taints the heart."

He was starting to understand that one. Trauma fucks up the good things in life, or so on so forth. It was roughly true, in his experience. Forgetting her had never been easy. These memories… he would have to lock them up again. And that would take time.

Time? Oh right, he was going to die, wasn't he?

Well, Gloomy was going to have a field day.

Gloomy.

Alex's heart clenched. Gloomy… was Anne's thrall. For a hundred years… if she could be believed. If he died here, so would she. But her fate was predetermined; and her life was her own, not his. He'd always been alone in this.

Alone…

Nychta.

Her name came back to him with a muted whisper. Suddenly, those chains he thought he'd slipped threatened to drag him back under. Right… he wasn't alone, was he? His life wasn't his own…

He chuckled. All these years he'd lived, you'd think he'd have learned not to share his heart with another. How could he have been so foolish?

I'm sorry, he told her. I'm so sorry.

Her voice was muted. He felt himself falling, but he knew he had to listen. Maybe he was alone. They were alone. They could be loners together. How about that?

Regret, she communicated. Painful.

I know. Just let it pass.

Something in her voice told Alex that wasn't what she wanted to hear. He knew he had to listen, but he didn't want to. She'd latched on to Laura's words: Darkness must be cleansed. His breathing grew uneven as his manacles tightened. He saw himself then—saw her, shackled by a different set of chains. A glass enclosure. The townsfolk she was sworn to protect as their armor, sheltered in the foyer of that mansion. She watched helplessly as they were slaughtered, their blood splattering the glass on her display case.

Regret. Painful.

Nychta repeated her feelings over and over. Yet she never told him she didn't want them. He sensed no apathy from her. Rather, there was heat. Fire. He saw the moment a hulking man with red-flowing hair left her in that foyer, never to return.

"We've got dark days ahead, but keep protecting us, will ya?"

Alex felt Nychta's regret—every ounce of her pain.

Then beneath that…

Love.

The light that cast her shadow.

His eyes drooped and he grew drowsier and drowsier, until he was no longer Alex, but the Oslumnen armor he'd come to call Nychta. He was back in that mansion's foyer, being polished by a young boy with fiery red hair as he told her of his day. Closing his eyes, Alex slumbered. For a very, very long time.

* * *

Alex's eyes snapped open.

The chains dragged him back under, and he didn't fight it. A part of him had died that day. The dead should stay dead, he'd always told himself that. Yet that part of him clawed and screamed, fighting to make itself known. A voice inside told him he must not forget it. Nychta had never forgotten.

Open your eyes, that voice said.

So Alex did.

And he saw her there.

They walked along the beaches of Thule, him in his most casual fit, her with a crown of flowers in her hair. The crown wasn't anything so elegant as what Alex's sister could have braided, but he had done his best, and Laura wore it like a queen. The green stems intertwined as a canvas to red, white, and blue blossoming flowers. Her hair curled beneath the crown, framing her amber eyes, which burned like jewels into his heart. The beach had so much more color than when he had washed ashore just a few weeks earlier.

This was her doing.

She shone in his memory in pastel colors, dreamier and brighter than that town of painted buildings further inland. Her toes dug into sand as she stretched up to kiss him. The feeling of her lips imprinted onto his own.

"Do you wish this never happened?" she asked.

"No," he said, "I wish this could've lasted forever."

She smiled sadly. "But none of this really did happen, is that right?"

She had that look in her eyes, the one a woman had when they were testing a man. When they knew that there was a right answer and they wanted to impress upon him just how much hinged on him getting it right.

Her hand began to slip from Alex's grasp, and something primal rejected everything logic told him. He gripped Laura, pulling her close.

"It happened to me," he told her. "These memories, these feelings… They matter to me. And I must treasure them."

"All of them?" she asked.

Divine fire began to burn within him.

"All of them."

Alex brushed her cheek, his hand reaching this time. There was still sorrow in Laura's eyes, but her hurt was gone.

She mouthed the words.

"I know," he told her. "I love you too."

She smiled, and in her wry wrinkles, he could hear her laughter. From the peck she gave him, he memorized the feel of her lips. Then, in her amber eyes—even as they had been when she'd taken her last breath—he saw the strength in her. The resoluteness he envied and respected.

The ocean of blood drained until it was only a shallow sea of corpses. Alex was in the world of blood and darkness Anne called her domain once again. And in his lap lay Laura.

These final moments weren't how she would have wanted to be remembered. Yet for so long, they had been all Alex could recall of her: the cold of her skin, the blankness in her expression, the pain in her voice as she died.

No… you were so much more than that. She deserved to be remembered as more than that.

So he'd remember. The good and the bad. The dawn that rises before dusk falls. The feather falls in an infinite spiral, guided by gravity without mass. Yet it falls so the phoenix can rise.

Anew. Rebirthed. Reforged.

Nychta screamed for it—to reforge herself anew in the belly of these flames. He thought he understood what that meant. But had he?

How was he supposed to avenge her when couldn't even look her memory in the eyes?

How could he deign to be so arrogant to tame a Divine Core, yet reject the memories that tied him to it?

That storm of energy, which had seemed so distant before, loomed closer, and Alex knew he couldn't avert his eyes any longer. He let his last tears fall, then gently closed Laura's mouth and eyelids. He tucked her loose hairs behind her ear. Then, a petal-less daisy. She was dead, decapitated. But he could still see her smile—all those years in the past. And in her eyes, the futures they could've had.

Possibilities branched out before him: a life where they uplift one another through dark times, a future where he and Laura both accept Eric's offer to join his party. Together, they helped those that they could and left when there was nothing left on Earth to protect. They raised a family, built a home in a harsh and unforgiving universe. They had each other.

Certainly, there were other futures where Laura died—not just by Anne's hands, but in countless other ways. Futures where Alex suffered her loss and walked the same path he once did. The world was not kind to him, he always succumbed to the bitter darkness in his heart eventually.

And eventually, he'd learned to shy his eyes from even that.

Those futures flitted past, none within his grasp. Alex ran his fingers through Laura's hair. It was matted with blood, but her expression looked peaceful now. He kissed her forehead one final time before sending her off.

Then there was fire.

He heard laughter—cold, gaudy cackling from Anne as she stood over Laura's headless body. That impending storm finally reached Alex, and he felt his body explode with energy and anger. He felt around in the sea of blood for his sword and found Nychta. He stood, the drums of war beating in his heart, a distant chant guiding his rage as stomped toward Anne, towering over her. He was a lost, vengeful soul, and he didn't care how little sense it made, because this revenge mattered to him.

His chains rattled. It didn't even matter if she would never understand why—it just had to happen.

Yet, he did nothing. He gripped Nychta so tightly his palms bled. Then, he simply banished Anne from his mind. There was no catharsis in pretending that anything he did in his own mind could harm her. And there was only ever one way he could get her to stop haunting him. She had to die so Laura could live.

More than that, he just needed her to fucking die.

Alex didn't know when he had begun to cycle that storm of fire within his core, but somehow, it had found its direction. Storm within him was set ablaze with uncontrollable rage as his Divine Core lent fire. Laura's death flickered in his mind like, and with it, so did everything he'd lost that day.

Love, Nychta reminded him.

Hate.

He had never sensed such depth of emotion from his sword as he did now. Nychta was just as angry as he was—at the universe, if nothing else, for what it had done to her world and her people. At herself for failing to stop it, for her weakness. She burned and wanted more fire to burn with.

So Alex gave it to her. It was too much energy to cycle on his own, so they cycled it together. Not as partners, but as one. Because the truth was, they were one. Alone, together. Her wants were his because their very soul was shared. She wanted to cleanse this world, and so did he. He wanted to avenge Laura and so did she.

Their life was their own. But theirs, together.

The sun in his soul peeked out from behind shadowed clouds. His skin was already starting to tear and blister. He didn't dare stop cycling. The Lost Souls had finished their spell, but their chanting persisted, echoing in his heart if not in his ears. Through Nychta, he understood their pain—the irrevocable loss that pervaded this entire world. Yet they had suffered that loss and still found it in them to hate, to struggle against their bindings. And to remember what it was they'd lost in the first place. Alex wanted to yell that they were strong for that!

Instead, he decided to show them.

He rose to his feet. The chains Anne cast on him like a curse rose with him, threatening to shatter his core as it neared completion. Ever since that day, he had always heard their rattle when he found himself helpless. But the truth was, they were his own curse, and he had known them long before the Red Mistress. They were the harsh realities most people couldn't see, the brave ignored, and that heroes defied. They spoke to Alex, and because he was weak, he had always listened.

But now Alex was strong.

Strong enough to break them? No.

But strong enough to endure. Strong enough not to be broken! The Universe was vast, full of people stronger than him. Chains didn't make a man weak. A man was made weak when he gave up the struggle. But how can a man defy fate without struggle?! How can he command it without having fought to do so?!

Fire swirled as a maelstrom within his soul, powered by enough Divine Fire to fuel a new sun. The storm within him suffused his core, and its cracks were nearly healed. He had the kind of power at his fingertips most could only dream of. He was becoming the kind of monster that even nightmares feared.

Yet it all threatened to burst under the pressure of those chains.

His skin tore apart. His limbs stretched taut under their bindings. He was running out of time to integrate the Lost Soul's power with his Divine Core's energy and there didn't seem to be an end to any of it. Deeper within his inner-world, he heard the rush of river rapids. The coming tide. Blood threatened to drown him in its currents and turn his inner world into an ocean once more.

For it all to happen like it once did—he could imagine no fate worse. But unlike the Lost Souls, he'd made himself a slave in his own mind. And this time, he refused to be broken!

He stood in defiance of Anne's throne of bones. At this rate he wouldn't make it, but thoughts like that were no good. Change my past, rewrite my fate—what were those but empty platitudes! How was he supposed to blaze a new path forward if he was too scared to leave the one he'd once tread?

He raised Nychta in the face of the approaching waves. Lost Souls crowded his mind with their hate, but his life was his own. And more than that…

"I want to live!"

He roared his answer as he swung his blade, parting the waves. More came and he swung his sword again and again in defiance. He was not a slave to revenge. It would come as he willed. He would burn for his passion just as he burned for strength. He had told himself no more regrets. He had said it so many times, so when was he ever going to listen?

Now. He would listen now.

A fire erupted that set his chains ablaze and spread to the bodies at his feet. It didn't stop there. The waves he parted lost their luster, and his fire spread across the entire sea of blood, evaporating it, melting the very marrow of Anne's throne. Purple flames burned his inner world to ashes, until everything dead had been cremated. Finally, he saw what lay underneath this horrid ocean—a field of wilting, trampled flowers.

When the fire passed, only a scorched field remained. No matter how bright and colorful those flowers had been in full bloom, they represented futures that were lost to him now. Yet his trait told him something was still here.

Open your eyes, it said.

His gaze caught on a dull glimmer. Beneath the ashes of Laura's cremated remains, something green sprouted up. The future he still had. It was only a lone flower—no, just a bud—but it grew before his eyes, shining against the darkness. It needed sunlight, so he brought out the sun.

It bathed in Divine light.

Then it blossomed.

For just a second, Alex saw it flicker between countless different blooms as his Divine Energy finished integrating with his core. It didn't last. But that single second was so beautiful that he knew he could never close his eyes to it again. He saw his fate change.

Core has been formed!

ERROR: Soul Bond has been broken. Only one soul detected.

Alex brushed a sword with no cracks—a true extension of himself. Nychta radiated joy.

Then he looked at his final notification and things came into perspective.

Alex Smith is Beholden to Myth.

Trait has been Awakened.

Variant: One Truth.

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