16-Chaos for the Fly

  -Chapter Start: The next day, August 13th, 2:48pm

  “Heya Daegon!” Duals, the CDS Dullahan, greeted with her usual warm, garbled cheer as I stepped once more into the lulling blue hallway. Her head drifted through the air, a soft flicker of green fire wreathing the skull as documents fluttered toward her like moths to a lantern.

  “Hey Duals, how’s work going?” I asked chipperly. Odd to say, but I felt lighter somehow. Even though I felt the whole explanation of events to Valia might have…

  “Oh, it’s great!” Duals chirped, spinning her head in a blur. As she twirled, her skeletal features began to fade beneath the shimmer of her projected face—long ghostly white hair streamed out behind her like ribbons caught in a breeze. When she came to a stop, her eyes gave one final theatrical roll before settling in place, her hair drifting to a slow, solemn sway. She made a few playful ‘bop’ sounds with her mouth before continuing. “Y’know, about as great as a Fae and Doppelganger trying to say they claimed a human first!”

  A dry, nervous laugh slipped from me as I stepped up to the desk. The suit of armor manning the counter beside her worked silently, the gentle green flame flickering where its neck should’ve been. It signed and sorted documents with eerie calm.

  “Hey Daegon, Ceyphyr put in a request for info for you yesterday.” Duals said, gliding closer with a crinkled, hastily scribbled form in hand—surprisingly neat handwriting, considering. “Something about another human? It’ll be ready by the end of the day, so don’t forget to thank her.”

  “Say who?” I asked, brow furrowed as I scanned the paper.

  “The sweet, short, spotted gal. Always like, ‘quick-quick!’ and zipping around everywhere.” Duals mimicked in a high-pitched voice, darting loops around me like a mischievous spirit.

  “Oh! The faun. I didn’t know that was her name… Say-fire, you said?”

  “Ssssaaayyyy-ffffuuurrr… Like that, but with flair.” Duals gave a theatrical hand flourish from her body. “Ceyphyr. Anyway, here’s your bundle for the day. Big wave of crew coming in, and not many of the ‘I won’t harm a human’ types. You’ll want to get moving.”

  Her armored body hauled a stack of packages onto the counter in front of me. I leaned forward to inspect them—then a massive, flaming hand slammed down beside me, scooping them up in one effortless motion.

  Startled, I stumbled back, heart spiking as I turned to see what took them.

  “Tjm'd yrjh nq tjhm, nqzdyzge.” The growl came in a deep, distorted garble, syllables crackling like stone splitting under pressure. The towering figure beside me radiated heat, literally. Its head kept a human shape, but barely jagged, fang-lined jaws framed a flattened reptilian-esque nose. Its eyes burned molten red-orange, so bright it hurt to meet their gaze. A crown of bone spurs jutted from its brow, curling like something grown from rage itself.

  Its skin was a battlefield of charred scales, blistered hide, and deep, firelit fissures that oozed heat. Some areas looked freshly cooled, like sculpted lava, while others glowed dangerously hot. Black-bronze fur streaked across its massive torso in coarse tufts, mingling with muscle that pulsed faintly with molten veins beneath.

  As the flames flickered down from its forearms, more details came into view. Long limbs, dense with power, ending in claws like carved embers, each digit wreathed with controlled, seething heat. It moved with the quiet suggestion that bipedalism was optional.

  Its legs were armored in thick, obsidian-like plates, smooth and heat-warped, ringed by that same coarse fur. Sparks snapped and cracked with each movement. A leathery tail flicked behind it with a sound like stone shattering, leaving glowing flecks against the polished floor.

  “Careful! We just cleaned up in here!” Duals barked, pointing accusingly at the glowing trail it left behind. The beast emitted a low, rumbling gargle that felt like it was mocking her, before turning away.

  “X'n rqzfxmc mjh.” The voice rolled from it again, deep and primal, like bedrock groaning.

  Duals body stood straight, nearly vaulting the desk in frustration before the creature strode toward a nearby doorway. Her head kept a bit behind the body, but definitely contorted into a face filled with rage.

  “Hey, human!” she called after me, tone pointed. “That’s your friend for the day. He knows the rules, so don’t fall for his griping. Watch his back, he’ll watch yours. He might be an ass, but he’s a reliable one.” She nearly shouted the last bit, probably choking back a few choice words.

  The beast raised one hand, and a Traveller’s Rune flared molten orange across its palm. The sealed door responded with a hiss and a crackle of heat as it opened.

  I hadn’t moved since it arrived, every instinct told me not to. Even after Duals' 'encouragement', my legs stayed locked.

  Then the beast paused, its head turning slowly toward me. The molten gaze wasn’t piercing me, it was waiting for me.

  A nod.

  Slow. Firm.

  Toward the door.

  “R-right.” I muttered, forcing a breath past my throat. “Trust the process. Get each other through the day.”

  I took a step, and followed the monster through.

  We appeared in a castle courtyard, hemmed in by towering stone walls choked with vines and ivy, their surfaces slick with moisture and age. A biting, unnatural cold clung to the air. Not frigid, but sharp enough to curl into your sleeves, like something waiting just beneath the skin. The rhythmic snap of fire rang out beneath my new partner’s steps as they advanced across the aged stone ground, now cloaked in a flowing blue flame.

  It took a beat to notice it how the fire subtly mimicked the CDS shirt. Even the way it shifted across their body matched the shape of the uniform, down to a pouch at their side that seemed stitched from the same material as my shirt.

  Before I could really process where we were or what exactly I was seeing, their leathery tail lashed out, wrapping around my arm and gripping the front of my shirt. The touch was hot, uncomfortably so even with the materials innate protection, and it yanked me forward with a sharp jolt just as the door slammed shut behind us.

  “Take.” The guttural voice rolled like molten stone cracking, as a heavier package was shoved into my chest. It wasn’t tossed, but it had weight. Enough to drive a stagger from me as I caught it. Before I could get a word out, the tail unwrapped, and a firm, heated pat thumped against my back, ushering me forward.

  “Not very talkative I take it?” I mumbled, half to myself, looking onward. Up ahead loomed a massive wooden door, arched and thick, wide enough to fit a small giant through if needed. It creaked ever so slightly, opened just enough to pass through.

  I advanced slowly, careful at first, until I found my stride. The strange thing was… I could feel the searing warmth of my partner close behind, but I couldn’t hear them. Not their footsteps, not even the hiss of their flame. And stranger still when I turned to glance their glow seemed to return, as though my eyes were the tether that anchored them into the world.

  “Do I have to see you in order to hear you speak as well?” I asked over my shoulder.

  No reply. Just the soundless press of presence.

  The entryway opened into a vast main hall, cavernous in height and broad enough to swallow ten of the courtyards behind us. Stone pillars stretched skyward into shadow, and the room was suspended somewhere between regal and ruin. Half-clean, half-covered in cobwebs, like it remembered its former purpose but hadn’t let go of the dust.

  Halfway in, I reached into my shirt, fingers brushing against the familiar texture of the Traveler’s Rune. I pulled it free and pressed it to the package. A faint, almost sleepy glow flickered from its center.

  Focusing for a moment, a surreal feeling swept over me as my eyes changed. The once empty room was now alive with minor entities sitting at tables, some floating above and around us, or merely resting on the walls and ceilings like bats, while two colossal forms guarded the door ahead of us. More surprising still, nothing came close despite my obvious realization of their existence. They all kept a respectful berth. Maybe because of her. More likely, because of the thing behind me.

  I turned, and even through the surreal haze, my partner’s aura was unmistakable… A radiant, molten blend of orange and gold. Like staring at a forge through thick, dark glass. If density and heat meant power… this one was close. Maybe not quite Zylas-level, but not far off either.

  Which left one very big question: Why was something like this working deliveries? Same with Jaskrim. What was CDS, really?

  In the midst of my wondering, a shadow fell across me. My partner loomed overhead, still hunched, but now clearly towering over me by at least a foot. The air smelled of scorched metal and something older, like earth baked too long under an unforgiving sun.

  Its stone-like neck cracked softly as its head tilted and gave what might have been a squint.

  “Human.” The word spilled out low, more breath than sound.

  Its eyes flicked between the Rune and the package, then toward the door where the two large sentries still waited.

  “Right.” I breathed, snapping back to task. The Rune shimmered faintly again, and a pulse of ethereal energy flowed between us and the door subtly.

  “Well… nothing ventured.” I whispered, and stepped forward, careful not to look too long at the blurred guardians as we crossed the threshold.

  An elaborate, throne-like room lay before us. Surprisingly modest in scale compared to the grandeur outside, but no less imposing. An unnatural darkness pooled through the air like ink in water, thick and heavy despite my enhanced sight. I could barely make out anything more than twelve feet ahead; beyond that, it was just shifting shadows and faint outlines, including what might’ve been a throne resting in the far distance.

  Still, it was enough to know: We weren’t alone.

  The moment we stepped in, I felt them. Gazes sharp, unrelenting, like invisible blades resting against my skin. Something very much aware had noticed me, and fear, quiet but persistent, found its way in.

  “Such a small man… For such a large package.”

  A female voice. Alluring, smooth, but laced with something wrong, something predatory. It circled the room, wrapping around my ears like silk drawn across a blade. Light clicks echoed against the stone… Heels maybe…? But it was impossible to tell if they came from the floor, walls, or somewhere else entirely.

  “It’s so dark, isn’t it? I can barely see you from here… but can you see me? Can you hear my heartbeat… the way I hear yours?”

  I swallowed the lump rising in my throat, adjusting the package in my arms as the weight of her words settled around me like fog.

  “I’m here with the CDS.” I announced, my voice a little shakier than I intended. “Can I… get your signature for this, please?”

  Perfume wafted past me. Sweet, flowery, almost familiar, but just a shade too sharp. It came from no direction and every direction, like she was weaving around me, just out of reach. I glanced back instinctively.

  My partner stood still. Watching. Not the room. Not the presence. Me.

  Utterly indifferent.

  “How about you keep that package…” the voice whispered again, playful now, “…and I sign for you instead?”

  I turned slowly, every hair on my body standing on end.

  “Are you a leg man, human?” she cooed.

  From the darkness ahead, something emerged. A massive, obsidian spike descending slowly, almost gracefully, before me. Sleek, smooth, wickedly pointed. Then another to its left. A third to its right.

  Legs.

  I looked up. Whatever she was, she was above us now, coiled in shadow, shrouded in a form I couldn’t define. A looming, feminine mass just out of focus. I couldn’t see her face. Not yet. But I felt her watching.

  “There’s more to that box than just its contents…” she purred. “Wouldn’t you like to open it? You might find something… unexpected.”

  I gulped, glancing back. My partner was now inches from me, his heat radiating across my back like a living furnace. I took a few cautious steps forward.

  From the gloom, a feminine figure began to coalesce, slowly sculpted out of shadow and ember. Her skin gleamed porcelain white in the glow of my partner’s flames, and she wore a deep crimson gown embroidered with intricate floral patterns and gold trim. Her face was hidden behind a finely-woven cloth mask, but her eyes... Her eyes were impossibly green, and her irises twisted with strange, kaleidoscopic patterns.

  “Closer, human… Just a bit more.” she beckoned with a voice soaked in dark velvet. “I promise I won’t bite.” Her arms opened in welcome.

  “Well…” She added, lips curled unseen beneath the cloth. “At least not hard.”

  “I-I’m seeing someone, thanks.” I stammered, halting a few paces from her. “Can you… take this, please?”

  She was shorter than me at first. But everything about her presence screamed wrong. The kind of wrong that pressed against the edge of reality like a fist behind glass.

  I held the box forward, watching her motionless form… Until it wasn’t. Between one blink and the next, she had closed the distance, now mere inches from my face. The cold perfume of something venomous filled the air between us.

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  I didn’t move. Didn’t flinch.

  I could feel her eyes—all eight of them—boring into me. Her arms slid up to my elbows. Claws… No, talons, danced lightly along my arms like they were testing the grain of the wood before carving it open. Even her dress slinked open slightly, exposing just enough to test for weakness. Seduction as camouflage.

  But that wasn’t what froze me.

  It was the shape that followed. I finally caught a glimpse of her true form towering behind the “woman”. A vast, horrific mass that swallowed the space above us, with two elongated legs barely visible in the gloom. The dainty figure was nothing but bait. The real body coiled behind her, hidden in layers of glamour and shadow.

  “It’s so easy for humans to mistake things in the dark.” She whispered as a spectral contract flared into view between us. “Are you sure I can’t help you see what truly stands before you?”

  “N-no thanks.” I muttered, forcing a laugh as I shuffled backward. “I’m fine not knowing your true terrifying appearance.”

  I bumped into my partner.

  Looking up, I found him standing at full height, truly full height. He was far taller than Zylas. Taller even than Jaskrim. His entire form burned now with blue hellfire, illuminating the far corners of the chamber and even licking at the ceiling. Somehow, he’d scaled himself down earlier, but that was a puzzle for another time.

  The only true darkness now was the one ahead, the one that whispered.

  She giggled a low, devilish trill, as the contract was consumed by blue flame.

  “Oh dear… it seems your job’s completed. Perhaps you’ll visit another time?”

  “Only if I’m ordered to.” I muttered quickly, edging toward my partner and backing away to keep the abyss in view.

  My partner let out a low, garbled growl before turning on his heel. He strode toward the exit with his usual, impossible weight. The shadows nipped playfully at his heels before slinking back into the gloom.

  I hurried after him.

  Just as we neared the threshold, his hand wrapped around my shoulder again, firm and heated. He paused. His other hand reached for the door.

  “I knew you couldn’t resist the temptation.” the voice cooed behind us, playful and taunting. “Stay a while. I’ll make it worth your time.”

  “What are you—” I started, but my words caught.

  My partner raised his Traveler’s Rune to the giant door. It hummed violently, glowing a brilliant white-hot hue. A heavy click echoed from within the door’s frame.

  He moved forward, gently pushing me with him, and the door creaked open to a blinding light.

  So bright I had to shield my eyes.

  Behind us, even the darkness recoiled.

  As my vision adjusted, I looked back one last time.

  The woman… That… Thing. Still lingered, barely visible in the retreating gloom.

  “I’ll remember you, human.” she whispered with syruped malice. “One who crossed my threshold. Who now carries this place with you… in your heart… Or your nightmares.”

  I said nothing. I just walked through.

  And didn’t look back again.

  Compared to the rigid, stone-soaked halls of the castle with its dim lights and crowded, cryptid ambiance. This was…

  “Where the hell are we?” I muttered, slamming the door behind me with more force than I intended.

  Before us stretched an endless sea of golden-yellow dirt, fine and sifted like flour. No… Sand. And a lot of it.

  “Only once have I ever seen sand like this… and even that was nothing compared to this.” I stared out over the surreal horizon, the heat rolling off it in thick, rippling waves. The sudden shift from cold stone to baking air left my skin clammy, my breath shallow. “This is an absurd amount.”

  Turning around, I froze.

  The door we’d come through had shrunk, it was smaller than the towering gates we’d originally entered through. Now, it looked like just another weathered archway set into the back wall of an expansive desert village.

  A village?

  Buildings rose behind me, sculpted from pale clay and adorned with awnings of dyed fabrics. Colorful stalls and market streets branched in all directions, though no one seemed to notice us. My partner was already striding ahead down what could only be described as a main road, if the worn-down footprints and occasional cart ruts were any sign.

  It took a minute of brisk jogging to catch up. The worst part? I had to dodge the smoothed, glistening trails of glass forming in his wake. Wherever his molten limbs touched the sand, it fused.

  I finally caught him near the far edge of the village, panting lightly. He held his Traveler’s Rune high, the symbol flaring briefly as it scanned whatever lay ahead.

  Our journey dragged for what felt like over an hour. Endless elevation shifts going up, down, then up again gnawed at my already worn stamina. I had to call out, stopping his relentless march just to catch my breath. I wasn’t back to one-hundred percent, not even close.

  I collapsed onto the side of a dune, letting myself rest just for a few minutes… Until I realized I was slowly sinking.

  The ground beneath me trembled with a strange pulse.

  I pushed up on one arm and glanced around while the sand shimmered unnaturally. My partner paused, lifting the Traveler’s Rune high again, and this time, instead of continuing, he turned back to me, and tossed the entire bag of packages.

  I barely sat up in time to catch it.

  The weight alone would make me struggle to move it, much less carry it. The force of it shoved me back into the dune, forcing an impromptu seat to whatever was about to happen.

  Before I could ask what the hell was going on, his body surged in size once more, his molten limbs pulsing heat in waves that distorted the air. Then, his blue flame exploded into a frenzy.

  A deafening howl shattered the stillness.

  The sand next to him erupted.

  A massive reptilian beast, easily forty feet long, burst from beneath the surface with its maw wide open. In one blinding instant, my partner met its charge with a hellish roar and a tidal wave of searing blue fire, forcing the creature back in a shriek of pain. It flailed violently, then hastily dug itself back into the dunes to escape the inferno.

  My partner lunged forward on all fours, refusing to let it go. He plunged his claws deep into its retreating tail, raking off massive chunks of flesh in a spray of heat and gore. But the beast thrashed and kicked, a lucky hit.

  He went flying, slamming down next to me in a violent impact that launched a wall of sand into the air.

  I tumbled down the dune, barely escaping the splash zone. Dazed and sand-caked, I scrambled upright just as he rose to his feet again, but the creature had vanished. All that remained was a dark pool of blood-red sand and a warped, scorched-glass outline marking where it had been.

  “What the fuck was that?!” I coughed, spitting out sand and blinking grit from my eyes.

  My partner let out a deep, chthonic roar and unleashed another torrent of fire across the dune, melting everything in its path. The golden expanse below turned into a rippling sea of liquid death.

  “I think you scared it off!” I shouted, panic rising at the thought of sliding back into that newly-formed lava trap.

  He turned toward me slowly, fire still dripping from his jagged jaw.

  “Weak.” he garbled, with molten finality.

  “For you.” I muttered, brushing myself off. “Hey, are you alright?”

  I looked around, trying to ground myself, then downward at the now-hardening molten pools. The destruction was... breathtaking. The crater where he'd landed had formed a bowl of gleaming glass, like a god had left his fingerprint behind. It probably saved him if I had to assume, slowing the impact or keeping him from breaking straight through the dune. Beautiful. Terrifying.

  He gave a slow, gravel-grinding nod.

  I turned to the bundle of remaining packages. Giving it my all, I only managed to budge it a few inches. In fact, the shift in weight sent us sliding slightly down the dune. That’s when I felt it: a sharp rise in heat before I saw him. I backed away quickly as his radiating heat was now piercing through even my protective layers.

  He held up the Traveler’s Rune once more as he easily picked up the bundle, and without a word we were off again.

  The walk after that was brief compared to our earlier hike. Our feet struck sandstone blocks barely buried beneath a layer of dust. Nothing around us suggested this area held any significance, just more sand, more ruin. And yet…

  Something about this place felt… different.

  A shade darker, like the light itself bent subtly around it. The air hummed with an aura, invisible yet painting everything in hues not of this world.

  “Sooo… do we leave it here?” I asked aloud, not expecting a reply.

  Then a low, whipped crack from my partner ripped through the air. I looked over.

  Before him, a massive dune moved. Not shifting. Not collapsing.

  Moved. Silently. Ominously.

  Compared to the reptilian beast from before, this thing was a goddamn continent. The sand curled upward, spiraling endlessly, coiling like a spring. Then it manifested.

  Hundreds of feet of colossal, scaled snake rose from the dune, casting a shadow over the entire valley. Its body rippled with spikes, some so large they looked like towers. Despite its emergence, the temperature dropped. The air chilled.

  Yet my partner stood still. Calm.

  The aura this thing gave off wasn’t just power. It was reverence.

  ‘It would be a challenge for your body, but doable.’ Lilith purred from the recesses of my mind, playfully toying with the thoughts. ‘Enjoying the use of my eyes, little Daegon?’

  “They didn’t really work on the last creature… But, they’re growing on me.” I spoke absently, eyes glued to the monster before us. Compared to the town we'd left behind; this thing could swallow it whole, with room to spare. Every subtle movement sent waves of sand tumbling from its body. The ground trembled with each breath it took. Its massive yellow eyes fixed on us… Watching, measuring.

  ‘Careful, if you use them too long, they might just become permanent.’ she cooed with a rare, amused laugh. ‘As long as you don’t try to fight this Guardian, I think we’ll be fine.’

  “Yeah, because fighting is exactly what came to mind when I saw this.” I muttered, dry and hollow as I tried to peel my gaze away. The sheer scope of it was maddening.

  As I regained some composure, I noticed my partner was already several feet ahead. Another figure stood near him. They were tall, wrapped in sand-caked cloths, almost monastic in appearance. My partner handed off package after package, and with each exchange, a contract burned briefly in blue flame before vanishing like smoke. My gaze returned to the colossus, as another wave of sand found its way off the beast. For such a creature to exist… My mind couldn’t truly wrap around the how, much less the why this existed. During my minor bout of existential reflection, my partner returned to my side.

  The colossus still loomed over us, silent and observant. And though my partner had been the one delivering the goods, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was the one it was watching.

  “Final. One.” my partner said, his voice dragging low and ancient, something that echoed more than it spoke. The guttural churn of it had begun to feel familiar now, a sound that crawled along the base of my spine rather than passed through my ears.

  He extended a small metal case, no larger than an envelope, yet etched with such precision it looked sculpted by something outside time. I reached for it, and froze.

  His hand held no warmth. Not even the dying embers of residual heat his claws held reached me. The case was the same. Cold, lifeless, unnervingly still.

  I brought it closer, turning it over with slow, cautious fingers, hoping to glimpse a symbol, a clue, anything to hint where this thing was going, or what it was meant for.

  The runes on its underside were inlaid in gold, but they didn’t glow. They pulsed. Dimly. Rhythmically. Each symbol impossibly precise, like they had been carved directly into reality itself. They didn’t shimmer, they watched.

  And then the sickness came.

  My stomach twisted. My head reeled. I tore my eyes away as something inside me began to unravel, as if merely observing the object had invited it to peel back layers of my mind. A pressure built behind my eyes, cold and deep, like water pressing in from all sides.

  I flipped the case back over and shoved it into my shirt pocket with shaking hands, chest heaving as I staggered slightly before catching myself. The moment it touched fabric, the sensation ceased. Instantly. Cleanly.

  Whatever this was… It wasn’t meant to be understood, at least not by anything human. It didn’t just feel heavy: It felt anchored. As though it had chosen its place. As if it had always been meant to rest just there, over my heart, until the end of its journey.

  And it wasn’t going to move until then.

  ‘You should know better than to look at things that don’t belong to you.’ Lilith’s voice rippled through my mind with a teasing maternal scolding, but not unkind. Her eyes turned off immediately on contact with the final delivery, and a painful ebb and flow of pain remained in its place.

  “That’s how I ended up with you, right?” I groaned, while attempting to keep pace with my molten partner. Lilith gave a playful hum of amusement, but let the subject die there. She slowly receded to the back parts of my mind, likely going back to rest... We managed to make it to a dilapidated house a much shorter distance than our arrival area, and into the new area the Traveler’s Rune wisped us away.

  From the shattered grandeur of a forgotten castle, to a scorched land of heat, giant beasts, and sand… Now we stood in a place where even silence had depth. A realm so quiet, it felt like sound it self was frozen. It was serene and beautiful, in a way that didn’t feel entirely safe.

  The cold here wasn’t cruel. It was complete. A calm night stretched over a landscape dusted in stillness, where beauty and distortion blended together like watercolor left in the snow. The sky above didn’t just shimmer—it moved, auroras drifting past and sometimes through us, more like thoughts than lights.

  Behind us, the building groaned as wind howled through its bones. Snow kicked up in sudden flurries, stinging my face. I turned, catching a flicker of light near the base of a half-buried sign.

  The letters glowed faintly, half-choked by frost and time.

  Svalbard Global—

  The rest had long since disappeared beneath the ice. Nearly immediately I felt what little heat there was moving away from me, as I realized my partner was carving a path through the snow, his path a relentless march. I quickly turned about to catch up, and avoiding any pools of water that began to form in his wake.

  “Is there anything your fire can’t fix?” I asked, knowing full well there wouldn’t be an answer. He crossed his arms anyway, giving me some kind of response I couldn’t decipher.

  I pulled out my Traveler’s Rune, and lightly tapped it against the metal box in my shirt pocket. It flared to life, glowing a deep unknowable color, something that defied comprehension. Even without looking, I knew exactly what to go to.

  Ten minutes.

  Twenty...

  Thirty…

  A large body of water bled through in the distance, as the land began to give way to its size. We stood on a large barren plateau, with an eerie forgotten tower in the distance. Yet, something felt different. Something felt… Here, with us. A strange chill slipped down my spine, not from the cold but something deeper. Watching. Waiting. The area remained utterly soundless. No movement, no wind, no sky breathing overhead. Even my partner...

  “W-wait, are you alright?” I rushed to his side, stepping in front of him.

  He stood frozen in place. Mid-breath. His molten fissures no longer pulsed, they just hung there locked in time.

  I spun around, searching for anything, even glancing upward in desperation. The stillness was impossible. Time had stopped.

  I focused, forcing Lilith’s eyes to awaken once more. No auras. No movement. No creatures. Turning back to check my partner, I nearly collided with-

  A raw, primal rage exploded inside me. Seething. Unholy. Without warning or cause. I staggered under the weight of it.

  Lilith...

  But the rage faded as quickly as it came, as though recognizing what stood before us.

  The creature had a hand resting on my partner’s shoulder. Just a gentle touch, gazing silently into his still face before slowly turning to me.

  “Every life, like a fleeting star...”

  Her voice was a low, tragic melody. A song caught in sorrow. She was tall, so eerily beautiful in a way that shouldn’t exist. Her face elongated, ethereal, shifting between substance and concept. It reminded me of old tales, of angels. Of something divine distorted by truth.

  “Twilight left Unchained, released of Eternal torment.”

  She turned to face me fully, brushing her hand across my partner’s cheek. High cheekbones, a narrow jaw, and luminous skin that appeared to hold moonlight inside it. Her eyes were twin abysses, color shifting slowly like oil across dark water. There was something in them… A deep sadness, yes, but also wisdom, longing for… They held an ancient kind of grief.

  “You yearn for something already held so close. But fear shadows your steps... Within yourself, and those once forgotten, now remembered.”

  Her voice wrapped around me like perfume. Like silk over barbed wire. Arousing joy and heartbreak in equal measure. She reached out with hands shaped of bone and glassy porcelain, elegant and fragile. Her fingertips touched my face. Euphoria and emptiness clashed and merged, becoming one. Cold longing wrapped around my skull in a terrible, gentle embrace.

  “You’ve gazed into the Great Beyond.” she said, her voice now part of the air itself. “And you’ve come to deliver that which you’ve seen.”

  I hadn’t noticed when she sat me down. Her solemn smile told me it had been some time. She rose to her full height, and I saw all of her. Her form was slender, elegant, but carried a weight that didn’t show. Her skin was almost translucent alabaster, with glowing blue veins threading through like constellations beneath flesh. Her legs, graceful and deadly, gave her an impossible poise.

  A slow, open stretch revealed two massive wings of light. Spectral. Divine. Each feather-like fold shimmered with starlight, entire constellations bound within them. Frost crowned the edges, sparkling with inevitability.

  “The box, human.”

  She extended a hand to help me stand. Her touch broke the infinity I had been trapped inside since she appeared.

  “Wh-what are you.” I asked. My throat was parched beyond belief. She tilted her head in faint amusement. A small smile touched her lips.

  “The one within cried Arch-Angel. The past called me the Mother of Winter.” she said, lifting me with ease. “Perhaps I am both. Or perhaps I am only Entropy.”

  Her fingers moved like water through time, bending space around them. My vision blurred. Then… A waterskin was in my hands, filled to the brim. She gave a quiet nod, and without a second thought I drank deeply.

  The clearest water I’d ever tasted. Cool, quenching, perfect. She watched, hope flickering behind her eyes as I lowered the skin. The… What was I doing? I wasn’t holding anything...

  “I… Have a delivery for you.” I said, mind gradually stitching itself back together. I looked to my frozen companion. “Will my partner be fine?”

  “He shall be fine, as you shall be. Both before, and after.”

  I reached into my pocket. The item should have been there, whatever it was. Instead, I found only the CDS contract. Tangible. Physically signed.

  “New paths, old desires.” she whispered. “To witness a fundamental shift of all that was, and all that will be.”

  There was a long pause. Then her final words:

  “Would you forgive her for all that’s been done, and all that will be done?”

  The question cut deep. Lilith? Seren? Could I forgive either of them? Was this about them, or… Was it about another?

  Whatever answer I gave, now or later, seemed enough for her.

  “Entropy” smiled.

  O-oh, a-all of the above?

  10 minutes before my 'post every other day during the write-a-thon' challenge I've set for myself. I'm trying to break things up a little bit more, trying to emphasize a bit more (sometimes with only 1 word sentences). More of this will probably pop up in the future, but your feedback is always appreciated..

  I'll believe in the you, who believes in me.