Garden Of The Abyss

After standing there for a moment, he took a step forward, and as he did–he blinked.

Once again, that minimal, mostly unnoticed action was once again noticed drastically as he paused for a moment.

He slowly looked down, seeing that the lifeless body at his feet wasn't one clad in obscuring, dark robes.

They were dressed in cobalt armor.

It was unmistakable; paired with the illustrious, black locks, he saw the pale, deathly expression of Adelheid, contorted by her rigged, contorted neck.

He immediately looked at his hands that had done the deed, then looked to the side, seeing the braided-haired man embedded in the brick wall to the left, blood spilling from seemingly every pore of his body.

Not a word went through his mind during this moment of realization, bringing his gaze forward as he confirmed the third, and last of the bodies, seeing Jonas, or the mangled body that could hardly be recognized as the man, lodged into the farthest wall of the cellar.

"...Shit," he brought his left hand to his face, plopping himself down on a crate as he sat for a moment.

It was a deception. I didn't fall asleep. I didn't cross through a doorway, yet…reality shifted again. Why? He thought about it for a moment, remembering the odd sensation of those two blinks, It couldn't be…blinking? That's just too much, though.

He didn't feel much shock or grief in his actions, only anger at himself. Seeing those corpses laid out, the visceral words of his amber-haired companion rung in his mind like a dull, repetitive alarm.

"Hubris."

There was no mistaking it; it was his own fault. He knew that much, yet his heart was not pulled. He felt pity, but not much else but superficial, fleeting sadness.

I let myself be taken that easily by the enemy's illusions, and I didn't even stop to think it could be such a thing. I was just confident that I could handle a few Belmon goons–not just that, I wanted to kill them.

Belmon, Belmon, Belmon; after what happened with Lucas, just the thought of it makes me seethe.

I did it again, he thought.

"I'm terrible," he told himself.

I became too strong. So strong that I can't even doubt myself, even when I'm wrong. "Power corrupts all", that's the saying, isn't it? he thought.

Sitting in that bloodied cellar of his own actions, he ran his fingers through his jet-black tufts with a long, drawn-out breath leaving his lips.

It's bad. I've always considered myself a "good person" or even a "selfless person", but being in this world for so long–it changes you. I've seen so much death, so much brutality, depravity, and horrors…I can hardly feel anything with this sight.

If it was one of my friends, I'd lash out and destroy everything around me, probably. But for these people I barely even met?

Nothing.

I should be crying. I should be beating myself up, crossing my heart that it'd never happen again, I should mourn them.

But, I can't. It's just the way this world works. It's unforgiving. It's horrid.

It's disgusting. My heart has been tainted by this world. Not only that…with the power I have, I feel distant from death. Like it's not even possible that I could die. It's so far away, so foreign, that I feel nothing towards it. That's why…I have to help that Sage with her goal quickly so I can return home. I have to return before their big brother returns as somebody not even recognizable, he told himself.

"I'm terrible…" He said once more as tears finally left his eyes, burying his face in his hands.

Tears weren't wept for the victims of his own lapse in judgment, but in lamentation of what his heart abandoned–the realization that he might have crossed a threshold long ago that can't be returned from.

After those sparse tears were shed, there wasn't any hesitance in his eyes. He looked forward with resolve.

I'll find her and get the hell out of here. That's all I can do now, he thought.

Picking himself up from his impromptu seat, he walked up the cellar stairs, finding himself in an unknown house.

It was old-fashioned, decorated with antiques and weathered paintings with dark, wooden floorboards that creaked with each step he took.

"They never told me where we even were," he sighed.

He ruffled his own locks as he aimlessly explored the unknown estate, finding that he was occupying a rather lavish mansion of sorts.

After ascending a set of velvet stairs, he found himself at a corridor that housed decorative sets of armor on display, as well as what looked to be treasured heirloom blades within glass displays.

"I'm guessing this is Adelheid's place then, or…was," he mumbled.

It didn't exactly feel right to him to snoop around the house of those who had fallen, but by walking around and exploring, he kept his mind off of what had just occurred by his own hands.

"Don't blink."

He repeated that to himself, either in a whisper or in his mind, over and over again as he learned gruesomely the effects of the most miniscule action.

Sitting down for a moment on a chair in one of the few lounge rooms, he pondered the approaches he could take to this situation.

Belmon has this city, at least in the shadows. They're pulling all the strings, that's for sure.

This "Dream Cycle" is controlled by Belmon, or more specifically, somebody who's a part of Belmon. So far, it seems to activate on three conditions: falling asleep, passing through a doorway, and blinking.

The first two conditions are manageable, but blinking…honestly, that's pretty much impossible to get around, he thought.

Rubbing his chin, he raised his magenta eyes that had been sharpened by a certain coldness, finding one idea in his mind.

If I do this, the mission will be over. There's no hiding it from anybody, and I'll be discovered pretty much right away.

I didn't want to make this decision until finding Emilia, but right now–it isn't the time to worry about that. Lives are at stake–hers and mine, he thought.

Standing up from his seat, his magical pressure began to build up in a veil that stretched across the interior of the mansion, scaling the walls with sporadic, infrequent strands of purple lightning.

When I'm forced to stay low on missions like this, I have to limit my magical pressure vastly. Otherwise, it's so suffocating that anybody with a lick of experience in magecraft would be able to sense me.

It's time to go all-out, he thought.