Rose Blumen ~ Exogignesthai 1

(Bleue)

It happened too fast. Numbed by the cold and the shock, I didn't have the time to react.

She suddenly was taken away, pulled by the nightmare inside its fog.

My lips got frost cuts as I yelled her name.

Suddenly, I find myself alone on this frozen water. She's nowhere to see. It's unbearable.

Passion and rationality want to act in different manners.

Rose has been taken from me. I have to get her back!

My feet are sinking already. First, I should save myself.

I don't know how much time Rose still got...

I swear and move forward faster, no matter how much it hurts. I'm pulling all of our luggage closer to the shore.

I think I should make sure I'm safe before running after her.

Rose, please don't die.

Not now, not yet. I wouldn't forgive you.

There is still too much I want to share and do with you.

My legs and hands hurt horribly and I'm gritting my teeth.

I reach a rock. The shore is just about a hundred metres beyond. That will do.

I pull the luggage there and reequip myself.

What took Rose is definitely alive, and not friendly. I hesitate for a moment between picking up Rose's rifle or my bow. I chose the latter. I take just two arrows, and Rose's knife. A torchlight, and I go.

I jump over the almost frozen water and run toward the hole in the sea.

~

Rose being pulled inside left some marks as she scratched what she could. The flow of her going through is visible. I trot toward the edge of the frozen castle.

A spiralling tunnel with caves, diving into the water here and there. Caves of water and ice.

The wind is pushing me down. I slide to the level below and reach a more solid ground, almost like rock. It's not quite ice and no longer water.

My warmth is still being sucked out of me through my feet, but I won't let go.

I almost vomit, because my heart and stomach hurt. I go for the nearest cave and ready an arrow as I step in.

The caves, alcoves on the upper levels of that large hole in the water, are just bubbles stuck in ice, with nothing but transparent walls all around. There's no furniture, nor nests noticeable.

All this this transparency where it's sheltered from the outside weather is making me a little dizzy.

But after five or six empty alcoves, I see something across the thickness of the water. I see Rose far below me, being dragged by something.

I clench my fists and go. Outside, I slide from level to level until I'm about where I saw them.

My face is numb. All my joints hurt. I walk into the tunnel, arrow ready.

Rose is unconscious. The monster is pulling her inside an altar of some sort. I glimpse at the dead fishes and broken boards scattered here and there. I don't think much because I'm scared. I shoot an arrow that pierces through the translucent beast like butter. The arrow even bounces back on the wall of ice behind it.

It kind of shrieks, like a faucet may when it's rusty. Because of its transparency, it's hard to say what this monster looks like. A giant walking octopus of some sort perhaps, with transparent hair and arms, very long and very thin.

It throws Rose aside, and comes at me.

I have my second arrow ready in a flash, and shoot it straight inside the beast's head as it rushes me.

The time it takes to shriek and step back, I'm running past it. I pass the sculpted pillars of ice, and rush to shake Rose. Her hair is a mess and there is frozen blood all over her face.

She looks dead, but I don't have the time to make sure.

I leave her and run to my arrows on the ground as the monster is on its way to me, making the screams of a clogged sink.

A tentacle wraps itself around my waist and crushed me. It takes me two or three seconds of pain to react, but I grab the knife and begin slicing this off.

Other arms come to hurt me and I get mad with the knife until I'm free.

Exhausted. Mad. Breathing painfully.

I manage to pick up an arrow and ready it, shaking a lot know. Slime and blood obstruct my view.

I yell at Rose to wake up.

B - I swear to you... If you killed her...

Your species will go extinct.

I shoot an arrow that probably misses. The next moment, a body is crushing me against the wall. My shoulder is bitten deep. As I yell, I unwillingly drop the knife. I yell in further panic now. I can feel my muscle in my back and torso being ripped and crushed between gravel or teeth.

My hands are either bouncing over the transparent cold leather of this thing, or piercing the fluid inside of it. I rip bits out, but can't do much more. I manage to crouch to get closer to the knife.

My right arm is getting bitten so I can protect my head and neck from it. I see the skin around my elbow dissolving between its transparent jaws.

My left hand managed to grab the knife back from the ground. Now I go berserkr on that beast. I yell and stab, as much and deep as I can.

All I can see is blood everywhere.

Where are you Rose?

~

I won't lie.

All my life, or lives, I've dreamt of seeing something slightly beyond reality.

Some magic. Or a daiûa. A being-like-her as she calls them.

I've had my share now... Too much?

The more I saw, the more I believed in my delusions...

I wanted to believe.

I wanted to dream this life...

I wanted a dream...

Facing reality and fighting to the death a monster is heart breaking to me.

I have to confess, I thought that it would be easier...

I was so drunk from my delusions, that I thought I wouldn't really be hurt.

Because reality so far felt like a dream...

So facing evil, being in a dire situation, I expected a Deus-ex-machina of my doing to solve everything.

Having been created, brought to life by people like Blume and Licht and Ogre, I almost... I expected really, to have some hidden power within me, that would reveal itself just in time and save me.

I dreamt of being a powerful witch, far more than becoming a princess, when I was little. I remember that.

I thought I was... dreaming.

These cold... These pains.

All I can hear in my head is the echoing sound of my yells. All I see is red. All I feel is pain.

The agony and the fear of losing Rose. The sad truth that no hidden power miraculously rose out of me when I really needed it.

It all brought me fully into reality in the most painful manner.

You're adult now, you'll have to survive by yourself, even against monsters that now roam the world.

The dream is over.

The only thing that could have been worst, would have been for Rose to really die this day.

I swear.

If reality is like that, so merciless at sudden times. If reality is no longer that half dreamt, half wished existence it was before, then I...

I need to tell her.

I need to tell her before we die.

I will tell Rose, and stop hoping that this sweet lull will go on longer or even forever. Because it won't.

It's been so sweet with her all this time...

I watched, and waited patiently for more.

Cowardly, enjoying the sap of this awaken lull. I loved it so much.

But now I don't want to risk it all again, when I realise we will face other deadly dangers.

I may not have all the time in the world, to reach and enjoy what I want and desire.

Almost dying. Almost losing her.

I won't risk my deep wishes over again. I will tell her.

~

I regained consciousness coughing water as the palace was collapsing.

Whether the beast died or fled when I was in trance, I will never know.

I feel awful and realise none of my makers put any hidden grandiose power in me as I came to wishfully think they would naturally have. I'm panting, covered in bloods and fluids that are at least half mine. I can't feel half of my body and limbs. Pain is fuzzy in my head now and it's not a good sign that I feel it less than before.

But I have no other power beyond what I just am. I must save myself with what's left of me, or I will die.

My right arm is dead weight. My frozen left arm is barely responsive.

I fall over Rose, using my weight to shock her. She coughs. She's about to drown as the water spills in.

I shake her and manage to grab her shoulder. She sorts of wakes up. She's not responsive but her body reacts like an automaton.

We stand up, as water reaches our ankles. I help her.

I pull her over the tunnel of melting ice. It's collapsing.

We go as fast as I can get our dead bodies to walk. And we'll make it.

We reach the air. The hole of ice is becoming a maelstrom as it's being filled. Water no longer frozen in time is flooding it from all around.

We make it barely over the paths going up. We slowly climb over the melting water, against flow growing stronger by the minute. We'll get swallowed if we don't keep up. Luckily, as the temperature rises, so do our strengths. We're almost on top and able to move better.

The hole is almost full as well. It's sinking.

I can't feel my breath nor my heartbeat anymore.

Everything is going dark in the corners of my sight, as we stagger toward the shore.

Rose fought many monsters.

She... Was it always like that?

It must have been easier with Blume by her side...

My throat feels suddenly awfully clogged, bringing a pain like non other to my chest.

I collapse, but I'm not abandoning Rose.

Never.

I stand up, my earing goes numb. My sight gradually vanishes. I pull Rose from the shore waters, and we manage to make the final few steps bringing us out of the water.

We reached land, alive, mostly.

I will never abandon you...

~