Ruby`s Moon: Fragments of the Abyss

The phrase echoed in my mind, a mantra of despair. I have to try. But reality broke me. How? Why? I couldn't try. I tried, and tried again, and again, throwing my weak body against the solid wood. The dull thud of my shoulder crashing against the door was the only answer, a brutal refusal. Am I weak, or is this door made of steel? I didn't know, I couldn't think. How am I going to help? I don't know how to fight, only how to run and survive. And hide...

That feeling invaded my mind, a tide of poison drowning me. I felt weaker and weaker, the adrenaline from my fear draining away, leaving behind only exhaustion and hopelessness. Gradually, my efforts waned. My shoulders ached, my lungs burned, and the door remained impassive. What can I do? I'm useless...

At the moment of surrender, as I was about to slide to the floor in defeat, that sensation returned. Like the wave of a dark sea, the sound of the world was muffled again, and Elara's voice filled the vacuum.

I know you are weak.

Her words, slow and sharp, were both a balm and a curse.

You've always had to hide, to survive. What help will you be out there? The world is as large and vast as they said, and you won't be able to do anything.

Those words discouraged me and drained more strength from me than I could have imagined. I didn't know what to answer, didn't know what I should think, because she was right. I couldn't do anything. And that strength they said was the fruit of a curse? Can't I use it? The thought arose, a spark of desperate hope. But I don't know how. I don't know how to control it. And it hurt me. The pain I felt... I don't know if I want to feel that again. I might not be able to use it. I might end up killing myself and them too.

I'm afraid to live.

Why do I have to try so hard? What did I fight so hard for? To suffer through this? I don't know what's happening to me, let alone what's happening out there. If I can't help them, how can I help myself?

I looked around, panic giving way to a cold resignation. An office filled with shelves of leather-bound books, furniture too fancy for my understanding, but no windows. An elegant prison. An imposing desk in the center, with some papers and books stacked neatly, and a high-backed chair. But nothing. Nothing here could help me. I still couldn't hear the sound of the real world, didn't know what was happening on the other side of the door.

The voice continued, soft and persuasive. You know? I can help you with something. Let me be your strength, Kael, since you have none of your own.

Everything she said made me doubt. Was it really Elara? Everything Lyara told me about Beings and the Occult made me consider another option. Was it her speaking to me, or was it something else, just using her voice to manipulate me?

I didn't think in words, but it seems the entity felt my hesitation, my suspicion. It answered me the instant the idea arose, cutting through my own thoughts.

Kael, let me help you. I know how to control this power. I can get you out of here and keep the danger away from you.

At that moment, doubt became torture. I didn't know if I should listen to the voice or to people. People lie. People are cruel. They are something to be feared. And the voice? What is it? I don't want to be afraid, I don't want to suffer.

And then, the voice answered, as if reading the deepest desire of my soul. You don't have to suffer. Fear is natural. Learn to control it, and you will never suffer.

Those words... they had a touch of reason. For an instant, they made a terrible and absolute kind of sense. I accept. Whether it's Elara, something else, or the devil himself. Whatever it is, I can't go on like this.

The moment the silent "yes" formed in my mind, everything became distorted. The sensation was identical to the one in the cave. The office spun, the bookshelves liquefying into dark blurs, the desk contorting as if it were made of smoke. My body lost its weight before I fainted.

But this time, I saw. I saw something.

The red moon in the sky, a bad omen anywhere. But it was cracking. Not as if the moon itself were breaking apart, but as if a fissure was emerging from it, a scar of black light tearing open reality. And then, the moon shattered. The dark scenery changed with the violence of a blink. I saw stars, a city of lights that were not torches, tall, twisted trees that looked like claws against the night sky, and the energy... a visible energy, pulsing around me, around everything. It was so fast I couldn't quite understand it, but it was like a lucid, feverish dream.

And then, I woke up.

Misuki was standing before something. I couldn't comprehend what it was. It was large, formless, a mass of dark mist that seemed to absorb the light around it. Lyara was a little ahead, and part of the view was blocked by her. She was looking at me, her face a mask of pure terror, and applying something to my arm. My arm? Where is my arm?

I had no time to process. The pain hadn't arrived yet, only the numbing confusion. I remember no longer seeing my right arm from the shoulder down. I remember seeing Lyara hastily bandaging the stump, her hands trembling, her face pale, and her eyes wide with fear. The place... where were we? It wasn't the office. It was... somewhere else. Dark. Open. The air smelled of ozone and something else, something ancient and rotten.

Again, I blacked out. The darkness welcomed me like an old friend.

The darkness was shattered by a jolt. A violent lurch of the cart threw me against a wooden crate, and the sudden impact tore me from the void. For an instant, the panic was absolute. The last thing my mind remembered was the phantom pain of an arm being torn off, the terror on Lyara's face, the writhing dark mist. The feeling of that end was so real, so present, that the air that filled my lungs felt like a mistake, an impossibility. My eyes flew open, expecting to see the scene of horror, but found only the gloom inside a cart. The first thing I did, in a blind panic, was look at my right arm.

It was there.

Whole. No wounds, no bandages, the skin pale but intact. I raised my hand, flexed my fingers. They obeyed. A sigh of pure fear and relief escaped my lips. What had happened? Was that real? The memory was an open wound: the sight of my own ruined shoulder, Lyara's panic, the smell of ozone. I could almost feel the phantom pain, an agony that wasn't there but that my mind insisted on remembering. Was it a dream? A vision of what could have been? Or worse, a vision of what is yet to come? The terror came not from the pain, but from the uncertainty. I could no longer tell the difference between nightmare and wakefulness.

I looked around, trying to understand. I was in the back of a covered cart, the smell of damp hay and old wood filling the air. The rhythmic rocking told me we were moving. A few boxes and barrels were stacked near me, sliding slightly with each jolt. I could barely move in the cramped space. Suddenly, I heard the sound of the cart's canvas cover shifting. Someone looked in, a silhouette against the faint light filtering through. I couldn't see the face, but a deep, muffled voice said something I didn't understand.

Everything happened too fast. The feelings, the truth, the change of scenery. I barely had time to calm down, and when I managed to, something would come and shatter my reality into pieces. I didn't understand anything anymore. And honestly, little by little, I was truly giving up, becoming apathetic, an empty spectator to my own tragedy.

The cart stopped suddenly. The canvas at the back was thrown aside, and the daylight blinded me for an instant. Lyara was there. She looked well, but exhausted, with dark circles under her red eyes. And there was someone with her, a man standing just behind, whose presence seemed to absorb the light around him. He had long, black hair, tied back in a tight ponytail. His eyes were an intense orange, the color of honey, and they scanned everything with a predatory calm. He wore heavy clothes, made of rags and leather, in layers that would make it impossible to see any weapon he might be carrying. The intention was clear. He looked like a smuggler, or perhaps an assassin.

Lyara came closer and, without a word, hugged me tightly. I felt her body tremble. "Are you okay?" she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. She pulled away, searching my face, concern etched into her features.

I didn't answer. I just watched. The mysterious man behind her huffed, impatient. "We don't have time to be stopping. We have a long road ahead, and this place isn't safe."

His voice was like the scraping of stones. "We're crossing the Shadowwood. It's full of creatures that can kill us in the blink of an eye. It doesn't matter if it's day or night, this place exists only to annihilate any intruder."

Rage flashed in Lyara's eyes. "Time?" she spat the word. "Misuki and Jhonny gave us all the time in the world! They begged you to get us out of there, not to treat us like cargo! If you were going to show up, why didn't you do more? Why didn't you help them?"

The man remained impassive, but his honey-colored eyes narrowed slightly. "My job was to extract the 'package.' That's what I did. Their orders were clear, and orders are absolute. Your survival was the priority. Emotions are a luxury our path does not allow."

"'Priority'..." Lyara's voice broke. She looked at me, and the hatred on her face mixed with a deep pain. "They stayed behind... for him. And you just obeyed."

They sacrificed themselves for me? For my life and Lyara's? It didn't make sense. The guilt, which I thought couldn't get any heavier, found new depths to sink me into.

The man took a pair of dark glasses from his coat pocket and put them on. "If you want to stay behind with him, then stay. I'm not wasting any more time here."

As said, he turned his back and went back to the front of the cart. Seconds later, I felt the jolt as we started moving again. Lyara climbed in, sitting across from me in the tight space.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, her voice softer now. "It happened again, didn't it? That power... What did you see? Kael, please, talk to me."

I remained silent. There were no words. There was no reason to open my mouth. Time passed as the cart swayed. Lyara began to vent, the words coming out like a slow poison.

"I thought we weren't going to make it. Jhonny... he was already being followed when he brought you home. They didn't realize..."

Again, the feeling of guilt hit me. If it weren't for me, none of this would have happened. Maybe I was supposed to have died with Elara, back at the beginning.

"The person who attacked us... was a Cultist," she continued, her voice heavy with each word. "You don't face that kind of creature head-on. They need to be studied. Misuki and Jhonny... they're strong, but I don't know if they'll survive. And you..." she looked at my arm, then at my face. "...I didn't expect anything, much less for you to stay alive. It's a relief. But..." her face contorted in frustration. "...you were supposed to stay in that room, you bastard!"

The weight of her words came out as a few stubborn tears she hid in the corner of her eye. Should I feel hatred for myself? Should I say something? I don't know. And honestly, I don't want to know.

The journey in the cart became a blur of jolts and silence. Days merged into a gray monotony, punctuated only by brief stops from the orange-eyed guide to hunt or refill water. He never told us his name, and we never asked. Lyara tried to talk to me for the first few days, her words soft, full of questions I had no way of answering. Seeing my empty face, she too surrendered to the silence, a shared but terribly lonely grief that filled the cramped space between us.

I felt nothing. The guilt was an ocean so deep I had completely drowned, and now I floated in its dark depths, indifferent to everything. I was a body, a piece of cargo, the "package" that had cost the lives of everyone around me.

The journey ended as abruptly as it began. After what felt like an eternity, the cart stopped in a small, hidden valley, nestled between rocky hills and a dense, ancient forest. The place had no name, just a handful of wooden and stone houses built around a central well. A crude wooden palisade surrounded the small settlement, giving it the appearance of an outpost forgotten by time. The air was clean, cold, and smelled of pine and damp earth. It was a quiet place. Safe.

The guide, who I found out was named Félix, spoke briefly with an older, gray-bearded man who met us at the gate. There was an exchange of coins. Félix didn't give us a final glance; he simply turned his cart around and left, disappearing the same way he had appeared, like a shadow.

We were taken to a small cabin on the edge of the settlement. It was simple, with only two rooms, a stone fireplace, and worn furniture, but it was clean and dry. To me, it was just another place to exist.

The following weeks passed in a heavy silence. Time, which was once an enemy to be conquered, was now just a void to be filled. I saw the pain on Lyara's face, the grief for Misuki and Jhonny that she tried to process while taking care of a ghost.

One night, perhaps in the second week, the stillness was broken. I wasn't sleeping, just floating in a state of numbness. The sound that alerted me was almost imperceptible: the soft creak of a floorboard next to my makeshift bed. I kept my breathing slow and even, my eyes closed, but every fiber of my being was on high alert. I felt a presence over me, the warmth of another body in the cold night air. I felt the hatred. It was an emanation so dense and pure it was almost palpable, an intent that chilled my blood even through my apathy. Then, I heard the soft, metallic sound of a blade being drawn from a sheath.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drum in my silent body. This was it. The end. Brought by the hand of one of the few people I had left. For an eternal instant, she stood there, the blade hovering over me. I didn't understand the reason for the hatred, but there was no denying its presence. Then, I heard a choked sob, a sound of agony that shattered the murderous intent. The feeling of hatred faltered, crumbling into despair. I heard the dull thud of the knife falling to the floor, followed by the sound of hurried footsteps and the cabin door opening and closing. She was gone. I continued to pretend, lying in the darkness, with the knowledge that she had tried to kill me and, for some reason, had given up. The emptiness inside me grew a little colder.

In the days that followed, I pretended not to know anything. She didn't bring it up either. But something had changed. I would see her looking at me sometimes, and in her eyes, there was not only sadness, but a new layer of pain and self-loathing.

I spent my days sitting in a chair, staring at the wooden wall. The entity in my mind was quiet too. I didn't think. I didn't feel. I just was. A living monument to failure and, now, a dangerous secret.

Until, on one particularly cold night, something finally broke.

Lyara placed a plate with a piece of bread and a bowl of steaming stew on the small table in front of me. I sat, motionless as always. She stood for a moment, watching me. Her breathing was shaky.

"Kael..." her voice was a fragile whisper. "Please. Eat something."

Silence. My eyes didn't move from the wall.

I heard her take a step forward. Her hands clenched into fists.

"Are you just going to sit there forever?" The fragility in her voice vanished, replaced by an edge of rusted steel. "Are you going to sit there until you rot?"

The tone made me blink, but I didn't turn.

"ANSWER ME!" she screamed, and the sound made the flames in the fireplace dance. She rounded the table and grabbed the front of my shirt, forcing me to look at her. Her red eyes, which had always been calm, now burned with a desperate fury. Tears of anger streamed down her face. As she shook me, my eyes, against my will, focused on her forearm. There was a white linen bandage there, wrapped crudely, and a dark, reddish stain was seeping through the fabric. A cut. Recent. The image of the night she stood over me with the knife flooded my mind.

"Misuki... Jhonny..." she spat the names as if they were poison. "They stayed behind. They might be dead! And for what? So you could sit here, safe, feeling sorry for yourself?!"

The words were like physical blows, but the sight of the cut on her arm was a piercing stab of confusion. Her hatred... was it so great that it had turned against herself?

"Elara..." her name left Lyara's lips, and my world stopped. "'Don't let them erase you,' wasn't that what she said? Weren't those her last words to you? And what are you doing?" She shook me harder, her face inches from mine. "You erased yourself! You let them!"

The pain was so sudden, so sharp, it stole my breath. The apathy shattered like glass.

"I'd rather you screamed!" she sobbed, her anger breaking into pure agony. "I'd rather you hated me, that you broke every piece of furniture in this cabin! At least it would be something! This emptiness... this nothing you've become... it's an insult. To them. To her. To yourself! If you weren't going to live, then why did they bother to die?!"

She let me go, stumbling back as if my clothes had burned her. Her body shook with violent sobs, and she covered her face with her hands, finally collapsing under the weight of it all.

I stood there, paralyzed. But not by the emptiness. By the pain. The truth in her words, mixed with the terrible secret of that night and the sight of her wound... it was a whirlwind. I erased myself. I did exactly what Elara asked me not to do. I made her sacrifice and theirs in vain.

Slowly, like an old man moving for the first time in years, I lowered my head. I looked at my hands, which were trembling. And then, I felt something warm on my cheek. A single tear. Then another.

It wasn't a cry of despair. It was the thaw. The searing pain of feeling again.

My trembling hand reached out and picked up the piece of bread. I brought it to my mouth and took a bite. It tasted of ash and salt, but it was a taste. It was real.

Lyara, hearing the sound of chewing, peeked through her fingers. She saw my wet face, the expression of agony, the bread in my hand. The hatred on her face dissolved, replaced by an exhausted, trembling relief. Without another word, she turned and left the cabin, leaving me alone with the sound of my own pain and the bitter taste of the first step back to life.