Lyanna… Lyanna.
Vaelith sprinted, his boots hammering against the floorboards until he skidded to a halt outside her door. His chest heaved. He was panting a strange, jarring sensation. He paused, resting a hand lightly against his forehead, and closed his eyes to draw in a sharp, stabilizing breath.
Ugh. This has never happened before. I don't winded this easily...
His gaze locked onto the heavy wood of Lyanna's door. But as his hand reached for the handle, his fingers froze. A sudden, bitter realization arrested his movements.
Why, Lyanna? Why must you make it so difficult to trust you?
Trust. It is nothing more than a word, yet it operates precisely like a key. To trust another human being is to hand them the key to the vault where you hide your most precious belongings.
Once they hold it, they can slip in under the cover of darkness, unlock the door, and plunder everything you value, turning it to their own selfish ends.
When the risk of ruin is so absolute, why do we humans willingly walk that path over and over again?
Is it for the sake of humanity? Or is it simply because we are terrified of the dark? We fear the absolute weight of loneliness, and in our desperation for companionship, we leave the secret doors of our souls unlocked.
But if we speak of humanity, then that is where I must stand.
Solitude is a passing storm, time will eventually carry it away . But if one is born human and lacks even a shred of humanity, then what was the point of existing at all?
Vaelith stood frozen before the door, the chaotic tempest of his thoughts warring with his stoic exterior. He let out a low, barely audible murmur.
Yes. You hid information from me that was your choice. If your thoughts are twisted toward our ruin, that is your malice. That is the corruption of your mind, Lyanna... and I refuse to let it corrupt mine.
With that cold resolve, Vaelith pushed the door open and stepped inside.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
Lyanna was sprawled across the center of her bed, her limbs thrown out haphazardly. Her body was trembling violently, vibrating with a grotesque, unnatural tension. It looked as though some unseen entity was violently suppressing her physical form, trying to subjugate her very soul.
Her flesh was present, a mere hollow vessel left behind, while her spirit seemed trapped somewhere deep within a distant, unreachable abyss.
Unable to comprehend the anomaly before him, Vaelith moved with rigid efficiency, closing the distance to the bedside. He knelt, his voice dropping to a low, measured softness.
"Lyanna? Lyanna, are you conscious?"
No response came from the hollow shell on the bed. Vaelith waited for a beat, his dark eyes analyzing her rigid form. He spoke again, his tone dripping with formal, detached caution.
"Lyanna, can you hear me? If not... forgive me for touching you ."
The moment his fingers brushed her hand to check for a pulse, a sudden, violent shift occurred.
Lyanna erupted into a piercing, agonizing scream. It was a guttural sound of pure torment as if an invisible blade, unseen by the normal eye, was brutally hacking away at her flesh from the inside out.
Alarm finally pierced Vaelith's calculated composure. He lunged forward, placing a firm hand on her trembling shoulder, leaning in close to her pale face.
"Lyanna! Lyanna, what is happening?!"
his voice strained against the rising horror in the room. "Answer me! Lyanna! Lyanna!"
Within the span of a single heartbeat, the atmospheric temperature skyrocketed. A suffocating, high intensity heat flooded the room, accompanied by a sudden flare of light that forcibly drew Vaelith's gaze.
His eyes locked onto the mark on Lyanna's hand.
It was the epicenter radiating a scorching wave of thermal energy and a blinding, unnatural luminescence.
Under the intense heat, her skin began to flush a violent, angry red. Vaelith snapped his gaze to her face, expecting to see her features contorted in agony, but what he saw struck him with eerie disbelief. Her expression remained utterly serene, perfectly still the face of a girl lost in an otherworldly, untroubled sleep.
The jarring contrast made him look back down at her hand, where he noticed the mark was actively mutating.
The original brand began to shift, the flesh warping and scarring itself into a new shape. A hollow, geometric circle formed directly over the image of the small sword, trapping the blade within its circumference. Then, tracing the outer edge of the circle, a small, grotesque silhouette began to manifest the distinct, segmented form of a juvenile centipede.
As the brand finalized its shape, the heat intensified exponentially. The raw, searing crimson flush began to creep upward from her hand, threatening to crawl up her arm and consume her entire spiritual vessel.
Seeing the grotesque transformation, a sudden realization clicked in Vaelith's mind, and a rare crack formed in his stoic facade. "No... this shouldn't be happening. Why would He go this far? Why would he do this to her? "
I thought Lyanna held the answers I desperately needed, Vaelith thought, his internal monologue twisting with cold cynicism.
" My trust in her was already bleeding out, nothing more than a dying ember . But seeing this... what am I supposed to believe now? Is Lyanna the one playing the deceiver, or is she merely a pawn being used by a greater power to deceive me? In the grand calculation of benefits and betrayal, who is truly holding the threads? "
For a long, heavy moment, Vaelith simply stared at her, his mind weighing the risks with cold precision.
Deciding his course, he extended both hands and firmly clasped her burning, marked flesh. He closed his eyes, centering his focus against the searing heat, and spoke not with panic, but with a commanding, low resonance.
"Lyanna. Wherever your consciousness is trapped right now... pull me into it. Come back. Do not let your own mind betray you ."
ELSEWHERE , within the surreal expanse.
When Lyanna pushed the window open, the sight of an infinite abyss lined with countless other windows initially paralyzed her with shock.
But in the very next breath, mocking laugh escaped her lips.
" How foolish of me, " she thought, a cynical sneer forming on her face.
" Vaelith was right. I am a moron. How could I even for a single second naively believe that escaping a trap of this magnitude would be as simple as finding a single exit? "
She surveyed the endless grid of glass and wood stretching into the vacuum.
But dwelling on that is useless now. Why are there so many? It doesn't matter.My sole objective is to find the one window that leads back to my real body.
Searching through an infinity of doors ,calling it a daunting task would be an understatement.
At this rate, it could take years centuries, even. I don't even know.
The real question is: how do I navigate this madness?
Lyanna stood in absolute silence, her mind calculating the variables. When no logical answer materialized, she forced her gaze onto a nearby pane.
Number 199, she noted, reading the phantom digits etched directly into the glass. " Let's try that one. But how do I reach it? "
The moment that burning desire for the window crystallized in her mind, the invisible ground beneath her feet began to shudder. A narrow, elongated bridge spawned from the void, threading its way from her position directly to the frame of window 199 .
A sharp glint flashed in Lyanna's eyes , " I see. In this realm, intent dictates reality. If I possess a strong enough desire for a destination, the path will manifest itself to accommodate me. "
Standing at the edge, she didn't hesitate. She leapt onto the narrow bridge and began navigating her way across with calculated precision until she stood flush against window 199.
Peering inside, she saw nothing but an unreadable void. She cast one final glance at the endless expanse around her, braced herself, and dove straight into the frame.
What is this…?
Disorientation hit her immediately. She felt no ground, only the weightless sensation of descending rapidly, dragged down by gravity. Her eyelids felt heavy, glued together by an immense atmospheric pressure. Fighting the resistance, she forced her eyes open and her breath caught.
She was free falling from the middle of a vast, open sky, hurtling toward a massive, churning ocean below.
Before her mind could fully process the drop, she crashed into the sea . The impact was deafening, but as she reflexively attempted to swim upward, thick, slimy tendrils erupted from the depths, wrapping around her limbs like iron shackles and pinning her in place.
Lyanna scanned the murky depths. From the shadows of the deep sea, a massive swarm of small silhouettes was converging on her location at terrifying speed.
As they breached the dim light, recognition set in , Cetopsis candiru .
Desperation took over. She thrashed wildly, trying to break free from the aquatic vines, but the violent movement only caused the rough tendrils to tear through her skin.
Pieces of her flesh ripped away, and a dark plume of crimson began to bloom, swirling into the cold ocean water.
The scent of blood drove the predators into a frenzy. The human eating fish Cetopsis candiru descended upon her like a cloud of locusts.
In a matter of seconds, they stripped the torn flesh from her arms and legs, leaving nothing . Then, a thousand pairs of predatory eyes locked onto the rest of her body.
Lyanna's face remained blank, her expression completely detached, yet her biological instincts screamed in terror. Her body convulsed, desperate to flee this agonizing torment, begging for a swift release from existence . But there was no escape. The swarm descended en masse, tearing her apart chunk by chunk, devouring her alive.
She was reduced to a helpless puppet, a passive observer to the brutal desecration of her own vessel, utterly powerless to resist. Bit by bit, her entire body was digested into the bellies of the swarm. Within minutes, nothing remained but a few fragmented bones and a heavy cloud of blood, drifting aimlessly in the indifferent ocean currents.
Lyanna snapped her eyes open.
She was back in the sterile white room , the exact spot where her journey had begun.
Without a moment's pause, she began to steel her resolve to return to the windows. But just as she took a step forward, a jarring realization struck her, freezing her in her tracks.
" Wait... how was I breathing under the water? "
During the heat of the moment, the sheer terror of the situation had crowded out all m thought.
" I knew that dying here would simply respawn me back somewhere . Yet, the moment death stared me in the face, my instincts took over. My body thrashed and panicked solely to escape the agony of mutilation. When survival becomes the only instinct, your mind strips away everything else.
But now that I am calm... I distinctly remember inhaling. Deep beneath the ocean waves, I was breathing perfectly finec. How?"
Lyanna stood in deep contemplation, the pieces of the puzzle slowly clicking together in her mind.
I see, she thought, a cold, calculating realization washing over her.
" Every path behind those windows contains a completely different environment. But it doesn't just change the scenery , it alters the rules. In each realm, a unique, latent power adapts to my body without my conscious awareness. I just need to figure out how to consciously wield them. "
Driven by this new revelation, Lyanna sprinted back along her previous path, navigating the void until she stood once more before the precipice of the infinite windows.
She cast her gaze across the sprawling grid, letting her eyes sweep over as many frames as her vision could capture.
" Since every window contains a fundamentally different path with its own set of rules, this structure must follow some form of hierarchy , " she reasoned,
her mind working with cold, methodical precision.
" There are two distinct possibilities. Either the danger scales downward from the highest number, concluding at number one, or it scales upward meaning window number one holds the absolute lowest threshold of agony, while the final window represents the apex of torment. "
She paused, her eyes narrowing as she weighed the options. " But which path do I choose? I have no way of knowing what the highest number is, nor how far into the abyss it lies. However, the first window is right here in front of me.
I will begin my next descent from Window Number One . "
The moment the command solidified in her mind, a narrow bridge materialized, spanning the gap between her ledge and the first frame.
Lyanna stepped onto the path, advancing toward the window without a trace of hesitation. When she reached the edge, she dove straight into the frame.
There was no point in overthinking. In a place where death was not final, hesitation was merely a waste of time.
Since her mortality was guaranteed by the rules of this realm, she could afford to endure whatever agony was demanded of her, utilizing the pain as currency to force her way forward.
"Mom, Dad, Big Brother! Come on, let's take a picture together!"
A sudden, vibrant voice shattered the silence. Lyanna snapped her eyes open. As she surveyed her new surroundings, her gaze locked onto a group standing a short distance away.
She was looking at herself. Or rather, a memory of her younger self.
The young Lyanna was sandwiched between her mother, father, and older brother, her face illuminated by a brilliant, carefree smile as they posed for a photograph. It was an expression of pure, unadulterated happiness , a warmth that felt entirely foreign to the person she was now..
Standing in the quiet vacuum of the memory, Lyanna kept her eyes fixed on the child, staring at her past self with unblinking intensity.