Heaven's scorn foments and circulates above the highest peak of the mountain range. The earth splits. Rock tumbles. Mudslides gush and stream from the steep uphill. Winds blast the nearby palm trees, shredding their leaves and snapping their timber.
The wind's ominous howl increases in volume as the overcast forms a cylindrical stem. Starting thin, it snakes down and slowly thickens. The tip of the stem points downward and performs a touchdown on top of the mountain range.
If I didn't know any better, I would have believed it was the tail of a biblical beast hiding in the heavens, concealed from mortal eyes and sent to punish all life on earth for its sins. Purging wickedness from its lands and oceans - the great cleansing.
It drags its wrung tail down the mountain as the nephilim flee, prompting an exodus. Lightning rages on and strikes aimlessly within the roaring vortex, shredding the landscape. Ravaging anything within a radius. The temperature declines further. Calming the humidity. Cooling the heat on my skin. Hail pounds and bounces off Reven's gleaming wet armor. He steers himself in the other direction and changes course.
Then, in the east, south, and west, the storm generates two more vortexes, forcing Reven to backtrack. They amass tenfold in density and give the illusion of being further away. He scans in all directions, searching for a safe route prospect while standing in the focal point of three incoming tornadoes. We are at an impasse. Unable to proceed as the ghastly outer bands threaten to hurl us into their chaotic constitution.
Then all of a sudden, they come to an immediate standstill.
I can't believe what I'm seeing.
They discontinued all at once.
Just like that?
I squint at the east-southern tornado. There is a vague and hazy outline of a horned titan behind the clouded aerial bands. How is that even possible? Are my eyes deceiving me?
Have I gone mad?
The tornado should have torn them to pieces already. Whoever they are, they are going above and beyond the laws of nature. Reven sets me down on the ground.
"Reven?" He calmly walks towards the titan and leaves me behind without saying a word.
What's going on with him?
"Reven – wait!" Resistance takes hold of me and keeps me still. I can't follow him. He has weight and size to anchor him down, whereas I don't. I shout his name through the roaring winds – nothing. He can't hear me, and there is no telepathic or empathic response either.
The channel has gone quiet – too quiet.
A hand reaches out from the circling banner of dismal grey, and the light of Reven's soul shines out from his chest. Brightening with each step. It's as if he is in some sort of trance.
He needs to bloody snap out of it!
Those tornadoes are anything but normal, and I reckon that horned titan is controlling them somehow.
Hair-raising static prickles my knuckles. The teal aura around my hand is becoming more visible. I flex my fingers, and the apparition mimics accordingly. I take another look at the horned titan's hand; teal skin and hooked black talons.
I don't understand.
They are – the same?
My irrational possessiveness resurfaces again. My urging incentive of unfounded striving and the insatiable desire to claim his life force is compelling me. No. I don't want this!
No?
No–yes. I want it! I want to reclaim what is rightfully mine, for the core belongs to me.
No!
These aren't my thoughts. What the fuck is wrong with me? He belongs to no-one. I inhale deeply and shout his name again.
"REVEN!"
I cough forward, nearly choking on my own tongue. My throat is stripped of moisture and sore. Reven comes to a halt. He sways and reels back, appearing disoriented. He shakes his head and then stares around in bewilderment. He finally heard me. For a moment there, I thought I had lost him.
The hand retracts back into the aerial banner, and all three tornadoes simultaneously resume course as the horned titan walks towards us, acting as the driving force behind the triune of monstrous abnormalities. Reven's armored plating jounces and rattles. Alloy peels from his exterior and is sucked into the whirling winds of heaven's aerial behemoth. He groans through our connection. I drop to my knees and hug myself as the wretched intensity tears through me. It overwhelms my body, as though someone is physically stripping my flesh right down to the bone.
I clench my teeth and break into a cold sweat. Greeted by a spell of faintness. I snarl through the anguish like a wounded animal.
I want to reach out to him, but I can barely concentrate and find the strength to string words together.
The three biblical behemoths disband as the horned titan advances towards us in stride. Eight sanguine eyes bleed through the fading murkiness of airborne dust, grit, and debris. It swipes through the stubborn caliginous streaks, daring to linger. Banishing the triune with a swift, cutthroat act of its talons. The ominous creature that was once enshrouded within the vortex emerges wearing a dark cloak, with six curved horns protruding through its hood, and an enraged miniature lightning storm rampages through its atmospheric fabric.
A blanket of purple light enfolds around the entity, and it vanishes within a flash. Then it reappears in front of a confounded Reven, whose back is arched forward and unable to stand upright. Stripped of his armor and degraded to a frail skeleton. The horned entity thrusts its fist through his optic, shattering his glass lens. Water drains from the fragmented circle and pours onto the earth.
I curl over in despair – grappling with my soaked shirt. Paralyzed and tormented by the unbearable agony drilling through my skull. I don't know what to do with myself. All I can do is surrender pitifully and watch the scene from afar conclude. Its hand shoots out from the back of Reven's coned skull. Sparks and smoke discharge from the horizontal eruption.
It unclenches its fist and splays its wet fingers, relishing in the deliverance. The light of Reven's optic dulls and discolors to a lifeless grey. It clenches its fist before tearing it out, indifferent to the splintered glass slicing its skin.
Reven falls, and his back slams down on the earth with a thunderous bang. The horned entity stomps its foot down on his midsection and leans over as it lowers itself into a semi-crouched position. It plunges its hand deep into Reven's chest, clawing and scraping out his internal components. Littering the ground with alloy scraps and brittle fragments.
The shard?
I can feel the phantom sensation, worming around and rummaging inside my chest, splitting my ribcage apart. Tears race down my cheeks, merging with the running trails of rainwater.
The horned entity was the one who incidentally created the shard?
And the real reason as to why the piece was found in my subconscious was because it was a part of a memory – a memory from a past tense.
In other words, I am living the actual memory - right now.
Fate is already laughing at me. There is nothing I can do for him. Well, not anymore.
All I can do is curl up in a ball and weep. It was stupid of me to believe I was capable of fulfilling my promise to him. The malevolent being plucks out a pale cerulean sphere connected to cords of silver enrooted inside his central chest compartment. It slices through the cords and holds up the life force sphere - beholding its prize.
I can't feel him anymore. Our connection – it's gone. Disbanded. Severed.
The creature leers at me as gnarling thunder triumphs the dark skies, silhouetted against the lightning's erratic outbursts, bouncing from one end of the sky to the other. For some inexplicable reason, I find myself not afraid of it.
The intensity of the pain declines into a blissful numbness – a sweet relief.
I've exhausted all of my strength to stay conscious. My vision blackens. Whisking me away from the cruelness of reality, where Reven lies defeated and inanimate.