It was dark... Everything was.
The grunts and low breaths of two Exhausted individuals could be heard as they struggled frantically for survival.
Then, it all stopped... Everything.
At that moment, a weak, low voice penetrated the dark And silence
"... I'm sorry..." An even greater silence followed.
Utsuro who had lost consciousness jolted awake in the ocean at the remembrance of what he had vowed to bury.
The waves of the ocean had stopped and lay in rest. Then he felt a presence, something that felt familiar..."erebus... Is that you? " Utsuro thought weakly in his head but got silence as an answer.
He was sure it was erebus. But something was wrong. He couldn't feel erebus's presence in the past. Was this the effect of naming it? After all, the runes did announce that their bond had grown deeper.
Erebus steadily floated in a direction and utsuro,sensing it's presence followed it.
He swam as quickly as he could his lungs dry and burning hot, his chest tight and feeling compressed and his body feeling heavier by the second. Was he going to make it? He didn't think so, but he had to.
On the shores of a small... Very, very, very small island... Okay lemme make it clearer.
This wasn't an island, it was just a small heap of sand big enough to barely accommodate 10 people. Like the ones you see in cartoons only, this one didn't have a tree in the middle.
The girl was there pacing back and forth. "It's night time already, why hasn't the ring formed already? Could it be that he hasn't lost consciousness? Did he die? No, no, no that's impossible. An individual would be pulled out of this space and healed immediately he/she gets knocked out so he couldn't have died right? "
"What if there was a malfunction in the spell and he wasn't pulled out...? It's all my fault. I had the chance to save him but I didn't hoping that he would faint and get pulled out and now he's dead. I'm a terrible person! "
The girl was battling with her conscience, thinking of what to do when a hand slowly emerged from the ocean in front of her scaring the girl out of her wits
"Ghost!!! " She screamed
The figure turned out to be Erebus who swiftly blasted itself towards her, completely melting through her upper right side.
She had practically been turned into an apple emoji with her left hand missing and a hole in her left upper chest.
Utsuro then manifested from the gently swaying ocean... He was done doing charity.
The girl looked in shock, her eyes opened wide staring into the distant space as blood gushed down in abundance. She fell to the ground, quickly disintegrating into countless blue Micro lights.
After that, another ring began to form, emitting a red majestic glow. And like the ring before, it turned into a pitch black, ghostly aura and engulfed utsuro making him disappear as the ghostly aura slowly faded.
Utsuro appeared in the large hall where announcements used to be made. "What is this? " he asked himself. Barney then calmly walked out from behind a gigantic pillar "hey kid, the third phase of the evaluation has been postponed till next month. Until then, you'll have to keep training."
"Oh, okay" utsuro said before slowly turning to the direction of the hall where the room was. "He doesn't seem to be in a good mood. " Barney said to himself.
Utsuro didn't go to his room but instead, walked into a shrine like space. The space was like a temple, a place of worship.
It was gigantic with wide gargantuan pillars holding it up. Utsuro walked to the deepest parts of the temple where the Alter lay.
Hidden perfectly and masterfully behind the alter, there was a ring. The symbols on this ring were different from the others, and this ring lacked a mark in the middle.
He stepped inside the ring and after a few moments, he disappeared. The next place utsuro found himself was on the unimaginably gargantuan infrastructure built on the safe grounds of haven.
The infrastructure was so tall that utsuro couldn't see the ground for the clouds that were so far below covered it.
Even the abnormally gigantic clouds looked like mere ants in the face of this infrastructure. Utsuro had found this by mistake when he tripped and tumbled against the Alter on one of his explorations.
This was the only ring he knew that led directly outside haven. The rest just led to different parts of the interiors of haven. All rings that led to outdoor sceneries like where barney used to train utsuro were just spells and illusions created by different veteran ascended, they weren't real.
Utsuro held his forehead, wincing as fractions of memories of the past began to flash in his head.
The frail boy dropped to his knees, light tears welling in his eyes. He slapped his hands on his ears, covering them tightly. He pressed against them so hard that those ears began to bleed but, this was nothing close to his inner turmoil.
The specific words "I'm sorry" echoed in an infinite loop making his head ache ten times more painful.
Grunts and heavy, short breaths just couldn't stop echoing in his head. Utsuro gave a low shout as the echoes became increasingly audible.
"I'm sorry"
"I'm sorry"
"I'm sorry"
"I'm sorry! "
"I'm sorry!! "
"I'm sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "
Soon, the voices grew into loud unbearable screams.
Utsuro fell to the ground and rolled to the side, curling up into a ball as he screamed in agony, not because of the pain he felt but because of the guilt he felt.
Then, the pain stopped and the voices slowly dissipated leaving an even more painful silence.
"I didn't mean to do it... I didn't know it was you " utsuro whispered "I'm sorry mom... I'm sorry"
Utsuro had sworn to bury the past deep within, but it had slowly started to dig it's way out...