DENZEL NIGHTINGALE
Intruder? I thought, deliberating over Elena's warning. Wellan had sent her on a complex-wide search for any abnormalities, though she hadn't found anything she did notice that Wellan had engaged in battle with a man she didn't know.
I looked down at the ball of shadows she had given me and her words flashed through my mind.
"I've always been sensitive towards people's thoughts, I knew you wanted to leave this place from the start. If whatever is waiting for you outside is really as important as your heart tells me it is then I won't stop you but first I want to give you something. As the first person to see beyond my unchanging eyes, I thought you deserved this."
Her smile—cold, warm, and headache-inducing—still lingered in my mind. It stirred something deep in me. Joy? Guilt? Grief? I wasn't sure. All I knew was that for the first time in years, the weight on my chest didn't feel like armor. It felt like a scar healing. I didn't cry, didn't scream. I just breathed… and promised I wouldn't waste her gift.
I injected my will into the ball of shadows and closed my eyes. Two black "eyes" appeared on the ball and suddenly I could see through it.
With it, "I" jumped out a window and headed north, "I" headed towards Deci County. The shadow was abnormally quick, "I" darted through plains and forests that stood in "my" way before arriving at the city's borders.
"I" drifted through the city like a ghost, the ball of shadows stretching its sight through alleys and rooftops. My senses weren't my own—they were filtered, warped through magic, but the memories were all too real.
An alley… "I" stopped. Cracked bricks, broken glass, a collapsed cardboard box tucked between dumpsters. That was where I found her—Gelda. She had eyes too big for her face, and hands too small to hold warmth. I didn't know what to do with her. I just… didn't want to leave her there.
A few blocks down, a metal bin stained with ash and grease. Vanir's grave—or what I thought was its grave. It had been discarded like trash. I remember flinching when it hummed. I'd almost walked away that day. Almost.
The festival street. The colors were gone now, banners torn and fading. But I remembered it clear: Gelda on my shoulders, laughing at fireworks while I clenched my jaw and scanned for cops. She had stolen a bag of candied plums and offered me one. I didn't eat it, but I kept it in my coat for three weeks.
The closer "I" got, the heavier the world felt. But then "I" saw her—Gelda, curled up under a torn blanket, muttering to herself as she drew on the tent's metal wall with a rock.
"I" couldn't feel the cold through the orb, but "I" imagined it. She looked up—and somehow, she saw me. Not with her eyes. With her heart.
"Hey," I whispered through the orb.
The orb formed from shadows stood silent at the edge of the cracked floorboards. My senses tethered to it—sight, hearing, voice—all channeled through something that wasn't truly me. But it didn't matter.
Because when Gelda turned and saw it, she lit up like a festival spark.
"Denny!" she yelled, jumping to her feet, nearly tripping over the blanket she'd wrapped around her shoulders. "I knew you'd come back! I told Thula you would but she didn't believe me and she said you gotten eaten by the walls but I said, 'No way, he's stronger than walls!'"
"I" didn't respond at first, glossing over the fact her Nexi had spoken to her. "I" just watched her. Watched how she hadn't grown at all. Still too small. Still too skinny.
"I missed you so much, Denny," she said, her smile trembling a little. "This giuero¹ came the other day and I thought it was you, but it wasn't. He was melchan². I didn't talk to him." She filled in the Deci words she didn't know with ones from her native tongue.
Her hand rested gently on the orb.
"I" spoke softly. "That's good, at least you didn't get hurt."
She nodded fast, her eyes big. "Yup. I'm strong, like you said. Like when we used to play jump-the-fire lines and you said I was braver than anyone. Remember?"
"I remember," "I" said. My voice caught a little, but the orb didn't let that show.
She tilted her head. "You sound tired. Are you okay?"
"Yeah," "I" lied. "I'm fine. We'll see each other soon, okay? Be strong for me."
She nodded again, slower this time. Her little hand squeezed the orb.
"Esteri, Paretindo."
The words roughly translated to "Yes, Dad."
I felt my heart pinch when I ended the connection with the orb.
"I'm a horrible person," I said to myself, leaning against a wall for support. Gelda had called me dad…
I wiped the tears that had fallen from my eyes and looked down the hall. The thought of escaping had long been burned from my mind, now the only thought I had was how I was going to repay Elena.
That's right, this building is under attack. I should probably check on the staff that don't have Nexi to protect themselves… I was looking down the hall because in that direction was Orielle's desk, the kind receptionist who had spoken to me like I was a person.
I bolted in that direction, not wasting any time with hesitation or deliberation. The building's systems were down, making it so that I had to pry open many of the automatic doors I ran into.
BOOM!
The entire complex shook, adding to the sense of urgency I felt. I didn't know if the Anti-Nexi field was down and I didn't have the time to check, all I could do was put my everything intofinding Orielle.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
I finally arrived the front desk, my heart sinking when I didn't see the auburn-haired receptionist. Worry slowly started to overtake me but I didn't allow it to impede my judgement. My eyes darted around the scene for clues.
There's a pen on the ground, she was probably writing when she was taken. The scratches on the desk also indicate that she tried to resist, same goes for the fallen desk supplies. Bloodied scissors mean she managed to injure her assailant but that wasn't enough… I slowly recreated the scene in my mind and tried to follow the trail of blood Orielle's attacker had left but it stopped abruptly, as if they had disappeared into thin air.
Teleportation… I managed before I heard a voice from behind me.
"You non-believers sure are smart," the zealot said, his emotions indescernable from his voice.
Instinctively, I rolled to the side. A side effect of my time spent with killers like James was that anytime I heard a voice behind me, I dodged on reflex. I had seen the boss of the Fever Dream kill to many people this way… I had killed to many people this way.
My instincts were right as I just barely dodged the bullet that had been shot at me. Even then, I didn't have time to dodge the next few bullets shot at me. I could only cover my vital organs with my arms and pray.
Suddenly, I felt a shadow block out the sun and heard the sound of bullets falling to the ground. When I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was the puff of a black velvet dress. My savior's wavy black hair curled just above her shoulders, hiding the high neckline of her lace and leather bodice.
"Elena!" I said outloud, unable to contain my surprise.
"In the flesh," she flashed a head-ache inducing smile.
The person who had tried to shoot me, a cultist dressed in a dark red cloak, looked at both of us, his eyes hidden by the hood of his cloak. In the air before him appeared a blood-red card which depicted a bomb drawn in black. The Nexi rotated and expanded into a red orb, I barely managed to make out the three black lines on the back.
If that thing exploded, it could without a doubt erase the entire building and its surroundings from the map. It might even threaten a large chunk of Deci.
"Run!" Elena screamed, extending her hands causing a thing armor of shadows to cover the "bomb".
I didn't wait for her to tell me twice, I instantly got up and bolted deeper into the Thorns Complex. I wasted a few seconds to test if Vanir was working and was pleasantly surprised when my body materialized a little further ahead.
Using this discovery, I teleported into each of my teammates room, informing them that the Thorns building was under attack. With that done I teleported all over the building to find Orielle.
My body appeared and disappeared all over the complex but I still couldn't find her. I appeared in the training room with an elevated platform and took a breath.
She's not h- A scream tore through my ears, the voice behind it familiar.
It was Orielle! She hadn't been hidden somewhere inside the complex but instead was being taken away.
The reason why the intruders would take such a seemingly weak person was obvious. Orielle was the secretary and therefor had access to many of the Thorns secret files. After the intruders had been discovered it wasn't farfetched to assume they would kidnap someone that could facilitate their next attack.
Vanir flashed into in and out of existence, my body did the same.
I felt the ground shake under me once more as I appeared in the foliage of a forest not far from the Thorns Complex.
My eyes turned red with hate seeing the scene before me.
A young girl in a dark red robe dragged a slightly older lady by her auburn locks. The auburn-haired woman's face was almost unrecognizable due to the pool of blood covering it.
¹: guy
²: mean