ALFG 152: I Will Follow You Into The Dark

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: I WILL FOLLOW YOU INTO THE DARK

They could not afford to let her fly. Eridan only had a few minutes, and Anshu’s body was a sprite. If she managed to take to the air, then it was all over.

So Eridan, despite the pain and way his body screamed, gritted his teeth, and let William force his muscles and bones to comply. He sprinted forward in top speed, the blur of a predator, an orphaner, hunting down prey, and narrowly missed Jaeger just as she burst through the back door. A step later and she was within reach, and his arm shot out, clawed hands snatching her shirt from behind.

She tripped. He bumped into her. They tumbled down the slope the church had been perched on, rolling down the grass and dirt.

As the slope evened out, their momentum began to slow, and with a grunt, Eridan landed on the ground. He’d lost track of what limb was moving seconds ago, so it was all William who’d made sure not to let go of Jaeger, who was trying to shove herself off of him, only for Eridan’s claws to grab her forearms and dig his nails into them.

She wrenched one arm away to grab a nearby rock, before lifting it up and slamming it onto his face. His vision blackened, the world went out, fire bloomed across his forehead.

“Easy,” William soothed, and there it was again, that sense of calm. “I’ve got you.”

If it had been Nereus, there would have been a wash of warmth, and then the feeling of his injuries being washed away, but neither he nor William were built for mending. So Eridan’s sight stopped spinning, but the heat of blood streaming down his head remained, and he focused on holding back Jaeger’s hand as she nearly bashed the rock on his head again, squeezing her wrist tight enough that the bone crushed underneath it, and the loss of sensation forced her fingers to drop the rock.

“Anshu,” Eridan gritted out. “Come on. Try to talk to me.”

“Shut fuck, you insolent little boy!” Jaeger hissed, incensed, far angrier than Eridan had ever seen any manifestation of the denizen. It was always calm, always taunting, but right now, the look on its face was murderous, hateful, and almost afraid. “You stupid, stupid, stupid – ”

“It’s afraid of you,” William said.

Because I can destroy it? Eridan thought at him. Even if it’s only possessing Anshu?

“No,” William said. “No one in three thousand years has ever managed to give me freedom. I’ve always had to wrestle that away from it, and even then, I haven’t done so until we returned to this universe.”

And Eridan had managed to exploit a loophole. The denizen wasn’t infallible. It was scared that its plans were showing cracks, a weak thing afraid of the slightest bit of retribution.

Eridan’s lips curled in a malicious smile. Hah. Oh, if he could get his hands on this little worm, he’d make it afraid, alright.

But that wasn’t what he needed to do right now. Right now, he needed Anshu out here. He needed her power. He need her to fix everything before they ran out of time.

“Wish for it.” William took control of their arms to block an attempt to punch them from Jaeger. “Wish for her to come up. She can sense it.”

Eridan let him take control of the body, putting all of his focus on thinking about wanting to speak to her. She’d done it earlier, William had said, his curiosity and concern had breached through her possession and she’d used that to manifest more mental fortitude for herself.

“Stop! Stop it!” the denizen cried. “Stop! Shut up! Just die! DIE!”

“Let us talk to her and we will,” William spoke through Eridan’s mouth.

“Quiet! You’re not supposed to be here!” it hissed. It abandoned its attempts to punch Eridan now, instead getting to its feet and trying to pull its hands back. In response, the body stood with it, and its momentum forced it to tip back. Eridan seized control and quickly pinned it to the ground.

Magical pressure engulfed the area. Eridan’s back hunched and he nearly flattened out on the ground. There was a groan of wood and concrete somewhere to his side, and he didn’t dare turn to see what had become of the church, of the others.

“Steady, Eridan. Your magic eats other magic,” William soothed. “You’ll stay standing. It’s alright.”

Right. His magic was literally made to burn through everything else held up against it. Gritting his teeth, Eridan slowly gathered himself, keeping the denizen in his grasp and on the ground. It glared up at him, continuing to thrash, but he didn’t let go, even as it tried to dislocate its limbs to wriggle its way out of his grip.

A tree several meters away from them splintered and broke to its roots. The ground beagn to crack.

“Anshu,” Eridan called out. “Come on.”

“I think it’s fighting back,” William said.

He had to focus. He needed to talk to Anshu, otherwise the world was going to shit. They did not have enough time. Yes. He needed that sense of urgency, that sense of panic; Manifest worked on the basis of emotions, and if he could force himself to believe that this was singularly the most important thing, then she had a better chance of fighting the denizen off.

“Anshu,” Eridan said.

The denizen bared its teeth, animalistic, and its struggles increased in fervor – but then its limbs locked up, and slowly, though its still thrashed, it gradually weakened. The body spasmed, and one hand was desperately trying to get out of Eridan’s grip, but eventually, it stopped. Collapsed onto the ground. All fight left it.

The magical pressure around them slowly eased away. The air was light.

Anshu’s weary, scared eyes looked up at him. “I – don’t have a lot of time,” she gritted out. “What’s the plan?”

Relief flooded Eridan.

“We’re on a limit, both of you.” William said.

“I need you to fix it,” Eridan said, and then amended as his thoughts began to jumble together from how fast he was thinking: “Fix everything.”

“What?”

“The denizen made you destroy everything, right? I need you to manifest my wish to fix it.” Eridan loosened his grip on her wrists, allowing them to heal. When they did, he sat up, pulling her up with him and keeping his hands on her shoulders, both to steady her and to hold her in place in case the denizen took control again. “You’re a Sylph of Hope, you should be able to do it.”

Anshu’s stare was confused, uncomprehending. Eventually, she stammered out: “I-I can try, but…Eridan that takes a lot. I’m not that powerful.”

“You are. You are. I believe you are,” he said. He didn’t know if he meant it. He had no idea what he believed in, if he even believed in anything, but he needed to believe in something now. “That’s how our powers work, right? Our magic? We gotta believe in this shit. Well, I believe you can fix it. Your powers let the denizen get this far, you can take it all away.”

Anshu’s lower lip trembled. She glanced away from him, looking for something, looking up at the church, and then the fence on the opposite end. “I…maybe if there were more people – ”

They both turned towards the church, and Eridan’s stomach dropped as he saw that there was nothing left of it. It was nothing but a pile of rubble on top of the hill.

Had the others gotten out? They had to have.

But everything was so quiet. If the ghosts were still around even after Anshu had woken up, if she hadn’t wrestled them into non-existence away from the denizen, not even they were stirring.

They had to do this alone. They didn’t have the time to pick through the rubble and see who was alright. The denizen could kill them if Anshu’s control slipped.

“Anshu.” Eridan brought a hand to her face so he could make her look at him again. “I am the most powerful of our class,” he said. That was a lie. He had no idea. But he had to make her believe. “I stand far above and beyond what anyone in this universe can do. I am a violet-blood, I am royalty; I am slayer of angels, destroyer of magic, ruiner of hope.”

He grabbed one of her hands and placed over the bloody hole in his chest.

“I am your Prince,” he said. “You don’t need any other power source but me.”

“But – but you’re hanging on by a thread,” Anshu said. She looked down at the wound her hand was over, at the mess of bone and meat and cloth. “M-Manifest doesn’t work if the target is fully unconscious and unthinking and I’m not gonna hold on for much long, so I -should use that time to fix you, not – ”

“No.”

Anshu looked up at him. “No?”

“We don’t have enough time, like you said. I need you to do this. And I need you to trust me, okay?”

“You’re going to die.”

“I know.” Eridan cupped her face with both hands, just to keep her from freaking out and to keep her eyes on him. “And so are you.”

Her eyes widened. It was only a second, only a precious second, but to both of them it felt much longer, as the realization sunk into the girl’s head.

Neither of them would live past tonight.

There was only one way to ensure the fate of the universe. If Anshu lived, then the denizen could take control and have her destroy everything again. She needed to make one last wish come true, and make sure it was just that. The last time she would ever call upon her magic.

Tears streamed down the girl’s face. She cried, silently – no, she wept.

But when she finished crying, she bowed before her Prince.

“Okay,” she said, head hung low. In her grief, she had ended up leaning against him, and he held her up by her arms. “I just need you to want it.”

Eridan nodded, and he closed his eyes.

In his mind, a memory. Of an island, far, far away from civilization. As far as the eye could see, it was ocean, and when one looked up, there was the endless expanse of clear blue sky. There was a building in the middle of the island, the only one of its kind, and at the very top, there was a lighthouse, with a horrendous pink lamp.

The rooms in the building were tackily decorated, each reflective of its occupant’s interests. There was a small cupboard with a collection of awful, awful nail polishes; there was a whiteboard with a timeline haphazardly built from what little snippets they could find from life off their little sanctuary. There were seagulls who didn’t bother the fishes, and under the water, there was a lively reef. A few ways off, there was a cove, and hidden in it, a treasure box of family secrets and memories.

And everything was right with the world.

There was no looming threat, nothing breaking the universe, nothing taking it apart at the seams. All was peaceful, all was content, all was happy.

Like a little island, in the middle of nowhere, housing a lonely boy who no longer felt lonely with his friends.

“Manifest.”

Eridan felt it, the way power exploded out into the world, a wave of comfort and goodness, and all things wonderful, spreading out and snagging onto every single thing that crossed its path. It lit the grass beneath them luminescent, glowing with the white-gold light of Hope, spreading out until it claimed the entirety of the church grounds. The illumination let both of them properly see where they were, and Eridan was surprised to find that they were sitting in the middle of a garden that had survived the carnage of the apocalypse.

It didn’t stop there. The rest of the city block was beginning to be swallowed up by the Manifest, and it was only getting faster. Soon, it was as if the sky had never gone out at all, with the whole place lighting up as if it was daytime. Pieces of Anshu’s magic were drifting into the air, and as they rose into the sky, they appeared to hit spots of nothing, only to slowly restore the deep blue of the night in place of the unnatural emptiness of that hung above them.

As the sky began to re-form, the cracks that had once been there also began to appear, but the Manifest was still working, sinking into the wounds of reality and sealing them back up. In less than a minute, the sky above them was fully intact, stars winking down at the wreckage clearly from the lack of light pollution.

They did it. They fucking did it.

“Eridan,” Anshu said. Eridan stopped marveling at the miracle happening in front of him to look back down at her. “I…it’s done. In a few days, maybe…” She shook her head, clearing her throat. “I’m still here, I can still fix you.”

“No.”

“No,” Anshu sobbed. “But why? You don’t have to – ”

“If you die, the denizen’s just going to resurrect you again. You know it will. It’s done it before. It’s why it was confident in killing you,” Eridan said. “You know that.”

“I do,” Anshu said. “But I wanted you to live. I want you to live.”

“I know,” he said, gently, which was never a word he ever thought could be used with him. “Thank you.”

Anshu held back another bout of tears, and Eridan wrapped an arm around her to draw her into a hug.

“Thanks,” he said. “For believing in me.”

“Anytime,” Anshu laughed, though her voice broke and she ended up sobbing again, crying into his shirt. Eridan held her closer with his arm, while the other raised behind her, outstretched as if reaching for something.

He faltered for a moment.

“Are you scared?” he asked.

“No,” Anshu said. Then, with a heaving breath. “Yes.”

“Don’t be,” he said. “I’ll be with you, this time. And this time, no one’s going to mess with your death.”

If the Anathema Point could assign their ghost as Anathema Point once more, that meant that their powers didn’t stop in the living world. Just their involvement with the living. That was why afterlives were so important, why things like dream bubbles were invaluable.

He was still going to have his Prince of Hope abilities in death. Perfect. He could make sure no one ever used the Sylph again for her entire un-life.

Eridan summoned a sword, shining with the light of pure Hope, into his hand. Curling his fingers around the hilt instantly burned his skin off – that was what he needed. He needed this thing to be powerful enough to set something alight, to burn, so that nothing would be left of them to bastardize and desecrate. Anshu returned his hug and wrapped her arms around him, holding tight. Around them, the world continued to mend and restore itself back into stability.

“Good luck, Eridan,” William whispered into his mind, kind enough to leave to give them both privacy in their last moments. Eridan could feel him receding already, relinquishing control, his end of the bargain complete. “You’re a kind boy, you know that?”

Eridan smiled bitterly. Kindness was not something applicable to him, but William was a stranger. He didn’t know any better.

As the last of William’s control snapped away from his mind, Eridan closed his eyes. And then, he raised the sword high, and plunged it into Anshu’s back, driving it straight through her chest, and out the other side of his.

He felt her flinch, felt her hands clench and tremble, but she kept quiet, though her shoulders were so tight it was clear she was biting back a scream. Her hold shook, loosened, went limp. Her body couldn’t fight against his destructive magic, and was already beginning to burn. Her heart had given out.

And his was missing. The world was already going dark.

Eridan’s eyes closed, his grip on the sword fell, and he and Anshu listed to the side, lifeless, collapsing onto the ground. They rested there, burning away slowly, until the wind came to take their ashes.

And the world began anew.