"Your bond is truly remarkable," Aetheria muses. "You drew your blade without hesitation." A hand slides from her coat, pale in color, but the fingers are all wrong. They’re too long, segmented, and bent at uncomfortable angles. They look as if they’ve been broken time and time again. An Aetheric blade appears in the hand, rippling with a blue light, and the pressure that comes with it is enough to push me back. Levi tightens around my body, and acts as my anchor against the storm of rampant mana.

  "I would be lying if I were to claim I was not jealous," she says. Her voice is soft, but there is an animosity settled right behind it with unknown depths. A sunken animosity, a deep rooted animosity. Her words hold pure vitriol for my beloved Levi, but why? Why would anyone hate my dear Levi?

  "Shut up! Leviathan, kill!" I scream, and Levi launches off my neck, a streak of viridian fury heading straight for Aetheria’s throat.

  I lunge forward too, my own blade drawn, every muscle in my body ready to tear Aetheria apart. Levi’s jaw closes around her neck, but an arm sprouts from her neck just before he can bite down. The sound of bone cracking and splintering can be heard, but Aetheria doesn’t even flinch. Another arm erupts from her the confines of her dress, palm held out to me.

  Levi instantly releases his hold on Aetheria, and throws himself at me.

  Glass explodes around me, and for a moment I’m weightless as I plummet five stories to the ground below. My world is spinning, but I turn to face the ground below as I shout out a spell. "Zephyr’s Burst!"

  Levi hisses, and a second gust of wind joins in, slowing our descent tremendously before we hit the ground

  I roll to the best of my ability, and when I turn back, I see the room we were just in explode. A large portion of the house goes up in flames, and caves in on itself. Aetheria’s figure appears in the smoke, and she floats down to the ground as if she is an extension of the smoking flames around her.

  Another hand sprouts from the hem of her dress, followed by a fifth, a sixth, and a seventh. Each one is more disfigured than the last. Some are child-sized, others are ancient and spotted, some are as black as ink, whereas others are slimy and translucent. They move with perfect coordination, folding over each other before Aetheria speaks.

  "Weight of the World."

  I know she can cast magic without the use of words, so why does she say the name of the spell? Maybe she does this for my own benefit? A feeble attempt at giving me a chance to negate it, or avoid it in some way, but I don’t.

  I feel the words as a pressure builds in my skull. The air congeals around me, and my lungs fight for dear life. I’m pressed so flat against the ground that I get a mouthful of dirt that I’m unable to spit out. Levi is writhing on the ground next to me, he tries to coil himself free of the spell, but he is ultimately unable. All that can be heard from him is a desperate, wet gurgling.

  "You never fail to impress me, Clara. Even now, faced with great adversity, you still resist your fate." She tilts her head and three of her hands reach out, brushing my hair behind my ear. "But you cannot win. You never could. You know this as fact, do you not?"

  I grit my teeth, and dig my fingers into the earth. "Shift," I spit out. The ground beneath me ripples, and a layer of stone crawls up my body, reinforcing my spine, my ribs, and my neck. I feel as if my neck is about to break, under the weight of the world, but it doesn't. I raise my chin, and glare at Aetheria through my stone armor.

  Levi lashes out with his tail, whipping my arm upward. The pain is immense, but the bone holds as I push my arm up, and towards Aetheria. My dagger slices through something intangible and she staggers backwards. The gravity around me intensifies immediately, trying to push me to the core of this small world we inhabit.

  I use small pillars of earth to prop myself up, and puppeteer myself forward. It’s a humiliating sight, but she has to die. With my hand shaking, I hold the blade out to Aetheria once more, and cut through the hem of her dress.

  "Ever resourceful, Clara. But this is not your power, is it? No, it’s that thing you have there." She gestures at Levi with one of her free hands. "I find it worrying that the memory is this strong. So I’ll have to separate you two. Please believe me when I say I did not want to do this."

  She raises all of her arms at once, and a chalice appears at the center of them all. This is no ordinary chalice though. It is exquisite, and I can tell it's worth at a glance. One could purchase a small kingdom with it. Only the finest gemstones adorn its rim, but I understand this is part of the allure. To drink from this cup is to damn oneself, because held within it is wrath.

  I watch as Aetheria tips the chalice on its side, and its insides begin to course out towards Levi and I.

  "Shift!" I shout, and point at Levi. A mound of earth is able to throw him out of the way of the chalices contents, and he rolls to safety.

  "Fall of Babylon," Aetheria whispers, and I see a fragment of what that chalice held. The towers crumbling, the rivers turning to blood, the sky burning itself clean of sin. The weight pressing down on me becomes infinitely more powerful, and I fall to the ground as every bone in my body shatters, one by one. It starts at my toes and marches its way up my spine. With each one, I hear a different wail of agony, a different cry for help. I’m unable to open my mouth to scream. I can feel my lungs being crushed under the weight of it all, and all I can do is groan, and tap my finger against my grimoire, having it memorize the spell.

  I’m unable to turn my head to look at Levi, but I know he’s suffering too. I hear him let out a whimper, a horribly pitiful sound I’ve never heard him make before.

  Aetheria comes into view and she picks him up, holding his jaws shut with her hands. She lifts him to her face, but he isn’t looking at her. His focus is solely on me.

  Levi hisses, loud and sharp, and I understand it immediately.

  My body detonates on the spot.

  It starts at my feet, the skin sloughing off in sheets of chitin and wing, the muscles liquefying into hundreds of tiny forms. I watch, from a thousand eyes, as my own body collapses and reforms itself into a black cloud, swirling up and away from the cursed ground of Babylon.

  Aetheria looks up, surprised, and this moment is more than enough for me to make my escape. I reappear on the roof of the house, drawing the swarm together until I’m whole again. It’s not a perfect body by any means. I can feel the holes where nerves used to be, the gaps where I lost a precious part of myself, but it’s better than being a broken, bloodied mess on the ground.

  Levi is dangling from Aetheria’s grip, limp, but alive. I hold out a hand and scream out my command, "Swarm of Locusts."

  Levi bursts apart, his body splintering into hundreds of tiny locusts, each one writhing and biting before they quickly die out. Aetheria is left holding a handful of dead insects, and Levi reforms around my neck.

  We can do this. If I have Levi at my side then anything's possible, even killing that thing.

  Aetheria just has to open her mouth once more though. Another arm sprouts from her chest, and this one holds a sphere of cracked light. The sky above us starts to fall away, replaced by something much bigger than this world. The roof we’re standing on goes up in flames, and Levi hisses in my ear.

  A star so large that it can not be measured with the eye alone. I can’t begin to comprehend how big it is, but in my soul, I recognize this cataclysm.

  "Wormwood…" I mutter, and move my hands to Levi as I pull him closer to me now.

  He’s already hissing at the approaching star, but I hold him tighter. We will become nothing more than memories in the face of this event. But before the star can hit, a hand presses into the top of my head. I look up, and Aetheria is there with her face mere inches from mine. "Nightmare Labyrinth: The First Dream," she says, and then my sight leaves me. Next is my sense of smell, followed by noise. I feel Levi press his face into the palm of my hand and something wet lands in it. A ball? An orb? I grip it as tight as I can, and then I lose all feeling.

  *

  When I come to, I’m in my bed. I am fine, my body doesn’t hurt, and I survived Wormwood. But Levi is gone...

  I reach for my shoulder, but feel nothing. I toss and turn, searching the entire bed for him. I even throw my pillow across the room. The only thing I find is a small, glowing, black orb.

  A Soulgem.

  Footsteps are coming, steady and patient, down the hallway. I know who it is before the door opens. Valerius.

  He enters my room with a knife in hand, a blade identical to my own, and closes the door behind him. His movements are calm, almost gentle, but there is nothing gentle about him. I know what he’ll do if he gets his hands on me.

  He advances, and I reach for the Soulgem. It’s cold, and heavier than it should be. I crush it in the palm of my hand, and an inky blackness spills out from within, filling the room with a mist that eats away at any light that touches it.

  A woman’s voice cuts through that darkness. "Trisection!"

  Valerius’s hand turns into a bloodied mess, and his blade hits the ground.

  "Trisection!" I hear the spell once more, and this time, it’s Valerius’s waist, and neck that are cut. He hits the ground with a wet, bloody thud, and then Evelyn steps forward. Her hair is a curtain of gold, and her eyes are wild as she admires her own work. "Greater Heal!" Evelyn shouts, but Valerius’s body does not come back together.

  "Hey, why isn't he getting better? How am I supposed to hurt him more if he doesn't get better?!" She turns to me, brows curved downward in genuine anger.

  "My pet snake took away your healing factor to make a Divine Aspect."

  Evelyn squints at me, and takes a short step closer before she finds her words. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

  "I don’t know the specifics! It means you can’t heal anymore though. Now uh, why are you here?..."

  Evelyn shrugs, lips twisted in a pout. "The very last thing I remember is my soul falling apart when my br-... the Saint of Dominion, Caedis, kept killing me and bringing me back. After that, a voice reached out to me in the darkness, gathered the scattered fragments of my soul, and pieced them back together. I don’t know who he was, but he told me that my body was alive and if I helped some little blonde bitch, he’d get me back in my body. So, that you?"

  "That would be me, yes. Can you tell me why you think it was a ‘he’ though? Can you remember anything else about him?"

  "Huh? Well I guess it just felt like a guy, and… everything felt green when he spoke."

  "I’m sorry, it felt green? How does anything feel like a color?"

  "I don’t know! When you don’t have any of your senses to rely on, things get weird! All you can do is feel what you feel, and he felt green! Now lets get a move on! I don’t want to be stuck playing babysitter all day. The sooner we get this over with, the better."

  "Alright, alright, he was green. Come along."

  "Perhaps you’d like me to collect the millions of pieces of your splintered soul that you oh so valiantly offered up to defeat the unsuspecting Durandel?"

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  In my last life I had been offered such an opportunity by Nihilothe. I hadn’t actually believed it to be possible, but it seems as if Levi was able to do this for Evelyn. Did this mean that Levi was as strong as Nihilothe then? I shake the thought away, and get out of bed, dagger still in hand. Evelyn floats just behind me, and she’s less than half a step behind me at all times.

  "Do you need to follow so closely? I can feel you breathing on the back of my neck."

  "I’ve never been a bodyguard before! It’s best that I stay right behind you so that I can keep you safe. My life kind of depends on it, so don’t complain or else I’ll find another way to keep you safe."

  My mind roams to the memory of Varron stuck inside of a fleshy membrane, and goosebumps roll up my arms.

  "I think you’re doing great actually, keep up the good work."

  "Of course I am, what else did you expect?" Evelyn says, and puffs her chest out triumphantly as she flicks her hair aside.

  We make our way down the hallway and soon find four figures waiting for us. Varron, Seraphine, Duriel, and a dryad I do not recognize. The dryad is quite a bit smaller than Sen, but other than that I can’t make out any obvious distinctions.

  Varron screams at the sight of Evelyn, and dives behind Duriel in an attempt to hide.

  "You... you idiot of a master, why did you go and get yourself killed!? Do you see the fucking mess you’ve gotten me into? You got me killed and I’m a babysitter now!" Evelyn shouts, takes to the ground as she lunges at Varron.

  Varron tries his best to avoid her as she begins to chase him around Duriel’s massive frame, screaming all the while. Seraphine just shakes her head at the sight.

  "You guys are a lot more lax this time. You aren’t going to try and stop me?" I ask.

  "Sorry, kid," Seraphine says, "we were kind of out of it earlier. There’s something weird about this place... When that Aetheria wants something, we can’t help but obey. I can’t tell what’s happening, but she seems to be occupied with something else right now, so… we’ll help you as much as we can for now."

  "And what’s with the dryad?"

  "That snake of yours left a little rock inside my loves skull when he burrowed his way inside," Seraphine says, nodding to Duriel. "When we pulled it out, it turned into that thing…"

  I squat down, and hold my hands out to the dryad. She clambers her way up my arms, and finds a comfortable spot on my shoulder, just like Sen would. I don’t know if she’s a she, but it just feels right to me.

  "Come on, we’re heading to the Grand Hall."

  Duriel takes point, his shoulders scraping against either wall, the old plaster being ripped off all the while. When he reaches the stairs, he’s too big for them, and breaks many on his way down. If I had to guess, then Duriel lived on the first floor back when he was alive…

  When we reach the Grand Hall, every memory present stands at attention. Stygians and Crowsongs alike, and at their center is Annia. The doll stands on top of the table, and holds her little hands high in the air.

  "Buy Aetheria as much time as you can!" Annia shouts. "Kill the dreamer and reset the nightmare!"

  The first to move is Lucius Vespero, followed by Duriel charging into the room. Duriel is able to mow through dozens of lower ranking members, but when his body clashes with Lucius’s, he comes to a dead stop. Despite his raw strength, he is no match for Lucius. The force of their impact sends chunks of Duriel’s flesh flying away, but Duriel does not yield. Seraphine dives into the melee to help him, throwing a wall flame around him, ensuring that their battle is not interrupted.

  Varron slams the double doors shut, but they’re instantly blown off their hinges, and Varron is crushed underneath them. Gabriel stands on top of the debris, looking down at me with an expression of disgust. Behind him, a pool of bodies begin to force their way through the door. I recognize them all. Half of the faces I see cause a bitter rage to boil up from within me, but the other half calm me, and almost bring a smile to my face.

  Crowsongs and Stygians working towards a common goal. This is a sight I never thought I would witness. Even if it is all just a bad dream...

  I turn around to see Clarence and Elias blocking the hallway. Elias’s arm is encased in ice, but Evelyn is on him before he can swing. She decapitates him with a single, lazy gesture of her wrist, and then throws a pool of black, thick miasma behind us, slowing our pursuers.

  Seeing Elias’s head roll to a halt pains me, but I just need to tell myself it’s a dream. It’s not really him.

  Clarence hurls a fireball, but I duck under his arm and slice his throat before pushing his body into the crowd behind me. The dryad lets out a panicked squeak and fans a leaf at her side that is now singed.

  "What’s the plan here? I signed up to be a babysitter, not whatever the fuck this is! I’m not exactly a close-quarters type, you know!" Evelyn shouts, but I can see her beaming from ear to ear.

  Lucius can be seen making his way through the crowd, and he is covered in blood. He launches forward, a streak of greying hair and shadows. Evelyn meets him head-on, and despite her earlier claim, she actually stops him. Her hands meet his own, and she presses her feet into the solid ground beneath her as she pushes back against him.

  "Don’t use your magic-" I begin, but it’s too late.

  "Miasma!" Evelyn shouts, and a black film begins to leave her hands. Lucius’s arms begin to grow black, and decay.

  "Stygian Counter," Lucius utters, and then his arms are completely fine, and free of affliction. Evelyn’s arms on the other hand have turned a dark black, and fall limp at her sides.

  "The people of your era have such potent magic…I want to play more. I really want to play more! You know what? I’ll keep being your babysitter if it means I get to fight people like this!" Evelyn shouts, and flashes me a smile as Lucius’s fist connects with her jaw, and obliterates it in its entirety.

  I turn away, and continue running down the hallway with the dryad. Two other figures are already on top of me though. My eldest brother, and a beautiful woman with purple hair. Gabriel comes from above, Grave-Breaker raised, and Isabelle from below, claws poised, and ready to strike.

  A third figure appears at my side, holding a spear. My nanny, Ethel.

  Between the three of them, the only one I can risk taking a hit from and surviving would be Ethel. I reinforce my arms and abdomen with a mixture of stone and mana, and curl in on myself in an attempt to protect my internal organs.

  The attacks never reach me though.

  Ethel thrusts her spear past my head, straight into Isabelle’s throat. In the next moment, she intercepts Gabriel’s swing, throwing him to the ground, before burying the spear deep within his chest. This is no mere spear she has though, it's one of the legendary armaments of Death.

  The Phantom Harvester. A spear that siphons one's strength. The longer a battle goes on, the stronger its wielder becomes. It was hidden in the armory on the night of the Solstice of Souls, but why does this memory have it now?

  "Ethel?" I breathe.

  "Don’t act surprised, princess. This is all just one big, bad nightmare. I thought it was rather strange that nobody was talking, and that’s when that little doll arrived and instructed us to kill you. I was utterly appalled. How could you ever dream that I’d hurt you?"

  "A lot’s happened since we lost you. There’s only a couple things I’m certain of anymore..."

  "I finally kicked the bucket out there? That’s a relief. Memory or not, I certainly hope I left a better impression on you than this though. I’m entirely too weak! Do you not remember the stories I told you of my youth? Ethel Crowsong, adventurer extraordinaire! Ethel Crowsong, captain of the Dread Requiem! Ethel Crowsong, Matriarch to the Crowsong clan! Really, this sweet old spirit is how you remember me?"

  She tightens her grip on the spear and drives it down into Isabelle’s throat once more. Isabelle’s hands clutch the tip of the spear as she breaks through her next set of skin, trying to fight her way free.

  "I remember it all," I say, and pat the grimoire at my side. "You’re only as strong as you were on the night of the Solstice of Souls. I’m sorry."

  "Is this not your dream? I suppose I’ll just have to make do. Go on ahead, Princess," Ethel says. She dives into the fray, cutting down Stygian and Crowsong alike, fighting alongside a greatly injured Evelyn.

  I turn and run once more. Where to? I don’t know.

  "Oh Levi, I wish you were here… What am I supposed to do?"

  Call for help!

  I didn’t actually expect a response. He was alone with Aetheria, and in danger, yet he made time to answer me? Ever selfless, Levi…

  How was I supposed to call for help though? Who could even help in a situation like this? But an image flashes through my mind. A phone.

  This is your nightmare, and that means it was once your dream. You can make anything you want a reality here. Try it.

  I close my eyes tight and imagine a dark room with a phone in it. I will it into being, and the room actually begins to take shape. Right before it fully materializes, it is pulled away and placed at the end of the hallway though.

  My gaze follows, and there is one obstacle between the room with the phone and myself. A doll that's standing in the middle of the hallway, arms crossed, feet planted. She glares at me with such hatred that I can barely stand to look at her.

  "Put Valor down, right now!" Annia shouts, pointing a small, rounded hand up at me.

  "Let’s make a deal!"

  Annia’s brows scrunch down so far they nearly merge with her nose. "I can’t go against Aetheria, dummy."

  "You don’t have to! Just do a little favor for me, and I’ll hand this dryad over to you. You want her, right?"

  "... I do..."

  I look back to see Evelyn's finally been beaten down, and Ethel is on her knees in front of Lucius, holding the Phantom Harvester up in a shaky guard.

  I knew Ethel was strong. I had seen her fight till the bitter end, and go even beyond that. One memory is stuck in my mind though.

  "Well am I scary, Princess?"

  "Mm... No! You're different!"

  I could only see Ethel as my sweet, caring, nanny. There really was nothing scary to her.

  "I want you to change this memory," I say. "Don’t give me the Ethel I read about as a child. The brave adventurer who would do anything for her family? My loving nanny? No, I want the Ethel that I read about in the Stygian’s archives in my later lives. The individual who acted as the sole safeguard to our clan for two centuries. The one whose mere presence made her foes flee the battlefield. Bring the Revenant of the Crowsong here. If Aetheria asks, just say it was a mistake!"

  Annia seems to consider this, but as she looks at the dryad on my shoulder, she seems to make up her mind. She claps her little hands together and shouts. "I’ll do it, but that’s all I’m doing Now gimme Valor!"

  I see Ethel drop the spear, and in the next moment, she drives her fist through Lucius’s chest. She headbutts him so hard his head snaps back and the force of the blow is strong enough to knock everyone behind him off their feet. Isabelle is the only one able to stay on her feet, but she does not approach Ethel.

  The mana surrounding Ethel is so dense that her figure becomes blurred.

  "Just how many times did I kill you, skinwalker? I never could finish you off, Somehow you always managed to scurry away," Ethel says, and takes a step towards Isabelle. Lucius tries to hold a hand out to stop Ethel, but she merely walks through it. His arm is reduced to red ribbons of torn skin that dangle in the air. Next he tries to kick at Ethel’s leg. A kick that could reduce any ordinary human to little more than mush, but Ethel walks through that too, and his leg suffers the same fate as his arm before he hits the ground with a weakened thud.

  "Even now, you live on in the dreams of my ancestors. It’s despicable. You are not scary, you're just a cockroach that’s a little smarter than the rest. Tell me, cockroach, how do you plan to flee now that you’re trapped inside a dream?”

  Ethel takes one more step, and the rampant mana that burns around her foot is enough to destroy the solid ground underfoot. The wallpaper is ripped from the walls, and wooden shrapnel whips through the air as Isabelle turns to run, but Ethel doesn’t let her. Ethel kicks off of the ground, and the force of it alone is enough to send me flying in the opposite direction.

  I toss Valor to Annia, and she clutches the dryad with both of her arms, hugging her tightly.

  I hit the ground hard, but I scramble to my feet, and run with renewed purpose.

  At the end of the hallway, I see the dark room. And at the end of that is the phone.

  I run with everything I have left.

  The house is collapsing behind me as the walls give way to Ethel’s rage. The memories scream and claw at one another in an attempt to survive, and Ethel’s laughter rings out over it all.

  I don’t stop, and I don’t look back. I reach the room, and slam the door shut behind me. I turn to look at the rotary phone, approach it. Now that I'm actually standing before it, I hesitate. Who was I supposed to call? One number comes to mind though.

  7-7-7

  As I put in the last number, the dial spins back into place, and I hold the receiver up to my ear as it begins to ring. It rings once, and then twice. I hear something bang against the door of the room, but it holds. The phone rings a third time, and then a fourth.

  It’s only after the fifth ring that fear begins to set in. What if no one pick up? Was this even the right number? What were the chances I could even make a call in a place like this to begin with? A sixth ring enters my ear, and I close my eyes as I lower my arm, clutching the receiver tightly at my side.

  That’s when I hear a click.

  My eyes shoot open, and I hear the smallest bit of static. Instantly, I bring the receiver back to my ear, and I hear a voice.

  "Every soul carries a story, but not all stories get an ending. That's what this place is for, tying up those loose ends, one drink at a time. You have reached The Crossroads, King speaking, how may I help you?" It’s a deep voice, one that makes my chest vibrate from the very tone. It’s a voice full of wisdom from ages long past.

  I open my mouth, but close it right away. What was I supposed to say? I’m having a nightmare and I need help? I purse lips, going through the options in my head once more, and that’s when I hear the voice again.

  "Hello? Is anyone there?"

  It's now or never. I have to say something, so I do.

  "Y-Yes! Hi! Is Bell there?..."