Adam, with his pocket, looked slowly at the spreading miasma as he tried to destroy it with a flick of his hands, but it kept coming back. Why would you have a power that destroys something?
I looked at Piercebox, and he looked at me. "What?"
Adam asked, "Do you have a plan for getting out of this place?" Spreading his arms, the whole town was being destroyed, and every living being… Piercebox looked at his pouch with the dream catcher, his hands shaking a bit.
"Maybe… Can't you teleport?"
Adam laughed a little, joking with him as he pretended to slash me with a sword. "I'm just joking."
Both of us smiled, as Piercebox's radio crackled.
Kiso and Toho were taking all the civilians, the people who were mostly uncorrupted. "Oh man, I think we need a bit of help getting out of here?"
"…? Yeah." Adam spread his arms, the light shining upon the surroundings, teleporting Piercebox, the yellow-haired man, and himself to the ship. Seeing all the catastrophic destruction, he created an entrapment that sealed the miasma from most of the town, preventing it from spreading across the continent.
Piercebox looked at me. "Man, I wish I could do that."
"Well… you'll be thankful not to know how much of the things I do… needed to load up." Adam gestured to the indivisible matter, see-through, that sealed the city.
[Shall I say it?]
"No," Adam answered.
Piercebox, holding his controlling panel, left the town, making explosions of nukes wherever he went, laughing maniacally. "I am the best person!"
Time passed, town by town being destroyed, while humans and creatures were forced and evacuated onto the ships. We walked around the ship, hungry and resting a bit.
Piercebox looked at the storage room, examining the packaged supplies: seeds of plants and flora, perfectly enclosed and farmed, livestock farms tended by monsters.
Adam thought, "Hey… why are those monsters behaving so well?"
Piercebox looked at me. "Well, the tip is… just strip away their freedom." He held up a contract, shaking it. "Don't look at me like that! I give them perfect rest, retirement, food, shelter, even money!"
"That's slavery…" Adam muttered.
"As I said, transactional exchange," Piercebox replied, patting his back.
"Won't you get corrupted?"
Piercebox smiled naively. "Temporarily." Walking back to the side-elevator that ran like a railroad, he added, "I'm going to get some food, maybe design a playhouse…"
Maybe it'd be fine talking to this guy, Adam thought, levitating and moving with him.
Piercebox smirked. "I guess I'm too attractive…"
Silence fell over the room as he made some signs. "You know one thing I realize… the only safe place in this world is up. Or on this ship."
I told myself that, looking out a window as a black tornado whirled downward from the sky. Small tendrils floated down to the ground, and Adam just stared at the window, ignoring it; there was nothing he could do.
Time passed. In the medical bay, monster doctors in white uniforms treated the corrupted humans. Toho fidgeted, her arms behind her back. "Is there something we can do?"
A monster, goat-like with long black horns, shook his head. "This human is already dead…" A cord inserted into the body delivered nutrients as the patient lay in bed.
The yellow-haired man with round glasses said, "At least you saved all of us… thank you for that," smiling from his wheelchair in the softly lit room, adorned with blue paintings and filled with patients.
Adam narrowed his eyes at the kid in bed. "It just… I can't. When someone dies, even if I don't know who they are, they will be forgotten. No one will remember their name."
The child lay with a blank expression, asleep-like. I don't even know your name…
[Copy and Replace?]
Adam: "No. It really is something when you just can't express something in words."
Cameras observed us, though Piercebox and Kiso were nowhere to be found.
Walking around, I saw a large futon bed the size of the whole floor. Kids, adults, and even old men were bouncing and sleeping on it. Dimmed star-like lights mimicked night. I stacked three sleep mats and sat, falling asleep at last, content to have company.
Rehan said, "They think they're trapped, by the way… they don't even know you're watching them through the reinforced glass."
Adam forcefully pushed Rehan away. "Can't you point out the obvious?"
"Well… someone should say it, no?"
I sighed. My eyes were tired as I slowly drifted to sleep, the weight on my back heavier than usual. The light in the room darkened until it was peaceful...
The Festival
The King sat upon his throne — a colossal chair carved from obsidian, cold and absolute. His white crown shimmered faintly beneath the pale light that poured endlessly into the chamber, a room so vast it could swallow a thousand halls. The walls were blank — eternal white — and upon that colorless floor stood rows of knights, their black armor gleaming like oiled stone, blades pointed downward in disciplined silence.
Behind the throne loomed a creature beyond measure — a mountain of flesh and frost, its countless slit-pupiled eyes glimmering with the reflection of the void. It exhaled a slow, rumbling breath that turned the air into snow. The frost spread like a sigh through the hall.
"It's... too good," the King murmured, his voice quiet, grave, and heavy with weariness. "For such weather."
The monster stirred, its many eyes narrowing, watching. The cold deepened. Yet the soldiers did not shiver. Their duty was carved deeper than fear — they stood unbroken, motionless beneath the breath of death itself.
The King unfurled the scroll in his hand, his fingers long, sharp, and pale as marble. His gaze lingered upon the words — a letter — before a sigh escaped his lips. With a slow motion, he waved his hand through the air.
The floor trembled as if the room itself hesitated.
Before the soldiers could retreat, a figure emerged from the mist — a jester , his face painted white and his round spectacles glasses reflecting the dim light. He wore a red-and-black tuxedo and a cape that swayed like liquid fire. He moved as if every step was a note, his voice a melody as he sang, "You cannot, my King… Your soldiers already fight — defending the homeland against the dark flesh, the corruptions, the monsters. Infections. Titans. Beings unknown have crossed the veil of this world…"
His tone was both song and sermon, echoing through the frozen chamber.
The King turned to him — eyes dull and unreadable — and spoke with a voice that cut the silence like a blade.
"So you tell me," he said, "that I must not save my children?"
The jester fell to his knees, bowing until his forehead kissed the cold floor.
"I only advise, Your Majesty… as my bloodline has done before me. The choice, always, belongs to you."
The King's gaze drifted inward — through his own reflection in the snow-glass floor, through his lineage, through the crown that pressed like weight upon his soul.
"I was the one who protected… who gave peace," he whispered. "As my fathers did before me. Yet when terror comes, I am told to suffer? To think in the moment of cataclysm. My honor, my vow — they are not meant for silence. If my people fall into despair, then it must be me who moves."
He rose.
The ground shuddered beneath his feet. Cracks laced the floor like veins of lightning. From his body surged the radiance of creation — four forces coiling around him: Mana. Strength. Life. Death. Matter itself bent to his will, and the chamber filled with blinding white light that burst skyward, reaching across the entirety of Kaloterm, the kingdom of steel and caverns, its cities layered like termite beneath the earth to upward to the skies.
His armor split apart under the strain, metal flaking like ash. Darkness bled from the fractures in his flesh. He faltered, yet his posture did not yield.
"I will be the one," he declared — his voice shaking the frost from the rafters.
With a motion of his hand, legions stirred. The White Knights, blades gleaming like stars going to save the king's child, surged forth; and behind them, the Black Knights, silent as shadows, followed their King into war.
The King bore no sword, no banner. He needed none. His weapon was himself — the will that refused to vanish.
"No Cost Too Great"
From the far corner of the hall, the jester remained bowed, his painted smile twisting into sorrow.
He whispered under his breath, voice breaking into a trembling hiss that the cold devoured before it reached the throne:
"Yeah… kill each other. Kill yourself. In the end… I'll be the one who remains."