Jay POV
My mind twisted for a moment, and I shot up, ready to jump back into the fight I had just lost.
I had finally gotten a good grasp on my powers, and I felt like I was finally teetering on the edge of understanding something.
"Ourobor…os" the words I had been so excited to say died out in my chest.
My eyes fluttered about, perplexed at what exactly I was seeing.
Darkness, everlasting and forever expanding darkness. I spun around, capturing the full picture of where exactly I was.
The heat struck me before I saw it.
A single star fluttered in the endless void, its light bending through the dark like a pulse caught between heartbeats.
It felt both immense and impossibly distant, heavy with presence yet fragile as dust.
Pale blue fire slid along its surface in gentle waves, folding and unfurling as if the star itself were alive and dreaming.
Where am I?
Frantically, I tried recalling anything Ouroboros said about "Meeting a star," but there was nothing.
"He-Hello?" I blurted out, instantly blushing at the stupidity of the moment.
No response.
Feeling even stupider, I floated in my self-resignation, trying to come up with any idea of what was happening.
It was then that I finally noticed it, the small trickle of stellarium flowing from the star to me.
The flow started from my head down to my heart, then from my heart to my spine.
I worked around in a spiral pattern. What was the star showing me? How to absorb Stellarium?
I quickly copied the flow from my head to my heart, mimicking the spiral it was doing with the essence.
It felt… Alive.
Like I wasn't just pulling the star essence into me, but just subtly guiding it.
The star grew hotter the more I guided, as if it were getting excited. I slowed down as the heat became too much.
The flow soon trickled, and I felt a heavy pounding in my head.
Badum.
Just a little more…
Badum.
I felt blood trickle out of my nose and mouth.
BADUM.
"AAAAHH!"
I shot up out of the bedding and sheets that surrounded me, my face slowly clenching from the pain.
"Jay!" Ouroboros shot up. Clearly startled by my actions.
I blinked through the haze, my eyes struggling to adjust.
Ouroboros, her face carried the same look my mother used to give me when I was sick.
Mom.
I tried to push myself up, but a cold voice cut through the air.
"Lay back down."
Ouroboros's tone froze me in place. I sank back quietly, focusing on the faint rhythm of stellarium within me.
"Your star must have guided you," she said softly. The sound of her voice felt… familiar.
I explained what I'd seen. Her eyes flickered between wakefulness and something distant.
"This was not what I planned," she murmured. "You are the only chance we have to escape this place, as funny as that sounds."
She turned toward Janus, lounging under the artificial sunlight.
"We have searched for the core of this Pocket longer than most can remember, and yet here we are, relying on a boy to find it."
Her tone cooled.
"How laughable."
Her words lingered. She was right.
How was I supposed to find something even the god of time and knowledge could not?
Was I really meant for this?
I fell back into thought, tracing my connection to the star.
The vision, if that's what it was, what did it want from me?
"Come, child." Ouroboros's voice pulled me from the spiral. "You still have a lot to learn before you're anywhere near useful to us."
Outside the crude resting area, Janus and the other me sat along the wall of the colosseum, basking in the false sun.
"You're awake," Janus said, his eyes scanning me like a statue being judged.
"Yes," I answered. My voice came out colder than I expected.
I understood why he did what he did, but…
But…
Rage boiled under my skin as I thought back to how I almost died, not to some crazy dinosaur, or some dumb whim of mine, but to a force I couldn't control at all.
Janus walked up to me, his eyes scanning the look in my eyes.
"You're alive," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Barely," I answered. My voice felt dry, the air scraping against my throat.
He stopped a few paces away. "Then you learned something."
I wanted to laugh, or shout, or ask him what exactly he thought I'd learned from dying. Instead, I just stared at him, letting the silence carry the heat in my chest.
Ouroboros's shadow shifted behind us, watching but not intervening.
"Hello." A new voice cut through the tension, clearly trying and failing to read the flow of the conversation.
It felt oddly familiar, almost like my dad's, but softer.
I looked over to the culprit. His face was still slightly off, but it was still an image of me.
"I'm sorry." He nodded his head forward slightly, showing his sincerity. "Even if I was ordered to try and almost kill you, I still took it a step too far."
I clenched my fists. The apology barely reached me through the noise in my head.
"You think that fixes it?" I asked.
"I almost died because of you."
He didn't flinch.
"I know."
"Do you?" My voice came out sharper than I meant. "You followed orders. You didn't even stop to think what would happen."
He lowered his eyes. "You think I wanted to be here?" The words were quiet, but they cut through the air. "I didn't ask for any of this either."
The anger in me stuttered. He looked like me, sounded like me, and for the first time, I saw the same exhaustion in his face.
I finally saw the same look I felt inside my own heart.
"Ok."
He gave a small nod, relief softening his features.
The silence that followed wasn't hostile this time. It just felt heavy.
Janus turned away first. "Then stop wasting time," he said. "If you're both done bleeding on each other, start learning something useful."
At that note, something finally clicked in my head.
My weapon!
I completely forgot about the glaive.
–
The sound of steel clashing overtook the colosseum.
Two figures blurred along the marble floor, clashing into each other with equal force.
Finally… I caught up.
I watched as his blade descended towards my head.
It felt slower than before.
I moved, sliding my glaive's shaft underneath his, circumventing the pressure outwards.
The pressure broke outward in a clean arc.,
I moved, space following my strides.
Step.
I spun outwards. Twisting my glaive, aiming directly for the kill. My opponent's eyes flickered in realization a little too late.
My blade paused, an inch separating it from his neck.
At the same time, I felt the cold sensation of steel along mine.
"Tie." Janus belted out.
How did he manage to create that opening while I was going for the kill?
We both nodded at each other, as we both knew what this meant.
Even grounds.
We were now at the point of progression where the second I improve past him, he disappears.
I left him to his thoughts.
Knowing what he's thinking about right now will just dwindle the resolve I have.
Instead, I need to think about how I am meant to overcome the wall that is myself.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow is the day I kill myself.