Chapter 6
Dawn broke without warmth.
A pale, colorless light filtered through the sparse canopy as Arius emerged from the forest. His legs failed him almost at once. He fell to the ground, his fingers digging weakly at the damp earth as if he was afraid of having nothing solid left to stand on.
His vision was broken.
Numbers ceased to correspond. They smeared into one another, bunching into confused masses that pulsed wickedly behind his eyeballs. Colors flared and vanished, some trailing behind the truth, others bursting a little too soon. Every breath was sandpaper on his lungs.
He knew, vaguely, that he was dying.
Esin appeared a few moments later.
Its shape was not stable, this faint shimmer that had defined its edges now broken and irregular. One side of its body looked less radiant, as if something had been torn from it. The dark substance, which was neither blood nor shadow, dripped quietly into the grass, dissolving.
"You shouldn't have looked that long," said Esin.
Arius tried to answer. Nothing escaped his lips.
The night in the woods was broken—but moments of understanding were punctuated with vast periods of pain and confusion. At one point, something had become aware of him aware of it. Since then, survival had become an act of instinct rather than intellect.
Esin knelt next to him, staring at Arius's unfocused eyes.
"You crossed a boundary for which you were unprepared," it goes on. "The scope of your sight expanded beyond what your intellect could bear."
Arius's chest convulsed as he gasped for another breath. The world around him grew dark at the edges.
"Then why… did you let me?" he could barely whisper.
There was a long pause as Esin did not speak for a moment
"Because stopping you would not have saved you," it said finally. "Only delayed the cost."
The sun climbed higher, its rays illuminating the land that lay beyond the forest—a land of muted earth tones and distant buildings that hovered just above the horizon.
Arius cared little for any of this.
His heart skipped a beat. Each one weaker than the previous one. The vision no longer warned him. Only observed. Detached and indifferent.
Esin laid her hand on Arius's chest. The characters in the air flashed slightly.
"You're not meant to die here," Esin told him. "Not yet."
A dull press began in Arius's body. Pain was present, yet it ceased growing in intensity. Sight settled enough so that the numbers retreated into quiet.
Esin pulled back slowly.
"This will not heal you," it said. "It will only prevent the final crossing."
The presence of Aethereia's essence caused
"We are not terrorists,"
Its head faced an open plain. Distortion bordering its body intensified and constricted as if reality itself held its breath.
"Humans," Esin spoke softly. "They
Arius did not respond. He breathed shallow, irregular breaths.
This was the last time Esin looked at him.
"I cannot be seen," it whispered. "Not by them."
The glow around its shape curled inward. Shadows layered upon one another. Space bowed slightly—and Esin was no longer there; she was hidden behind the edge of the forest.
There were footsteps faintly audible in the distance.
Arius stood frozen as the light of dawn strengthened, isolated at the edge of the forest and the plain. And whatever was coming…. would find him first.