Attendance please!
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As I make my way down the street, I find myself slightly surprised at just how quite it is, I mean this neighborhood was right beside a main road, yet it was silent, like not even a bird chirping silent.
Very weird and it wasn't even that late, like only 8:00pm late, yet even the houses in the neighborhood seemed silent, there was light, people talked but no sounds seem to reach the street or well me.
Did I unconsciously cast a deafening charm on myself?
Or had the world just gone all fricked in the time I decided to take a damn stroll because I was locked out the house.
Anyway, as I head forward, I notice the trees sways, the grass moving, but I don't feel the wind, I don't hear it, it feels removed.
The air itself is wrong right now, I just realize I am not breathing yet I am still alive like what the actual F###!
"London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady-"
Unnerved by the silence I unconsciously start singing even if the song matches the eery soundless environment.
Then the world seems to start again, I hear the wind, I hear the trees sway, I hear the cars in the distance, this doesn't calm me though-
The site before is the contrast to this renewed normalcy. A large butterfly, with pale blue and yellowish flames for wings, circles me.
Seemingly enjoying my singing despite that I haven't stopped despite my mind now going a thousand miles a minute.
Then the soft music of a piano seems to sound throughout the street, it is a melody the man recognizes, one that he swears is impossible, just like the butterfly in front of us.
{Astrum Unicum OST plays}
I then reach my hand out to what I can only imagine to be an illusion, something that couldn't truly be here… right?
Softly the butterfly lands, it's flames are warm, and the butterfly itself had almost not weight…
[Ding!]
[First Anomaly Interaction With Host Detected!]
[System initiating!]
[5%]
Now my world just flipped, a [10%] system? Like really? [20%] What is this a [30%] webnovel?
[40%]
And anomaly? So not an [50%] illusion?
Does that mean this butterfly is connected to-
Does that mean this music is played by-
This! This is absurd! No, it shouldn't be possible! Then my eyes finally look away, and I notice, the world is frozen, not like prior, prior the world still had colour, still moved.
Now the only colour was the pale blue system and the pale blue butterfly on my hand, which is slightly flapping its wings of flame for balance.
[90%]
Like what the actual *#%$?
Isn't this supposed to be the Harry Potter world, my world? The one where I am the protagonist?!
[100%]
[System Loaded]
[Quest is being issued]
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[Quest Registered]
/ \
| First Anomaly Detected, Host please subdue the anomaly |
\ /
oxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Quest Difficulty: UEX++
Target: $h0rek**per
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Eh-
Eh?
Eeeehhhhhh?!
Nani?!
Since when is the first quest is, what looks like, max difficulty?!
Wait now that I listen to the piano closer-
A shiver goes down my spine…
Why does it sound uncanny??
Why does it sound wrong??
Why are the notes either a chord or two higher or lower, why do some notes scrape-
I look back at the butterfly, then I notice it, as the music changed from the original it did to-
Its prior beautiful and serene pale blue has now become a dark corrupted red while the soft yellow became purple…
Sheeeee-t
Then the world started moving again, but the butterfly didn't leave, the music did not stop or return to normal, the system did not disappear.
Then I noticed a detail, blood was flowing out of my hand were the butterfly landed… I didn't notice prior because the butter- butter- butterfly was drinking it, to fast to steadily- akin to parasite-
Another shiver goes down my spine as I quickly shake my hand and force the damn thing off me.
It then circles around once, twice, thrice and then starts flying somewhere.
If only to crush the thing for drinking my blood I follow, my thoughts are muddled but what does that matter!
I need to remove that thing that drank my blood!
My blood is mine! Mine! Mine!
MIINNNEEEE!!!!!!!
I run after it, faster than I could before, but that doesn't matter, because I wasn't fast enough to catch, to take that thing and kill it!
So, I ran faster, faster and faster.
I ran for a while, I don't know for how long, but I ended up in a clearing of trees right before the forest.
Then I stop, the red of the butterfly, and the red of my surroundings fades back, back into the cool blackness of the night.
The butterfly itself returned to a normal colour; the music returned to normal… no, the music came from behind me.
Not only that but I feel the eyes, cold, hungry, sad, confused, enraged, anguished…. Staring into my back.
So, I do the stupid thing, I turn around, I acknowledge that what ever it is, is there.
.
.
.
Now I look, in front of me, is a grand, pure white piano, playing it, is "a woman" the "music is beautiful" yet the "sound is sad" the "tone is wrong".
Wait "am I speaking my thoughts" I can't seem to "control this".
Shit!!
The "butterfly!"
It should "be the reason" why I " can not " control "myself"!
She stops playing, then looks at me, her "eyes tell me a story".
One second, she is at the piano… next I "feel a breath on" the back of my "neck".
I turn to face her, she seems uncannily happy, happy but in a wrong way.
Then she speaks "beautiful am I child, not the soul in the child?"
I freeze, my heart starts pounding, she knows! She can tell! How?! How?! How?!
What does she see? How does she see it? Is it my eyes? Should I close them? No, I will die then.
How odd, I don't fear her…. Instead, I want too- hold her. She did not want to be like this, I can see it in her eyes, she hates the current self, it is not her after all. I can hear it in the cracks of her voice, the unstable words that change or switch midway.
Then a strange, unnatural calmness overtakes me "Why are you so sad… Shorekeeper?"
She freezes, she grins, unnaturally, unnaturally, as if her face will split apart at any moment…
"You know me?"
"I know of you, or well a story of you"
"Really? What story?"
"Of Solaris-3, of Rov-"
Her demeanor shifts entirely, practically demonically at the sound of the name.
Her eyes, the previous enchanting purple with a soft blue tint turn black, her sclera red. Her head twist upside down, her neck elongated impossibly. Her mouth becomes bloody yet her eyes, the red eyes, cry, not tears of blood, just tears.
"SP$AK not THAT traitors naME"
It is gone just as it appeared, now she is just floating there, just like in the game, her idle animation had her just float, like she was now. Returned to normal, as if that corruption was but an illusion.
Yet I watch, and I see, I see the purple mist that flows from her skin… it is evidence that… there was no illusion.
Now, now as she sits there, I see something new in her eyes, fear and regret, fear of me running, regret of becoming that-
"Sorry, I am a bit sensitive" her voice soft as a melody travels to me, but her mouth never opens, she doesn't look at me, she only looks down.
"What happened?"
"… You're not scarred"
A tremble, I hear her voice tremble, shake with fear.
"I am"
"Then why not run?"
"I couldn't outrun you anyway"
"What if I give you 30 minutes head start"
Playfulness to cover the pain.
"And then what"
"?"
"You can rip through space… what use is there for me to even try to run?"
Understanding and melancholy.
"Smart child" she smiles, walks over to me and pats my head
"Smart ones are my favorite; they taste the best"
A false bravado, a joke so empty even the void recoils.
"You wouldn't know"
She freezes at this, then "How would you know?"
"Each and every time, you held yourself back, otherwise I would already be a corpse in the clearing"
"You noticed, but that is just it, I like playing, after all the fear is what is most delicious"
Urging me to go, to run, to save myself.
"…Can you come here?"
Confusion, unsure, but curious.
She pauses, slightly surprised, she is hesitant at first.
She looks at me waiting if I will reconsider, my eyes don't leave hers, I just wait.
Then walks over to me and bends down to my level "What is i-"
I don't give her the chance to speak, I reach out around her head, my small arms barely have the strength, yet I manage to pull her, we fall.
She is on top of me, her head on my chest, my small arms holding her head.
"It is okay to cry when you are sad"
Her body shudders, involuntarily, she is warm, she seems human…. Despite lore wise being an ai…
What strangeness here I am a five-year-old Harry James Potter, hugging a now weeping, partially corrupted Shorekeeper who's body has gone weak.
She tries to push away yet somehow fails; I feel the hot wet tears on my shirt… there are so many.
Her arms kept tensing kept trying to push away, they tried to find some sort of perch, they tried the ground, they tried my shoulders. They failed every time, as if any time she tried her energy would just disappear.
Her breathing was rapid, ragged, sharp unorganized, manic breaths. As if someone drowning.
Her fingers griping my shirt, almost desperately, as if I am her lifeline.
Her soft, silent… whimpers are the only sound I hear.
Slowly her body curls up to me and around me, as if protecting me, greedy, unwilling to let go.
The world moves around us, the butterflies settling on the field, making it glow in brilliance.
Then one of my hands slightly moves, and under her vail I start stroking her hair, her head. The previously quiet sobs are now almost deafening.
Now we lay there, a child holding something that most would classify as a monster, yet to the child, she was just empty.