Hollowed Ground
Where she exists is a place beyond form or substance, and yet the mind has a funny way of inventing new ways to comprehend one’s surroundings. She feels as though she’s floating in a dark void, surrounded by shadows that whisper to her in words she can never quite make out. It’s cold here, a chill cutting deep to her core. Sometimes, she has the prickling sensation that she’s being watched, but when she turns all she sees is more darkness. More cold. More loneliness.
She curls in on herself, watching inky-black tears drip from her eyes, spilling down her crystalline skin.
Is this hell? she wonders.
She shuts her eyes tight, and a silent sob wracks her body as the thought echoes back to her in the gloom.
She can’t remember anything. Why is she here? What is this place? Who is she? Whatever this place is, it holds no answers. In fact, it holds nothing at all, nothing but emptiness and the lingering feeling of regret. But it longs for something. She longs for something, something she can’t quite put her finger on.
“Cecily…?”
The voice is soft, hesitant, but it sends a shock through her veins like lightning. It’s the first time one of the whispers made sense, formed into tangible words.
Why do I recognize that voice? she wonders, hugging her legs closer to her chest.
She can feel the shadows shifting around her, their cold fingers carefully loosening their grip. It’s unexpected. Her eyelids flutter open.
The scene around her has changed. There’s black sand beneath her, and she slowly lowers her bare feet to the ground, relishing the sensation of the coarse grains on her toes. She’d forgotten what it was like to feel. A black dress that wasn’t there before now swishes around her legs, caught in a faint breeze. Water rolls up onto the sand, barely washing over her feet. She watches the water retreat again, withdrawing to a dark ocean full of stars. On the horizon, she can’t see where the water ends and the sky begins, yet she has the sense that here, they are one in the same.
She hears soft footsteps on the sand behind her, and she turns to face her visitor.
He pauses in his steps when she looks at him, his violet eyes round with shock.
“You’re…”
He seems to be at a loss for words before hesitantly stepping closer to her, looking her up and down with the wariness one might reserve for a wild beast. But when she looks at him…
She dashes across the sand, feet splashing in the water, scattering starlight around them. He takes a step back, but she launches herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck. She yanks him close to her, pressing his chest against her own until she can feel his pounding heart where her own should be. She doesn’t remember when she had last felt a living embrace.
For a moment, he does nothing, frozen in place, his breath shaking. Then his arms wrap around her in return, hands beginning to stroke her hair. She sinks further into his warmth, desperate tears still dripping down her face.
“You’re more beautiful than I could have ever imagined, Star-Bearer,” he whispers.
He pulls her closer, his voice starting to shake.
“I’ve missed you so much…”
She doesn’t remember him, yet she knows he’s no stranger. Cecily. That’s what he called her. Perhaps he has more to offer than simply a name. The longing wells up from within her, bleeding from her eyes like a gaping wound.
“...But…”
He pulls back from her just enough to tilt her face up toward his. The stars freckled across his cheeks glow brightly from their embrace, though his dark eyes start to glisten, rimmed with silver liquid. He tries to wipe the black tears off her cheeks, but there’s no stopping the bleeding.
“...Your eyes…”
He hugs her close again, and she buries her face in his hair.
“I’ll fix it, love. I promise.”
Cecily sighs, feeling the hunger inside her slowly starting to subside the longer she clings to him. She knows it’s temporary, that the longing will return when she’s done, but for the moment she revels in it.
Everything I ever wanted…
He shudders in her grip.
“Cecily-”
He coughs, silver blood splattering across her hair.
“What are you doing?”
She doesn’t know. But, it feels right.
He suddenly wrenches himself out of her arms, stumbling back before collapsing to his hands and knees in the sand at her feet. Mercury streams from his eyes, dripping down his face, sinking into the sand.
“Shit,” he curses, spitting mercury from his lips.
Cecily kneels in the sand, drawing closer to him. His eyes flash with purple light as he scrambles back from her, kicking up sand around them. She doesn’t care. She reaches for him, clutching at the soft fabric of his sleeve as she leans in.
An obsidian dagger materializes in his hand just before she can kiss him, poised right under her chin.
“Don’t,” he warns.
Cecily pauses, looking down at the dagger.
I remember… Why do I remember this?
She looks at his eyes again. His gaze is even, unphased. But, his hand shakes, if only for a moment.
“I’m trying to help you, Cecily. Don’t make me do this.”
I remember…
The longing pushes her forward, and she presses her lips against his. He plunges the blade into her throat as she collapses onto him, pinning him to the sand.
I remember…
The blade passes right through her like mist, vanishing from his hand. For a moment, the hunger subsides again as she absorbs another sliver of his magic. His glowing eyes stretch wide in horror as he realizes his one defense is useless here. Perhaps she should feel satisfaction in seeing him like this. She doesn’t. All she feels is the longing, the hunger.
Cecily forms a shimmering dagger of her own in her hand, mimicking the form she absorbed. She holds the dagger over his chest with both of her hands, like a sacrificial lamb.
I remember…
She plunges the blade downward, and finds it buried in nothing but sand. He has vanished from her world without so much as a goodbye. Cecily runs her hand over the sand, stained with his blood. She lets the silver-stained grains sift through her fingers for a moment before she hurls them into the sea, listening to the lonely splash echo back. She turns to the water, stretching out her legs across the cursed sand as she gazes out at the starry expanse.
I remember, Dilucos.
Dilucos gasps as he wrenches his consciousness from the sigil, his hands trembling. Without thinking, he throws the sigil across his lab with a frustrated scream. He does nothing as he hears it skitter across the floor, crack against one of the tables. He numbly lowers himself to sit on the floor, watching the silver tears drip from his cheeks onto the marble tiles.
This is the second time that sigil has almost killed him.
He takes another moment to compose himself before he drags himself to his feet. He picks up the sigil gingerly, running his fingers over it in search of damage only to sigh in relief when he realizes it’s as smooth and clear as it ever was. He carefully slips the sigil back into its casing around his neck.
“I’ll fix this,” he reminds her.
Dilucos clutches his fist around the necklace as though he’s clinging to a lost piece of his own soul. His next words are softer, more for himself than for her:
“I’ll fix it…”