Forgotten Seed of Love

Pain. Searing pain. A dark crimson floods your retinas.

Flickering dim light, a ringing hum echoing in your eardrums. This world can't be trusted. Everything in sight is just an illusion.

Wake up. Wake up now...

The name catches in your throat. You can't bring yourself to say her name, the name you know so well.

No, no, no, no. Something's wrong. Everything is wrong.

No. That can't be Ramona. Ramona isn't a hideous, writhing mass of rotten flesh. She doesn't let out nauseating low groans. She doesn't ooze D-Slime from every inch of her body.

She doesn't stare at me with those hollow, empty eyes,

No!

You jolt awake, drenched in cold sweat.

What you're seeing... is...

Is...

Flesh. Great heaving masses of it, layered and sprawling.

Crimson, writhing entrails coating the walls, strangling the pillars, crawling across the windows. And between the cracks of the flesh,

Black liquid is seeping out.

Dissolution.

You've seen Dissolution before. Too many times. But never like this, two distinct maladies tearing through a single body at once.

The image flashes back. Hollow black sockets. A silhouette bloated and warped beyond recognition. Her fingers reduced to irregular appendages against your palm...

A faint tremor ripples through your mind. Almost imperceptible.

Instinctively, you reach for the source, it's not Ramona. You could recognize Ramona with your eyes closed; her spirit waves calm and soft, like the surface of a still lake.

Go east...

No response.

With no other clues, you move toward the sound.

You cross a river that reeks of rust and rot. You step over a membrane-like earth infested with dark red tendons.

Your breathing becomes labored; your nerves throb under the encroachment of those eldritch colors.

It has to be a dream. The sensation is too real, but you have to believe it. You have to.

Something soft and white drifts onto the tip of your nose.

You step onto a boundary. A visible one, a clean, unmistakable line dividing two worlds.

Beyond it: nauseating flesh and surging black sludge.

Something stirs in the dandelion patch.

You follow the motion. A white tuft is brushed aside, revealing a corner of pale fabric.

Then she stands up.

A girl, frail and airy as a dandelion.

She tilts her head, observing your expression.

It's almost ironic. After everything you've walked through, she is the only normal human you've seen. The only existence that isn't frightening.

The girl tilts her head, a playful smile gracing her lips.

You do. Of course you do.

After everything, the darkness, the stench, the repulsive sensory assault, how could you not want to touch the first living person you've found?

You reach out, touching her slender, soft fingers.

Yes. You feel it too. Along with human warmth, there's a faint sensation, like a weak electric current connecting you.

It's the resonance of Silver Cores.

Before you can sort through any of your questions, she speaks first.

You don't answer right away. The girl named Saya lets go of your hand, takes half a step back, her eyes narrowing as she sizes you up.

There's a bemused look on Saya's face, clearly these terms mean nothing to her.

You don't finish. You can't.

Words are just hollow symbols. They can't carry what you felt in that moment, the fear that crawled up from the base of your spine.

The fear of losing Ramona forever.

Saya's gaze goes unfocused for a moment.

She looks down, brow furrowed, murmuring to herself.

You've seen this condition before.

It isn't only her, these are documented symptoms of Dissolution. Clouded consciousness. Fragmented memory. Collapse of self-identity.

Saya's fingers curl inward, as if trying to grasp something that no longer exists.

As she wavers, the world around you begins to shift.

You look toward the edge of the dandelion field. The flesh-membrane, drenched in black sludge, is pressing inward inch by inch. The boundary looks less certain than it did before.

Her eyes dart away. She swallows the rest.

A harder question than it sounds. You and Ramona are both Mythag investigators, but what you carry as a Keeper is something Ramona doesn't have.

You take Saya's hand again. You reach inward, tracing the shape of Ramona in your mind, her voice, her face, hoping the faint link between you can carry it across.

Snap. The link breaks.

A crack of thunder splits the sky.

From the cracks in the wooden planks, black slime occasionally floats upward, defying gravity.

Saya curls into a corner, the lower half of her face tucked against her arms. She asks quietly...

You nod.

Saya looks out at the rain falling in thin, steady lines, as if the water might wash away the black filth.

A look of sorrow crosses her face.

You remain silent.

Outside, the rain keeps falling, steady and soft.

You and Saya each curl into your own corner of the cabin. The night passes in silence.

At some point, exhaustion pulls you down into a heavy slumber.

Something settles over you in the dark.

A thin blanket has been draped over you.

Saya stands in the dandelion field, bathed in morning light.

The rain has washed countless seeds loose from their stems. They've fallen onto the crimson-black earth, and some, impossibly, have already begun to sprout.

Saya nods, not quite certain she understands.

In the shadow of Saya's frail smile, you nod firmly.

The day passes in exploration and pacing along the boundary.

Beyond the dandelion field, the same desolate landscape repeats itself in every direction. Earth is buried under flesh, unrecognizable beneath stacks of red and black.

Unease takes root in your chest, creeping into your thoughts. You can't force it down.

Night falls again.

With that, you both drift off to sleep.

......

Something wakes you. A sound, or a heat. A heat that gets under your skin, as if you are back in the desert.

Your head is swimming. You can't tell if it's the eerie scene in front of you, or the haze drifting through the air.

Or the influence of the Holy River.

The Queen of Aram, Thais, parts the tent flap and draws close without hesitation. Sheer fabric brushes against your arm, light as nothing, her invitation unmistakable.

Firelight flickers in her fervent eyes. A morbid craving paints her flushed cheeks.

You drag your reason up from somewhere deep, fighting the pull of her words. The bell that first woke you as a Keeper stays silent.

And then, a different voice cuts through.

She's appeared from a corner of the tent without a sound.

Her voice is different from usual. Something heavier lingers beneath her words, something you can't quite name.

Why? Why do you keep refusing?

The world goes out.

Everything falls into a long and lightless dark.

Grotesque dreams come for you like a tide.

Ramona's figure flickers in and out, her voice pulled apart at the seams, rasping like air forced through a broken bellows.

You wake with a start.

Saya is leaning against the cabin door, coughing softly.

Flesh threaded with black sludge has wormed through the gaps in the door and wound itself around her wrist.

Saya frowns, her face taut and pale.

You tear the flesh from her wrist and help her to her feet.

Saya gently pushes the cabin door open. The world outside floods your vision.

The color of the field has changed.

The lush greenery of yesterday is now plated in a deep red-black shadow. The sparse blades can't hold their ground, warped and consumed by the decay.

She murmurs it to herself.

You trek through the repeating landscape for what feels like forever, until a sliver of something different finally breaks the monotony.

Saya has her head down, breathing softly. You can't see her face.

You point to the corner of the room, the piece of flesh you'd torn from Saya's wrist and thrown aside this morning.

There is nothing in this Domain but desolation.

She smiles like it's nothing. But her voice frays at the edges, trembling slightly, in a way she can't quite hold back.

Right before your eyes, her knees buckle, she falls straight down, as if everything holding her up has simply given out.

Deep in the night, Saya burns with fever. Following her directions, you build a fire from materials you couldn't name if you tried.

Your voice comes out steadier than you expected. The moment the words leave your lips, the ceremony surfaces in your mind...

The cool weight of the Silver Key settles into your palm. The solemn gazes of the crowd. The burning resolve in your heart when you closed your fingers around it.

Saya falls quiet for a moment. The firelight gilds the small curve of her silhouette in a warm, amber glow.

You lean back, bracing your hands on the grass behind you, tilting your face up toward the stars.

You turn your head. Saya is watching you quietly. The firelight flickers in her eyes like tiny, captured stars.

Her voice catches. She looks away, her eyes clouding over, fixed on the void of a dark corner.

There is not a flicker of hesitation in your gaze.

Silence falls as your words settle. Only the soft rustle of dandelions in the breeze remains.

Saya has closed her eyes. Her face is pale, almost translucent. Your heart tightens.

You lean in, and find her breathing is slow and even, her chest rising and falling in the faintest rhythm, like the tiniest ripple on a still lake.

The relief hits all at once, and with it, the exhaustion of the day and the visual strain of the hellscape finally overcome you.

Before the end arrives, this night, too, slips quietly through your fingers.

When you wake, the light has changed.

The damp air carries a pristine, washed scent. What presses through the gaps in the door is no longer the wind, but a quiet beam of light.

Saya looks toward the window, her gaze cloudy and unfocused.

Sunlight falls into her eyes the way a stone falls into still water, and raises no ripple at all.

The words come out rough.

She smiles, reaching out toward where the light falls, like a plant leaning into the sunlight.

You guide her to sit against the cabin wall. Even this short stretch leaves her breath coming in shallow, labored gasps.

Once the link is formed, Saya may disappear. That barrier is her last shield, and it's only thinning because her strength is failing.

She squints against the light, offering a genuine yet fragile smile. You can hardly bring yourself to look, but you force yourself to carve every detail into memory.

Why? The sunlight after rain is sharp enough to make your eyes sting with unshed tears.

You draw a slow, steady breath.

Her voice is soft, almost like a dream murmured on the edge of sleep.

You look out toward the distance. The horizon after rain is impossibly clear. The wind tears a gap through the clouds, and a pillar of golden light pours through, striking the distant ridge.

She tilts her head slightly.

Saya stays quiet for a long time. The rain-washed wind drifts through the cabin, brushing across her bloodless cheek.

Then she smiles.

When she says the word, love, there is no envy in her voice. No sorrow. No trace of longing.

Only profound tenderness.

Like a traveler who has walked alone through a long winter's night, and at last glimpses the first light of dawn on the far edge of the horizon, she may never reach it. But just knowing the light exists is enough.

Saya smiles, lost in a trance.

Then she reaches out toward you.

Her hand is pale and slender and trembling slightly. She cannot see you, yet her hand extends unerringly in your direction...

as if guided by something older than sight, deeper than language.

You reach out and take her hand.

And in the instant your palms meet...

A sharp pain explodes behind your eyes.

Something far keener than that, searing, incandescent, drives itself like a lightning bolt through your skull, striking straight into the deepest core of your mind.

Your vision reels violently.

You see damp dandelions glistening in the sunlight. Saya's pale and tranquil profile. The smile curling her cracked lips...

And then it all snaps into a universe of flesh. The sky turns blood-red. The earth turns blood-red. Even the Saya right before you...

Two worlds flash, overlap, and fuse in your sight. Two rivers that should never have met collide violently at an impossible junction.

The link between you and Saya is complete.

The world is made of sand.

Amidst the winds that have swept this desert for ages, you stand adrift, looking out over it all.

No sludge of Dissolution. No sprawling masses of gore.

The landscape here is solitary, pure, and beautiful.

The sand shifts and rolls, and in the far corner of the desert, two figures emerge.

A beautiful girl, and a young man.

Hand in hand, they walk together across the howling wasteland.

She giggles, throwing her arms open to embrace the wind.

The young man beside her leans in, listening attentively to her every lovely word.

The sky is clear, yet tinged with a quiet melancholy.

But in their shared silhouette, you catch a glimpse of quiet, unbidden joy.

Even if there was no one else around, even if they received no understanding or blessings from anyone, their love still...

Then the dream cuts off. The sandstorm sweeps everything away.

The world plunges into void-black.

That was what she said.

Until, at last... I met you.

The world has become "normal" again. Normal by the standards of your world.

Yellow sand smothered in dissolution sludge stretches into an endless, howling expanse.

Only the small cabin in the woods is drenched in the raw, fleshy color of innards. And through the link, you sense Saya inside. You know her end is mere heartbeats away.

No matter how many times you've turned it over in your mind, the image still resists words. Your body recoils before your thoughts can catch up.

The words steady you. Your voice gradually grows firmer.

Everything falls silent.

After a long pause, a smile ripples through the other side of the link, calm and serene.

...The Domain trembles violently, and you fall into that dream again.

The viscous, guttural sound crawls out of a mass of writhing, rotting flesh.

In a world blanketed in gore and sludge, Ramona, slick with fluid, reaches out. Her fingers barely graze your pinky.

You whisper softly in your heart.

In the midst of flesh and desolation, you firmly grasp Ramona's hand, staring straight into her hollow eyes and blood-stained form.

The radiance of the Silver Key diffuses across the entire world.

A pure white figure surfaces in your mind. It is Saya, smiling.

Something like beautiful wings flutters in the wind.

Dandelions take flight, scattering into the azure sky.

The moment every seed breaks free from the stem, the hazy, dream-like world recedes into reality.

You wake from the dream, and all things reveal their true forms.

Thank you...

You seem to hear a whispered farewell by your ear. Is it an illusion?

At some point, a Silver Core appears in your palm.

It is the same core Tinct once found, the one imbued with eternal longing.

When the time comes, you will be able to use it, to awaken her eternal "love."

The love of Saya... the Awakener.

Fin.