THE UNHINGED

A slope of light bent strangely over the rising staircase of light. Ella stood at the bottom, looking up with a perplexed expression. She was here before. A long, long time ago, before her eyes stirred open and her mind was cleansed. Well before Noterra was born into the world, before life sprung like flowers in the rain. Yet, her memories of those days were at best hazy; the flas.h.i.+ng, blurred scenes that she could not fully connect.

She had expected to join Lino, yet was instead flung here -- somewhere beyond her scope of perception. No matter how far she strung out her Divine Sense, she could see nothing but the void. Slightly unsettled, she braved a deep breath and took a step forward, slowly climbing the stairs. It was strange; she couldn't even feel them, as though they weren't there, yet she didn't fear to fall. Paradoxically, she felt as grounded as she ever did.

The stairs of light seemed to go into infinity above and beyond, surrounded by the trickling void. She, strangely, could not see a star in sight, could not even see a singular galaxy to say nothing else. The further up she climbed, the lither she found herself; more graceful, less consumed, unburdened. Her mind seemed to sharpen, the distant memories slowly beginning to recover.

The first to come to her in full was the day she landed on Noterra -- back then, the entire planet was nothing but a swirl of burning boulders and acid rain, rivers of magma and sulfur flowing ceaselessly. In the first Cycle, the entirety of the land was covered by an insanely deep ocean, before resurfacing back up during the second. She was asleep yet eerily aware; she could recall every single moment she spent, yet not the time she spent sitting cross-legged like a statue, ensconced in a golden s.h.i.+eld of light.

The second memory to return was of her constructing her home -- The Hollow Isles. She remembered tinkering with the first signs of Qi, trying to call out to anyone who would hear. She constructed a sanctuary that was immune to all hail of death from the outside, surrounded in perpetual mist and shadow dusted in black. A simple, wooden house still stood there, she believed. A sloped roof, a chimney, a hearth made out of strange stone by now certainly extinct...

A strange sensation swelled in her chest as she came to a halt. The more she remembered, the more she wished to turn back. A grim premonition whispered inside her mind that, if she were to climb the top of these stairs, she would have to forgo all she loved in this world. Yet, an even greater yearning within her heart counteracted it. A clash, a silent one, resulted in her steps slowing, but the climb continuing. She convinced herself that she could turn around any time she wanted. Just a few more memories, is all.

The third memory to return to her was of the day she saw the first life besides herself inhabit Noterra -- it was a humanoid creature falling inside a steel construct that spat out fire from the bottom where nine, conical holes existed. He crashed onto a distant mountain, entirely unaware of her. She remembered his face clearly -- heavily bearded in black, his eyes like two, swirling portals to the abyss, body reaching nearly four meters in height, clothed in burned garbs that barely seemed to cover anything.

He stumbled out of the strange construct that blasted bolts of electricity within and without, his arms wrapped around another figure tightly snuggled inside a blanket. The memory completed, the covered figure's face coming into focus; a pair of silver eyes coupled with silver hair that s.h.i.+mmered faintly gave her a particularly ethereal appearance. It was certainly a she -- as far as Ella could tell, anyway.

The man placed her down gently onto the soft earth, his emotionally-deprived eyes shedding a few tears as he caressed her cheeks. He mumbled something in a strange language that Ella couldn't understand, but one word seemed to repeat time and again -- Alana, p.r.o.nounced with a thick focus on the first syllable.

The man wept so for hours on end before his mood s.h.i.+fted all of a sudden, his expression turning grimly dark as he looked up toward the sky. A roar beyond anything Ella had heard, one defying even the formation of planetary systems, shook the world. The roar of anger, of grief, of agony, of pain, of regressive, unmatched turmoil. But, at the core, it was a cry of sadness. Ella could feel it in her bones. She had half a mind to walk over, yet held herself back in the end. He was a stranger, having arrived here in a strange way, looking twice as strange as anything else she'd seen. He was not hers.

As the man's cry came to an end, black tendrils of smoke began rising from the edges of his body, slithering up and vanis.h.i.+ng a few inches off of it. His eyes turned completely black, his muscles raging, veins pulsating fiercely and violently, as though ready to burst out from underneath his skin.

The earth beneath him turned blackish all of a sudden, as though the fire had burned there for weeks, leaving ashen soot behind. It spread and spread in a full circle around him, drowning out all other colors, until it shuddered and shook, exploding into a ghastly pillar constructed entirely of Spirits -- no, Ella shuddered in horror -- those weren't Spirits. They were Souls of the dead. Billions. Hundreds of billions of them, a number beyond count.

"TAKE THEM!!!!" he suddenly spoke a tongue she could understand, Ella realized. It was not hers, but it wasn't entirely alien either. She couldn't quite explain it. "TAKE THEM ALL, I DON'T CARE!! JUST GIVE HER BACK TO ME!! I BEG YOU!! PLEASE!!"

"..." neither the heavens nor the earth replied to him, but the pillar itself shook slightly.

"PLEASE!! WHAT WORTH IS WHAT YOU GAVE ME IF I CAN'T EVEN SAVE MY ONLY BLOOD?!! PLEASE, PLEASE... please..." the man begged until his voice died out slowly, turning into a whimper. Broken. Completely broken.

"... should we?" a voice trickled into Ella's mind, startling her. She quickly raised her hand and covered her lips, afraid the man might hear her. Quickly glancing around, she saw no one but the empty air. Did she imagine it? "Should we, Elanor?"

"H-huh?! Who's... who's there...?" Ella muttered in suspense, backing up a few steps, repeatedly glancing around.

"The rest are in-between the dead and the alive", the voice continued, as though it hadn't heard her question. "Yet, there is a chance for her. His daughter. His last blood. Should we, Elanor? Should we grant his wish despite the fact he swore up to our Opposite?"

"... I... I don't... I don't know..."

"We shall," the voice said quickly, as though it was in a hurry. "So, one day in the distant future, you may return to us. Please. Come back home..."

The pillar died out. The man's cries ceased. The voice vanished. Ella's anxiety shuffled into a shock as she saw the girl open her eyes. They glistened and s.h.i.+mmered with unbound life, yet appeared dull, as though her mind was not there yet.

"Ha ha ha ha ha..." the man laughed all of a sudden; his laughter was full of unparalleled joy, of relief, of happiness that Ella couldn't even put into words. "Thank you... thank you so much... I'll do it... I'll do anything you ask of me... I swear... thank you... thank you... thank you..."

Ella came to a sudden halt on the stairs, her mind stirred. She only now realized her body was shaking with emotion, her breathing turned into gasping. She shouldn't have remembered. She shouldn't have climbed the cursed stairs. She should have turned around and walked away, just like the last time. It was too late now, however; she knew too much for her to return as though nothing happened, and yet too little to do anything concrete with her knowledge. She had to climb. Further. Higher. Until the end, wherever it may lead her.

**

Lino quickly ripped open the membrane of the world, tearing open a tunnel toward Noterra. His worries allowed him not even a second of respite despite the fact that he desperately needed it. He had, by now, returned to his ordinary appearance, unable to even endure the Edge's presence any longer, forced to withdraw it. He was gone too long. In his worries, he had even failed to notice that Ella was not with him -- that she never returned from wherever she was flung off to.

As the tunnel through s.p.a.cetime ripened, he quickly burst through, speeding as much as he could without tearing away at his body. Though the journey was short, it felt like an eternity.

He appeared in the high-skies of the Empyrion, right where he left. His eyes veered down, yet he immediately regretted it. Desolation. Everywhere. Death beyond measure, beyond count. Hollowness filled him all of a sudden, his entire body freezing as he swept his Divine Sense through. How many? Ten thousand... twenty... fifty... a hundred thousand...

His heart turned to a frigid boulder as he came across t.i.tus' limp body lodged between two rigged rocks. The man had a tranquil expression on his face, his entire body covered in wounds. Dead.

Myveen was in much worse shape, her body spiked onto a sharp rock inside a mountain-dip. Yet, even she had a smile on her pallid face.

Cain was, perhaps, the worst off, his body bared nude and stuck to a cross, a single sword dipped through his skull, leaving through his chin. Though disfigured, Lino could still see the traces of a smile on that olden face.

Amadeel lay cold, draped in a muddied garb, buried underneath a mound of soldiers. Just as a faint flash of hope returned to Lino's mind, having sensed a trace of life in him, it vanished. He drew his last breath. Bid the final farewell to the world.

Tyvole, Surmin, Eynor, Fillian... all the young Generals he had spoken to before... he saw each and every one of them lying dead with their squads. How many? Numbers ceased to matter. If the death of a single person is a tragedy, what is this? What was the death of so many? This... is what you wanted? A thought flashed through his mind for a moment as his eyes began to weep.

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It was the silent sort of a cry, the ilk only the winds would ever know of. His black eyes turned bloodshot-red, his lips quivering as though in the cold. It did little to ease the pain he felt inside his heart. It felt turned upside down, ripped and patched together ruggedly, pierced and sliced, burned and frozen. He couldn't block the memories, and with them came the flood of emotions he was unwilling to deal with. Yet, he had to.

His empty eyes soon veered over toward the west where he could feel countless battles ongoing. They were still being pushed further back in. How many dead would he see there? How many familiar faces would he have to witness being culled from this world?

"... you can feel nothing..." the offer was tempting. Too tempting. "Be free of all of this."

"... at what cost?" he mumbled, seeming absentminded. "To be like you? Silently nestle and watch while someone butchers all of your children?"

"... inviting, no?"

"... hey." a soft voice whispered gently into his ear as he felt warm fingers tangle with his own. Turning back, he saw Hannah floating right there, her eyes mirroring his own -- bloodied. Her crimson hair spilled over her shoulders like a waterfall, yet even it seemed to pale in comparison. How much had she cried? "You're back."

"As are you." he replied in a cracking voice, tightening his grip as she replied the gesture.

"You're a grown-a.s.s man," she said, trying to force out a smile to no avail. "What business do you have crying like a little girl. G.o.ddammit..." she added with a whimper, burying her head into his chest. Lino could feel her tears trickling down his bared chest. Warm. Unneeded.

"... let's go help the rest first," he said, his expression mellowing into one of love and warmth as he reached over and caressed her hair gently. "There'll be time to mourn and weep after. By G.o.d, there will be time."

"Together?"

"As always."

END OF VOLUME XX

END OF BOOK V