Chapter 43: Chapter 43: 2.

The revelation did nothing to calm my nerves, and questions bloomed in my mind. There were two different children in the images, but Eli had only mentioned a single son.

The sound of rattling chains distracted me. William was moving outside. I didn’t want him to be with Eli alone. I left the picture, questions stirring in its wake, and made my way to the door.

I’d kept it closed to provide myself some privacy from Eli. It creaked open, and I saw William looking up at Eli with a pained expression.

“I need to go to the bathroom.” William spoke.

A feeling of relief swept through my body. I thought Eli had hurt him. Eli was equally surprised, and for the first time since I’d arrived, I felt like smiling. The thought of bathroom breaks hadn’t occurred to the gold mask.

“Down the stairs, second doo- actually, best I guide you there.” Suspicion caked his voice.

Eli walked past the kitchen towards a door I hadn’t seen before. I could see stairs beyond it, and William rushed through. Eli kept a close eye on him, and I found myself alone. William was the one with wisdom, so Eli thought he was the most likely to try something that could work. I didn’t like being underestimated, but now it was a boon.

I watched from the entrance to my room as Eli disappeared. This was my chance. Any bit of information could help me. Across from me was the abandoned room I’d seen after breakfast.

The room with the cot.

I took a step forward, my chains clashing gently. I didn’t want to alert Eli to my activities. Then I stopped. Something was wrong. My chest… It hurts. My fingers dug at my chest as it burned.

Was it Eli? Was he doing something to me?

Thoughts cascaded in my mind as the pain intensified. Then, it stopped. I stood up as the pain disappeared entirely. It was like it had never occurred.

I felt a gentle pulse in my chest and closed my eyes. An image appeared inside them, a swamp, and a purple symbol hidden beyond the murky waters.

It hadn’t been Eli harming me. It was my Mark. In my mind I could see the waves its movements had caused.

No. I had time to examine this afterwards. My current situation took priority.

The pain lingered on my mind as I slowly made my way towards the room. I took a final look towards the open door that Eli and William had gone through.

Nobody was there.

The door in front of me was partially opened. Enough for me to see the cot inside. Dust gathered around my shoes and as it flew into the air it tickled at my nose, threatening to make me sneeze. I held it in.

My hands gently guided the door open; I didn’t want it to creak and give me away. I took a step inside. And then another.

An eye stared at me.

I froze. My mind assaulted me with images. A sun, an eye, destruction. Then I realised it wasn’t in my mind.

The walls surrounding the cot were filled with drawings and images. All of the drawings were of a single eye, and the images contained the sun. I looked up to avoid them and paused. Every inch of the ceiling was covered in them.

What was this?

A memory hit me. The sun being torn into by a being.

It was the first night.

All of the images centred around the cot. My mind threatened to overwhelm me with emotions and memories, but I held strong. There were other things in the room.

Toys, and photos. I tore my eyes away from the images of the first night and focused on anything that was different. There were stuffed animals on the floor, dirt gathering on their bodies. Shards of glass littered the floor.

They’d come from the picture frames I could see shattered beside the toys. I took a cautious step towards the pictures, expecting to see the same image I had in my room.

Each one had been torn in half.

There were large gouges in them that destroyed pictures and frames alike. It looked like a beast had taken free reign and unleashed its anger out on the unsuspecting room.

I caught a glimpse of a single part of a picture. It was another baby. Or maybe I’d seen it before, but at a different time.

This baby wasn’t happy. It was sickly, and its skin was pale.

There was a footstep behind me.

My heart skipped a beat and I turned around… Coming face-to-face with William.

I’d been too engrossed in the room and hadn’t heard his chains as he walked behind me. He put a finger to his mouth and stared at the pictures and drawings on the wall.

There was confusion in his eyes.

My breathing quickened, and my back broke out in a sweat. William wasn’t alone, a shape emerged from behind him, slowly forcing the door open.

It was Eli.

The grandfatherly expression was gone, and all that was left was fury. He held his staff and I could see his knuckles turning white, a thin trail of blood dripping from his palms as his nails dug into them.

“Leave.” His voice carried across the room.

We froze.

“LEAVE!” Eli roared.

My mind shutdown, my body guided my actions, and I was outside the room. The door was closed now and from inside I heard the sounds of glass shattering. And the cries of a man.

I felt a hand grab my arm.

“Come on.” William hissed.

He dragged me into his room. I could still hear the sounds of destruction in the background and turned to see William staring at me.

“Can you manipulate metal?” William spoke quickly.

I shook my head. “Still attuning.”

William cursed.

“I can create earth.”

William’s eyes flashed. “The nexus-”

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“Is utterly useless to you.” A cold voice called from the entryway.

Eli.

His hands were a mix of dust and blood. Tear stains clung to his cheeks. His eyes looked down at us. Emotionless.

“I did not decide on this location by accident.” Eli‘s staff tapped onto the ground. “Perhaps it’s time I gave you a lesson on magic and hope.”

He took a step forward, and we were pushed back by his presence. I felt something press into my back. I turned to move it out of the way, and then stopped.

It was a cot.

Why was there another cot here?

“Let me impress upon you the severity of your situation.” Eli‘s words came out slowly. “You have seen that we are in a dimensional rift. I know you’ve been in one, William. Without my permission no magics are allowed to be cast. Whether that is inside the rift, or targeting the rift.”

Eli’s expression was grim. “You are correct, I did not destroy the nexus. However, it does not matter. All magic that seeks to establish a waypoint must use a crystal, or a person. And that connection is established with magic. Here, the moment someone tries to locate you, the magic will be nullified. It is impossible to establish a portal here.”

Eli stepped outside the room.

“Remember children, we have all the time in the world.”

He gestured at me, and I stepped out of the room. I looked back and saw William’s expression. It was devoid of hope. Eli’s hand reached over me and closed the door.

I got one final look at the cot. And the bed. William hadn’t been forced to sleep in a cot. That meant it was there for a different reason.

A thought tugged at my mind. A connection that was at the tip of my tongue.

“Go to your room youngling.” Eli‘s voice shattered the pattern. “I will call you for lunch.”

His kind expression was back on his face. And he guided me gently back to the room. My cell.

The door shut behind me. I was back in the room, but this time I didn’t feel helpless. My hands pressed against the bed as I crawled onto it. I forced myself into a crossed-legged sitting position, my restraints making it difficult, but not impossible.

I took a deep breath in, and a deep breath out.

My thoughts faded away, and my emotions calmed. The room disappeared, and so did the sounds around me. There was no William, there was no Eli.

There was only a blank space.

I was an adult again. My body was the one I had back on earth. It floated at my will and looked towards the earth symbol that resided within my mind. I hadn’t been able to attune to metal. That was okay. It would come to me.

I had other things to focus on.

My feet touched against the ground, an endless black expanse surrounding me. I raised my hand and the scenery changed. Walls grew around me, and pictures formed within those walls.

Intelligence didn’t help me make good decisions, but it did help me remember small details. It took a lot of work and had to be done immediately. The memory also had to have left a strong impression on me.

Within seconds the room was recreated perfectly. Then I added a single addition.

The cot I had seen in William’s room.

Within these details was a connection I needed to make. The key behind all of Eli’s actions.

I allowed memories of conversations to intrude into the space. Snippets of information, useless by themselves. My first meeting with Eli. My journey through the first night, and my subsequent skill unlocking. My second conversation with Eli.

There was a common thread here, and it all linked together.

I knelt down among the glass shards and picked up one of the toys. A stuffed bear. The other toys followed similar themes. The kinds of toys you would give to a child.

Eli had a son. I knew that. A stuffed toy was normal.

Then I looked up at the pictures of the sun that littered the walls like stars. Each one of them depicted the sun in a different state. One even showed the sun being destroyed, but on closer inspection it was a drawing.

When I combined them with the pictures of the eye staring down at the cot. It was obvious what was being depicted here.

The first night.

I’d considered this myself during my life here. How did people prepare their children for the first night?

The answer was that they didn’t. Nobody knew what happened during the first night. Mana would slowly gather around children over the entire year. Then, it would crescendo until the night arrived. The same time and day for every child. At its peak the babies all began to cry.

Some didn’t make it.

Now I could see that someone had been preparing for it. Eli. I don’t know how he managed to learn about the images, but he wasn’t too far off on how the first night appeared.

If children were exposed to these pictures, they would be less likely to panic during the actual first night. They could survive.

That was the obvious conclusion.

I knew differently. There was no stopping the terror of the first night. It wasn’t a static image; it was the destruction of an entire world being shown to an infant.

I looked down at the cot, and a picture lay there. The one that was placed in my room. A happy child, and a family holding another happy child. Eli’s family.

Next to it was another picture. The sickly baby, older than before, but not as healthy.

Eli had a son that would soon face his first night, but I don’t think I’d seen him yet.

A theory formed in my mind. One child only had pictures of themselves as a baby. The other had pictures of the first night in his room. Then he had grown sickly, and his room was now torn up. I gazed at my surroundings. It had been a feat of anger… Or grief.

What if a child survived and couldn’t cope with what it had seen?

I would do the only thing I could to save my next one. I would look for a skill that might help it understand and manage its fears. Even if the only way to get that skill was to turn the entire world against me.

The room changed, and a figure appeared. I faced Eli, as I had in our second meeting. The words he’d spoken to me repeated, one by one, and the picture of Eli’s obsession formed in my mind.

A faint whisper left my lips.

“Parents would move the earth and shake the heavens to protect their children.”

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