Chapter Text
Akira grunted, dug her fingers into the alcove of rough stone and pulled her body forwards. Ebott, the Hungry Mountain, was an absolute blast to trek, more so the massive cave system that felt more like a personal dungeon system. That didn’t make the last stretch any more of a bitch, though. The steep incline towards the entrance felt more like an actual wall than a heavy slope. The strap of her massive side bag dug into her sore shoulder, and her expression tightened slightly as she kept climbing.
The wind was cool and soft, breezing through the trees like a fairytale or a dream, and Akira could smell the brisk scent of rain on the air. She could hear the soft rustling of grass blades rubbing together, and the tree leaves waving in the wind. The stone beneath her skin was cool, the heat of the sun still warming the rough rock. It was a perfect day for deep-cave camping.
... Or , Akira glanced upwards at the full moon before returning focus to her hand and footholds. A good night. The cold was working wonders wiping away her sweat, the thinner atmosphere making her take shorter breaths. Scratches littered her palms, little indents and scars where the raw stone scraped uncalloused skin, a story of her previous adventures up the mountain.
Akira couldn’t remember when she first started climbing the Hungry Mountain; maybe it was after the third Home, where her adoptive parents who swore to never abandon her left for brighter futures. Maybe it was after the first, when her hopes for a family that loved her were dashed with glass bottles and cigarette smoke. Whenever it was, Akira remembered the running. She remembered scraping her knees on gravel and cutting her palms on the barbed-wire fence, but the pain didn’t penetrate her panic. Fight and flight lit up like a beacon, she dragged her heavy body up the mountain until she was to the top of the slope and rolled to her side into the short bit of grass just before the treeline. Sobs wracked her body until she couldn't breathe, curling so tightly into a ball stars shone beneath her eyelids.
She woke to the bright moon shining down at her, grass almost cradling her and nature surrounding her in a comforting embrace. It was midnight, and the moon was full, and through the tightening of her chest she felt as though she could finally breathe. Ever since then, the clearing became a sort of safe space. When she couldn’t breathe, when the lies became too much, when she got tired of people, she went up the Hungry Mountain and sat in her little garden to pray.
...Well, not really. She wasn’t the religious sort. But the Ranger, an old man who used to call the Hungry Mountain home, (and who she secretly called ‘dad’) was a Christian. He used to talk about how he couldn’t handle churches, which were always too full of people for him to feel comfortable with. He felt more comfortable in a park, out in nature, than in a temple. More happy around plants than around people. “Closer to God,” He said. Akira could relate. Humans were lying and hurting and never saying ‘sorry’, and even if she didn’t have the same opinions on religion, anything that made the old Ranger happy made her happy.
Akira hissed through her teeth, quickly picking up and rolling onto the grass on her side. She pressed a palm to her sternum, the low ache quickly dissipating into the background as she focused on different things. The old Ranger was dead now, buried behind his house after she found his still body out back. He had been protecting a pregnant deer from the pack of wolves that showed up every so often, and the both of them were lying in the red snow. The doe was okay, maybe a broken leg from the fall, but Ranger…
She shook her head, sitting up and pressing the bag into a more comfortable position. Think about something else. The entrance was in front of her, a big dark opening into the Hungry Mountain. In her more whimsical thoughts, she referred to it as the ‘Gaping Maw’ and the cave systems as ‘The Empty Stomach’. Nothing ever went there other than her, not even bats or little critters like you would expect. It was void of life.
Except for her. Just how she liked it. She stepped forwards confidently, stopping a moment to let the wind caress her face. She could feel sweat pool down the divots in her spine, sticking the fabric to her back, and felt more heated than usual. But, well, it had been a long time since she’d climbed the mountain, and she had actually thought she could make it this time. More than a few months at a house. Enough time to stop calling it a house and call it a home.
Akira sighed and pressed flappy sleeves to her face, swiping away sweat. The parents at the house were nice, an older couple that seemed to understand her better. They were calm and quiet and uncontrolling, and seemed to understand ‘depression isn’t as much a hurdle as it is a state of being’ better than most people. But after the last time they made some callous remark, or stopped her from going to her morning classes, Akira just couldn’t take it anymore.
She grabbed her clothes, swung her go bag onto her shoulder, packed up and left.
She took a breath, closed her eyes and willed the depressing thoughts away. She was gone, out of that place, at least until they climbed up and found her again. The lack of old man Ranger would slow them down, but not stop them from finding her. Something bitter and dark and oh so familiar welled up in her chest, and she curled a palm over her sternum. I know. She whispered to it in her head mournfully before turning forcefully away from the thoughts.
She walked forwards, pressing a palm to the cave wall to keep her balance as the cool dark washed over her. She closed her eyes at the blissful feeling, water and musk and dust and moss reaching up to greet her with a cool rush of air. Gods, but she loved the Lonely Mountain. She dipped her fingers, tracing the long scratch where, when she was younger, she lost her balance and the metal zipper of the bag scraped the wall with her weight. If she scraped her foot just so, the low ringing noise the tiny stalag… mite? Tite? Made would match the one she made when she decided, foolishly, to kick the floor in anger after a particularly nasty fight. If she squinted just right, she could almost make out the carvings on the wall, strange scripts she still couldn’t translate.
Heh… She chuckled, fingertips lingering on a rather sharp edge before she clenched her fists and forcefully turned away. This was beginning to sound like a dirge, or the dramatically sad uplift before the character hit the ground. But she was here, and she was alive, and she did not fight depression just to lose to her own damn self when she needed her own support the most. Instead she tugged the bag off of her shoulders, lifting her arm so that gravity would carry the bag to the side.
The only noise was the sound of the zipper being pulled echoing through the cave and the distant sound of crickets. She tugged her sleeping bag out first, rolled it out, and then grabbed the little electronic lantern. A flick of her wrist and it opened, surrounding Akira with a warm light blue glow. She toed off her shoes, sinking gratefully into the sleeping bag and tucking her head on top of the bag. It was rare she got quiet times like this, tucked in a safe place so far away from civilization.
It was nice, being in the cool and quiet. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. The outside world lit up with a thunderous crack, the echoes of thousands of tiny droplets hitting the earth as the storm broke. She took in short breaths through her nose, fighting to get that first taste of rainfall in the back of her throat. Her body collapsed, boneless, when it finally reached her. The night was cool, the rain was steady, and she could taste the waterfall on her tongue. It tasted like home, like nights exploring with Ranger and days mapping out the forest. It tasted, felt, smelled, like home.
It was a beautiful night to fall asleep to.
Another loud crack echoed through the cave, and Akira snuggled down into her sleeping bag before freezing in confusion. That was thunder, right? So, where was the bright flash of light that followed? She leaned forwards, almost sitting up. Another crack, and she blinked open her eyes. No light… again? She squinted, cursing her shoddy eyesight and lack of glasses, hoping for the mystery to come into focus.
Her eyes widened in shock and she froze as another loud crack echoed through the cavern.
There was a hole in the floor, a massive hole where there was not supposed to be . Right next to her. In the middle of the cave. It was close enough that leaning to the side would suck her in.
An array of cracks sprayed around her frozen body, and she watched as with another crack the amount widened. Her fist clenched around her sleeping bag. Something in the back of her mind was screaming move move move movemovemove move move c’mon go go go go go as her eyes followed the new crack to the massive hole. Gravity failed her as she lurched to the side, stone collapsing and taking her with.
The last thing she saw was the inky blackness coming up to meet her before something passed through her and she blacked out.
Have you ever wondered
What it would be like
To live in a world
Where you don’t exist?
The deep, calming voice chuckled, and she could feel fingers running through her hair. Static like nails on a chalkboard or shattered glass vibrated through the air, but instead of being caustic it was calming. She felt safe here, with the strange male figure, with her head on his lap.
He was familiar, her old friend. Had she… seen him before? Of course she had. He was her faithful companion in this empty void, of course. She pressed a hand to his own, content to sit and comfort him with her physical presence.
The concept…
...t e r r i f i e s me.
His hand tightened on her own, and she lifted her head to stare him in the eye. He was tense, focusing on something in the distance. Her mouth opened and words spilled out, a beautiful rhythm of bells and crystals and little metallic noises exiting in a song of some sort, one that she would never be able to translate.
we awaken soon, my love. She pressed white colored palms to the sides of his head, cradling bone cheeks in comfort . soon, she will remember.
And forget. He reminded her, pressing palms to her shoulders and pulling her into his lap.
She didn’t answer, instead moving her hands to cradle the middle of her chest between them. They pressed their foreheads together to watch as something coalesced, pearlescent stars into a shape.
she listens, dearest mirror mine. A tiny heart shape floated between them, spinning gently. White, but awash with so many colors, like a bubble mid-flight. can you hear her?
He paused, scooping the tiny floating heart in holed hands. She tucked her free hands around his waist, happy to sit and comfort as he saw.
So hopeful…
Her dreams…
He lifted his head to meet her e ye s, so me t hing endless and desperate aching between them.
Do you truly believe she can do it? He demanded in a wave of harsh noise. She simply smiled, holding his hand in her own and between them, the heart.
she will. She promised, something between a vow and an oath settling over them like a TRUTH.
Between them, for a split second, the pearlescent heart lit up gold.
The male figure sighed before pulling his own heart out of his chest. It was white and black, a single glass star shard against a background of static. She did the same, light arching off of her rainbow heart like a rave.
Well. He lifted a palm that seemed to suck all of the darkness towards it towards the spinning SOUL.
She does not have to hold
This gift/dream/hope
Alone. He drew symbols over it in a script she couldn’t identify, inky blackness coming to surround it like a blanket, something cold dripping over her being like a cool cloth on a hellishly hot day. Tiny stars shone through, like a singular contained galaxy. The female figure pressed her lips to his head in thanks, and then kissed the heart.
you would not hold this gift naturally, my child. She explained as a wave of spikes sheared through her skin like nails. She had no mouth, but the tiny soul almost seemed to scream. but my gift was meant for heroes, not conquerors, and to heal and fix, not to fight.
She sent the tiny void-veiled soul away with a flick of her hand, adjusting herself closer to her mate while still training her eyes on the glimpse of white starlight.
go, hollow dreamer. Her eyes, all the colors and more that did and didn’t exist, met Akira and pinned her with the heavy gaze. When did they seperate? Awaken, find thine empty knight. Follow the broken queen. The shards of broken could-have-beens will lead you. And when we meet again…
Her eyes flashed, a thousand futures in the balance. Akira shivered. What the hell kind of interdimensional bullshit did she get herself into?
d o n o t h e s i t a t e.
Akira launched herself upright, a hand to her sternum as her heart fought to beat out of her chest.