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Chapter Text

Through Rocks and Snow

1. Prologue

Prompt: Vast

Madeline wanted to believe she knew what she was up to when she parked her car close to Celeste Mountain. But she didn’t. If there was one word to describe what she had in front of her, it would be vast. Not just by the mountain itself, nor the journey she was about to embark. It was everything it implied, the trip to get here, the sight before her, the courage to not coward out in the last moment, just like Madeline had done in the past. It was all vast and bigger than her. Vaster than anything she had done in months.

The first gaps and crags gave her a hint of that idea. She had barely begun and Madeline could guess the mountain told her this journey would be nothing like any other thing she ever did in her life. The elder woman she found in a cabin in the middle of the road to the mountain’s driveway gave her the full taste of that idea.

“If my ‘driveway’ almost did you in, the Mountain might be a bit much for you. But you should know, Celeste Mountain is a strange place. You might see things. Things you ain’t ready to see.”

“You should seek help, lady.”

Madeline should too. But her obstinate determination didn’t let her change her mind to search for said help voluntarily.

As if the mountain wanted to give her one last warning and chance to turn back, before crossing the last patch, Madeline found an old stone bridge, shaky at her every step. It was so old it was just a hard breeze of air away from caving in.

The more Madeline watched the bridge, the longer and narrow it turned, stretching itself into the horizon until Madeline could no longer discern where it ended. She knew this was just her mind playing tricks to convince her not to try it. Madeline just shook her head and rubbed her eyes until she saw stars and moved forward.

At first, she tried to walk on her tiptoes, hoping that would somehow put less weight on the bridge, but sooner than later, her feet got tired and she tripped over herself, falling flat to the floor and making the whole unstable bridge quiver.

Her worst fear at the moment became true when she looked behind after she heard how the bridge started to fall apart pieces by piece like a domino.

Without no longer care on the consequences, Madeline got up on her feet and ran as fast as she could, always staying at the edge of the falling bridge. It was only a matter of time before the bridge caught up with her and got ahead of her. She could see it as the last fragment of the bridge fell before she could cross it.

She didn’t know if she could make it or not, but the mountain didn’t give a damn about what she could or could not do. She had no election but to try keep going or fall down the pit.

The last slab of the bridge fell as her feet stomped over it, Madeline alongside it.

The cold wind hit her face for a few seconds before everything froze in its place, herself and the falling stone fragments in the air.

As Madeline struggled uselessly to get herself out of that moment frozen in time, a blue bird landed at the edge of the bridge in the other side. The bird did nothing but stare at Madeline with amused curiosity, turning its head lightly.

Something inside Madeline drove her to reach for the bird. A warm sensation, contrary to the vast cold surrounding her in every direction. Her arm came out from that magical stasis and extended for the bird, still not being even close enough to touch the bird, remaining unreachable.

Without warning, a sudden dash flew Madeline out of that pit, towards the bird, but it reacted faster and flew as well far away and went back to where it came from and left Madeline alone rolling over herself a couple of meters. She managed to get on her knees as she calmed herself hyperventilating. She didn’t manage to grasp what just happened, as her eyes rested on the endlessly mountain she had in front of her.

If Madeline had a sense of humor for this kind of extreme situations, she would say this was the mountain’s gentle way of saying “Welcome.”

Chapter Text

2. Forsaken City.

Prompt: Scary

There were at least three reasons to why Madeline struggled so much to move forward right now.

First: She found herself in an unknown place, getting herself more and more lost in this dead city every time she turned around a corner. Second: Madeline was still in a state of shock after her near-death experience. And last: She had no idea how to control her new…power?

She could only describe it as some sort of big jump that allowed her to places she could never reach on her own. Something like a dash. Which would be optimal and ideal even if one wanted to climb a mountain.

But Madeline had no idea how to control it in the slightest. She did involuntarily like if she had hiccup. In the most inappropriate times and when she needed to focus the most not to fall dozens of meters to bottomless pits.

At least she could be grateful she didn’t have it worse, right?

Right?

The cold was not as freezing due to the adrenaline shot after the incident at the bridge. She had not broken any bone. Or had cut herself with anything. Or lost her backpack. Or fell down that pit. Or–

“Please…stop…too much…” Madeline cried out. She put her hands over her head strongly and shut her eyes kneeling to the floor. She pleaded and beg her mind for just a moment of piece. Why had she even convinced herself to do something so stupid?

She didn’t even know where she was or where she came from.

It didn’t help her this mazy city was at such absolute silence. Countless buildings empty of life except for the darkness inside them that made Madeline sweat cold. She could not shake off the feeling of being observed. She wanted to believe it was just unjustified paranoia. She didn’t even know if she was up or down…wherever she was at now.

She didn’t know if she could do this, or even continue a little longer, and if she didn’t know, why didn’t she just leave? Why not she went back to her car and drove back to her miserable life after another failure? Why was she so attached to this struggle?

What had she come to prove to herself? No one would know she did this if she succeeded. If she died, who would notice until past several weeks? The elder woman she met at the foot of the mountain? Madeline was convinced she’d die first for her own stupidity than the elder woman for her advanced age.

If something happened to her…she didn’t want to think about it.

And even if she managed to come out alive in more than one piece, most likely she would not speak about this with anybody.

Not even herself.

After all, she was making this journey out of spite and doubt. She was incapable of dealing with her real problems, so what she did instead? She put herself to face even more problems.

It terrified Madeline to look inside herself, she preferred to get herself lost in the deepest corners of the world than those of her own mind. Not because she was scared of looking inside. No. She already knew what was in there. There was nothing. And if she searched for anything inside herself it would be just herself and the voices she ran away from in the first place.

A breeze of cold air hit she finally felt hitting her face brought her out of her mind for the first time since she had stepped into that ghost city.

Madeline found herself in what used to be a plaza in one of the countless avenues. Wherever she was at, she knew she was far from walking out of this uninhabited city.

After exploring a bit more, Madeline found in the center of the plaza a memorial carved on stone old as the mountain in which she could read a message written in it.

“MOUNTAIN CELESTE: This memorial dedicated to those who perished in the climb.”

How fitting.

It was not until she read the memorial and stopped for a second she realized how tired she actually was. She had no idea for how long she wandered.

With her last bits of energy, she scouted the plaza and recollected sticks and branches and she used them to make a little bonfire near the memorial to the fallen ones. Watching so many survival videos and tutorials to procrastinate her trip to the mountain finally came handy.

It would not last long, but hopefully long enough for Madeline to fall asleep. If she knew her depression well enough, she knew tiredness was a perfect bypass to get some sleep. Among other methods Madeline rather not relay on tonight.

She pulled out her sleeping bag and laid down between her bonfire and the memorial. The fatigue would appease the doubts in her head. But when she believed she would fall asleep soon. The same blue bird she found at the now decayed bridge rested on top of her head.

Madeline sighed deeply and rubbed her face with her cold hands. The mountain must be watching her every step, if it was not by her fatigue Madeline would be shaking in fear instead of cold. If the mountain wanted her dead so bad, well then, they were there at the memorial so she can be added into the list.

Chapter Text

3. Theo Forsaken City

Prompt: Mindless

Theo was almost completely absolutely sure he had already walked around this corner like a million freaking times, and somehow, he still ended up coming back to his small and improvised camp in a small open cave where an old plane had crashed who-knows how long ago. It was a good thing he had decided to carry a bloody big tent over his back all the way up here.

“Ha, suck it up, Alex. Now who’s the dumb one now?” He laughed. Sure, he may be a lost, and he had no idea where he was.

But one thing was for sure…

The photos he had gotten in this place were WORTH IT!

After his little strut, the words about him being lost echoed in his head. He was indeed lost and had no idea where he was. Deep inside him he knew those words didn’t refer to the mountain alone.

He should be with Alex and Spoons at home, making his way through life. Not being a wannabe of his grandpa chasing his ambitions mindlessly instead of his own.

And where did he got at by doing that? Here. In the middle of an abandoned city.

If only his misery had some company. Although not his sister’s, Theo knew if Alex found him like this she would kick his a–

THUMP! The loud sound of something hitting the ground interrupted his self-pity. When he turned around expecting for some kind of stalker to attack him, he actually saw a small long-red-haired girl.

Someone! Fina-wait. Had he gone mad instead by the solitude? Had he lost his mind? When was the last time he saw anyone besides that old lady in the cabin?

Who cares? He didn’t!

“Ho there, fellow adventurer!”

“Oh, Hi,” The girl murmured in a quiet voice. If it was not because the place was already quiet Theo may not hear what she said.

“What a killer night for a hike! Can’t believe this place exist!”

“Not the easiest climb, is it? But I guess that’s what I was looking for…”

At least this girl knew what she was here for. Not like him.

“Whoa, that sounds pretty serious. I’m just happy to see another human in such a lonely place. I’m Theo by the way, an adventurer from a far-off land!”

“…” The girl didn’t response. Had she lost her mind too here?

“Not much of a talker, are you?”

“Hey sorry. I’m Madeline. Are you here to explore the city?” She got loose and her voice gained a little more of confidence.

“Yeah, I have a thing for abandoned places. I’m something of a photographer myself. But this terrain is pretty trick, are you turning back soon?”

“Nope. I’m heading to the summit! I’m done breaking promises to myself.”

If there was a word for that, Theo would say it’s…

“Inspiring.”

He mindlessly mindlessled to get lost in this mountain while Madeline mindly mindlessled so. Method to madness. Some sort of logic it only made sense to Theo.

Madeline knew what she went to the mountain for. Maybe she could not encapsulate in one word what she was searching for. Maybe there wasn’t one. It would be that kind of thing you only know when you find it.

Theo could see the determination in Madeline’s eyes through the wariness her expression and body bared…

“Say, you don’t look well. More like you miss a piece of your mind.”

“Really? How so?”

“Don’t know what to call it exactly. You sure don’t feel like it?”

That was so? Madeline would have been missing that piece of her mind for so long she could not even begin to guess when she lost it in the first place.

“The only thing I’ve been feeling in my head other than dread is eyes burning my nape.”

“Tell me about it!” Theo laughed a bit. “I can tell you a thing or two about those bad voices. Try roast it! For real! Self-care is roasting that mean voice in your head.”

“I guess you are right.” Madeline gathered some will to smile at Theo’s playfulness. Some of the wariness Theo saw on her at first sight had mitigated. She stayed a little while with Theo, with him chatting a little more about his life and his photography aspirations and how he was heading to an old site at the other side of the city.

Soon enough Madeline felt a lot more ease to breath and lift herself up and so she resumed her journey waving to Theo as she went away where she came from.

“Hey! Tell that voice in your head to get a hobby!” Theo shouted before Madeline disappeared into the snowy and desolated city.

Chapter Text

4. Strawberry

Prompt: Lettuce

To be the first real conversation Madeline had in…

She did pretty well!

The sole idea of solitude she’d have in the mountain was one of the reasons she even dared to go in the first place. But she couldn’t deny Theo’s company was a mouthful of fresh air she didn’t know she needed. That had left her fresh like a lettuce to resume her journey.

That spirit lifting allowed her to stop seeing the city as scary. Ironically when she regained the idea she got lost again she knew this time she was going for the right path, for she found herself in new zones of the city

Madeline could be refreshed, but the city certainly wasn’t. Not when she found rectangle machines moving from one point to another with traffic lights still working. She didn’t understand their purposes, but it helped her move across the frozen city with her dash alike, so she reciprocated the help those mechanical blocks gave her with a confused gratitude.

To exacerbate her doubts about the city, in her path she found more life forms other than herself. No other people—something she thanked for—but life nonetheless.

It was a strawberry in a small fruit and vegetables shop in the middle of the street abandoned and covered in snow just like the buildings around it. Said strawberry not only caught Madeline’s attention for its strong red standing out in the blue, dead and alive at the same time city, but also because of how strangely fresh it looked in comparison to any other item in the shop, which were rotten and beyond any saving.

At first Madeline found it strange, but in a day span she had acquired a dash that practically allowed her to fly for a few seconds and she was in the amalgam of a city, a maze and a frozen cave with machines that helped her cross massive gaps when her dash was not enough.

Maybe strange, but not impossible.

Madeline grabbed the strawberry and put it in her backpack. Not because of hunger, she had studied how much food she would need in her climbing and she rested sure she had enough water and prepared food to survive a few days, but she didn’t like the thought of leaving to rot probably the only thing with life in this place. The mere idea of it made her feel a knot in her throat.

Was she having feeling and emotions for an inanimate object? Yes. There was someone to stop her? As far as she knew, no.

The further she continued moving the space turned more and more ample. Madeline could see peeks of orange sky among the buildings. Her sense of wonder was met again with surprise when she found another strawberry in an unsettling perfect state. This time, in a bench somewhat covered in snow in an old park.

She already had one, so why another one? But on the same hand, if she already took one, why not take a second one? It wasn’t like someone would miss it. She had room to spare in her backpack.

That same surprise began to transform in an absurd confusion when she continued to find more strawberries in the most unlikely and hidden places in the last stretch of this city.

In the moment she could already see the ruin’s silhouette Madeline had already collected a total of five strawberries. Bit by bit the space around her became easier to breath in, erasing that silent fear the ceiling over her head would crumble over herself. Her eyes and mind were put on ease with the now dark blue sky filled with stars. The cold buildings city was slowly replaced by structures old as the mountain itself.

Madeline found a resting place in a middle point between the forsaken city and the old site Theo told her about.

As she made herself comfy, she glanced from time to time at the ruins ahead she’d visit the next day. Every time she did, she felt her stomach dropping, not stopping and falling deeper and deeper until she looked away.

To her eyes, the old site was the antithesis to the forsaken city that all of a sudden showed glimpse of life. Both with the strawberries she took with her and the machines that maintained the city in a perpetual movement.

Madeline just hoped Theo would have an easier time making his way to this old site. That part of her mind that never rested ruminated with its desire of not wanting to be alone.

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5. Old Site

Prompt: Bend

When Madeline opened up her eyes she knew something was off. She could not pin point what it was. It was something else other than the usual weariness when she woke up every day. As if her mind had not quietened all night long and left it numb for Madeline to nothing but endure. She had only begun to feel this burden when she slept in the mountain bounds. Madeline could only pray it didn’t become a habit.

She felt like those days where she slept twelve hours and still woke up tired with every part of her body heavier.

But if she so slept twelve hours, why it was still night?

She glanced up at the sky and saw it was replete with a meteor shower. Each star slowly falling like she herself fell when she arrived at the mountain. But those stars never stopped appearing and falling all the same. Madeline couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.

She packed her things and went to continue.

Much like the forsaken city, the old site somehow left all to imagination and nothing to it at the same time.

It was…a site and it was old. Pretty old. So old indeed more than a few walls crumbled before her footsteps, opening Madeline new paths when she circled around.

Her walking felt funny, to say the least. As her head bobbed and she strayed, her eyes saw everything double from time to time. She could notice this vision effect became stronger the deeper she walked into the site.

Many of those halls were stretchy and long. The same ease to get herself lost like in the city with a lot more claustrophobia. She would feel that trapped if it wasn’t for all that double seeing and that pertinacious daunting dizziness.

Why that sounded so familiar?

The gaps she found were not large as the ones in the city. But her blurry vision difficulted crossing spaces where her dash was not even necessary. Her every step was slow and clumsy. Overall, When she climbed the stone walls she felt her fingers sleeping at every ledge that sticked out from the walls.

The silence accumulated in her ears to the point it was a buzzing sound, only occasionally interrupted by her footsteps bouncing and echoing in the gray stone slabs.

Narrow rooms and passages led Madeline to a big room, though as empty as nearly the rest of them. The only exception being a large mirror framed into one of the walls. Madeline looked around to distract herself and to see if there was something else around but she found nothing.

Madeline caught something moving in the corner of her eye. The buzzing sound in her ears ceased to exist. She turned so hard and fast she almost tripped over herself.

Her kaleidoscope of a mind turned out to think too fast and found out it was just a reflection in the mirror. A familiar ache of shame and embarrassment resting on a well-known spot in her shoulders.

She rubbed her eyes a bit too hard in hopes of removing that doubleness out of her eyes. Like when she overslept and her eyes took too long to get used again to the sunlight, or any light at all. To the point tears had every intention of falling from her eyes.

Madeline blinked too many times too fast as she looked in the mirror.

Once she stopped, she realized her reflection changed. It was still herself, but with her eyes turned fully white with no pupil, nothing at all. Her hair was blue as ice like her winter jacket and like whenever Madeline used her dash.

She felt allured to her reflection to walk closer into the mirror until she was in front of it. Her reflection of course mimicked her every action. But it was because it was nothing but her reflection? Madeline could swear its movements fell a tad behind.

Her hand reached for the mirror and it reciprocated until Madeline touched the glass. Both of their fingers touched across the mirror. For a moment Madeline believed she actually touched its fingers’ reflection. She pressed her hand a tad harder and the mirror broke into hundreds of sharp glass shards.

The sound of glass breaking startled Madeline and she tripped over herself, falling to the floor. Once she looked to what was left of the mirror, she realized her reflection was still in the same place as moments before.

Then it started to trespass the broken mirror like it walked through nothing but mist. As it did, her colors all changed into different shades of lilac. Jacket, hair, her skin being a grayish violet. Its pupil and iris turned back to black alike. Her complete sclera turned to a strong red.

They two stared at each other. No words said, muttered or even shouted. Her reflection only smirked at Madeline, like it laughed at her.

In that silence her reflection ran off to where Madeline came from and she followed it right after.

Chapter Text

6. Winged Strawberry

Prompt: Suit

It turned out to be of no use for Madeline to memorize her way to the mirror. She didn’t even do it anyways. When she ran off after her reflection, she found out all the rooms had turned into different ones.

Contrary to the previous rooms she walked through, she found out dark blocks floating in the air. They seemed to be made out of jelly. She noticed the surface and edges of those blocks moved and fluttered like the sea waves. In their insides she could see countless galaxies and firmaments. Like a starry sky, but better.

She found out she could fly through the blocks if she used her dash. This allowed her an easier way to climb out of the pit she now found herself in. It was difficult to see outside the blocks once she entered them. The world outside moved while she stayed in stasis and floated between those celestial bodies with a peace and tranquility she rarely saw in recent days. Like she had a place in the universe. The idea of staying there of course traveled her mind like she traveled in those dream blocks. Until she was launched out of them like a cannon ball.

It could be troublesome at the least to find a new path, but the novelty and the sensation the dream blocks gave her mitigated the fatigue in her new exploration. Besides, she couldn’t get lost if she didn’t know where she was going, right?

As if the old site wasn’t strange enough, her exploration drove her to a room with an open roof with a view to the night sky. Once she entered, she felt an emptiness in her chest, like something inside her had disappeared. Madeline didn’t think too much about it. This site was too strange on its own she didn’t know what to make out of all of it.

Wandering with her eyes, Madeline found a strawberry like the ones she carried in her back. With the difference this one had small white wings elevating it high in the air various meters above the ground. Madeline wanted to believe she was seeing fine. Her vision was no longer troubled by doubleness she carried since she woke up.

She thought it would be easy enough to reach that strawberry with her dash with enough precision, but sooner than later she found out she couldn’t actually use it. The only way she had to reach it were wooden springs spread across the room.

Madeline would have to suit herself to the room’s needs if she wanted to get that strawberry.

She bounced through the room starting by the spring attached in the floor boosting herself a couple of meters off from the ground to a wall she clung herself to, then she jumped to a floating still debris stone. Some of those debris were only bigger than a slab. Madeline hanged herself from behind and jumped over them to get to the spring on top of it. She reached to a few tiles frozen in the air as well. As soon as she stepped them, they began to crumbled and fell one by one. Madeline reacted fast enough and jumped into a questionable security hanging from a debris. She didn’t have too much time to doubt before her arms tired out.

From there Madeline clung to every debris like her life depended on it, as it did in some sense. Madeline had not realized how vulnerable and exposed she was until that moment.

She continued jumping from debris to debris until she was face to face with the winged strawberry, but not within her reach. She didn’t have much of room for error when her grip depended only in one arm she could already feel numbing due to the effort.

For a moment Madeline looked down. A miskate fixating on the vertigo more than she should as she almost slipped. Madeline hang over ten meters off the ground. To her were fifty.

But looking down was also a hit when she saw she could reach the very first spring in the ground and cushion the fall if she landed on it.

One of the debris’ bricks Madeline had her feet put into detached off and fell with great speed to the floor, breaking into several pieces on impact.

She didn’t think thrice, Madeline leaped from the last debris to the winged strawberry like a bird hunting its food. She grabbed the strawberry with her two hands and immediately after she curled up her body into a fetal position as she fell and closed her eyes waiting for the worst.

She could feel her hair flutter wildly and the air fill her ears. Her body did hit the spring, diminishing most of the impact of the fall. But Madeline still received a rigid impact against the floor rolling a few meters. Her left side had gotten the worst part of it, but it was nothing she would not survive.

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7. Badeline Chase

Prompt: Abounding

The reflection that escaped from the mirror looked from the distance to her counterpart losing time with dumb strawberries. She’d be laughing her ass off if it wasn’t for her abounding euphoria for finally getting out of her stupid head.

She knew she was a creation from the power of the mountain. If it was not for the favor She just received she’d say how ridiculous and even infantile all that sounded like a children’s fairy tale.

Right now She could be wherever she wanted to be at, doing whatever she wanted to do. And if she was honest with herself—something her counterpart seldom did—she’d rather as far as possible from this cumbersome mountain. Her perpetual misfortune made her know the bitter truth that to get that, she would have to make her other self to listen. A task not easy at all and one she not always accomplished.

But now she had much more direct methods.

After her counterpart decided to continue, She awaited her arrival to confront her next to a small campfire still accompanied by its previous owner which now was little more than a pile of bones. That would surely allow her second half to see what She saw and understand Her easier.

Once the red-haired counterpart arrived, She smiled satisfied.

“Madeline, darling, slow down.”

The named girl startled upon hearing her named and turned around. “Who said that?”

“I’m you. Or rather, I’m part of you,” She cleared up and floated up from the ground a couple of meters. She could she her uncertainty and fear in her face. Good. She had her attention.

“Why a part of me looks so…creepy?”

She looked down at her with narrow and irked eyes. “I just look like this. Deal with it.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think–

“No. Obviously you didn’t think. But that’s why I’m here. I’m here to get us out of this mountain.”

“But, I still have much to climb. I’m sure I can do this.”

“You’re many things, darling. “But you are not a mountain climber. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. Try to be reasonable for once. This isn’t for you.

“That’s exactly why I need to do it. And who you are to tell me what I can or can’t do anyways? The weak part of me, or the lazy part?

She had to contain herself to not snap at her comments. She needed to be…

“I’m the pragmatic part. Even though you believe I’m all the bad things inside you.”

“Bad things? Like in Badeline.” Her counterpart chuckled lightly. “Do you have a name at all?”

“…” She looked at her incredulous. There was no way she’d be using such stupid name. “That’s the worst idea you’ve ever had. Only second to climbing this place. Let’s go home.” She started to get closer and closer to her. “Together.”

Before She could put her hands on her, her counterpart took a step back. Then another, and another, then she ran off.

She had no other option that go after her long and wide through the old site. Person and reflection ran through room after room as fast as they could. In essence they were the same being and went at the same velocity.

The person always stood away from the reach of the reflection.

She made sure to always be there whenever her other half looked back in her desperation fueled by adrenaline.

In an attempt to gain terrain She manifested copies of herself. Each for every problem her counterpart had. Doubtful. Anxious. Controlling. Bitter. Paranoid. Defensive. She name it. Problems SHE of course didn’t have.

Even with that she never reached for her other self. Always stepping her heels but nothing else. Always being her shadow. Always staying at the shadow of a lesser version of herself roaming the corners of her mind and she could not get rid of.

Later than sooner, She understood she wouldn’t catch her. She needed to hunt. Not chase.

She stopped pursuing at the end of the old site and She saw her getting disappearing in the distance. She didn’t have to be behind her to know where she was.

In an escapism attempt, her counterpart distracted herself with a pole telephone. No numbers even dialed when the phone ringed and she answered.

She said everything she wanted to hear. She pretended to be an old friend and abounded her with a false sense of security until she put two and two together.

“I am dreaming, aren’t I?”

“Madeline, of course you’re dreaming. I haven’t spoken to you in months. Why would I start now?”

“Ugh! Why I am even climbing this stupid mountain!?”

She uncovered herself floating in the air, looking down on her with a smile. “I’m wondering the same thing. It’s time to give up and go home.”

The pole telephone tremble and deformed into a hairy floating creature with mouth and several eyes. A freeze response kicked in for a second and that was time enough for the creature to devour her in one bite before it disappeared without a trace.

The reflection stayed with her own company for a few moments ruminating on the recent events despite that, in fact, they had just happened. The more she thought about them, the more she laughed at the tomfoolery her other self bared.

“Badeline. Pff, sure. Like hell I’ll use that name.” But in that solitude…Her mind started to accept the idea that any other name was better than that of HERS.

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8. Theo Old Site

Prompt: Mist

Theo was not sure how he made his way out of the old site. Still conserving that sensation of running around that accompanied him in the forsaken city.

Since Madeline left last night, Theo had realized the weight of solitude that had fallen upon his shoulders once he stepped into the mountain. But the worst was to have the sensation of not being so alone as he thought sink in.

A feeling remanence itching and poked the back of his head like he poked and accommodated the branches in the bonfire in front of him with a stick as he sat on an old stone.

Said emotion became stronger whenever he took pictures back there in the old site.

That itself wouldn’t be so bad if Theo didn’t have the idea to take pictures to guide himself through the old site. One would think just the same as his starring pictures, Theo would take photos only when deemed necessary, but truth be told he took a picture practically every five minutes. Doing it so often only worsened his itch starting to make him mad.

At least when he was in the ruins, he could distract himself with all that explore, discover and wonder deal. Now he just had the fire burning as background noise to fill his mind in his second improvised camp.

He wanted nothing but ignore that itch in his head and continue his path. He had no reason to turn around yet. Even if he wanted, he couldn’t. He was surrounded in a mist clouding his every step, he knew it was not real, damn it. But that didn’t stop him from doubting his next move not knowing where it might lead him exactly.

Though he didn’t want to admit it, that was the biggest reason for his stay. He couldn’t leave. All while he told himself he still had soooo much to see and so much pictures to take. What better blind than the one who didn’t want to see?

All the trouble he went under for a bunch of photos only for a handful of people on internet to see them. So much time and effort wasted.

Theo would laugh at the situation if it wasn’t for the freezing cold as he sat as close to the fire as possible without getting burned.

But that shivering travelling his body. No, it wasn’t for the cold. It was a familiar one. It was one that made anyone shiver in any adverse situation and heated argugment. Ironic since he was the opposite of heated.

Those eyes burning the back of his head didn’t heat or even warm him. They were but another distraction in an objective Theo didn’t know what it was.

“What do you want?” That question echoed in his mind for umpteen time since his eyes fell upon the mountain.

And to be honest? Theo was not sure about what he wanted.

But at least he knew what he did NOT wanted.

This.

Whatever this was.

As his mind wandered trying to find out what he wanted or not, his mind eventually re-discovered the memory of her newfound friend Madeline.

Was she having the same problems as him?

No, of course not. He knew Madeline knew she was here to reach the summit.

Theo didn’t want that. That was a start.

The rumors he had heard about Mountain Celeste were his only options to consider.

An abandoned city. An abandoned site. An abandoned hotel. Abandoned caves at the bottom of the mountain.

Okay maybe he didn’t have as many options as he thought. Or at least not as lifeful as he would have liked…but he’d be damned if he turned around right now. He’d continued going forward and up or his name was not Theo!

Theo had stood up epically with stick in hand and put his head and fist high in the air just like the fire dancing high with Theo with renewed strength.

…

How strange. Theo expected a wave of applauses and cheers coming out of nowhere at the time the voice of a narrator closed tis chapter of his life with a stimulating and emotive narration that would leave anyone seeing his journey wishing for more. The camera flying away from him or maybe with ending with a clear shot at the stars.

“Hmmp…” Theo closed his eyes for a little discomfort in his head and pressed his fingers at the temples of his head. Those stars were starting to bug the hell out of him. But he was die-hard in fulfilling his objective. So he decided and his eyes looked upon the horizon and for the first time he could see through the mist far away, discerning the abandoned hotel haunted for ghosts he had heard about

Yeeeeah….maybe that could wait until the next day. It wasn’t like that place was going anywhere, right?

Chapter Text

9. Celestial Resort

Prompt: Ignore

Ignorance is bliss.

Work was everything for Oshiro. Not only the reason he died but the reason he didn’t realize he had died.

Unironically, he was too busy to notice. He had to be ready for when guests arrived and have everything on spot. But why have the hotel so impeccable if there were not guests to attend?

“Well maybe if you finished your job for once this place wouldn’t be so empty!” His mind told him.

“Oh, yes! That must be! Look at this place! So much to do and here I stand like a fool!”

It may be overwhelming for some. Oshiro was no exception. He could be so busy someone could have put a workaholic badge on his chest and still not notice.

Ignorance to ignorance.

When the Celestial Resort still was full with people, not much had changed in Oshiro’s routine. Be the first to wake up and the last to go to bed; Not to mention of the times when he didn’t.

But in the times he did his room was not a walk in the park, despite how lifeful it could appear at first glance. His room may be many things, but on top of them, it was a mask. The room said his name like an elegy. Dozens of pictures hanging in the wall, echoes of the former life he used to have and be. Shelves full of items from the gift shop the hotel had. A room full of history in the walls, but not his own. The hotel’s history that Oshiro mistook as his own.

Ignorance to ignorance.

His mind being so full of the hotel ocasionally led him to remember many of his coworkers and friends he made through the years. How even though he cherished many of them he always put his work first.

Among all of the pictures, none were about him, none but one. One picture of him and Charlotte. Oh dear Charlotte…his source of resilience and warmth in cold and hard days. If only he had put his work aside and had the courage to ask her out that last night after taking that photo...

While she and the staff pleasured themselves with the sights of the mountain in a night without parallel with the company of years-long friends, almost considering themselves a family, Oshiro was busy checking the heater system worked properly for one last night. He struggled in doing so and it would take him hours to deal with.

Since he had the intention in just staying one last night, he supposed it wouldn’t do him too much harm to sleep without heather. He had all the blankets he could ever ask for and a pillow to hug.

The usual tiredness that accompanied him from the bed for overworking himself didn’t help him fall asleep at all. No amounts of blankets and huggable pillows eased his bone-chilling cold.

The next day, the first thing popping up in his mind was his routine he followed like a ritual. From awaking to bathing. From dressing to breakfast.

His everyday routine avoided him to notice how his body became lighter like a feathera. How it was no longer freezing through the rooms and neither warming for nearby fire in chimneys.

The memory of freezing and shivering as he tried to sleep that night flashbacked to his mind every now and then. The first day he woke up as a ghost, the next day, the day next to that one, and the years coming up pilling up alongside with a solitude imposed on Oshiro. An unaware solitude like many of the mistakes in his life he either played down or distracted himself from.

Ignorance to ignorance.

One would think Oshiro having the whole hotel for himself to work with would make his workload as bigger as it would make it manageable. After all, he had everything for himself. But truth be told sooner than later Oshiro made his job one hell of a mess.

He left every task unfinished when another one “more urgent” required his attention.

He had to check the plumps to get water to wash the bedsheets and had to clean the dust off the rooms and shelves and the spider webs in the corners and he had to make sure the bathrooms were well-supplied, but he had to organize the basement to get the tools and everything he was looking for, but he had to get countless amounts of boxes and bags stored in the basement to make space, but he had no space nowhere because he had not taken care of the rooms and halls and suddenly he had to scare off birds invading his hotel, and before he knew it–!

DING!

A costumer had arrived.

He had to drop everything to attend him and chose to turn a blind eye to all his chores for this one noisy costumer.

“Welcome! May I help you?”

Ignorance to ignorance.

Chapter Text

10. Mr. Oshiro Chase

Prompt: Damaged

A great many things have been damaged in a short span time, besides of broken and drained. Oshiro’s patience among them.

He didn’t want to say it or even think out loud, but he was convinced the causes of his most recent problems have been caused by Ms. Madeline’s arrival.

The stress made him relapse into his ostentatious civilized and distinguished self of a host. The one that had allowed the hotel to be of great renown. But his actual efforts had been either ignored or been made mockery of. Oshiro just wanted to do his job, however Ms. Madeline was fixated on making her own way and Oshiro meant it. Ms. Madeline went through staff-only areas and made of them a living nightmare for Oshiro far and wide all through the hotel.

That had to be the only reasonable explanation for the hotel’s poor state. It had to be.

Maybe he was not doing a good job. Maybe this was Ms. Madeline’s way of asking—if he could call it that—for a better service. Oshiro had to use his best card. The presidential suite.

Right when Oshiro believed he had convinced Ms. Madeline of the quality and elegance his hotel had. His newest client ignored his efforts and continued to carry on with her own way.

He was so focused in making sure Ms. Madeline were not unsatisfied he didn’t find strange when a purple floating copy of his client emerged from the body-size mirror with a loud thunderous sound and the mirror broke into hundreds of small pieces falling to the floor. Despite Oshiro floated as well, the mirror breaking almost startled him to the floor, and after that, his first thought was to clean the fragmented glass pieces off the floor.

“Madeline, sweetie, forget this loser.”

“Loser?”

“You’re in denial, old man. This resort is a dump. No one would ever want to stay here!” She reproached with more fierce than necessary before recomposing herself and laugh at his face like nothing. “Someone had to say it.” Like nothing.

Oshiro trembled for a few seconds before he fell over his knees on the floor with his hands on his head.

Oshiro could tolerate many things. He could tolerate birds invading his hotel and disarrange every room they went through. He could tolerate guests making his job unnecessarily more complicated than it needed to be. He could even tolerate people making fun of him and his Japanese descent, squinting his eyes and pretend to speak Japanese when in reality they babbled nonsense, which, obviously, didn’t cause Oshiro a trauma that he remembered such a specific taunt directed to himself.

But what he couldn’t tolerate was people making fun of his hotel, and overall, damaging it, like the Ms. Madeline’s doppelgänger just did causing a hole in the ceiling of the presidential suite before floating through it and leaving the room.

Ms. Madeline went after her shortly after, leaving Oshiro alone with his recurring thoughts and a question.

Why?

Why had she abused from his hospitality? Why had she pretended to be good with him if at the end he was just going to mock him and leave?

Oshiro followed Ms. Madeline through the hole in the ceiling upwards. He had to know. He just had to.

“She helps people to feed her twisted ego. She never cared for you. You’re both pathetic.”

Oshiro’s left eye twitched upon hearing that. He returned his hands over his head and closed his eyes strongly.

“Pathetic? You just came here to humiliate me! I won’t grovel at your feet any longer”

His vision turned blurry like if he was in the middle of a blizzard and all he could discern was Ms. Madeline’s silhouette. And he only wanted to do one thing.

Damage.

Damage her before she could damage him.

Before she abandoned him…

“Like the others!...Like Charlotte…

“No! They didn’t abandon you!”

“Where were they when I slept alone that night?”

“That was your fault!”

“Exactly!”

“ENOUGH!”

The next minutes passed like a fuzzy blur before his eyes. He only could distinguish some flashing moments of himself trying to catch Ms. Madeline while they traveled far and wide the hotel’s rooftop. Once arriving at the end of the road, Oshiro cornered his objective at the edge of the awning they stood on above the hotel’s back exit.

“Mr. Oshiro, wait! I just wanted to help!” was the only plead Ms. Madeline could voice before Oshiro damaged the platform they were in and stomped it with ferocity, cracking it in several pieces and falling to the ground.

Only after that hit Oshiro managed to return to himself abruptly, like a person that breathed heavily after being seconds away from drowning on the sea, kicking and looking for something to hold onto. Like if he had woken up from a bad dream. And in the same way, his first thoughts were to worry more over the hotel than himself.

“I’ve decided to close the hotel for repairs. Please just leave me alone.” Oshiro turned around and encaged himself back into his hotel to deal with his problems in the only way he knew, leaving Madeline alone and free to continue his journey through the mountain.

Once he returned to his solitude, Oshiro floated tense with a paralyzed expression on his face towards his office full of boxes scrapping the ceiling and a broken picture window that Oshiro had told himself he would fix sometime soon. Boxes and…those…red spheres spread all over the room, doing nothing but taking space and worsening his problems. Problems…he did cause. He, the boxes, the spheres themselves. The hotel.

But for the first time in a long time, Oshiro didn’t pay mind to them and sat on his desk filled with papers. Papers like inventory, bills, but also, thank you letters from old clients in their stay. Letters he did rejoice himself having and that he read from time to time when he doubted his work.

Letters. Old letters. Old papers. An old hotel, empty and full at the same time in the worst ways possible. But overall empty. Very empty.

Too empty.

Not the right kind of empty.

Oshiro took all the papers scattered across his desk and threw them into a small trash can next to his desk.

A full trash can.

The right kind of full.

Now he just needed to focus on one thing at once and give his office the right kind of empty.

A blue bird entered through the broken window and rested upon Oshiro’s desk looking curiously at the ghost. Oshiro extended his hand to pet it but before he could touch it, the bird chirped at him and flew away, returning where he came from.

Oshiro’s face remained frozen still except for a small and single laugh and what seemed to be a tiny outline of a smile. He had food for birds in the basement, did he not?

Chapter Text

11. Golden Ridge

Prompt: Unfasten

Madeline has been let loose to meander on her own after her fiasco with Mr. Oshiro. Just like him, she wanted to be left alone. Sadly, once the Celestial Resort disappeared in the distance, she found the old lady in a cabin with a small wooden elevator, serving as a resting point nearby the ridge’s entrance.

“Oh great, you again.” Madeline struggled against a huge urge to turn around and walk away from her; she would have done so if her paralyzing anxiety wasn’t stronger.

“Well, well, I didn't expect to see you up here! I'm glad you're still in one piece. I see you made it through the hotel, did you meet Mr. Oshiro?”

Madeline intended to give her the shortest of summaries to the old lady, but sooner than later she ended up rambling more than she would have liked to, earning a solid laugh from the lady.

“Oshiro is a lost soul, dear. That place is more than just a hotel to him. You can’t change that. Everything we do is to feel safe. No one is exempt of that.” There was again that unexpectedly wise and for some reason good-natured woman Madeline met at the foot of the mountain. Or at least the woman Madeline thought she met if she had not been so nervous about going to the mountain.

Safe. That was a nice feeling, but…

“Don’t you get lonely in that little cabin?” Madeline inquired.

“I have friends, dear. I may be crazy, but I'm not a hermit.”

“Sorry…I didn’t mean to assume.”

“When I was younger I couldn't imagine staying in one place this long. But then I found this mountain. I knew right away that it would be my home.”

“What's so special about it?”

“The mountain shows you who you really are. Whether you're ready for it or not. It keeps me honest.”

Madeline cringe at herself a bit on the inside upon hearing that last part. She knows she has not done that a lot recently. It was not that she was bad at dealing with her problems. She didn’t even allow herself to deal with her problems at all!

Madeline got mixed feelings once she was alone again with her thoughts. That is what she wanted, right? No one to judge her and quiet.

No one to accompany her and too quiet.

Hell, what was she thinking? No, seriously. What was this train of thought?

She tried to focus on the here and now. She tried to put the whole Celestial Resort matter behind her. It was already behind her. So it was the old lady. She didn’t need her. She didn’t need anyone. She was all she needed.

She was all she had.

Was that comforting or terrifying?

Comforting were the clouds she found she could actually…jump on them? Madeline was so…numbed…by everything that had happened. She didn’t question those clouds too much. She didn’t have the energy or the mood to do that anyways.

She heard insanity was repeating something over and over again waiting for a change. A concept she was sure familiar with. But maybe so it was being fine with unfastening what she knew as possible or capable?

She was safe. She knew that. Relatively safe.

She could be grateful she didn’t have it worse, right?

At some point Madeline reached high ridges of purple rocks and orange skies abounded with sporadic blizzards hitting her with all the strength the mountain could gather. Madeline could only counter it a tad using all of her own strength to simply not get pushed back nor be dragged away from the walls she held onto when wind blew deadly. Her feet were loose on the ground against the strong wind, always slipping at her every step.

The snow covered her face to the point she could not see at times. As if blindness was not bad enough when climbing a mountain, the freezing blizzards started to numb her skin and fingers. Moving so nimble as the mountain demanded more and more effort from her.

Her body became sloppy and heavy. Holding herself to the walls was much more difficult and she had to double her efforts to keep her grasp in the rocky walls where she would fall to bottomless pits otherwise. Her endeavor was such, Madeline could feel small cuts in her fingertips from the pressure she applied when clutching the rocks—Should have thought of buying gloves.

Madeline had barely managed to climb up to a platform dragging her body over the edge in a sloppy manner, like she herself was but a lifeless puppet, before laying down on the ground with her eyes lost in the yellowish and orange skies. Her strengths were so worn out her hands quivered from the strenuous task Madeline put herself into and no longer from the cold environment.

She could sit down for a while there. Give herself a break and catch her breath.

Dammit! She could take some water out of her backpack!

But the mere thought of doing that made her want to throw up. The fainting exercise she just did surely had nothing to do with that last thing.

Madeline had had her mind empty for longer than a few seconds and the accident in the Celestial Resort already popped up back in her mind. Madeline tried to distract herself focusing on the next batches of abyss and obstacles in front of her and already put her mind in working how to solve them; she was not even half way doing just that when she stood up and cleaned the cold sweat off her face.

“I deserve this,” Madeline said to the air, not having the strength to care if someone listened. Unbeknownst to her, someone did in fact. The sharp chirp of a blue bird in a high ridge let her know that. Madeline sighed. “This is what I get for being useless.”

She just wanted to help Mr. Oshiro. But in doing so, she did what she did best. Ruin everything. This was barely enough punishment for her stupidity.

Madeline had reached what seemed to be a small cave that served as a refugee from the freezing blizzards. She grinded her teeth seeing herself protected. If that was because of stress or for her shaking body, she couldn’t tell.

But she could tell the feeling of loathing anger burning inside her heart. She clutched at said feeling, not caring it may warm her now, at the price of leaving her cold in her grave. Such grave being Mountain Celeste. But contrary to a burning hell, Madeline submitted herself to endure yet another blizzard, taking directly with no attempt of protecting herself and continued through the ridges with golden skies.

There Madeline was again. Letting loose on herself over more problems to not deal with the ones she already had. She didn’t want to deal with the problems she put herself into—mindly!—to avoid the OTHER problems she ran away from in the first place.

How many problems unfastened would be enough?

She eventually reached what appeared to be a gondola at the edge of a large pit in which she could appreciate the entrance to an old structure at the other side, high up above, but before she could inspect the gondola, a voice broke her solitude.

“Madeline! Wait up!

Madeline looked up and found Theo at a higher boulder. As if she had not traveled across the freezing torture the golden ridge was, Madeline put on a friendly mask and put a smile on her face unfastening herself once more from her problems, and certainly attempted to unfasten from the cold shaking her body carried.

Chapter Text

12. Purple Ridge

Prompt: Thought

After finally gain a corporeal form and control over her actions, much has not change after getting out of HER mind for Badeline.

Ugh, the mere thought of her name still left a bitter taste in her mouth.

But her statement was true, as always, of course. Much has not changed in her routine, which was to observe and influence.

Observe to keep an eye on her other self, and to influence whenever she was about to do something irrationally stupid.

Like the gondola Madeline was watching with a maddening curiosity.

Badeline tried to tell her. Tried to warn her not to get on that rusty old antiquity. If something so old broke apart and Madeline fell to her certain death falling countless meters off the ground, would Badeline save her then? Hell no, right?

Right?

As soon as Madeline stepped into the gondola, Badeline tried to convince her to get out of there in the only way she knew.

Inducing thoughts of fear. Screaming to the void Madeline’s mind was and be left hoping this would be one of the times Madeline heard her.

But it didn’t work. She would opt for more direct communicative methods like she did in that old site place, but there weren’t any mirrors or reflections nearby. She could only be the intrusive thoughts Badeline has been her entire existence.

Badeline could only do as much as Madeline’s mind allow her. Fear was one of her main means to act and for such actions to be effective; Effective meaning Madeline did as she implored.

Once the gondola started to raise up, Badeline sat over the ceiling sitting on the gondola’s edge. Badeline didn’t really need to be…there. But she has been her entire life without a physical form she wanted to use it as much as she could, even if her gateway for such opportunity was Madeline’s fear. She had a thing for these. It gave her a subtle hit of adrenaline she enjoyed much.

As ever expected, the gondola had problems midway when it shifted heavily in the cable it hung on.

Badeline found the opportunity she was looking for. She could feel in her body and in Madeline as well. A window.

At first she gave Madeline an itch. One not too strong to harm her, but neither too weak to let her ignore it. After being a though, that was all Badeline was used to be. An itch. A constant, persistent itch that never went away, resting in the back of her mind, always overseeing and never-resting.

The gondola shifted harder. Both Madeline and Theo almost lose their balance if they hadn’t grab onto something for support fast enough.

Badeline could hear them talking. Shortly after, Theo tried to stop the gondola by pulling the lever back, but it broke and it flew off the abyss below them after he applied too much stress on it.

Even without the small, quick and suppressed screech Madeline gave off, Badeline could feel her fear growing, followed by every what if question about what could go wrong.

Badeline was going to teach her what could truly go wrong.

Through the connection they had imbued with the power of the mountain, Badeline could see what Madeline saw. And she changed it to her design.

White clouds turned into dark, foggy walls. Golden rays of sunlight turned into purple tentacles and the pit below them turning a pitch-black abyss, one in which if Madeline fell into, she would never climb out of.

This was what happened when she didn’t listen to HER warnings. When she didn’t do as she said. What Madeline knew anyways?

Right, nothing.

This would teach her to—

“Wait, what is that guy doing?” Badeline asked.

Why was he kneeling next to Madeline?

“What he thinks he’s doing?!” Now she shouted, even though she knew it was in vain, they wouldn’t listen to her. They couldn’t.

The turbulent atmosphere Badeline had created for Madeline vanished away by the second, all thanks to some cheap breathing exercise Theo was teaching her to do. Badeline could only watch in a growing exasperation. “Hey! Stop!” The sky was getting brighter and the dark clouds drove away.

Madeline was sitting on the floor, eyes lost in thought, at everything and nothing at the same time while controlling her breaths very, very slowly.

Badeline shouted. Screamed. Wanted the world revolve around her, but her efforts quickly vanished into nothingness, just like the eureka feeling when one had the greatest of ideas, for it to be immediately forgotten the next second.

Badeline was being reduced to nothing but a thought again, and then even lesser than that.

She hated it.

She loathed it.

A silent yet untiring dread that consumed her being, she wanting nothing but to get rid of it, but she had no way. While her counterpart was back on her feet, literally and figuratively. She was left in the dark, again, literally and figuratively, left, in the depths of the prison her mind was.

When her screams were not enough to break free. She tried to break her body and hit the walls of her prison trying to find a mirror to break through. Every hit shook the dark purplish world around her. She carried on until the numbness engulfed her fist, Badeline did not quit on her effort whatsoever. Her violet hair came to life and raised like tentacles striking down the wall.

She was so blinded on her abhorrence when the wall broke. She could not see it, only feel it, if ever so lightly like a feather touching her hand. Then, instead of letting herself go free into the unknown, Badeline fell into it.

And fell she did.

Badeline only realized she had hit the ground once the adrenaline and rush wore off.

The new walls she found herself in were as familiar as they were unknown. Purple and lonely, but never alone. Not for the other part of herself and the guy who accompanied her. They were long gone.

Or was she the one long gone?

Mirrors. Mirrors all around her. At every direction she turned to, she saw her every move replicated countless of times by countless copies of herself overlapping each other and merging until they were unrecognizable. A deformed kind of jellyfish with as much tentacles as Badeline had fingers. Despite she did not know what she was looking at, she was inclined to get closer.

Unlike the rough force she used early, this time the mirrors splintered with a mere touch.

The creature immediately spotted Badeline with its multiples eyes and charged towards her with a chirring scream.

Badeline did not faze at its approach, and when the two purple beings made hostile contact, Badeline absorbed it. A shiver runs through her backbone that slowly turns into a small tickle.

For a while, Badeline feels nothing different, except for a strange sense of something living inside her. The very same creature she fused herself with. She could feel it at the very top of her fingers. As if she could summon them.

And summon them she did. Many of them.                          

Summon them, command them, bend them to her will and make them near perfect device and make them be an extension of herself.

Next Badeline would reform those dark and wild surroundings onto her image and likeness. Along with whoever dared to invade her newfound domains, such as her counterpart standing on the entrance of that temple, perceiving her so small she might have passed as an afterthought. Badeline would make sure to transform her into just that until she was nothing but a memory, distant and dim.

Just like Badeline herself had been forced to live for nearly the entirety of her existence.

Until today.

Chapter Text

13. Mirror Temple

Prompt: Reward

Madeline didn’t believe in karma, or whatever name one gave it to things outside their control.

Karma, retribution, cosmical intervention, odds, luck.

Except when it was bad luck.

If good things happened to her, it was mere luck followed by guilt. If bad things happened to her, she deserved it.

Madeline couldn’t see through the fallacies of her thinking. For if she believed bad things happened to her for a reason, it was nothing but the reward of her actions or inactions.

If she learned anything so far, was that the mountain amplified whatever problem she had.

She worried something would go awry at the gondola and the mountain infested her mind with the worst-case scenario, only ending when Theo pulled her out of her crap, and now she found herself in a temple that would make the gondola incident look like a roller coaster in comparison.

It was irrational, she was aware. But she didn’t choose to climb the mountain to be rational; she chose to be mindful in mindless matters.

Method to madness, as Theo told Madeline at the resort when she said she wanted to help Oshiro, since apparently she knew enough of ignoring one’s problems.

it was all the same, it all lead her to the same ending. Ignorance or unawareness. Or worse, willing ignorance. Choosing to stay in the dark, such as Madeline was doing stepping into the temple, following Theo when she knew she shouldn’t, but as she did, Madeline intellectualize her way through like a bot in a game, mechanically and logically acting for the best outcome.

Reference point. Eyes sharp. Ears even sharper. Careful steps. Mental map.

All as fast as her mind could think. No room for second thoughts—despite she used her mind at high efficiency.

All for being mindful in a mindless situation.

Madeline didn’t catch the fact she could only carry on for so long before she got distracted and her act fell apart, either by herself or by something else. Which one would be worse was hard to choose.

She didn’t get lost before she knew it, on the contrary, she knew she was, and just like she feared she didn’t know when she got lost.

When did that happened, again?

What was her line of thought?

Madeline had…forgotten. Mind had slipped away.

Now she was left alone in some dismal corner of this place, with the occasional drop of water echoing through chambers from somewhere beyond her reach as her only company.

This was her reward for her actions, her own stupidity if she will, and of course she would. Madeline’s talent to do the best of efforts and gain little, next to nothing, shone the most now.

She couldn’t even cradle herself at this occasion with the thought of “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” For Madeline ventured way too much. All calculated risks, she told herself, but man, she was bad at math.

Her roaming eventually led her to find Theo’s smartphone on the ground, next to a large mirror. Although she saw her actual reflection for the first time since she stepped into the mountain, a shiver ran down her spine.

Her mind roamed into the worst-case scenario at once again, all in order to be always prepared, not knowing her restless mind was the very thing that set her off. Madeline was her own cause and consequence. That thought tasted not unfamiliar on her tongue, and left a bittersweet flavor on it she tried to dissipate by swallowing heavily.

She picked up his smartphone and saw if there was anything she could help her find Theo, but Madeline could do little more than stare at Theo’s smartphone with the same curiosity the blue bird had that she found earlier at the mountain.

Or the bird found her?

She used it as a flashlight before she returned it to Theo if she found him.

“When I find him.” Madeline corrected herself, forcing herself to believe in that outcome. She could not believe in anything else. Madeline chose to turn a blind eye into the unthinkable. She turned away from the mirror to avoid seeing her reflection.

Just because she was mindful in mindless situations didn’t mean she couldn’t be mindless in mindful situations. Whatever approach she could take, it would lead her to the same reward, the temple would see to that.

The same constant drop of water still echoed through her ears and started to get on her nerves, but Madeline did not realize that drop would be soothing after she encountered the creatures lurking in the shadows in areas far ahead. Each one of its multiple eyes upon Madeline, annoyingly waiting.

Badeline felt her in the temple like a cricket in the middle of the night, she couldn’t wait to find where she actually was and made it shut up, once and for all.

And by “shut up” she meant dragging her ass out of this forsaken place.

For all the impulsiveness Madeline could have for noble actions with doubtful results, Badeline compensated it with patience for unhinging acts.

It may not be the most rational course of action, but Badeline believe this time would be different, solely based on the fact SHE was the one doing it this time, with plenty of experience gained from Madeline’s mistakes, as if that would allow Badeline to avoid them, unaware of the fact that if things were as they were, it was for a reason.

Understanding was still far from her grasp, and it would only come to her as soon as she tried to change it, and see she could not do so. Not when the objective she was aimed to was to make Madeline quit.

Chapter Text

14. Mirror Temple Inner Reflection

Prompt: Pet (Peeves)

This was not what she was supposed to be doing. But then again, what else was she supposed to be doing with her life?

She was not to be lost in between dark and dead-alluring rooms looking for an exit. Not when she had so many places to see and so much to explore. So much options at hand and this was the one thing she chose to do?

Disgusting.

She hated it.

And she hated herself for allowing this to happen.

Things didn’t have to go this way. Things didn’t have to end this way.

And now the best thing she could do was to make catharsis out of scraps.

Hoping one day it will be enough.

If only she could use a fraction of the spite she had for herself into something more useful, maybe she wouldn’t need to prove herself with such ridiculous feat as climbing a mountain, knowing damn well she wouldn’t even bring it up to anyone after she was gone from here. Either alive or dead.

In the end there would be no difference for her and she knew it.

But in the meantime she could only daydream with the day where she could truly rest forever. She accommodated the backpack over her shoulders once more and continued her path.

…

This was uncomfortable. Confined to be in such small space for unbearable amounts of time before he got a chance for real freedom.

Was he always this whiny? Oh but he would stay like that, of course. Had he no better thing to do than lose himself in the lives of others because he didn’t want to fix his own?

What there was to fix when he didn’t even begin to deal with his life in the first place? He knew he had not and still he carried on with a restless itching to keep digging on soft ground with his hands, hoping to find something which justified his efforts to be worth it.

And for what purpose? He knew he was not going to be that one-hit wonder in the internet. At most he was going to be a passing amusement to people behind a screen. Will anyone ever going to look up to him like he looked up to his own idols?

Everything he did was not a masterpiece. All of his work was nothing but the best of the worst in a pile of always-burning trash he always sought to fuel with more and more. He hated the mere thought of not having and he’d have no idea what to do without it and such idea only incited him to go deeper, and deeper, and deeper.

His work was not unique or special. Anyone could replicate what he did and do it even better. This had no meaning. This was not meant to give a message. It was a shout to the void where no one heard him.

He sought to be a timeless masterpiece when all he would end up being was a loss in time.

Just like he was right now trapped in that crystal prison. He could only rest his head against its walls and close his heavy eyes.

…

This was a vile pile of thoughts. That’s was what anyone would say if anyone looked inside her head into her mind.

Still, she’d cling herself close to them as if her life depended on it. It did to some extend and without them, she had nothing and she was nothing.

So much brainpower and the exclusive benefit to live in a mind. All to use it to create almost nothing and what little she created ended up in the dark away from peering eyes.

She felt like she was throwing a bouncing ball to a wall and every time she threw it, the ball always ended up hitting her head. Then the ball would roll far away from her, she would tiredly stand up, retrieve it and throw it away once again.

She would laugh if she was not tired by the amounts of contradictions she had over her being. Sleepy and insomniac. Grumpy and calm. Calculating and eager. Thinker and empty-headed. Always wanting to touch but always refraining herself to watch in the distance.

Oh, now she’s having second thoughts at the idea of having something new? That was not what she wanted? To be oh so wonderfully marveled at the exploration. She was not scared of her mind. She was scared of others seeing inside. She didn’t seek to be understood. On the contrary, she enjoyed the alienation her line of thought gave her as much as she hated it, as long it fueled her belief of being somehow special. As if solitude and darkness were her natural habit.

What kind of sense was that supposed to be? She herself couldn’t even tell. Nothing new under the sun she rarely saw nowadays yet she yearned and loathed so much. So, she only did what she did best. Watch from afar and ruminate about it.

Chapter Text

15. Reflection

Prompt: Wretched

Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is permanent.

Ironically, both can be used to wash doubt away. But once you know something you can’t unknow it. You may forget it; its meaning may change. But it will stay there. Always.

Celia knew this. She figured out the best she could do was to make herself comfortable with her demons.

Ignorance is blinding, so knowledge is permanent.

To forget it is to invite trouble. And trouble always arrived at one’s doorstep. Always.

When it does, it causes a commotion. A commotion such as the one Celia felt first in the air, then at her feet. The mountain spoke a language her demons taught her. A language of pain and fear.

Such language lured lost souls into Celeste Mountain whether they understood it or not. Especially if they didn’t.

Such as it did with that red-hair girl and even redder spite. It had been a long time since Celia had seen someone so hot-headed. She knew for a fact that may be as well the sole reason she had made it thus far.

Until then. Celia could feel it.

The mountain told her. That stubborn girl had tried forget.

And fell she did because of that. She fell long and hard. Deeper than she’s ever seen someone fail only to throw the towel and leave the mountain.

Trouble is like pain and fear and life: It finds a way, Celia remembered well as she made her way down into the deep caverns of the mountain. She knew where to search and it was not where Madeline fell.

Why search on the only place she knew she won’t be at? She knew that girl was too stubborn to settle with defeat; she recalled the look filled with determination when she first saw her at the feet of the mountain.

It was funny to Celia how Madeline carried her struggle now so deep in the mountain in contrast to back then. There was a fine line between determination and stubbornness. Stupidity and braveness. But it didn’t matter to know which one was which at the end at the eyes of fear and pain—in a blizzard all snowflakes came from the same breeze of wind.

Celia found Madeline fed up with her failure, or rather, Madeline found Celia at the deep and never-ending blue and colorful caves after the older woman descended in an elevator.

It was even funnier when she heard Madeline was unable to address her problems to herself and created this whole story about how “someone” threw her down there. Experience told her this was all Madeline’s doing.

The icing on the cake was Madeline not realizing she meant the mountain as a whole and not just where the two of them found each other at.

“This girl you’re talking about. It sounds like she’s holding you back. Talk to her. Figure out why she’s so scared.”

“You think she’s…scared? I guess I never thought of it that way.”

“Stop wasting both of our time and ask her. What have you got to lose?”

Celia may have lived many years in solitude in the mountain by now. Her way to update herself of the world outside was to learn from adventurer visitants through the years. It amused her to know things haven’t changed much.

Yes. She was aware her advice to go and “find yourself” was one of the most—if not the most—regurgitated piece of self-help advice out there.

She was also aware Celeste Mountain was unlike any other place; so were the rules that dictated this place; so were the ways in which one interacted, failed to follow…and bended its rules.

Celia’s wretched knowledge didn’t make it any less applicable.

Ignorance is unapplicable. That is how knowledge is permanent.

Still, ignorance was durable as long as one wanted. Celia had saw previous climbers who believed by reaching the summit, all of their problems would be magically solved.

They were so encaptivated in seeing the forest they forgot to see the trees.

A journey’s last step was as important as any other.

“A glimpse at the truth is good for people. Even if most can’t accept what they see. There’s no shame in running back to your car and driving away. Someday you’ll be ready and then you’ll come back.”

Madeline looked at the elevator next to Celia with a dreading temptation. Her breath became heavier for a moment before she shook her head. “No. I’m going to see this through. No more running.”

“I thought so. Good luck.”

Madeline breathed in as deep as she could and exhaled. Her eyes got lost in the distance deep into the caverns. Her expression turned cold as snow and hard as rock. She was seeing something. Celia was convinced of it. But she was not one to ask such things.

“How can you stand living here? Isn’t hard to deal with this all the time?”

“It’s true, you never really get used to it. But it keeps me sharp. I like that about it.”

Ignorance is dull. That is the way knowledge stays permanent.

“But the mountain is so…confrontational.” Madeline gulped down as memories of recent days flashed in her eyes. Celia could tell it did.

“Sure, it doesn’t beat around the bush. Celeste Mountain is a place of healing, dear. The first step of healing is confronting the problem. Is never easy.”

Madeline’s face filled with an expression of being done with it all. Except she wasn’t. “Tell me about it.” And with that, Madeline went to chase shadows.

So Celia didn’t told her about it. She didn’t tell her the second step of healing was to hurt.

To hurt her comfort zone? To hurt her limits? To hurt the fragile calmness?

To hurt all her non-sense problems she dealt with?

All of the above. In the eyes of pain, they were all the same.

Celia didn’t tell her the third step was to hurt until she shattered herself, so she could rebuild herself from the broken pieces, like a broken mirror. If Madeline made the mistake of arranging the broken pieces in the same place, then they would break in the same way in the future.

As Madeline walked away, the light coming from the hole above Celia flickered due to a blue bird passing by covered the light. Celia’s shadow silhouette flickered along for more than a single moment, and then the shadow detached itself from Celia’s body and positioned itself next to her, who reacted only enough to acknowledge its presence.

The shadow started to spread like a small mass taking form and growing taller until it shaped itself into a replica of Celia, with wrinkles, cane and a tan almost as white as snow. The two of them stared at the red-haired girl disappear in the distance.

“You truly believe she’ll make it?” The shadow asked.

“Is a matter of time before we find out. The girl’s got spirt I’ll give her that.”

“That’s why you insisted on helping her that much?”

“Yes. And no.”

Her shadow understood in a mild disinterest and disappeared back into the ground back to follow Celia’s steps. The old woman turned back to the elevator. Even though it was only a few steps away, the effort took her breath away. In her way up to a much higher area she stretched the muscles around her shoulders as the nuts and bolts turning filled the silence.

Her shadow once again left her body and manifested itself next to Celia. “It was fun while the girl lasted.”

“It was.”

For a moment the elevator trembled, Celia used her cane for support until she could stand just fine. Both of them smiled in amusement. “Kid must really have a grudge against herself to have such effect.”

“That reminds me of the time you threw me off that cliff.”

“Ah yes. I had to drag you from the ridge all the way back to the cabin.”

“You gonna apologize for what happened to him?”

“Don’t tell me about it.” The shadow mimicked Madeline’s voice and the two of them laughed their breath off until the elevator reached right at the main entrance to the caverns and walked to a small outpost there.

Inside the cabin Celia found the frame of a photo of herself when she was younger next to a man in a suit with a small mustache and the mountain behind them. The black and white colors denoted its age. Celia rubbed the wrinkles in her face softly with her fingers.

“You think she will have something similar like what happened to you?” The shadow asked seeing how Celia took the frame with her.

Celia endeavored until she reached a chair outside the outpost to rest, upon sitting she left a deep sigh and making herself comfortable in her chair and waited. “Don’t know. Don’t matter. Either way she’ll come around, then we can take it from there, and then she’ll do as well.”

“You think “he” will have something similar like what happened to him?” The shadow asked again with her attention now at the entrance. Small trails of snow went into the cave until they disappeared in its depths. “This it’s not for him.”

“No. If that boy is different than this old fool, then there will be nothing to keen about. I trust him, he seems like a good man.”

“He. Seems.” The shadow accentuated her words.

“That’s enough Necia,”

And the two of them laughed.

Ignorance is ignorant. That is why knowledge is permanent.

Chapter Text

16. Badeline Boss Fight.

Prompt: Tic

Badeline had seen with her own eyes how one of Madeline's main traits in recent years has been run away from her problems.

Those moments never failed to make her laugh.

Except when they did.

Badeline never imagined that Madeline would run so fast and so far that she would finally leave her behind. Rejected her. Left her to be alone forever. Badeline was an apex predator who had been pushed to the bottom of the food chain when her prey escaped her clutches.

More than once Madeline had considered herself a parasite that sucked and drained all the life and joy from those around her. All thanks to Badeline.

Badeline had told her all of that. Badeline had told her that she was selfish, she was broken, she was cruel. She was all the things they might had said to her too.

But in reality, Badeline knew the truth. More often than not, it was usually simple and direct.

She was projecting.

Of course. Badeline now understood. She really was everything that was wrong with Madeline.

So this was what rejection felt like? Knowing that your whole being was wrong.

Unworthy. Useless. Unlovable.

While Madeline had been rejected in the past for trivial and mundane things, Badeline couldn't say the same. Madeline had rejected her because of everything she represented to Madeline and to the mountain.

Now she understood why isolation felt good. It was a sign that it was over. No one could hurt her if she was alone. Alone with her thoughts. Intrusive thoughts. Thoughts that would not leave her alone. Thoughts that wouldn't shut up. Thoughts they would be nothing more than constant reminders of why she was here. Constant reminders of why she was rejected by the other part of herself. Constant reminders of why she was going to stay down there. Constant reminders that they wouldn't leave her alone and–

Badeline sighed heavily and hugged her knees in a fetal position. "Calm down, it's over. Who would be crazy to come down here anyways?” Badeline stared up at the tall, sprawling, green grass-covered spaces across the gigantic caverns.

Stillness was as scary as it was comforting. Knowing that everything would never change.

But on top of all that, it was something else for Badeline:

It was freaking boring.

With nothing but the clothes on her back, her never-ending thoughts, and a set of supernatural powers, there wasn't much she could occupy her mind with. The best thing he could think of was to take a walk. That is if you could count levitating over the whole place as walking to begin with.

The deeper she dived into the caves the more paths branched off into different trails.

Now in true solitude, Badeline had time to put her effort into something more than trying to keep the thankless part of herself out of trouble and danger; but then again, if she was all that was wrong with Madeline, then maybe that wouldn't be the case for her anymore.

The silence and the great views in that place gave him the opportunity to understand in part the reason for Madeline's need to climb the Celestial Mountain.

It was better to have something to prove to herself than to have no reason to get out of bed, to put it that way.

But her reason for getting out of bed belonged to Badeline as much as it belonged to Madeline. And now that Madeline had rid her of her, exploring caverns forgotten by the world was all she could do.

Was staying on the mountain all that was left to her? Become a delusional ghost like Oshiro? Go bat-crap crazy like that old woman?

All she knew for real was that if Madeline wanted her out of her life so badly, there wasn't much she could do.

At least the loneliness felt good. At least silence meant no trouble.

And trouble was getting closer as the sound of footsteps became clearer as they bounced through the caves, intensifying in their direction.

The tightness in the bottom of her chest was enough to tell him who was coming.

"What do you want?" She asked her other redheaded part without regard.

“Listen, I was wrong to say that I didn't need you. I had not realized that I was in such a bad state that I would end up abandoning myself of all people.”

Badeline's eyes filled with sharp disgust. "I am not you! I-I…” Her tongue went limp and she tripped over herself. Her eyes were lost looking at nothing and at the same time seeing everything just like Badeline in those damned caves. "I'm worse. Just leave me alone. You made your point clear. I can't change who I am. I was wrong and you were right. You were always right. Is that what you wanted to hear?" Fawn.

“You don't have to change who or what you are in the same way that you weren't always wrong. Now I understand that you only wanted to protect me."

Badeline's eye twitched for a moment. “Protect you?” You abandon me and throw me out of your life as if I were nothing more than a rock and now you want me to return as if I belonged to you?

"That was not what I meant!"

"No. You never say what you want. You don't even know what you want. Why are you here? Why am I here!?” Her purple hair began to levitate like maligned snakes. The short grass around them began to stir slightly.

Madeline took a timid first step forward and Badeline immediately levitated off the ground with her hands clenched into clenched fists. "Don't go near it or you'll regret it!" Fight.

Another cry for help. Cries that Badeline was never sure if Madeline ever listened or not.

But this time she did. Badeline's heartbeat hit cold as she realized the realization in her chest for both of them.

Madeline's more confident second step increased the keen presence of danger, again, for both of them. Madeline's muscles tensed like a cat ready to pounce and attack its predator.

Small light blue stones scattered around rose from the ground, slowly floating gravitating around person and reflection. The larger stones and fragments of similar sizes trembled impatiently wanting to follow suit.

Badeline could feel the stress and tension in Madeline's muscles, threatening to snap them in two if Madeline didn't jump off the edge of adrenaline she was on. A mixture of doubt and fear filled the person's body, and the reflection could sense how one did NOT complement the other, but instead encouraged Madeline to try to reach Badeline.

A second step turned into a third step, a fourth, fifth, sixth, until Madeline picked up enough of a run and dove for her like a bird hunting for food.

Badeline squealed back as if she were standing before the utterest lifeless abyss and backed away moments before Madeline could get her hands on it. Flight.

In her mind a clear and definitive order dictated her instincts:

DON'T LET HER GET CLOSE.

Badeline followed that order like someone scratching an itch. She couldn't help it. She just couldn't. It was like a habit, a tendency of her, a tic.

Madeline was Badeline as much as Badeline was Madeline, and by extension, she had most if not all of her tics, such as running and running away from her problems, wanting to run away from everything.

Madeline continued to chase Badeline between devastating lasers and purple fireballs—all while one part of self tried to put sense with the other part’s head.

"I did you a favor."

Driving everyone away.

"You aren’t a mountain climber!"

So why bother sabotaging her?

"I’m just trying to help you!"

Keeping her safe.

“We don't have to fight! I don't think we can go any deeper!" Madeline exclaimed.

"I can keep digging. I could pull us down to the center of the earth." Badeline laughed, but her laugh was an oxymoron to the disastrous state of her mind obsessed with the idea of the two of them doing just that.

Them two. Alone. Calm. Safe.

But why? Did Madeline want to cut her out of her life so badly?

Badeline continued to run. The constant use of her magic was beginning to take its toll on him. Running away was becoming as exhausting as the stones her anger hurled were heavy.

Madeline was getting closer and closer with each attempt and with each cavern they traversed. Red and purple mixed intensely until…

Badeline pushed Madeline as soon as they made contact and the reflection moved as far away as it could before falling exhausted to the ground breathing heavily. It wasn't just tiredness and annoyance.

She was done.

She was sick of everything.

Would anything ever go in your favor? Could it all not be her fault? Was there anything she could do?

No, there was nothing to do. There was nothing I could do. If in any case she was too tired to keep fighting for unattainable things.

Badeline could hear Madeline's footsteps on the grass coming closer. She could try to escape one more time. She could fight, She could do something…but she couldn't even bring himself to face her. Freeze.

SHe could just accept her fate. Being so…useless… so…helpless…If only she had a little more…

The footsteps stopped behind her.

“Fine,” Badeline sighed. "You win. I guess you don't need me after all." Her voice was starting to crack and get smaller. "If you want me to go away, I'll try."

"That's not what I want. I need your help now more than ever. Please, let's work together."

“Work together? You’re joking, right?"

“Is okay to be scared. You don't have to be scared of me."

"You still don't understand," Badeline blurted out heavily. “I'm not scared of you. But me…but if I'm scared of me…then I'm scared of you? I do not know how any of this works." Badeline was about to hug her knees, but Madeline stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

“I…I don't know either, but that's what we're for each other. We are all we need."

Badeline was silent, she wanted to turn to see Madeline but she couldn't turn. "You really think that?"

"I believe it." Madeline put her other hand on Badeline's other arm before wrapping her in a hug. For a moment Madeline could feel her reflection wanting to pull away, but the redhead kept her grip strong until Badeline slowly stopped struggling and with slow, heavy breaths let herself fall into her arms before Badeline reciprocated the hug by extending her own arms. "I believe in us."

Chapter Text

17. The Summit

Prompt: Rigid

Before that day, Madeline’s relationship with herself, and by extension, with Badeline, has been nothing short of a wretched one.

Now they’ve had made amends, their relationship had become rigidly tense. Tense as in “Meeting a new distant relative” Tense. Still, climbing the mountain had never been more exciting and Madeline has never thought of herself as more capable than ever.

Trees, undergrowth and sky grew in abundances as they reached the surface. Madeline and Badeline were climbing their way out of the caves just as fast as they have fallen.

In a moment of catharsis, both person and reflection spun into one being. With the determination of Madeline and the power of Badeline, time froze for a second as Badeline launched Madeline through the skies. Everything around around became a blur of snow, sky and sunset where Madeline floated despite the unparallel speed she climbed with.

The moment she reached the forsaken city, Madeline noted something different on the place.

The buildings lit bright and sunlight shone through the window frames and what little broken glass remained attached alike.

The once suffocating sensation of space became as old as the buildings Madeline now traveled through running with the chill wind hitting her face and her pink fluttering free as her.

Did the city change or had Madeline changed instead?

Not so long ago, change may have been the scariest thing for Madeline whereas now excitement and adrenaline rushed through her blood for her and Badeline to spring once more into the sky with the power of the mountain.

Even with her newfound vigor, Madeline couldn’t help but feel uneasy at the place she met the other part of herself, even if her relationship with literally herself was in a whole ‘nother world in comparison, the red-haired girl couldn’t shake the feeling of their lukewarm first encounter they had.

She noticed Badeline also carried mixed feelings in one of their breaks when Madeline had to rest and figure where to go. The person turned to her reflection reluctant. She could feel Badeline stare on the back of her head burning; Just like she felt on the city behind them.

“You’re thinking about too, right?”

Badeline pressed her lips together in a curved line and shied her eyes away from Madeline into the giant view of an once great city. “I just don’t know how to feel. I always thought we would be nothing more than enemies or allies at best, always trying to control everything about the other. Is so…complicated to put all that in words.”

“You don’t need to.”

Madeline’s word pulled Badeline out of her head, startling her as if she had just woken up from a bad dream.

Madeline smiled with smiled with shame and a tad of laughter seeing the same confusion and empty headedness that plagued herself since forever. “You don’t need to explain. I feel the same.”

Badeline opened her mouth but no words came out. Her breath stopped midway before shame invaded her and her lips pressed together in a twisted S form. “I’m sorry,” She whimpered with half closed eyes filled with tears on the edge.

“I know and it’s okay.” Madeline opened her arms wide.

“Are you seriously asking for a hug right now?” She asked between small coughs trying to contain her cry.

“I’m trying to do something nice for us.” Madeline’s tone grew irritated. Slowly but surely, Badeline accepted the hug. They stayed in that position until Badeline’s breathing soothed.

After a while they arrived to the backdoor of the celestial resort, expecting to find Oshiro as soon as they put a foot in. The storage room they entered was surprisingly clean of dust and webs.

“I remember this place in a lot worse shape,” Badeline said to the air as she idly grabbed a bag of food for birds with disinterest.

“Badeline.”

“What? Is true. That old weirdo forced you to do his job. It would not be the first time.”

“He needed help.”

“You needed help. Help I tried to give you, by the way, and you ignored me for the umpteenth time.”

“This time was dif–“

“This time was no different than all those times you ignored what was best for you.” Badeline teleported behind Madeline and grabbed her by her shoulders to turn her to the nearest exit. “Please.”

The new, cleaner and far more spacious Celestial Resort allowed person and reflection to get out of the large storage room in a matter of minutes, and before they knew it, the vast and colorful scenery of the golden and purple ridge filled their eyes. As soon as Madeline exposed to open air, wind fluttered against her hair and the cold breeze froze her red cheeks.

“This place was always this quiet?” Badeline asked upon materializing above Madeline.

“Er, sort of. I suppose that’s why I went here after…”

“Yeah,” She said irritated.

“Yeah,” She said ashamed.

“What is it with you running away like that whenever trouble appear”

“Were you not the cause of those impulsive ticks?”

Badeline stopped her “walk” mid-air. “Hey, don’t throw me under the bus like that.” She growled with her nose and some cold air could be seen coming out. “If anything, I was the one who learned that from YOU after you…kicked me out.”

“Sorry about that again.”

“Don’t care, didn’t ask.”

Madeline couldn’t help but notice the wind in the ridge blew stronger than last time. She soon became aware if it wasn’t for Badeline, she wouldn’t have made it to the Mirror Temple.

The once dark lit temple now was illuminated in almost every surface and corner. Madeline stopped to contemplate the temple, now in all of its magnific. “This is all my doing?” She asked to the large space in the room.

“This WAS your doing,” Badeline rectified. “I told you, the temple reflects your mind, but you didn’t listen to me, as usual.”

“Okay, okay, no need to gloat about it, what do we do now?”

“Miss problems asking for help? I thought I’d never live to see this day.”

“Don’t jinx about it,” Madeline poorly mimicked Badeline’s voice being done with it all.

“Okay, okay. Just listen to me and keep your mind calm.”

And so she did after Badeline returned to Madeline and her hair turned pink again. All she had to do was listen to her instincts and everything would be okay as her reward.

The full weight of her journey fell upon her head when she realized she had climbed what took her two—almost three days—in a couple of hours.

Strong and aggressive breezes of wind hit her body. They threatened to freeze her bones and hindered her every move rigid and tense. Madeline knew she could fly away if she was not careful.

Amidst the excitement and joy inflating her chest, Madeline couldn’t shake the feeling of shame. How much else could have she gained and achieved from the beginning, only if she had not been so messed up.

Madeline would always wonder about the “what ifs” and “coulds”, “woulds”, and of course, the “only ifs” alike. How could she not? What laid inside her had been the reason she almost gave up and now it was that very same thing the reason she was achieving her goal.

Right there, in the verge of reaching the summit, how could she forget?

She could not. She would not.

Not as an intrusive thought as before, but as a willful reminder.

And what a willful, cherishable reminder she’d have as her steps in the chill snow reached the red flag at the very top of the summit. Madeline could catch the sunset hiding in the horizon painting her skin in a dim orange tone and witness the view of her whole journey since she started at the very same drive that almost stopped her.

Chapter Text

18. Epilogue

Prompt: Driving

Once Madeline returned from the mountain, Granny and Theo were already waiting for Badeline and her to throw an improvised party with what Granny had on her cabin.

“Hey Mads,” Theo said.” You I take you for a special girl and all that stuff, but…”

The cheerful, happy environment got snuffed out like a fragile snowflake floating in the air. Madeline’s heartbeat became heavier and gulped down just as heavy.

“But...?”

“Why in the trending heck you have strawberries in your backpack?!” He exclaimed opening her backpack and showing dozens of them.

“Oh, that.”

“Yes! ’Oh that’ is what I said in my way down. I thought I was carrying rocks here, man! How did you even managed to climb this wacky mountain with these in the first place?”

“I had already felt I carried more weight than what my body could bare my whole life. Having a backpack barely made a difference and I didn’t want some small extra weight to stop me. Like…Like if I had this drive inside me, unwilling to give up. Clinging myself to that drive felt relieving. More relieving than what I have been in the last year.”

Silence filled the room afterwards. That awkward silence when there was nothing to say, or a lot instead; Madeline didn’t know which one was appropriate right now.

“Also they felt lonely and I did too.” She added with the slightest hint of hurry.

“Yeah that makes sense!” Theo went back to his carefree attitude.

“You don’t plan to take them home with you, do you?” Badeline asked.

“If you do, you can say you made new friends. Ha! Ha! Ha!”

A small drop of sweat fell through Theo’s face. “I’m standing right here, you know.”

“You could bake,” Badeline suggested.

“B-bake?”

“Come on, it’s been so long since you last baked.”

“Because last time I did, I almost burned mom’s kitchen.” The shame in Madeline’s face soon turned into suspicion. “You didn’t have something to do with that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Badeline turned away trying to look natural. “On your defense, Mom shouldn’t have left you unsupervised. That’s on her.”

“It would be nice if you play…well, nice with people.”

Badeline rolled her eyes. “I don’t have to play nice with anyone if I don’t want to, including you.”

“Oh, so it was you last time I baked?”

“I can’t confirm or deny it.”

Person and reflection chased each other with words in the following minutes until Badeline walked off busted, leaving Madeline alone in the kitchen.

Not wanting to think about it, Madeline got herself to work on a pie using the strawberries, but sooner than later, her mind wandered. She just didn’t understand!

After everything they’ve been through…after everything she’s been through! Why she insisted on staying in their old ways? Weren’t they supposed to be past that? Why couldn’t she put up with herself? Literally! Or keep her under control? She was so-!

“Breath, Madeline. Willing reminders. Not intrusive thoughts.” Madeline knew it. She was slipping once more.

She imagined in her mind the feather-breathing tecnic Theo taught her.

Dark clouds and purple tentacles invaded her mind. The walls fell over her. Imagination and memories started to blend with one another.

“No! Focus. She…I…can…don’t…”

“Need help, kid?”

Madeline opened her eyes wide and lifted her head like she had woke up from a bad dream and turned around abruptly. She found Granny standing behind her with that perpetual smile of hers like she knew a secret about her.

“N-no. I’m fine, I just-”

“You’ve cut yourself.”

“What?” Madeline checked her body in a rush with her hands, finding at once the source of Granny’s intervention. Madeline had a cut in her index finger. When had this happened?

“I’m gonna get something for you.” Granny walked to the bathroom and pulled an old small first kit. From inside she pulled some bands and handed them to Madeline once she returned.

“Take it. Last thing I need is you bleeding all over my kitchen.”

“Sorry,” Madeline muttered as she took the bands and avoided Granny’s stare.

“Stop saying sorry for everything.”

“So-I…it was an accident.”

“Accidents happens. Like little unplanned kids. Little brothers, little sisters.” Granny half-closed her eyes and raised her eyebrows in amusement.

“Are you saying Badeline was an accident?”

“You’re an only child, aren’t you?”

Madeline blinked a few times confused. “Er, yes, but what-?

“That means you have a sister all of a sudden, like any other only kid.”

“Okay…but, what am I supposed to do with that?”

“Deal with it.” Granny did not laugh, but her smile hinted she had every intention to do so.

Madeline waited Granny continued rambling about…whatever she was talking about, but they stood in a questionable silence until Madeline spoke again.

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“But…what does it mean?”

“It means what it means.”

“I don’t understand what to do with that. Or wi-with her at all!”

Granny threw a few chuckles. “Welcome to sisterhood. Eventually you’ll learn to play nice between the two of you for good.”

“Even though we started with the wrong foot?”

“Especially because you with the wrong foot!” Granny burst out a loud laugh—Madeline was not sure could stand it much lunger—Eventually Granny stopped and recomposed herself.  “Stop taking yourself so seriously, you’ve come a long way to keep doing it. That’s what sisters do.”

Only wordless grunts and stutters came out from Madeline’s mouth before Granny cut her again.

“No one is supposed to know what to do when a sibling enters your life, and you find yourself with the fact you just have to accept it.”

“Does everyone else has also had to accept the fact this sibling is a doppelgänger that came out of a mountain and is essentially your shadow self?”

“That’s a good one! Shadow self! Amusing what you young people invent nowadays!

“We did n-“

“And before you keep asking me stuff,” Granny added, in a more collected tone. “You don’t have to have all the answers at night. You’ll figure it out yourself. Don’t you dare stop, the alternatives are much more undesirable.”

Hours passed by between chattery and pie. As the night grew older, a shored dreading thought grew on Madeline. Due to Granny, the farewell wishes between all of them were short and straight to the point.

“Are you sure you don’t want a ride?”

“Nah,” Theo said nonchalantly. “I’m good as new, Mads. Alex will come pick me up. She won’t believe it when I tell her everything that happened!”

“Don’t forget to write us from the asylum when they lock you up,” Badeline jested.

Person and reflection got in their way shortly after. Despite Badeline turned away with a genuine smile, her eyes were empty as their walk was silent. At some point her smile withered away.

Nothing stood in their way once at Madeline’s car. Nothing but nothingness and quietness ahead for miles on end. Badeline sat on the co-pilot seat. Eyes lost in the trees, she rested her chin between her ashen fingers.

“So, I guess this is goodbye.” Badeline addressed the elephant in the room with no intention to sugarcoat it.”

“You-we, don’t know if you’ll disappear after we drive away from the mountain.”

“You don’t know either I won’t. Then what?”

“Then…you’ll always be a part of me.”

Badeline turned her head with unenthusiasm to Madeline. “You already said that.”

“And I meant it. Even if I don’t actually hear you. I know you will be there to help me when I need you. Like you always wanted to do. And if I return to the mountain-“

“WHEN you return to the mountain!” Badeline’s eyes widened for a moment when she realized she had shouted. She turned away back to the window.

“You want me to return? Eventually?”

“Wha-of course I want you to return! What if I lose my body?! What little we have gained? You wanted to throw it all away?!”

“No!” She assured. “No…is just, I’ve been thinking on doing this for so long, I never thought what I’d do after.”

“Then?”

“There are some areas on the mountain we didn’t explore. Granny told me about this cave that goes directly to the heart of the mountain.”

“Mountains don’t have hearts, darling.”

“And people don’t talk to literal parts of themselves,” Madeline’s tone grew irritated.

The person waited for the reflection to snark back, but instead, Badeline whispered something only Madeline could have heard, since it was her own voice.

“If I disappeared and you never heard from me again…you promise me you’d never forget me?”

“I promise.” Madeline smiled at her as she ignited the car’s engine, she stirred herself to that part of her until they could meet again.

Chapter Text

19. The Core

Prompt: Intend

Celia stood at the edge of a cliff at the deepest caverns of Mountain Celeste. Waves of lava clashed at the stones below her feet. Her shadow behind her quavered like a soft leaf.

It had been a little over two hours since she last saw Madeline. She had insisted to dive into the caverns that led directly to the heart of the mountain.

Any new visitor to the mountain would have advised doing such thing was not necessary, or even a resident that had not spent as much time at the mountain as Celia.

But she knew the mountain and she knew the red-spirit girl.

There was one thing they had in common, if anything else.

They were two forces of nature to be reckoned with, and as such, it was unwise for them to go against their flow, just like boats in the sea, or birds in the sky, they fly with the wind, not against it.

So what would happen when one clashes against the other?

Celia stared at the large rivers of lava, they flowed as fast as they were hot. Yet she saw with a disinterested amusement, like a kid in a classroom staring through the window.

Then, the rivers flew faster. The sound of lava flowing bounced on the rocks filling cavern after cavern, Celia’s ears along with it. Her shadow still stood behind her, its silhouette vibrated stronger as the lava flew wilder.

In certain moments, the lava clashed with such fierceness it leaped countless meters into the air, almost touching the ceiling. Celia’s shadow disappeared and returned just as quickly.

Did she react? Or even flinched so far? No.

That did not stop the mountain from creating even bigger waves of lava. They struck against the old rocks and the ground at Celia’s feet shook.

Quickly again, lava splashes rose high in the air, Celia’s shadow extended as well behind her. Tall, deformed, vastly unproportioned. Its silhouette covered almost the whole wall and entrance Celia came from.

As if such thing would have not been unsettling enough for anyone else, the shadow remained at its place after the lava fell. It moved on its own, even after the lava had calmed down It expanded larger, like vines and roots overtaking long-abandoned buildings.

Celia didn’t pay that much attention to Necia. Not now, not like this. Necia came for Celia, not the other way around.

Before Necia could reach Celia, she stopped. Celia stopped her. As if an unbreachable wall had manifested between them.

Still, that did not mean she could leave Necia unattended.

She was a sister to her, in some way, a little one at that.

Funny enough, she could have stopped her from almost the very beginning. What was happening so far only happened because she allowed it.

When one lived in a mountain as a hermit, zealous-like, one had to use whatever was at their reach to not lose their mind. Keep it sharp.

This cave had been named “Heart of the mountain” for a good reason. Long ago before, before even Celia had put a foot into the mountain for the first time, decades ago.

As such, and as hearts were hot, fiery, zealous, so was this cave. A rocky embodiment of fire, whereas blood ran through a heart and its veins, lava did the same everywhere Celia could see.

For the great fire there was in the mountain, there had to be an equally great cold to temper it.

Tame it, yet let it roam free. Never lose it out of sight.

Too much cold, and there would be no effect.

Too much fire, too much short-sightedness and one could…

She just hoped Madeline did not forget that.

Having enough, Celia sauntered away from the edge into the soft shadow the entryway hut to the cavern. She sat down with a deep, tired sigh and waited for Madeline to return.

…

Madeline was far beyond anyone’s reach. Almost, anyone’s reach.

Like a drop of water falling into a well, Madeline dived deeper into the cave as fast as she could, past the gaps, past the fire, she burned brighter.

Too bright. Too hot.

But she was only human, ascending above lava quickly rising, but only human, while the mountain was beyond flesh.

Her determination may be comparable to steel, yet steel could bend, break as a leaf.

Despite she had returned to the mountain, despite she had adventured to find that part of herself again. She had not had such luck.

Edges to climb and move up grew thin and scarce the more she climbed. The lava rising ever so swiftly.

She remembered the times when she believed she didn’t need Badeline.

When she believed everything wrong that had happened to her was her fault.

The truth was, some of it, had been her fault. The fault had been hers as much as had been her own.

Badeline only did it in order to help her, in the best—only—way she knew.

She screwed up. Badeline screwed up. There was no denying that.

“I hate you.” Madeline one night threw into the air with a flat tone back at her apartment.

“A part of me will always hate you. It’ll even wish you had never existed. It’ll always wonder what could have been of me if you never existed. I know you did what you did seeking what was best for me, but you fucked me up. I don’t know if I can forgive you. I don’t know if I even want to. A part of me will always keep you tight and close to me, because you’re the only one who knows what it feels like. The only one who will ever know, and I hate that of you. I can’t get rid of you. I truly can’t.

“But…”

Madeline leaped off the edge she was holding to. There was nowhere else to go.

“I’m tired of bearing this burning hate inside of me.”

Her arms extended as far as they could. Her fingers numbed.

“If you once sought what was best for me…”

She began to fall down.

“Could you help me do it again?”

A pale cold hand reached hers at the last second.

Chapter Text

20. B-Side

Prompt: Imaginary

Madeline sat at her car, once more at the feet of the mountain. She sat still. Otherworldly still. Her eyes focusing on absolutely nothing beyond an inconsequential leaf of a snow-coated leaf, even if she didn’t know it, while her head lightly tilted to the side.

Something she did know however, was she was not completely still. Her leg bounced like there was no tomorrow. Madeline breathing showcased as the only outward sign she was alive, and even at that, inattentive eyes may let it pass.

They may let pass the fact Madeline was not at one, not two, or three, but countless places at the same time.

Everything she’s done and whatnot. Everywhere she’s been and wherenot. Where she could have been and where she would have been, had she done this or that different.

Every embarrassing thing she’s done, every accomplishment she’s achieved. How many times she repressed herself for what others may say. How she devalued her own skills and lost opportunities. That time a girl asked her out on Valentine’s Day, only to find out later she had been dared to ask her out, then she became frightened from anyone showing any interest on her.

Those moments and so, so much more.

It was funny though. Among the myriad of memories and feelings, there was one that stood out from the rest. One Madeline was fixated at.

She was at the mountain, and she was at the mountain as well too.

How come someone is at the same place twice at the same time? If it was nothing but natural for people and places to change, it seemed Celeste Mountain was an exception to the rule.

The Celeste mountain in front of Madeline’s eyes was not the same mountain she went to two years ago.

A ridiculous statement, most would say, but so would most label what is possible within the confines of the mountain.

Such thought made Madeline…not realize, exactly, but remember, something, more precisely.

Two years ago, she was definitely alone and lonely. Two years ago she was scared.

But now in that moment, as she mind-absently gawked at the mountain, she didn’t know how to feel. However lost, however overwhelmed she had first felt at the forsaken city, it had all been her imagination.

Seeing things that were not there. Losing chances that may never return.

No fear plagued her mind, but no adrenaline ran through her veins.

There was only a desire for this run to be different than the one she had when she first came. For it to be all it could have been. All it should have been.

There was only drive.

For the first time in an hour after she parked, Madeline looked at her side, at the co-pilot seat.

There, she found Badeline sitting next to her, but unlike her counterpart. She was so…present. She was alive and living the moment, even if quietly. Whereas Madeline eyes were open, vigilant, yet empty, Badeline’s expression mellowed and warmed the silence as she took her stiff wrist still holding on to the wheel and caressed it.

Person and reflection shared a look of embrace. Badeline looked at her like Madeline was all she needed. Madeline softly wrapped her own fingers with those of Badeline, she hoped her own look told her the same.

Madeline let herself rest on her seat as she let Badeline’s touch sink on her senses.

For the first time since she parked, her eyes actually focused on something. That being the forsaken city beyond the small driveway and Granny’s shack. Among the buildings she could spot a large crane raising between abandoned and unfinished edifications.

Maybe she could check it out on this trip or a future one.

Yes, she pondered to return more than once to the mountain. For this and those other runs to be what the first one should have been.

For a few lingering moments, Madeline made an effort to clear her mind and imagine just that and what it might be.

What it will be. She was certain.

Through the struggle, Madeline managed to form the faintest of smiles at the corner of her lips.

Madeline was not hopeful at all on another return to the mountain.

But maybe curiosity would be enough for now.

She stared one last time to her right at the co-pilot seat. Badeline had disappeared, but Madeline knew she was not alone, nor lonely.

She opened the door of her car and stepped outside onto the snow.

Chapter Text

21. Golden Strawberry

Prompt: Ambiguous

Change is a strange thing.

One could say when you are changing all the time, you are not changing at all.

So little is changing all the time, nothing changes really.

Then said changes are only noticeable when you look back and see how much road someone has traveled.

If that’s how it goes for one’s own eye, how it goes for other eyes? People who can only see the exterior, but not the interior?

That was a question Madeline frequently pondered herself with. Not exactly for the sake to answer it, but because of how she strived herself to keep nosy eyes away from her life. The number of persons she deemed safe enough to know anything beyond superficial things could be counted with the fingers of one hand; before her very first trip to the mountain, she was willing to chop a finger or two off.

Celeste Mountain is a place of change, and any road starts with a first step.

Except Madeline was already in her umpteenth step, and only seeking to go for more.

True to her word back at the forsaken city, Madeline had not said too much of a real word to anyone once she returned to her normal life. Not even to Theo, solely because he witnessed the events unfold on front of him.

Different reasons, same outcome nonetheless.

Not even to herself yet.

It shouldn’t have surprised her Badeline picked up her bad habit of ignoring her problems—plus and plus equaled to plus after all.

This one trip so far has been everything Madeline ever wanted her first trip to be.

Exciting, freeing, awing.

And although it was all of those things, there was another thing in the back of her mind she just couldn’t shake off her head.

This trip in particular…Madeline didn’t know what to make out of all of this. The first trip had the first goal of reaching the summit. Clear, simple, visible. Reachable even.

In the bigger picture, Madeline considered not embarking herself on a second trip, she could still remember the shiver running down her spine that night on her bed staring at a wall, trying to fall asleep. Eyes wide open, yet so lifeless and empty.

What could she make out of this one?

Make it faster? Safer?

Reaching the summit once more would be enough?

Explore the areas she previously did not? What would happen after she had done just that?

She had only stopped to dwell and ruminate on those questions as she reached and sat down on the purple cliffs of the golden ridge. Legs hugged against her chest, face half-buried behind her knees. She closed her heavy eyes, letting the chill breeze hit her face and flutter her hair. She let out the slowest sigh she could, focusing on how the tiniest hint of warm escaped through her lips.

For a moment, her mind wandered into how the tip of her feet felt hanging over the edge on that cliff.

How if she just moved a little further…

No, Madeline, no. Willful reminders. No intrusive thoughts.

After a while, the air got even colder, Madeline remained mostly unfazed, footsteps traveled her ears before Badeline sat next to her.

“You’ve been quieter than usual.”

Madeline only acknowledged humming.

“Come on, you know I’m not gonna let you brood all by yourself there.” Badeline pulled out from the pocket in her purple jacket a strawberry poorly colored in yellow and lifted it in front of Madeline’s face. Her eyes overtly asking where did she get it?

“You’re not the only one who explores that old city.” She smiled cheeky to herself. “I’ll offer you a small game. Beat me in a race, and you’ll get this.”

Madeline blinked confused. “Why would you do this?”

Badeline’s face grimed. She joined Madeline into staring at the horizon. For several minutes, she opened her mouth to say something, but every time she tried to, Madeline could feel the twist at her stomach.

They couldn’t read their minds, but they could read each other’s heart.

At that moment, Badeline’s heart was filled with something somewhere along shame and dread.

“I’m grateful, Madeline,” Badeline finally said after a while. “And that’s a problem.”

Badeline didn’t need to look through the corner of her eye to see the pain and confusion in Madeline’s face, and still she forced herself to stare directly at it, and before she could even question why…

“You making me grateful is a problem. You allowing me this time is a problem. We both know a second trip was never among your original plans before you came to the mountain a first time. Let alone a third, fourth, fifth trip.

“Is not that you haven’t moved on.” She chuckled out of spite. “Even though I’m part of you, I don’t get it. You have moved on, and at the same time you have not. You’ve done it, and at the same time you’ve done…practically nothing.”

Madeline remained silent. What was there to say? She was right.

So much for being the pragmatic part of her.

“Why are we here now, Madeline? Why are you here?”

A question that had bounced in her mind countless times, but now that she could hear it out with her own ears only made it worse.

The mere thought of turning around made her head feel as heavy as a beam of steel. Funny, as since, in a sense, she was just as hard as one.

In other senses though…

“But,” She began again. “I can’t just let you go and do whatever, as usual. If anything, let it be something we both agree on.” Badeline put her hand on her jacket pocket and brought out the yellowed strawberry once again and lift it in between their faces. “So, deal?”

Madeline lifted her face from her hiding spot. Cold eyes lifted wannabe warming eyes.

Madeline’s eyes snapped puzzled a few times from Badeline to the strawberry she held between her fingers. She tried to reach for it hesitantly, but before she could grab it, Badeline puffed out in a cloud of purple particles, reappearing back on her feet in the next cliff closest to Badeline.

She waved her finger signing a mocking “nuh-uh” to Madeline.

Madeline smiled tiredly, and stood up just as. She jumped over the gaps to reach Badeline, not even bothering to use her dash, and when she was within her reach she popped out once more, just mere inches away from her this time.

Madeline’s brow filled with thorns and she took a quick step forward towards her, but Badeline disappeared, again just a few meters away from her.

The process repeated about nine times, each time faster than the last, until Badeline ran off through.

Before she knew it, Madeline herself had ran off after her.

Chapter Text

22. C-Side

Prompt: Abrasive

This is not enough.

Little felt nowadays. The progress that would have awed Madeline and filled her with pride one or two years ago now only mitigated a sense of annoyance in a long to-do list.

She held herself close and intimate to that list. While it may not be the reason Madeline dragged herself out of bed—like most people—It was more of the reason she did not entertained or brood over a dark train of thought.

Just one misstep at the edge of this cliff and the pinkish sharp rocks at the bottom of the pit.

And her…just…

…falling…

If most people wouldn’t dare to label that mindset suicidal, they would label so her current efforts.

It was a vicious circle, on top of that.

As she pushed herself out of her comfort zone, way further than what most people would spit and “suggest” or even conceive, she found not her true potential, but the potential she committed herself to have.

Thus, she achieved what she believed she should have achieved all along from the start.

If she returned to that state of mind, the one that allowed her failure to take place, she could but only know she was falling behind her potential.

Balance did not work for Madeline. It was neither something she could strive or settle for.

In one hand, her life was nothing short of bleak. A self-contained, self-made black hole where nothing entered and nothing came out. Frozen-like in time, where days blended together and the difference between yesterday, today, and tomorrow lost all purpose and meaning.

A life where her dearth would not matter.

On the other hand…

Here she was.

There was a paradox in all of this, but Madeline was too engrossed with the sense of adrenaline and blood burning through her body to really care about it. As she almost skyrocketed her way up through the mountain, every step accompanied a long, heavy exhale. Sweat clashed and wiped against the strong breezes of air, both aiding her and hindering Madeline every now and then.

Badeline’s help would have been most appreciated, for sure, but she had not showed up this time since Madeline set a foot in the mountain.

Theo actually declined to come to the mountain this year, saying he had to take care of his sister and mother, but he gifted her his yellow scarf so he could accompany her in spirit.

Granny remained as cryptic as ever, if not with a more straight-to-the-point attitude. Contrary to the former two, she had appeared up across Madeline’s climb, no matter how much she had improved, and how fast Madeline now climbed the mountain, being perfectly capable to keep up with her pace.

She never understood how, and that day was not going to be the day she’d crack the mystery, as she was already finding her on her way underneath the shadow a thin and slender but robust tree with pink leaves, nigh to the very summit, patiently waiting for her with that enigmatic smile.

“It’s hard to believe that it’s over, isn’t it?” She had asked. Madeline did not like that question. She did not like it at all.

“Funny how we get attached to the struggle. Promise me you’ll take care of yourself, okay?”

There were many things Madeline wanted to say.

I don’t need you to worry. What do you mean? Or what? What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? Shut up. Sigh. Say nothing at all. Ignore her. Lie.

Say no.

There were so many things Madeline wanted to shout.

Yet she only hummed hastily as she carried on. Each time Madeline had come near the very summit, she had finally allowed herself to slow down. Feel the cold sweat on her face. The numbing on her limbs, the burn on her lungs. Only to let go all of those feelings once she let herself drop to the ground upon stepping on the last stone slab.

This time, however, she only stopped, as she almost leaped over the edge, only because there was literally nowhere else to go. Despite she knew what was to come, she felt…disappointed.

She sat down amongst the snow, not out for a need of rest, or a desire to enjoy the view people would kill—and die—for. She clenched her fists on the snow until it slipped through her fingers, when little remained at her hold, she threw it into the void and laid down, face up.

Madeline remained in that position until she calmed down. By the time she realized she had done just that, the sky had turned into a much darker purple. She did not give it that much of a thought and opened her backpack.

She pulled out two small rocks and two crayons. A red one and a purple one. Upon viewing the latter, Madeline looked behind her, out of habit.

The path she came from remained deserted still.

Madeline snorted. She turned back to the rocks and crayons and painted hers and Badeline’s initials on them, adding them to a very small pile consisting of three rocks each with just the same letters written over them.

The bitter feeling of loneliness burned at her chest, but instead of letting it dwell on her and weaken her, she embraced it.

She had started this trip a long time ago alone.

Carrying on alone was only fitting.

Chapter Text

23. Farewell

Prompt: Superb

Since Madeline first slept at Celeste Mountain, each and every single one of her dreams has been completely lucid. All full of detail and vivid.

It got to the point Madeline could not discern reality from dreams until she was too deep in them. That on its own would not have been too bad, if it wasn’t for the fact Madeline started to sleep more, and more as the months passed after her latest climb of the mountain.

After she received…

…

…

…

This night’s dream began with her waking up in Granny’s cabin, but the old lady was nowhere to be seen. The first thing that caught her attention was the forsaken city she could see through her window, instead now she could hear a myriad of muffled voices in the distance, even cars clashing against the urban background common life. So bright and filled with life.

To her surprise, in the distance, Theo was driving towards her in a car. He parked next to the cabin.

“Theo? What are you doing here?” Madeline asked as they walked to each other in Madeline’s front yard.

“Hey Mads, are you alright?”

Madeline blinked confused. “Me? Eh, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You freaked us all when you left Oshiro’s hotel so suddenly. You looked like you had seen a ghost or something.”

A ghost? Did he mean Oshiro? Yeah, he being a ghost freaked her out the first time…or times…but she obviously knew that by now.

“Are you sure you are alright? You can stay at my place a few days if you want. You know, not to be alone. I know you’re the loner type, though, so…”

“Your place?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know I’m not the cleanest guy, but I can, like, clean the dust—”

“No, no. I mean, your place, here? You live in the city?”

Theo left a single chuckle. “Uh, yeah, duh. You already knew that, Madeline.”

No, this was not right. Madeline began looking around her, at the city, at the forest nearby. Past all of it. This was not right. Why the horizon looked so…foggy?

“But, what are you doing living in the city?”

“I helped build it?”

“No you didn’t.” The words escaped her mouth before Madeline could fully organize her thoughts.

“There you are! I’ve looked for you everywhere! Did you miss me?” A too familiar voice said behind her. Madeline’s already sensitive skin became as fragile as paper as she turned her head, and found Badeline running at her, eyes replaced by purple empty voids and tentacles emerging from her back at lightning speed in direction to Madeline.

In less than a second the tentacles embraced in a tight hug that gave her an uncomfortable warmth. Madeline sweated hot and cold at the same time. Her airway began to lack oxygen. Badeline worked her way through her own tentacles to get her bare hands in Madeline, until they covered her view in darkness. If the tentacles around her already worked on grilling her. Badeline burned her as if she was made of fire, alongside with some last words.

“You’ll never leave my side again.”

Madeline jolted herself up from her bed. Face drowned in sweat as she looked around. Everything was still darkness. Her arm instinctively fumbled through her nightstand until she turned a lamp on.

She was in her bedroom in her apartment. Everywhere in the place was a mess as if a storm had, ironically, stormed through. It had been like that for weeks, if not a few months already. The curtains on the window were closed off, but Madeline could note it was still day outside. She looked at the alarm clock on her nightstand.

4:09 PM

She could not even begin to remember at what hour she went to sleep last night.

The worst part of it?

She was still tired.

Madeline let herself fall back to the comfort of her pillows as she swiped off the sweat off her face with her arm multiple, multiple times. She tried to go back to sleep, but her senses were as sensitive as leaves fluttering unsettled. Even with her eyes closed, she could still see the light filtering through the edges of her curtains.

She tossed in her bed, away from it and wrapped her head with her pillows in an attempt to draw away the notion of the light and the urban noises, but her new position was as uncomfortable as it was pointless. Even as Madeline was aware of it, she kept trying growing impatient until the heat on her body just gave her the drop that spilled the glass that was her patience.

Madeline tried another position, then another, then another, until she threw the blankets high in the air in a fit of rage, she stood up from the bed, walking straight to the window, the blanket now on the floor being dragged along the floor by her feet.

Her hands pressed against the curtains, only blocking the sunlight coming through momentarily, before even tinier rays of light filtered through gaps just as small. Madeline tried again, pressing harder over each spot the light came through, to the point she just hit the window through the curtains, and then the curtain itself fell.

The sunlight flooded Madeline’s apartment, blinding the red-haired girl. She covered her eyes with her palms as she walked backwards, until her feet stumbled with themselves and Madeline fell, her side hitting the cold wood planks first.

After a long while in which her eyes readjusted to the light, her eyes scanned over the mess that was called her apartment. Who knew how long would it take her to get back on track, even if she started at that very second—only if the stars aligned.

Eventually, her eyes fell over her kitchen counter, where an enveloped laid open with a letter on top of it.

“Kid

I never liked every time you came back to the mountain, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks the same.

Coming to the mountain was a mistake for me, as returning was for you.

Mountains are supposed to be climbed over, not carried. Fire can keep you warm, but once it’s gone, don’t dwell on it.

As much as I enjoyed your progress and your failure, and your company, it hurt my heart each time I saw you.

There’s something this old dumb rock and I have in common, and that is we are not meant to stay close to. Ever. We destroy what we get our hands on, for that is how we can help, but that help doesn’t always have the intended effect, such thing is not something the mountain gave me.

Though I can’t stop you, I never could and I never wanted to.

Here’s one last piece of advice unrequested from an old fool.

Is not about what you get over. Is about how you get over it.

You chose to become strong, dear. All the mountain did was allow you to see it. Now it’s time you see it with your own eyes and hands.”

Small yet numerous drops dampened the yellowed old paper, joining already dry tear marks. All of Madeline’s efforts went to keep her breath steady, leaving absolutely nothing to stop the tears overflowing from her eyes down her face.

This was the fourth time she read the letter, and each time never failed to make her cry inconsolably. Not like she would have wanted someone to do just that. She had seen no one in days.

Except…

Technically, she had neither seen Theo, but he had messaged her numerous times in her computer. So many unread, so many unanswered.

TheoUnderTheStars: Hey Mads! Guess who has 2 thumbs and is living life better than ever?

TheoUnderTheStars: Alex says hi too!

TheoUnderTheStars: She says you’re badass for doing archery, says if you can teach her

TheoUnderTheStars: Hey wanna come over my place some time

TheoUnderTheStars: Hope you’re doing alright, just know you can talk to me about anything.

TheoUnderTheStars: Hey

TheoUnderTheStars: Hey part 2

TheoUnderTheStars: Wanna facetime tonight?

TheoUnderTheStars: Hey Madeline, I don’t know how to say this, but I think you should really come with me to visit Granny. She has not been feeling the greatest last time I saw her.

TheoUnderTheStars: She asked about you again.

TheoUnderTheStars: I’m running out of things to say for your absence.

TheoUnderTheStars: She’s gone in her sleep.

TheoUnderTheStars: Me and Alex managed to arrange a funeral…

She said she left a will for us…I’m surprised she…even for Alex even though…only twice…and for me a whole lot of…she said…your part on the cabin…we buried her close to the…next to the entrance of the…after you leave…resort. Right in a spot where a lot of snow doesn’t come in…do you happen to know her age or something…? We…

She re-read that last part over and over again, or at least what she could with tears, mixed with the bright, almost blinding light of her screen in her ill-adjusted eyes. Each time the aching need to beat her heart out of her chest with her fist became stronger and stronger.

A few more messages followed before Madeline caught up to the most recent ones. The ones detailing how Theo and her sister left and how they felt.

Madeline felt like shit. With stumbling steps and almost falling back to the floor a couple of times, Madeline dragged her feet back to her bed. She just hovered her blankets over her face, while leaving the rest of her body uncovered. Her eyelids fell like two anvils,

Yet she remained restless for a good hour before she managed to fall asleep.

That night’s dream started with Madeline at the edge of a cliff with a withered tree, blackened pink leaves scattered al over brown grass, only humified by a rain pouring down on her. Yet she never became wet.

At the other side of the cliff, a tombstone stood.

Chapter Text

24. Moon Berry

Prompt: Faulty

Old habits die hard.

So far away as to before Madeline first climbed Celeste Mountain, she still distracted herself from her problems with more problems, those problems being of her own making was nothing but a bonus.

And trying to solve those problems while at the same time having no foreseeable solution at hand? Cherry on top of the cake.

It was like an addiction to her, truly.

And what’s the worst possible solution to get rid of an addiction?

Replace it with another addiction, of course!

Or in this case, another problem.

Madeline’s inability to grieve properly Granny’s death led her to recede to an even worst position she had started with in the beginning of her journey.

It is ironic how inside one’s mind is the best place to lost it, as Madeline did in her dream.

A lowkey part of herself wished she could say only a dream could make her see following a bird through actual freaking space as a logical thing to do.

That was not the case.

Was her volition to chase after a bird out of a hopeful wish—nonsensical but hopeful nonetheless— to see Granny again, or it was because problems were all Madeline knew.

Problems are like the past, everyone can visit them all the time, but you’re the only one there.

She reached the moment where she was on the verge of completing this one journey, hopefully find Granny and go back to her life. That moment where the end is visible and everything comes down to doing just one more thing, one final step.

All so she could go back to her life, a life that was empty of problems, and therefore, empty of direction. Ironically, a life out of life.

Among all the rush, an outsider would think choices were made in a split second. Choices like taking a step back. They were not.

Problems being all Madeline knew, it was a language she was fluent in. A world she knew how to live in, comfortably in even so.

A step back turned into another, another step back turned into a jump, a jump into a sprint, and a sprint into a dash.

Dashing away not from her problems, but into more of them. Just in the utmost particular way she had learnt in those past years.

If only she had a resemblance to the mountain, a souvenir of some sort…

Thit was her dream, a mindly mindless one, but hers; she could have anything she wanted.

Or, almost anything for that matter. Hah.

The sweet smell of strawberries mixed with stardust filled Madeline’s eyes. She could smell the supernovas and taste the grey of the rocks. She could hear the stars moving light years away from her in all directions.

And so she was.

A dream highlighted and enhanced a person’s psyche. This whole…seeing what otherwise you would not see, maybe it made all this trouble worth it.

Aaaaand…there it is again.

Even among dreams, reality leaks in.

And how does reality leaks into a dream?

By telling you, this is, in fact a dream.

And dreams are meant to finish when you wake up, and you go back to reality, and your problems are not as lifeful as you would want to imagine in a dream, they are bland, they are boring, they are monotonous, they are wearing…they are soul-eating.

And then, the new problems you face your old problems with are this lot of wonderful, awing scenarios and places and worlds and feelings only for so long.

How much was enough? What did draw the line? How one beat the game one created?

Because winning definitely was not the solution.

Madeline dived deeper and higher into space, the sweet and cosmic tastes continued to ravish her senses, until her eyes laid upon a strawberry unlike any other she had seen before.

A strawberry green as grass with blue leaves over it. A ring of stars surrounded it like if the strawberry was a planet. Full of life, full of potential.

And Madeline was a blackhole.

Chapter Text

25. D(ashless)-Side

Prompt: Mend

An uncomfortably long crunch sound echoed as Madeline opened the door. Even though Madeline knew for a fact Theo and his sister passed through here recently, and Granny lived here every day, the place looked like it had been abandoned for years.

It was just as Madeline remembered.

She couldn't tell if that was comforting or bone-chilling.

On the kitchen table there sat a small box. If she looked close enough, she could appreciate the outline of another box next to hers where there should be as much dust as everywhere else. Theo and her sister had taken whatever Granny had left for the two of them in her will. She herself simply stuffed her own box on her backpack and carried on.

Madeline stood an awkward amount of time standing in front of the stone bridge past Granny's hut.

Or rather, what was left of it.

Normally, she would have had no trouble crossing said bridge with whatever left debris was still standing, and by "normally," she meant "with her dash.".

So that's precisely what she did not do.

She opted to explore the surroundings, finding a small ledge in the closest cliff next to the fallen bridge. She could travel across if she put her back to the wall and hung her backpack in front of her torso. She found three different occasions in which she could have cut this gap way shorter by just using her dash, a fourth one even when she neared the other side of the gap the bridge once helped cross.

Her feet slipped at the moment she wanted to shift herself to more secure ground, but Madeline managed to anchor herself by putting most of her weight on the upper part of her body.

"It looks like you're doing it on purpose at this point." Badeline said as she leaned against a pine. She didn't bother to look at Madeline for more than a few moments.

"Not for you." Madeline panted in between breaths, walking past her counterpart, "Or for us, for that matter."

Badeline's narrowed eyes expanded lightly in a satisfactory surprise. "That's a new one."

…

Five days later. Madeline could breathe easier once upon leaving behind the Celestial Resort and reaching the Golden Ridge. The purple rocks shining as bright as the first time she stepped on those hills. She reached the small cabin where she once met Granny; whereas other climbers would rest just a little before resuming, Madeline entered the cabin.

This place was somehow even more abandoned than Granny's hut; it was still habitable, if barely. It also had the same commodities as Granny's hut. Madeline checked around and found herself somewhat relieved to learn the oven there still worked. She put her backpack on the bed's place and got to work on cleaning the kitchen place, just enough so her hands and whatever she put down on a table didn't get sticky every time she touched it.

Once her task was done, Madeline pulled out a bag filled with ingredients from her backpack, among them, but not limited to, strawberries.

A few hours passed quietly, only the sound of the breeze of the snow winds, the clank of Madeline's utensils to keep her company, and the boring-hole stare of Badeline at Madeline's head. The sun settled in the horizon by the time Madeline finished, the purple rocks now painted orange with the slightest tints of dark blue. She opened the oven and drew out a strawberry pie. It had been a while since Madeline last baked a pie, but she managed to be content with her result.

She cut a slice and carried it on a plate to the exterior with her backpack. She turned to a cave passage behind the cabin and walked down it. The passage darkened the further Madeline went until she reached the end of the tunnel to a more spacious, illuminated cavern, one open enough to let the sun in and close enough to protect the place of the snow.

At the end of the cavern there lay a line of gravestones, all but one with various states of decay and negligence, not to mention the ones that had crumbled upon themselves through time.

Granny's gravestone rested at the end. While it was not as in bad shape as the rest, it was neither in good form.

That last part was what she was here for.

Madeline set the pie plate in front of Granny's grave and Madeline opened her backpack. She did not have the most practical tools to keep a gravestone clean and spotless, but worse would be nothing.

It would not leave it better than new, but at least no dust was good enough for her current situation.

All of that was like she was coming back to the mountain yet once more. Such a task was not the brightest of ideas, but at least she having a clear, not death-brink goal was a good change of pace for once.

"Hey, Granny," Madeline said, failing to contain a sigh within herself, as if the whole weight of her trip fell on top of her all of a sudden. She was tired, yes, but that was a feeling she was used to. "Sorry I'm late. I'd say I was busy with my old life, but we both know that's a lie, and I want to be beyond that. You probably don't care that I didn't show up, but… I do. Maybe that's the difference between you and me. That would explain why I took so long to visit and why I'm still such a mess."

"Since you know she won't care," A voice said behind her. "That means you're doing this for you more than for her, really."

Madeline smiled tiredly. "I'm sure she'd agree. And then she'd laugh at us, or, well, me rather."

"Then," Badeline continued while laughing self-sufficiently, "She'd say something like, 'Stop wasting my time. I've got better things to do than to watch a silly girl throwing herself off a cliff.'"

"That was on you." She turned to Badeline with her being-done-with-all expression.

"I'm sure she'd disagree."

Madeline's face mellowed a little. "You're probably right." Madeline turned her eyes back at Granny's tombstone.

For someone to be so head-loose and disconnected from the world, Granny turned out to be right about a great many things.

For someone her age, she bothered herself to keep up with Madeline's misadventures.

For someone who told her there was no shame in turning back and letting go on nearly every instance she could, she always weirdly supported her.

For someone who could look like she had it all together, she lived here nonetheless. Probably longer than anyone ever has.

For someone who isolated herself from the rest of the world…

Well, Madeline actually knew that one.

"I never got to thank her. For all of it.

"She would have not—"

"I know! She raised her voice, "It's just… I wish I had…done anything for her. Yes, she would have told me to waste my time on anything else but… still." Madeline sighed, "Which reminds me…"

Madeline returned to the hut and drifted through the old boxes and rotted wooden shelves. A strange mix of searching in a vague but certain direction and not knowing what she was looking for until she found it.

And there it was.

An old photo frame covered in so much dust she could not even see the picture. Only until she wiped some of the dust with her thumb and saw the suit of a man; Madeline smiled relieved.

She blew up the dust and revealed the very same photo of Granny and Theo's grandfather that he had sent her when she finally brought herself to answer his calls after the former died. A part of her was happy to know Granny had kept one copy to herself, even after however long ago that had been.

For once, Madeline knew Granny would be grateful to know she would be keeping this picture.

A willful reminder about what she chose not to become. No matter how fond Madeline became of Granny.

Madeline climbed down the mountain on an old elevator still functioning. Even then, the trip down took her a whole day in between whatever remained of the people who wanted to make of the mountain a community. She deciding to take a different path, one truly foreign to her was just a preparation for what she wanted to do later.

She reached Granny's hut at the feet of the mountain and collected everything that could be salvageable but still bothered herself to leave the place clean. Just as she remembered when she baked that first strawberry pie all those years ago.

She remembered the smiles, the voices, the laughs, the company. The feelings of accomplishment.

All of that, all of this. All of here.

"This is not what I want anymore." Madeline said. She got in her car and drove away and she never set foot on Celeste Mountain ever again.

Chapter Text

And after two years, this project is over!

Where do I start this ending letter?

Well, I knew almost from the beginning I wanted to end this work with a D-Side chapter. I've played the D-Sides modes, Monika's D-sides, to be precise, and if you have too, is probable you've heard the complaint that 9-D is just a longer 7-D and I do agree with that sentiment. Doing just that here was sort of my intention, but I did not liked the idea of going over old ground, again. I think I did just fine with The Summit's chapter.

Then, about 2-3 months ago I got the idea for the D-Side chapter to be Madeline dashless. Originally with this idea, I meant for Madeline to climb the whole mountain without her dash, but then we return to the problem I mentioned above, and I felt it didn't trasmite the theme I've been carrying since aprox B-Side/Golden Strawberry chapter.

I do want to say I do like nearly all post-game chapters (basically everything after The Core chapter.) for what they are as a as a writer... for the wrong reasons. Them not being about anything at all... a part of me still thinks they should have been standalone chapters and not tell a story together.

Anyhow, something else before I forget it, uh, I also had plans for my "It's for him" fanfic to be like, be canon inside of Through Rocks and Snow because I'm an egotistical piece of ****, but in retrospective, I do not like the way I carried that story's ending, especially considering how it meshes with this one.

I should not say it, I should NOT say it, but this work should have not taken me two years to finish. I'm trying to work on that, I swear.

And because absolutely no one asked for it, I'm in the mood to do a tier list of these chapters from least to most favorite because I want to get these stupid thoughts out of my head and I think a work as dynamic as this one comes handy.

...

25th: Chapter 12 - Purple Ridge: Insert "It's the biggest piece of dog****" meme here. Basically just Badeline's POV of the whole gandola stuff. Nothing groundbreaking, nothing THAT interesting. Like watching your food heat on the microwave, expcet you know the payoff won't be delicious. Alternative POVs are not bad on their own, but here...

24th: Chapter 8 - Theo Old site: My equivalent to that tv episode you could skip just fine and not miss anything. At the very least I can believe I did dissect Theo's character just well enough to throw some shine on him.

23rd: Chapter 20 - B-Side: I do remember when I was writing it I thought it'd be like a "cool concept" to have the whole chapter occurr inside the car. Not the worst of my ideas, not the best of my ideas. And out of all the post-game chapters, B-Side is definitely the weakest. God this one is so bad.

22nd: Chapter 3 - Theo Forsaken City: To this chapter's benefit, I do like it's introspection and the way I made everything flow.

21st: Chapter 5 - Old Site: Old Site is not a bad chapter, both in TRAS nor in the game, but there's simply better stuff.

20th: Chapter 4 - Strawberry: Now we're getting to the "I mean it's alright" part of every tier list. Cute chapter, in my opinion. Highlights Madeline's isolation in a fun way I've found the other day. "Cute coping mechanism given you don't think about it too hard."

19th: Chapter 24 - Moon Berry: Oh the struggle I had to write this one down. I can say I'm glad with the result and still give some new light to this concept without running in circles.

18th: Chapter 13 - Mirror Temple: Mirror temple is not a big deal for me. I started strong here, but I fell down somewhere along the road.

17th: Chapter 11 - Golden Ridge: It pains my heart to put Golden Ridge this low. 4-B is my fav level on the whole game and I will die on this hill, but looking back at it, I think I failed to do as much justice as I would have wanted.

16th: Chapter 21 - Golden Strawberry?: Ironic for this chapter to be next to Golden Ridge here when they are so intertwined. But again, in my effort of "if it's about nothing, then it can be about anything."-ism, I don't think this chapter never took off as I wanted.

15th: Chapter 23 - Farewell: For all my "I don't want to just introspect and extrapolate" talk. This chapter is really hit or miss for me, and I think I missed here for the most part. Just from remembering writing about it, aw.

14th: Chapter 7 - Badeline Chase: Reading it over, I'm undecided whether or not referring to Madeline and Badeline as reflection and countepart the whole while was good or bad. I do sort of like it, but I do know just because I like something, doesn't mean is good.

13rd: Chapter 10 - Mr. Oshiro Chase: I never did Oshiro's It's for him work. Shame.

12nd: Chapter 19 - The Core: I still remain strong in my "what the **** is the core about?" opinion, but at least I wrote a more than decent ending.

11st: Chapter 14 - Mirror Temple Inner Reflection: Because spite can get you much further in one night than fear in a month.

10th: Chapter 2 - Forsaken City: The prompt for this chapter is a perfect continuation from Prologue's prompt.

9th: Chapter 1 - Prologue: What starts good, ends good.

8th: Chapter 25 - D-Side: I wish I could put this chapter in a higher place. It does work for me. It transmit what I want to transmit. It puts where I want Madeline to be... maybe it's because of the weaker chapters that come before it, but what starts good, ends good.

7th: Chapter 6 - Winged Strawberry: I still think it was so fun to write platforming scenarios. I must reconsider whether or not to write one of those full out.

6th: Chapter 22 - C-Side: I wrote this chapter with a "speedrunning" mentality. That thrive to be better, or to be more precise, faster, to demand more out of yourself. I speedran the game myself. Not to brag but 50 minute-ish gang. I did nailed my intention.

5th: Chapter 16 - Badeline Boss Fight: One of the few alternative POV chapters that did not suck ass.

4th: Chapter 17 - The Summit: Have this been the actual final chapter, it would have been an excellent final chapter, despite the following ones muddle through.

3th: Chapter 18 - Epilogue: There are not nearly enough Madeline & Granny interactions in the game and now I want to hit my head against a wall for not fixing that as much as I've could with this work. I loved their conversation here.

2nd: Chapter 9 - Celestial Resort: Who would have thought an Oshiro-centric chapter would score so high? Maybe I'm a little biased here, but every once in a while you own yourself to have an IDGAF moment in these kinds of matters.

1st: Chapter 15 - Reflection: Celia is so, SO fascinating to me as a character. She understands the mountain better than anyone, she understands demons are not so easy to let go. She understand pain does not shall pass, but it will find its place in her life. She has the harshness of experience, but the heart you would find in your kindred spirit, all of that mixed with the sad knowledge only certain lessons can be learnt through pain. You can tell she's seen some shit.

And that's it. This is the part where I write my conclusion, but I don't think I've ever been the greatest at it. Through Rocks and Snow came to me out of a desire to write something for Celeste, but inspiration never struck me, not in the way that made my eyes bright and lose my breath like an eureka moment. I like to think about how this work encapsulates for me my writing experience. It has parts I absolutely love and I'm proud of, and it has parts that makes the saying "hate your work and let it grow." make sense, and it has those parts in which you feel like the only thing you're doing is shoveling snow out of your way. All in all, I'm happy with how this whole fiasco turned out.