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Dozens of Tower-dwelling eyes fix on Eris. She weaves a dreadful tale of a demon’s throne; of monoliths oozing flesh, and blood, and the stench of terror hotter than a sun-blessed hammer; of a plight in the throng of a doomed miasma permeable by one thing. She points in your direction and all eyes follow.
“Guardians don’t die,” says the Hunter beside you. “That’s what Ghosts are for.” No one remembered the last time a Taeko-3 tragedy occurred let alone what happened to Cayde. “We kill monsters like that.”
“Stories are the remnants of memories,” Eris warns, her voice low and deliberate. “And memories are the remnants of the living.”
You hear a scoff, but Eris watches you. Your eyes fall vacant in each other, and when you blink, you find the Tower hushed; cold and soulless. Eris is all that’s left and she falls back into the curtain behind her.
“Wait!” You jump forward only to miss her cloak by a hair’s length. In your tumble through the veil, a cruel wind smacks you to a stop at the edge of a gorge where the Last City once stood. For a moment, you teeter between Tower and shadow, but a voice shakes the ground and you stumble.
MORTAL DEMONS!
Eris’ voice is hungry, ricocheting through your bones and morphing into breathy screams as the sense of solidity leaves you only to echo into the chasm below.
PROSTRATE BENEATH OUR SLEEPING MOON!
You land flat on your back, the dreadful snap of something deep resonating as the wind rushes from your lungs.
ITS MAW IS INEXORABLE VENGEANCE ON THE DAWN!
A whimper escapes your lips, but the sound snuffs when you see it…. A black-imbued umbra, hovering above your form, covering the Traveler’s light – a trio of green in the void of its face serves as the only light you can discern in the chasm.
This nightmare took a strange initiative. It shouldn’t have looked so close and it shouldn’t have used such an amicable voice like the shadow of a friend behind the thought of a terror.
“Do you believe it yet?”
Its breath infiltrates your ears, lifting you to your feet; deaf to the ache of your bones. A dim light crawls up the platform you float above. In the pitch black, you see red smoke cloaking the perimeter. It pools into your sight and blankets you with a scent as sharp as knives and hot as molten iron. You reel from the sensation.
You find your weapon with shaking hands, holding it close to your chest. It might save you should the nightmare try its worst, but it dissipates, leaving you shivering as a sinister red sheen trickles down your fingers.
The fractures flay your innards as you crash to the ground. Gasping, your twitching fingers open for your ghost. It swirls into your peripherals, pulsing with a warm, healing glow when suddenly, it chokes.
Dark hands squeeze its shell and a blast shakes your world. Your ghost, shattered by shadow, filters through the red smoke alongside your glittering tears.
Strain rips at your vocal cords as you rock, cradling your ghost’s pieces, begging to wake up from this dream.
The spectre wraps an icy arm around your shoulders.
“No, no , please !” You plead.
“It’s not my choice to make,” the apparition whispers in that familiar echo. “But…” From the smoke, a blade –long and illustrious, adorned with amethyst charms and gleaming opal– fills your grip. “...it is yours to answer.”
Below you, the vestiges of a soul once indispensable wink at you and the blade in your hands. Before you know it, the sting spreads across your face and your hands stain dark and wet. You wonder for a moment if that Hunter suffered the same fate… if they heard the same lulled taunt from the shape in the night.
No one will find you.
The blade in your hands is slick with the humid vapor of the nightmare in your ears.
No one can help you.
Unrecognizable, you crash to your knees beside your ghost, your light dwindling.
You are a lost – DEAD – thing.
Your eyes open. Eris preaches a story of dread. You do not notice your deformity. You do not notice your malodor.
You scoff.
Guardians don’t die.