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Somewhere, in one of 33,550,336 cycles...
Phainon looked at Mydei who was drinking his pomegranate juice with milk and held his hand. They sat together on the roof of a house and watched the sun set. After they entered the Era Nova everyone could have a break and live a normal life without the need for constant fighting.
They didn't talk, they just sat in silence. Phainon glanced at their joined hands that laid between them and smiled to himself like a highschool girl when she saw her crush. After so long and so many sacrifices, they were finally able to truly open up to each other and explain everything.
Mydei also looked at him with a gentle smile, then took a last sip of juice and set the glass aside. He placed his hand on his cheek and pulled him in for a kiss. He immediately reciprocated and deepened it. Usually, they would probably make a challenge of it, but not this time. They slowly moved their lips, matching each other to a perfect rhythm.
After a moment, they pulled away and looked into each other's eyes. Phainon was about to say something, but he heard a familiar laugh behind him.
"How sweet. So Princess Homebody was right!" Cipher laughed, and Phainon turned to her. She was leaning against the wall of the top floor of the house. She had her teleslate in her hand and was clearly taking a picture of them. "I think she'll put it to good use." She said, waving to them with it.
Phainon laughed too and nodded, feeling a pleasant sensation that everything was finally as it should be. He noticed that Mydei was strangely quiet, so he turned his gaze back to him. His smile immediately disappeared when his partner was replaced by a strange figure.
He immediately knew what it was. These were the same monsters that had once attacked the Aedes Elysiae, the ones that had devoured his friends and family. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest as he jumped away from him.
"Phai... non..." He said, if words were the even a good term. Phainon didn't know what to do. He looked at Cipher, who had disappeared and in her place stood a similar entity. "Kill... me..."
"No, Mydei, please." His words broke mid-sentence, and his hand trembled at his side. His body refused to obey him, he wanted to move, but he couldn't. He was a little boy again who failed to protect his friends and lost them all.
They defeated the black tide, they entered a new era, so that's why it's happening again? It didn't make sense it must have been a bad dream because there is no other explanation for it.
"Kill... me...!" He growled, sharper this time, as if this were his last chance. Phainon didn't even notice when the Dawnmaker appeared in his hand. A few tears fell from his eyes and blurred his vision.
"Lady Aglaea.. Professor Anaxa.. Miss Hyacine.. Castorise... someone, anyone... please." He begged with a trembling voice, but no one came to his rescue. He raised his sword and aimed it at him, but did not attack.
He hoped that everything would return to normal soon, but the longer he waited for Mydei to change back, the more he began to doubt it. He swallowed hard and watched Mydei morph between the monster and his true self. His breath hitched, and some unexplained force pushed him towards him.
"Mydei..." He muttered weakly and then, when the monster wanted to attack him, he jumped behind him and plunged his blade straight into his tenth thoracic vertebra. This was Mydei's weak point that only he knew about. It wasn't long before he began to sway on his feet. He pulled the Dawnmaker out of him, and then, as if the universe hated him, he returned to normal.
Golden blood seeped from the wounds and his eyes were vacant, a sign that he was already dead. "I'm sorry, Mydeimos." He whispered in his ear, holding his body in his hands. He hugged him and sobbed quietly as he watched all of Okhema being swallowed by the black tide.
He saw his consciousness slowly begin to fade and then he woke up in his bed with Hyacine standing next to him with a worried look on her face. He sat up abruptly and looked around the room. Everything looked normal, so maybe it really was just a dream. Well, it's more like a nightmare.
"Are you okay?" she asked, looking him over carefully. She took a cup from the table and handed it to him for a drink, which he did immediately. He also saw Mydei's cup there, which made him a little surprised, it wasn't supposed to be here.
"Where's Mydei?" He didn't answer her question, but immediately asked his own, and Hyacine's face seemed to turn pale. She didn't say anything for a moment, which only made Phainon feel uneasy.
"You don't-" She started, but stopped and considered continuing. "I think I saw him with Cipher and Castorice." She finished, but Phainon could hear the hesitation in her voice, but why would she lie? It wasn't like her.
"Thanks, I'll go look for him." He said and got out of bed, but Hyacine stopped him.
"You're injured, maybe lie down for a while." She suggested, but Phainon just laughed and looked at her with a smile.
"I'll be fine, I'm a demigod after all." He assured her and placed his hand on her shoulder as if to reassure her, then moved towards the door and went to the last place he had seen Castorice. She was feeding Dromas earlier, so he hoped she was still there.
It didn't take him long and he was quite lucky because both girls were actually there and were talking about something. He walked over to them and only now noticed that neither of them was smiling and both were a little bruised, just like him. However, he didn't see Mydei anywhere.
"Where's Mydei? Hyacine told me that he was with you." He said, and they both turned to him. Castorice looked tired, and Cipher wasn't like her usual self, she didn't have her characteristic, cunning smile, just pure sadness. He didn't understand what had happened.
They both looked at each other, as if trying to find out if he was serious. "Did he get hit in the head too hard?" Cipher whispered to her, and Phainon just tilted his head to the side in confusion.
"Lord Phainon, Mydei... he is-" She was about to explain to him, but she saw Hyacine running towards them, with a distressed look and shaking her head from side to side, signaling her not to say anything more. "Probably in the baths." She finished and Hyacine breathed a sigh of relief.
"Oh, thanks!" He replied with a smile and turned around, almost bumping into Hyacine. "I'm really fine, don't worry about me so much." He said, then walked around her and headed towards the baths.
He left all three behind, but noticed they were talking about something, but he didn't hear a word anymore as he was too far already. Halfway there, he noticed they were following him. He turned around and noticed they weren't trying to hide it, on the contrary, they had come closer when they realised he was looking at them.
They were behaving quite strangely and Phainon knew something was up, but he didn't let them know that he suspected anything. When the group arrived at the baths, they saw many people who did not look relaxed, but rather frightened. A few people were crying, others were hugging their children, and Tribbie, Trianne and Trinnon were helping them all.
Phainon approached Tribbie, who was already exhausted, as she sat down on a chair. "Have you seen Mydei?" He asked bluntly, trying to figure out what had happened here from the corner of his eye, but nothing had been destroyed and there were no signs of a fighting.
"Snowy... is everything all right?" The same question again. Why can't anyone tell him where Mydei really is? Tribbie noticed the others looking at her pleadingly, as if they were trying to communicate telepathically and tell her to stay quiet. "He went to talk to Aglaea." She said, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
"Really? Okay, I'll go there." He said, no longer so sure of it, as he sensed uncertainty in her voice, just like he had previously heard from Hyacine and Castorice. He moved towards the elevator and went up, he looked around to see if Aglaea was there, but it turned out she was in the garden.
He kept walking, trying to ignore the feeling of being watched by not one, not two, not three, but four people. When he finally got close to his destination, he heard Aglaea talking to someone and smiled at the thought of finally seeing Mydei. Unfortunately, his joy faded when he realized that that someone was professor Anaxa.
"Lady Aglaea." He called out, and they both looked at him. "Can you please tell me where Mydei is?" He asked and she frowned, looking at the rest who were still silent, then she eyed Anaxa and sighed.
"Can someone explain to me what's going on here?" She asked in a serious tone that made all three of them, except Tribbie, shiver. Neither of them wanted to say anything and they knew that even though Aglaea was very patient, it didn't mean it was a good idea to test it.
Tribbie stepped forward first. "We're sorry, Agy, we should have told him sooner." She said with obvious remorse, and Phainon turned to her.
"About what?"
"I started all this, but I just... couldn't." Hyacine confessed and stood next to Tribbie, clearly feeling guilty about it.
"Couldn't do what?"
"I should have stopped it sooner, I'm sorry Lady Aglaea." Castorice sighed, standing next to the rest. She hung her head low as if to apologize to Phainon without using words, because she immediately fell silent again after that.
"Castorice, what are you talking about?"
"Yeah, even I can admit that was a stupid lie and it went too far." Cipher scratched her head and walked over to them as well, looking at Aglaea.
"What lie?" He asked, looking at each of them in turn, and even though he already guessed what it was about, he didn't want to admit the thought to himself because of how idiotic it sounded. "Someone please tell me where Mydei is."
Aglaea, seeing that neither of them was really going to tell the truth, just sighed heavily and turned to distressed Phainon. "Mydei is dead, he was killed by the Flame Reaver when he attacked Okhema yesterday."
Phainon, at first, was too stunned to speak. "But…how!? I am the only one that knows his weak spot!"
"He must have found out somehow, maybe he was eavesdropping on you or he has other powers we don't know about." Aglaea explained.
Phainon knew it would happen sooner or later, but he didn't expect Mydei to be the first to fall victim to the prophecy. Who will now fight on the front and protect Okhema from the black tide? If they don't hurry, they won't be able to retrieve all the coreflames in time and Amphoreus will never see a true dawn and therefore all their deaths will be in vain.
Aglaea was about to say something, but Phainon was faster. "The Flame-Chase is a journey of constant loss, among which even life itself holds little value." He recited it as Aglaea always did. "That's what you wanted to say, right?"
"Phainon-" For the first time in ages, Aglaea didn't know what to say, as if the words were stuck in her throat. "I'm sorry." Was all she managed to say before Phainon turned and headed towards the garden exit. No one tried to stop him, because they knew it was best to give him some time to himself.
He had already lost a lot of people, and after all this time it shouldn't be so hard for him to say goodbye to someone, but he felt like he was back in Aedes Elysiae when the black tide attacked his village. Mydei had just passed the trial and suddenly it turns out that Flame Reaver is able to defeat the strongest demigod so easily. If this is how it is supposed to be, then the Flame-Chase Journey is already in a losing position.
Phainon went to his room and lay back down on the bed. He looked at Mydei's cup, which lay empty on the table next to him. He reached out to take it, but stopped at the last moment, remembering his dream. How he had to pierce Mydei, how realistic it felt as if he had actually done this.
But there was one more thing that was on his mind. How on earth did Flame Reaver know where to attack? There was no way he would figure out that one specific spot where Mydei was vulnerable and weak.
He closed his eyes, not because he was tired, but because he wanted to go back to that dream at least once more and meet Mydei, even if he was no longer really with them. It didn't take long for him to fall asleep, and this time, instead of sitting on the roof, he was holding a bloody sword in his hand and was right in the middle of the fight.
He saw Flame Reaver persistently trying to hurt Mydei and the others fighting the monsters. Only then did he realize that it wasn't a dream at all, but memories he had forgotten. He wanted to run to him, but his body wouldn't listen to him, as if he had no control over it. Well, they were just flashbacks, so that's why he couldn't do anything.
Phainon heard Hyacine shout something at Mydei, and he immediately turned around to see her piercing his back. He immediately ran towards him, wanting to charge on the Flame Reaver, unfortunately, four shadows suddenly appeared next to him and pushed him away. He didn't give up though, he just attacked again, only this time he got hit in the back of the head and fell next to Mydei with a loud thud.
Then, he woke up, drenched in a cold sweat, and nervously looked around the room. He calmed his heart and then noticed that Mydei's cup was now filled fully with some pink liquid. It was probably pomegranate juice with milk, Mydei's favorite drink. He smiled slightly and took it in his hand, taking one sip.
He noticed that there was also a note on the table, so he put down the cup and took the piece of paper, unfolding it. Inside were apologies from Hyacine, Cipher, Castorice, and Tribbie, along with a promise to make it up to him somehow for their lie.. Even though he was angry at first, and still was, he understood why they did what they did and didn't blame them. It wasn't them who killed Mydei, it was the Flame Reaver, and he should direct all his negative emotions towards him.
When they will finally step into the new dawn, he will have to do everything he didn't have time to do here. He just needs to hold out a little longer and then everyone can enjoy the better tomorrow.
"What a beautiful dream of Era Nova." Khaslana said to himself, almost smiling at the sight, but when the Fragments of Recollection's hologram began to freeze, signifying that the memory was coming to an end, he sighed heavily. "Such a shame it will never come true."
As all of Phainon's memories came back to him, he snorted at how naive and stupid he had been. He was watching the world falling apart and was only waiting for what he had seen millions of times before. "Wait for me, Mydeimos and see you again, in the next cycle."