Chapter Text
Illuga woke up not knowing why. His body just twitched, awakened by something in the absolute darkness of the moonless, starless night. This alerted him. There should have been a fire burning in the camp, and someone should have been on guard, but Illuga saw no light from the fire, nor heard the crunch of footsteps.
It was eerily quiet.
Only a faint whisper could be heard from afar.
His heart pounded as he realized it was the Abyss. He jumped up, grabbed his spear, and ran out of the tent into the purple mist. It was undoubtedly the Abyss, but where were his comrades? Why was he alone?
Why was he alone again?
Illuga made the rounds of others’ tents as quietly as possible, but the camp was deserted. The fire was extinguished, though the embers still gave off warmth. With his lantern illuminating the fog, Illuga slowly walked in the direction of the footsteps and tracks, and the farther he went, the clearer the voices and the clank of weapons became. A battle raged ahead, and Illuga rushed toward the sound as fast as he could. When he reached it, he froze in place, watching his comrades fight the monsters of the Abyss and each other.
With a battle cry, he rushed into the thick of the battle, barely managing to protect one of the lightkeepers from a deadly blow from a wasteland Wild Hunt monster.
“Illuga!”
“Ivar?! What happened?!”
“I don't know! The wild hunt attacked out of nowhere!”
Illuga surveyed the battlefield. Half of their squad had already been tainted by the Abyss. Purple streaks had appeared on their faces, their eyes glowed with dark flames, and their voices were distorted beyond recognition. They had already lost themselves; there was no saving them. And those who were still themselves fought with all their might, but were outnumbered.
"Retreat!" Captain Olson's voice came from the depths. "Whoever is still alive, retreat!"
Before Illuga's eyes, two more lightkeepers were hacked to pieces by the Wild Hunt monsters. Though this wasn't his first battle, he stood frozen in place, surrounded by blood, screams, and death. The Abyss advanced on them in a massive wave. Its dark mist engulfed several more soldiers, extinguishing their lanterns, sapping their will, turning them from allies into enemies.
“Illuga, Ivar! Run! Report to headquarters!..”
The curved sword pierced the captain through.
“Go!” Ivar shouted and dragged Illuga along with him.
The two of them ran through a dark forest filled with a foul fog. Illuga knew, he should have known this area like the back of his hand, but the Abyss was leading them in circles, not letting them escape its haze. It closed around them like a tight grip, surrounding them from all sides, penetrating through their noses and mouths into the very depths of their frail human bodies, and the next moment, with a desperate cry, Ivar swung his sword and slashed at Illuga’s shoulder. Illuga screamed in sharp pain, snatched up his own spear, and clumsily waved the sword away, only realizing that he himself didn't have long to live. The Abyss was taking over his consciousness, rewriting his perception of reality. Everything blurred before his eyes, and the burning pain in his shoulder and neck drove him completely mad...
***
It was pure luck, nothing less. No matter how much Dottore blamed fate, sometimes it was merciful to him, as if it itself was pushing him toward all those experiments he'd dreamed of for years, even decades.
Fresh traces of blood led him to an incredible possibility. Next to the corpse, half-decomposed by the Abyss, lay a still-living man, leaning against a tree trunk. Between his shoulder and neck gaped a huge wound, covered in a thick, crusted layer of blood mixed with the taint of the Abyss. But despite this, he was still breathing. He was still alive.
One can’t find a specimen more perfect than that.
Dottore carried a vial of concentrated pure energy of the Light Realm. According to his experiments, even the smallest dose was lethal to humans. But it was also capable of neutralizing the Abyss.
How would this energy react on a still living human organism, corrupted by the Abyss?
Dottore knelt down next to the young man, pulled out the vial made of the strongest material, and uncorked it. Inside, something between a gas and a liquid glowed brightly, shimmering with the delicate colors of the rainbow. He confidently tilted the tube, and a small, shining drop fell onto the open wound.
The effect was immediate. The young man screamed in pain with the voice of a man superposed with that of a monster. His eyes widened, and the color of his eyes began to rapidly change from light to dark and back again, through purple and bloody, as if it couldn't decide which one to settle on. He twitched in unbearable agony, and with his gloved hands he began to scrape at his wound, as if trying to tear it even further. The reaction of Light and Abyss was mesmerizing — the blood-purple haze became like a spill of gasoline on the water, it moved and shimmered, as if it were a living being itself. Pure Light neutralized the Abyss through blood, muscles, and nerves, and Dottore watched the reaction with curiosity, completely unmoved by the suffering of his accidental test subject. The screams and pain didn't bother him. And when the young man's strength was exhausted and the reaction was complete, Dottore couldn't help but smile. The wound was slowly healing right before his eyes. And the test subject was breathing deeply. Checking his pulse on his wrist, Dottore nodded to himself.
It was certainly a success.
He rose and considered the situation. Leaving such a priceless experiment here, even for a short time, wasn’t an option.
Well, he’d have to take it.
Dottore unceremoniously threw the surviving test subject over his shoulder and headed towards his personal, secret laboratory.
***
The sky turned pale before dawn, and the very horizon where the sun was rising stung the eyes unpleasantly. The pale light dispersed the fog and revealed what had happened during the night carnage: the weapons and lanterns of the lightkeepers lay scattered on the blood-blackened ground among people and monsters. There were no survivors among them, and in this stagnant silence Flins stood in place, holding his breath and staring into each deathly pale face. His comrades slowly and solemnly wandered the battlefield, collecting the fallen lightkeepers, laying them in a row and, if any were found, placing weapons and broken, lifeless lanterns next to them. When all the bodies were collected, Flins glanced over them again, but Illuga was not among them. This was both terrifying and reassuring.
Flins took a deep breath of the damp air and peered more closely. Even among the humans transformed into monsters, he couldn't see the young master. However, he spotted footprints and drops of blood leading toward the forest. He followed in that direction, with two lightkeepers going with him.
In this forest, not even the birds sang or the insects chirped. Footsteps, pressed into the now-dry earth, led forward and around, and Flins saw another body.
“There,” he called to his comrades and pointed to the dead half-monster, half-human.
While the lightkeepers carried away the dead Ivar, Flins crouched next to a tree whose trunk was stained with dried blood. A spear and a broken lantern lay nearby.
Flins raised the spear and squeezed it in his hand, risking crushing it with his inhuman strength.
***
Illuga was sick before he even came to his senses. He only had time to reflexively turn onto his side to avoid choking on his own acidic vomit. He felt a little better, but his head was spinning so much he felt like he was about to vomit again, but ultimately, he lost consciousness.
When he woke up a second time, he was nauseous again, but he felt better than the last time. His head was still spinning, and he tried to open his eyes, but even the slightest light sent a sharp pain through his brain, and Illuga fell back into a feverish sleep.
The third time, he no longer felt nauseous, but his entire body burned and was terribly wet with sweat. Illuga thought about washing himself, but he couldn't even move, feeling heavy and empty at the same time. Someone's cool hand lay on his forehead and covered his eyes, and darkness brought relief and unconsciousness.
By the fourth time, his head wasn't spinning, he wasn't feverish, he wasn't nauseous, and even the lights in the room were dim and not causing pain to his eyes. Illuga was able to sit up and look around, but the place was unfamiliar. Half of the long room resembled a hospital wing, while the other half looked like an alchemy lab, with glowing test tubes, a worktable littered with papers, and blackboards covered with incomprehensible formulas and diagrams. The thick metal walls and doors were clearly Nod-Krai style, but this wasn't Piramida or Nasha Town, for Illuga knew all the hospitals in those two cities inside and out.
He wanted to get up, but even the slightest attempt to move tired him out, and he collapsed back onto the pillows. Whoever had taken him there would surely return sooner or later, which meant he could get some more sleep…
When he next woke up, there was a man in a white coat sitting at a table in the lab half of the room, with a sharp bird-like mask on the upper half of his face.
“Who are you?” Illuga whispered and coughed in an attempt to clear his throat.
The masked man, however, quickly got up from his desk and walked over to him.
“What do you feel?” he asked.
Illuga froze. Usually, in such a situation, people would ask, "How are you feeling?" Nevertheless, he closed his eyes, focusing on his sensations, and replied:
“Weak. And my throat is dry.”
“Mm. Drink.”
The untalkative, strange doctor handed him a glass of water, and while Illuga drank, he measured the pulse on the wrist of his free hand.
“Who are you?” Illuga asked again.
"Many call me Dottore," the masked man pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and shined it into Illuga's eyes. It was unpleasant, but apparently it was part of the necessary examination.
“Hah, I see that you are a doctor,” Illuga chuckled.
The doctor, Dottore, suddenly froze.
“Have you never heard of me?”
“Should I?”
“Probably not,” he answered after a pause.
His cold hands untied the cord on Illuga's shirt and pulled the fabric off his left shoulder, revealing an ugly scar — and suddenly the memories of the nightmare gripped him like a vice, squeezing all the air from his chest. Panicked, he waved Dottore away and pressed his own palm to his neck, remembering the sharp pain from the sword, and then from…
An unbearable heat, as if his entire body were burning alive, burning from the inside. A pain from which he thought he would finally die, but he was still here, he was still breathing.
He survived once again.
Ivar… Ivar! Captain Olson!
“Where are the others? What happened to them?!”
He lowered his head, afraid to look Dottore in the eye, or rather, at his mask. He was afraid to hear the answer he already knew.
“When I found you, you were the only one alive,” Dottore answered in an even voice.
Of course. He knew it. The Abyss spares no one, but why then was he the only survivor again?!
“Argh!”
Illuga angrily swept the glass off the nightstand next to his bed, and it shattered into pieces, scattering into small, shiny shards across the metal floor.
Dottore sighed in irritation.
“There's no point in continuing this conversation. I'll come back when you've calmed down.”
Illuga pulled his shirt back over his shoulder, as if trying to convince himself that there was no scar, no terrible night in which everyone but him died, and he collapsed back onto the bed, buried his face in the pillow and screamed at the top of his lungs.
***
When Dottore returned, Illuga was lying on his side, curled up with his knees pulled to his chest. He merely raised his head wearily, looking Dottore with empty eyes, and then lied back down.
“Why did you save me?” he asked.
His voice was as empty as his eyes.
Dottore tsked, but took a chair and sat down next to the bed.
"I'm a scientist. You were struck by the Abyss, and I had a potential... cure. I couldn't help but test it."
“My wound has completely healed... How long have I been here?”
“Five days.”
Illuga looked at him in surprise, then glanced under his shirt, squinting, trying to discern the scar on his neck and shoulder. The scar was wide, fresh, and perfectly healthy. Such a large wound shouldn't have healed so quickly.
"Your wound didn't heal in five days. More like five minutes," Dottore clarified.
“What?! How is this possible?”
“Ah, now you’re interested,” Dottore chuckled.
Illuga glared at him a little angrily, but his weariness and exhaustion outweighed any emotion.
"I assumed that the energy of the Light Realm — you call it kuuvahki, apparently — was capable of neutralizing the Abyss. Alas, so far all my experiments on biological organisms have ended in failure. It's all a matter of dosage. Obtaining fresh samples infected with the Abyss is incredibly difficult as it is, and even the smallest dose of Light energy corrodes the body almost faster than the Abyss itself. Unfortunately, I simply don't have enough data. With you, I was lucky. The Light not only neutralized the Abyss, but also healed your wounds. Although I still can't fully understand why you didn't die. And I want to find out."
Illuga understood little of his explanation, his mind frozen at the words “neutralize the Abyss.”
He'd heard that this was possible with the help of kuuvahki, which is why the lightkeepers’ lanterns were charged with this energy, as was the enormous cannon in Nasha Town, built by the little genius Aino. He also knew that the kuuvahki energy in the lanterns and the cannon was too weak, as extracting it was a difficult and dangerous process.
Could it be that this Dottore was able not only to obtain it, but also to concentrate it and find a way to use it more effectively?
Inject it into a living person? Heal them?
“So? What do you feel?”
Illuga stared into space, pondering the question.
He could have returned to the lightkeepers, though after five days he would likely be presumed dead. He could have returned to them and continued the fight, standing guard and repelling the Wild Hunt's attacks side by side with his comrades.
And to watch as they all, one after another, perish from the Abyss before his eyes, once again leaving him alone.
But this Dottore might have a solution. A way to resist the hated Abyss, create a more effective weapon, maybe even nip this threat in the bud once and for all. It would be foolish to pass up such a chance. He himself was proof of it. Whatever Dottore had done, it had saved him from death, which meant it was working.
Let him be just a test subject, but if in the end it leads to results, so be it.
Illuga curled up tighter into a ball, a little afraid of his own decision, but even more afraid of what might happen if he didn't make it.
"To be honest, I’m just hungry," he mumbled into his knees. "And I want to take a shower. Apparently, an overdose of Abyss and kuuvahki doesn't relieve me of basic human needs."
Dottore smiled and even patted him on the leg.
“You’ll be given something to eat. And then you and I will have many, so many things to do.”