Chapter Text
You wander.
There’s a fog here, that seems to consume your every move. Every breath. Every thought.
You wander.
It’s dark, it’s cold, it echoes through your soul, but you cannot feel it. See it. Hear it.
You wander.
And wander.
And wander.
Some more, some less, some distance.
what do you feel?
Numb.
what do you think?
Nothing.
who are you?
…
Who are you?
Who are you?
Who are you?
Who are you?
Who
Are
You?
W
H
O
A
R
E
Y
O
U
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/???? ??F????? ? ?? ?? ? ?? ?? ? ? ?? ? ? ?? ? ? ?? ? ? ????? ??? ? ???/? ?? ?? ? ? ?? ? ? ??? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ??/ /? ?.? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ?? ?? ? ?
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.
.
.
You wake up abruptly, mind pulled from the fog as sharply as the sun in your face.
But you cannot move.
Everything hurts.
That is the first thing you notice.
Pain is radiating through your entire being, through the atoms that make up your molecular structure.
You are lying on the ground(?). It is cold, shivers wracking through your body.
Pulling yourself further out of the haze, you crack what you think are your eyes open. The sun shines even brighter, the air growing colder.
You lie there, unable to move any further.
Why are you here.
.
.
.
you… don’t know.
Your memory feels… empty.
Why.
(Who are you.)
The pain has subsided slightly, and it is easier to think.
But your memory is still blank.
Why.
Your head starts to hurt when you think too much, but you’ve grown accustomed to it. You do not know why pain is so easy to ignore.
Who are you.
You manage to dredge up three things; a face, shrouded in darkness. White glowing eyes, black hair, a face you know is smiling (and yet). Words (“you know - we know? - you can tell us anything, right…?”), the mix of relief and horror that came with.
And…
a feeling.
Of being alone.
Nothing, no one but you in an empty void (cell?) melting into the shadows with (their) eyes watching you but never truly there not enough not enough not enough-
You pull yourself out of your head with a gasp, eyes you hadn’t realized were closed blinking back open.
You can’t remember anything else.
Not your name, not your home(?), not your life.
Who. Are. You?
.
.
.
A display pops-up in front of your eyes, an ethereal pink screen that you can see despite the haziness of your(?) vision.
Name: Arcadeus Animon
Age: 24
Power: Information-display
Domain: Monolith Among Monarch
Alias: The Shopkeeper
Objective: Retrieve memories, restore self.
Details: You have died. You were killed. You are alone. Find the truth.
…
what.
Gathering your(?) energy into your right? arm, you reach up as far as you can without it falling back down onto the cold, hard ground.
It barely skims the screen, and it wavers around your finger. You cannot feel it.
What is this. And-
Is this your… power? Information-display? A literal display of information? How… how does it work?
The words flicker and… change.
Power: Information-display
Details: A holographic screen in-front of the users’ eyes that only they can see, answering their question. Questions are answered based on how much energy the user has, drawback cost, and whether it’s helpful to the objective or not.
Drawback: Memory or energy, depending on how much of either user has and objective. The more valuable/important the information is, the more valuable the memory taken or the more energy used up.
Objective: Retrieve memories, restore self.
Objective: FIND- US.
Current cost: Worthless/dangerous memories, energy.
Drawback Removal/Recovery: [UNCERTAIN, REDACTED]
… you cannot remember the face. The one you recalled, one of the three things you could find in your oh-so empty head.
You remember the feeling of it, the realization upon finding the memory, but you cannot remember the face.
It is simply gone.
Everything is gone.
(Almost) everything, is gone.
The screen too, flickers away, leaving only the information filed into your brain and the glowing afterimages.
You can feel the panic climbing up your ribs slowly pulling them apart clawing into your still oh-so-slowly beating heart and crushing it cutting it squeezing it until-
Calm. Down.
A voice. There is no one around you. You do not know how you can sense that. Where did the voice come from.
You realize you have asked a question, but the screen does not return (why?). You suppose you can only be thankful.
(but why?)
Listen to me. Arcy.
Arcy? Short for- Arcadeus?
Right.
That was- your name.
Something flickers in your soul, the words you’d read engraving themselves onto it.
You have died. You were killed. You are alone.
You cannot remember what the voice sounds like, despite just ‘hearing’ it. (did you hear it? can you trust what you hear what you see what you breathe-)
Live. I’ll be waiting for you, but until then.
You’ve got work to do.
So breathe.
You breathe.
Close your eyes. Open them again. The world is still cold, and yet you can breathe through it.
Your breaths feel slower than usual, heart slower than usual. The world feels- off.
You. Have died?
You. Were killed?
… You. Are alone.
Your name is Arcadeus. Arcy for short? You are 24. You have a power, one that at the cost of a memory or energy gives you information. You do not know what a domain is, but you have one. You do not know why you have an alias, but you have one. You have an objective, to figure yourself out again. And you knew 5 things about what brought you here. It went down to 4, but you have a guess as to another 5th.
One, was a face. Now you can only remember the absence of it.
Two, is words. You do not know why they sound so wrong.
Three, is a feeling. You are alone, you do not know why.
Four, is a wonder. You died. You don’t know how you seem to be alive then, in this body that does not quite feel like (what you can remember of) yourself.
Five, is an absolute. You were killed. Why? Who? You do not know.
Your memories are almost all gone. You have a feeling it’s because of this ‘power’.
One way or another, you will find out what happened. One way or another, you will find who killed you, and why you seem to have been brought back. Unless this is just a limbo, an afterlife fit for an amnesiac.
But first, you have to get up.
First, you have to start.
You slowly move your hands, and start trying to pull yourself up.
One day, they say that the Sun disappeared. With it, went the Devil chasing after its light. Neither went willingly, and both left no trace… or so it seemed.
The total Eclipse is coming. After all, when the sun is gone…
What does one do then?