So, I tried something different with the 'flashback'. It's... interesting. I'm not sure if it works, though. About the content of the flashback: I originally had more about Menardi and Roreck, but I took it out because I couldn't make it work with the rest of the story. I really liked it, though, Roreck was a pretty cool guy. I might have to have a chapter specifically for 'deleted scenes'.

As a warning, this chapter contains angst, and lots of it. Just because I listed the genres as "friendship/suspense" doesn't mean that that's all it will have. Seriously, I picked those because I don't want the genre to give anything away. Trust me, there will be many more 'genres' incorporated into this (and strongly, too!). I don't like to limit myself.

Another warning: There be maggots.


"~~~"

It begins as a few slight tremors.

"Saturos, I don't think moving those statues is a good idea."

He writes it off as the weather.

"Honestly, I don't think it's a good idea to do anything until we've explored this place thoroughly." She says.

As each statue is moved into place, the quakes increase. At her advice, he even suggests that they stop, albeit not very strongly.

But they don't.

Sol Sanctum is shaking violently, mimicking the turbulent weather outside. But, the fourth statue still isn't in place. They still don't have the Elemental Stars.

Must keep going.

The fourth statue is moved and held into its position. Sol becomes Luna.

Unstable ground. Jumpy vision. Scrambled insides. Thunderclap.

Sol Sanctum is caving in on itself.

The cries of men as they are crushed by the rubble. The sound of the rain, the wind. The heavens are howling with laughter.

Verraine is behind him as he exits the room.

The other woman is standing still. She's the only one of the statue movers that wasn't crushed.

But she doesn't move.

"Menardi! What are you doing?"

She looks at him with hollow eyes, and still doesn't move.

She will not move of her own accord.

Forcefully, he wraps his had around her arm and pulls her with him, dragging her down the stairs and into the room below. She then snaps out of it, and he lets go of her.

Verraine is still behind him. He can hear her breathing, feel her presence.

The three dash through the Luna and Sol rooms. Both are eerily calm, silent. Unnerving.

They keep moving.

They begin to navigate the labyrinthine entryways, twisting and turning, collapsing.

Menardi runs in front of him. Verraine…

But Verraine…

Something is amiss. He takes a quick glance behind him. Verraine is not there.

He turns around, calls her name, and runs in the opposite direction. He will not leave her behind.

"Saturos, what are you doing?" But he's already gone. Menardi follows, she doesn't want to be the only survivor.

He hears Menardi's voice, but he keeps running.

Menardi struggles to catch up with him. She thinks he is stupid for running back into the maze. She doesn't think about what it means for herself, though.

"Verraine!"

"Get out of here!"

"No, Verraine, I'll get you out of there, I just have to move these rocks. Everything will be fine."

"No, Saturos. I'm going to die here."

He keeps trying to move the boulders.

"Saturos, stop! I can feel nothing below my waist, I can feel myself bleeding heavily. I'm going to die here, Saturos, whether by starvation, blood loss, or trauma, I'm going to die! Do yourself a favor and get out, or you'll die too!"

He isn't going to leave, not yet.

"Saturos, please, take my headband to my family… and take back your ring…. I have no use for it anymore… Just get out of here, Saturos."

God knows he wants to stay with her, to tell her that everything was going to be fine, but he knows that is a lie. He looks down at the ring in his hand, a simple band he had given her.

"If we wait here any longer, we're going to get ourselves killed." Menardi's been standing behind him for quite a while.

"Come on, Saturos, there's nothing we can do, except leave."

Somehow, she knocks some sense into him, and drags him to the exit, out of the Sanctum.

Verraine is thankful for Menardi's cold gaze and demeanor. She is confident that some way, somehow, the two made it out alive. Despite having a mass of large rocks pinning her down, despite the fact that she is dying…

Verraine feels happy.

"~~~"

Verraine.

Saturos still thought of her, of course he did. It was hard not to, after all. He found that even after her death, he still thought of her as much as he had before, if not more.

He still loved her.

The first thing he had done upon his return to Prox was notify her family, and return to them her headband, which he had managed to recover.

They all blamed him.

Which, honestly wasn't that surprising. They had trusted him to protect her, to keep her safe.

And he had failed. He had failed Verraine. He had failed her family. He had failed Prox.

He blamed himself.

He still had a few of her things, things she had given him long before their departure to Vale. He was wearing the scarf she had made for him a couple of years ago.

It still smelled like her.

To him, Verraine had always smelled of spring. Not of the Proxian variety, but Spring, the season he had only read about. Of course, he had never actually experienced a real spring before, having only been exposed to the cruel Proxian mockery of the season. She smelled like how he imagined spring to smell like.

He still dreamt of her. Granted, they weren't like the good dreams he had previously had of her, but they certainly weren't nightmares. He thought of them as simple dreams, random images generated by the mind.

The dreams were seldom the same, assorted people he knew popping in and out, ridiculous monsters, and baffling logic abound. But they always ended the same way; Verraine would be standing there, smiling and talking. As she spoke, as the letter sounds of each word escaped her lips. Maggots. Maggots. Munching at her eyes, chewing the corners of her mouth, her lips, her face. Words kept coming from her mouth, but Saturos couldn't hear them. All he could hear was the sound of the munching maggots, squishing and squirming, a single writhing mass feeding at her flesh. And she kept talking, as if she didn't notice what was happening.

Saturos would always wake up from these dreams in a cold sweat. But they weren't nightmares. Nightmares were for children.

For Saturos, these dreams were the only things in his life that told the truth.

"~~~"

Menardi headed off to patrol, grabbing her scythe and closing the door behind her. It was dark. The only lights she could see were emanating from the insides of houses. It had been getting colder in Prox, the pathetic mockery they called 'summer' finally coming to an end, giving way to an even more pathetic 'autumn'. Menardi had no idea why they insisted on retaining four separate seasons, after all, everybody knew that the only true season Prox had was winter.

Menardi exhaled, her breath appearing as a faint cloud, then dispersing into the air, not to be seen.

She missed her younger self. She missed being unaware and naïve. She wished that everything could be prolonged. She needed time, lots of time. Time to think, and thinking was all she ever did anymore.

What else could she do? Roreck was dead, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Why, if everyone dies, should anybody do anything? What really mattered?

She had never felt so alone.

When she was young, Menardi believed that she could do something to benefit the world, to help people. She believed that she could make a difference. Now, her actions had no impact on anything, because no matter what she or anybody else did, the outcome would always be the same. Death.

Death was true for everybody, so why did it make her so sad?

She needed to get to patrol, she needed to keep walking, but she didn't want to. She didn't want to take another step in any direction. No matter what she did, she felt she would be leaving something behind, and she didn't want to let go.

She felt an overwhelming urge to cry, to sit down in a dark, secluded corner and bawl her eyes out, but she couldn't let herself do such a thing, no matter how appealing. She was stronger than that. She was a warrior, for god's sake! And warriors don't cry.

Although she hated to admit it, Menardi was scared. She was not scared of people, or monsters, or even death. She didn't know what she was scared of, and that, in itself, scared her.

It was the uncertainty.

So many options, yet there could only be one choice at a time. What would have happened if she had done something different?

Regardless, she needed to get moving. She needed to get to patrol. She couldn't stand there forever. Building up her resolve, she began walking towards the sanctum. She briefly wondered what would happen if she were to just go home.

Nevertheless, she would never find out.

"~~~"

Patrol had been unusually quiet, which Menardi should have liked. She should have enjoyed the silence. But tonight, all Menardi truly wanted was a distraction from her thoughts.

"Menardi…"

"Hm? The more Menardi thought about anything, the more she felt that urge to cry.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry about what happened that night, in Sol Sanctum. I'm sorry that everyone had to die."

"Well you don't act like it." It was insensitive, but she couldn't stop herself from saying it. It was true, and they both knew it. She didn't know why, but with each word she spoke, she could feel anger bubbling inside of her, catching in her throat. "Honestly, Saturos, I'm surprised you even feel any remorse at all."

"I know you blame me, Menardi."

"Blame you? Of course I blame you. After all, it was your incompetence as a leader that led to the whole mess."

He remained silent.

"Hell, your fiancée died, and all you do is joke around like nothing has happened! She obviously didn't mean much to you, or you would have more respect!" That struck a nerve.

He wanted to hit her. It took every bit of restraint not to. He was practically screaming. "Of course I know that Verraine died! Do you really believe that I haven't thought about her once? I think about it every fucking day! I constantly see her, trapped under those rocks… Her voice… It haunts me, Menardi! But what can I do about it? What do you expect me to do, sit down and die? Mope around about it, let it consume my life? It isn't like I can prevent everyone from dying now. And what do you know of respect, you ungrateful little bitch! If I hadn't have saved you, then Verraine probably would have lived!"

It was Menardi's turn to be silent. She felt the urge to cry again, but she felt she wouldn't be able to hold back. She maintained her angry expression, even as the tears began to build up.

He crossed his arms and turned away. "Go home, Menardi."

She didn't move, just continued to let the tears build up in her eyes.

"I said go home. I don't need to put up with you. Get out."

She stormed off, her vision clouded by all her repressed emotions. She ran home, to the room she shared with Karst, carefully shutting doors behind her. She undressed, climbed into bed, and wept.

Karst was awakened by her sister shutting the door, and heard her sister sobbing. Karst was saddened by this, but did nothing. Even the strong have moments of weakness.

"~~~"

Saturos continued to stand in that spot, with Verraine's scarf around his neck, and toying with the ring he had once given her. He stared out into the emptiness, the black nothing that lay behind Mars Lighthouse.

"~~~"

Tomorrow would be the day, Felix thought, that his parents would be moved to a different house… and Kyle. His parents would be put in Puelle's house, and Kyle would be put in Saturos' house… with Felix… Ugh. Then Felix would be living with two idiots.

"Hey, Saturos?"

"What?"

"Couldn't, you know, Kyle, my parents, and I just stay at the inn?"

"No."

"Why not? It would make more sense than splitting us up."

"Felix, do you have any idea how much the inn charges?"

Felix did not make eye contact. He obviously did not know.

"No? Twenty-five coins per person per night. For four people, that would be one hundred coins. Guess who would have to pay for that?"

Felix kept looking at the floor.

"Seriously, you want to know the real reason that nobody comes to Prox? It's because the innkeeper charges such exorbitant fucking prices for his mediocre service. So no, Felix, nobody is staying at the inn."

"~~~"


I don't imagine Menardi as the type who cries frequently. She tries to mask her emotions, and she does a damn good job at it. As a result, when she does get emotional, she's a right bitch. Also, Menardi is quite depressed at this point, as she is unsure of how to cope with all that is going on.

And yeah, Maggots don't actually chew on flesh, they secrete digestive enzymes, but the logic of dreams is not based on that of reality. Also, I apologize if you were somehow grossed out by the maggot thing. Call me crazy, but I find maggots adorable. (maggots also generally do not eat live tissue). So, yeah, I'm sorry if you were disgusted by that.

Also, the whole thing about Verraine does have a point. It will come into play much, much later, I assure you.