I heard a door open and artificial light beat down on my closed eyelids, I was being carried by Nate. The only reason I knew that is because it smelled like him. Sweat and metal.
Nate-smell.
My hands, which were limp, hurt from punching Ikora. And my heart felt heavy with presence of Darkness. I opened my eyes, looking up at Nate, who didn't notice I was awake. Him and Cayde were talking about something that I couldn't make out. It felt like my head was stuffed with cotton.
His mouth was moving and his nostrils were flaring. His shoulder length hair was damp, and his brown eyes flared with anger. I smiled to myself, Nate. I felt Cayde look to me, looking up at Nate. I pressed my hand to his bare chest.
Cayde's headlight was on us, and I looked into Nate's eyes when he looked at me. I smiled again.
"Kyrine."
"Hello."
"Glad to see you're back with us," Cyade nodded to me and I looked to him. "Darkness has spread to the lower stairwells, we are taking the stairs so Zavala won't locate us until we are in the Hall. Ikora is still in the Quarantine Unit, and won't be up anytime soon." He grinned at me.
Darkness..in the Tower? I ignore my twisting gut, my back was aching from being carried so long.
"What floor are we on?" I mumbled softly to Nate.
He as still looking at me, "89th floor. There are a hundred floors in the damned place." His spoke softly, Cayde did as well. Were we approaching danger?
I stared at his chest, while Cayde went on up to scope out the next floor. He said something about not wanting to be caught off guard, leaving me and Nate alone.
We were in the dark.
"Kyrine?" His voice wasn't shielded and hard like it usually was. He was lowering himself down onto a step carefully, putting most of strength into his legs so he wouldn't drop me. I felt it. I felt him.
"Yes?" I answered.
We were sitting now. The stairwell was cold, and my exposed skin made me shiver. He tightened his arms around me in response before speaking. He was warm and sweaty, not that I cared.
"How are you feeling?" He asked.
How was I feeling? I didn't know, physically I was aching. Everywhere. My hands felt sore from punching Ikora. My head hurt from the spiral of previous emotions. Anger, hatred, fear. I didn't feel good. I bet I didn't look good either. But he couldn't see me now that Cayde's light was gone. I looked up at him.
"I'm okay."
"That is a lie. I know where you're lying, and you're lying." He said stubbornly.
"Mmm," I hummed and put my head on his chest. "No, I think you're wrong." His heartbeat was fast. But his breathing was calm.
Closing my eyes, I smiled when he huffed angrily. "You need to learn to trust people."
I shook my head on his chest. "It is not about trusting people, Nate. It's about carrying burdens. I know that if I told you then you would try to carry the burden that is mine to bear. It's not logical." I tell him softly and my breath hitting his chest.
He stiffened when I spoke, my lips brushed his chest. I was made to make him uncomfortable, to bring his high and mighty attitude down a notch. And that's what I do.
"Learn to be irrational, like you taking trips into the Wilds, disappearing off the face of the Earth for months, that is irrational." He quipped, his voice raising a notch.
"You rutting with your whores on the Hall table is irrational. Taking vacation is not." Was my snarky reply.
"Okay, that was a year ago."
"Still irrational. You know, you don't have to carry me anymore." I turned my face into his chest, and curled myself into his warmth. I felt heavy on this inside, but now it's just warmth.
"I know." He said into the dark. His voice seemed distant now.
"I know." He said again.
The green light faded, and Jo dropped to the floor. Whispers receded back into the Dark, and Oryx's Dark finger caressed her face one last time, telling her of the Tower's destruction and evident fall. Her throat was still suffocated by Darkness, her voice was like gravel, her gasps sounded like rock scraping on pavement. Her body withered on the floor, her chest heaved, trying to suck in musty air.
Her fingertips flickered with orange light, burning and fizzling.
The Light ate away at the Darkness infiltrating her body. She clutches her throat, brown eyes opening and closing as Darkness seeped into her irises.
Her fingers felt hot on her neck, the Light seeped into her skin and spread into her bloodstream, making the bookcases around her glow from the Light inside her.
Oryx's presence fled the room, taking along with him the Darkness that was crawling along the Wizard's body.
The sickening light lessened in the room, blue taking over slowly.
The glow receded, and the Light faded.
Jo gasped, her fingernails dug into the carpet as she tried to regain her vision. The carpet fibers tore and stuck to the underneath of her fingernails as she tore at the flooring.
Her mouth opened but no noise came out, her throat felt coated in something that she didn't know of and her eyes felt as if all the moisture had left with the Darkness.
Her black hair was messy and untamed, falling in her face messily.
Grasping a the edge of a bookshelf, She pulled herself up. Wood gathered under her fingernails from the effort. Her shaky hands grasped the edges even after she has pulled herself up, her back was hunched and her knees wobbly.
"E-Er-" She gasped out once color returned to her gaze. The blue light sent shock waves of pain through her head.
Jo heaved, vomit splaying on the carpeted floor.
She tried to cough, but the only thing that came up were the contents of her stomach.
She reached for her outdated phone in the folds of her skirt and feebly pressed 'one' on speed dial. The ring of her phone blared loudly.
Staring at it intently and trying to keep herself conscious, she ran her shaking finger over the screen as his name came up brightly. The ringing stopped and she slid down the bookshelf.
"Joallie?"
"S-Sean-" She stuttered out, her eyelids fluttered like butterfly wings.
And her head fell to her chest as her phone slipped out of her fingers.
"Joallie? Jo?"
The screen of her phone went black.
Sean grabbed his coat, saying goodbye to his date, who was bewildered by his abruptness. His drink spilled onto her white dress, the red stain spread quickly and she screamed.
"Sean!" She screeched.
He didn't hear her as he ran out the door, stuffing his arms into his thin jacket. His fingers danced on his phone, trying to call Jo back. No answer.
He straddled his speeder, the heard kicked on and the wind picked up, blowing his long white jacket back and dirt covering the bottoms.
Sean knew she was in the archives at the edge of the city.
"Hey, where you going?" He grabbed Jo's bony shoulder.
"Erin called, we're going to the archives. We need to find out as much as we can on Oryx, Auryx, whoever he is, before we wont have a chance." She rushed out, chewing her red painted lips and slipping her narrow feet into her sandals.
He raised an eyebrow. "Need me to come with you?"
She quickly shook her head, her bin falling out of place as she brushed crumbs from her lunch on her long blue skirts.
"Nah," She laughed, her brown eyes sparking when she looked at him, "just an old dusty place with books."
Sean ran a hand through his orange hair. "Alright. I'll miss you."
Jo stopped rearranging the jewels beaded into her sheer shirt. "Oh, ah, yeah I'll call you." She waved her bedazzled phone in his face.
"Yeah.." he trailed off and watched her exit the oriental restaurant, she was piling her hair up into a bun.
And that was the last time he had seen her. It had been more then 24 hours.
As he raced through the streets, he remembered her jeweled clothes, her bedazzled phone case and Ghost, and her red lipstick.
Her spark.
He gunned the engine, "Sir. Are you sure this course of action is wise?"
His Ghost, Tyril, spoke from his shoulder.
Sean ignored his robotic companion, revving the ignition and powering the Sparrow further. He turned down abandoned roads, the roaring of the wind drowning out the cautious voice of his Ghost.
Within ten minutes, he was at the Archives. It was an old remodeled warehouse that still showed the deterioration of the most post-collapse sites.
Vines crawled up the old Roman-style columns, wrapping across the the chipped paint doors and slithering through the gaps in the brick and wood.
It was backed by a lake, that gave the Tower water and power. Across that lake was Fallen territory, and at night you could see the fires they lit, and the curling wood smoke and burning forests.
He stepped through a long ago made hole in the concert wall and rapped his Ghost twice, it's Light pulsing brightly to illuminate the dim blue lighting. The foyer had a high ceiling, with a worn, dangling chandelier. Broken crystal covered the ground, presumably from the old chandelier.
His boots broke the pieces of crystal even more when he stepped on them, the small sound seemed to make the whole room wake up.
Rooms branched off from the foyer, closed by gold painted doors.
He didn't have time to parade through each room trying to find her. She could be in the lowest part of the archives for all he knew.
"Tyril, try to locate where Jo called from." He ordered his floating Ghost. And then both were silent. Sean listened for any signs of life.
The place hadnt been properly cleaned in ages. Torn pages and moldy books littered the floor, and mildewed wood creaked beneath his feet as he took small steps forward with his hunting knife in hand. The place smelled of old books and urine, yet still held a sense of upmost importance. Abandoned importance.
"Yes, sir." Tyril said, and Jo's message replayed softly while it scanned the doors and walls of the archives.
Sean ran his fiber over his sharpened hunting knife, he didn't have time to go home and dig up his other guns.
His stomach tightened when his gaze swept over the staircase. Footprints were in the dust, leading downwards to the older regions of the warehouse.
Recent footprints.
"Alright," he drawled, extending the L, "I know where they went." He said and started stepping down the steep cobbled stairs.
There was a scoff from Tryil, and the scanner beeped. "She's down there, anyways. I can see her heat signature."
Sean didn't acknowledge it, rapidly descending the stairs. Tryil rolled his optics and follower after his master. Light from Tyril was the only thing that illuminates the staircase, it was a wonder Sean didn't trip and fall down the steepness. His breaths came short and fast, eyes trained in front of him.
He stumbled when he took another step and there was no stair, only flat ground. And from Tyrils light, there was heavy, moldy french doors with holes where blue light seeped through. Grasping the golden handle, he opened it quickly, listening to the jumbled words coming from Tyril on Jo's location in the mass expanse of the Archives.
The room was silent, save for his heavy footsteps, the blue light gave his hair a purple hue, and his face was flushed. "Jo?!" He yelled, voice bouncing off the shelves of rotting books.
He called her name more and more consistently as they got closer and closer to her heat signature. His body felt weighed down by an unseen force, an energy. His hand dragged through his hair in worry, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. Tyril's light was shining down on him, and he was speaking to him but the words didn't register.
"Sir," Tyril said to his master. "Sir? Her heat signature is cooling."
Sean turned his head to look up. "Show me."
Tyril projected his stats onto the brick wall of the basement of the archive, it showed a woman figure, slumped against bookshelves on the floor. The reds and oranges, the heat signatures, were flickering and fading into blues. Sean pointed to a white, glowing orb in her chest.
"What is that?" He asked, and looked around the expanse of shelves around them.
"That, sir, is her Light."
"Which means she can be saved, where is she?" Grabbing Tyril, he pulled his bot to his face, making the projection shudder and turn off. The bot's optics glowed a bright orange, before it spoke.
"Thirty-six meters ahead, to the left for fifteen yards." Tyril said, his voice cracking, Sean thought it was because of the heavy aura. The orange cooled to a blue and he let go of his bot before sprinting ahead, counting feet and yards as he went. His hand was tightened around the knife, and his eyes looked wider and more alert in the blue light.
He stopped, up ahead there were couches and a kitchen with books and torn pages put on top of eachother. Jo's computer was closed, and beside it was a stack of ripped, moldy paper with a holo-sticker on top that labeled it 'Auryx'. His fingers brushed over the water damaged books that weren't labeled. Erin's jacket was thrown over the back of an old green couch. Food was sitting on the coffee table, and was stale, he discovered after popping a piece of bread into his mouth.
This was their camp, he thought to himself as he tried to gnaw off a piece of hard bread. Green light flickered and caught his attention, and he turned to see one of their candles glow brightly, as if it was just lit.
Why would they bring candles?
They wouldn't, is the answer. Candles are strictly for ritualistic purposes. Not for reading old books. His heavy footfalls seemed to echo all around him as he got closer to the flaming green.
The wax was black, and melting rapidly as the green flames licked the air. It sat upon an old, metal fashioned candle holder that looked used. There was no sound as he reached his hand out to it, he didn't feel drawn to it, he didn't feel the pull of evil that shrouded the archives. He only saw the green light.
He touched the candle holder, and then it went out with a roaring hiss.
The flames seemed to be dragged down by gravity, encasing the black candle in a bright green, and then the candle disappeared, the candle holder was still there.
He jerked his hand away, and his grip tightened on his knife.
"What the hell?" He whispered into the blue haze.
With shaky hands he picked up the candle holder, it was cold and grey. The handle curved oddly, it had bumps and delves in the basin of the holder. The cold seemed to seep from the holder into his body, and he dropped it. His face felt cold.
The metal clanged on the carpet of the archive floor, and whispers seemed to seep in. The call to Darkness.
A scowel etched itself angrily onto Sean's face. He turned away from it, kicking the candle holder into a corner before heavily walking towards Jo's location.
His body now felt hard and cold, alert and aware of everything. Blue-green eyes were sharp and cunning now more then before.
A ritualistic candle in the basement of the archives. He thought angrily to himself, why? What kind of spell could possibly be cast and not noticed within the Tower walls?
The room suddenly seemed more quiet then ever before. Sean could no longer hear Tyril's mumbling, or the whir of the black ceiling fans. He didn't stop walking as the foreboding anxiety grew and enveloped his mind.
He pushed a hand through his messy red hair and stopped, running his thumb on the sharp blade of his knife. He could feel her Light. Softly stepping on the carpet, he rounding a thick book shelve. Then, sounds seemed to click back on, and the whirring of ceiling fans seemed to be the loudest thing in the universe. He could hear Tyril, and his nonsense on irrelevant matters. But he turned completely, and there she was, slouched and fragile looking. Her skirts and hair were a mess, and moldy books were scattered on the floor around her.
Her fingers were splayed open, slender and still. And a single black dot marked her palm.
He dropped down to the floor on his knees, sending dust from the carpet up into the air. Sean wrapped his arms around her, lifting her up while gathering her skirts up from underneath her and snatching her phone. Her skin was abnormally pale, and her mouth was open.
But, he didn't pay attention to her face. He didn't stop to look. He threw her over his back, supporting her by her knees, and sprinted from the Archives.
Before he left, though, he stopped to pick up one thing.
Not Jo's bag, or Erin's bags. No.
He picked up the candle holder.