Right after she opened her eyes, she stared into Brøø's, who was gazing at her with enough seriousness to make her wince.
"Your crown—" Brøø put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down, just when she was about to sit up from the book piles. "I dunno what happened before you woke up in here, but...it isn't good, is it?"
The faint memory of the cold and the searing pain was enough to give her violent shivers. Her actual body must be lying in some barren wilderness now. Where there was no one around for the next few miles.
No one could save her now.
"Please, fall asleep! You can't die in this place!" Brøø's voice gained a desperate urgency, as she hastily reached out to cover her eyes. She slapped the girl's hand away and sat up, but the blinding heat of anger dissipated as quickly as it came.
A chuckle escaped her lips. It soon became full-blown laughter, even if there was nothing funny about the crushing hollowness that was expanding in her chest.
"Hey, you know what? I learned something today." She closed her eyes. "Every time I try to make things better, I end up landing myself in a worse place. So maybe I should stop trying altogether!"
"Please don't—"
"No, really. You know why? Because I never think shit through. I just charge in, thinking if I tried enough times, it had to work out in the end. What, do I—" She almost choked on another shrill laugh, "—deserve a sticker for fucking myself over, again and again? I kept whining about fate wanting me to suffer, but really, it's all me! I only have myself to blame!"
"If you never learn from your failures, why are you even surprised when you get killed by your own idiocy? If only the local space-time won't collapse on itself when someone like me dies! I bet they'd make a round of applause after it was all over, because I suck and they deserve a better protector than what they got!"
Now that she thought about it, the only Golden Pentagram member crazy enough to commit government-sanctioned near-suicide (for science) didn't say anything about what might happen if the death was permanent.
Sure, without the person it was supposed to be storing and converting...whatever reality-stabilizing energy the tower siphoned in for, the Gold Crystal would go dormant, causing a Resonance event. But it was still there, and theoretically capable of...
"Yeah, maybe that rock would choose someone who doesn't cause more damage than the criminals next time, and I'll forever be remembered as this embarrassment whose stupidity results in a massive disaster, and..." The delirious fury suddenly drained out of her. "...No one will care what happened to Loft after that."
Keeping up her grin was starting to hurt. But if she didn't try, she'd have started crying long ago. "A-Alongside all the big names...like Westina or Maxy, she'd just be nobody, you know? Not even worthy of any serious outrage. Even these names are forgotten after a few years. And I can't do anything, I can't keep myself out of trouble, and now I can't even keep myself alive, for fuck's sake!"
"I remember Maxy." Brøø, who had been staring at her in silence throughout her rant, suddenly spoke up. The next moment, she was pulled into a tight hug. "There's always someone who'll remember. Believe me."
"...So what?" Darn it. She could feel the tears now, despite her best efforts to not start sobbing like a toddler. "They are still dead. Sometimes you just can't do anything, even when you know it shouldn't be this way, and..."
Voices, exciting promises, righteous anger. All these snippets of the past decade felt like repeated punches to the gut. She didn't want to go any further back, back to that chilly afternoon, when—
"Do you know why I want to be a vigilante in the first place? Because I...I'd been scared before. No, terrified. I wasn't in mortal danger, I wasn't even hurt, but I just froze up. Couldn't make a sound. I only got away due to a stroke of luck." The ugly sobs had finally taken over, as she buried her face in Brøø's chest. Only after many assuring pats to the back did she start speaking again.
"I never want to feel like that ever again. It's really selfish, but being on the move, and helping people, and...even screwing up is better than sitting there and thinking about how useless I was. I thought I could finally change things for the better, when that crystal..." She bit into her lips. "Of course it all turns out to be a joke in the end."
The long silence that ensued was only punctuated by her sniffling, before Brøø let go of her.
"...Do you know what happens to someone's book when they die?"
"Huh?"
"The pages come loose one by one, and end up in the books of those who remember them," Brøø reached towards the belt on her back. "Their friends and families and...many other folks who've known how wonderful they were. Even after they, too, passed away, the pages stay in there."
She flipped open the blue book, after removing it from the belt. There was a gentle glow as she reached her fingers into one of the pages, and pulled out a piece of paper. Three crowns—virtually identical to the ones floating above her head—were printed on its surface.
"These books are..."
"My friends'. This is Sierra." Brøø pointed to the mountain-like symbol on the book's pages. "When we were little kids, I told her if I'd marry someone one day, they'd be just like her! There's also Maxy and Sosaria and...I remember all of them. They remembered me too, and it's because of them that I haven't turned into a creepy shadow person yet."
"But it still hurts to see their books turn blue. Or red. I still hope Maxy will wake up one day." Brøø closed the book. "Even if she won't remember anything. She won't know who hurts her so badly, but I know."
"I'm a little jealous of you, really. You can become someone else when you get invited into a book, right? If only I could understand how it felt like to be her, maybe I'd be able to stop her while we were still...friends, even if I'd have to be pretty messed up in the head to get invited in the first place. But after a while, I saw enough."
Brøø's tone was serious, but not angry. "Lisa has never had, and won't be making any real friends. It's all a game to her, and she can't stand it when she loses. Even if she's never winning anything in the first place."
"You know that...piece of shit too?" She frowned. "Oh. Geez. That's just horrible. What did she—?"
"Sheesh. It's not about her." Brøø looked into her eyes. "She has no real friends. But you do, right? Please, wake up for them, and for yourself. You won't wanna see their books turn blue right in front of you. It's the most awful feeling you could imagine."
"How am I supposed to rest now? I can't even..."
"Just close your eyes and cry, then. You may not feel like it, but you are strong enough to take a break."
Tears were rolling down her cheeks when Brøø hugged her again. Before she knew it, she was lying on the girl's lap, like some little kid listening to a bedtime story, letting Brøø run her fingers through her hair.
If Verdna didn't recognize the darkness, she might actually feel a sense of peace.
But she had been trapped in here during the first few days of her life after death. The inner space of her amulet felt even more suffocating than before, once the silence had faded away, and she could hear the sound of howling wind and rain outside. The frantic footsteps and panting did not ease her worries at all.
"Lynka?" The person who seized her amulet called out. She sounded a lot younger than Verdna expected. "Where are you?"
A pained yelp. More footsteps. "Don't strain yourself! I, I've found the supplies—why is she here?"
"I was scouting. You don't happen to have..." A weak, barely audible female voice replied. It seemed like she was only inches away from the amulet. Being carried on someone's shoulder, perhaps.
"Yeah, the sleeping bags, the bandages—sit down first!" A pause. "Do I start with you or her? I know, you can get up now, but your..."
"Just hand me a kit. She's doing much worse right now, and she needs some warmth, quick. Can you start a fire in here? Drying our wet clothes will be a good start."
There was a slight coldness in Lynka's tone. Verdna could feel the other person's breaths getting shallower and quicker, as she muttered a weak "yes", followed by a series of thuds and rustles.
"She's still all soaked—wait. There's a blanket inside the kit."
"Here. My suit jacket," Lynka said. "Wrap it around her hair, after you're done."
There was a long silence after that, only punctuated by the occasional frustrated grunt, and the sharp clanks of metal hitting metal. The person, no doubt trying to light up something, let out a cheer at the weak cracking sound.
"Now warm up the drinks. I'll start putting the heat packs in."
A deep breath. "Okay, if y-you don't mind me asking, what are you planning to do next?"
"What do you mean?"
"The moment the storm's over, we'd be flying west, across the strait." A thud—she seemed to have dropped something. "They didn't see me. But I heard them yelling, while I was running away. Once it's safe for the little ships to come out again, you bet they'd start searching."
"You aren't wrong."
"But, but I thought I'd just carry you there on my back! You don't have much left in your shard, and you don't want to use the Sharecites we have—" She was hyperventilating now. "We can't take a third person with us. Not while she's...in this state."
"Are you suggesting I should've left her in the wilderness?"
"I'm not telling you to let her freeze to death!" She yelled. "Maybe we—no, I could make another flight, there are plenty of settlements on the other side of this island, but...how did you come across her in the first place?"
There was a long, uncomfortable silence, before Lynka started speaking again. "I think she might've been tracking me down."
"Since that night at the archive?" She gasped, "And she saw you, while you were..."
There was no response, but Verdna presumed that Lynka was nodding.
"Oh. This, this is bad, really bad. If we let her go, there's no way she won't..." Her voice trailed off. "But you'll have to use a Sharecite, then. I don't think there's another way."
Verdna would like to think she heard actual clicking sounds in her head, as the pieces fell into place one by one. The white light that accompanied their escape, the disappearing chains—why, oh why did she not realize this sooner? She'd like to think their hostage wasn't the third person involved in the break-in, but that'd just be cheating herself.
"...So be it."
"No you don't!" Verdna shrieked, before she saw the darkness thinning into a dim light, and charged towards it. The next second, she was floating in the middle of a dimly lit cave. The cyan-haired girl dropped the bottle she was suspending above the flame, and for a second, they just stared at each other in grim silence.
"Congratulations, young lady." She broke the silence first and turned to Lynka. "You've finished what you've started back there. One hostage isn't enough for you, it seems."
"Listen! She, she saved her, and you know we can't—" The cyan-haired girl pointed to the figure wrapped in the sleeping bag, who didn't even stir at the yell.
Verdna narrowed her eyes. "Oh, I know. I've heard your jolly little chat. You'll rather recklessly endanger the life of someone else than risking your own discovery. Are you hoping that your display of basic human decency will endear yourselves to me? After your unlawful kidnapping?"
The cyan-haired girl was shaking now, her face pale. "N-No, but I—"
"But what? Why did you grab my amulet? You are sorely mistaken if you think I'm knowledgeable enough to assist you in your insane plan." She floated forward, and the girl backed away, until she was pressing against the cave wall. "Even if I do, there's no way in hell I'm telling you anything. You can't threaten the dead into talking, can you?"
The girl knelt down, clutching her hair, and let out a screech. Seconds later, a bright light filled the cave, and when it faded away, she was standing upright, the huge, beetle-like wings behind her back almost touching the ceiling.
"Lynka." She said, in a voice that was as flat and devoid of emotion as her face. "Go outside, and cover your ears."
Verdna dodged into the solid rock above, as fast as she could, when the CPU summoned her chains. But the clanking still sent a nasty shock through her incorporeal form, and after a nauseating wave of rainbow colors, she was back in the familiar darkness again.
She heard someone breathing right next to her pillow. Rokushi must've had a migraine again. She'd run to Dameko if it was a nightmare. Then she remembered Rokushi was no longer a Candidate.
Her breaths turned icy inside her throat, and she had the urge to keep saying sorry, sorry, sorry until she couldn't utter a single word anymore.
But her chest hurt and no sound was coming out of her mouth, no matter how hard she tried. So she just reached towards them, fumbling for their hands in the darkness. Her finger barely brushed against their cheeks, before she fell back into the void of sleep.
Someone was humming a slow, melancholic song. One that she used to sing to Dameko before bedtime. Against the backdrop of tide and drizzling rain, it sounded like they were barely holding back a sob. Step by step, she walked into the ocean, the waves splashing under her boots, until she was entirely submerged.
Dark shadows brushed past her, playfully nudging her with their beaks and tails as she sank further and further into the bottomless depth. There was a faint light in the water below, where the song was coming from. Like a miniature sun.
But she wasn't sinking fast enough, and before long, the light was gone.
Have I done well? The soft voice whispered. This is all I can do for Lowee. At last, they will be proud of me.
Rubis drifted in and out of sleep for a while, before she mustered enough energy to open her eyes. Dameko was snoring softly beside her bed, sitting on a beanbag chair, her face buried in her arms, and she didn't feel like shaking her awake.
The giant teddy bears clustered around her did get a little uncomfortable. She shifted her arm, trying to shove the toys aside, and the movement caused Dameko's head to snap up like a spooked animal.
"Oh." She flinched. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—"
Her apology was interrupted by a gasp, as Dameko fell into her arms, holding onto her shoulders with an iron grip. The weight of her sister's body made the wounds start aching, again, but she didn't make any protests.
"You," Dameko squeezed the word out through gritted teeth, "are the biggest dummy that I've ever known."
"You aren't wrong."
A wave of sobs came over her sister. The last time she saw Dameko this shaken was after she returned from the Graveyard, and she didn't dare to hug her. Didn't want to remind her about why another one of Lowee's CPUs had perished, body and soul. So she left Dameko to her grief, and silently watched her build that island shrine from the ground up in the next few days.
"I don't think you'll forgive me, and honestly, you shouldn't—"
"Shut up," Dameko whispered. "I don't hate you. I'm still mad at you. But I don't hate you."
She wanted to tell Dameko that she had made a wrong choice, that she was feeling bad for someone who didn't deserve it again. Yet she had been waiting, yearning for Dameko to come back for too long. Even though she wasn't sure if this would last, she embraced her sister as tightly as she could, and let the silence speak for itself.