Someone ought to have remained awake—at least one of them should have been standing watch in case the imperials made mischief in the night. Insomnia was not as safe as it had been a few days ago and he had a responsibility to the prince. Yet, in spite of his best intentions, no sooner had he sat down than his eyes were shut and all plans and good intentions drained away in the face of an exceedingly long day.
He didn't wake to the quiet tap at the door, nor to Noctis climbing out of bed to see who it was. He didn't wake to their brief, whispered conversation, nor to the door shutting behind them. When he did wake, it was with that disorienting loss of time that comes from rising in the middle of the night with no clear sense of what hour it was or how long he had been asleep. And, before he could even curse himself for his lapse of self-control, his eyes landed on Noctis' empty bed.
He sat upright, dislodging his coat, which fell to the floor. Prompto was asleep in the window seat. Gladio, also asleep, lay on the floor a few feet away. But Noctis was nowhere to be seen.
"Gladio. Prompto." Ignis rose stiffly to his feet, scooping up his jacket and shaking it out. "Wake up."
Gladio stirred, rolling onto his black and blinking blearily up at Ignis. "Whassup?"
"Noctis is gone."
Something else was wrong, as well. A general sensation of impending doom brewed in the pit of his stomach. The night was too dark.
And then he saw it. Or didn't see it, as the case was.
"And the Wall is gone."
Prompto fell out of the window seat. "It's what?"
Gladio scrambled to his feet and ran to the window. Overhead, the sky was pitch black—like some great yawning chasm opening above with nothing between Insomnia and the night. The Wall had been in place for Ignis' entire life and he had never set foot outside the Crown City before two days ago. Perhaps it was commonplace for the outlanders to look up at night and see the sky, but the shimmering barrier had always stood between Ignis and that infinite dark outside.
"Holy hell," Gladio whispered.
"Let's go," Ignis tossed his coat onto Noct's bed and turned toward the door. "We need to find Noct."
The halls were unlit but less still than they ought to have been. Once his eyes adjusted to the scant city light filtering in through the windows, he could see the black mist that swirled in places—forming columns of air that was too black for night.
"The hell is that?" Gladio asked.
"I don't know." And he wasn't sure he wanted to. But he drew his weapons all the same—a practiced motion, come natural in time, to reach outside of the physical realm and grasp his daggers. "But I suspect it has something to do with the reason why Outlanders don't venture beyond the lights at night. Be on your guard."
"Right." Blue light flashed before Gladio and his sword appeared in his hand. Behind him, a beat later, Prompto drew his gun.
"Noctis?!" Ignis shouted down the deserted hall.
"Where would he go?" Prompto asked.
Ignis glanced at Gladio, but neither of them said what they were thinking: 'where would he be taken?'
"Let's search up here, first. C'mon." Gladio took point down the hall in the direction of the king and princess' rooms.
Ignis fell into step behind him. Whenever possible, they gave the swirling black mist a wide berth. None of them were eager to discover what it was. But that came on its own, regardless of their intent or hope.
The third foggy column they passed was darker than the others—somehow so dense that it seemed to blacken the black marble tile beneath it until it mirrored the colorless sky overhead and Ignis felt certain he could have plunged his hand straight through the ground.
Something else reached out, first.
"Wh—what is that?" Prompto leapt back as small fingers grasped the edge of the black pool and a creature pulled itself out of the solid ground.
It was smaller than a man, but vaguely humanoid—like a sick artist had taken a child and twisted it beyond recognition. Its ears were elongated and pointed—more horn than appendage—and its sunken face was taken up predominantly by eyes too big for its skull and red all the way through, with neither white nor iris nor pupil. The tattered remains of what might once have been a dress hung from a body so emaciated it was little more than a skeleton with grey, lifeless skin stretched over the top.
"Daemon." Ignis took an automatic step backward.
Daemons. Daemons in Insomnia, when the Crown City had been safe from them for hundreds of years.
It screeched—a bone-chilling sound, which echoed off the walls, but not so eerie as the responding calls from farther down the hall.
They were not alone anymore.
"Time to move!" Gladio brought his massive blade crashing down over the head of the daemon.
It skittered out of the way, faster than any living thing had any right being, and his sword struck the tile instead, sending chips of marble flying. Ignis closed in on its other side and struck out with one blade, then the other. The first one cut across the daemon's bony chest and sliced the ragged dress nearly in two. Only blackness came out of the wound. Black where blood should have been.
Prompto's gunshot reverberated off the walls, leaving Ignis deaf with ringing ears. But the bullet found its mark. The daemon staggered, then fell forward. No sooner had it struck the ground than it began to sublimate, as if burned from the inside out until nothing but that black fog remained.
Was it even gone? If the daemon became mist and the mist spawned more daemons, could they ever kill one?
No time to wonder. Ahead and from around the corner came the sound of a door crashing open.
"Noct?!" Ignis trotted forward, Gladio and Prompto half a step behind him.
"Specs! What the hell is going on?!"
Thank the Gods.
Ignis turned the corner and found himself face to face with another of the daemons—this one taller, but no less unsettling. He jerked back and lashed out with his knives. They caught the thing one after another, plunging into flesh and cutting through bone and sinew. Around it, he caught sight of Noctis standing in front of the open door to one of the guest chambers—he held his sword in one hand and Princess Lunafreya's hand in the other. A story needed telling, but none of them had time to listen.
Ignis twisted both daggers and pulled them out of the daemon, ducking as it swiped at him. Above his head, Gladio's sword slammed into the wall. This time, the chips of the wall were accompanied by a spatter of black ichor.
Ignis straightened as the second daemon sublimated back into mist.
"Much obliged," he said.
"No problem," said Gladio. "Noct—you alright?"
"Yeah, fine. Where are Rei and Dad?"
"We passed His Majesty's door and saw no signs of life. Her Highness' likewise."
"Eh." Noct moved down the hall toward them, Lunafreya in tow. "She never sleeps in there. We've gotta find my dad."
"Noctis." Ignis caught him by the arm as they passed. "The Wall is gone."
When understanding set into Noctis' face, so too did fear. It seemed unlikely that His Majesty would willingly let the Wall fall. Either something had happened to him, or…
"We've gotta find him," Noct repeated.
He yanked his arm free and brushed past them. Ignis caught Gladio's gaze and gave him a nod. If they could not find His Majesty, they had one job: protect Noctis with their lives. Right now, that meant getting him out of Insomnia. The Wall hadn't come down all by itself. It couldn't have been coincidence that this happened while the imperials were in the city.