Eight years ago

Eruca arrived to Alistel on a grey December morning.

She had always heard that Alistellian winters were worse that the ones in Granorg. In class, she'd learned that Alistel was set in a mountainous region, and that it snowed from November all through April. The other children had expressed the utmost horror at this, but Eruca had just been curious. On many Yules, she had wished for more snow, thinking it would have made everything much more cheerful.

But there was no snow today, only cold, dreary rain. From what she could see from her seat in the airport waiting room, Alistel was much uglier than she would have expected. In the distance, tall chimneys puffed out smoke; meanwhile, most of the buildings she could spy were made of grey concrete. Her birthplace of Granorg, in contrast, was a historical city with beautiful architecture dating from medieval times and lots of green spaces. She could not imagine that they were parks or even trees in her new home.

Eruca sighed as she watched her reflection in the nearby window. She tugged at one of her plaits, scowling. The braid was nearly coming undone in her hand. Back home—back in Granorg, Eruca's nanny had been the one who did her hair. Mom was not nearly as good at taming Eruca's wild curls. She was not patient enough, and last time the process had made her close to tears. Then again, Eruca's mother often cried these days; she tried to hide it from her children, but Eruca had always been good at noticing stuff that adults didn't want her to know.

After a while, Eruca began to fidget on her seat. These airport benches were awfully uncomfortable. Mom had been gone for quite a while, too. There had been a bit of trouble with their luggage on the way from Granorg. Mom had followed the airport staff somewhere else to find what had happened to their missing stuff, leaving Eruca and her brother Ernst alone in the waiting room. Eruca was starting to get anxious; none of the passersby seemed to care that she even existed, while Ernst had been stuck in a dreadful mood since they had stepped off the plane. To tell the truth, he had been in a dreadful mood even since their father had—

"Good news, everyone!" a familiar voice said from not too far away. Eruca raised her head and saw that her mother was approaching. "They found where our luggage went!" Mom then grimaced. "Bad news is, well, it's still in Granorg. We'll have to wait a bit before everything gets sent to us."

Ernst grunted something that sounded like a curse. Thankfully, Mom failed to notice his shocking lack of good manners. She was a bit more scatterbrained than usual, these days. Eruca was sure it had something to do with the deep, dark bags encircling her eyes.

Mom eventually looked somewhere to her right, and her face lit up. "Ah! There you are!"

A man was walking stiffly toward Eruca and her family: he was rather plain-faced, his most noticeable feature being a long, hooked nose. His grey-brown hair was in dire need of a comb.

Mom gave a squeal as she went to hug the man, and he returned her embrace gingerly, as though he'd long forgotten how to do such a simple thing. Mom then faced Eruca and her brother.

"That's your uncle Heinrich," Eruca's mother said. "He moved out to Alistel a while ago. When he heard we were in trouble, he offered to help us. Isn't it nice?"

"Hello," the man said, dispassionately. Eruca glanced up at him. She felt her cheeks growing warm; he was looking at her and Ernst like they were exotic animals he'd never seen before. He didn't seem that nice.

"Nice to meet you," Eruca muttered, remembering her courtesies.

"I didn't know you had a brother," Ernst said bluntly.

"Oh, he's not my brother!" Mom said with a nervous laugh. "He's your uncle on, well, your father's side of the family."

Uncle Heinrich's mouth twitched into a scowl. For a moment, he seemed so hateful Eruca found herself backing away in her seat.

"What do you need me to do, exactly?" he eventually said. "I can provide help, but…"

Mom's smile froze. "Oh, don't worry, we won't be much of a bother. Isn't that right, kids?"

Eruca didn't know what to say. Ernst only glared at their uncle. He often glared these days.

"Fine," Uncle Heinrich said. "Are you all ready to go? You haven't bought a car yet, have you? I guess I'll be the one to drive you, then."

Mom brought her hands together. "Thank you, thank you! You're a life-saver!"

"Your new house is on the other side of the city, isn't it?" Uncle Heinrich gave a deep, beleaguered sigh. "Fantastic. That will take forever in the current traffic. Let's get going, then. We don't have all day."

Eruca scrunched up her face. Did he have to be so rude to her mother? He wasn't the meanest adult she had met, but he wasn't exactly the nicest either. Her mood darkened as she thought of the family she had left in Granorg. She had heard some of her relatives say nasty things about her mother. They called her a liar—or worse things she couldn't quite understand. Adults could be such bullies. Weren't they supposed to be smarter than kids?

Her mother and uncle took off in a hurry, leaving both Eruca and her brother to trail off after them. As they dragged their heavy luggage about, Eruca threw nervous glances at Ernst. His expression had grown murderous.

Eruca frowned. She missed a lot of things from her old life back in Granorg, but not as much as she missed Ernst's smile. "Are you alright?" she asked him. "You look so angry all the time now…"

Ernst blinked, once or twice. Then, his expression softened, and he scratched the back of his head in a sheepish manner. "Really? Sorry, I didn't mean to make you worry."

"It's okay," said Eruca. "I just wanted to make sure. I'm… I'm kinda scared, you know? Everything is so different here…"

Ernst's hand found hers. "To tell the truth, I'm scared too. But, hey, I'm sure it's better out here than with him."

Eruca's lower lip wobbled. In her mind's eye, she could see her father, red-faced with anger, his large hands reaching for Ernst's throat. She shook her head to chase away the terrible memory. Tears threatened to fall from her eyes. Ernst squeezed her hand tighter.

"Just think of it as an adventure," he said. "Like the start of something new. You think you can do that for me?"

Eruca sniffed, letting go of her luggage to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. She eventually nodded.

"Besides you'll have me. What could go wrong?"

Eruca found herself smiling. He'd said it with a straight face, but she knew her brother was not being completely serious. Ernst was weird like that.

She was glad to have him by her side.

"Beyond the beaten path lies the absolute end. It matters not who you are.

Death awaits you."

Nyx Avatar, Persona 3

Ernst's funeral was held on the coldest day of December Eruca had ever lived through.

It had snowed heavily in the prior week, in a way that was unusual for early winter. Thankfully, the sky was clear today, and the sun shone brightly. Still, it was dreadfully cold.

The few people who had come to say a last goodbye to Ernst were now leaving the funeral home where the service had been held. Eruca found herself comforting them as they came to offer their sympathies. Most of them were sobbing so heavily she could barely understand their words. It was strange, really. She had known her brother better than her mother's friends or Ernst's teachers, yet here she was, staying dry-eyed while they wept.

Her mother, however, showed no such restraint.

Sophia had managed to suppress her tears during the service, but she had utterly broken down when Ernst's casket had finally been loaded into the hearse. Eruca found herself unable to say anything as she heard her mother give a long, heartrending wail; she found herself rooted to the ground as she realized her mother's legs were about to give away from under her.

Immediately, Ernst's friends swarmed around Sophia, holding her so she would not fall. Their sobs were quieter, but no less heartbreaking than her loud lamentations. Sonja rested her forehead against Sophia's, and she clung to Eruca's mother as if she was the one who needed help to stay upright. Rosch's shoulders were shaking heavily, and despite his great height Eruca was stuck by how impossibly young he looked. Raynie cried the loudest, her sobs filled with part fury, part desperation. And Marco's hand clasped at her coat like he wouldn't never pry it open again, while tears silently streamed down his cheeks.

Eruca remained on the sides, apart from all the other mourners. Still, she was not the only one. Uncle Heinrich stood a little farther away from everyone else, never moving a muscle, never uttering a word. He had been the one to stumble onto her brother's corpse. The emergency response team had found him cradling Ernst, seemingly blind and deaf to the outside world. Tearing him from Ernst's dead body had apparently caused him to have an emotional meltdown, and so he also had to be brought to the hospital to be treated for shock.

Or so Eruca had been told. The past days had blurred together in her mind, making it impossible to discern the truth from the falsehoods in her mangled memories. Perhaps, she kept telling herself, perhaps soon she would wake up to find that this was all but a terrible, terrible nightmare—

Eruca saw some movement out of the corner of her eye, and she was yanked out of her thoughts. A woman in a purple coat was moving toward her. Now that everybody was escorting Sophia back to the car, it seemed no one had noticed her but Eruca. The woman's hood was drawn, making it impossible to see her features.

"Can I help you?" Eruca began tentatively. Perhaps that woman was a friend of her mother's.

"He isn't here, is he?" the woman spoke. Her voice sounded vaguely familiar to Eruca.

Eruca took one step closer, but the woman backed away instead. Now, she could see enough of her face to recognize her.

"Wait," said Eruca, "you're the vice-principal, aren't you?" The answer suddenly dawned on her. Vice-Principal Protea had married Eruca's father, not long ago. "Did you come for—" Eruca took a painful swallow "—for my brother's funeral?"

Protea looked nervously to her surroundings. "Where is he? I was sure he'd come! After all, this is…"

"Who's that you're talking about?" said Eruca. "Wait, you don't mean… my father?"

"Of course! Who else?" Protea clutched her bag closer to her chest. It seemed unusually heavy, Eruca noticed. "It's important you bring me to him, girl. This is a serious matter!"

Eruca could not say anything. Her brain, lost in a fog, could not properly process just what was coming out of the woman's mouth.

"Oh, to hell with this!" Protea continued, sounding on the verge of hysteria. She finally thrusted her bag into Eruca's hands. The latter was too stunned to react. "It should be your mess to sort. I haven't ask for any of this sorry business!"

Eruca could still not find the words to response to this. She was so numb she could not even summon enough anger in the face of such callousness.

"Well, I'm out of here!" cried Protea. "If you ever see that wretched father of yours, tell him I want nothing to do with him anymore!" And with those harsh words, she turned and walked away, leaving Eruca to stare blankly at her.

Eventually, Eruca found herself moving toward her mother's car. Before she went inside to sit beside Sophia, she took a peek inside the bag. She frowned as she saw its content: inside, there was only a book, a thick, ancient-looking tome with black pages and a strange violet pattern on the cover. For some reason, her heart began to beat faster. Out of some unknown instinct, she hid the bag under the car seat. A moment later, she sensed someone approaching.

"Is everything alright, Eruca?" her uncle's voice said from behind. Eruca turned to face him. "Who was that woman?"

Eruca's mind drew a blank. Again, for a reason she could not name, she replied, "It was one of Mom's coworkers. She wanted to give me her sympathies."

"I see," answered Uncle Heinrich. He was looking at her strangely, as though his face had forgotten how to express any emotion. "You should get inside the car with your mother. I'll drive both of you to the… the cemetery…"

This single word threatened to destroy the stoic façade Eruca had so carefully maintained so far. She felt a shiver trickling down her spine, a chill that was even more piercing that the coldness currently seeping through her coat. With great effort, she retreated to a deeper, safer part of her brain, and managed to stop the wave of grief before it could even engulf her.

"Yes," she told her uncle, in a voice icier than a grey winter morning. "Lead the way."