"I cannot live. \
I cannot die. \
Trapped in myself, \
Body my holding cell."
This is the last part of a three-chapter upload. If you haven't read chapters 31 ("Pet") and 32 ("Love Me Two Times") yet, please go read those first!
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"Scientists talk about dark matter, the invisible, mysterious substance that occupies the space between stars. Dark matter makes up 99.99 percent of the universe, and they don't know what it is.
Well I know. It's apathy.
That's the truth of it; pile together everything we know and care about in the universe and it will still be nothing more than a tiny speck in the middle of a vast black ocean of Who Gives A Fuck."
~David Wong, "John Dies At The End"
Black.
It was like the whole universe had run away from him, leaving him behind in the cold, and nothing existed anymore except the wind rushing past his ears. His stomach was rising into his throat. He was an astronaut, weightless in space; or maybe he was falling into Hell.
I'm spinning, oh, I'm spinning…
Even the glow of his Infected welts was smothered by shadow. You don't realize how overdependent we are on our eyes until you're desperate to see where you're falling and the darkness won't let you. Chance had an idea of that when his eye got blasted out – was it just an hour before? It felt like a lifetime ago – but this was it. Even as he flailed in open air, it felt like every one of his senses had been muffled, like he'd been vacuum sealed and dropped in the ocean.
How quick the sun can… drop away…
If Jeremy was screaming for him from the platform above, he couldn't hear it anymore. Chance was still falling.
He fell past something sharp that grated on his skin, and half of his arm ripped off. He couldn't hear himself scream. He could distantly feel his own blood splatter across his face.
Chance's leg caught on a platform, and snapped off. He kept falling.
He tried to curl in on himself, but another row of spikes on the wall grated at his face, just scarcely missing his eye.
As he spun in freefall, just when he thought it'd never end, he could see a pale wave rushing up to meet him–
CRUNCH.
...
"Go back to sleep…"
He had minutes left to live.
Chance's whole body throbbed and ached and screamed. His orange eyes felt like something had burrowed into them as they struggled open.
He was drowning in a brittle, grey ocean. Even through the dull orange glow his body was now giving off, he could barely see, only that he had fallen to the bottom of a cold, hellish pit.
Not dark. Black.
Whatever was covering the floor jutted into his body, scraping and piercing him. He was missing a leg, his arm was barely dangling on, and he had to squint his eye closed so that tangerine blood didn't spill into it. Was he going to die here, buried beneath the corpse of a kingdom?
He blinked.
Chance was lying in an ocean of skull-like masks, stretching out as far as his eyes could see in the oppressive darkness. Inky black streaks had dried under all of their eyes, like tears.
They all looked almost identical to Tusk's.
Gently they stir.
Gently rise.
Chance reached out, with his one good, shaking arm, and tried to pull himself forward.
The masks piled up all around him, in dunes, or waves. The air was so heavy and thick, his lungs quaked with every breath, phlegm filling his lungs. Two of his limbs were useless, and he didn't have any time left to stop and heal them. It was fighting a war, just to climb up a pile of skulls.
Masks bumped and shattered against each other as he crawled over them, the shards digging into him like glass. He had to keep moving.
"Go back to sleep…"
A woosh. Something rose from the ground next to him, a liquid shadow that unfurled itself into a ghost, with glowing white eyes that blinded him like headlights in the dark.
Again, they looked just like Tusk.
The dead are newborn awakening,
with ravaged limbs and wet souls.
They stared at him, his pathetic, broken, melting form, just about ready to slip between the cracks of these skulls and sink into the earth. They reached out, inky black form rearing back–
Tusk jumped in the way, and cut it down. With a single blow, the ghost broke apart, and was reabsorbed by the ocean of masks. They turned to look at him, nail drawn, on the guard for any more ghosts.
Chance didn't have the energy left to thank them. He kept crawling.
"Go back to sleep…"
He didn't know how long they went on like that, how many seconds he spent for every inch he crept forward across the pitch-black ocean of refuse. Tusk guarded him, knocking away every ghost that tried to attack, since Chance couldn't fight anymore.
Every time one fell, another rose up; it was endless. Their resemblance to Tusk drove him mad. He remembered, when they first tried to fight the Mantis Lords, Tusk's mask had split in two and a dark ghost had escaped it, one that looked identical to the ones attacking them now.
Were these all the ghosts that once inhabited these masks? Was he creeping across the corpses of Tusk's kin? Were they… Vessels?
…All the children are insane…
Eventually, the ocean dipped, and Chance slipped down a small slope of Vessel skulls, rolling across solid ground. His glowing hands pawed at the ancient stones; he must've been the first living thing here in centuries.
He couldn't find any more holds to pull himself along, so he had no choice but to heal his leg with what little Soul he had left. He probably would've just bled out if he didn't. Or would the Infection take him first? The pus was growing in his gut, melting his organs and thickening his veins with sludge. His head throbbed, he was barely conscious. He couldn't have more than a few minutes left.
(Would it even be reversible at this point?)
As his shattered limbs returned to him, Chance couldn't afford to focus on the pain. All he could focus on was Tusk's small, desperate hand holding onto his pant leg as he used his Claws to drag himself up the wall. His knees hadn't turned to mush yet; he could walk, but only barely–
He stepped on another abscess on the underside of his foot, and collapsed again. He tried to scream, but the skin around his face had thickened into massive glowing zits, and his lungs were still clogged. The noise that escaped his lips was something between a snort and a cat's dying screams.
"...Chance? Where are you? It's so dark…"
That voice made him fight to pull himself back up again. "J-JEREMY!" he screamed down the tunnel, only to half-fall onto his knees again. Tusk was trying to drag him along.
"...Chance… You heard what She said, right? I was so certain that it was just… a lie…"
Something cold and animalistic took hold in Chance. He scrambled to his feet, leaving deep, desperate gashes in the ancient stone in his struggle. He had to find Jeremy. He had to keep moving. He couldn't die here.
"...But it turned out… I was the lie all along… wasn't I?"
"JEREMY!" Chance screamed with all the breath left in his lungs. His hands waved in front of his face, unable to see anything in the darkness. His voice sounded so close; he had to be nearby, right? He could be right in front of him, if only he could just fucking see him.
"I thought they were both lies… That I was fake, and that curing your Infection would kill us both…"
Tusk grabbed onto him and pulled him deeper into the tunnel, which was widening into a larger cavern.
"...But if one of them turned out to be true… Then maybe…"
The cavern was only barely visible, but Chance could tell that it was even bigger than the White Palace ruins. Every spiraling shell that made up the ancient walls towered over him. The atmosphere felt sick and hollow, like he'd just stepped into an abandoned morgue, and the air was heavy like lead. Those inky-black ghosts from before were floating high above them, circling around a massive tower standing in the center of the cavern; made of the same stone as the hellhole itself, but with an architecture more reflecting the rest he'd seen in Hallownest, with a domed top adorned in gleaming spikes. There was no visible entrance from the ground floor, and part of the roof was angled down and out, like a lighthouse.
And just beyond it was a metal dock, over a lake that spanned half of the colossal cavern. Its waters were blacker than night, and what little light filtered down this far just seemed to fall into it. The sea was a black hole.
The ghosts turned on them, staring at the glowing orange zombie with pale headlight eyes from above, like lions watching a lamb stumble into their den.
Gently they sigh,
in rapt funeral amazement.
Even if he had the energy to climb the lighttower, there was nowhere else to go. No other side tunnels to travel down from, at least from this side of the lake. That ancient metal dock at the edge of the lake was his dead end.
The only place left to go.
"...Maybe She wasn't lying after all…"
Who called these dead to dance?
Was it the young woman,
learning to play the Ghost Song in her baby grand?
...
High, high above, standing at the edge of the platform leading down into the Abyss, Hornet was clutching her needle in a vice. Her hands were shaking.
The Vessel's birthplace. That bottomless, blackened pit.
Just standing here, so close to the edge, made her uneasy. But were those voices she was hearing down there, crawling through that mass grave? Were those… screams?
"Who's Chance?"
He was down there, right now. The human, Jeremy. His Infection was progressing since she'd last fought him, and she'd seen before how rapidly it could worsen in bugs with hard exoskeletons and firm chitin. She didn't want to see what it would do to Jeremy's soft flesh and skin.
–bubbling and melting right off of his bones–
She wanted to collapse. All she could think about was that last glimpse she got of Jeremy's face, his left eye bleeding tangerine. He had smiled at her then.
(How foolish she was, to think opening up to him on the brink of his death could mean anything. How foolish to think his resemblance to Valleri could mean anything. How foolish to get attached, even after everything.)
Hornet risked another glance down into the Abyss. She could put on a brave face up here, where the lingering spirits and ancient emptiness couldn't reach her. But if Jeremy – Chance, whoever, the human – was down there, and he was dying…
"Will I meet you again?"
"...You asked that last time."
Hornet drew a sharp breath, struggling to control her tremors. Up here, the shadows hid the horrors that would find no rest below. Up here, the night sky below her was empty, there were no stars. But she hadn't been this terrified since she was small. She was scared of that nothingness. She was scared that she would descend into that pit and find that there was nothing left.
She was scared that it would claim her, too.
…Was she hearing something, down below?
It sounded like…
… "JEREMY!"
That was his voice. He was calling… his own name. She could barely hear it, through the distance and depth and from how weak his voice sounded, how clogged his lungs must be of pus, how he must be so tired–
"...Why don't you decide?"
–Hornet leapt needle-first into the endless black Abyss.
Was it the wilderness children?
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Chance thought his body was going to melt between the metal grating of the dock; that his whole body would turn to orange, primordial mush, slapping against the black lake as his liquified remains drifted atop of it like algae.
Every step was a mile. It was right fucking there.
One way or another, things were going to end here, and soon.
It was… what? What was he even looking at? As Chance staggered over to the cold metal pier, distantly aware of the metal groaning under his weight, he risked a glance down into the massive lake. It wasn't water; whatever it was, it was the same stuff that made up the space between stars.
Just as the ancient oceans on Earth birthed every land species leading up to himself, this lake birthed the cosmic black holes that would come to prey on the prehistoric evolutionary line that formed these sandcastle kingdoms, ripe for feasting.
It was the same stuff Tusk was made of.
Void.
It didn't feel like looking across a lake. It felt like staring down into a dark chasm, like the dark waters were just an empty hole that stretched infinitely past the center of the world. It felt like staring down into the night sky. As if trying to skip rocks across it wouldn't make splashes, but the stone would just drop down, down, until the emptiness consumed even its echoes.
It was deeper than matte black. It was Black itself. Maybe God created color after the Void created its absence.
Even then, looking down into it, Chance could still see his reflection below, staring back at him.
"CHANCE!"
He whirled around, as fast as his sluggish and Infected body would allow him. Jeremy was standing at the other end of the pier, staring him down with tears in his eyes. He was heaving, his whole body shaking in blind terror.
Chance must have dropped his gun at some point, because he found it in Jeremy's hands.
"C-Chance," Jeremy sobbed, "Please, g-get away from there. T-That stuff's going to kill you. It's not worth it!"
Watching him from the edge of the dock, Chance couldn't help but glare. "...What do you mean, it's not worth it?!" He coughed so hard that he nearly doubled over, but he managed to stay on his feet. He wasn't even sure Jeremy could hear him, with how stuffy his throat was. "I'm out of time. This is all that's left!"
He inched towards the edge, and Jeremy aimed the gun between his eyes.
"DON'T MOVE!" he screamed. A tense silence. Staring down the barrel of his own gun for the second or third time this hour, Chance could only wonder where the hell Tusk went. Jeremy continued, "You heard what she said, didn't you?! I-If my existence is dependent on the Infection, t-then curing it would mean–!"
"And what if it's not?!" Chance tried to shout, but it sounded like he was on his deathbed. He was clutching his chest, feeling like some pus-bloated organ could burst from his ribcage any moment. "What if she just lied again?! What if… What if it's dependent on me?!"
"SHE WAS RIGHT THE FIRST TIME!" Jeremy stepped closer, tears running freely down his face as the gun in his hand quaked. "A-And as if you could really live with that! Knowing I'm just an illusion! You've always cared about the 'truth'; h-how do you think it feels, knowing your birth, your life, your death, everything you've felt and experienced, was just a trick of someone else's eyes?!"
Their screams echoed through the nothingness that smothered the cavern. The ghosts were descending, their eyes like spotlights on their standoff, inching closer. Chance wondered how good Jeremy's trigger discipline was.
"J-Jay…" Chance choked out. "I-I'm sorry. I'll–"
"A-A-And that's all if that… that thing, can cure you!" Jeremy waved the gun towards the black lake. "You can see it, can't you?! It'll kill you! It'll kill you a hundred times over, it'll make it so you were never born!"
Void is the antithesis of Light.
"So WHAT!" Chance managed to break through the phlegm and scream back, knowing damn well Jeremy could put a bullet through his throat while it was open. "WHAT do you want me to do?! I-Is it either you or me, is that how it is?!" Fuck, he was sobbing, too. Orange tears ran down his face and dripped onto the pier.
Jeremy faltered, the gun lowering. "...No. Chance… Please, just come over here. We'll… We'll go to Her together."
"WHAT?!" Chance screamed. "You want to fucking surrender to her?! To let Her use us as playthings?! I'm nobody's fucking Seraphim!"
Jeremy stepped closer again, pointing the gun back between his eyes. "I-It's better than dying, isn't it?!"
"I think eternal slavery is worse than death!"
His tears dripped from the grating of the pier, and into the black lake below. The darkness swallowed the orange light, pondered the taste for a spell, before it decided that it wanted more.
Something frigid and slimy wrapped around Chance's ankle. He jumped forward, barely kicking it away before dozens more reached out for him. Dozens of writhing, thrashing tentacles burst from the lake at the edge of the pier, some of them reaching between the metal grates underneath him, pulling at the metal, threatening to snap it off and pull it into the lake with him.
Jeremy, paradoxically, kept pointing the gun at him with one hand while gesturing for Chance to jump over to him with his other. "Can't you see? It's just going to eat you alive! It'll erase you, Chance! Both of us!"
On one side of Chance was an ancient, eldritch cosmic soup entity that was darkness itself made manifest, reaching out and inching closer to wrapping him up and breaking his body down into demon food. On the other side was his best friend, tears running down his face, pointing a gun at his face while advocating for the same goddess that got them into this mess.
"Please!" Jeremy begged. It wasn't just terror in his eyes anymore; it was blind, existential desperation. "A-At least we'll be together this way! We can, we can work something out in the Dream Realm, make a plan! We always do!"
A low humming filled the air. Chance looked up, seeing Tusk descending from the massive black tower, nail in hand, fighting off more of the Void-ghosts that surrounded its precipice.
And then he was blinded with pale light.
A massive beam of Lumafly light shined down on them both from above, making Jeremy and Chance flinch and cover their eyes. The pale beam stretched across the whole expanse of the lake, illuminating the massive, blackened cavern; it wasn't even that bright, but down here, it was like a newborn sun.
The tower was a lighthouse after all.
The tentacles behind him, barely an inch away from him, stiffened and writhed. It was like they were silently screaming as they grabbed at every gap in the pier they could, only for their grips to weaken and slip. Whatever monster was threatening to swallow him whole was forced back under, tamed by the light.
It almost acted just like a lake now.
…The waters sit still…
Jeremy lunged closer, and jammed the tip of the gun's barrel into Chance's mouth.
"Y-You–" His whole body was shaking; wide yellow eyes streaming terrified tears as he stepped right up to Chance, his face just inches away. "You can't do this, Chance! P-Please!"
After a startled moment, Chance pushed the barrel into his cheek with his tongue, an Infected welt growing on it. "...You mean… We can't?"
Jeremy faltered. He slumped, antennae drooping. almost looking like he was going to collapse before he stood up straight again. His wings flared out. "Maybe none of this is happening," he breathed. "Maybe you just passed the Infection onto me, and I'm hallucinating, too. I'd take that over you touching that Void any day."
"Y-You're right," Chance's teeth gnawed on the gun barrel, feeling his orange saliva seep down the rifling. "This can't be real, right? You… You can't kill me. You're just a… fucking… figment of my… imagination." He could barely form sentences, with how the Infection and the Abyss were both sapping his strength. "This is all just a nightmare in my head."
Jeremy cocked the hammer, and Chance could almost taste gunpowder as he stared him right in the eye.
Jeremy shuddered. "...Maybe you're my hallucination. My nightmare."
At this point, neither of them could know what was real. Neither of them knew what the fuck they were talking about. Chance's Infection had passed the event horizon, and Jeremy was just an extension of Chance's own insanity.
Insanity.
It didn't feel wrong; not anymore. He felt like it was just a long time coming.
"JEREMY!"
They both turned to the scream from the mouth of the cavern. A silver flash swung through the room, and several of the Void ghosts puffed out of existence at once, their smoky darkness descending into the earth around…
"H-Hornet!" Chance called out. Jeremy didn't move; he was standing frozen, staring at Hornet from over his shoulder. The gun was still in his mouth.
"Jeremy!" Hornet yelled, standing a safe distance away. "What are you doing?! Get that out of your mouth!"
Chance was frozen too, now. The gun was still pressed against his cheek.
… 'Your'?
Jeremy, slowly, turned back to face him. His face was blank. Resigned. The blinding terror in his eyes had dulled into damnnation. The Abyss seemed to grow stiller than it already was.
The realization struck them both at the same time; Chance knew it because Jeremy knew it.
She means 'our' mouth.
Chance blinked. Jeremy was gone.
As if he was ever there to begin with.
Chance was standing at the edge of the dock over the Void lake, alone, holding his own gun in his mouth.
Hornet was rushing over to him. Tusk was still descending the tower.
They were running in slow motion.
Chance's thumb ran across the hammer, and he realized it was still cocked.
The gun was on a hair trigger.
His other thumb had already been hooked inside the trigger guard.
And all it took was a slight,
involuntary,
twitch.
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BANG.
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Fire filled his mouth.
His glowing eyes bulged.
Orange blood sprayed from the back of Chance's neck, splattering into the lake.
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His whole body seized up.
Then slumped.
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His limp hand was still curled around the gun as he staggered back.
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His foot slipped on the metal.
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And Chance fell into the inky lake of Void with an echoing, silent splash.
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Not dark.
Black.
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Chance was floating through space.
Endless darkness. Nothing, not even light, not even gravity reached this deep.
He couldn't flail. He couldn't breathe, because there was no air. He couldn't scream, because nobody could hear him anymore. Not even himself.
Out here, there were no stars. No pale blue dot, no crystal moon, no blazing sun. The universe had fallen away.
Except for those eight stars filling the sky, staring back at him–
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–and the air shrieks–
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Chains dug into his skin.
He couldn't feel his legs. He couldn't feel the floor beneath him, suspended high into the air of an empty tomb.
All he could see were the shadows and dust, mocking him, telling him to come home.
She wouldn't let him.
Infected pus poured from every crack it could find in his body. A stream of orange vomit constantly dribbled out of his mouth and splattered against the stone floor. His ears were filled with screams, and his eyes were filled with light.
They couldn't feel their arm–
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–and the breath is long–
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...
Where was he now? Chance was standing in the middle of an empty cave, dark enough that he couldn't see the walls. It could've stretched out infinitely in every direction for all he knew.
At least he was on his own two feet. At least he was still in one piece, and on solid ground.
He looked up just in time to see a pale sun explode into existence. Within it, he could barely spy a figure on high, a sharp crown rising from His brow.
Something eclipsed the light and smacked him in the face.
Chance collapsed to the ground with a groan, feeling his nose start to bleed from the impact. He shook himself back into focus, to see what had fallen into him.
A Vessel – not Tusk – was laying on top of him, with his blood splattered on their mask. And they weren't moving.
Another hit the ground right next to him, their neck cracking away from their mask with a sickening snap. Another had their mask shatter into pieces when they hit the ground. Another one fucking bounced, black hemo spraying behind them, before they went still.
Chance scrambled up, looking for anywhere to shelter, anywhere to escape to. Another Vessel mask crashed into the back of his head, and he collapsed, his vision blurring from the impact and the panic.
Another Vessel fell into his side, snapping a rib, and he screamed. They were hailing in droves around him now; hundreds of Vessels, shattering and splattering and dying from the fall.
They were starting to pile up.
Chance fought to reach up, trying to avoid having more Vessels smash into him as he fought to stay afloat, fighting for every breath.
It was raining, and he was drowning, and they were dying.
The pale sun shone from the apex, indifferent.
Chance noticed hundreds of the Vessels climbing along the walls, jumping between the platforms, looking for every foothold they could find. Some of them were fighting over every leverage they could find on the wall, silent squabbles over tiny ledges, mostly resulting in both of the Vessels losing their grip and falling to their deaths.
They numbered in the thousands now; maybe the millions. He could see more Vessels rising up around him; were they coming from below? From above? Chance was thrashing in the pit, just barely keeping near the rising surface, but he was slipping inch by inch. Soon, all of these bodies, all of these masks would bury him alive, and he would be one of them.
Barely peeking through the shrinking cracks, he could see one of them had reached the top.
They stood before their sun.
Their father.
Their god.
One more was grabbing onto the ledge behind them–
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–and the fires are out–
..
...
–Chance was swimming to the surface.
The water was beyond freezing, and pitch black, but he could still swim. He managed to open his eyes under the water; it was surprisingly clear, except for the darkness.
Looking up, he could see light. The pale light of the lighthouse was still above him.
And standing on the edge, peering over into the water, he could make out the silhouettes of Hornet and Tusk, searching for him.
Chance smiled. He couldn't feel his Infection anymore; did that mean it worked? He kicked and swam through the water; fuck, he could barely feel his fingers, but the chill was worth it. For once, he felt alive. For once, he felt free.
He reached out to them–
–His head banged against the surface.
Chance recoiled for a moment, and the water suddenly felt far colder.
His hands reached up; they slid across the surface of the lake, but it was like glass had sealed the lake over just at the edge. The numb cold was reaching up his hands, and his arms.
For the first time in Chance's life, he wanted to take a breath, and the world would not let him.
He pounded on the glass, muffled screams escaping his sealed lips, desperately clutching to any air he had left. The light was shining directly onto the water, and he was just under the surface; they had to be able to see him struggling, right?!
He tried to rear a fist back to punch the surface, but in the thick, frigid water, he barely had the strength to even clutch his hand into a fist. He couldn't even hear his own banging; it was silent, not like a library, but like his eardrums had ruptured completely.
The numbness reached his shoulders.
Tusk and Hornet weren't reacting to his struggle at all. Even as he waved his hand over to the side, they didn't glance at it. It was hard to see, with the light to their backs, but it almost seemed like their eyes didn't quite meet him, like they could only see the surface and not beyond.
Chance's air was running out.
The numbness had reached his core.
His fingers barely grazed the surface, and he thought that they just barely poked through to the surface.
Chance slipped under. His body had gone still.
His mouth was open, cold water rushing in and filling his lungs.
He sunk, slowly, into the black, bottomless abyss below, the light of the surface fading away.
The last thing Chance could see was his head nodding down to look into the emptiness below, and seeing something's jaw rush up to meet him–
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–the waters sit still–
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…
Chance was wielding a Pure Greatnail.
…
Standing on the catwalk, high above the pool of acid, Chance readied his greatnail, wary of the green acid vats lining the stretch of platform that bisected the empty space in the air.
Across from him was a short figure, donning an ominous green cloak. From underneath, he could spy lime-green eyes, as sharp and bright as the acid below them.
A human woman – Valleri? – was standing beside him, in a dark leather jacket, glaring at the figure in green. She looked fierce, ready to lunge at the figure at any moment.
Chance raised his greatnail, and swung at the figure. He dodged, swerving between the Soul-dagger volleys he shot and between his nail strikes. He could see he was readying a sharp, gleaming dagger under his cloak…
With a wide swing, Chance's greatnail decapitated the figure, the severed head flying right into Valleri's lap–
…
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A colosseum of bones rose around him.
Chance swung his greatnail in wide arcs, slicing apart mercenaries donning armor of bone and scrap metal by the dozens. Hemo sprayed across the stones.
He teleported away, and fired out volleys of Soul-daggers that knocked several combatants off of the balconies. This wasn't an arena battle; it was a war zone. Everyone was fighting everyone. Complete chaos.
Across the room, Chance could see that same woman in a black leather jacket; he was certain now, that was Valleri. She had no weapons or armor except for what she briefly picked up, but was somehow managing to take out several enemies on her own. At one point, she threw one off of a ledge, who collapsed into a group of other warriors beneath them, toppling all of them at once.
Up at the peak of the colosseum, was a bug in red, with crescent ram-horns and orange light in his eyes.
Beneath him was a pale-silver knight, her armor shaped like a dress and with three long horns trailing behind her head. She brandished her nail at the red bug, and for a moment, Chance could've sworn he saw a flash of familiarity in their eyes.
She rushed up to meet him–
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–The silver swordstress was collapsed on the ground.
Chance startled; the colosseum had vanished, and in its place, was a grand hall in a massive palace, every surface polished white, like marble or porcelain. Archways spiraled over to a sharp and imposing throne that seemed to take up half of the room.
Several other knights lay defeated around him.
A green, plant-like bug lay bleeding on the ground, coughing up water. A round-looking fuzzy one had been slammed into the wall with such force that it left a crater. A flowing, silver knight with a colossal greatnail had been pinned to the ground under a pile of steel and earth, as if the ground itself had her locked in its maw. A titanic mountain of a knight had his armor dented and smoking, his mace already scampering off to safety.
And in the back corner of the room, Valleri was struggling to rise from the floor, only to collapse to the ground again.
Chance could recognize Ze'mer and the False Knight from them, and the others must've been just as powerful. Who could've done this?
Aside from himself, only two figures were left standing.
Standing before His throne, a blinding figure glared from underneath His crown. The energy pouring off of Him was overwhelming, a pale presence that dominated the room.
And before Him stood another figure. She had greenish-blue chitin, and wore a white hood over her horns. He couldn't make out any details from her silhouette, other than that her arms were made of glistening, silver metal.
Chance lunged forward, and caught a glimpse of her orange eyes glaring back at him before his greatnail split her body in two–
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...
Was it the Ghost God himself,
stuttering, cheering,
chatting blindly?
LAYLA "Chance"
Today ██:██
LAYLA: Are you awake? I'm still here.
"Chance": get the fuck out of my head already
LAYLA: Don't be like that. I doubt I could maintain control like this for much longer, anyway.
LAYLA: If the Void decides not to consume you – which it has never been known to do, mind you – then you'll be 'cured'.
LAYLA: And even if you die, you'll be free of me. You'll be free of Jeremy. You'll never have to see us ever again.
LAYLA: Isn't this what you wanted? Are you happy?
"Chance": .
LAYLA: …You need not speak to us, either. Your silence speaks volumes.
LAYLA: Though, I fear for Jeremy's sake. He can only exist within my Light, yet you've dragged him into the Void's maw with you.
LAYLA: Pure Light and pure Void; even I don't know what to expect.
LAYLA: Something painful, surely.
"Chance": fuck you
"Chance": and dont call me shirley
LAYLA: Now you're just being petty. I understand you're angry, but don't blame me for what you did yourself.
LAYLA: I'm the one helping you here, after all.
"Chance": what bullshit are you on now
LAYLA: You want to be free of my Light, but you want Jeremy to keep existing? So picky. But I'll oblige your wishes, my Seraphim.
LAYLA: I'll recede my Infection from your body, and focus all of my Light within you on preserving Jeremy against the Void as best as I can.
LAYLA: A drop of Light in a black ocean… But I think I'll take very, very good care of him.
LAYLA: He looks so much like you, you know.
"Chance": Don't you fucking dare.
"Chance": We're not just toys for your amusement. We're not just pawns in your game.
LAYLA: Yes you are.
LAYLA: I've already explained it to you; mortals are unworthy of free will. Jeremy wanted his own survival, you wanted yours. And not only have you selfishly picked yourself over him, but you've doomed yourself as well, spinning and lurching in the belly of the Void.
LAYLA: You exercise your right to your precious "freedom" and this is what happens.
LAYLA: You need a manager, someone to keep the species of Hallownest and Earth from obliterating themselves, whether under mountains of plastic or by nuclear hellfire. Or even by drowning yourself in primordial nothingness.
LAYLA: And you make it so easy, too. Even your rebellion against my Light is expected and accounted for.
LAYLA: Your survival of this ordeal, however, is not.
LAYLA: It's been fun, my precious martyr~ 3 Anything else you'd like me to hear, that I haven't already seen in your mind?
"Chance": Fuck you.
LAYLA: I figured as much. Goodbye, Chance.
LAYLA: "Chance"... A fake name for a dead body with a wiped mind.
LAYLA: You were never much more real than Jeremy.
I called you up to annoint the earth.
I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin.
I called you to wish you well,
To glory in self like a new monster.
Beneath the blazing sun in a black sky, the boat rocked under his feet.
Chance stumbled to his feet, then stumbled back down, grabbing onto the edges of the boat to keep it from capsizing. He was hyperventilating. Under a starless sky in a black ocean, with the waves making him sick, he felt like he was forgetting something important.
The only light out here was the single, orange sun in the otherwise nighttime sky, beaming down onto a small patch of ocean around him like a spotlight, where the water turned orange.
And drowning in the ocean beside him was Jeremy.
He wasn't struggling, and his cheek was facing down into the water. His wings were ripped and bloody, and his antennae were bent and frayed. He looked dead, except for the single half of his face that was still above the surface, looking up at Chance with dull and sullen eyes.
Jeremy's wings, antennae, fluff and chitin, all symbols of Her. He was born in Chance's mind, but he'd shared that space with Layla. Jeremy's human body came from him, but his moth half had come from Her influence.
That was his heritage. His past. That was all there was.
Our lovechild.
Chance tried to reach to pull him on board, but the boat rocked under him, and Chance startled back into the cradle. He was still shaking like a leaf. Just the thought of going anywhere near the ocean gripped him with a cold, primal fear that he couldn't understand.
Riiing, riiing!
He jumped. Chance's eyes didn't leave the body as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and hit the button, holding it up to his ear while he tried to fight his own breathing.
"Chance… You're finally… here…"
Chance wanted so badly to reach out and take Jeremy's hand. He was right fucking there, and he couldn't move a muscle. "Y-Yeah… I'm here, Jay. I'm here."
The sun glared through the shadows, their only witness. "You shouldn't… have come here."
"Y-You… You called me here, Jay. You begged me."
Silence. Only the crackle of his speaker. Chance wondered if Jeremy could sigh like that, half-drowning in a thick and dead ocean. The waters were stuck between Infection and Void, like a reverse oil spill that was closing in around Chance's flimsy boat.
"I'm starting to… remember now,"Jeremy rasped over the phone. His body, maybe his corpse, was right there, and he was still talking over the phone. "Everything is fuzzy… But the pieces are… starting to come… together. I've been waiting here, for so, so long… But I only just fell in… With you… Isn't that right?"
"Jeremy, tell me what's happening here. Tell me anything. Please." It was funny. Look; now he was the one begging over the phone.
"I remember… calling you. It was the only thing… I could think about. I called… and called… and called. Like wild, panicked shots in the dark… I called you here. I was afraid… desperate… and I still am. I must've called you… dozens of times."
Chance mentally counted his last few encounters with the Void over the phone. "Jay, you've called me… three, four times. What's going on here?"
"That can't be right… You answered every time. I think… I think you're going to keep… getting my calls. You're going to keep getting them… for years. Maybe decades. All from my short time here."
Jeremy's body seemed to slip a little lower into the sea as a harrowed and dry laugh cracked over the speaker.
"Void… The power to defy time. A power that… disoriented me. I couldn't focus. I kept… slipping away…"The sea bubbled, growled. "You've… seen it too, haven't you? Those visions…"
"I wanna go home, Jay", Chance sobbed, trying to will the boat closer to Jeremy so he could pull him back up. "And I don't wanna leave you here."
"It's too late… for that…"
The maw of the Abyss opened. The orange spotlight contracted around them, the Infected pool shrinking as it was swallowed by the Void. Jeremy's lower half sunk beneath the waves.
"They've reached an agreement… or rather… an understanding…"His waist was sapped up by the Infection, as it fought to keep what little it could salvage. "They'll both let you go… And in turn… They'll take me instead…"
Chance leaned over the edge of the boat, breathing faster. "NO!" he screamed. "Nononono, they can't have you, they're– they're gonna fight over you like– like dogs! They'll kill you!"
"Isn't that… what I… tried to tell you?"Jeremy's torso went under; all that was left was an arm, and his head. Chance thought he could see his lips move in sync with his words. "I'm sorry… about that… by the way."
Jeremy's head went under, and the call died, the phone beeping uselessly in Chance's hand. All that was left was Jeremy's arm, sinking under as the last beams of light were swallowed by the Void, the sun above them shrinking as it abandoned them.
The dark and glowing waters reached up to his wrist–
"NO!" Chance screamed, and he leapt off of the boat, grabbing Jeremy's hand just before he fell into the water with a splash.
The Void swallowed whatever light was left, and sealed them over.
…
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...
…It was cloudy outside this morning.
He lived in a rural California town, out in the desert, a few hours out of L.A. He had just turned twelve a few months ago. Today was his first day of school.
Although he was already twelve, he hadn't gone to a normal school before today, for reasons he didn't and might not ever understand. He was also entering school in the middle of the year, which was even stranger – or so he'd heard. His parents wanted to walk him to school today, but something came up last-minute. It was fine, he told them; the school was only a few roads down.
They worried over him anyway, drilling into his head that if any strangers tried to touch him, then he was allowed to kill them. Not that he knew how he'd do that. His parents were probably just joking.
It was never really 'cold' in southern California – except on certain desert nights – but his parents still made him wear a green jacket. Mid-February weather. It matched well with his messy brown hair and gray L.L. Bean backpack, they said.
(His mom has also pulled him aside and told him that the side pocket was for dangerous strangers and emergencies and to absolutely not open it or let anyone else see what was inside otherwise. Even he didn't know.)
His route to school took him over a concrete bridge, a stream of water running underneath. It wouldn't be years until he thought it weird; it was a usually dry area out here in the desert, especially with the constant droughts in this part of the country. So why did they have a random river?
But what he thought was weird immediately was the abandoned backpack leaned up against the bridge's railing.
He approached it, slowly. It was quiet, the early hours of the morning when it hadn't gotten too hot yet; it was actually cloudy out, which was another rarity here. Nobody else was around to have left this here.
Stepping closer, it was one of those "cool" and "sporty" bags, black with orange highlights. It looked well-used, though, worn down from years of abuse. Either a hand-me-down, or its owner was very familiar with it, and probably hadn't gotten a new bag since kindergarten.
He approached it, opening it up to see what was inside. He thought he remembered hearing something about not approaching abandoned backpacks one time, but there weren't any bombs inside; just papers and regular school supplies. The same stuff he had in his own bag, excluding whatever was in the side pocket.
He read the name on one of the papers.
Standing up, he looked over the railing for anyone who might've left it behind. There was only one other person nearby, and they were in the river below.
He looked down. Some kid, maybe about his age, had submerged himself under the river water; it was slow enough that he could do that without getting pulled away by the currents.
He could barely make out their silhouette from above the water, but he could tell they weren't moving.
He set his own backpack down next to theirs, and leapt off of the bridge.
The water was freezing. He could barely feel his fingers, the cold jolt waking him up immediately. He couldn't see with his eyes squeezed closed, but he reached out, and could feel the warmth of someone's body in front of him. He grabbed onto them, and kicked his feet to rise to the surface.
They breached, and they both gulped up the air. He was there, gasping for breath in the middle of the river, before he began pulling them both to shore.
They flopped onto the stone and sand like fish. He stopped, sitting upright to look at the person he'd saved; he definitely was his age, with blonde hair that lay flat against his skull while wet, but judging by the knots, was probably messy and wild when it was dried off. He wore a cheap knockoff Polo shirt with holes near the waist, light blue and white stripes, and khaki shorts.
He opened his eyes, and they were sea-blue.
They looked at each other for a moment, in stunned silence. The blonde kid froze when he saw him. His eyes seemed to gloss over.
After squeezing the water out of his green jacket, he spoke first "...What were you doing?"
The other kid smiled.
"Who… Who are you?"
…
On the riverbank under a dead California desert sky, his eyes raging with the torrents of the sea, he gave him a big, friendly grin.
"I'm Jeremy!"
█████ "Chance"
████ at ██:██
"Chance": so what the fuck was that shit?
"Chance": was that one of my memories? was that me?
: █████
"Chance": don't associate me with that bitch
"Chance": im nobodys seraphim
: █████
"Chance": i want jeremy back. don't you have him?
: █████
"Chance": The fuck do you mean?
: █████
"Chance": how can you and layla both and neither have control here?
: █████
"Chance": fuck OFF with that 'ancient enemy' bull
"Chance": you and her both go so apeshit at each other on sight, that you can't even stop to pull jeremy out of the crossfire?
: █████
"Chance": …i know that
: █████
"Chance": i know.
: █████
"Chance": but i want him back anyway. I dont care if hes fake
"Chance": we can share a body, whatever, exactly how it was before. only difference is we'd both know the truth. I'd accept that.
: █████
"Chance": i don't care if he was 'imaginary'. I can't just ignore everything i've seen, heard, felt.
"Chance": He was real to me.
: █████
"Chance": im not being manipulated by her! If im cured, then she cant control me anymore, right?
: █████
"Chance": fucking
: █████
"Chance": …is that your condition, then?
: █████
"Chance": and you'll keep him safe until then? you won't let layla touch him, or, idfk, obliterate him across time into nothingness?
: █████
"Chance": …okay, fine
"Chance": fine.
"Chance": if that's what it takes to get jeremy back, i'll do it.
"Chance": to be honest, i was hoping to do it anyway, after all the shit she's put us through
: █████
"Chance": yeah… i can work with this.
"Chance": i'll destroy your 'ancient enemy' for you.
: █████
And now I call on you to pray.
The waters were still.
Hornet had stood frozen at the edge of the lake, peering into the darkness alongside Tusk, only to see themselves staring back. The ghosts had seized up around them; they weren't attacking, and instead, their headlight eyes staring at the lake, the air almost anxious.
Minutes passed. The human did not surface.
…It wasn't safe here.
With shaky legs, Hornet slowly rose, her eyes lingering on the black lake. The pale lighthouse shone like a cold sun, making the surface of the Void seem almost reflective, like obsidian.
Whatever was once here for her, was now gone.
She was used to it. Used to losing people. Used to growing attached, to opening up, only for it to get ripped away from her once again. The human had come, flipped Hallownest on its head, and then died, just like that. She was used to loss; her only mistake was thinking that she'd been smarter than that now.
Hornet turned, her footsteps echoing through the cavern as she walked away from the lake–
The glass-like surface shattered, and a tar-covered hand exploded from the lake.
Hornet spun back around, eyes wide. Another arm reached up, grabbing onto the edge of the metal dock, and it pulled up the torso of a figure. He was drenched head to toe in dripping, tar-like Void, like he'd gone swimming in an oil spill, and Hornet thought his corpse had been possessed by that horrible nothingness before the darkness receded from his body and returned to the lake.
As the Void fell from his body, Chance pulled himself free from the lake, taking deep, raspy breaths. Welts and abscesses still covered his skin, but they were no longer glowing orange, and had withered into off-color skin.
His eyes, no longer orange, caught a glimpse of Hornet before he collapsed on the silver dock.
"JEREMY!" Hornet shouted as she and Tusk rushed over. She fell to her knees and grabbed onto Chance, checking his vitals, looking for any lingering traces of Infection.
Aside from the countless dead scabs, the only thing she found was a hole in the back of Chance's cheek that was bleeding Void, only for it to suddenly seal itself up when she inspected it.
The bullet hadn't hit anything vital, and the Void had spared him. For the first time in years, Hornet wanted to cry.
Below her, Chance was fading. The ever-present orange glow around his eyes had faded, and his vision was crisp, clear. His senses were unclogged; the air, although heavy, flowed freely through his lungs without him needing to cough up phlegm. His body was his own again.
It was so… quiet. Her whispers weren't pounding in his ear drums anymore. In the silence of the dead Abyss, all he could hear was Hornet crying, her tears running down his shirt.
"Jeremy… Jeremy, please, stay awake…"
He was so tired.
How many hours had he stayed awake, the pure desperate adrenaline being the only thing keeping him conscious? Since just before they set out to Deepnest the first time, at least. The lost sleep hit him like a train, and Chance could feel his eyelids closing on their own, his body going limp.
For the first time in days, he embraced it.
Tusk was hunched over him, inky tears running down their mask as they hugged his chest. Hornet was next to him, crying as she tried to shake him awake. Around them, the dozens of Void ghosts watched on, silent, indifferent.
"Jeremy… Wake up…"
Just before he passed out, Chance's heavy read rolled in her direction. He didn't even have the energy to mouth it.
...
...
...
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...
"Jeremy… It's over… Please, wake up…"
…That's not…
"...Wake up, Jeremy…"
…my name…
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At the bottom of the world, "Chance" fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
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ETHNOENTOMOLOGY
ACT 1
CODA
...
Chapter name and summary are a reference to One by Metallica.
Other musical references in this chapter include:
Newborn Awakening by Jim Morrison
These last few days have been a wild ride, and while it got a little rough near the ending, this marks the end of the first act of Ethnoentomology. (Out of like, two and a half, maybe.) First off, I want to say I'm extremely grateful for everyone who's been reading this fic so far; it's been a long two and a half years(almost!), and I honestly don't think we'd have gotten this far without your support.
Second, I want to say that bEthno is going on hiatus./b We're taking a break from writing the story to instead work on revising old chapters; they mostly work, but it's old writing and tbh reading them makes me cringe a bit. We're gonna try to make them more up to par with our current standards. We're also going to be working on redoing our plan for future chapters from scratch; most of our plan past this chapter is from 2019, and it no longer reflects the direction the story is going now.
We'll return from hiatus as soon as we're finished with both of these, but I have no idea how long it will take. We might come back in two weeks and say "hey, old chapters weren't so bad after all!", or maybe we won't be back for a year. I don't know. But do know that we are NOT abandoning this story, and we will be working on these two tasks as often as we can. In the meantime, if you want to stay updated with our progress, join the Ethno discord server! The invite code is PYXCv9tUPg
Please leave a comment, and thank you so much for reading! Especially big thank you to everyone who's been with us these two and a half years! We'll be back soon!