Lapis was sure by the end of this her feet were going to fall off. If she were to look at the soles of her feet, she guaranteed the blood there would be frozen to a crusty red. At some point in their trek, Pearl had finally noticed she didn't have any shoes, and had offered Lapis her socks. Lapis didn't even hesitate to say yes.

She felt like she was slowly accumulating Pearl's clothes.

"Why did you even travel so light? You should have known it would be freezing." Lapis suppressed a rather dire shiver. She looked with worry as she noticed a few flurries of white falling around them.

Pearl merely shrugged. "I don't get cold very easily. Well, I've been told I feel cold. But I don't get cold."

"That sounds fake." Lapis gave a suspicious pout. Pearl only shrugged again, a small smile on her face. "Maybe you are a robot after all."

"Oh, I wish." Pearl waved a dismissive hand with a laugh, a lighter and real one in opposition to the ones she had heard earlier. It was rather comforting to hear. "I would get so much more done if I didn't have to sleep or eat." Pearl then brought a hand to her chin, suddenly thinking. "Actually, I wonder if Peridot could do something about that… "

Lapis couldn't help but laugh. "You're such a dork." Pearl gave a beaming smile in return, and Lapis couldn't help the warmth that twisted in her stomach. She quickly tried to divert her attention away from it. "So, who's this Peridot? Another bright hunter I assume?"

Pearl made a funny face as she gave an exaggerated shrug. "Bright hunter in the barest sense of the term. You'd never catch her out actually fighting one of those things." A more bitter toned creeped in under Pearl's voice. "She's more a technician, strategist, that sort of ilk. She builds us weapons, researches, formulates plans. Something the rest of us could easily do." The bitterness clawed its way forth on that last part.

"Whoa, got some beef with this girl?" Lapis tried to steer the conversation back to light hearted. Her body had dealt with enough anxiety for a lifetime.

Pearl heaved a sigh. "Not really, truth be told. Just my own… personal issues, I suppose. Don't think much of it." And with that, the issue was deflected. Lapis almost gave out an audible sigh of relief.

"Over there." Pearl suddenly pointed ahead of them, an outcropping of bright buildings that formed what Lapis guessed was a small town.

"There's an entrance to the underground railway in that town. The place has been long abandoned since the bright consumption, what with being so close to the facility. But I guess the lack of humans there lost the interest of the bright seekers. I don't really run into them there." Pearl twirled her hand, waving it at the end to accentuate the point.

Lapis was still nervous about it. But anything seemed better than The Mirror at this point.

"It doesn't seem like there are ever any humans at The Mirror," Lapis said. "Why do they gather there and not an abandoned town?"

"I honestly don't know," Pearl said, a hand reaching up to push a loose lock of hair behind her ear. "It's just what I've seen. Perhaps something in The Mirror draws them there. I wouldn't be surprised with all the secrets that are probably buried in that place." Pearl's eyes drifted down, a sign Lapis took as her receding into her own thoughts. That look of concentration cemented on her face, and they were left with a long moment of silence as they shouldered their way closer to the town. Lapis shifted the jacket on her shoulders, suddenly feeling both distant and suffocated by Pearl's presence.

Pearl seemed to go into her own head often, even in this short and miniscule time Lapis had awoken and known her. Lapis almost felt left out in a way, like a bystander at the edge of a crowd watching a conversation she would never be included in.

"So, speaking of bright seekers." Lapis brushed a hand through her bangs, an attempt to exert some of the jittery energy that was building its way back up. "Mind explaining to me what the hell it was we barely made it past back there?" She tilted her head towards Pearl, arms tightening around her torso as she leaned forward.

Pearl snapped to, eyes wide as if she just now realized Lapis was there. She brought a hand to her face, fingers delicately hovering over her mouth.

"Right," Pearl said, "the shatterer." She let out a shaky breath, bringing the hand to rest against her own cheek, pinky curled against her lip. "It's another form of bright seeker. We don't really know its purpose beyond, well, shattering other… defective bright seekers."

"Defective?" Lapis narrowed her eyes.

"Damaged bright seekers. Or ones that used to be human." Pearl pointedly avoided Lapis's wary gaze that widened into shock.

"What?" Lapis breathed. "Humans? You're telling me some of those things used to be people?" Lapis relinquished the embrace she held on herself, only to reign it back in again as she jerked back.

"Yes," Pearl said bluntly, the hand dropping from her face as she straightened her back and squared her narrow shoulders. "That's what bright seekers do to people. They consume them in their bright from the inside out. That's why we called the infestation the bright consumption." Pearl's breath came out in steady puffs, visible in the cold air. She seemed to go into herself once again, stating the words without any inflection of emotion.

"But… why would they turn people into bright seekers and then shatter them?"

Pearl shook her head. "I don't know. The colored ones, like the ones that chased us back in The Mirror, those used to be human. White bright seekers are originals, the ones that came through a rift that was opened years ago."

"Those were people?" Lapis's voice came out weak. "That thing killed people… you killed someone?"

"They aren't people anymore," Pearl said coldly.

"They used to be," Lapis said back. Pearl said nothing in return. She merely kept her gaze forward.

Lapis was silent. Then she spoke again.

"What do they do with the shattered bright seekers?"

Pearl breathed. "Add to themselves. Recycle them into their own bright. At least as far as we've observed. We don't know for what exact purpose."

"What's the point? They just… kill other bright seekers to make themselves bigger?"

"Only ones that are damaged or originally human," Pearl pointed out. "I've never seen a shatterer break a white bright seeker unless it was already cracked. The yellow, blue, pink… they're very liberal with breaking those ones."

"If a bright seeker is one of those colors, it used to be human?" Lapis asked, needing another affirmation of their reality. Pearl nodded. Lapis felt sick.

"Are we just food for them?" Lapis again asked. Pearl ran a hand tiredly through her hair.

"I don't know. If we are, then the bright seekers make the food, and only the shatterers eat it." Pearl kept the hand tangled in her pale red hair. Lapis took in how utterly exhausted Pearl looked, how pale. It wasn't a healthy pallor, but one that gave way to an underlying sickliness. She felt a real twinge of sympathy, and she almost felt the urge to retroactively take back the conversation.

"You said shatterers are bright seekers, right? Do they not turn people?" Lapis wasn't entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer. Pearl sighed heavily.

"They don't. Honestly, considering what they do to people when they get their hands on them, I almost wish they did." She gave out a humorless laugh. Lapis decided she wasn't going to ask further.

When Lapis looked back ahead, they were just upon the town, decrepit homes and shops with peeling paint fostering a dead oasis in the open, frozen pasture.

"This used to be a farming community," Pearl abruptly said as they entered the remote town, passing by a collapsing barn that bore a red that was most certainly vibrant at one point. "This was the first place to go when the bright consumption came."

"Were you there?" Lapis cringed as the question left her mouth involuntarily.

"No." There was a slight warble in Pearl's voice. "Too early for me. I just saw the aftermath. We used this town as a practice hunting ground." Pearl let out a laugh again, but there was a crack running through it.

"I'm sorry," she said. "That's not really important. Let's just get to the subway." Pearl strode forward, hands balled into tight fists and jaw set.

Lapis said nothing but felt that maybe she should. Still, she chose to stay silent. Or maybe she was just at a loss for words that could be worth anything in this moment, in this place she didn't quite understand, and with this person she barely knew.

They came upon the underground train entrance, a rectangle carved out of the cemented earth in the center of the town, broken lampposts standing to each side as sentinels. The guard railing wrapping around was a pale green speckled with splashes of rust that almost looked like dried blood in the shadows of the overcast light.

The steps going down were cracked, some portions rising in ripples like an earthquake had wedged itself between the splits in the concrete. As they quickly descended, Lapis noticed the steps gradually turning to a charred black, like an inferno had crawled its way up and burned for hours but couldn't quite make its way to the surface. More cracks were present, connecting like the surface of smoldering wood, making it look brittle and giving Lapis the urge to tread with trepidation. Pearl, however, did not hold a hesitation in her step.

Their walk soon flattened out into the platform of the railway, a darkness permeating forward to suffocate the pitiful light that barely ate its way down the stairwell. After everything, Lapis would have found a comfort in it if it did not leave her blind.

"How are we supposed to get through here? Follow the wall or something?" Lapis was a bit chagrinned, but at least it was marginally warmer under here where the earth's heat was trapped from the weather above.

Pearl shook her head, a small smile taking purchase on her face as she reached a hand into a pant pocket. She pulled out what Lapis could discern in the low light as a flat oval, a murky translucence to its surface. Pearl pressed a thumb over it, and a warm blue light diffused from it, low but far reaching.

"Whoa." Lapis stared at it, the round object's light not even hurting her eyes. "Fancy flashlight."

"It's something Peridot made for us." A slight smugness worked its way into Pearl's smile. "I made a few adjustments to it, of course. The original thing was much too bright with too short of a range. I think my version is a vast improvement above it." Pearl gave a tilt to her head, free hand raised in a delicate but confident gesture. Lapis just shrugged.

"I wouldn't know."

Pearl puffed her cheeks out in a frown. "Well, just take my word for it that mine is much better."

Lapis shrugged again. "Sure, whatever dork." She gave Pearl a reassuring smile. Pearl couldn't help but smile back.

They walked to the edge of the platform where a wide trench that was the railway cut through it. Pearl jumped down without pause, habit cut into her lean muscle. Lapis was less eager.

"Wouldn't it be easier to travel along the platform?" Lapis asked. Pearl shook her head, eyes closing as she did so, reopening to look up at Lapis.

"The platform ends not too further down. There's no point."

Lapis looked down at her nervously. The top of Pearl's head barely reached the same height as the platform, and she was taller than Lapis by a large margin. She didn't imagine getting back up would be an easy feat for herself, especially if they happened to run into trouble.

"It'll be okay." Pearl seemed to read her mind. "It's not as hard as it seems to get back up. I'll give you a boost before I get up in any case." Pearl then reached a hand out, imploring Lapis to take it and jump down.

Lapis gave a moment of thought before she kneeled, taking the hand offered to her. She watched as those nimble fingers curled around her hand, enveloping them in their soft grip, her own hand looking so small in comparison to the long digits. Pearl's palms were surprisingly soft.

With Pearl's hold of her hand steadying Lapis, she jumped down, other hand bracing itself on the edge of the platform. She winced as her numb feet hit the ground below, almost causing her legs to give out. She stumbled forward, but Pearl caught her before she could eat concrete.

Pearl's arm had wrapped protectively around Lapis's back, holding her close to Pearl's chest. The smell of wet roses that had lingered on the jacket was much stronger at this proximity.

Lapis felt heat bloom in her face and she instinctively pushed herself out of Pearl's grip, hands shoving Pearl back a bit more roughly than intended. She then noticed with their height difference her hands had landed a bit higher than Pearl's stomach, placing them in a place that made Lapis feel the heat intensify in her cheeks. She quickly retracted her arms, fingers snapping shut into her palms.

Pearl looked bewildered, arms hovering to either side.

"Sorry," Lapis said quickly. "Stumble caught me off guard." She willed the heat to abate from her face, but it only seemed to surge up her neck. The confusion was still etched on Pearl's face, but she gave a reassuring smile through it, lifting a placating hand.

"It's alright. Reflexes are a tricky thing, after all." Pearl waved a dismissive hand, a nervous chuckle weakly escaping her, and her eyes darted away to look anywhere but at Lapis. Lapis just huddled in on herself.

"Cool. Uh, lead the way?" It came out more as an awkward question than a suggestion or command. Pearl looked back at her, eyes wide like a deer in headlights before giving a silent nod of confirmation.

She turned stiffly, her hands tense around the oval light source in her palm. Lapis followed her, a grimace on her face that she was trying to smooth out. She flexed her fingers near her chest, attempting to work out the feeling of Pearl on her fingertips and in her flustered mind.

Pearl steadied her pace ahead of Lapis, proper posture returning to her spine. She rubbed her shoulder, the wounded one with the tarnished bandana still wrapped around it. The blood seemed to have stopped flowing a while ago, and what had spilled down her arm was smeared in a vibrant rust in the soft light glowing from her palm. Lapis felt a tinge of worry at the flinch that wracked Pearl's newly recovered posture as she touched a particular spot on her shoulder that was heavy with bloodstain.

"Did I hurt your shoulder?" A prickle pulled at the back of Lapis's head, worry at the possibility of potentially incapacitating Pearl more.

Pearl looked back at her, giving a gentle wave of the hand to brush away her concern. "I'm quite alright." She gave a delicate pat to her shoulder. "Nothing I can't handle. Don't worry about me."

"Kay." Lapis worried anyway. Her reply came off as too blunt to her own ears, but her mind was scrambling at different possibilities ahead of them, shoved headfirst into awareness again of where they were and what they were doing and what they were running from. She felt guilty, but she didn't want to spend time worrying about Pearl's injury if Pearl wasn't going to make anything of it herself. She just needed them to reach the end of this damn tunnel and the end of this journey.

They could worry about Pearl's wound later. Lapis could worry about the state of her feet, the state of her mind, later. They could do all of that later, if they ensured they had a later and kept moving. Pearl clearly had the same idea, locking away any remnants of pain behind a taut mask.

They were deeper into the railway now, the platform edge long behind them in the dark. Ahead it was much the same, a track that shot straight into an inkiness that Pearl's light seeped away at gradually.

"The train route cuts a straighter and narrower path to Beach City. There are quite a few obstacles we would have had to go around if we stayed above, not to mention you aren't fit for the cold weather bearing down on us." Pearl briefly looked away from her steady gaze ahead, giving an acknowledging glance towards Lapis.

"Beach City where we're going, I guess?" Lapis looked at the back of Pearl's head as she turned it forward again.

"Yes, that's correct," Pearl said.

"How far until we get there?" Lapis asked. "Not that this place isn't cozy and all, but I would love to experience a shower." She did appreciate that she no longer could see her own breath down in the tunnel.

"Technically speaking, two more platforms. At this rate we should be there within an hour."

Lapis allowed herself a sagging sigh, shoulders losing just a fraction of rigidity.

"Oh, thank God." Lapis rubbed the heels of her palms roughly into her eyes. "I know I just woke up, or whatever, but I could use a rest." She wasn't quite off guard yet, but she allowed herself the momentary fantasy.

"As could I." Pearl rubbed the back of her neck, fingers brushing through the downy hair on her nape. Lapis copied the action, fingers itching for an indescribable reason. Her hand ran over her neck more roughly, making a small divot in pent up energy she couldn't place. She felt like this was going to be an agonizingly long hour.

Time seemed to crawl along with the dulled thud of their feet on track. Soon, however, another light, a new light, began to emanate ahead of them, and as it did Lapis felt her throat clench up on instinct. But when she noticed Pearl remained unfazed, she cleared the bleariness of fear that pumped through her brain and saw that this light was weak and diluted. In just a few long strides she saw that it was another opening, one that was presented with a boarding platform. Lapis exhaled through her nose heavily, relief at the sight of both a natural light and a landmark in their trek.

Pearl swiveled her head about, looking to the platforms to either side of them, the one on the right with the open well of a staircase, and the one on the left with a darkened ascent against a far wall.

"It looks like we're in the clear here. We shouldn't run into trouble from here on out, as long as we're careful." Pearl began to walk forward again, a confidence to her step that wasn't quite there before. Lapis lingered, looking around with a sudden apprehension that her mind couldn't grasp the roots of. She shrugged it off, trailing after Pearl into the pitch beyond the platform, only the soft glow of Pearl's weird flashlight to lead her.

"Man, it's so dark in here." Lapis looked around, but knew that like the rest of the tunnel, she wouldn't be able to make out much. Just solid concrete to either side, cut off at the top in a sharp gradient of black. The tracks below reflected the light in a much gentler manner, shadows diffused to almost a flat appearance on the gray metal. The flat but yielding light made it less difficult to traverse the upraised bars that crisscrossed, allowing Lapis to move with a more assured step. She didn't want to trip and eat railway, or worse, fall into Pearl again and embarrass herself further.

She was still trying to get over the tingling the first incident left her, and she was pretty sure that was two platforms ago.

Suddenly they were bathed in darkness, the light from Pearl's palm extinguishing. Before Lapis could even register her surprise, a strong hold on her arm pulled her down roughly.

"Hold on," Pearl whispered near her head. Her voice was a cold hiss in Lapis's ear, and she shivered at the sensation. And then the tingle from that whisper melted into a growing buzz, and then a completely different set of whispers.

"Seriously?" Lapis couldn't help the exasperation in her tone. She felt rather than saw Pearl shift, her arm brushing against Lapis. Her hand was still wrapped around Lapis's arm, and Lapis felt herself being pulled forward, feet brushing against the numbing metal of the rail.

"I'm afraid we're going to have to move very quietly." Lapis felt a nudge to her shoulder, causing her to become aware of a bright pinprick in the distance.

"Of course, it's in the direction we need to go," Lapis grumbled.

"I'll kill it if I need to," Pearl assured. "Hopefully it's the only one down here."

"I thought you said you didn't usually run into those things down here?" Lapis gave her a disgruntled look despite the fact she knew Pearl wouldn't be able to see it.

"I usually don't," Pearl said. "It seems like today is just full of exceptions to the status quo."

Lapis heard the shifting of feet, rubble making a distinct crinkling underfoot. It was a preemptive sound that allowed Lapis to prepare herself for the drag on her arm, leading her after Pearl in the darkness. That pinprick steadily grew to a large speck, and then into a beacon. Pearl kept them pushed against the wall of the railway trench closest to the bright seeker, staying out of its overreaching light.

It was staggering on the edge above, a sliver of platform that ran on each side before widening out as Pearl and Lapis slipped past it.

There was no natural light to battle the harsh and ethereal one of the bright seeker, the platform having only two opposing stairwells that swallowed shadow.

Pearl kept her gaze up as they crept by, the tinkle of glass interspersing the blaring buzz in their heads. Lapis bit her lip to keep any stray noise from escaping her. She didn't even know if these things reacted to sound, but she didn't want to find out.

As they passed right under the bright seeker, the warbling voices in Lapis's head grew, almost equal to the static that stretched between her ears. She bit her lip harder, feeling blood trickle down her chin as she fought to keep her cool.

SSsssssSsSsss

The voices inside Lapis's brain hissed, as if trying to conjure words. She felt the nerves behind her eyes twitch, words like sparks attempting to zap at her mind.

SSSsSssssSSSSSSUUUUuu

SSsss

BbbbBBbbbbbbb

Lapis squeezed her eyes shut, trusting Pearl to lead her to where they needed to go. Her temples throbbed, static like dead air on a radio riding her synapses. And then like a pitched cord of a guitar snapping, a much clearer cacophony of voices hummed.

SUN BEARER

Lapis gasped, jolted forth by involuntary shock. She vaguely registered the sound of Pearl cursing before the entire tunnel filled with light, a mass of bodies scrambling down the left stairwell.

Lapis knew she was being pulled forward, legs running without her mind having any say in the matter. She couldn't concentrate, not with all these voices playing her eardrums. Then suddenly Pearl's face was in front of hers, so close she could see the flecks of icy highlights in Pearl's blue eyes.

"Lapis!"

Lapis realized that Pearl was calling her name, and probably had been for the past few seconds.

"Pearl?" She breathed her name like a question, brain still frazzled by the invading frequency.

Pearl had somehow gotten up onto the platform without Lapis noticing, and she was then hauling Lapis up with a strength that belied her thin arms. Those arms gave a sense of steadiness to the wobble in Lapis, and she felt herself yearning for that security when Pearl promptly let go of her.

"Run! Up the stairwell! I'll distract them, just run!" She felt Pearl's hands push her, and Lapis's legs somehow caught her as she lurched forward. Adrenaline took over, drowning out even the voices as she suddenly reached the threshold of the stairwell. And then she looked back, and a moment of clarity came to her as she saw Pearl jumping back into the railway trench, into the horde of bright seekers that were pouring out of the further stairwell.

"Pearl!" Lapis practically choked, faltering at the sight of Pearl pushing through that blinding mass, a glint of metal snuffing out a number as she pushed through them, drawing them in the opposite direction of the stairwell Lapis was half ascended up, drawing them in the opposite direction of Lapis. And then several of those impossibly bright stars came from the stairwell, from the once darkness of the trench, reaching limbs grasping between the shifting waves of light.

Shatterer. Two of them.

Lapis was frozen in fear, fear for herself, but an overwhelming fear for Pearl. She could barely make out the look of determination laced with panic on Pearl's face. Pearl swung a blinding blade at a shatterer as it barreled through the mass, cutting through more than one reaching crystalized limb. But a look of surprise swept over her washed out face as both shatterers completely ignored her, instead plunging forward through the remaining bright seekers, falling clumsily into the trench and crawling back over the edge like spiders to the platform Lapis stood in the stairwell of.

And now those voices were like popping noise, a shrill that shot right through her temples and cut into the veins of her brain.

T

N

R

It was like water on molten metal, the crackle of a blown fuse. Under it was a muffled voice shouting her name like it was being said behind thick glass. But she was fixated on those eyes of glowing pitch, sharp holes that fought against the bright that surrounded them.

And then one of those overlaying voices in her head cut off, like an amp turned too high, severing off with a screeching echo. And the shatterer closest to her seemed to burst, bright head spraying a flurry of frozen condensation. Metal clattered as Pearl's sword skid from the downed head of the shatterer, covered in a viscous fluid that glittered.

Lapis blearily saw the other shatterer reaching for her, before she was pushed to the ground, shoulder hitting heavily against the wall of the stairwell before she fell and tumbled down the steps. The sensation that rushed through her nerves was like plunging into cold water, and instinct brought clarity to her mind as she looked up from her downed place.

She watched as the many hands of the shatterer curled around Pearl, possessively snatching her where Lapis had just stood. It squeezed, and Lapis watched with suffocating dread as a spat of blood came forth from Pearl's mouth instead of a gasp of pain. Those hands then shoved down, smacking Pearl against the stairs, her head cracking audibly on a step and leaving a dark wet spot. The shatterer leaned over Pearl, making her seem so small and wilting under its overwhelming glow, those black eyes seeming to eat away at the light in Pearl.

Lapis didn't think as her body reacted, hand gripping the handle of Pearl's blade that lay discarded on the concrete. The shatterer's limbs felt like cutting through thick and frozen meat, a resistance that gave a too satisfying give. Before that remaining screeching voice in her mind could focus itself back on Lapis, she speared the sword between those two pitch eyes as it turned. Stray arms flailed, loosening Lapis's grip on the sword's handle and knocking her back. And then that light exploded, another dust cloud of glitter that sprayed the concrete like ice snow.

Lapis felt discombobulated, even when the sharp pricks of crystal fingers cut through the skin of her arm. It was enough to bring her back to her senses, the buzz and whispering in her head background noise in comparison to the cacophony that had occupied the space between her ears.

She swung her arms out, a wet thunk squelching as the impact of her flesh against that solid light of the bright seeker cut her.

The pain was like searing ice, but not in vain as the blow knocked the bright seeker away, giving Lapis enough time to scramble for Pearl's sword again.

She swung it wildly, barely registering the extra bright on the remaining bright seekers as she cut through their too solid flesh.

She fell, panting, sword still gripped between tense fingers that dribbled blood and sparkling fluid, mixing into something swirling and pink. There had only been three bright seekers left, and they lay in several pieces on the quickly dulling concrete.

Lapis pushed herself back to her feet, using the fading light of the bright seekers to make her way to Pearl, who lay silently in the still clenched grasp of the dead shatterer. The diminishing white glow made Pearl look too pale, too ghostly, the red of her blood much too bright even in this quickly consuming darkness.

She pried desperately at those thick fingers, crystal skin leaving cuts on Lapis's palms as she forced them open with the sound of breaking ice. She almost cried with relief as she saw a shuddering breath shake Pearl's chest, and Lapis reached hands over her, one going to support her head and the other fumbling for the light device in Pearl's pocket, fingers slippery with blood.

She squeezed it, practically forcing that soft light from it, the warm blue now tinged a pinkish hue from the blood coating it.

"Oh Pearl, oh fuck, fuck." Lapis felt like she was going to throw up. Blood smeared thickly down Pearl's chin, splatters of it staining the light turtleneck of her shirt. Lapis felt the wetness at the side of Pearl's head, leaving a red that was deeper than the red of her hair.

Lapis curled an arm around Pearl, pulling her close as she leaned her head against her shoulder, careful of her chest and more than likely broken ribs.

She felt tears prickle at the corner of her eyes as a choking despair welled up in her stomach and up her throat.

"Fuck."