Chapter 13 - See The Light

Cassandra tossed and turned, muttering in her sleep. Her head and eyes were swathed in bandages and an IV dripped a sparkling, dark blue fluid beside her. Thunder and Emi were beside themselves, though Bryn and Calythé had both confirmed that she was going to live and make a full recovery.

"She had an encounter with something truly nasty," Calythé said darkly, briefly glancing outside at the horrible purple light.

Lorre walked in. "I have the beast here." He held a large jar of a clear fluid. Suspended within the fluid was a horrifying creature. It looked like a swollen pink brain. Below it was a nasty-looking tentacle. This one's was mangled and bloodied.

"This is a brain sucker, for lack of a better term," Lorre explained, holding up the jar. "They seem to swarm around the pillar. All I can really say is that there aren't really any easy ways to stop them from sitting on your head and hypnotizing you. It seems to affect your eyes and mental acuity above all."

"You can say that again," Bryn said matter-of-factly, stepping into the room. "I've been getting reports from all over Terraria. Apparently there are four of these horrid pillars in various locations around the world. There's also an orange one, a green one, and a blue one, and people are seeing up to five different suns in the sky just before having very painful eye problems."

"How can you be so impersonal about stuff like this?" asked Calythé incredulously. Bryn shrugged.

"In any case," said Lorre, shifting the jar in his grip, "there appears to not be that many ways to prevent being hypnotized. Whatever these creatures are, they're definitely not of our soil or they were never meant to be. Our human minds are very fragile against this menace."

Calythé cleared her throat. "I've been staring at where my senses tell me the purple sun is for several minutes."

"CAL! NO! DON'T LOOK STRAIGHT AT THE LIGHT!" Bryn rushed up, attempting to tackle her. Calythé simply pushed her aside.

"Sure, looking directly at the light and the suns is dangerous, but it can only hurt you if you can see it," she said, turning her head and standing up. "While I can see with my mind, the light cannot actually penetrate my eyeballs, so it can't hurt me."

"So what you're saying is..." Bryn asked, confused.

"What I'm saying is that the light must have some kind of hypno-psychotropic frequency that mesmerizes the brain through the optic nerve, or some sciencey stuff like that. Basically, if you can see the light, it'll hurt you, and when Miss Cassie wakes up, she'll probably be able to tell us how it affects humans. But if you can't see the light - say, because you're already blind - it won't be able to affect you. I can still 'see' it - if it's not blinding you it's actually a rather pretty color - but I can't actually SEE it."

There was a piercing scream from outside. A messenger from the Archers' Guild was standing in the courtyard, staring directly at the pink-violet sun. The boy's eyes were turning entirely mauve, from sclera to pupils, and there were rivulets of thick violet fluid running down his cheeks. The entire front of his tunic dripped a mixture of his own blood and the purple liquid. He howled in agony, unable to move. A second brain sucker clamped onto the top of his head, injecting the boy with psycho-manipulative chemicals as he let loose scream after heartbreaking scream.

Calythé rose and swept out. "Let me handle this," she shouted as she left the room. "The light won't harm me."

"Hey Lorre, why didn't it harm you?" asked Bryn.

"I didn't look," he replied very simply, shrugging.

Meanwhile, at the Summoners' Guild...

Eytan lay propped up in bed in the sanitarium, a cool bandage wrapped around his eyes. While the healers had done the best they could to wash the bloodstains off his face, he still had huge red blotches on his cheeks where it had refused to come off.

There came a soft knock on the door to his room. "Come in," he said uncertainly.

Marina entered the room. "Hello, Eytan."

"You," he hissed.

She sat down by his bed, where there was a small table with a cloth and a basin of cool water. After dipping the cloth in the water and wringing it, she began gently dabbing at Eytan's pale forehead. "Listen, Eytan, I shouldn't have brought you to the periscope. I should - this is my fault..." Marina lowered her head and began weeping softly, continuing to pat at his forehead with the cool cloth. Then she looked up suddenly. "Wha-"

There was a thick, pale blue fluid flowing down Eytan's face, soaking into his tunic, his sheets. He removed a hand from the sheets and gently moved Marina's hand aside, and then very deliberately removed the bandages around his eyes.

The whites, pupils, and irises of his eyes had turned completely blue, and the fluid was leaking from them at an astounding rate. He turned his head very slowly to face Marina, staring her down.

"Your fault?" he chuckled, blue liquid dripping from his jawline. "No, Marina, I have to thank you."

"W-why?" she stuttered, transfixed and unable to move despite desperately wanting to bolt.

"Oh, yes," Eytan intoned, unblinking. "For while staring at the blue sun may have blinded me, it has heightened my power, my focus, and all my other senses. And, indeed, I know the truth now! I have seen the vast and uncaring emptiness and I understand!"

"I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean," Marina said in a timid, quivering voice. He had not blinked or looked away since removing the bandages, and she somehow knew that he would be able to go for eternity without blinking, without the need to blink, without the desire to blink, without the ability to blink.

Eytan laughed, a deep laugh that was several voices at once, none of them his own.

"Poor, sweet, simple Marina," he giggled, "you never will, my dear."

Before Marina even had time to react, Eytan's hand shot out and closed around her neck. Marina felt herself lifted into the air, her hands scrabbling at her throat as she gasped for breath. Eytan, still laughing that strange and inhuman laugh, swiveled in bed and stood, never breaking his eye contact with the struggling girl.

"Long live La Lune," he snarled.

Then Eytan, without emotion, hurled Marina to the ground, breaking her neck and killing her instantly.

Satisfied, he strolled out of the room, dripping the blue liquid as he left.