Chapter 14: A Dying World
[how is it? cold as you thought?]
{Not even close.
{It's way colder.
{I think I might soon lose some extremities.}
[aw, if you were here id warm you up]
Rory closed the neck of her blue jacket as a chill wind blew past her. She was dressed in her Academy outfit, complete with her white, pleated skirt, though she wore yoga pants underneath for added warmth. By contrast, Matt was potentially trapped in ice wearing gear suited for a Jedi visiting Hoth. She could deal with mid-forties temperatures for a few days.
Rory stared at her phone longingly as she wandered along the outer edge of the quad. When she and Matt started dating, they began a tradition of taking a walk at night around the campus hand-in-hand while they talked endlessly. Well, he tended to listen more while she talked, but the important part was that he wasn't there with her. For a few days, he was in the arctic freezing his butt off. She worried about him constantly, and the fact that his texts sometimes took hours to come through meant she spent hours at a time afraid he had become an ice sculpture.
Or that someone might have killed him with a god card. Rory never held a god card, but she heard the multitude of rumors embedded in Duel Academy culture. She always thought they were simple urban legends like every new student did, but the fervor Matt displayed when he told her he had to risk his life in the cold to retrieve them made her wonder if playing cards could really tap into the mythical Shadow Realm. The thought still seemed ridiculous, but it festered in the back of her mind. So many people believed deeply in the danger. Smart people that she cared about—people who wouldn't foolishly believe in superstitions without good reason.
A full circuit around the quad was how long it took for the conversation to lead to her boyfriend's new twin brother. While she waited for the next message elaborating about whether his twin was real, she bemoaned the 160-character limit on text messages and recalled her last meeting with a Matt look-alike.
From the corner of the closet-sized dueling space in the basement of the Red Dorm came applause. Rory reacted with a start until she saw Matt sitting up there… wearing a yellow jacket? That was not his typical attire since he had never lived in the Yellow Dorm. And his hair was colored blond, quite convincingly, too. He stood up and walked down the stairs to the floor of the room.
"That was an effective display of dueling prowess," he suggested. Looking to Rory's roommate Lili, he added, "From both of you. But I wish to request a duel with the winner if she will accept my challenge."
While Rory considered why a man she harbored a poorly-hidden crush on would challenge her to a duel near the middle of the night, Lili simply asked, "What happened to your hair? It looks like you took a crayon to it."
"I was born like this," he answered. "Well, actually I wasn't born with this much hair or with teeth or with any clothes, but my appearance is based on a purely natural progression of the genetic code with which I was born."
Rory wanted to say that didn't sound like something Matt would say, but the truth is it sounded a little bit like him, especially if he were trying to sound pretentious; and he thought it made him sound sexy so he did it with fair frequency when women were around. "Are you feeling okay?"
"I feel somewhat awkward," blond Matt answered. "My heart rate has increased since I witnessed the end of your duel. I believe your Cyberdark Dragon is calling me. Figuratively, of course. It's quite impossible for a card spirit to speak on any sort of level interpretable by human ears. It may be possible for you to detect the call of the spirit with suitable study and skill, however. One day, perhaps."
"What are you saying?" Lili asked.
"He's not Matt," Rory concluded. She remembered hearing the rumors others told of Matt's look-alikes. All of them bore a very strong resemblance, although there were subtle differences in appearance and behavior aside from their differing hair colors. This guy used words much more complicated than Matt usually did, and he wasn't even trying to be funny. Plus he was blond. Clearly, this was not Matt. "Is there a better name I can call you?"
"My name is Citrinitas."
Matt walked into the arena toward the ongoing duel. When he passed the seated spectators, Clinton asked, "How did you get in here?"
"Really, Clint? There's two of me in the room and that's the question you want answered?" He stepped up to the duel and said, "I'm more interested to know who—" He stopped suddenly when he bumped into something unseen. "What the?" He tried poking the air a few times, each time hitting something he couldn't see. He tapped it a few times with the tip of his shoe to the same result.
"It's some kind of force field," Lili told him. She pointed out the Transmutation Circle on the floor outside of the duel station and explained, "It appeared when he played that card."
"What card?"
"It's called Transmutation Circle – Citrinitas," Ivy told him. "Apparently it lets him avoid any effects that negate Trap cards."
"And the weird thing," Synthia added, "is that he calls himself Citrinitas. It's like he named himself after the card."
Matt shook his head. "I think the card is named after him," he mumbled. "Who are you, really? And what is this circle that can't be penetrated?"
"I can't tell you that. Father doesn't want me to talk to you."
Matt looked confused. "Father? Whose father? Our father?" Citrinitas closed his mouth and clamped down, refusing to say anything else.
"Fine. You want to play like an apprentice? Let's see if I can figure it out." He closed his eyes for a moment and began pacing to get started.
Rory was concerned about Matt and wanted to help him get answers. She glared at Citrinitas and asked, "How about I win and you have to tell him everything?"
"No, that won't work," Matt told her. "Every time one of them loses a duel, he or she disappears. Why is that?" As he paced, he really stopped talking to anyone in particular; it was just a way to get words out of his head. "Duel Alchemy 101. A Transmutation Circle alters energy at a fundamental level and turns it into a completely different form of energy but it needs some kind energy in order to activate in the first place. You wouldn't use your own energy because that would be counterproductive. Where, then, would you get that much energy? You can't just take it from your opponent because you would have to connect them physically to the Transmutation Circle in order to do so, but then you risk the opponent drawing energy from the circle, am I right?"
Citrinitas made no attempt to respond. He even kept a blank, expressionless visage.
"I can see you won't respond to little truths, so let's see if I can come to a bigger one." He looked to Rory and said, "And Rory, please, feel free to help push me if you feel I'm getting off in the wrong direction."
"Okay," she agreed, not sure she could help.
"Alright then. So where was I? Ah, an energy source." He tried to think back to his Duel History class in which they covered Alchemy among other ancient duel techniques. "People are an obvious source of energy, but we've already decided people are not the source." Remembering the story Darius told him, he said, "But there is another abundant source in a duel. Card spirits. It's a totally ridiculous notion, I agree, but if there really is such a thing as the Shadow Realm, then maybe it is possible for other spiritual energy to be sealed inside playing cards."
Excitedly, he shouted, "That's why your card versions of the alchemy circles require rare and powerful cards as sacrifices. When you and your siblings win, the energy is drained from the cards to give you power. But when you lose, the cards are spared and your energy is taken instead. That's why you keep disappearing, isn't it?
"But what I can't figure out is how many of you people there are. It just doesn't make sense. There have been three men and one woman who people say looked almost exactly like me. Dizygotic twins don't look that much alike. A familial resemblance, sure, but they are never described as being 'identical.' And it is impossible for all of us to be monozygotic twins because monozygotic twins cannot be cross-gendered."
Noticing the look on Synthia's face, Ivy repeated Matt's words, but replacing the word 'dizygotic' with 'fraternal' and 'monozygotic' with 'identical.' "Basically, Matt's saying they can't all be related because it's biologically impossible."
"So what's the deal?" Rory asked Citrinitas. "If you aren't legitimate siblings, does that make you clones?"
"Clones!" Matt realized. "Of course. Albedo told Cary that she was only two months old. That might make sense if she were some sort of clone." He shook his head and waved his hand quickly in the air to say, "Let's forget the debate over a clone's development speed. Instead, let's focus on the fact that Mitsuro remembered Albedo claiming to be eight months old. Now why would she claim to be two different ages at the exact same time?"
While he scratched his chin, Rory looked at Citrinitas and asked him, "How old are you?"
"Two hundred eighty-four days," he answered.
"That's interesting…" Matt muttered, taking in the information. "You are only a month older than Albedo. But how can you be the exact same age as a female clone? And why was there a female clone in the first place? Forgetting the fact that I can't even begin to figure out your father's master plan, what is the point to altering the genetics of a clone in order to make it a woman? Was it some sort of mistake? A fluke mutation?"
"Hey!" Lili shouted.
"Sorry. I didn't mean women in general are mutations. I am a big fan of women, in fact. I find myself thinking about them constantly." But that didn't stop him from rambling more on a different topic.
"Why make a small army of clones and then send them out just one at a time? They've never been seen together, and they each have a different Transmutation Circle card." He started hopping up and down as if to force the ideas out of his head. "What does it all mean?"
"Jumping up and down won't do anything for you," Citrinitas commented. Matt stopped and stared at his alleged clone. Citrinitas realized he just spoke despite claiming his father prohibited it. He looked guilty for a moment, but then he announced, "You look foolish and are acting illogically. Jumping will not help you answer questions you cannot possibly know."
Quite surprised that Citrinitas said anything, Matt asked him, "Then tell me a more logical way to find the answers I seek. How can I figure out your past?"
"You can't. These answers are beyond the scope of your knowledge and understanding. Dueling energy made my development much quicker than any human's ever was. Duel spirits make it easier, losing speeds my development, and only duelists with a certain level of power are capable of sending me to the next stage, which is exactly why I chose this opponent! Now let's finish this duel!"
Rory was surprised by Citrinitas's sudden outburst, but Matt couldn't reach past the circle to calm her. He simply pressed his hand against the force field and hoped his gesture would encourage her.
"Losing speeds your development?" Rory repeated, suddenly finding her own strength. "Then let's speed it up."
{Real twin. Not a clone this time. Check with Cary.}
[good to hear]
She assumed he was having Cary check into the twin's validity for him. Last year, she had figured out that Matt had a twin that had died at birth. Obviously the death certificate was wrong. Now he probably wanted Cary to dig deeper. Rory might be jealous Matt put so much faith in Cary if it weren't true that she had better internet search skills. But still, it sucked that she couldn't help at all except to listen.
{I'll let you about him when I get home.
{Right now, I need some sleep.}
[okay sweetie, be safe]
Seeing his request to stop texting was like having her heart ripped out. Every minute they weren't talking, she felt the deep-seated fear that she might never talk to him again. But it was easier to end a conversation that could be resumed the next day than to leave a message hanging overnight. An unanswered message made her worry even more. Finishing a conversation let her believe he was still alive the whole time. Nerves wracked and adrenaline pumping, she would finish her current lap around the quad to give herself time to settle before heading back to the dormitory.
The quad was quiet, as was usual in this weather. The air was brisk and frost just barely tipped the grass so early in the night. The only signs of people she saw were the backs of a couple patrolling police officers, two guys wearing backpacks headed back to the dorms from the library, and one girl walking diagonally across the quad away from the dorms. Rory vaguely recognized the girl from her perfect hair with the gorgeous curls, but only enough to know she was a senior. As a sophomore, Rory didn't spend a lot of time socializing with seniors, except the one who was engaged to her boyfriend's best friend.
Still, it was odd to see the girl walking away from the dorms at this time of night. The campus did have a curfew that would be in effect within a half hour. When Rory reached the corner of the quad and was just about to pass the stone archway leading to the Blue Mansion's lawn, she took a look back just on a hunch. Hidden behind a spruce tree enough to see without being seen, her suspicions felt confirmed when the black-haired beauty began looking around to see that she wasn't being followed. When the suspicious one felt secure, she disappeared in front of Wilson Hall.
Rory had to rub her eyes and blink a few times to make sure she was still able to see clearly. The girl didn't disappear metaphorically or figuratively: She literally disappeared into thin air in the middle of a grassy field.
"I have to check this out," she said to no one. Matt's blond clone disappeared after her duel with him and she never quite figured out how or what it meant. What was this girl's story? The situation intrigued her.
At the end of the quad, nothing seemed out of place. She may not have found the invisible door if not for the footprints in the frost. Where the footprints disappeared, she watched the air carefully. After a full minute, the air shifted, like watching steam rise. Unable to resist, Rory reached out to tap the distorted space with the tip of a fingernail. Moving very slowly in case it turned out to be a black hole that would forever keep a loose appendage, her fingernail disappeared from sight, yet she never felt a pull on her fingers. Beginning with the next step of letting an entire finger get swallowed by the invisible door, Rory stepped out of the Duel Academy quadrangle and into a world she'd never seen.
The sky was no longer blue. The northeast of it was inky black, and from the blackness shone the pale white stars, brightly and steadily. Overhead the sky was a deep red—starless—and the southeast sky grew brighter to a glowing scarlet where lay the huge hull of the sun, deep red and ten times as large as she'd ever seen it, even though cut by the horizon. Long gone was the frost-tipped lawn, well-maintained by the Duel Academy grounds staff. The terrain turned to rocks of a harsh reddish color, and the only trace of life Rory could see at first was the intensely green vegetation that covered every projecting point on the rocks' southeastern faces. It was the same rich green color one might see on forest moss or on the lichen in caves: plants that grow in a perpetual twilight. It was a curious sight for a place in the open.
Campus grounds were flooded by rising water levels as if the island had sunk. Rory found herself standing before a wide oceanfront where there used to be lecture halls and dormitories. There were no breakers and no waves without a breath of wind stirring. Only a slight swell rose and fell like a gentle breathing along the surface of the sand, showing that the expanded sea was still moving and living. And along the margin where the water licked the land was a thick veneer of salt, turned pink under the vivid sky.
Never had Rory witnessed such bleak landscapes. There was a sense of oppression in her heart unlike anything ever felt before. It felt as if the environment itself disapproved of her presence.
A harsh scream tore through the still air far away up the desolate slope. Frozen in fear, Rory saw something that resembled a huge white butterfly, slanting and flittering into the sky and, circling, disappear over some ruined buildings beyond. The sound of its voice was so depressing that she shivered and hugged herself tightly as if taking refuge beneath her own skin. With eyes off the horizon and looking around again, Rory saw that one instance of what she had taken to be a reddish mass of rock was moving slowly along the beach. The thing was really a monstrous, crab-like creature as large as a kitchen table, with its many legs moving slowly and uncertainly, its big claws swaying, its long antennae waving and feeling, and its stalked eyes gleaming on either side of its metallic front. She was close enough to see the many joints of its complicated mouth flickering and feeling as it moved.
Frightened by the obscure wildlife dotting this dying world, Rory turned to run back to Duel Academy's chilled campus and dive into her warm bed. But she caught sight of the girl she followed into this place. The girl was only a short distance away, inspecting a fallen ruin that may have once been the Medici Building where visitors found temporary housing on-campus. Curiosity overcame her fear and helped her traverse the rough terrain. Every step she took brought a clunk as rocks tumbled into one another.
The girl heard her coming, and she recognized the intruder. "Rory Borealis?" she said, using the most hated nickname Rory ever received. Maybe "hate" was too strong, but she hated her parents for naming her Aurora.
"How did you get here?" the girl continued.
"Same way as you, I think," she said, trying to appear light-hearted and unfazed. "Um… Where are we?"
The girl scoffed loudly. "Don't you recognize it? This is Duel Academy."
"That's impossible!" Rory's exclamation was reflexive—an automatic response to an outlandish idea that already crept through her mind. She felt a harsh squeeze in her stomach. Calmed, she said, "I'm sorry for the outburst."
The girl's expression never changed. "I was messing with you. I have no idea if this is actually Duel Academy. The only certainty is: This world is on its deathbed."
Despite having someone right next to her as company, Rory never felt so empty and alone. Her mind went into a borderline state of shock, unable to process the words she just heard. "I'm sorry. I followed you here but I don't know your name."
"Serpentina."
"Really?" Suddenly "Aurora" wasn't the worst thing her parents could have named her. "No last name?"
"No."
"That's cool. Like Cher or Madonna."
Serpentina looked at her sideways. "You're nervous."
"I've never been to another world," Rory admitted softly. Saying it out loud untied one of her stomach's knots. She wanted it to be meant as a joke, but the environment bothered her. After all the time spent wondering what happened, the sun hadn't fallen any farther from the horizon. That's when she realized: The earth had stopped turning.
"You know, this place has improved since the first time I visited."
"Improved? Does that mean the same thing to you as it does to me?"
"I think so. When I was here at the beginning of the semester, the red beach was lifeless, save those green lichens, and everywhere was flecked with white. White flakes came whirling down from the sky. The cold here was bitter and chilled straight to the bone. Out there where the sky is pure black, there was a glare of snow under the starlight. The rolling hills back there were pinkish white. I could even see fringes of ice along the sea margin, with drifting masses further out, but the main expanse of the ocean was still unfrozen.
"But at midterms last semester, things were significantly bleaker. The darkness was intense and a cold wind blew in freshening gusts constantly, and those showering white flakes in the air were increased in number. The edge of the sea presented little more than a ripple and whisper. Beyond those lifeless sounds the world was silent. Well, words are actually insufficient to convey the sheer stillness of it.
"I foresaw in that moment what would come next. One by one, swiftly, one after the other, the white peaks of the distant hills that looked pink were ready to vanish into blackness. The breeze would rise at minimum to a moaning wind. I foresaw the black central shadow of the eclipse sweeping towards me. In another moment the pale stars would hover in the sky alone. All else would be bleak obscurity. The sky was destined for absolute blackness.
"But something's changed. It's as if the life is returning to this world. Ever since that horrific storm struck Duel Academy last semester, this world has regained something it once lost."
Rory looked around her, drawing only one conclusion about her location. "This world is dying."
"On the contrary, this world is being revived. Maybe even the disappearing students will return."
"Come again?"
"You haven't heard the stories?" Serpentina asked.
With a gentle shake of her head, she replied, "What stories?"
"Over the years, several students have disappeared from Duel Academy. No one knows for certain what happened to them. Investigations made public knowledge turned up nothing, and they all get dropped over time for various reasons. The most publicly acceptable theory is the students lie at the bottom of the ocean after the water swallowed them up, either intentionally or accidentally. It's a tough school sometimes, you know? One theory popular among believers in magic is that students have been taken by the Shadow Realm. Who knows what information was censored in the multitude of investigations over the years?"
Her head continued to shake. "People disappear?"
"People don't disappear. I think they stumbled into this world here."
Rory heard about the disappearing students before, though only briefly. She never thought it anything more than spooky, ghost stories to scare students awake at night.
To break the silence, Serpentina asked, "You know Mitsuro? Dr. West's assistant?"
"I think so. The one who wears the green bandana all the time? Thinks she's Batman."
"Well, you're thinking of the right face, but you're merging her with Leon Verbeet after he got hit by the foul ball at the student-faculty softball game. And he actually thought he was Aqua Man."
"Is that why he drinks so much water?"
"Probably. Mitsuro is one of the people who has lost a family member to Duel Academy's mystery. Her brother disappeared from campus, but she doesn't know anything about what happened to him. No clue left behind at all. That's supposedly a big reason she began dueling. She wanted access to the school to do her own investigation." Her expression fell solemn. "A lot of people have lost siblings." Her sullen voice caught Rory's attention. "I've seen Mitsuro looking around. I don't think she's found this place yet." Rory agreed. Mitsuro probably would have said something if she found an interdimensional doorway.
"Have you seen any sign of anyone else?"
"Not yet. But I intend to search this whole place if I have to. It will be tricky due to the rapidly changing ecosystem, but if I can find the cause of this world's revival, maybe he'll be nearby." She hid a smirk as she turned to meet Rory's eyes. "My search could be faster with a second person."
Rory was still hugging herself to fight the bitter cold this world offered. "Honestly, I'm scared and I want very badly to go home."
"Honestly, I wouldn't offer the chance to help me except that you followed me here in the first place. But you're out of luck for a while. The door opens only for a moment and then closes again, not to reopen for a while. You and I are stuck here together at least until morning." She pointed inland and added, "I ended my last search about two hundred yards that way. Either come with me or stay here and wait for the door to open. Just for reference, time moves more slowly in this world, and those crabs can crush boulders with their pincers."
Another hideous screech filled the air as a second butterfly, or maybe the same one circling back around, flitted through the sky on its way back toward the dying sun. "Eight hours, plus, on this beach? My chances are probably better staying with the girl who survived three trips here. At least I wore comfortable pants. Let's go."
Trekking through the rock-addled terrain, Rory and her guide hadn't traveled more than thirty yards when the air on the ashen beach flickered as if opening again, and a hand appeared in the air like drawing back a curtain.