Chapter 5 - A Short Stroll

Amelia was the first to regain consciousness on the other side. Ina and IRyS were still passed out on the floor of this place, so she took some time to look around.

They were in a long hallway whose walls stretch up beyond where Amelia could see. Everything around them looked to be made out of glass with crystals and prisms contained within. The natural light of the place scattered off of the corners and edges in the walls and floor. Around twenty feet above them, a dark blue river of something flowed down the hall. Amelia could only assume that it was representing the flow of time.

Representing? It probably was the flow of time. Amelia chuckled quietly to herself. She pulled out the watch from her pocket and looked at the face of it. As she walked around, the time on the watch changed to reflect when she was. Right now, she was two days before she would wake up with the ticking sound in her head.

A noise from the floor caught her attention. She glanced down and saw that IRyS was beginning to wake up. The girl blinked several times before groaning and sitting up on her elbows. She then rubbed her forehead and looked around at the place.

"Of course you're awake," she said with disgust when she noticed that Amelia was standing above her. Amelia scoffed.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked in return. IRyS stood up and brushed off her dress.

"It means I'm not here to make friends. I just want to get the Council off my back," she replied, fixing a piece of her shirt. Amelia narrowed her eyes.

"You mean you were just acting remorseful back there?" Amelia slowly reached for the light dagger inside her coat. IRyS sighed and put her hands up like she was surrendering.

"I don't want to kill you or Ina anymore. I have no reason to. But I don't want to get along with you. I agree with what you said earlier about me going somewhere else," IRyS explained herself. Amelia didn't take her hand off of the dagger just yet.

"So why even come here?" IRyS gestured to everything around her.

"I wanted to see this place and see if I could figure out who really caused all of this." Amelia stared at her for a little longer before letting go of the dagger and lowering her hand to her side.

"At least we can agree on something," she stated before crouching down to Ina. She lightly shook her friend on the ground until her eyes fluttered open.

"Oh, hey, are we there yet?" Amelia smiled and shook her head, laughing lightly to herself.

"You sound like a kid on a road trip," she said, standing up and offering a hand to pull Ina up. The girl on the ground accepted and was soon standing next to the other two.

"Alright," IRyS said immediately, "where, or I guess when to, detective?" Amelia glanced at the watch and began to walk towards where the river was flowing towards. The clock hands began to rapidly turn clockwise, indicating that they were going in the right direction. She motioned for the other two to follow her.

They walked down the glass hallway, admiring how the colors shifted as the light refracted around them. It would have been peaceful if IRyS wasn't making the entire situation tense by existing.

"Can I have my crystals back at least?" IRyS asked behind Amelia.

"No." Amelia made sure to answer for both her and Ina. Knowing her, the Priestess would be too quick to give back the crystal.

"I wouldn't do anything even if I could. I just don't want them to get damaged again." Amelia heard the spite in IRyS' voice and stopped walking.

"You know," she said, slowly turning to face the girl that had just royally pissed her off, "I wonder what happens if someone were to go the wrong way in here." Amelia reached into her coat again and grabbed the dagger, very clearly threatening IRyS.

"C-Come on guys. Let's not fight in here," Ina said to the other two nervously. IRyS and Amelia held their hateful stares for a little longer before looking away. Amelia put the dagger back into her coat and began walking forwards without a word. Everyone continued to follow her.

Amelia didn't know if it was the actual atmosphere of this place, but it felt stuffy. It was like a very humid day with no breeze. Those were Amelia's least favorite days. A person's only means of cooling off was either sweating or shade. Amelia would usually choose the second when in the company of others, but there was none of that around. Every place in the Corridors appeared to be equally illuminated…

Just as that thought crossed through Amelia's mind, she glanced down a branching path.

Unlike all the others, this one was dark, almost looking burnt. The glass floor, walls, and ceiling were all shattered into various fragments that stuck upwards at random angles. None of the fluid above them flowed in this direction.

"What the hell…?" IRyS mumbled under her breath, stopping to look closer at it. All three of them stared down the darkened corridor, squinting their eyes in an attempt to see further.

Amelia crept as close as she dared to it, using the watch to keep her friends safe at the same time. Just when she was about to pull her gaze away, something shifted in the darkness far down the corridor. Amelia felt her heart rate rise and her breaths became heavier. Ina noticed these changes in her demeanor.

"You see something?" she looked over and asked the detective. Amelia kept her eyes trained on where she had seen the movement, but slowly turned her head towards Ina.

"Y-Yeah… I think I saw something move-" Amelia did eventually look towards Ina and the words froze in her throat when she did.

A figure cloaked in darkness, a Vessel of the Elder Ones, stood right behind the Priestess. The Vessel had one of their blades carefully resting against Ina's exposed neck. Somehow, Ina was completely oblivious to any of this.

"Is there something on my face?" Ina asked, continuing to show her ignorance towards the figure behind her. Amelia pulled her jaw back closed and tried to steady her breathing. The Vessel lowered the blade against Ina's neck slightly.

"N-no, just a little spooked by the darkness is all," she said nervously. Ina slowly nodded, unsure as to how she should respond to Amelia's contrasting actions and words.

"Well I see absolutely nothing," IRyS said behind Amelia, "I say we keep moving, unless you're too much of a scaredy cat-" IRyS cut her sentence short, too, but for different reasons compared to Amelia. Ina's eyes went wide, but she stayed planted in place. Amelia risked taking her eyes off of the Vessel to see what IRyS had done.

During her taunting, IRyS had accidentally taken a step too far in the wrong direction. A piece of the glass floor shot upwards like a spike and stabbed IRyS under her jaw. It wasn't too deep, but the fact that IRyS had not been able to react to it meant that these things were lightning fast.

"Don't move, either of you!" Amelia commanded. Ina obeyed silently, but IRyS did not. She slowly lifted her head up and off of the spike and it eventually retracted back into the ground. IRyS then put her hand against the shallow wound left on her jaw. It didn't bleed much, but it hurt pretty badly.

"I got it," she grumbled at Amelia. The detective shook her head in displeasure before turning back to Ina. The Vessel had backed off now, standing a few yards behind Ina now. It was still clearly threatening to kill her if Amelia spoke about it, though.

"Let's keep moving carefully," Amelia enunciated. IRyS mumbled something under her breath that was probably directed at Amelia. Normally, she would take offense to something like this, but the fact that they were being watched by something made her forgive it this time.

They passed a few more blackened corridors on their way. Each time Amelia looked into the darkness, she could see the Vessel standing there. They stared deep into her soul, like they were trying to instill something into her. If it was complete terror, they were succeeding. Amelia tried her best to not look too scared on the outside, but she knew her entire body was tensed up.

Even when there were no dark corridors around, Amelia could feel the Vessel burning holes into her with their stare. She felt completely helpless, like she was a fish in a bowl or an animal at a zoo. It was like she was being observed and toyed with…

"OI!" Something grabbed her shoulder which caused her to whirl around and put a hand on her gun. IRyS quickly retracted her hand, seeing that she had accidentally set off Amelia's fight or flight. "Sorry, but you weren't answering me or her!" she said, pointing a finger at a very nervous looking Ina.

"Yeah, you were like in a trance…" Ina said quietly, "We just wanted to know how much farther it is." Amelia ran her hand through her hair before looking down at the watch.

"How long was I like that?" she asked before saying when they were. IRyS rolled her eyes.

"Like a few minutes, but does time even work like that in here?" she whined. Amelia saw her point.

"It's only a little farther ahead," she finally answered the original question, "Theoretically, we should be able to see it by now." All three girls strained their eyes to try and see anything wrong with the area ahead of them. As they got closer, they all became increasingly worried by the lack of anything strange.

And when Amelia stopped in the exact place the intrusion occurred, there was nothing.

The dark pathways branching off from the main one had been the only thing the group had seen in here. Amelia had seen more, though, so she knew there had to be something more.

"Start searching!" she told the other two. Ina immediately dropped to her knees and began to run her hands along the ground. IRyS was more hesitant, but eventually walked over to one of the walls and began to inspect it closer.

Amelia lightly brushed her hands against the opposite wall, feeling for any imperfection along its smooth surface. The glassy surface felt cold, almost painfully so. Still though, Amelia made sure to carefully inspect every inch of the wall.

And yet there was still nothing.

"What the hell are we even looking for?" IRyS whined, looking over her shoulder in disgust at Amelia. Amelia felt the other girl's eyes on her back and turned around, as well.

"How should I know?! You're the one who felt this disturbance, so you of all people should know what to look for!" Amelia said accusingly. IRyS scoffed, fully turning to face Amelia. Ina now pulled her attention away from the floor and looked up at the other two.

"In case you forgot, my assumption was wrong and I admit that. But maybe my actions were right after all!" IRyS took an aggressive step towards Amelia, who took one in return. "I am not here for you two! I am here to appease the Council, so they don't kill me! If either of you are hiding something for some sick reason, now is the time to say so!" IRyS began to scream at both Amelia and Ina.

"Why the fuck would we be hiding anything?!" Amelia began to scream back, taking more steps towards IRyS. Ina watched from the floor, frozen by the tension propagating within the corridor. "I am a god damn detective! It is literally my job to find and report things, so don't accuse me of hiding anything!" Amelia and IRyS were only a few inches from each other at this point.

Amelia's jaw was clenched, with one hand in her coat pocket on the light dagger.

IRyS was staring at Amelia with such animosity that it would burn a hole though most people.

It could have been a twitch from IRyS' eye or a slight movement from Amelia's pocket, but whatever triggered it caused both girls to swing at each other. Ina quickly stood up to stop them from killing each other.

Amelia swung the light dagger directly at the right side of IRyS' head, but her strike was expertly blocked by IRyS' arm. IRyS threw a punch that grazed Amelia's chin. Ina tried to wrap them both up with tentacles to pull them away from each other, however they either were repelled or burnt away when they got close.

Amelia pushed against IRyS' arm, trying to drive the dagger into her skull with every ounce of strength she had. IRyS hit Amelia in the gut with another punch, almost knocking the wind out of her. Amelia's swing with the dagger was repelled, but she quickly spun around and swung again, this time from the left side. IRyS blocked in the same way, but Amelia expected this. She threw a punch of her own at IRyS' arm, forcing it back just enough for the tip of the dagger to enter IRyS' left shoulder.

IRyS grunted in pain, feeling the light magic pour into her left side. It slowly began to eat away at her flesh like a virus. She kicked Amelia hard in the stomach, throwing them both away from each other. Amelia collided with Ina, knocking her away, too.

The corridor suddenly became enveloped by the screams of IRyS and Ina. Amelia fought through the pain in her abdomen and stood up, looking around at what had just happened.

Both Ina and IRyS had at least a dozen crystal spikes plunged into their bodies, skewering them to the ground. Their screams told her that both were in immeasurable pain. She had to think quickly and get them out of there. As much as she hated it, she needed to get IRyS out of here alive. Otherwise, the Council might just decide to kill her. It was clear that they cared about IRyS in a way that Amelia didn't yet understand.

"Stop struggling!" she commanded both of them. Ina stopped moving first, her screams dying down to slight whimpers of pain. Her blood began to form small pools around her. IRyS followed suit when she saw that Ina was at least no longer dying and too stopped screaming.

"Wh-What the hell m-makes you so sp-special, huh?!" IRyS yelled, annoyed by Amelia's unscathed body. Amelia saw the Vessel appear in the corner of her vision, standing just behind IRyS. It held its hand out, pointing a single finger at IRyS, clearly threatening her. Amelia knew that she had to be careful with her next words.

"G-Guess I got lucky…" she lied. IRyS' sour expression didn't change.

"Fucking figures…" she mumbled to herself. Amelia rolled her eyes, thankful that IRyS hadn't pushed any farther on the issue at least. She walked over and crouched down next to Ina, carefully inspecting where the spikes had stabbed her. None of the wounds looked too deep, less than an inch for all of them.

"Only move in the direction I tell you to," Amelia said, holding the time watch out in front of her. By moving the time watch around, she could see in which direction time was supposed to be moving. Judging by how the spike that stabbed IRyS before had retracted when she moved away, it was probably their safest bet on getting out of there.

"Move your arm this way," Amelia told Ina, lightly guiding Ina's left arm away from her body. Ina hissed from the pain of the crystal spike slowly being removed from her flesh. After around half an inch of movement, the spike suddenly retracted, causing Ina to wince in pain.

Amelia repeated this process of slowly moving each of Ina's body parts to the left until only three spikes remained. All three came from the nearby wall and provided a much trickier challenge. They all required that Ina move towards the spike, rather than away from it.

"S-shit…" Ina whispered, feeling incredibly winded from all the previous spikes being removed. Amelia gave her a sad look, pitying her for what needed to come next.

"It's going to hurt a lot," she said, not sugar coating the incoming pain for Ina. With tiny movements, Amelia pushed Ina's right arm into one of the spikes. Ina summoned a tentacle to bite down on. After a thankfully shorter distance than usual, the spike retracted back into the wall. Ina let out a cry of relief, but there were still two more spikes stabbing into her back that needed to be dealt with. She bit down on the tentacle again as the pain resumed. It ended just as the edges of her vision began to close in and she saw a couple flashes of white instead. Complete and utter relief flooded her body, as she laid on the ground completely unmoving.

"Th-Thanks, Amelia," she said once her mind began to return back to normal. Amelia slowly helped Ina up into a sitting position before she went over to help IRyS with her spikes. The Vessel was still there, pointing at IRyS' pinned body. It seriously creeped Amelia out, but she tried to ignore it.

IRyS had been watching and listening to what Amelia was instructing Ina to do and had already removed several spikes from her body. With one last jerk of her arm, she freed herself from the last of the easy spikes. There were still five more that required her to move into them.

"Let me help," Amelia crouched down and got ready to help.

"S-Screw off!" IRyS said through gritted teeth before beginning to move one of her legs into two spikes. With muffled crying and grunting, she forced her leg into the spikes and it retracted. She did the same with her other leg, pushing into one more spike and having it retract. She stopped after this, noticing her vision starting to blur and the room beginning to spin.

"You're hurting yourself more than you have to, IRyS," Amelia said, seeing the large gashes that IRyS had opened up with her inefficient moves. Since she was unable to see where most of the spikes were stabbing into her and that she didn't know the exact direction to move, IRyS was causing herself more injury than necessary. It annoyed Amelia to see pride pushing IRyS to do such irrational things.

"F-fine…" IRyS relented. Her head was feeling so light that she finally let Amelia help her. With a couple more agonizing, but less painful than before, moves IRyS was also freed from the spikes. She quickly also got into a sitting position far away from the pools of her blood.

"No more fighting, alright?" Amelia offered a truce, seeing how easily any fighting could end with either of the other girls' accidental deaths. They had been lucky to have only received flesh wounds from the spikes. IRyS gathered herself before nodding weakly in agreement.

"S-Sure. Let's j-just find this stupid thing… and get out of h-here…" she said. Amelia looked up from IRyS and towards the Vessel that was still standing and pointing where IRyS had been pinned down. She wanted to yell at it to just go away since it was seriously unnerving. It didn't move a single nanometer, simply remaining impossibly still with a finger pointing to nothing.

But was it nothing? Amelia followed the Vessel's finger to the spot on the floor where it was pointing. She got down on her hands and knees and wiped away a small puddle of IRyS' blood. Both other girls watch Amelia put her head to the floor and stare deeply into it.

Right where the Vessel was pointing, there was a tiny, insignificant black speck. It was so small that Amelia doubted any of them would have noticed it without the Vessel pointing directly at it.

"Do…Do you guys see this?" she asked the others. Ina slowly crawled over and looked at the spot Amelia was pointing to. She shook her head.

"There's nothing there from what I can see," she responded. IRyS made her way over and also shook her head after looking closely.

"Not a thing." Amelia looked at them both before looking back at the microscopic speck in the floor. So this was something that only she could see. Amazing…

She pulled her lips into a thin line before slowly reaching out a finger and placing it on top of the black dot.

Her finger suddenly slipped through the floor. Well, a better description would be that the floor was no longer there. Looking around, Amelia saw that nothing was around her anymore. She was floating in a dark blue void that reminded her of the flow that she had seen in the ceiling of the corridor.

So she was floating in the Flow of Time. She could piece that much together, but was she actually here or was this a vision. If she really was here, then how was she going to get back? Would Kronii come searching for her? Surely she would… right…?

Amelia took a sharp breath in and shoved her panic into the back of her mind. Now was not the time to freak out, no matter how much she wanted to. Whatever this was, she needed to be observant of it.

As the Flow of Time passed through her, she felt her body becoming hot. Veins that didn't carry blood pulsed within her, just like they had when she held IRyS' light crystal. Her magic was being amplified.

She would get much more thought out on that topic, as her focus was drawn to movement in her peripheral vision. A black mass moved into her view from the dark blue background.

It was massive in size, but she couldn't get a read on how big it was just yet. It was still too far away. The black mass moved closer and closer to her, growing in size. However, it didn't really seem to get closer.

That was when Amelia really began to understand just how huge this thing was. It was at least the size of a major city, if not a decent chunk of the Moon. As it got even closer, she began to think it might even be the size of the whole Moon.

The black mass occluded half of everything that Amelia could see when it finally slowed to a stop. It was still hundreds of miles away, but now she could begin to make out vague details about the mass' surface.

What she thought was a single, continuous shade of pure black was actually a swirling pool of many different shades of dark gray and black. It reminded her of a gas giant in the outer reaches of the solar system.

A small portion of the swirling began to move noticeably faster than the areas around it. It sped up until it was sucking in its surroundings like a violent whirlpool.

Then, it exploded towards her.

A dark shape shot out of the mass heading directly towards her. It covered the distance between them within a few seconds, before breaking into smaller pieces. Amelia now recognized what these things speeding towards her were.

Tentacles, millions of them, sped towards her at speeds that only supernatural means could achieve. And they weren't slowing down.

The first one hit her right in the chest, going straight through. She wanted to throw up, to pass out, to die, but she couldn't. She was forced to endure her body being torn apart by the dozens of hypersonic tentacles ripping into her body.

Each one punched a hole, no larger than a baseball, straight through her. Her left arm was completely severed and her head was attached by only a thin piece of what remained of her neck.

She screamed, not for help or anyone, but just to scream. It was the only way to let the pain out of her body.

But then something happens. The feeling in her left arm returns and her head gets remounted back to her shoulders. The unseen veins in her body surge with more energy than Amelia can fathom.

Her body was regenerating itself.

The holes closed up and any tentacles that were still in her were burned away. More tried to hit her, but they were turned to tatters before they could even make contact. They somehow picked up even more speed, managing to hit her again. But it hurt less this time.

Amelia stretched one of her arms out in front of her, letting a tentacle hit her directly in the open palm of her hand. The instant she felt the impact, she pushed the burning sensation within her towards that hand. The tentacle stopped moving towards her and began to twitch.

Something akin to lightning exploded from within the tentacle, completely annihilating it.

However, it burned her too. Amelia pulled her arm back towards herself.

And then she was back, facing the floor of the corridor with a hand pressed against it.

But the pain from her injuries hadn't gone away. Amelia immediately heaved and threw up on the ground. She breathed hard, wiping vomit off of the edges of her mouth before trying to stand.

"Oh, she's back."

"Amelia, are you ok?!"

Both of the other girls called out to her with varying degrees of worry. Amelia stopped trying to get up when she realized that her legs had no strength as of right now. She instead decided to just lay down, although she was a little too close to her throw up than she would like.

"H-how long was I out…?" Amelia asked, fighting through the hoarseness of her voice.

"Probably five or ten minutes, if time works like that here," Ina replied. Amelia rolled her eyes, hearing the phrase being repeated at her again.

"Honestly, you are so lucky that you had a death grip on that watch. Otherwise, we would've been out of here within the first minute," IRyS said. Amelia rolled over onto her back and sat up, having regained enough energy to move around a little bit.

"I wouldn't have let you leave her," Ina said, turning slightly towards IRyS. The Nephilim gave her a sly smile in return.

"You couldn't have stopped me," she said back, looking ready to fight. Amelia put a hand in the air, getting the other two to focus on her instead of each other.

"No fighting, remember?" she said, getting hesitant nods from the others, "Now, what happened while I was out?" IRyS had seemed like she really wanted to leave, so there was definitely a reason behind it.

"The corridor has been shaking, like there was a small earthquake going on," Ina explained.

"And the flow up top has gotten even darker," IRyS added, pointing up to the dark river above them. The shade of blue did seem slightly darker than before. Amelia collected her thoughts before she began to speak.

"I saw something. A giant dark mass. It must have been the size of a small planet. It attacked me with so many tentacles and tore me apart, but I was able to regenerate the damage and fight back," she recapped her vision as quickly as she could. The ground she was sitting on was beginning to shake slightly, just like a small earthquake.

"Anything else that would explain the changes here?" Ina asked, gesturing to the corridor around them. The shaking peaked at a moderate level before subsiding. IRyS glanced around nervously, as the shaking slowly came to a stop. Amelia shook her head.

"Nothing concrete, but I think it could be that the Elder Ones are trying to invade. We should probably start-" Amelia began to urge them all to leave when she noticed the Vessel standing right next to her. She turned and looked up at it in terror.

Instead of a blank face, the Vessel had two tiny white dots and a small mouth that curled up in a horrifying smile. Its hands were at its sides with their blades just barely touching the floor.

"What the fuck is that?!" IRyS yelled at it. Ina stood motionless in fear. Amelia pushed her body to stand up, managing to get to her feet.

"Let's get the hell out of here!" she told the others. They didn't need to be told twice, as Amelia limped over to them. As soon as Amelia was in front to guide them all with the watch, they began to move as fast as possible away from the Vessel.

Amelia glanced over her shoulder to make sure that it wasn't following them, which it thankfully wasn't. However, it did have a hand raised into the air.

The damn thing was waving at them.

And then it exploded into an ocean of black liquid.

Amelia screamed, causing IRyS and Ina to turn around and also begin screaming. They all began to run as fast as they could. Amelia called out directions to make sure that they didn't get impaled by spikes. They kept running and running, risking tiny glances over their shoulders at the incoming wave of black liquid.

The time watch suddenly vibrated and began beeping. Amelia remembered that Kronii had said that this meant the exit was nearby. She called this out to the other girls, but she wasn't sure if either of them heard her. The beeping begins to fade, as Amelia realizes that they had missed the exit.

"Shit…" she mumbled under her breath. The other two obviously didn't know about their current predicament. Amelia glanced over her shoulder again and saw that the wave of darkness had slowed down. It was a mere puddle crawling along behind them now. "It's slowing down!" she yelled out for the others. They slowed their paces before coming to a standstill.

"H-How close are we…?" Ina asked, out of breath from all the running. She was definitely the least fit out of the three of them, but it wasn't like she was out of shape. Amelia biked to work everyday and IRyS was a near god-like being compared to them. Ina in comparison was a lot more normal, but still supernatural.

"So, we may or may not have missed it a while back…" Amelia broke the news quickly. Ina suddenly looked like she wanted to collapse and IRyS' gaze grew hot with anger.

"Damn it…" IRyS cursed under her own breath, "Well when is the next one?" Amelia looked down at the watch, but it made no indication that they were near any exit.

"Kronii didn't mention any other exits, so I have no idea," she replied. IRyS groaned.

"I better not be stuck in here for all eternity with you idiots and that crap," she whined, looking at the black liquid still slowly creeping towards them.

"There has to be another one eventually. Let's just keep moving," Ina said, also keeping an eye on the liquid. It made her incredibly uncomfortable to be standing around next to the stuff. It was starting to make weird swirling patterns that freaked her out.

"Yeah, that's probably our best bet," Amelia agreed, starting to walk down the corridor again. The other two followed her closely.

"What was that thing earlier? Was it the Elder Ones?" Ina asked, breaking the short silence. Amelia looked over and saw a dark arm holding a dark blade wrapping itself around Ina's shoulder. She couldn't see the Vessel's main body, but the blade was enough to know that she needed to tread lightly.

"It might be something like you, Ina," Amelia said. Ina looked down at herself, feeling a little self conscious about her appearance. "Oh, not that you look evil or anything. It just looked like they were some kind of human possessed by the Elder Ones," Amelia clarified what she meant. Ina lightened up a little bit.

"Yeah, that makes sense…" she said quietly. The group walked a little further before IRyS suddenly looked alert. Amelia and Ina both noticed this change in behavior.

"Did you guys just hear something?" she asked them, turning back to face the liquid. For some reason, the liquid seemed closer than it should be given how far they had walked. Small ripples floated across its surface.

"No, why?" Amelia said. IRyS shook her head and shivered slightly.

"N-Nothing, let's just keep moving," she said, picking up her own pace slightly. They would only get a few more steps before IRyS quickly turned around again.

"What is it?" Amelia asked again, becoming slightly frustrated by IRyS' paranoia. She turned, too, and saw more ripples within the liquid. The swirling patterns were also starting to remind her of the planet sized mass she had seen in her vision. She suddenly began to understand IRyS' paranoia.

"I swear I saw something in the liquid…" IRyS said in a hushed voice. It was like she was trying to avoid waking something up.

Or letting something know she knew it was there.

Both Amelia and Ina felt shivers run up their spines. They both immediately thought that it could be the Vessel form earlier. Ina turned and squinted to try to see anything that could be lurking in the liquid. However, the liquid was so opaque that there was no way to see what was under the surface. But there was a pattern in the ripples.

It almost looked like something very long was slithering around, just underneath the surface…

"Let's-" Ina tried to urge the group to move faster, but just as Amelia had been before, she was interrupted by an explosion from the liquid.

Except this time, it was dark tentacles that flew out from the liquid. They raced towards the group, as all three turned and began to run as fast as they could once again.

Amelia reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the light dagger. At least this rush had a physical form that she could slash at. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that, though.

In her other hand, she made sure to keep a firm grip on the time watch. She needed to know when another exit was coming up and not miss it this time.

The tentacles were fast, slowly closing the distance between them and the group of girls. Eventually, one was able to brush up against Ina's arm. The Priestess shrieked and lashed out with one of her own tentacles, batting it into a wall. A spike shot out and impaled the two tentacles together.

Some of the tentacles stopped chasing them, instead wrapping around the spike. The clear crystal became cloudy and turned a dark gray. More spikes shot out from the walls, ceiling, and floor. Wherever the dark gray went within the Corridors crystal walls, more spikes shot out. It became clear that the gray was now following them, too.

IRyS blasted away some tentacles that got a bit too close again. She saw the spikes closing in on them, as well. "The spikes are coming, too!" she called out, running as fast as she could. Neither of the other girls were able to answer from how out of breath they were. Every ounce of energy they had was dedicated to running.

Amelia felt the watch begin to buzz and heard a faint beeping through the sound of her blood pumping in her ears. They were getting close.

"W-We're… c-close…!" she wheezed to warn the others. IRyS began to focus ahead of them, looking for anything that could possibly resemble an exit. It would take another few seconds of running, but she was able to see something ahead that broke the normal pattern of the corridor.

On the ceiling was a deep cut in the crystal. It was smooth and straight, clearly having been made deliberately. With it being on the ceiling, it was no wonder that they had missed the earlier exit. They had all had their heads tucked down from running as fast as possible.

"The ceiling!" IRyS yelled. Amelia and Ina both glanced up quickly to see that there was something odd on the ceiling. "Just a little more!" IRyS said just before they reached it.

"JUMP!" she screamed just as they were underneath it. IRyS and Ina were able to propel themselves upwards with their respective magic, but Amelia couldn't get enough height on her normal, human jump. She missed the ceiling by at least a foot and came crashing back down.

The tentacles began to swarm her, grabbing at her legs and hitting her in the chest. She rolled over on the ground and tried to pick herself up, but the tentacles prevented her from getting her feet underneath herself. They began to drag her back towards the liquid.

The Vessel stood just on the edge of the liquid with white eyes and a thin smile. Amelia tried to stop herself from getting pulled towards them, but her nails only dragged along the smooth, glassy floor of the Corridors. Her screams of terror mixed with the sound of her hands sliding along the ground.

Her legs burnt from both exhaustion and the tentacles that were gripping her. She rolled over onto her back and tried to swing at them with the light dagger, but her hand was held back. Even with all the strength she had, the tentacles completely overpowered her.

But was that all the power she had? Amelia thought back to her vision and tried to remember how she felt. How it felt to use her magic.

Burning.

Her veins were lit ablaze once more and the tentacles immediately reacted. They either retracted or were burnt off her body. The Vessel stared at her with the same smile, but this time its head was titled to the side slightly. It looked like it was curious about Amelia's new found power.

"Amelia!" Ina called from above her. Amelia looked up and saw Ina hanging from the exit upside down. She had extended a tentacle down and it was almost to where Amelia could reach it.

More tentacles came at her, along with clouded, crystal spikes. Amelia stood up, running on nothing but adrenaline and blazing magic. She got one hand on Ina's tentacle and felt herself get pulled up so hard that she thought her shoulder might dislocate. The tentacles and spikes missed, as she was pulled through the exit.

It took a couple minutes for Ina to stop throwing up. Amelia dealt with her own nausea and exhaustion, but tried to help Ina the best she could. IRyS wasn't near either of them, instead crouching in a far corner of the room. Her gaze was distant and her eyes were clouded over.

They had all just barely survived.

But now where were they?

Amelia asked herself this, as Ina finished her final dry heave. She made sure Ina was finally calming down before standing up and walking around the room they were in.

It was a run down office space, like if her workplace had been left to rot for decades. She checked the time watch and saw that they were now over two months in the future.

"Shit…" she mumbled under her breath. It was bad enough that they had missed their exit, but it worried her even more that none of the Council was waiting for them. So either they didn't know, or were busy dealing with something else.

"The Elder Ones…" IRyS whimpered in the corner, "They're here…" Her voice sounded so pitiful and defeated. She had made it clear that her singular goal thus far was to stop the Elder Ones from reaching this dimension. Now that she had failed that goal, she had nothing left…

Amelia continued to observe the room. There were no windows, but a couple emergency lights still glowed a dim red. She could see a door leading out into another room. Unfortunately, there was no sign of sunlight over there either.

"We should get out of here, I don't like this place," Ina said, standing up and shuffling over to Amelia. IRyS picked herself up off the floor and slowly walked over to them, as well.

"Are we just going to ignore what we saw?" she asked them, her voice finally regaining some of her previous energy. Neither Amelia nor Ina said anything. "The Elder Ones are here in this dimension. The Council must be off fighting them, but that means that we have nowhere to go."

"I have somewhere to go," Amelia retorted, "Not here." She then began to walk over to the door with Ina and IRyS following.

"None of this is disturbing you?" IRyS said, utterly confused by Amelia's nonchalant attitude towards the situation.

"Oh it is absolutely disturbing," Amelia answered, "But we are not going to just stand around and wait for rescue." IRyS had nothing to say to that and quietly followed Amelia into the next room. It too was run down with no sign of life or light. Another doorway sat on the other side.

It was true that Amelia was seemingly calm and cool about their current situation. However, that was only her outward appearance. On the inside she was freaking out, trying to make sense out of anything that had just occurred.

For starters, she was pretty sure she should have passed out a while ago. And yet here she was, trudging ahead like she was fully rested. It probably had something to do with the magic that was still flowing within her. She felt powerful, like she could keep going for days more. It was incredible, but she had to use it while it lasted. Even if she felt like she could continue for days, her real time limit was probably much shorter.

The other thing that seriously spun her head was that she never heard any ticking when they were in the Corridors. She was nearly one hundred percent sure that everyone was in grave danger, but yet the ticking made no appearance.

Was she just not in danger? Or was the ticking in her mind broken?

And if the ticking in her mind was gone, did that also mean that she could no longer reset time when she died?

It wasn't like she was used to it at this point. Death still scared her down to her very core. But it was a safety net she assumed she had. If it was gone now, then…

Amelia's worries about losing her ability were dispelled when the ticking suddenly returned to her mind. The problem was that it was fast and loud. She was in extreme danger. As fast as she can, she turns to warn the others-

Sharp pain floods her body, but it is over quickly. She stares up at the other two, noticing them staring back. Her stomach churns, as it tries to jump out her mouth. After a couple deep and shaky breaths, she begins to feel better.

"Are you ok, Amelia?" Ina asked, putting a comforting hand on her friend. IRyS simply observed Amelia, not saying a word. Amelia nodded and stood up straight.

"I think I'm more in tune with my magic after what happened in there," Amelia said to them, "It's like fire is running through me, powering my every move. But I think it is also trying to warn me about something." IRyS and Ina both leaned in closer, as Amelia's tone became quieter.

"What's wrong?" IRyS asked, taking glances over Amelia's shoulder.

"I think something is in here with us."

Author's Note: I had a couple different versions of this chapter in my head before I settle on this one. My main worry was that this chapter would end up being too short, but it turns out that I can surprise myself.

The Corridors of Time was originally going to be apart of a different story, but it never really worked out. With the more fantastical elements, I decided that it would be better off here. I really enjoyed writing the fight scene between IRyS and Amelia within this environment.

We're almost into the main story, so get ready for some big reveals and maybe some new character!

Next Chapter: Danger Close

Any feedback/criticism is appreciated!