I pull my arm away from the creature's grasp. Its red eyes widen slightly, a flicker of surprise in its inhuman gaze. I don't have time to explain. The Silence is rolling closer, a wall of absolute nothingness erasing the corridor inch by inch.
I turn and run.
Not back toward the well, but forward. Toward the void.
My bare feet pound against the hard-packed dirt, each step a defiant sound in the encroaching quiet. The creature hesitates for a fraction of a second, then it's behind me, its long legs easily keeping pace, its tattered coat flapping silently behind it.
We're racing the end of the world.
The air in front of me shimmers and warps, the light bending in impossible ways. The Silence is not just silent; it consumes sound. The pounding of my feet, the rush of air in my lungs—it's all being eaten, devoured by the oncoming wave. The world is going mute.
I'm twenty feet from it. Fifteen. Ten.
I can feel the cold now, a psychic chill that seeps into my bones, a promise of absolute oblivion.
This is insane. I can't outrun it. I can't fight it.
But I can try to get through it.
I can't turn back.
I won't turn back.
I won't hide and freeze and wait until it loses interest every time I try to take steps forward until I die of thirst or...
Whatever my companion is.
I'm going forward.
Even if that forward is in the path of a monster.
I focus on the [Ice Will] skill, the cold knot of rage in my chest. It's not just for fear. It's for focus. For clarity. I pour everything I have into it, every ounce of anger, every memory of betrayal, every drop of my cold, hard determination.
The world sharpens. The fear vanishes. There is only the goal. Forward.
Whatever the creature is, it's still some kind of entity.
At the last moment, I drop to the ground, skidding on the floor with my momentum alone, and I lift up my opened shears as a blade in front of me, as if I am going to try to cut it in half.
And I am.
It's not exactly the best weapon to be using against something that has no form, but it's all I have. The blades are sharp and I've seen them go through flesh - it has to have some kind of effect, otherwise, why would my ally have wanted them?
The Silence hits me.
It's not a physical impact. It's a total sensory blackout.
One moment I'm in the corridor, the next I'm nowhere. There is no up, no down, no light, no dark. There is no feeling in my body, no sound in my ears. I am a disembodied point of consciousness in an endless, perfect vacuum. I can't see my ally. I can't feel the shears in my hand.
I am... nothing.
I....
Am still sliding forward.
I can't get my bearing enough to know where to go, or control my limbs enough to move if I wanted to.
All that I have is the momentum I already had, and the blade held up in front of me. But even that, I'm losing sense of. I can't move my fingers. My arms, my legs, my entire body is going numb, and I can feel the void pulling at my flesh, as if it's going to eat it right off my bones.
The only thing that I have is the thought, and the anger.
The anger that I will not die here. I will not be a victim of this place.
I will get through this.
I have to.
And even though I can't feel it, I know my fingers are still clenched around the handle of the shears, the blades still pointing forward.
I will not stop.
I am nothing.
I am going nowhere.
But I am moving forward.
And then, as suddenly as it began, it's over.
The nothingness slices open around the blade above me.
Like tearing through a film, the world rushes back in a single, overwhelming wave. I'm back in the corridor, the heat hitting me like a physical blow. I'm on my back on the dirt floor, my shears clutched in my hands, held up above me, the blades open.
I gasp, air flooding my lungs in a desperate, painful gulp. My body is trembling, every nerve ending screaming.
I'm alive. I'm through.
I roll over, pushing myself up on my hands and knees. The corridor stretches out before me, identical to the one I just left. Behind me, the Silence is still there, a silent, rippling wall of nothingness. It's not chasing me. It's just... existing.
But it has a jagged slice through it where my shears had been.
My companion lays on the ground near me, face down.
He looks up, after a few moments, and stares at the thing as if vanishes into...
Wherever it goes.
"You...you ran into the beast?" he asks, and his voice sounds...faint. Hollow. "I thought...we could hide."
I stand up, my legs shaking. I'm exhausted, drained. The [Ice Will] skill is gone, its cooldown leaving a hollow ache behind. I look at my shears. They're still in my hands. They're what got me through.
"Hiding wouldn't have worked," I say, my voice rough. "That's the trick, isn't it? In the sunlight, when you make noise trying to leave, that arrives, and it drives you back to your safe spot. But the sun never ends here. That's why you wanted to fight it, not just avoid it."
The creature pushes itself up, its red eyes fixed on me. There's something new in its gaze. Respect. Awe. It looks at me as if I'm something entirely different than what I was a moment ago.
"...Yes." It rasps. "...But running into the thing that devours you is insane."
I brush off my skirt, looking back toward the well, briefly.
I'm already thirsty again, but I can't go back.
I'll lose all the progress I just made.
"....This place is what's insane."