Dean plummeted down the skies at breathtaking pace. Reaching out to the void, his heart thundered in his chest as he rapidly inched closer to the writhing, twisting dark mist below.
His eyes widened in sheer terror, heart pounding as the shadows beneath reached out to him.
Although clearly taken aback, the crimson-haired lady reacted fast. Insanely fast. Her body twisted midair as she gripped the blind girl's golden rope, and with a fierce whirl, she swung it down.
Whoossh!!!
Dean's eyes widened as he caught a glimpse of a golden light creeping through the darkness —just as a streak of lightning split the cracked sky above— illuminating the jagged structures and the seething dark mist beneath him.
Although it glowed only for a brief second, it was more than enough.
'He hoped it was.'
As his stomach churned, he swung his arm into the air, reaching, inching, grasping for the last straw of hope he had left. And for one agonizing second, he thought he'd missed it.
His stomach sank in fear, despair and dread pooling around his chest like an iron vice. It was in that moment that he realized:
'He didn't want to die. He didn't want to…'
He didn't want to give fate nor death the idea of victory, even if it were but for a fleeting second.
However, right about then, something much more terrifying clawed at the edges of his mind.
His time-loop ability.
'He didn't think it still worked. H-He wasn't sure it still did...'
Just as Dean's mind raced, the endless shadows beneath reaching out to him, the rope seemed to stretch- expanding, as though in response to his silent plea.
Dean's eyes widened, and with a final desperate lunge, his fingers closed around the rope. Relief and searing pain flooded his senses simultaneously as his body slammed into the dune's jagged structure.
In that moment, his body grazed the dark mist, its corrosive trait coming into effect in an instant.
Ba- thump! Ba- thump!
Just as his eyes twitched, heart pounding in his chest, the chaotic blue flame ignited within him, revolving around his body as it neutralized the dark mist's corrosive trait.
...However, that was after he had felt the agonizing pain of his body structure being forcefully reshaped.
"Uuh, Hah..."
With deep, heavy breaths, he glanced at the dark mist. As his gaze lingered, he couldn't help but have a weird thought.
'It's angry.'
How he knew this, he had no idea.
Shadows writhed across the dark mist's surface, and in that moment, he felt the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. A-as though multiple unseen eyes were staring right back at him.
"....!"
In the abyss yawning below, the dark particles of the dark mist lapped beneath Dean, close enough to graze him, but stopping short of dragging him to their malevolent depths.
"Huff." Dean let out a tense breath he didn't realize he had been holding in. "That was really too close for comfort."
Gripping tighter the rope, he shifted his eyes away from the dark mist. Mostly because, staring at it was making him uncomfortable in ways he couldn't quite place his hands on.
He shivered. But with the rope now tightened around his waist, he could at least ensure he wouldn't be dying. At least not anytime soon.
And...
Although he wasn't sure of being out of the cursed land, nor of the chances of his time-rewind ability being tied to the nightmarish land. He had a feeling it was. Very much so.
Though, if he were being honest, he had no thought of confirming if that were really the case. H-He was too scared to.
Shuddering, Dean gritted his teeth and began the arduous ascent.
Minutes later, his hands were hurting like hell. They burned as he climbed higher. Each push and pull a battle against the screaming protests of his body.
Yet he kept going.
Pain shot through him, and his lungs were hurting, yet the alternative -falling- was far worse.
So he continued with the ascent. Minutes stretched into what felt like an eternity, before Dean finally hauled myself into the dune structure.
Thud!
He collapsed onto the floor. His chest heaved as his breath come out in short, ragged gasps.
"Ukh, Akh..."
They all rested against the wall, or like him, laid sprawled across the floor, making it clear that they were damn tired and exhausted. It was then that Aezel glanced at Dean with a smile.
"Close call, kid," Aezel said. "Thought we'd have to say goodbye."
He paused, and then smiled. "That would have been pretty unfortunate."
A dark expression contorted Dean's features.
Suddenly, he was filled with an intense urge to smash Aezel's face into a pile of blood. But unfortunately, he couldn't.
Not that he didn't want to, but simply because he couldn't even raise his arm. But even then, he couldn't bear the thought of giving Aezel the satisfaction he'd hope for.
So Dean glared at him:
"Disappointed I didn't give you the chance to smile?"
Aezel's gaze lingered on Dean for a few seconds before he shook his head and chuckled softly.
His attention then shifted to the blind girl beside him. She rested her head on his shoulder, his hand brushing her hair with an odd tenderness.
"..."
"Tsk."
Dean clicked his tongue. As for why he did that? He also had no idea.
With his back now against the cold, dark floor, he shifted his gaze to the azure cracked sky.
The azure constellation bled into existence, and lightning arced through the sky, briefly illuminating the void and the abyss yawning below.
And finally, he could hold it in no longer. The natural order known as sleep. It was finally catching up to me. Right about then, he muttered weakly:
"I am so damn tired."
He couldn't even raise his hands. But even then, he forced himself to do so, a small, dark smile playing at his lips.
"Uh… how was that fate?"
Dean smiled. And as the smile lingered, he closed his eyes to fall asleep when—
"....!"
Aezel flipped to his feet, hands twitching around his bow as he spoke in a dark, grim tone:
"He has been touched by the Dark Mist."
In that instant, Dean's blood ran cold. Panic ignited within him as he locked eyes with Aezel.
'Crap!' Dean's face paled.
Mia's face however, was still as unreadable as ever. Her eyes though, lingered on him, as though to pierce him with them.
***
'Hasn't he been corrupted?' Aezel mused under his breath.
As his gaze lingered, he could see faint traces of the dark mist clinging on to the boy's clothes, yet the boy seemed relatively fine.
There was no change in his expression. No weird metamorphosis. There was… nothing.
It was almost as if the young boy was unaffected by the Dark Mist.
'B-but how?' Aezel's face darkened at the thought.
***
The blind girl's voice cut through the tense silence.
"He hasn't been corrupted."
"B-but the mist—"
"He hasn't."
The blind girl cut him off.
At that point, it seemed even the usually cold and detached Mia was slightly taken aback.
...However, a few tense minutes later, Dean retracted his gaze from the flame within him, shifting it towards them.
In that moment, he realized a shocking fact:
They all seemed to have recovered from the shock.
For minutes, no one said anything about his immunity to the dark mist. Instead, they all sat in a stifling, suffocating quiet.
At that moment though, a single thought raced through Dean's mind:
'Just what monsters am I walking with?'
Judging by their expression, it seemed though curious, they weren't too shocked by the fact that he was unaffected by the Dark Mist. And that led him to a reasonable conclusion.
One that felt both comforting and oddly... unsettling.
'They could also do the same thing. Though at what cost?' He couldn't help but wonder.
Letting out a light sigh, Dean removed the various thoughts racing through his mind.
For now, their lack of intense curiosity worked in my favor. No one seemed interested in probing deeper, allowing him to keep his secrets intact. However...
If experience had taught me anything, it was that humans were wary of the unknown. Hence he still had to be very careful around them.
'Well, the longer he stayed with them, the higher his chances of finding out more about them.'
That was the best he could do.
At that moment, however, Dean's eyes slowly shifted towards Mia.
"...."
As he stared at her flawless white skin, to her blazing golden-azure pupils, for a second there, he felt something stir deep within him.
"Weird."
He tilted his head.
It was in that moment that her gaze shifted towards him.
"..."
"..."
Their eyes locked.
Silence. It lingered.
Until—
"What are you staring at?"
Mia finally broke the silence. Her hands then stopped in their motion of caressing her sword.
"Um," Dean shook his head. "Nothing."
He immediately shifted his gaze for reasons unknown to him. And for a second there, he thought he heard her chuckling.
"Hah."
Dean exhaled lightly and stared at the sky. He had completed one of his goals. Meet with other humans.
Now what?
He questioned no one but himself, and perhaps the endless void within him.
Unable to get an answer to his question, he shook his head and decided to wave it off.
'Let's see how things go.'
That would determine if he would continue to go solo like he always had, or if he would cling on to this group.
He yawned, closing his eyes. "Time to go to bed."
However, as he closed his eyes to fall asleep, Dean realized that he couldn't.
There was this strange feeling he couldn't quite place his hands on. Just that it made every hair at the back of his neck stand on end.
And to make matters worse, he couldn't discern where this strange sense of discomfort was coming from.
To be honest though, he was really too damn tired to listen to this strange voice or whatever it even was. However, the strange sense of dread and unease persisted. Growing stronger with each passing second. Until—
'Euk, just what is it! Can't I even sleep in peace!'
Dean groaned in annoyance. He felt aggrieved and annoyed, a dark irritation clouding his mind.
...Yet, the strange voice persisted. So begrudgingly, Dean rose to his feet and scanned the nightmarish landcape. However, he found... nothing. The cursed land, for once, was eeriely quiet.
So he stood in the stifling silence for what felt like an eternity. Waiting. Watching. Until, finally—
"Is it just me or does something feel wrong?"
He couldn't take it anymore.
Perhaps he was already losing it.
...He had always known that would happen anyway. Not just this soon.
Mia's gaze flickered towards Dean.
"You're probably just overthinking it."
"It's probably just me then," Dean replied with a nod, though he wasn't convinced.
The feeling. It grew. Clawing at the edge of his mind with each breath that he took.
'Paranoia Dean. Paranoia.'
He told himself. Yet with the passage of time, the feeling only continued to intensify. And now… he needn't be told to know something was wrong. Deeply wrong.
A deep frown marred his features.
Thinking hard, he realized the only thing that separated him from most people would probably be his strange familiarity and attunement with the endless shadows. And as soon as he tried to focus on the shadows, in that moment, lighting arcs tore through the cracked sky above, and then,
Flick—!
They appeared before him!
"...!!"
...Rotten, dessicated hands writhed in the dark.
Thump! Thump!
In that moment, Dean stood frozen in sheer terror as shock unlike anything he had ever felt before rippled through every fiber of his being.