Chapter Text
Amir stretched & opened his eyes, cautiously looking around as they adjusted to a light he didn't recognize. He was somewhere colorful, and beautiful, but it ached with an eerie hostility. The sky churned like a stormy day in Hollvania, but with a rainbow of colors that swirled & shimmered instead of dark storm clouds. Turning around, he found Nyght sitting in the grass on the edge of a pond next to someone. He didn’t recognize the person, sitting cross legged next to them, dark hair streaked heavily with grey as they leaned onto Nyght’s shoulder while they skipped stones across the pond with a measured whip of their arm. The scene felt oddly relaxed, but something sinister vibrated under the surface of his skin that created an unsettling sensation, as if he was about to watch something awful unfold. As he cautiously walked towards them, he watched Nyght attempt to rouse the person from their apparent slumber with a gentle shake of their arm, but to both his & Nyghts’ horror, the person just slid limply off their shoulder, landing on the ground behind them with a disconcerting thud.
He felt his heart leap to his throat, as a torrent of panicked emotion washed over him & he ran over to Nyght, hearing them start to speak, but not able to understand what they were saying. It sounded muffled, as if he was behind a wall, like being stuck in a fishbowl, trying desperately to listen through it. Wait.. a wall.. of glass..? He thought quickly, examining the person now laying motionless in the grass. They looked like an older corpus woman, silver metal armor on top of a blue jump suit of sorts, her aged, battle worn face, adorned in tattoos that looked almost identical to Nyghts own, but in a hue of steel blue.
He tried to intervene, reaching to put his hand on Nyghts shoulder, but couldn’t touch them, as if the wall he was stuck behind shifted under his hand, preventing him from actually contacting Nyght. He then reached down to try & check on the Corpus woman, but as he turned his gaze downward, he could see a gnarly gash covering the majority of her torso, their armor broken & shattered, her jumpsuit shredded like she had been attacked by a rabid animal.
“Ronoa..? I-I’m so sorry..” were the only sounds Amir could make out among anything else that Nyght might have been saying. He tried to speak, but it came out muffled, incomprehensible, even to himself, realizing he was only there to observe, not intervene. Nyght collapsed to the ground beside her, slamming the ground with their fist, and suddenly, everything around them swirled, disappearing into a hollow, gaping darkness. After a moment, they faded, as if he was moving in reverse away from them. Nyght just sat, with their hair covering their face, their fist against the ground, their other hand moving to stroke the woman's hair lovingly as they both vanished into darkness, leaving Amir in a seemingly endless black expanse. The dark, vast area unsettled him, and he closed his eyes, trying to listen for anything that might point him in a direction of where to go.
When he opened his eyes again, he could barely comprehend where he was. The infinite black sky was now speckled with thousands of twinkling stars, with colorful nebulae shimmering over his head. He spun around, watching it pulsate with wonder as another uneasy feeling rushed through him. He looked down, letting out a yelp as he backed up, realizing he was now standing on a platform made of the swirling metal that looked like the same thing the void angels were made of, above an endless looking fall into darkness. Was he on the Zariman? This looked more like he was in the middle of space. Then, from behind him, he could hear Nyght shouting, & he whipped around to find them standing on the same platform he was on, staring upwards at what appeared to be a void angel, but it wasn’t, not entirely at least.
A sinking realization came over him as he pieced together what he was looking at, seeing Nyght pleading with a woman who had flowing red hair, whose body was slowly being consumed by a swirling, living metal... It was Nyght saying goodbye to Isara. With a blinding flash, Nyght’s void energy resonated through the area, the void angel disintegrating in a shimmering, ebbing golden light, as Nyght choked out a sorrowful scream, getting thrown backwards & vanishing.
A blinding flash enveloped his vision again & he covered his face with his hand, as Nyght’s pained laments & crying began to echo through his ears sharply, sending a shiver up his spine & making his stomach drop to his feet. He lowered his hand to find the promenade of the Zariman coming into view through the darkness. He started to breathe hard, beginning to shake as he shook his head in disbelief, not wanting to see this.
“No.. no no, anything but this..” he began to implore, eyes filling with tears as the scene started to play before him, Nyght falling to their knees on the ground next to his limp form, splayed across the cold floor of the Zariman’s promenade. He tried to run towards them, but abruptly crashed into something that physically stopped him, almost knocking him back. “Nyght..! NYGHT!! I’m HERE!! It’s ok!! PLEASEHEARME!” he pleaded and began to bang his fist against the wall that held him back, a sharp ring echoing across its surface, not dissimilar to the sound Gara’s glass made. His chest began to physically hurt as he was forced to listen to their raw, hysterical screaming, crying, & eventual desperate begging, as they laid down on his unnervingly still chest, clawing at his body, desperate & alone, in the most terrifying place he could imagine.
Their insurmountable feelings of grief quickly overwhelmed him, causing him to slide slowly down the wall to his knees, his metal gloved fingers trailing down the glass between them, making an ear piercing sound as he left scratch marks in it. He swapped to banging on it again, half heartedly, as he leaned his head against it, landing on the floor in a slump, covering the transparent barrier in a smear of his tears. Something in him shuddered, and he could feel a rush of adrenaline, looking up to find Nyght screaming with pure fury, feeling it empowering him with an aching, burning rage.
He took a deep breath & braced, punching the glass, as they screamed his name louder, a small crack appearing under his fist. He breathed in, encouraged by the crack, and punched it harder this time, causing it to suddenly shatter in front of him, the rage filled emotions rushing away as quickly as they appeared. He scrambled to jump to his feet, wiping his face as he stepped forward through the broken section of the glass barrier. To his surprise, however, Gara shimmered into view in a swirl of purple and cyan sparkles between him and Nyght, leaving a trail of glimmering void dust that gracefully followed in her wake, clinging to her form, as it illuminated & reflected off her glass. The light scattered as she walked between him & the memory, never taking her eerie gaze off him.
“W-what..? How are you..?” He watched, stunned, as she turned her whole body to face him in a disturbingly rigid manner, and walking towards him, with a measured, deliberately slow pace. “H-Hey.. D-Don’t –” Without a sound, she raised her hand near his forehead, placing a middle finger against her thumb, and mercilessly flicked it, as if she was simply flicking a bug from the surface of a table, the sound of Gara’s glass shattering & resonating through him as he suddenly sat up in bed, covered in a cold sweat.
He frantically looked around for a moment, deep breaths making his chest heave up and down, as he grabbed at it, feeling his heart pounding through his armored carapace. He shook his head a bit trying to shake off the nightmare, bringing his hand up to his forehead, rubbing it carefully, still feeling the sting of where Gara had flicked him. Looking down, he saw that Nyght was still quietly sleeping, not a single twitch or murmur bothering their apparently peaceful rest. Not wanting to wake them, and not sure he wanted to go back to sleep, he carefully snuck out from under the covers, slowly walking downstairs to grab a piece of paper to write Nyght a note letting them know he was going for a run.