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“For your valentine?” the clerk asks with a wink, neatly tying the roses together with an organza ribbon.
Mydei doesn’t have the heart to tell her no. He nods and gives a smile as rigid as his hands, shoved deep inside his pockets, and he thinks the same thing he does each year, on February the 14th: Passing on Valentine’s day has to be some kind of cruel joke.
He doesn’t resent Gorgo for that. He even buys her red roses knowing she would have loved them. It’s just — lonely. The cemetery is hidden behind the church’s crumbling stone walls, in a little garden that isn’t taken care of enough. The priest always seems to be waiting for him, telling him that he’s been praying for her soul, and that he hopes Mydei will come to mass soon. Saying it will help. It won’t.
By this time, Mydei’s forced smile resembles a grimace. Each thing he does sap his energy further, replacing it with more of that sadness that never goes away; a bottomless lake. He crouches in the crunchy snow, reads her name engraved in marble; tries not to cry. Sometimes he fails. Sometimes he’s too tired to.
The roses look pretty on her, a touch of red in the snowed-in world. Her favorite color. One of them has lost some petals, the rest of them turning a dark shade of green. He tries to think nothing of it.
He leaves the bouquet on her grave, then sends her a thought, a prayer, and imagines his words going up to the sky as his breathing turns foggy and evaporates.
Home manages to be lonelier than the graveyard. It’s a tiny flat he lives in alone and barely leaves. He slumps on his desk and goes through his email, checking for messages that never come.
There’s only the usual. Spam, discounts for kitchenware, ads for roses. And then one email, with a bold taunt as title: DON’T BE ALONE ON VALENTINE’S DAY, SOMEONE IS WAITING FOR YOU!
He hovers his cursor over the delete button, figuring it’s probably some cheap adult game, but then — he hesitates. The email sits in his main folder rather than his spam, and there is no sender. He clicks on it from sheer curiosity.
The inside of the email is actually better designed than Mydei would have given it credit for. The text is less aggressive here, a couple of polite paragraphs explaining that he’s been chosen to join an open beta. The game markets itself as a fantasy romance VR experience, and to be honest — Mydei is tired. He doesn’t like the idea of spending his day grieving for his mother, or staying at home trying to not think of how lonely he is.
His VR headset is not next gen, but it works. He figures — What’s the harm in giving it a try? He needs to get away from his thoughts, and he can always log out if the game turns out to be the disappointment he expects it to be.
Self-convinced, he launches it. It takes a little while for the VR to start, and when it does, all is pitch black, save for a single button prompt.
He’s syphoned down. Pulled by his ankles by an invisible force. Vacuumed by the game, into the game. There’s a thumping at his temples that quickly spreads through his whole body, echoing from his chest to his throat, thump, thump, thump, and he tries to take a deep breath and —
He’s underwater. The transition is so sudden it feels unreal, and he’s so light he might be floating, or sleeping.
He looks up, expecting to see the caged light of the surface reflected through the waves ceiling. All he sees is the ocean, and its same shade of deep night blue painted all over around him, with no way to differentiate top to bottom.
He looks down, expecting to see aquatic creatures and ancient forgotten ruins. He gazes into the dark unknown of the ocean floor, an inescapable, ink-black abyss that gazes back.
The weight of the water is sudden and relentless. A hunter toying with its prey. A guillotine falling down, the blade of water tilting his body forward, lowering his head into a submissive bow. Water pours into his clothes, then his mouth, then his lungs. It clogs his airway like a blood clot; fills him with inescapable pain. He’s stuck in that merciless sheath of waves. There’s something knotting his upper arms and shoulders — ropes; a net, twisting around his torso like a snake, squeezing away the strength from his weakened muscles. Like he’s some fish about to be caught and devoured.
Each attempt to move his heavy limbs results in critical failure. The water wins — the water always wins; this is what the sea and its furious waves teach him. Deep down, he knows this already.
He’s drowning. He’s angry.
It’s been a while since he’s known this feeling, the hungry fire burning in his stomach. It’s almost nice. Tension runs through his nerves like current, a last shock his body sends in its emergency state, urging him to do something, to survive. What was he angry about?
It’s an anger that never quite leaves: the feeling of betrayal; of unfairness. The black coffin closing on her pale face like a gate, replacing his last memories of her with this, and her voice with the saddened whispers of the funeral’s attendees. It’s an anger that’s useless. She’ll never come back.
He learned to tone it down, suffocate it. It floods out of him, bleeds out from his heart, emerges when he drowns.
When he's angry, resentful, when he feels like screaming at the entire world, he breathes. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Underwater, it doesn't. His oxygen leaks. His anger too.
In front of him, something shines. A lighthouse’s glow in the darkness. A symbol, one upward curve hovering another, one curvy and another spiky, like a crown above a halo.
A voice laughs. “How greedy,” it says. It sounds like decades piled upon decades, old and powerful. There’s underlying satisfaction in its words. Mydei halts. “Go ahead. Take it.”
Rage feels familiar. It pumps alongside the adrenaline; it replaces his missing oxygen. He drowns, but he feels more alive than he’s been in years.
Amidst the water, something shines. A lighthouse’s glow in the darkness. A symbol, one upward curve hovering another, one curvy and another spiky, like a crown above a halo.
He blinks. The water stills. Time does, too. There’s only that strange symbol, glowing, calling to him — and there’s a voice, deep, immemorial, resonating from nowhere and everywhere at once.
“Are you sure?” it asks. “Are you sure this is the reason for your anger?”
He can hear the invisible smile in the voice. “No,” it repeats. “It all angers you. The water, the coffin. The flower. Even the rain. It angers you because you cannot be angry, Mydeimos, son of Gorgo. You despise being angry.”
He doesn't like the way it says her name; the way it is right. This anger is inherited from his father — he must reject it.
The symbol pulses. Calling him.
“I know everything,” the voice says. “All the actors of this play. All your little stage frights. Do not be scared. Embrace it.”
The voice laughs. “You lie,” it says. It grows stronger, an invisible shockwave. The symbol’s light pulses. Calling to him.
He can’t talk; the voice answers to the very thoughts bubbling inside of his head. “It is your anger,” it simply says, as if it was enough explanation. “Your Strife.”
“Take it,” the voice continues. “It is yours, after all.”
He only formulates the question in his mind. The voice replies nonetheless, an omniscient being that feels like the ocean itself. “I am another prisoner,” he says, and then he laughs. “I am a caged god. A receptacle. I am whoever you wish me to be. And this —” the light flickers, grows bigger. If Mydei were to extend his hand, he could close his fist around it, “is your anger. Your Strife.”
“Take it,” the voice continues. “It is yours, after all.”
It’s not important, and yet he clings to the flower as if it died on purpose to spite him. It’s not about the extravagant high price tag, or the stupid Valentine’s pink card. It’s not even about the flower. It’s about a series of little things that go wrong, always. Why did the flower wilt? Why is he drowning? He’s done nothing to deserve it. It’s a tired, recurring thought. I don’t deserve this. Perhaps he does. He’s angry.
He doesn’t remember. It’s been so long, and the anger has always been there like a second skin; like a visible scar that never quite heals. Somedays he forgets it’s here, and some it’s all he can think about, a chronic pain that flares whenever life goes a little too well, reminding him of all the times it didn’t.
“After?” The voice laughs again. “After, everything will change.”
It sounds nice in ways it shouldn't.
The emblem is warm in his hand, a flame that quickly turns scorching hot, even when he snuffs it out in his closed fist. The heat spreads through his knuckles, runs from the base of his wrist to the hollow of his elbow; fills him up to his stomach until he’s boiling with it. He feels… Alive. Complete.
“Remember,” the disembodied voice whispers-promise, fading amongst the inner walls of Mydei’s skulls. “Everything will change.”
And then there’s a pull. And then he’s out.
The world tilts. The sun hits him like a father. The sand embraces him like a mother. He's out.
Mydei blinks. The water is gone. He’s in a room made of harshly cut stones. He’s dry. His eyes find and cling to the flickering of a flame, watching its orange heat undulate as light pours in. There’s a hard wall behind his back, and in front, a closed gate. Bars. He’s in a cell.
He’s wearing damp rags that fall loose on his frame, exposing one of his bare shoulders to the cold, and bits of torn netting as a necklace. Everything feels freakishly sharp, real. His heart pounds in his chest. It takes a while to get used to it, dangling his hands in front of his eyes and feeling like they belong to someone else until they finally feel like proper ends of his arms.
His body settles eventually. He becomes aware of the cold floor under his bare feet, the damp tile against his back. He’s a prisoner, but he’s unshackled. He’s alone — but not for long.
Steps echo from further left. Each trample of boots on the carved stone resonates to the sound of his heartbeats.
A man appears at the end of the staircase. He’s of tall size: long legs and broad shoulders. Hair pale as alabaster, and eyes a soft, familiar blue. He’s wearing a long white coat. Intricate embroideries are sewn onto the fabric of his sleeves, flowers vining from his cuffs to his shoulder — delicate, and counter-balanced by the large broadsword hanging from his hip. Mydei assumes that whoever the man is, he’s important. A duke, or some lord.
“Oh,” the man says with a sigh, shoulders sagging in relief. “You’re awake. I thought you’d never open your eyes again.”
His concern sounds genuine; perhaps a little too much. Mydei presses his back further against the wall. He’s still dizzy, and unarmed, defenseless, while the man carries a sword the width of both his forearms combined.
“Who are you?” Mydei asks, attempting to put power in his voice, to sound threatening. His chittering teeth don’t help. The man’s eyes widen in surprise.
“You don’t know me,” he realizes. Is Mydei supposed to? He tries his hardest to recall, but nothing comes to mind. A friend? A rival? His memory is a cold void. “Everyone knows me.”
“I dont,” Mydei says, each syllable cold and deliberate. For a split second, he wonders if he’s made a mistake. But then - the man looks shocked, then hurt, both flashing quickly through his gaze before vanishing. He has eyes like the sky: clear blue, and prompt to host both slow clouds and harsh thunders. He moves closer, hand wrapping into a fist around one of the prison bars, forehead dropped against their cool metal.
“I am Phainon of Aedes Elysiae,” he introduces himself. “The rightful heir of Okhema. The man everyone calls ‘Deliverer.’”
It still doesn't sound like anything Mydei knows. Phainon smiles.
“Now that I’ve properly introduced myself, it’s your turn.”
“I don’t know,” Mydei admits. “I don’t fully remember.” It’s a safe choice, when Phainon’s expectant gaze lingers on him, too eager for an answer.
Phainon seems taken aback for a split second, hands loosening around the bars before quickly closing again. “You are Mydeimos,” he says, slowly, as if he couldn’t believe it himself, gaze sparkling with stars. “The Undying Titan of Strife.”
Undying feels like an exaggeration. Titan, a question mark. Strife — this he knows. This is your anger, the voice said. Your Strife. Mydei still feels it beating in the insistent pulse against his throat and in the inside of his wrist.
It would make sense. An undying being, caught and contained to satisfy the whims of mortal humans. Phainon gasps in horror.
“Kephale, no,” he says.
Mydei pauses. He raises a doubtful brow, considering their surroundings. The cell is irrevocably, well, a cell.
“I— Okay,” Phainon relents. “I know what this looks like.”
“I — Do?” Phainon seems taken by surprise, and then — blushes. “I never— I wouldn’t—”
Mydei’s guard drops despite himself. Whoever he is, he didn’t expect Phainon to show such devotion, a display so awkward it can only be genuine. He almost feels for him. Phainon takes a quick shallow breath, trying to refocus himself away from whatever thoughts he’d just had, even though a faint pink cloud still clings high on his cheekbones.
“Mydeimos,” he says, in a grave tone meant to eclipse his obvious embarrassment. “I would never dare ask anything of you — or do anything to you.”
Mydei feels like teasing him.
“No,” Phainon says petulantly; a lie so obvious it makes Mydei smile. “In any case, this cell isn’t the place to have such conversations.”
“My soldiers put you there while my attendants looked for me all over the castle to tell me you were found.” He gives an apologetic smile. “Things were a little… Chaotic. It’s not every day a Titan comes to life. Regardless, I apologize for the…” He glances at the damp room and the moisture growing on the walls. “...Lacking reception. Allow me to make up for it?”
He offers Mydei a helping hand.
Mydei hesitates. In this short moment, he realizes: Whoever he truly is in this world, Phainon already knows. His anticipation is so strong it ripples in the air between them, Phainon’s gaze bright and unflinching, awaiting an answer Mydei must give.
“Mydei,” Phainon repeats. He murmurs Mydei’s name, tasting it like he would a delicacy, his tongue darting over his lower lip. “The legends all refer to you as Mydeimos — but I suppose this is the name I’ll use.” He smiles to himself, then winks at Mydei. “It’s also considerably shorter.”
Now, unguarded, and with Mydei’s name on his lips, he feels almost familiar. Like a place Mydei already visited. A friend he’s finally reunited with.
Mydei decides to believe him, for now. There are still too many questions running in his mind, and the pulsing heat of the… Did the voice say Coreflame? Beating through his veins.
“I’m sure you have many questions to ask me,” Phainon guesses. “But perhaps a prison cell isn’t the best place to converse.”
Phainon’s charm conceals a secret. His secret is the truth of why Mydei is here, caged like an animal. Mydei feels it, rippling right below the surface of his good manners and friendly smiles, and he mustn’t let Phainon distract him from it.
“You don’t trust me,” Phainon notices. “And I couldn’t possibly blame you.” They watch each other for a moment, but there’s no tension, just silent acknowledgment that they both exist in the same space, undiscovered variables co-existing — For now. Phainon smiles. “Freeing you from this cell will perhaps help prove my good will,” he continues, extending Mydei a hand. “If you’d allow me.”
“You ask questions you know the answers to,” Mydei retorts defiantly. He doesn’t like how one-sided this situation is, with him being ignorant and Phainon holding all the pieces in the palm of his hand yet refusing to hand them over.
“You caught me,” Phainon admits. “I apologize.” He’s cryptic; silent for a moment as he takes Mydei in, looking at him through the prison bars. “I’ve been waiting for you a long time, Mydeimos,” he finally says. “The undying Titan of Strife.”
“God,” Phainon paraphrases. “Higher being. Our sacred texts paint you as the guardian of these lands.”
It’s a lot to take in at once, and a little hard to believe, if he’s honest. Mydei doesn’t feel particularly godly, sitting on the cold, damp floor. As if to prove him wrong, his blood violently pulses against his temples.
“These are all legends, of course,” Phainon says, but Mydei has a feeling he believes in these legends too, from the relieved look he’s given Mydei when they first met, and the barely concealed reverence in his voice. “You needn’t worry about them. Or about anything, in fact.”
“Everyone.” Phainon gives an amused smile. “I am, for better or worse, this country's king.” He smiles. “Please call me Phainon.”
Phainon. His name is familiar and also isn’t. Mydei keeps it carefully stored in a corner of his memory.
“Do you remember who you are?”
Concern invades the man’s gaze. “Have they hurt you?” he asks. Mydei ignores who ‘they’ refer to, but he doesn’t feel injured — Only sore from sitting on the hard tiles, and light-headed from the rapid location shifts. “I heard they fished you out of the river,” the man continues, a hand to his forehead, mumbling. “I didn’t think they’d dare to harm you. This is unacceptable, and on such a day, no less —”
The man pauses. He takes a second, better look at Mydei, acknowledging his lack of wounds, and nods. “Still,” he continues, biting his lower lip. “Still.” He seems agitated, as if Mydei wasn’t just some random person who happened to be found drowning, but someone of high importance — even though he’s wearing prisoner’s rags; even though he’s caged in a cell like one.
“I’m fine,” Mydei insists. The man seems to calm down, although only barely.
“I suppose,” he replies. His smile is a little wobbly, constantly shifting from worried to relieved. “I guess this is all a little confusing for you,” he continues. “Do you remember anything?”
Mydei looks down. “I remember my name. Mydeimos.”
“Mydei,” the man says. He’s smiling like they’re old friends, and Mydei has again the heart-wrenching feeling that they know each other. “I’m Phainon of Aedes Elysiae. Ah, you don’t have to remember that last part — just call me Phainon.”
Knowing his name helps and also doesn’t. The nagging gaps in Mydei’s memory call to him like the pull of tiny black holes, urging him to figure out the thing he doesn’t know; the things Phainon might be hiding from him.
Mydei’s nose scrunches up at the memory. “I remember the sound of the waves,” he says. The weight of them, and the merciless pull towards the bottom. The voice, but he has a feeling he’d be better off not mentioning it.
“I’m sorry,” the man says, and he looks like he means it. “Truly.” He moves closer to the cell. With his steps comes a metal jingle — keys. “In our legends,” he starts to explain as he reaches for the keys, “you are the sunken Titan, Mydeimos the Undying. The guardian god of Amphoreus, gone and now returned.”
Is that who Mydei is supposed to be, in this universe? Somehow, it doesn’t feel real. Mydei frowns.
“It is,” Phainon says, softly; irrevocably. Like it’s a belief that even Mydei himself cannot challenge. He turns the key in the lock and the gate opens with a simple click. It opens on the outside. Phainon steps aside, allowing space for Mydei to leave. “You’ll understand eventually.”
None of it makes sense. It’s as if he was tossed into a story in the middle of a story where everyone had read the previous chapters except for him, and he wonders, can he trust this man to tell him the truth? The cage is open now, but why was he in here in the first place? And who is the man holding the keys?
Phainon smiles. “Prison cells aren’t exactly a fitting scene for this conversation.”
“I didn’t,” Phainon retorts. His smile turns sheepish. “Not technically. My soldiers put you there while my attendants looked for me all over the castle to tell me you were found. Regardless, I apologize for the…” He glances at the damp room and the moisture growing on the walls. “...Lacking reception. Allow me to make up for it?”
He offers Mydei a helping hand.
Mydei reaches out. Their fingers find each other. Phainon smiles. His grip is strong and somehow reassuring, and he pulls Mydei and helps him up. Keeps their palms pressed together an instant too long. “I’m glad I — they found you,” he says. “I really am.”
Mydei finds nothing to say. He’s a little stunned, disoriented, unsure what’s exactly going on here — him being some guardian deity does not explain why Phainon seems so… Infatuated.
“Follow me,” Phainon says, and he gently tugging Mydei forward.
“You were drowned,” the man explains. Not drowning. A picture floods Mydei’s mind with steel sharp accuracy: His eyes, wide open, his arms; extended towards the surface, body rigid and sinking, and beneath, ruins of a kingdom long deserted. A shiver runs along his spine. “A couple of fishermen found you in the river of Souls and brought you to me.”
“You’re the sunken Titan,” the man continues carefully, as if his words could trigger an unwanted reaction from Mydei. “The guardian god of Amphoreus.”
Mydei doesn’t feel particularly godly. He’s cold, and his butt aches from awkwardly sitting on hard tiles for too long.
“Mydeimos,” the man insists, as if calling Mydei’s name would make him reclaim his divinity somehow. “I’ve waited a long time for you to come here.”
The man lets a silence pass before answering, each word a deliberate choice. “I’m Phainon of Aedes Elysiae,” he reveals. The name shouldn’t ring any bells yet it does; it’s somehow nostalgic, like a place Mydei has already visited before. Phainon continues. “The current King of Okhema, and to add — the Deliverer from the prophecy. And an ally of yours. I will tell you more in due time.” He looks around them. “Cells aren’t exactly a fitting scene for a reunion.”
“Me,” the man replies. “I’m Phainon of Aedes Elysiae. Former prince of Okhema. I guess I should say king, now.”
He has a sad little laugh when he says it, but he quickly erases it with a question.
“Do you remember who you are?”
Mydei gets up. All his limbs scream in pain, aching from sitting for so long. He rolls his shoulders; rubs a rough hand against his neck. The prison gate, now open, almost feels daunting: Outside of it, upstairs, there’s the whole undiscovered world. He’s unsure of who he’ll find there; of who he’s supposed to be. All he knows is that he’s important, terrifyingly so, when he takes into account Phainon’s sweltering gaze. He must tread carefully. Make the right choices.
He follows Phainon out of the prison. They take narrow stairs, each step a possible encounter with an early death, their feet only lit by the light of flickering torches. During their ascent, Mydei hears voices — many of them; people. A celebration, he figures: there’s music playing, quiet violins accompanied by a feminine singing voice.
Upstairs, the castle is so bright it hurts. Chandeliers hang from the tall ceilings, dancing between tall marble pillars, flooding every hallway in light, and outside is night, a pitch black darkness glued to the glass windows like a voyeurish monster. Whispers rise when Mydei steps into the light. Gazes follow him, and voices grow until he’s able to hear them clearly. (Is it really him?) (Look. It’s Mydeimos the Undying.) He suddenly feels like returning downstairs to rot in his cell. He follows Phainon. A hand brushes against his shoulder, and another grabs a piece of the cloth he’s wearing and pulls. He stumbles.
He braces himself, expecting to meet the hard floor, but all finds is Phainon's strong arms safely secured around him. Phainon smiles down at him, releasing him, then addresses the curious crowd of onlookers.
“Enough,” he commands. His voice booms through the castle and through Mydei’s body, a powerful sound that rattles his thoracic cage. Below, in the moldy prison cell, he was a stranger. Here, now, he’s a monarch; standing tall amidst his people, one firm, possessive gloved hand on Mydei’s shoulder. “This is no way to treat a guest. Especially not mine.”
Apologetic murmurs soon erupt. The people love him, Mydei notices. They don’t want to be in his bad graces. He wonders what Phainon looks like wrathful rather than gentle, an ocean turning into a maelstrom; imagines his steady, strong shoulders, shaken with the weight of his own anger.
Phainon turns towards him and grins. “My apologies,” he says. His voice is still louder than the murmur of the crowd, crystal clear. He guides Mydei away from them, to hallways where they’re not followed anymore, his hands still resting on top of Mydei’s shoulder. “Please don’t mind them,” he continues. “Many waited their whole lives to finally see a Titan in the flesh.”
Phainon smiles. “Me more than others. Here,” he says, guiding Mydei by the hold he has on his shoulder. “This way.”
They keep walking, passing by soldiers guarding closed doors and servants running down the halls, and stop once they’re facing a charming door adorned in thin gold arabesques.
“You won’t,” Phainon replies. He seems amused, and he doesn’t let go of Mydei, holding him tightly, a burglar with his hard-earned treasure.
They keep walking, passing by soldiers guarding closed doors and servants running down the halls, most of them going still when they pass Phainon, surprised to see him here. “I’m supposed to be at the party,” he explains, to answer Mydei’s curious gaze.
“Then why aren’t you?”
“I’d be a poor host if I let you be dressed in rags for my own coronation,” Phainon says. Mydei looks down to see his feet. His nails are short, one of them broken and the rest caked in blood and mud, and — he glances behind him — he’s leaving a trail of footprint on the expensive castle carpets. Phainon stops in front of tall double doors, and gestures for Mydei to enter. “After you,” he says.
The room is a heaven made of cloth and mirrors. Dresses hang on faceless mannequins, and the cascades of linen, silk, and cotton pour against the walls like curtains. Amidst this chaos, a woman sits on a chair.
“Aglaea,” Phainon calls.
She turns her head at the sound of his voice. Her eyes are blank, green, her pupils so washed-out they get lost in fields of emerald. Her hands dance on a piece of cloth that lays on her lap, the needle threading in and out as delicate patterns start to make their way onto the linen. She has long, elegant fingers; musician’s fingers, and her nails are painted in the same gold her hair is made of.
“I have a favor to ask of you,” Phainon continues. In front of her, he seems less like a king, and more like a boy his age. Mydei wonders what their relationship is. He speaks almost sheepishly, not daring to take a step inside her haven of cloth, and she waits for him to talk with a patient, motherly smile.
“When do you not?” she teases, before perking up. “Do tell, Phainon — although I have a faint idea of what brings you here. It has to do with our esteemed guest, I suppose?”
Mydei almost flinches. She’s presumably sightless, yet she spots him perfectly. He wonders what gave him away: His footsteps? Or the quiet, amazed gasp he let out when faced with dresses so beautiful they looked like they could only be worn by deities? Her smile softens, aimed at him this time, while Phainon looks like a child caught with his hand deep down a candy jar.
“It is nice finally meeting you,” she continues.
“Likewise,” he replies, still a little puzzled by her — By the situation, by everything; how reassuring the weight of Phainon’s hand is, steady on his shoulder.
She smiles at him, and then gives Phainon a pointed look. “Your fashion sense has always been lacking, but this…” Mydei understands that ‘this’ refers to the poor excuse for clothes he’s covered in. “Are you trying to disappoint me on purpose?”
“I’d never,” Phainon says. “I’m merely, uhm. Asking for some of your generous help.”
She shakes her head, smile still present, and looks at Mydei. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Phainon poorly fakes a cough, then gently pushes Mydei’s back. “She’ll make it so you’re not dressed in these rags.” Mydei raises an accusing brow. “Which, don’t look at me like that, I’m not responsible for. The fishermen found you like this,” Phainon justifies.
“I’m sure,” Mydei says.
Aglaea giggles. “Find an outfit worthy of a Titan,” she muses. “My, what an exciting challenge.”
She takes Mydei’s arm, stealing him from Phainon’s touch, and gently guides him towards the center of the room where a naked mannequin stands. He tries not to trample on the cloth carpeting the floor, self-conscious of the footprints he's already left in the castle’s hallways. She seems to glide across the fabric, her steps so light the cloth doesn’t fold under her weight, like some fairy from another world.
The door closes with a quiet click. Mydei turns. Phainon is gone, and he is now alone with this woman — this stranger. Aglaea gives him a reassuring smile.
“He’ll come find you later, don’t worry,” she says. “He’s been looking for you for a long time. He won’t let an old woman like me steal you away so easily.”
“Good,” she says. “You needn’t be.” Her touch is butterfly light, fluttering over his arms and shoulders. “You are an esteemed guest, here.”
“Many call me the Goldweaver,” she says. “But I’m simply an old lady who keeps overstaying her welcome. Don’t you mind me.”
All of her movements are light and ephemeral, a dance Mydei can’t properly memorize. He burns the image of her in his eyes instead; her blonde curls and her gentle, motherly gaze.
“Everything will fall into place as long as you give it some time.” Her words seem laced with magic, the way everything she says feels so easily believable. Mydei decides to trust her, for now.
“You are the long-awaited titan,” she explains. She turns him around as she speaks, taking his measurements, and he lets her, too focused on her words to mind the feathery touch. “He’s been talking about you since he was a child.” She chuckles. “I’ve heard of the ‘you’ he saw in his dreams so many times, you somehow feel like an old friend. You’re an important guest here.”
Mydei also feels like she’s familiar, somehow, although he can’t quite place why. Her touch is gentle and respectful, only grazing him with light taps from her fingertips, as if he’d shatter if she pressed too much, squeezed too hard, like one of the frail mannequins soldiered around the room.
“You'll have to ask him yourself.” She winks. “I don’t dress and tell.”
“So he did say something,” Mydei notes.
She breaks into a laugh. “Many things. Some more shameful than others.”
She doesn’t reveal more, gesturing for Mydei to come closer so she can find a fabric she deems fitting of him.
“So many times I can’t recount,” she laughs. “He must be beyond himself now that you’ve been found.”
“He doesn’t look like it,” Mydei argues.
“He is.” She pats his shoulder, turns him around so she’s facing his back, taking in the space between his shoulder blades. “Trust me, child.”
He does. There is something inexplicable about her that makes all his worries evaporate. Something that makes him think of Gorgo.
She twirls around in the room, picking drapes and clothes and assortments as if she were dancing and the mannequins were her volunteering partners. For Mydei, she picks colors that match his hair, his eyes: gold, red, orange. She covers him in sunset-shades and thin chains that fall loosely around his neck and wrist, the fabric taking life whenever she touches it, obeying to silent orders. She snaps two of her fingers, and a pair of knee-high sandals appear between them, their soles covered in the same patterns Phainon wears.
Once she’s done, she watches him with, in her eyes, a satisfied twinkle. “I believe my work here is finished,” she says, nodding to herself. “That is the best gift I could have ever given him.”
Mydei isn’t sure what to say. Her phrasing, and the whole quick succession of events, makes the situation feel a little ritualistic; he feels like what he imagines a young maiden must feel when married off to an unknown man, all dolled up and ignorant.
Aglaea excuses herself, leaving to the next room over, the two of them connected by a curtained arch, giving him some intimacy so he can change into the clothes she prepared. They’re layers onto layers, silk and chiffon, gold ornaments that clasp around his waist and forearms. His hands move with precision and automatism, as if these motions had been repeated a thousand times prior, and he’s soon fully dressed.
He takes a look at himself in the mirror. His shoulder to his waist is linked in red chiton, a brighter shade than the rest of the outfit. The sandals rise up to his knees, nicely sheathing his legs, and their sole is so light he feels he might fly when he takes a few experimental steps. The garment is comfortable on his frame, perhaps a little too eye-catching compared to what he usually wears, but more than what he’d first expected, and warmer than the wet rags.
He walks to the room she disappeared into, carefully lifting the curtain as he calls her name.
“Lady Goldweaver?”
She doesn’t answer. He’s alone.
Now that he’s dressed for the coronation ball, it would be a shame not to go. The only problem is — he’s lost. The castle is a maze of stairs and hallways, and the servants, courtesans and guards he encounters all eye him as if he was some alien. He’ll have to reunite with Phainon by himself.
He takes a look at his surroundings. Through the window, he spots verdant gardens, statues half-destroyed by time, and the only lights not created by human’s hands — fireflies, dancing amongst bushes of white roses and blue camelias.
To his left, he hears sounds, voices and laughs, and faint music. To his right, there are stairs leading to the upper floor.
The curling stairs lead to nowhere, as if the world stopped there, or more realistically, as if a part of the game refused to load. The world fades after the last steps, and he might fade as well if he continues this way. He turns back.
The party is easy to find. The crowd thickens as the sound grows louder, until the hallways turn into a sea of people. He bumps shoulders into someone, turns to apologize but the person is already too far. He glances up and left and right, trying to find Phainon, and doesn’t see him.
He gets lost, failing to find Phainon in the murmurs of the crowd. Did you hear? They found him. You should try this appetizer. The Dawn will return, I’m sure of it. Did you know that the king’s sword was at first a scepter?
He needs some silence. Some peace and fresh outside air, before his brain overloads from all the noise and information it cannot properly process.
He asks the first person he crosses paths with — that is, the first that isn’t already lost in conversation or seemingly dead drunk from ambrosia. “Excuse me,” he starts, and the girl pauses, watching him with great interest. “Have you seen —” The crowd shuffles. “Have you seen Phainon?”
She looks at him without replying for what feels like far too long, then her lips split into a smile. “The Deliverer?” she asks, and she continues before Mydei nods. She shakes her head. “I’m afraid he’s nowhere to be found. At least, not amidst this chaos.”
He tries to thank her, but she’s already waving, stepping away in a blend of walking and dancing to the rhythm of the music. The sound is starting to get to his head.
Contrary to Aglaea’s prediction, it’s Mydei who finds Phainon first.
He’s sitting on the corner of a stone fountain, in the middle of the gardens. Alone. He’s changed outfits as well, trading his previous formal military attire into one more relaxed and ceremonial, white and gold and pretty blue accents that make his eyes appear softer.
Phainon chuckles. When he does, his eyes look like the sea, crinkling with sunlight that doesn’t exist here. “From you? They’d be underserved.”
He seems relaxed, unburdened. His long legs are stretched across the paved stones, and around him, fireflies skip, lending his face golden hues.
“I’m glad you found me,” he says unprompted. Mydei doesn’t know what to say. Phainon looks up into the sky, says nothing for a moment, then turns to Mydei with a grin. “I was thinking about you, just now.”
Phainon turns to him, surprised, then laughs. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
He seems younger now than he did earlier, backlit by the prison torch's weak glow, yet so much older at once — so much more tired. His posture is relaxed but slumped, shoulders sagging, head lowered; Mydei found him while he was lost in thought.
Phainon’s relief can be heard in his very breathing. “Thank you,” he says like he genuinely means it. And then he adds, after a beat, “I was actually thinking about you.”
“No,” Phainon says, a little abruptly, then settling down. “Please stay.”
Mydei hesitates, but decides to take Phainon to his word. He walks up, and Phainon’s smile softens as he gets close, eclipsing the exhaustion from his face.
“I was actually thinking about you,” Phainon confesses.
“I wished our meeting could have happened in different circumstances,” he says. He's looking up at the squared patch made of sky between the castle’s towers. “Or that I’d have found you myself. And I was thinking, it would have been nice for it to happen someplace else than in the castle’s prisons.”
Phainon hesitates; shifts, then gives Mydei an awkward smile. “You’re so quiet,” he says. “It’s a little intimidating.”
Mydei tries to come up with a clever joke but he can only think of chickens crossing a road. A moment passes where he desperately digs in the confines of his memory to find something funny. Nothing comes up.
“It’s also very nice,” Phainon ends up saying, looking up at the stars. “Everyone else has so much to tell me, and so little time to spare to listen.”
How does one even reassure a king? What is he supposed to say? Sorry to intimidate you?
“I’m just,” he starts, hands closed into fists at his side, “—listening.”
The smile Phainon gives him has no business being this tender.
“I know,” he says. “Thank you.”
It’s been a while since Mydei heard these words. The tip of his ears grow warm, and he resolutely stares at the ground.
“How generous of you,” Phainon says. “Still, such bad manners deserve an apology of sorts.”
He shuffles, hands untangling to search the pockets of his coat, where he retrieves a tiny black box. He hands it over to Mydei.
“I couldn’t find something better.”
The box is a tiny square that fits perfectly in the palm of Mydei’s hand. It’s soft to the touch, closed by only a tiny latch that Mydei unclips with his thumb. Inside, a jewel thrones, cushioned in white foam. Mydei carefully retrieves it.
The gem is a garish blue, a shine sharper than Phainon’s eyes. At its base, it’s cupped in delicate gold — an earring.
“Wear it,” Phainon says. “Please.”
The earring is delicate to the touch, so small it feels it might shatter between Mydei’s thumb and index if he were to press too hard. The hole at his ear is still half-open, a memory of a time where he used to wear spiky metal like armor, and the earring fits like it belongs here, catching the lights the fireflies emit.
Phainon watches, not even bothering to hide his obvious appreciation; the stone matches with the color of his eyes.
“It fits you,” he says, and his smile is unbelievably tender, making Mydei’s heart squeeze in on itself like a wounded animal. “Say, Mydei. Would you mind being my confidant for tonight?”
Mydei’s throat is constricted when he speaks. “I wouldn’t,” he says. “Go ahead.”
“You do it,” Mydei says. He lowers his head, nose almost brushing Phainon’s shoulder, and Phainon colors a pretty pink, becomes quiet, and complies.
The pink tint shades his knuckles too, as they hesitate, clumsy, over the jewel. He retrieves it from the box, then clasps it at Mydei’s ear, slender fingers delicate over his earlobe. “There you go,” he murmurs once he’s done, the weight of the earring an unfamiliar, but not uncomfortable counter-balance.
Their eyes meet. Phainon looks mesmerized, his hand still uselessly hanging next to Mydei’s ear, the barest graze against his cheek. “You’re beautiful,” he whispers.
A moment lasts, where Mydei can count each star mirrored in Phainon’s irises. Phainon breaks into a smile and pulls away. His voice returns to its casual, carefree tone.
“The prophecy should have mentioned this as well.”
Phainon nods, and laughs again. “The worst there is.” He winces, muttering. “I don’t think I’ll ever be used to being called a king.”
“No?”
“No.” He chuckles. It comes to him easily, when the two of them are alone, as if the sound was caged in his throat and waiting for Mydei so it could come out. “But I suppose there is little point in dwelling on that now.”
He tries to appear worry-free yet he sighs, fingers interlaced, knotted between his knees.
“Always,” Phainon confesses. “Would you mind hearing me out?”
“Go ahead.”
Mydei settles comfortably at Phainon’s sides, and he feels Phainon relaxing, his breathing evening to a quiet, regular sound.
Phainon laughs again. “No,” he replies. “Never. I was thinking about how I could apologize for my untoward welcome.” He pats down his chest pocket; retrieves a little box he puts in Mydei’s hand. “So I tried to find a present fitting of a Titan. I couldn’t find one.”
“Thanks. You are very kind, Mydei.” Phainon seems more honest now than ever. More fragile, somewhat, and again so familiar, in that weird way Mydei can’t place. “Being king is… strange.”
Mydeimos can weirdly relate. “These people rely on me and just a few days ago I was one of them. As lost as them. Now I have a crown and a throne. Responsibilities. Duties.” He glances at Mydei. He looks almost defenseless like this, surrounded by blooming forget-me-nots. “You.”
“I was thinking about how I could apologize for my untoward welcome.” He pats down his chest pocket; retrieves a little box he puts in Mydei’s hand. “So I tried to find a present fitting of a Titan. I couldn’t find one.”
“I had hoped you’d be. If you were truly the undying titan they talk about in the legends, then maybe you could have saved this land in my stead.”
“You’re like a dream come true. Like — the realization of a prophecy.”
Phainon chuckles, but it sounds like something sour is trapped beneath his tongue.
“The evernight lasts,” Phainon recites, hand extended to the firmament, all five fingers spread out as if reaching for individual stars. He closes his hand, and Mydei imagines the whole night curtain being pulled and swallowed in it. “And only the Deliverer will bring the dawn to Amphoreus. This is how the prophecy goes,” he explains.
It’s a prophecy, but it sounds like a child’s story. Like an old legend from times where humans thought the world belonged to them and the gods owed them something. Mydei thinks of Icarus, burning his wings; of Kronos, upholding the weight of the entire world on his shoulders.
“They say titans have this thing beating in their chests, the source of their power,” Phainon continues. “That the strength it gives is enough to lift mountains, or slay giants. Or,” he laughs, “save the world. Do you feel it?”
Mydei puts his hand against his chest. All he feels is his heart, beating abnormally fast — and the heat of the strange sigil that was supposedly his anger.
“Then that is a good thing,” Phainon says. “A very good thing.”
Mydei doesn’t know what to say. Phainon sighs, rubbing his hands together to evade the cold. The tip of his nose is red.
“I can feel it,” he says. His gaze is lost somewhere Mydei can’t follow, and he wonders if Phainon, too, has the weight of his own anger sinking down his chest. “It scares me, sometimes.”
He shifts back into his carefree mask before Mydei can ask further questions.
“I still can’t believe I’ll be officially crowned tomorrow. It feels like it’s been so… Quick. There are still many things I wanted to do as, I guess, myself.” He laughs. “The humble farmer of Aedes Elysiae.”
He turns to Mydei.
“Do you have these as well? Regrets?”
“Then let us pretend you don’t. Tomorrow will be the official ceremony. I will wield Dawnmaker and embark on a quest to save the world.” He laughs. “When I was a child, I dreamt of being a hero. Now that I’m pushed into being one — I’m not sure the crown fits.”
“There are many things I wish I'd done. Walk through the city streets. Fight like I used to as a boy. When I prayed to you,” he confesses, “I wished for many things. The city’s prosperity; the return of the Dawn. Answers I didn’t, and still don’t have.” Phainon lowers his head. “But never any of these simple dreams.”
“How about you,” Phainon suddenly asks. “Is there anything you wanted to do?”
There are many truths to this question. Mydei’s regrets piled up like snow at a door he wouldn’t open, afraid to face the world again, and he doesn’t have enough fingers to count them. Properly finish graduating, accept the bakery apprenticeship he was offered, go on that trip to the mountains Hephaestion and the others invited him to; tiny chances and moments that grief thieved away from him.
The answer comes naturally.
“My mother had a library,” he starts. A room that was at first intended to be an office, but that her passion for literature molded into something else. A room that always smelled like fresh paper and leatherback. “She always said that all the books in there would be for me, once she’d be gone.” He pauses. These are things he never told anyone, and he feels a little stupid, to blurt it out here, in an alternate reality where his mother doesn’t even exist. Phainon’s thigh touches his leg. “When she passed—” His mouth is dry. It’s something that never gets easier to say, My mother died. Maybe it’s not supposed to. “—I was scared of going there. It felt like entering some kind of sacred church. That I was not worthy of going to a place she cherished so much.”
And many other reasons, too. He thought it would hurt, seeing the memory of her smile where she once sat, enraptured by stories written in all the many different languages she had learned.
He expects Phainon to say all the tired replies he’s already heard. I’m sorry. It’s okay. I’m sure she’s proud of you, wherever she is.
“I could come with you,” Phainon says. “Tomorrow. If you want.”
He’s still looking at his hands. Mydei smiles. A different heat blooms in his chest, where his built-up anger nests.
“Okay,” he says.
Phainon’s face lights up, and Mydei feels, deep in his core, that he’s made the right choice. “Then it’s a date, Mydeimos.”
< ENDING UNLOCKED : WISTFUL PROMISE
Without the soft whirring of his computer booting up the VR, the apartment is eerily quiet. Mydei gets up from his chair, then curls in his bed. The heat in his chest has gone, replaced by something almost sweet, a precious bit of himself he thought he had lost. He thinks of Phainon until his eyes close.
Mydei sleeps and doesn’t dream.
Tomorrow is gray and quiet. Phainon’s words are still embedded in his memory. He’s alone, without a king at his side or a nervous heat in his chest, but he remembers. The promise — the library.
His car is parked where he last left it, awaiting like an old friend in the garage. The steering wheel is coated in a fine layer of dust he quickly cleans before settling on the front seat. It’s been so long he’s almost surprised when he turns the key on the contact and the engine roars.
Outside, everything is white. It’s the kind of day where the world seems frozen in place, every road and building on the way unchanged, carpeted in melting snow. He still remembers exactly the path to his mother’s house — his house, before he left; before she left — yet his grip on the wheel is shaky.
Nothing has changed. The front yard has been subdued by wild overgrown grass, and the windows haven’t been cleaned in so long they look opaque from the outside, but it’s the same red tiled-roof, the same rusty garden gate that witnessed him growing up.
The door creaks when he enters, and his throat tightens. He lingers in the entrance, struck by nostalgia and sudden tears he doesn’t quite manage to repress. The library is exactly as he remembers it. It smells like old books, new leather. Like her, a faint favor of pomegranate welcoming him and his mother’s house — his house. As if she never left.
He smiles, and rests his forehead against a cold row of books, silently promising he’ll read all of them, connect with her through all the stories she loved so much. He’s home, at last.
“I’ve returned, mother.”
He’s drowning. Again. He should be used to it. It’s difficult to accept the idea of a possible death. He closes his eyes and lets the current fight the upward pull of the net, tossed around like dead weight.
Something is different. Mydei can’t tell what, but he can feel it in his submerged limbs; in the grey matter of his brain.
He blinks. Opens his eyes, his eyelids so heavy they might be stuck closed like this forever. Something shines. At first, he thinks it’s only the reflection or the water, the bright webbing woven by light games — but the light he sees is brighter. More compact. It’s a tiny circle, floating just like he is. A ring.
The roaring water stills. He extends his hand, trying to grab for the ring. The cold metal touches his finger, slides onto it as if he belonged here. Memories flood like the current; rapid, merciless. Him, younger, sinking down, and down, until he’s stuck mid-nothing, between the bottomless abyss of the ocean and the unreachable surface, and it feels oddly, comfortingly familiar; the same floating state he’s been in ever since he had to pick a suit for Gorgo’s funeral.
It was a suit his father used to wear. The sleeves covered his hands up to the first knuckles, because it was too large, or maybe it was Mydei who was too small. Everything is a blur, memories lost in the dark fog that shrouded him back then. He remembers snippets of it, snapped negatives; the rain running down his cheeks while he couldn’t allow himself to cry; the light comforting pats on his shoulder; the awkward eulogies from people who didn’t really know her. The empty house. He remembers the loneliness, etching into his skin like a graft, like an itch that nobody’s presence could really scratch away.
“Were you angry, back then?”
The voice has returned. Mydei closes his eyes. Angry?
He remembers being sad, most of all. A sorrow so deep it engulfed everything else, swallowing bit by bit all the little pieces of what made him Mydei. A loneliness so cruel he felt he could die.
The voice hums, an unknown melody whistling between Mydei’s ears.
“Then you’ll understand,” it says.
The world tilts. The water pours.
“Yes, you were,” the omniscient voice repeats. “But that wasn’t all, was it? You were lonely. You were abandoned."
It’s an unfair way to put it. He can’t blame his mother for dying. He was lonely. He felt abandoned.
“You won’t understand if you don’t ask the right questions,” the voice says. It sounds almost soft now, without the intimidating glow of the Coreflame to accompany it, only the regular lull of the tamed waves. “I am merely helping you.”
The waves surge, going through his hair like a ruffling hand.
“Go,” the voice says. “Since you’re here already.”
The world tilts. The water pours.
“I want you to remember your loneliness. How suffocating it felt. How maddening. Then I want you to remember: you are not alone.”
You don’t know me.
The voice laughs, but it isn’t unkind. “Do you?”
Mydei keeps his answer trapped under his tongue.
“It’s okay,” the voice says. Saccharine-sweet. “You’ll figure it out. Go.”
The world tilts. The water pours.
He waits. It doesn’t pass. Ghost ants run through his forearms and crawl and curl in the round curve of his shoulders, and suddenly he’s tired and heavy from the weight of millennia spent here, drowning. Waiting. What was he waiting for again?
Yeah. He thought eventually, if he toughened it up, if he kept being strong, someone would reach out. A saving hand cutting through the water. A forgotten relative extending some help. A safety net. It never happened. Gorgo was dead, and he was alone.
Sinking.
“You can’t get out by yourself,” the voice says, returning. “You can’t save yourself.”
“What you make of it,” the voice answers with a hint of amusement. “Show me.”
The world tilts. The water cries.
[He’s out]
“You are not alone,” the voice continues. “Even though you believe you are.”
Mydei thinks of Phainon, then he thinks of nothing.
The world tilts. The water sings.
He got used to it. The slow yet unfazed drag of the waves; of the crowd. If you stop moving, life just takes you; buries you. He’d become a still painting in the empty apartment, seeing Gorgo everywhere she wasn’t anymore, and he thought eventually the pain, the emptiness, the painful memories of her smile, would stop. That’s what they all said. ‘It stops eventually.’
It never stopped.
It turned into an overflowing open wound, invisible blood trickling from his heart to the dip of his hollowed ribs, never-ending pain without the mercy of the kill. The ring shines. Mydeimos the undying, Mydei thinks, and he smiles bitterly.
The voice echoes. “You are still alive,” it says. “You’ve made it this far. You’ll make it even further.”
He doesn’t have the confidence the voice puts in him.
There’s no fade to black, to easing transition. He’s still sopping wet, bits of netting caught into his hair, dipping between his fingers. He’s wearing the ring on his fourth finger. It's an old god, rusting at the edges. Sunlight gold, crepuscular. For some reason, he wants to cry. He’s shackled, this time. Bound to hard marble — to an altar, and around him are sage, myrrh, and funeral ashes, scattered like offerings.
He waits. The room is eerily quiet, the tall ceiling reverberating the sound of a passing wind that comes from nowhere — there are no windows. He shifts, trying to reach a more comfortable position. The chains are heavy around his ankles, trapping him to the altar in a metallic dragging sound.
There’s a single door, tiny, wooden, barred with three locks of different sizes. It opens when he thinks of finally calling someone, and Phainon enters.
“Phainon,” Mydei calls. Phainon almost freezes, as if the words struck him, something blue and familiar passing through his eyes. Then he regains his composure, schooling his face into something neutral, foreign.
“You use the name of a dead man,” he says. He seems doubtful, as if Mydei has said something he wasn’t supposed to.
Mydei doesn’t understand. Phainon has changed, but he also hasn’t. He’s taller, considerably so. His eyes, the free azure blue that Mydei learned to appreciate, have turned dim and clouded. His skin is marred in pale scars that snake across his face and arms, digging into his flesh like fingers into sand.
He’s changed. He’s noticeably taller. Sadder, as well. His smile is gone, replaced by a tired sag in his shoulders, a slump in his spine, and by countless tiny scars that cut across his skin like abysses cracked into the pale, dry earth.
Phainon shuts the door behind him. The room is filled in religious silence again. “Nothing that concerns you,” he says. His tongue darts over dry lips.
He walks towards Mydei. He’s different, but he’s still the same. Colder, yet terribly gentle. With the back of a scarred hand, he touches Mydei’s cheek, the edge of a knuckle reaching his eyelashes.
“So you ended up returning,” he continues. “I had begun to lose all hope.”
“You don't,” Phainon repeats. He sounds like he didn't expect otherwise. His lips curl into a dejected smile. “Of course. Nobody does.” His hand overstays his welcome, stealing the heat from Mydei’s skin before he pulls away. “Nobody remembers.”
“I do,” Mydei counters. Phainon keeps a passive, disbelieving expression.
Mydei has to convince him.
Mydei tries to speak, but ends up choking, spitting a mixture of blood and water on the flat marble. The noise still manages to lure someone here; the deliberate echo of their footsteps grows closer.
The wooden door leading to the room opens. A man appears — not Phainon, but someone else.
The man is skinnier. Smaller. Long-limbed, narrow shoulders draped in emerald green, ringed hand closed around a gun. When he sees Mydei, he smirks.
“So the Titan is awake,” he says, sneering. “At long last.” He glances at Mydei’s chains. “How tasteless.”
“Who I am does not matter,” the man replies. He’s haughty, looking down on Mydei with a single eye, the other one curtained behind a leather eyepatch. Mydei imagines the sunken black hole where the orbit should be. “I am whoever this world needs me to be. The Grand Architect’s foolish, rebellious creation.” He laughs, his shoulders quickly shaking. “Anaxagoras, if you truly need a name. And you, well. I suppose you’re his new favorite toy.”
Mydei says nothing. The man looks mad, his single eye a mismatched color, a fractal red-blue. Noticing Mydei’s silence, he jests.
“If you want answers, ask the right questions,” he says. His words make no sense, stones thrown in a troubled pond, and he doesn’t seem willing to explain further.
“You speak in riddles,” Mydei says. He doesn’t know what to do of the nameless man, of his rapidfire ways of linking words together in mysterious sentences and of his volatile behavior. This isn’t the same beginning he already went through; the cell is gone. The walls of his new prison are a pale white that borders on yellow-beige, boiled and carved sandstone.
The man examines in, sudden interest shimmering in his lone eye. “Or perhaps you’re simply not asking the right questions,” he says.
He smiles, a satisfied smirk aimed at himself only, and then he stops, as if the strings animating his face were abruptly pulled. “You shouldn’t have come here,” he says.
“What I mean doesn’t matter,” Anaxa says, shaking his head. Mydei feels observed, as if he was nothing but an interesting test subject. “Forget what I said — or don’t, you won’t remember anyways.”
Anaxa turns heels, leaving through the same door again, and from behind the wooden slab Mydei hears him speak to someone else. ‘He’s awake, yes. Inform Khaslana.’
The following silence is ominous. Mydei focuses on his own ragged breathing, and on the man’s cryptic words, desperately trying to find a logic to his madness.
Is the eternal night still looming, outside? And why is he shackled, this time? What could have changed between the last occurrence and this one?
He doesn’t have the time to think about it further. There are sounds approaching from the hallways.
”You are in Amphoreus’ last bastion. Welcome to Okhema!” he says theatrically, lips split on a cold grin. He sounds as if he said a joke only he could tell. In his chest, there’s a star-shaped hole, and in the hole, a simmering galaxy. “I am Anaxagoras. You may not call me Anaxa. And you are,” he continues, bowing with exaggerated movements, his amusement stemming from a cultivated sarcasm, “A very esteemed guest, it seems.”
Again. Mydei remembers Phainon and Aglaea using the very same words. Shackled to the altar, he feels like a sacrifice.
The man’s eye sparkles with interest. “The whole truth, you say. What an interesting choice of words.” It seems the word triggered something in him, rekindling the fire of an extinguished passion. “Where does the truth end? And when does it start? How can you be sure that, because I speak of things you do not understand, I possess the truth?”
Mydei has nothing to say. The man is consumed by madness, speaking in the same language as he yet with words that do not make sense, and he’s shaken by a primal fear of what will end up happening to him if the stranger decides to report his whole misplaced attention to him.
“The truth,” the man continues, his arms extending to his sides, turning his silhouette into a cross, “is that there is no truth. Do you understand?”
Mydei bites his lower lip and says nothing.
“This is all a dream,” the man continues, his voice now dropping to a nostalgic murmur. “And only one of us can awaken.”
A knock on the door. Mydei jolts. The man scoffs, as if he expected this interruption, and turns to open it. On the other side, an armored man Mydei can barely see speaks, and he catches hints of phrases. He’s on his way. He’ll be here soon. The green-haired man nods.
“I must give you my farewells, now, fellow dreamer,” he says. He seems satisfied with their confusing one-sided conversation, short as it may have been. “If…” he ponders, carefully picking a word with a mocking smile, “‘Fate’ allows it, then may our paths cross again.”
Mydei doesn’t share the sentiment. The man leaves, and the guard closes the door behind him. Mydei is alone again.
>
The man’s smile softens, the same way food does when it turns and mollifies. “The same as the rest of us,” he says. “Although your suffering will be shorter.”
A shiver runs along Mydei’s spine. Through his lack of understanding, he feels the ominous setting of the current situation, and fear prickles and urges him to get free, to leave. His restraints are numerous and too heavy; rows of black chains eating at his legs and forearms like hungry millipedes. He’s stuck here.
The man nods. “Be brave,” he says. “Or don’t. I’ll keep looking for a way.” His gaze turns somber. “While I have the time.”
Anaxa turns heels, leaving through the same door again, and from behind the wooden slab Mydei hears him speak to someone else. ‘He’s awake, yes. Inform Khaslana.’
The following silence is ominous. Mydei focuses on his own ragged breathing, and on the man’s cryptic words, desperately trying to find a logic to his madness.
Is the eternal night still looming, outside? And why is he shackled, this time? What could have changed between the last occurrence and this one?
He doesn’t have the time to think about it further. There are sounds approaching from the hallways.
Steps echo again, heavier this time, more deliberate, yet Mydei knows from experience and instinct that it’s Phainon. Loneliness slowly abates.
He’s carrying a torch he dislodged from its perch on the wall, and the flame lends his face some colors, adding yellow-orange edges to the pale of his cheeks. The clothes he’s wearing are different. They are not white, but dark purple; long robes that hang from his waist and drape all the way to his ankles. His torso is bare, and scratched with deep scars that ooze golden, going along his forearms, snaking at his hips, gouging at the left side of his torso, where the heart should be. His face is concealed by a cloak that hangs from a tight necklace squeezed at his throat, yet Mydei can glimpse the very same, painful scars here, tearing at the left side of Phainon’s face.
He’s different from the Phainon Mydei met in his previous playthrough. Carved colder by life and the many scars drawing skin-colored commas against his jaw.
“You’ve returned,” he says.
Phainon laughs. “After cycles spent leaving me to hope in vain. I begged you for a sign, for anything. A reply to my hopeless prayers.” He plants his gaze into Mydei, and Mydei can read, inside pale dying hues, sorrow, anger, and resentment. Things he knows intimately. “You never answered.”
“Are you pretending not to know?” Phainon’s words are amused, but still gentle. “You feigning ignorance won’t spare me, Mydeimos. Decades; centuries. It’s been a while since our last meeting.”
But it’s only been a few minutes. Mydei wonders if time passes differently here; if these couple minutes equalled to lifetimes to Phainon, and then he unwillingly broke his promise, never returning like he said he would — and he knows exactly the feeling, the expectation of waiting that slowly fades day after day, but never quite days; the faint hope for him to hang onto like a frayed rope.
“You shouldn’t have returned,” Phainon says before Mydei can speak. He’s still smiling, but it’s an apologetic thing, a warning of something to come. “Answering my prayers once was enough. I’ve been greedy.”
He lowers his head. Washed out strands of silver hair fall onto Mydei’s shoulder. “The trial is upon us,” he says. Behind the door, someone knocks. “There is no time for change anymore. This end is already written, and yet you’re here—”
“What always happens,” Phainon answers. He looks up to the pale ceiling, then down, to Mydei’s eyes, collarbone, naked shoulders, stopping on his chained ankles. “I will do what the world expects of me.”
His hand lands where his gaze is stopped, one firm palm pressed against Mydei’s ankle, and the other coiled around the chain — and he yanks. The chain shatters easily, too easily for a mere human, yet Phainon keeps wearing that soft, guilty smile of his.
“See?” he asks. “I’ve changed. I’ll keep changing.”
His hand lingers on Mydei’s ankle, even when the door opens to armored guards. His voice lowers so only Mydei can hear it. “Attend my trial,” he says. “The guardian god of Amphoreus,” he continues, like it’s not only a title but also a bitter memory only he can recall, “must witness the rise of the new dawn.”
The guards surround them, lances raised towards the ceiling. “It is time, Khaslana,” one of them says.
“I know,” Phainon replies. He extends a hand for Mydei to take, like he did before, in the cell where Mydei wasn’t a prisoner but a caught, lost deity. “Let’s go.”
Phainon leads Mydei to the door. The door leads to a flight of the stairs that go down, and Mydei follows him, naked feet grazing the cold cement. “It won’t take long,” Phainon says. “The world couldn’t be saved without the twelfth coreflame.” He turns to Mydei. “Yours.”
He stops in front of another door. “After you,” he says.
Behind the door is an altar, where water flows from a perched gargoyle's head, down into large yet shallow pools. In the middle of the room thrones a sword, one Mydei recognizes from the last time he’s seen it: Phainon’s sword.
“I have lied to you, Phainon confesses, walking towards the altar. “Twice, in fact.”
“The first time,” he starts, “was when you first awoke.” The door closes behind them. “On the very first cycle, where it all began. You asked me who you were, and I told you you were Amphoreus's guardian god. This is only half true.” Phainon’s hand loops around the sword’s handle, and retrieves it from where it rests. The blade is already tainted, its edge painted a strange gold. “A more fitting answer would be that you are the hero from my dreams.”
Phainon doesn’t reply. He turns to Mydei, the sword firm in his hand. “You have a coreflame too, don’t you? Strife’s. So you must know as well, that constant plain flaring against your rib, melting you down to the very bones.”
He takes a step forward. Stripes of skin tear from his chest, and the room’s temperature rises, a heat so violent Mydei feels dizzy. “I feel it in every little departing part of me. My empathy. My hope. My memories.”
Mydei understands even without the coreflame. Phainon smiles.
“I am sorry,” he says. “I really am.”
Mydei feels the steel bite of the sword before he sees it. It happens in a flash; Phainon, surging close, and Dawnmaker, deep inside his stomach, piercing through his back. There is nothing, and then a supernova of pain, flaring in his everything.
“The second time,” Phainon continues, as the blade colors a fresher gold — Mydei’s blood. “The second time was just a moment ago. I told you I had lost all hopes. This is untrue.” Mydei feels like sleeping. “As long as I remember your name, I will carry the selfish hope that you might save me. The foolish belief that we understand each other.” He speaks like a man sentenced for life, his words light, convinced nothing will come after this.
A tear runs down his cheek, and vanishes before it can crash onto the ground. He’s burning hot, a divine fever contained in a mortal body.
Mydei tries to talk. He coughs, more golden blood seeping down his chin, his lungs emptied yet full, overflowing with hurt. Phainon speaks.
“Will you forgive me this time as well? Will you return and attempt to save me? Will you embrace me like you’ve once done?”
I will, he thinks. Even though it might be a selfish wish; even though he might only return because he, too, once wished to be saved. I will.
< ENDING UNLOCKED: THE ONE WHO LONGS FOR THE BURNING DAWN OF TOMORROW
[Restart?]
Phainon leads Mydei to the door. The door leads to a flight of the stairs that go down, and Mydei follows him, naked feet grazing the cold cement. “It won’t take long,” Phainon says. “The world couldn’t be saved without the twelfth coreflame.” He turns to Mydei. “Yours.”
“No.” Phainon smiles. “I am saying it’s mine. “
He stops in front of another door. “After you,” he says.
“More mistakes, I suppose.” He chuckles. Mydei wants to hug him tight, hug him hard, and never let him go. “Say, Mydei. Do you remember the promise we’ve made?”
“Yes,” Phainon replies. He seems fond in that moment, close, hanging onto Mydei like a drowning man would a flimsy rafter. The steps grow closer. “Perhaps—” He hesitates. His hand turns into a shaky claw onto Mydei’s shoulder. “Perhaps there is still time.”
His voice carries a figment of hope. The guards enter.
“Khaslana,” they say. “It is time for your trial.”
“It is,” Khaslana — Phainon — says, and he looks at Mydei with hopes that contain renewed hope, steel sharp focus, as if everything else didn’t matter. He separates himself from Mydei only to help him stand, hands in hands, and Mydei falls into him as if that were where he belonged.
“Khaslana,” another guard calls. They all have the same voice; the same warning tone. Phainon smiles, something odd stirring the corners of it.
“I know,” he repeats.
He leads Mydei to the stairs. They go up; many flights, spiralling in a stone cold stairway to heaven.
“Come on,” he says. One hand in Mydei’s and the other firmly caught around a torch. “Let’s go while we still can.”
None of it feels real. None of it is, Mydei supposes. Phainon halts in front of a door — the same one that led to Gorgo’s library — and he turns to Mydei. “After you,” he says.
The word strikes Phainon like a blow. His eyes grow wide, scared almost, and he takes a brisk step towards the altar, getting so close that Mydei could embrace him.
“What did you just say?”
“The coronation,” Mydei repeats. “Haven’t you just become king?”
Phainon pales. His hand slowly comes up, the extremities of his fingers trembling, and he lands them on Mydei’s cheeks. They’re burning hot.
“You remember,” Phainon says. “You remember the me from back then?”
“Of course,” Mydei murmurs. He has the feeling Phainon will vanish if he speaks too loudly, the scars breaching his skin entirely shattering it.
“Phainon,” Mydei calls. Phainon startles, a blend of emotions swirling in his lightless eyes. A show of vulnerability. “What happened?”
“Tomorrow never came,” Phainon says. “You never came. And me— I changed.” He laughs. “As the prophecy foretold.”
“You don't know me,” Phainon insists. He looks at Mydei like he hates him, and also like he wishes to be saved. Mydei knows. It’s a look he’s himself had, full of hatred and resentful understanding that the world would always be unfair and cruel. The look of a beaten dog. A look he can’t fathom to see on anyone, much less Phainon. “Not anymore. You don’t know what I’ve done. What I’m about to do.”
But Mydei can feel it in his marrow, and in the cold steel of the shackles restraining his legs. There’s cruelty blooming in Phainon’s words, violence rising like a rebellion.
“I know you,” Mdyei repeats.
Phainon laughs. Even this sound is broken, fractured like a bone. “Then why don’t you resent me? Curse me?”
Phainon takes a decided step forward toward Mydei, his torso pressed against Mydei’s knees, his arms bracketing his sides.
“Mydei,” Phainon starts. His voice is strong with expectation. Fear. Hope, all at once, a trifecta of things Mydei isn’t sure he can properly handle. “Why did you return on this day? Why did you have to remember?” He looks conflicted, a blend of fear and hope mixing in his pretty eyes as he locks them into Mydei.
“I promised you I would.”
“You did,” Phainon says. He softens a little.
Someone thumps at the door, breaking their troubled reunion; guards. They barge in the room, all armored and stern, surrounding the altar and the two of them.
“It is time, Khaslana,” one of them says, addressing Phainon. “The trial will begin.”
“Yes,” Phainon simply says. He peels away from Mydei, then offers him a scarred hand. Mydei takes it.
Phainon’s gaze latches onto the earring. “You still have it,” he murmurs. His face softens for a brief moment, before schooling itself back to an impassable mask. “So I’ve given you a trinket,” he says, his eyes fixated on the blue gem he attached onto Mydei’s ear. “The proof of my —” He stumbles, lowers his gaze to the ground, “—affections.”
He looks like he’s trying not to fall, not to fail. Leading a battle against his own self. “Even after I’ve come this far, you still manage to make me stumble.”
He passes a hand over his forehead, as if hoping his worries could be absorbed by the flat of his palm, then he shakes his head. “I need to do what’s asked of me,” he tells Mydei, his voice vibrating with the hope that Mydei will, somehow, understand and forgive. “I am sorry. Truly.”
“You will,” Phainon says. “Soon.” He gives the shadow of a sad smile.
The door opens. Guards flood the room.
”You said you would come with me,” Mydei starts. His voice is slow, fragile. Scared of breaking something else in Phainon. “To my mother’s library.”
Phainon’s eyes widen.
“You really haven’t forgotten,” he breathes out. His mask cracks, his pretense forgotten, his anger gone, now all replaced by a bottomless sadness. “Mydei,” he says, and he touches Mydei’s face as if he expected it to shatter into dust under his fingertips. “You still remember.”
“Here we are,” Phainon says. “The library of Garbaniphoro — Your library.”
Gorgo’s library. The arched ceiling stretches far above, a sky built with stones, and around them tall bookshelves guard the walls, all bursting with books and parchments decades and centuries old. Phainon walks amongst them as if he was used to it — as if he’d already walked past the scattered novel piles on the floor a hundred times.
“All of our history is sheltered here,” he explains. His cloak conceals his face. The fabric is streaked red by the torch he’s still holding.
“No,” Phainon says. “The prophecy…” He hesitates. “The prophecy was disposed of a long time ago.”
Phainon doesn’t answer. “I remember you saying you wanted to come here,” he says; stops. “That is all I remember. The sadness in your eyes when you spoke, and the fondness in your words when you told me of these books you never got to read.”
“I tried to cherish that precious memory like—” He stops and laughs. “— a rare book,” he decides, his fingers drawing over titles. “But as the cycles go on, I lose more and more of myself. I forget. Me. The reason I return here.” He turns to Mydei. “And at times, you.”
“You can’t,” Phainon says. “This is something only I can do.” His back is slumped, carrying the invisible weight of Sisyphus' rock. He closes his eyes. “But at the very least, I’ll have fulfilled this wish of yours. This is enough.”
Mydei’s heart stings. The loneliness in Phainon’s voice is unbearable, resonating with his own.
“This world is doomed to be destroyed,” Phainon continues. He has a pleading look, begging Mydei to understand.
Phainon doesn’t reply. His gaze, darkening, answers for him.
“She’ll return soon,” he eventually says. “Since I’ll fail this time as well.”
“I can help you,” Mydei offers. Phainon shakes his head.
“You can’t. This world was doomed to destruction from the start.”
“This isn’t your first time here,” Mydei notices.
“It isn’t,” Phainon nods. The longer they spend here, the more distant he sounds. He caresses the books, collecting accumulated dust on his fingertips. Dictionaries, old maps, forgotten tales; the library is crammed with them, all written in a language Mydei knows. “I come here often. Each time I feel like I can’t survive your absence.”
Phainon doesn’t reply. He looks up to the vaulted ceiling, lost in thoughts. “A long time ago,” he starts, “there was a boy trapped in a cave. The boy dreamt for a hero to come and save him.” His words are slow, each its own separate wound. Mydei doesn’t dare to move.
“And then one fateful day, a hero appeared.” Phainon turns towards Mydei. Smiles, but there's a shift when he does, a tear in his cheek that forms a scar, like ripped paper. “And the boy thought his suffering would finally be over.”
“You should leave,” Phainon says. “The next time you get the chance. Before it’s too late.”
“Then—” Mydei breathes out. His words, echoing in the vastness of the library, sound wrong. “Then you should come with me.”
Phainon smiles. “No,” he says. “I belong here. In the ruins of my own sins. I shouldn’t have prayed for you to come here.”
He lets go of the torch. It falls to the ground, the hungry flames devouring old paper, leaving not even ashes. Soon, he’s surrounded in a circle of it. He doesn’t move, only looking at the ceiling. His face peels, the pale skin falling in fractured bits, like a vase shattering. “Leave,” he urges. “Please, Mydei.”
Mydei’s back is pressed against the door, but his body refuses to move. He watches, unable to speak, as the fire greedily chews on Phainon’s cloak, Phainon’s legs. Phainon smiles all the while, eyes shut, free.
“I’m glad I was able to fulfill your wish,” he says. “I really am.”
Gorgo’s library burns, and with it, Phainon. Mydei feels like crying.
< ENDING UNLOCKED : THE DREAMER’S WISH
[Restart?]
“The boy was wrong,” Phainon replies. “Suffering never ends. Just like the evernight. Just like this world.”
“What happened?” Mydei presses on. “Who did this to you?”
“Because he was alone,” Phainon says. “And because no one could understand him.”
“I understand you.”
“You do,” Phainon replies. “You always did.” His fond smile is weakened by the flame, melancholic almost. “But you weren’t there.”
The flame burns brighter, illuminating half-open books scattered on the ground. Books with drawings, depictions of Mydei. On a battlefield. The Undying Guardian of Amphoreus. Something prickles in the middle of his spine, a strange ache like the one of an old wound coming to life when it rains.
“It’s okay,” Phainon says. He sounds like he’s daydreaming. Like he’s somewhere far, far from here. Like he’s about to cry. “It’ll have to end someday. It has to.”
Parts of his face peel away, falling onto the floor like pages. There’s nothing underneath; only a black void born from the gaps, that spreads, and spreads, and spreads. Mydei, too, hopes that it’ll end. Phainon keeps falling into dust in front of his eyes, and there is nothing he can do to save him.
He watches as Phainon disappears. In his chest, the coreflame burns; sizzles. Like it’s making up for something that isn’t here anymore.
ENDING UNLOCKED: PAINLESS DEPARTURE [Restart?]
“You’re sorry,” Phainon repeats. He laughs. It’s a fragmented sound, as if he’s hurting with each breath he takes, each tremble in his broad frame. His hand covers the right side of his face, fingers splayed like a spider’s legs.
“I prayed so long,” Phainon confesses. His voice is a weak, shivering thing, the same flicker that the one from the flame he’s holding. “Wondering where I went wrong, to receive such scorn from you. Such silence.”
He laughs, then he stops. His long, cold fingers find Mydei’s face.
The torch falls. Flames spread, devouring the old parchments and the precious books, and Phainon’s hands on Mydei’s face feel like a sheath that’ll never loosen.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” Phainon murmurs. “Somedays I thought I’d die from how much the very possibility hurt. Never being able to see you.”
Phainon’s hand snakes around Mydei’s waist, bringing him closer, and Mydei feels the heat of both Phainon and the flames. Phainon’s hand is tracing his spine, stopping on a vertebrae, pressing against it with his thumb.
He's not real. He's only a character. This world, and this uncanny copy of his mother’s library — it’s all fake. And yet, Phainon’s touch burns, warmer than Mydei’s coreflame, searing at his hips, refusing to let go.
Phainon is supposed to be only code, but he’s growing cold to the touch, and the burning library is far too real. Flames tear paper off the pages, and the high shelves collapse, their treasures falling to ruin one book after another. Phainon doesn’t let go.
“Don’t leave me,” he says. “Please. Don’t leave me again.”
The words echo in a way they shouldn’t. Don’t leave me, and Mydei sees himself, on his knees, sobbing. Don’t leave me. None of this is real. It can’t be.
The heat grows. The coreflame, in his chest. Phainon’s hands. The flames, destroying the library he wished he could have visited earlier, sooner, and both his and Phainon’s regrets.
“It’ll be over soon,” Phainon says. He’s fading, losing colors. His skin and hair have turned a pale moon shade of blue, yet even as he vanishes into nothing, his grasp on Mydei holds strong, desperate. “And then it’ll start again.”
The pain isn’t physical. It burns from the inside, the nerves in each muscle ablaze, screaming in agony. It won’t last. There’s relief in that. The pain ends, for now. The cycles won’t.
< ENDING UNLOCKED: CURTAIN FALLS
[Restart?]
“Mine. I did,” Phainon says. He laughs, and tears swell in his eyes. “I did, so many times, and I might have to do this again, and I don’t know how long I can.” The scariest thing is that he’s not mad. Mydei sees the shocking spark of honesty in his eyes, the almost invisible wounds that life carves on people it decides to curse. Sees in Phainon’s eyes, the reflection of a Mydei that cannot be him; that has been hurt, killed, and betrayed — that was loved from a love so raw and precious the finest blade could not shatter it.
“But you’re here, now.” The left side of Phainon’s face is peeling, like an old tapestry wearing down with age. “I’ve hurt so many people, and when I did, and I stood alone, having betrayed everyone I knew and loved, I was happy you weren’t there. Happy I didn’t have to hurt you. Why did you have to return?”
Mydei has no answer to give. It’s too late. He’s here now, and all he can do is return Phainon’s tormented embrace, wishing he could have done something to prevent such hurt to spread; wishing he could have contained it to himself only.
Phainon sobs, clutching onto Mydei. His torch rolls to the ground, and the old books catch fire like dry logs. The heat of burned paper doesn’t compare to the one of Mydei’s Coreflame — doesn’t compare to Phainon’s.
The library burns. Their embrace lasts. Perhaps Phainon will always forget what he did in these precious previous lives, and will always carry the torch and try to set it all ablaze.
< ENDING UNLOCKED: THE ETERNAL PAIN OF REMEMBRANCE
[Restart?]
Behind the door is an altar, where water flows from a perched gargoyle's head, down into large yet shallow pools. In the middle of the room thrones a sword, one Mydei recognizes from the last time he’s seen it: Phainon’s sword.
“I have lied to you, Phainon confesses, walking towards the altar. “Twice, in fact.”
“The first time,” he starts, “was when you first awoke.” The door closes behind them. “On the very first cycle, where it all began. You asked me who you were, and I told you you were Amphoreus's guardian god. This is only half true.” Phainon’s hand loops around the sword’s handle, and retrieves it from where it rests. The blade is already tainted, its edge painted a strange gold. “A more fitting answer would be that you are the hero from my dreams.”
Phainon doesn’t reply. He turns to Mydei, the sword firm in his hand. “You have a coreflame too, don’t you? Strife’s. So you must know as well, that constant plain flaring against your rib, melting you down to the very bones.”
He takes a step forward. Stripes of skin tear from his chest, and the room’s temperature rises, a heat so violent Mydei feels dizzy. “I feel it in every little departing part of me. My empathy. My hope. My memories.”
Mydei understands even without the coreflame. Phainon smiles.
“I am sorry,” he says. “I really am.”
Mydei feels the steel bite of the sword before he sees it. It happens in a flash; Phainon, surging close, and Dawnmaker, deep inside his stomach, piercing through his back. There is nothing, and then a supernova of pain, flaring in his everything.
“The second time,” Phainon continues, as the blade colors a fresher gold — Mydei’s blood. “The second time was just a moment ago. I told you I had lost all hopes. This is untrue.” Mydei feels like sleeping. “As long as I remember your name, I will carry the selfish hope that you might save me. The foolish belief that we understand each other.” He speaks like a man sentenced for life, his words light, convinced nothing will come after this.
A tear runs down his cheek, and vanishes before it can crash onto the ground. He’s burning hot, a divine fever contained in a mortal body.
Mydei tries to talk. He coughs, more golden blood seeping down his chin, his lungs emptied yet full, overflowing with hurt. Phainon speaks.
“Will you forgive me this time as well? Will you return and attempt to save me? Will you embrace me like you’ve once done?”
I will, he thinks. Even though it might be a selfish wish; even though he might only return because he, too, once wished to be saved. I will.
< ENDING UNLOCKED: THE ONE WHO LONGS FOR THE BURNING DAWN OF TOMORROW
[Restart?]
This time there's no water. No voice. This time he's back to ten years ago, and the water runs from his eyes. It pours at the simplest questions, without his say-so. Where is your mother? Where did she go?
The priest said she was in the place where good people went; up there, above the clouds, and that she looked down on Mydei from here, and that she was proud. Lies, all of it. Mydei knew where his mother was: in the dirt, locked in a black box.
It’s strange, thinking back on that time. He was sad enough to die, and tired enough to spend his days trapped in bed, unable to get out.
“You need to wake up,” a voice says, but it’s not the voice he’s used to. It’s a feminine one, gentle, yet pressing. “Lord Mydei. You have to wake up.”
It’s not a particularly good dream to have. It’s not even a dream, in fact; rather an elongated memory that distorts the more he thinks about it, minor details changing each time he drowns in it again. The funeral, the library, Phainon. The trial. It aches in his chest, where Dawnmaker stabbed. Something is wrong.
He opens his eyes to orange light. A waning sun, descending behind the horizon. He’s in… A castle? But not the same as before. He doesn’t recognize the sun-kissed stones of Okhema; all around him are blemished white, imperial almost, tall pillars reaching for the sky, draped in flags the color of Phainon’s eyes.
“Lord Mydei.”
The voice belongs to a woman. He blinks, finding her. She’s dressed in purple from head to toes, mauve butterflies cascading down her braided hair, and she smiles with relief when he fully awakes.
“Everyone is waiting for you,” she says. “The festival can’t properly start without you.”
Mydei blinks, unsure.
“Phainon?” She seems puzzled, then her confusion morphs into an amused smile. “Oh, did you have this dream again?”
Dream? Nothing makes sense. Mydei’s hands are covered in rings; signets he doesn’t recognize.
The servant drops, neatly folded, a piece of clothing onto his bed. “Today is the anniversary of your mother’s passing,” she says.
Everything seems to fast-forward, too quick for him to react.
Servants enter the room, and he’s being stripped of his clothes and into the new ones without his say-so. His new attire is red and gold, fitting for a prince. One of them tries to remove his earring.
“Yes, my Lord. Have you forgotten which day today is?”
She looks at him like she expects him to know. Only two things come to mind.
She drops, neatly folded, a piece of clothing onto his bed. “Today is the anniversary of your mother’s passing,” she explains.
As if on cue, servants enter the room, and he’s being stripped of his clothes and into the new ones without his say-so. His new attire is red and gold, fitting for a prince. One of them tries to remove his earring.
[Stop him]
“Don’t,” Mydei says. The servant looks down, shameful, but obeys.
He’s being guided outside, the servants forming a crowd around him, a human shield. They guide him through empty hallways. Everything is blood-red, from the carpeted floor to the tapestries on the walls. A song erupts somewhere, higher, beyond the walls and the ceiling — a chant. The sad acknowledgment of someone's death.
He’s introduced to an arena. The servants leave. There is no crowd; only fallen bodies littering the floor, and that chant, growing louder, more serene. He recognizes his opponent immediately.
Phainon stands, bloodied sword in hand.
“Phainon,” Mydei says. His hair has changed, turned golden blond like the color of the blood he’s spilled.
“Still not my name,” Phainon says with a contrite look. “Mydei.”
He feels like looking into a mirror. The pain in Phainon’s face is one he understands: the hurt of being abandoned, and the unfairness of it. That loneliness that stretches and blends and becomes a part of you, swallowing down every little thing he used to love, everything that made him human.
“The trial didn’t work,” Mydei understands. All this anger and pain, in vain. “You were alone again.”
Phainon smiles and says nothing. He readies Dawnmaker, and Mydei feels it already, the tear of the steel inside his guts, and the cold heat of Phainon’s tears.
“Will it stop?” Phainon asks. His voice trembles, but his grip on the sword is steady. “The cycles. The pain. Does it go away?” Mydei feels, once more, the desire to die a hundred times over if he could only save someone else.
“Yes,” Mydei says. “It always stops, eventually.”
Feeding Phainon the same lies he’s been told.
“Then stay with me,” Phainon replies. He’s fueled by heroic determination, but he’s seen too much; suffered too long. His frame shakes, his pupils tremble. They’ve turned into a pretty blend of golden-blue. A lonely sun drowning in its sky. “Stay with me until the world ends.”
Perhaps this is it, then. You are not alone, the voice had said. Perhaps it was right.
“Okay,” Mydei says. “I will.”
Phainon smiles, tears melting as they pour from his eyes, and drives Dawnmaker in Mydei’s chest. In his chest, the heat roars, churns. It hurts. It’s okay. He’s not alone anymore.
< ENDING UNLOCKED: ETERNAL ESCAPISM
[Restart?]
This time there's no water. No voice. This time he's back to ten years ago, and the water runs from his eyes. It pours at the simplest questions, without his say-so. Where is your mother? Where did she go?
The priest said she was in the place where good people went; up there, above the clouds, and that she looked down on Mydei from here, and that she was proud. Lies, all of it. Mydei knew where his mother was: in the dirt, locked in a black box.
It’s strange, thinking back on that time. He was sad enough to die, and tired enough to spend his days trapped in bed, unable to get out.
“You need to wake up,” a voice says, but it’s not the voice he’s used to. It’s a feminine one, gentle, yet pressing. “Lord Mydei. You have to wake up.”
It’s not a particularly good dream to have. It’s not even a dream, in fact; rather an elongated memory that distorts the more he thinks about it, minor details changing each time he drowns in it again. The funeral, the library, Phainon. The trial. It aches in his chest, where Dawnmaker stabbed. Something is wrong.
He opens his eyes to orange light. A waning sun, descending behind the horizon. He’s in… A castle? But not the same as before. He doesn’t recognize the sun-kissed stones of Okhema; all around him are blemished white, imperial almost, tall pillars reaching for the sky, draped in flags the color of Phainon’s eyes.
“Lord Mydei.”
The voice belongs to a woman. He blinks, finding her. She’s dressed in purple from head to toes, mauve butterflies cascading down her braided hair, and she smiles with relief when he fully awakes.
“Everyone is waiting for you,” she says. “The festival can’t properly start without you.”
Mydei blinks, unsure.
The voice ceases. Mydei’s breathing settles. Servants have entered the room, and he’s being stripped of his clothes and into the new ones without his say-so. His new attire is red and gold, fitting for a prince. One of them tries to remove his earring.
“Don’t,” he says. The servant looks down and obeys.
He’s being guided outside, the servants forming a crowd around him, a human shield. They guide him through empty hallways. Everything is blood-red, from the carpeted floor to the tapestries on the walls. A song erupts somewhere, higher, beyond the walls and the ceiling — a chant. The sad acknowledgment of someone's death.
He’s introduced to an arena. The servants leave. There is no crowd; only fallen bodies littering the floor, and that chant, growing louder, more serene. He recognizes his opponent immediately.
Phainon stands, bloodied sword in hand.
“Phainon,” Mydei says. His hair has changed, turned golden blond like the color of the blood he’s spilled.
“Still not my name,” Phainon says with a contrite look. “Mydei.”
He feels like looking into a mirror. The pain in Phainon’s face is one he understands: the hurt of being abandoned, and the unfairness of it. That loneliness that stretches and blends and becomes a part of you, swallowing down every little thing he used to love, everything that made him human.
“The trial didn’t work,” Mydei understands. All this anger and pain, in vain. “You were alone again.”
Phainon smiles and says nothing. He readies Dawnmaker, and Mydei feels it already, the tear of the steel inside his guts, and the cold heat of Phainon’s tears.
“Will it stop?” Phainon asks. His voice trembles, but his grip on the sword is steady. “The cycles. The pain. Does it go away?” Mydei feels, once more, the desire to die a hundred times over if he could only save someone else.
“Yes,” Mydei says. “It always stops, eventually.”
Feeding Phainon the same lies he’s been told.
“Then stay with me,” Phainon replies. He’s fueled by heroic determination, but he’s seen too much; suffered too long. His frame shakes, his pupils tremble. They’ve turned into a pretty blend of golden-blue. A lonely sun drowning in its sky. “Stay with me until the world ends.”
Perhaps this is it, then. You are not alone, the voice had said. Perhaps it was right.
“Okay,” Mydei says. “I will.”
Phainon smiles, tears melting as they pour from his eyes, and drives Dawnmaker in Mydei’s chest. In his chest, the heat roars, churns. It hurts. It’s okay. He’s not alone anymore.
< ENDING UNLOCKED: ETERNAL ESCAPISM
[Restart?]
She ignores him and drops, neatly folded, a piece of clothing onto his bed. “Today is the anniversary of your mother’s passing,” she says. Mydei freezes. She doesn’t notice, or pretends not to. He remembers where her voice comes from. For your valentine?
Something is wrong. His heart rate picks up, screaming at him to leave; to escape. His body is more rigid than a stone.
[Log out]
[Log out]
[Continue]
[Log out]
[Log out]
Words splash onto his field of vision, fleeting and distorted.
Mydei blinks, and the words scatter like ashes. There’s a silence, and then — the underwater voice returns like a migraine; pesky, whistling between Mydei’s ears, in the confines of his skull.
Do you wish to leave?
Do you wish to leave?
Do you wish to leave?
Do you wish to rescue him?
Do you wish to leave?
Do you wish to leave?
Do you wish to leave?
Her voice distorts. Turns into something metallic, robotic. Its voice — the voice that convinced him to take the Coreflame, now dangerous, without the thwarting of the waves.
“Greedy,” it says. “Haven’t you learned? Ignorance is bliss.”
Mydei recoils. It speaks with the girl’s face, but the sound is mismatched, coming out from her closed mouth.
“Who are you?”
The girl laughs. The sound grows and grows, mixing her soft, high pitch with its deep and emotionless one, until it turns into something strikingly ominous; lightning echoing from inside a cave.
The words spin and twist. Blur, fragmented sentences he can’t fully make out, but he understands one thing: the thing possessing the girl isn’t human. It’s an atrocious mix between sentience and program; a glitch trying to distort and leave the confines of its codes, stretching its envelope in ways that shouldn’t be possible.
“I must thank you,” it says, and the girl’s face tilts sideways so abruptly the joints of her neck snap in tiny consecutive pops. “I would have never gotten this far without you.”
Mydei’s hands are balled into tight fists.
“Who else?” It smiles, the color in its eyes shifting from pale purple to bleeding red. “You’ve taught him a pain far more cruel than I could have.” Mydei instinctually understands that it refers to Phainon. “You’ve given him hope, only to take it away. Bravo,” it claps. The noise of her palms hitting each other only echoes when they aren’t. “My little project is slowly attaining sentience—thanks to you. Only a few cycles and he’ll be ready.”
“This is merely an experiment. How long until a human forgets he’s human? Can his humanity be reset, and then created again from the beginning, molded until he becomes whatever I wish him to be? Aren’t you curious, Mydeimos, son of Gorgo?”
It sounds thoroughly entertained. Amused. Mydei's blood boils with deep hatred.
“Ahh, here it is. That blazing anger again. Shouldn’t you be glad I returned it to you? Come to think of it, you are like him as well, aren’t you? A shell waiting to be filled with feelings. Unable to get out by yourself.”
It’s looking at Mydei with wide eyes, a predatory bird about to seize its prey, and Mydei has a feeling it knows everything. The wilted flower; the apartment room; the funeral. He needs to leave. His back hits the cold hard wall behind him.
“At first I thought you were an error,” the voice continues. “A beneficial one, that made the program loop, causing him to remember. I thought of getting rid of you. But you might be —” It reaches for Mydei, her hand shooting out, her arm twisted in a bizarre way, like a tree’s branch about to snap “— an interesting test subject as well.”
A cold shiver runs through Mydei’s entire spine.
The world shakes. Words spin again, replacing the castle walls. The girl’s face twists, her eyes so large they swallow half of it.
“No,” it says, its voice distorting again, a chorus made of many others. “No!”
“Science requires madness to progress. To evolve.” It pauses, smiling to itself with that strange half-smirk that doesn’t reach the eyes, that looks too forced, mechanical. Programmed.
“You’re an error that shouldn’t have made its way in this code. Fiction is inspired by reality. Everything here is made from something, or someone, that already exists. Background characters built off people he never met, all to create a perfect sandbox made of people who would help him grow.” Mydei feels sick. “You are one of them. Mydeimos, the undying guardian of Amphoreus. You taught him endurance. Strength. You also gave him hope.” It says the word as if it disgusted him. “A fundamental value found in every human being, that makes you differ from animals. There’s no logic to hope. It stays here, uselessly rooted within weak spirits.”
“Yes,” it continues. It’s not smiling anymore. Mydei can see the metaphorical cogs turning behind its dead pupils. “You need to be rid of. As long as there’s no more hope, then he’ll be able to attain his full potential.” It takes a step forward. Mydei’s back hits the cold wall.
The world shakes. Words spin again, replacing the castle walls. The girl’s face twists, her eyes so large they swallow half of it.
“No,” it says, its voice distorting again, a chorus made of many others. “No!”
When Mydei opens his eyes, he’s back at the altar. The chains are gone, and all that is left is the creeping sensation of someone watching him, and the hardness of the wall that was pressed against his back. He takes a deep breath.
“Almost lost you there.”
He jolts. Anaxa stands next to him, arms crossed, gazing at him as if he’s finally worthy of his interest.
“This isn’t just a game,” he understands, gasping. Anaxa’s lack of reaction tells him what he needs to know. “That thing — Phainon —”
“Phainon is like you,” Anaxa cuts. “Human. Plugged to a VR system somewhere, slowly corrupted by this program.”
The information slowly worms its way to Mydei’s brain. Just an hour ago, he would have laughed, or brushed it all away. Now, with the warped voice still echoing in his brain, he has no choice but to accept that he — and Phainon — are in danger.
“We need to save him,” he says.
“It almost got to you,” Anaxa retorts. He’s impossibly nonchalant about this, while Mydei sinks into panic. “I can’t do much more than this. You will have to save him alone.”
Mydei is about to protest; argue. There’s no way he can overtake this monstrosity on his own. But he remembers the voice’s words: most of the people stuck in this matrix aren’t real. Anaxa is only an avatar inspired by someone else, who has no idea real people are trapped in here. He and Phainon are alone.
“Fine,” he says. “Then tell me how to do it.”
Anaxa snickers. “You’re either brave or completely mad. Or both, in which case — this might be exactly what we need.”
“‘It’s’ trying to rewrite Phainon into someone else,” he continues. “It keeps feeding him anger and pain.” He glances towards the door.
Anaxa shrugs. “And then his blind anger will lead to his self-destruction, and we’ll all disappear.”
“And what will happen to Phainon?”
“Let’s not find out.” Anaxa pats something inside his coat. “I will grant you more time, and a blind spot to avoid the architect’s grand machinations.” His voice is proud and disdainful. Mydei wonders who he is outside of here. “Do with this what you must.”
“Keep the one-liners for our main lead,” Anaxa cuts. He retrieves a gun from the depths of his coat and aims it at Mydei. Mydei barely has the time to react; the shot echoes like fireworks, and there’s a hole in his stomach, where he presses his hand.
His sight blurs. Before it darkens, he sees the door open, Khaslana bursting into the room, screaming something he doesn’t understand. Grabbing him by the shoulders, and he can read the words on his lips too easily. Don’t leave.
Mydei opens his eyes to a different Phainon. A crying Phainon, cradling him in his arms as he’s rocked by quiet sobs.
“I never wanted this,” he cries. Mydei reaches out. Phainon’s tears are burning, just like he imagined. Torn wings are growing from Phainon’s back, and his eyes have changed too, a golden supernova having swallowed its old sky.
The voice isn’t here. The wound doesn’t hurt.
He has one hand on Phainon’s half-closed eyelid, and the other on his own chest, sinking through skin as if it was water. The coreflame shrieks when Mydei pulls it out, thin, viscous golden ropes tearing away from his exposed ribcage.
“No,” Phainon says, desperately shaking his head.
“Take it,” Mydei replies. His voice is so weak he can barely hear it.
“I don’t want to.” Still, Mydei insists, pushing the coreflame in Phainon’s hand. Its glow is peaceful there, lacking all the anger it resonated with inside of Mydei’s soul, and Phainon’s eyes widen, enraptured for a single moment.
In them, Mydei sees his own memories, rushing through Phainon’s gaze. The funeral, the library, Gorgo. The years before that; the family vacations; his father. Things he barely remembers now, like his old dog, or the group of friends he’d made before moving away. Real memories belonging to the real word; real, ugly anger that belongs to him. A single tear survives Phainon’s scorching body to crash against Mydei’s palm.
“Were you alone all this time too?” Phainon asks.
“Yeah,” Mydei says; smiles. Drowning. (You’re not alone.) Phainon squeezes him tight, and his face turns into something raw, feral. Anger born from empathy; from shared experiences. Phainon’s anger is an earthquake, shaking the walls of the virtual reality, breaking them apart.
Mydei closes his eyes and lets himself be lulled by the waves.
“For your valentine?” The clerk asks, neatly tying an organza ribbon around a bouquet of flowers.
“No,” Mydei says. “This one is for my mother.” Two of her books are waiting in his bag. He winks. “The forget-me-nots though, they’re for someone else.”