Chương 108: Awake

A faint clattering sounded somewhere in the distance, clicking and clacking on and on like a dozen tiny beaks knocking against glass.

"Mom, the pigeons are fighting on the balcony again," Vera called as she turned over in bed, pulling her pillow over her ears and pressing her face more tightly into the mattress. A pillow clamped over her head was usually the best solution to most morning problems. She kept her eyes closed, trying to fall back asleep. The clattering only got worse.

"I swear to god," she mumbled, yanking the poor excuse for a noise barrier off her head. The pillow flopped onto the floor, probably collecting another week and a half's worth of dust just from landing there, but Vera didn't bother thinking about the look her mother would give her if she saw it. She kicked off the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Her gaze drifted toward the door to her room as the noise continued to build. How many damn pigeons were out there?

Were they having some sort of tap-dancing convention on the balcony, or had her dad let his soft heart get the better of him again and fed the little devils? She was starting to understand why Mira hated the things. Maybe it would be better for everyone if all the world's pigeons just popped into clouds of feathers one day. Vera paused. Mira? Who was that supposed to be? She shook her head, dismissing the stray thought as she stood and stretched until her shoulders popped.

After smothering a yawn wide enough to nearly lock her jaw in place, she scratched her head and headed for the door, kicking aside a few plushies that had fallen in front of it before opening it.

"Mom," she called again as she shuffled down the hall.

"Did Dad do something stupid again? Because if you haven't already, I wouldn't mind being the one to chew him out this time." The racket somehow kept getting louder as she walked, to the point where it sounded like they had a whole percussion section performing on the balcony by the time she reached the kitchen.

"The hell? Are they doing construction out there? Is it a hundred tiny jackhammers going at once, or what?" She looked toward the balcony door, but the blinds were pulled down and the curtains were closed. Still, it sounded like hundreds of little claws were skittering across the wooden decking while another half dozen beaks hammered against the glass.

"Mom, are you hearing this?" Vera turned toward the kitchen counter, frowning at the familiar figure standing there with her back to her, dressed in an apron.

"Mom?" The figure didn't move or speak.

"Alright…" Vera turned away from her mother, who had apparently decided to start being strange before breakfast, and walked over to the balcony door. She stopped with her toes against the raised threshold, pulled the curtains aside, and squinted through the blinds. There was nothing but black behind them, for some reason.

"Mom, did you paint the glass or something?" Her hand reached for the handle. The moment her fingers touched it, she stopped. A sudden, immediate feeling that something was wrong filled her from the pit of her stomach. A chill crawled down her spine. On the other side of the door, the clattering exploded in intensity, so loud that Vera was starting to have a hard time thinking. She blinked. Wait. Why was she trying to open this door? Where even was she? Hadn't she moved out years ago?

And wasn't her mom— A hand touched her shoulder. Vera's head snapped around. Her mother was standing a breath away. There was nothing left of her face but bone. Vera stumbled backward. Her back struck the blinds and the balcony door behind them. Something shattered, and suddenly there was nothing there to catch her. She fell into darkness. Vera landed hard enough to send a jolt of pain straight through her skull.

The world flickered, then settled into deathly silence as her chest slowly rose and fell with every breath. When she tried to move, the clattering returned. Except it was all around her now. Translucent hands rose from the blackness beneath her, long and disgustingly gaunt, with scraps of rotting flesh hanging from their fingers. They filled everything she could see, stretching endlessly in every direction.

Their nails clicked and scraped against one another as they slowly converged on her, reaching for her clothes, her hair, her face. A sea of dead souls. Vera tried to wrench herself free, but there was nothing to pull against. She tried to fight back, but there was nothing here she could fight. The hands were inevitable. Fixed remnants of something already finished, unable to change or be changed, while she was the intruder who didn't belong here.

All she could do was endure as they grabbed and scraped at her, each touch sending a wound deeper than flesh, deeper than bone, into something at the very center of her, yet not actually shedding any blood. The anguish continued. She couldn't tell for how long. She couldn't tell how much of it she had endured. But when it finally ended, she wasn't even relieved. The darkness shifted, and she was somewhere else. A dead forest drowned in fog, with something moving between the trees.

Something that followed her no matter where she went, tracking her through every step and breath without ever letting her see more than a glimpse of it, yet always ready to devour. More memories came after that. Or visions. Or nightmares. She didn't know anymore. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. There were horrors she didn't have a proper name for. Scenes of death stretching into the hundreds, then the thousands.

Places she had never seen and creatures she had never known, all of them somehow familiar for exactly as long as it took for their appearances to haunt her. Not all of them were truly horrible. Not all of them were frightening. Some spoke to her. Some tried to persuade her. Some whispered that all she needed to do was forget. It wasn't hard. It wouldn't hurt. No one would even blame her. And Vera considered it. But something deep inside her stirred every time.

A solid, stubborn foundation that refused to let her come apart. And along with it came another feeling, gentler but no less certain, filling her with a warm conviction that she needed to stay strong. She needed to hold on. And eventually, she would wake up. Then, eventually, finally, she did. Her eyes snapped open to a cold breeze brushing against her face. The first thing that came to mind was a tiny girl with silver-gray hair and a bright smile, running toward her with her arms spread wide.

Vera immediately felt her pulse begin to settle. She let her eyes fall shut again and stayed like that for a while, breathing slowly as the last remnants of the memories loosened their grip on her.

"You were making noises in your sleep," a flat voice said from the side. Vera stayed quiet for a few seconds, a heavy, foreboding feeling settling deeper into her chest.

"How long has it been?" she asked.

"Thirteen hours." Her eyes snapped open again. She turned her head to stare at Cin. He was seated on a low chunk of stone beside the steady glow of a Kindlehearth Ember, a round white plate covered in sigils resting in his lap. In one hand, he held a strange quill that left faint lines of red-gold light behind as he moved it across the plate.

"You rat bastard. You made it sound like I'd be out for weeks!" Cin paused in his work and glanced at her.

"I said it would take weeks for you to recover fully."

"In the heat of the moment, that sounds a lot like you're saying I'll be unconscious for weeks."

"That is your fault for inferring more than my words stated."

"Jackass."

"There is no need for insults."

"There very much is." Vera sent one more glare his way before letting her head sink back against the folded mantle that had been placed beneath it. Relief spread through her with enough force that it almost made her light-headed. If she'd been out for weeks, there would have been no telling how Serel would react. She was already going to be gone longer than she wanted, but adding several more weeks without any warning or communication on top of that…

She didn't want Serel to have to live with that kind of uncertainty. There was also the matter of Elaria. The woman would definitely start getting suspicious if Vera took too long to return.

"Do you still have insomnia even in this world?" Cin asked almost casually. When Vera glanced toward him again, he'd already returned to whatever he was doing with the plate. Her eyes stayed on him for a few moments before she turned away and pushed herself upright. She looked out over what remained of the Thryne Passes. They were on a broad, flattened outcropping somewhere near the edge of the destruction. Ahead of her, the aftermath of her fight stretched for thousands of meters.

The White Maw's severed remains covered much of it, scattered across the broken landscape like pieces of some malformed mountain chain. Some of the peaks that had once made up these passes were still standing, technically, but none had escaped untouched. Others had collapsed entirely, leaving behind slopes of rubble, torn-open valleys, and deep scars carved through the range.

In the distance, the creature's central body lay motionless across several of the ridges, large enough that it would probably be a literal mountain chain of its own given time.

"Vera?" Cin asked.

"I heard you." She kept her eyes on the White Maw.

"The answer's yes. I still have it. Guess Veralyth and I were alike in a lot more ways than you'd think."

"I see. That is unfortunate."

"Yep." Vera stared at the carcass for another few seconds.

"Unfortunate."

"Now that you are awake, however, you can explain how you knew the behavior and facts of that creature," Cin said.

"And what it was, specifically." Vera turned to him, watching as he continued tracing glowing lines across the plate.

"You remember the Marrowvault, right?"

"Marrowfen's ossuary? Yes."

"Remember some of the giant skeletons you can find down there?"

"Of course." Vera nodded toward the White Maw's remains.

"That thing is like those guys." Cin paused, a slight frown forming between his brows as he looked at her.

"It was from the same age?"

"Yep. Back then, gods walking about wasn't too strange, so finding a mountain-range-devouring worm lurking a few blocks over probably wouldn't have been either."

"Do you know when specifically it is from?" Vera shrugged.

"How should I know? Long enough that the half of a mountain range we just trashed probably looked pretty different back then." A few seconds of silence passed.

"How do you know this?" Cin eventually asked.

"There are very few records of those times, but if it was truly that long ago, there should be no records at all."

"Well, you know as well as I do that the transitions between ages can be a bit wonky in this world. The fellows from back then didn't all stick around once their age ended. Otherwise, we wouldn't have the Godgrave, for one thing." Vera smirked at him.

"As for how I know? Didn't I tell you I'm a janitor of sorts?" Cin scrutinized her closely.

"So House Hollow has played some role in managing the beings that survived that age, preventing them from manifesting here?" Vera's smirk weakened slightly. Of course it'd be Cin who only needed a few hints to figure out the essence of things.

"Since you appeared connected to the White Maw's manifestation, I assume there is some conditional trigger attached to whatever keeps these entities contained," he continued, lifting one hand to his chin.

"A variant of a thoughtform, an egregore, or some noetic construct? Or closer to an infohazard-based seal?"

"…Huh?" Vera stared at him.

"Did you just make up those words?" He gave her a look like she had just insulted his meticulously assembled wardrobe set.

"Okay, sorry for not knowing your nerd terms," she said, holding both hands up in the air. She hadn't heard all of those words before, but she felt they were obvious enough that she could tell he had managed to piece together the general shape of things. Cin watched her for a few more seconds before shifting his gaze back toward the White Maw's remains in the distance.

"I won't ask more of you, if that is the case," he said.

"Though know that if you need help, you simply have to ask." A faint smile found its way onto Vera's lips.

"Thanks." She aimed her attention at the plate in his hands.

"By the way, what's that you're working on?" He lifted it slightly.

"A locating focus, you could call it. It will help you find Mireya, since I suspect Mark of the Stillbound Veil won't help."

"Wait, really? You shouldn't have." He arched a brow.

"I mean, you definitely should, after I saved you all that time with the White Maw and everything," Vera added, waving one hand.

"But still. You shouldn't have."

"I will take that as another 'thank you.'"" You do you." Vera brushed dust from her clothes as she rose, then stretched while taking stock of her body and Resonance. She'd already mostly figured out what Cin meant about needing several weeks to recover the moment she woke up. Her Resonance felt sluggish in a way she had never experienced before, like she had forced it through some fish-sized manhole it really hadn't been meant to pass through and left it scraped raw on the other side.

Her physical body didn't actually hurt much, but there was a deep, aching phantom pain that she couldn't quite put her finger on. She was probably a whole lot weaker than her usual self right now. How much weaker, she couldn't say, but she'd wager going up against another ancient monster like the White Maw any time soon would be an incredibly stupid idea. Never mind something that would make the Maw go crawling under the covers, like the Silence.

Was it bad, then, that the thought of being weaker, and therefore being able to have closer fights with things again, excited some part of her? Probably a little. But that was just the gamer-brained part of her talking. Who didn't enjoy taking down bosses with as little gear and as few advantages as possible? Once she finished her mostly unnecessary stretching, she cracked her neck and looked back at Cin.

"Do you think the Covenant forces at the mouth of the passes are alright?" He dipped his head in a small nod, focusing on the plate again.

"They are. I sent a message to the High-Marshal in Mireya's place. I assume they are currently determining whether passage through the mountains is safe."

"You sent a message? How?"

"Through owl."

"Owl?" Vera thought back to the owl she had seen before entering the Thryne Passes.

"Oh. So that's why it felt so familiar. It's yours?"

"It is."

"I thought it was strange for Mira to keep one of those." Cin did not look up.

"Mireya would forget to feed it."

"Not sure it counts as forgetting if it's deliberate, but sure." Vera's gaze drifted back toward the devastation. Even if the Covenant forces were fine, she doubted they would be eager to march through the remains of the passes without someone checking whether any of the White Maw was still dangerous. Given that she was the one who had left things like this, she supposed some of that responsibility fell on her. That's what Elaria would have wanted from her, right?

"How long until that thing's done?" Vera asked, nodding toward the plate.

"A few hours," Cin answered.

"If I am not interrupted."

"Great." Vera held out her hand, and Stillwake appeared in her grasp.

"Then I'll go check on the garrison while you finish your arts-and-crafts project."

"Do not pick a fight."

"I wasn't planning to. Have you been listening to the smear campaign against my good name in this world?"

"Judging by your fight against the Maw, it was clearly not baseless."

"That's libel."

"It is, by definition, not."

"Ugh. Slander, then." Vera swung Stillwake, grimacing faintly at the strange drag in her Resonance. Mark of Hollow Reach.

"I'll be back. Anything you need to know before I go?" Cin considered her briefly, then tilted his head.

"Who is Serel?" he asked. Vera paused. Then she grinned.

"Great question. I'll let you know later."