Chương 41: Chapter 40 - Dreams in Reality

The moment between them felt painfully slow. Lucid had thought telling the truth would get him thrown outside. He braced himself, but Rebecca just stared, her world tilting on its axis.

"Yes. Jane," he said, his voice quiet.

"Jane Edward, right?" he asked, as if seeking her confirmation. She gasped, her hands flying to her mouth.

"That is not possible."

"Well, I do not know either. The one who told you of her passing lied, or maybe she decided to hide it herself. Either way, I saw her. She is working as a maid at the governor's mansion." He paused, trying to lighten the heavy air.

"She has a bit of an attitude, but she works well." He looked back up. Rebecca was crying. Her soft, bovine ears were twitching, her eyes humid with tears rolling freely down her cheeks.

"You ought to have done it now, Lucid," Alice's voice resonated within him, a mix of sympathy and resignation.

"Rebecca?" he asked hesitantly.

"It, it should not be possible. She died three years ago when a woman was summoned from the noble house of Valrious. I do not know the full reason. She was there to heal them. But they ended up contracting the same illness as the late master governor of this town. The Withering, they called it." Alice and Lucid listened intently. That name registered in their heads instantly, like an ill omen. Lucid had experienced the Withering first hand. He knew it was not a simple illness.

It was a corrosive severing of one's thread of fate from the world and Mother Alisia. If left unchecked, you faded away, a slow, peaceful dissolution into nothing. He recalled how, despite all his tests and trials across seven iterations as Karmen, there had been no physical cause. The body simply grew weaker and fainter, as if its reason to exist was being erased. He still did not fully understand how one contracted it.

He knew Ivy had likely cast it upon Karmen's family, and the man in black, working for The Chapeau, clearly knew a great deal about it as well.

"Oh, I see," Lucid said softly, the pieces clicking into a darker picture. He reached out and held her hand, trying to comfort her. He looked into her eyes, red-rimmed and wide with shock.

"Well, she is alive. Orange hair, looks like a mouse when scared, a bit clingy to her master. I could take you there tomorrow, okay?" he whispered, smiling a little as he closed his eyes and nodded in confirmation.

"Lucid," she repeated his name, the word a fragile thing. He stood up. She stood up with him, not letting go of his hand. Before he could move toward the counter, she hugged him, this time with a gentleness that contrasted her earlier strength. She cried, managing only soft, broken sounds.

"Thank you. I mean it." He smiled, carefully patting her back in slow, reassuring circles.

"Lucid, what are you doing?" Alice sounded flustered within him.

"Shhh," he thought back.

"It is alright," he said aloud to Rebecca.

"I know what it feels like to lose someone, too." As he let go, she looked up at him. Her face was all red, her eyes damp. It was as if she had received the worst news of her life, but these were tears of stunned, disbelieving joy.

"Well, if you will excuse me," he said, needing a moment to breathe. She wiped a tear away and nodded.

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"Goodnight. Rest well. I will be here tomorrow," she said from behind him as he walked away. As he went up the familiar wooden steps, he turned into the room he had stayed in before. He had made himself at home during his brief time here. Small carved wooden statues, clumsy but heartfelt, sat on the windowsill. A single sheet of paper on the small desk bore an illustration, an attempt at drawing action figures from his memories of Earth.

Lucid was not much of a drawer, but it was something he liked to do to occupy his mind. Looking at them now, he felt a sharp pang of homesickness. He put out the oil lantern with a soft blow. The two moons of this world hung in the sky outside, illuminating the room with their faint, silvery light, the only source in the darkness. Lucid took off his shirt, tracing a long, thin scar on his ribcage with his fingers. He looked down at his arms, where a crosshatch of other, smaller scars covered the skin.

From within him, he could feel a presence, a watchful awareness that seemed to burn just beneath his skin, observing his every move. It was Alice, her consciousness intertwined with his. He felt like being heavily observed. He traced the scars on his arms.

"My first rift. How could I forget," he muttered, half to himself and half to Alice. The memory surfaced, vivid and unwelcome. The world was burning. Buildings were wreathed in impossible, hungry flames. He was on a ledge, holding onto someone's hand, trying to pull them up. He was much younger then, no more than sixteen. The person he was holding was a partner, someone close, another unfornate soul whom had been thrust into the same helish trial as Lucid.

He looked over the terrified face, then looked up into to the distance. A figure of pure flame, a calamity from within the Delta rift, rose from the broken cityscape a few hundred meters away, it was so monumental and turned its hollow gaze toward them. In that moment, he was overcome with a terror so pure it froze his blood. The person he was holding yelled, pleaded, holding on to dear life. But as the flaming entity took a ponderous step forward, Lucid could not help but take a step back. He did the unthinkable.

He let the person's hand go. He watched them fall, consumed by the roaring abyss of flames below. Lucid was not as innocent as he sometimes seemed. He had killed someone. His first, bitter memory. He had willingly let someone die. The worst part was that he did not even clear the rift. He did not complete the trial. He failed. As the flames closed in, leaving no place to run, he had accepted his end, closing his eyes, he cursed.

Then, a hand had manifested through a crack in the air itself, strong and illuminating like a rift. He took the hand. The irony was that this time, the hand holding him pulled him up saving him instead. Lying down on the bed, he rolled onto his side, his shoulders feeling heavy with a sadness and guilt that never fully left him.

"Lucid, are you asleep?" Alice's voice asked within him, soft as the moonlight.

"Yes," he said.

"Stop being dishonest."

"Pardon me," he murmured.

"I was just thinking about the past."

"You never told me about me why you want to go home... and your first encounter with the rift, Lucid. What happened?" Alice asked, her curiosity gentle but persistent. Lucid turned onto his back, looking up at the ceiling shadows.

"I killed someone." Alice within him went very still. He could practically feel her focus sharpen, a silent, intense intrigue.

"I understand. Sometimes it is not our fault. We cannot always save the ones we wish to save," she offered.

"I did not try to save them. I killed this person," he corrected, the words blunt and ugly in the quiet room.

"I see," she whispered, the weight of his confession settling between them.

"Do you blame yourself?"

"Yes."

"The worst part is, sometimes I think about letting go entirely. I was betrayed, yes but I also betrayed someone. So that makes me a hypocrite." He exhaled, a long, slow breath that did nothing to lift the weight.

"Just kidding. It was a joke," he added, the attempt of turning the conversation falling flat. Alice laughed, a small, sad, dishonest sound. A fake laugh to match his fake joke. Lucid echoed it, equally hollow.

"Goodnight," he said.

"Goodnight, Lucid." As he turned over onto his shoulder on the other side, he felt something shift behind him. A physical touch, a presence. It was as if someone was wrapping ethereal arms around his shoulders, pressing a comforting warmth against his back. He could feel a faint, impossible breath near his ear as Alice silently said goodnight. A soft, translucent green glow, visible only to his mind's eye, suffused the room. He reached back with his own hand.

He touched the translucent green light that resembled thin arms and traced it up, a gesture of connection in this strange, intimate space they shared.

"Alice," he muttered, before surrendering to the powerful pull of sleep.

"I am here for you..."

"The fate essence you have consumed have made it so I can reach out to you now..."

"I feel more closer to you.. more connected... gather more and maybe... I can hug you fully the next time..." She said her voice carrying a faint tease.

"Rest well," she whispered, the words a warm breath against the shell of his ear, and then came the peaceful darkness pulling him into a quiet well earned rest.