Chương 236: Chapter 232: Edge of the Deep End

Ari carefully closed the door to her room behind her, making sure nobody could follow her. Nyxalrai had somehow found her despite the vastness of Coral; it wasn't hard to imagine she might have a bound rat or something following Ari around. Thankfully, nothing moved and the door sealed without issue. The last thing Ari wanted was for Nyxalrai to see what she could no longer hide.

Ari glanced over to her bed, where hundreds of canvasses, filled sketchbooks, and loose sheets flowed out from where she'd tried to stack them. Each was painted pitch black. The little capsule she'd carved with her name ability had long since overflowed. Shoving the new works under her bed had been the next best option, but even that soon failed to contain them. She swept across the room, and tossed aside the pile of black pages depicting impossible, abstract depictions that even she couldn't fully interpret.

With cautious fingers, Ari slid her latest coal sketch from her bag. Laying it flat on a thin piece of plywood for protection, she finally laid eyes on the piece she'd etched in secrecy. Darkness upon darkness, the shades of black interwove in such unnatural neatness. Once again, Ari laid eyes on a shifting page of static black. Wherever she looked, however her gaze squinted, a different figure took shape. It was Nyxalrai. And it wasn't.

There was a creature hiding in there, far more sinister than any human could imagine. A creature, a landscape, and an entire world that was just barely beyond her sight. Ari had drawn this blind, in the confines of her pouch, without so much as a brush, and yet it eclipsed every one of the thousand paintings she'd made in her efforts to recreate the last. The hidden drawer unlocked and she pulled free a flat metal case from the second fake bottom she'd installed. Ari unlatched the lock and revealed the original.

She set the new work beside the old, and felt herself fall into the both of them. Each artwork shifted in her retinas, and with each non-existent shimmer, she basked herself in the shadows that clung to Nyxalrai. Ari was obsessed. Her new drawing was of lesser quality, yet it contained so much greater depth. There was more darkness to it. Despite being drawn with a simple charcoal, the darker sections sucked Ari in as if a blacker black than such a pencil ever had the right to create.

The page felt closer to a filter over a hole in the world, than a medium for her art. Nyxalrai had changed. Sure, Ari knew that from the sixth evolution name she'd been given, but it was a million times more visceral to see the shadow that clung to her become ever more menacing. The little whispers of differing forms and shapes now roared. It was so loud that her mind simply couldn't focus on any one of the shifting shapes. They struck her mind. Overbearing. Overpowering.

The more Ari tried to focus on any one of the shadow's features, the more her head began to pound from exertion. It was a horrible experience. It was enrapturing. And Ari couldn't stop staring. Only when a deafening crackle somewhere between thunder and roaring fire ripped through her room was she pulled from her obsession. She'd been lost in the drawings for hours. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Her bed was on fire. Above it, was a tiny pinprick of light.

Ari scrambled to seal away her two most important drawings in the protective metal casing before pooling every other replicative piece into a pile. They weren't as powerful as Nyxalrai's portraits, but she was no less willing to part with them. Now that a single spot of accretion light had broken through, the rain was unstoppable. In another second, there was another beam crashing through the opened hole which vaporised an entire corner of her bed-frame.

Everyone else had already been in the process of evacuating, but Ari had hoped she could still get another week or two out of the room before she was forced to move on. She didn't have a cult, and it had already been made clear to her that the bunker for younger kids wouldn't accept her. She should have had until she was twenty at the latest to convince the Omen Artisans to take her in… or find another place. Now, she was on the verge of homelessness.

As she shoved all her important paintings into her bag, her eyes fell on the light blue, almost white bandage around her arm. She'd seen the stuff spread. It was as if it was alive. Some sort of mould. Maybe? Ari was certain the Technocult had nothing to do with this stuff — it simply wasn't the sort of thing they focused time on — but what else would explain Nyxalrai having it? It was a good thing the girl had found her while she was in one of the more… corrupt places she'd wandered.

Otherwise, she wasn't sure how she would have explained the infection. Ari had been trying to recreate the original painting for a while, and, well… she'd finally achieved some success. Only… it had created a well of localised corruption as a result. As far as she knew, that wasn't even supposed to be possible. Surely the Omen Artisans would be interested? They hadn't so much as listened to her.

For not the first time, Ari wondered if she should have told Nyxalrai about the shadowy entity that seemed to have latched onto her soul. It was most likely the girl's curses that had attracted it. But… just like every other time she'd considered it, Ari came to the conclusion that bringing attention to this being would not end well for any of them. She doubted even at her new sixth evolution, Nyxalrai would be able to do anything about something so powerful. And… Ari didn't want this entity gone.

Even if it infested her friend. For all Ari knew, Nyxalrai was already aware of the creature hiding in her shadow. She knew the girl was hiding something from her. If Nyxalrai was working with this entity, that would explain how she'd gained so many evolutions so quickly. Well… no it wouldn't. There were those who had called upon creatures in the past to empower their own evolutions. They found either little success, or great disaster. Ari wasn't sure what she was going to do. She couldn't go to Dan.

He was already having enough trouble with the Everseeing. That cult might take her in, but then she would have to say goodbye to any future prospect at leaving. At joining the Omen Artisans. She couldn't ask Nyxalrai; even if she was willing to help, the Technocult were too much a group of sticklers to provide for her. Though, Ari might try if for nothing else but the opportunity to paint Nyxalrai again. No. She couldn't. The Omen Artisans weren't on good terms with the Technocult.

No matter how much she wanted to paint the girl's shadow, she couldn't involve herself too much. She especially couldn't take favours. They were already hesitant to take on new acolytes; they weren't about to consider someone that could have questionable allegiance. Ari could handle the tunnels. At least for a little. She just needed to think of it as a test of her resolve. Nyxalrai had survived a Dark Star and come back stronger for it. Ari could do the same.

It's not like she would need to fight nightmares by scraping by in the sub-levels of the safe-zone; the cultless did it all the time. If only she could sustain herself on the black portrait. Ari would gaze into that painting for eternity. She was sure it would take that long to uncover the shadow's secrets. Secrets that were hers alone to uncover. Ari would keep the entity hidden — an image for her eyes alone to admire — until such a time where she could show all its unrestrained macabre. Then…

then, the Omen Artisans would know what they missed.