Falling.
Drowning.
That was the very last tactile sensation he could perceive before his consciousness completely dissolved. It felt as if something viscous inside him had finally ripened, rotted, and fermented, violently bursting through that thin, fragile membrane that defined him as "human." He could clearly, horrifyingly feel them crawling, squirming, accumulating between his muscle fibers and sinews, meticulously stitching his flesh and bone directly into the fabric of this abyss.
The only constant remaining was that "sun."
It was still there. Neither too colossal nor too small, neither scalding nor freezing, hanging statically in a corner where no sky should ever be, silently watching him sink. The temperature of its light was paradoxically perfect—like a clean towel soaked in warm water, wrung out, and gently, carefully laid across his face.
Laid upon his broken, ruined shoulder. Laid upon the back of that hand still futilely, numbly scraping at the red, pulpy berry-flesh.
Like Sela's hands.
Those hands that had never truly, warmly held him in reality, yet always surfaced abruptly in his mind just when he was about to be completely swallowed by this despairing, lightless world.
His vision was being irreversibly eroded by the encroaching red.
The distinct outlines of the berries blurred into smears. The sharp edge of the sun diffused. Even his own, desperately moving left hand was reduced to a blurred, melting, pathetic shadow in the crimson haze.
Countless times, his left hand had tried, with fading strength, to peel away the red engulfing him.
A desperate grab, a wet slip; another frantic clawing, another powerless, sliding failure.
When that thick juice leaked through the gaps in his fingers, it was warm, viscous, carrying a sweetness so cloying, so absolute, it softened the very marrow in his bones.
But now, even that cloying warmth was barely perceptible.
That thin, pathetic skin called "Erika" was being licked away, bit by agonizing bit, by the abyss.
"Sela..."
His cracked, bloodied lips moved almost imperceptibly. He honestly didn't know if he had actually made a sound. His throat was completely, solidly blocked by that deadly sweetness; each dying, ragged breath had to be squeezed desperately, painfully through the microscopic gaps between those viscous, squirming chunks of living flesh.
"Wait for me..."
Instinctively, and with excruciating slowness, he raised that left hand.
That single, intact hand, stubbornly, idiotically resisting assimilation to the bitter end, broke free from the melting scarlet muck with immense difficulty, reaching upward toward that false, mocking sky.
His fingertips were stained red, his palm coated in red, even the tight gaps under his fingernails were packed tight with the dark dregs of berry... or bone... or flesh.
Through that warm, sweet-to-the-point-of-nausea, suffocating air, he reached toward that direction, weakly spreading his trembling fingers.
Trying, with everything he had left, to grasp that last, solitary ray of light.
As if answering his desperate, silent plea.
That "sun" cooperated. It flickered once.
Very bright.
A blinding, absolute brightness.
The light fell into his open, bloody palm.
It was warm.
Then—
Dead, absolute silence.
It was over.
Erika's taut, fraying nerves finally, definitively snapped at this exact moment.
His fingers, raised mid-air in supplication, loosened one by one, entirely powerless. He was no longer struggling.
Falling. Sinking.
He completely let himself go, slowly, slowly sinking down into that deepest, sweetest, suffocating darkness, where there was absolutely nothing left to think about, nothing left to fight for.
A white ceiling.
That was the ceiling of the infirmary right next to the Sanctum's prayer room—a ceiling he knew down to the marrow of his bones. Those tiny, intricate cracks, which he could map perfectly even with his eyes clamped shut, spread stubbornly from the central, sterile light fixture toward the four corners, looking exactly like a miniature, aerial map of a dried-up riverbed.
His bare back pressed against the clean sheet. The coarse, stiff, heavily laundered linen fabric rubbed lightly, comfortingly against the pale skin exposed beneath his gray straitjacket.
It didn't hurt. It was just a little, pleasantly itchy.
"Erika."
The voice came from his left. Very soft. As soft as a single drop of warm water falling into a wooden basin, as delicate as a skilled finger lightly stroking a piano key, as comforting as someone calling his name from far, far away, and he had finally, miraculously heard them.
The clean, simple scent of cheap soap drifted from the exact same direction, mixed with the faint, comforting moisture of freshly wrung water, mixed with just a little of Sela's specific, gentle warmth. That was Sela's scent. Smelling it, he didn't even need to open his heavy eyes to know he was safe.
"Awake?"
Her familiar footsteps drew nearer. Very light, stepping softly on that white tile—always kept spotless in the infirmary—making a soft thump-thump that only his sharp ears could discern. Then came the familiar sound of the towel being wrung out again; warm water squeezed violently from the tough fibers, drip, drip, falling back into the chipped enamel basin.
A warm, soap-scented, damp cloth landed incredibly gently on his forehead. From left to right, slowly, meticulously wiping. Once. Twice. Over the jagged old scar on his brow bone, over the deep, painful bruise at his temple, over the nasty gash at the corner of his forehead that had been actively seeping blood just last night.
It didn't hurt. Really, it didn't hurt at all. It was just... warm.
So profoundly warm that his nose stung fiercely, and his eyes burned with unshed tears.
"Don't move."
Her voice carried its habitual, incredibly mild scold, very light, as if speaking of a very small, insignificant thing. But her hands didn't stop. They kept wiping, soothing, cleaning. From his forehead down to his cheek, from his cheek to his bruised chin, from his chin to his pale neck.
Those dried, crusted bloodstains, of unknown origin; those viscous, terrifying remnants of abyssal fluids; those filthy, horrible things he thought would never, ever wash off, were being gently, thoroughly wiped away, bit by bit, under Sela's patient hands.
"Good child," she murmured.
The warm towel slid gently down his battered left arm.
Over those deep, ugly purple marks left by the leather straps, over those massive bruises from violent impacts, and over those reddened, sacred, yet utterly grotesque patterns left deeply scarred into his flesh after the Mark had burned—Sela's fingers pressed lightly through the warm towel, as if trying to physically press all that accumulated pain out of his broken body.
"Good child."
Trembling violently, he finally opened his eyes.
She was right there.
Her white nun's habit, her pristine white headscarf, her clean, soap-scented hands. A few stray strands of hair had escaped from under her cap—dark brown, slightly curling at the ends, looking like a soft, untouchable cloud. Her eyes were lowered, her long lashes casting a faint, beautiful shadow on her pale cheekbones.
She was looking down at his hand. That single, only remaining hand, now gently, safely held within hers.
"Are you hungry?"
She didn't look up, her voice still very soft, almost a whisper.
Erika opened his mouth to answer, but his throat felt filled with dry fire; no sound came out. She didn't seem to expect an answer anyway. Her hand moved away from the towel, reaching for the small, slightly rickety metal table beside the bed. A plate sat there—simple white porcelain, with a tiny, barely noticeable chip on its rim.
On the plate rested a thick cutlet.
It was seared just right, the edges slightly, perfectly crispy, tender and juicy inside, giving off a mouth-watering, tempting savory aroma. A rich, dark brown sauce had been poured thickly over it, slowly running down the grain of the hot meat, pooling on the white plate, spreading slowly toward that tiny chip.
Sela carefully cut a small piece, speared it securely with a silver fork, and gently brought it to his parted lips.
He opened his mouth and took it.
The meat was incredibly tender, barely needing any chewing. The dark sauce was savory, with a tiny, perfect hint of nostalgic sweetness, sticking pleasantly to his dry lips. She meticulously cut another piece. Then another. He ate, she fed him. Neither spoke; the pristine room was so utterly quiet he could clearly hear the steady, strong rhythm of his own heartbeat.
Then, he saw it.
On Sela's immaculate white habit, there was a dark sauce stain. Right on her chest, exactly where his dirty gray straitjacket had brushed against her when she leaned over, leaving that small, glaringly imperfect mark.
She had worn a clean one today just for him. White, pristine.
And he had dirtied it.
Erika's throat tightened painfully again, far worse than before.
"It's alright."
Sela finally, slowly looked up.
Those eyes, which he had seen countless times—eyes that never dared look directly at him, evasive, fearful, always lowered in submission—were now looking directly at him, completely without guard.
They were tender. Tender as a dream that could never, ever happen in reality.
She reached out with her free hand, gently, lovingly pushing aside the messy, matted hair that had fallen over his forehead. It was too long now, almost covering his eyes. Her slender fingers slid deep into his hair, slowly, gently, rhythmically combing it back.
Her soft fingertips brushed against his scalp, traced those tiny, invisible old scars from the Inquisitors, grazed the still-healing, tender flesh he had brought back from the abyss.
It hurt a little.
But it was a sweet, intoxicating pain that made him want to close his eyes forever, to just lie here on this bed, to let her comb his hair like this for eternity.
His eyes burned uncontrollably. Something hot spilled uncontrollably from the corners, rolling rapidly down his cheeks, sliding into his ears, tickling him. She didn't wipe the tears away. She just looked at him with that impossible tenderness.
In her clear eyes, he saw his own reflection. The clean, fed, gently combed Erika.
The boy who no longer needed to run in terror across scorched earth, who no longer needed to smash his skull against glass in the Deep Dive chamber, who no longer needed to bite his own tongue and drag himself back from bloody assimilation with the sharpest, most agonizing pain imaginable.
The boy who could, finally, just close his eyes in peace.
The corner of his mouth moved, almost imperceptibly.
He desperately wanted to say something.
He wanted to say thank you. He wanted to say sorry. He wanted to say, "I brought you your favorite berries, they're right outside, lots of them." He wanted to say, "I ran so far, I picked so many, I kept them all just for you." He wanted to say, "Sela, I was good. I was so good. I've been waiting for you."
He longed, with every fiber of his being, to fulfill that most humble, pathetic fate in the chaos—to tell Sela he was a good child, that he hadn't melted away.
His lips parted to speak the words.
BOOM—!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cataclysmic, absolute obliteration.
Extreme, unimaginable violence exploded directly over his head without a microsecond of warning!
The delicate filter of the perfect illusion was violently, brutally incinerated in an instant by that colossal pillar of light. It was fully charged, descending with the wrath of a dying god! The soap-scented towels, the tender cutlet, the pristine white room—all instantly reverted to their true, horrifying forms: the foul-smelling, squirming, parasitic flesh of the abyss—and then they were completely, utterly vaporized into nothingness!
Erika's lips were still parted.
That desperate syllable, hidden deep in his throat, meant to prove he was a good boy, never left his lips.
In the final, blinding moment before his reason completely shattered, before he was entirely consumed by the roaring destructive energy... this filthy, bloodied, broken boy, engulfed in that blinding pillar of Sanctum purification, threw his head back toward his long-extinguished "sun," and let out the most harrowing, the most despairing, the most violently unhinged howl of his entire miserable life:
"…SE—!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"