As silent as the grave. A phrase he’d heard once or twice, in passing. In conversation, perhaps, or committed to memory from the pages of a fable. Whether from fable, conversation, or otherwise, it was never a phrase that sat well with him. To be resigned to an eerie quiet, deep beneath frigid ground, had always been a thought that succeeded in turning his stomach and slowing his sword-arm. Identical columns of patterned white and polished black filled his vision in his fleeing sprint through the corridors of the facility. A frosted gauntlet held his green-hued sword between blade and crossguard as the frantic clink of his armour echoed around the still halls, joined by the ringing ears of exhaustion and fear, and the armoured trudge of footfalls on snow-covered tiles. The metal of his helmet and visor creaked and groaned in its uncomfortable rest on his head, but to pause for even a moment to adjust it would spell only one thing. With the words of Forbearer echoing through his mind like his footfalls upon the ground, he forced himself onwards. Exhausted eyes flit left and right, searching for the entrance. He made ten paces before an echoed scream filled his ears. Then another. A left turn. A scream. His armoured boot forced itself through a mound of snow as he turned the corner, and the scream grew louder. Ten paces. Twenty. Another left turn, another scream. This time, the sound seemed to be mere meters away, but he dwelled not on it. He could not afford to. The turn pulled into a seemingly endless expanse of neat hallway, a path he had little time to question as his sprint redoubled, aware that the end was drawing near. One way or another. Ten. Twenty. Fourty. Sixty. He counted down in his mind as he neared the end of the hallway, a gap in the clear enough in front of him. Wilvamair lurched forwards toward it, and might have made it, had fate not intervened. A group of stragglers- no more than five, broke free from the turn to his right as he propelled himself toward the gap, themselves pursued by an identical horror to the one only moments behind himself. It took the one the farthest behind, first. Then the next. Three remained as he skidded to a stop, his blind panic waylaying his mission and driving him in the opposite direction. He turned to continue running, making it perhaps ten paces in short order before realising the dead-end before him. Snow piled from the ground to the ceiling, a wall of sheer and mocking white standing in his way. He was not the only one to make the mistake, it seemed, as a smattering of well-preserved and frozen Maraya corpses were evidence of. Wilvamair turned in time to see the stragglers make it through the gap in the wall, though the horror was not far behind them. He backed away further from the hallway he’d just occupied, near-tripping over the snow in his hastiness. Soon enough, the horror that had pursued him crossed the gap, moving right to left in front of him towards the gap in the wall. Fleeting moments of hope that the creature had ignored or lost him worsened his despair all the more as it stopped in place in short order, turning slowly to the left and beginning its lumbering step towards him. The back of his legs met the mound of ice and snow, snuffing out any flickering hope of retreat still left within him. The metallic scrape of a pauldron against the wall filled the air for a brief moment, mind struggling to process what his exhausted legs had already understood. Written words he’d read and reread a dozen times over echoed softly into mind with each thunderous step of the creature’s approach. The fate of the protector. He untangled the sword from his frozen grasp. Dying on the field of battle. He clenched the hilt with both hands, weakly lifting it in ready. It would not be a battle, but he hoped it would suffice. The creature left him little time as he did this, and no swing or thrust left Wilvamair as the Gestalt descended upon him, knocking him backwards into a sea of black in a near-familiar feeling. The last thing he would ever feel. ..For a time, at least. Swirling, decrepit waters awoke him from his moment of rest. At first, each change of direction of the frigid water could be felt loud and clear on his skin, as well as the gradual burn of air-deprived lungs increasing in their desperation. The Gestalt saw to that first, robbing his senses until naught remained but his sight. Next came movement, freezing him in place like the corpses of the Maraya. Before long it took to prying at thought and memory. Not to search for anything strategic, but to assimilate and consume, tearing away each one with surgical precision as echoes of each played as shadows in the water. The Gestalt did not discriminate- whether the memory was happy or sad, new or old, it took them regardless. The process was slow, memories taken days at a time. That is, until he tried to resist. Attempting to clear his mind as he’d once practiced to do, he echoed the word Stop through it, in a vain attempt to keep the creature at bay. Naturally, it gave no reply. The stealing of days turned to the theft of weeks at a time- a process it made sure Wilvamair was aware of. Dark shapes began to converge in the gloom, man and beast alike, circling him in a shark-like manner as resistance gave way to panic. Weeks turned to months, and months turned to years as the shapes began to converge upon him, circling faster and faster until he could no longer see their outlines. Memories of green fields and forests lurked in the water. His home. Not my home, he protested. It cared not, taking the memory until the landscape was foreign and distant. Memory of white marble pillars, and objects on pedestals. A brown-haired man, with hazel-flecked eyes. Not my training, he protested. Still, the Gestalt ignored him, purging the thought until they too were strangers. A colossal gate, hewn from the mountain behind it, and halls of orange glow and merriment. The laughter turned to a raucous sound as the memory faded back into the black water, joining the symphony of a billion screams that lurked in his mind. Vivid flashes of alien memories mixed with his own in the water as the Gestalt continued its work. A child’s voice. Thousands of miles of humid jungle. Crystalline constructs, and great circular doors too large to imagine. Marbled cities aflame, and an endless sea of unrecognisable bodies. Desert sands. A white scarf. No. That was one of his. Wasn’t it? He could not remember. He could not remember much of anything, now. Who he was. Where he was. His vision blurred, then began to close as the consciousness sought to finish its work, dark water darkening even further. Some part of him struggled, still. Struggled against what? Don’t, he kept hearing, a quiet sound that cut through the screams. But it would be so easy. Why not? Silver light danced through the curtain of black water, visible even through his fading vision. Ours, a warbled and monstrous voice crooned in the depths of his mind. No, another foreign voice replied in the darkness, similarly warbled, though decidedly less monstrous. The voices argued in the darkness for all but a few more moments, though he could not make out the words. Then nothing. Silver light cut through the darkness of the water like a blade, followed soon after by the pained screech of the creatures that had circled him. They retreated into deeper and darker water as the light enveloped him, carrying his paralysed body upwards, toward the source of the light, and the surface. The silver light weaved and moved with idle intent, forming a hand that grasped onto his, and pulled him the rest of the way. Closing eyes snapped open as he breached the water’s surface, greeted on all sides by greying and stormy clouds, and rocky banks of basalt and ash. No solid ground greeted his boots, however. The light kept him suspended in the still air, continuing its weave around him in a slow and carefree manner, before forming an arm to match the hand. An arm, then a shoulder, then another. In time a figure of silver starlight floated in front of him, faceless and tilting its head down, then up, as if judging. Discerning. Its hand remained against his to keep him floating as a dull calm overtook the sharp screams and cries of the deep water, and it appeared almost in thought. Eventually it spoke, though not by normal means. The quiet but stern tone filled his thoughts, almost as if speaking into him, rather than toward him. Tried your best, then. He was in no state to reply to much of anything. Let alone a figure made of light. Silent he remained, the voice of the figure lingering and echoing through his mind for a long few moments, as if his mind were the walls of the cavern around him. The figure waited. Discerning and judging for a few moments more, before speaking for the final time, tone resolute. You will try again. A single moment passed before it released his hand, and he fell once more. No word nor sound left him as he tumbled, the figure dissipating into the air with the accompaniment of a rumbling sound that could almost be taken for laughter. White snow and blue ice overtook black seas before he could enter the water, and the frigid air of the facility replaced the stale wind of the cavern. Silver light danced and weaved along the runes of the blade in his frozen grasp, before fading into silence.
