Young Flame

The quiet isn’t absolute, but compared to previously, the difference is significant. The creaks and groans of a structure barely able to hold itself together are still there, but the roar of rushing water through piping and the strain of steel remain.

The water generation has stopped?

I’d jump for joy if I could, but under the intense gaze of the Monolith, my flames won’t so much as flicker.

I’ve experienced hate before — both my own, and that directed toward me — but this is different. There is an immortal weight behind its gaze. A being having lived for eternity glares at me as if I’m the worst thing it has seen.

Fear. Unfiltered and pure. I’ve not felt like this for a long time, so absolutely horrified.

The Anatla moves. A storm of incomprehensible proportions crosses measureless distances toward the window separating us. All the while, the eye’s fury locks solely on me.

I shouldn’t feel worried. The being is still beyond this reality. It can only interact with our world through the inscription painted on the island above. I shouldn’t worry, but that is impossible while the incomprehensible being charges with relentless intent.

Finally, I get my flames back under control, snapping myself from terror. I’d love to run, to flee, where I don’t need to witness this monstrosity, but there’s nowhere to go. I may have shut off the water production, but that doesn’t magically give me an escape. No, there’s nowhere to escape this Monolith.

I force myself to breathe. It’ll be fine, I tell myself. Even as the infinite storm once again consumes everything in sight, it cannot reach me. It cannot break through.

Until it does.

I’m slammed into the wall. All my fire battered into a point under the impact. The world twists around me, and I lose myself. Not much makes sense in that instant, but the sound, the sheer presence, isn’t something I’ll ever forget. It was only a moment, barely a millionth of a second, but its pressure hit me. Crushed me.

The sound, like deafening blades of wind clashing into an infinite rumble, lasted just as long, but there’s no denying it happened.

It was all too much for me. I blacked out. I don’t know how long, but probably not more than a few moments; the island quakes beneath me as if crumpling under the impact. The ground is tilted, and I realise all my fire is compressed along a wall. Across the opposite side of the room, a massive fissure cuts through the metal like torn paper.

Through the fractured steel, I can see the sky. Not the strange pinkish sky of the other realm or the green storm of the Anatla, but the dark grey of my world.

I jump to my feet, expecting water to flood through the gap. I clamber to the highest corner of this chamber my flames can reach, discarding my former form. Water rushes down through the fissure, but not nearly as much as I expected. It pools around the floor, but most of it flows down the stairs.

The island — or maybe just the inverted tower I’m in — quivers. Not wanting to stay here, where everything is likely to collapse around me, I swallow my fright and fly through the waterfall and up the newly formed fracture through the island. In my rush, I hardly notice the pain of water as it vaporises around me.

The split through metal is immense, at least a hundred metres long, and a few metres thick. Ignoring all the water splashing in my way, I fly up. Thirty metres through the fracture, and I’m back out in open air. Freedom. I’m not dead.

It takes no more than a glance to find the geysers gone.

Without the terror of an Anatla breathing down my back, I let out a cheer. It’s stopped. It’s actually stopped. The pouring rain doesn’t make this at all comfortable, but I can’t stop the grin spreading across my face as I look down on the shattered surface of the island.

The glowing green inscription truly is the only thing that stands untouched. Whatever else must have constructed the upper defence is gone. Terror almost grips me again as my eyes land on the raging eye of the Anatla, but I clamp down on the feeling and force myself to keep grinning down at the mighty being that I won against.

It may not be a direct battle, nor could it really do much more than influence the inscriptions of some ancient race, but I actually succeeded. I won against an Anatla.

Maybe it’s not smart to gloat in front of a being that could kill me in an instant should it ever make its way into our realm, but I can’t help myself. Giddiness fuels my fire as I spread them down over the now undefended inscription. I’ve already stopped the water, but with the opportunity before me, I’m not about to leave the Monolith any link to our world. Not after whatever that last attack was.

Seriously, the thought that it can break through — however briefly — is horrifying.

I look down. The gargantuan eye stares back. Its storm rampages on the other side of the window, beyond the barrier between worlds, yet so dangerously close. My fire burns into the inscription connecting the being to our realm, but unlike the metal of its usual influence, it barely heats under my efforts. Maybe the grand elders waiting to the east will have something to do, after all?

I feel my connection reestablishing before I hear Yalun’s shout. The Anatla finally snaps its attention away from me; its eye moving to watch the approaching grand elder and the… other me. Having its attention on Yalun makes me nervous, but it shouldn’t be able to do anything anymore. All its weapons are gone.

As much as I know the Anatla is declawed, that doesn’t stop me rushing back to join her. The memory sharing is slow, but they do filter through. Yalun rushes toward me, appearing rather panicked. My bird form beside her, stretches my fire forward, intent on reconnecting. It’s incredibly strange to see myself, and not really being able to feel it. I get trickles of important details, but it isn’t until my fire intertwines that my halves rejoin and everything clicks into place.

Yalun isn’t panicked because of me. Nor did the Monolith turn to watch Yalun and my other body.

“Move!” she screams.

Behind her, the grey clouds and rain darken.

I spread my flames from my falcon beside her and wrap her in physical fire before whipping her toward me. Without hesitation, jets streak out behind me, no care for the energy usage as I rocket the both of us through the air as fast as I can force us. Even with my considerable capacity, I feel the drain. The streak of fire bursting out behind me floods hundreds of metres of air.

Through the obscuring clouds, a figure emerges. A maw filled with row after row after row of giant teeth crashes through the mist. That’s all I can see. An all-consuming mouth cutting off sight to half the world. From here, only the upper half of its jaw is visible, but even that is so large that I can’t imagine how it hid beneath the ocean.

The Titan, Charybdis, slams into the island. Below us, the vast expanse of steel jolts forward, unable to hold against the being’s might. The great virid eye of the Monolith glares with fury, forgetting me entirely, but it cannot do anything as the tower-like fangs scrape along the surface.

Yalun and I shoot away with greater speed than ever, but we cannot avoid the island’s sudden rise out of the water beneath us. We get battered. Would have been squashed against the surface if I hadn’t thrust us upward along with the impact. The Titan bites down on the island, surprisingly unable to fit the whole thing in its mouth. Unfortunately for us, that bite lifts the island and makes our escape all the harder.

Instead of only flying forward, we jet upward to stick just ahead of the unreal mass rising to reach us. The end of the island is just ahead of us. We only need a second and we’ll be free of the rising mountain of steel. Pushing my jet harder than ever, we breach beyond the ledge… only for the world to turn dark.

For a moment, I’m confused as the thick grey cloud cover disappears. The darkness is overwhelming. Soon, stars rapidly appear around me. Seemingly at random, they pop into existence. Below, above, the darkness quickly fills with small lights and a night sky soon surrounds us.

Looking closely, I notice a couple of the stars moving. Strange, I’ve never seen stars move. They sway and slide across the darkness, the motions gradually covering more of the sky. It’s almost like they are alive… like they are getting closer.

“Solvei!” Yalun shouts from in my embrace.

I jolt, finally registering exactly where I am, and blast myself back down… or at least where I think is down. My fires illuminate nothing, but the shift in air and snap like that of a jaw slamming shut make me realise just how close we might have been to death. Whatever is in here is enough to kill the strongest of the áed; I don’t want to risk sitting around here any longer.

From the corner of my eye, I notice three more stars begin swaying. Short and subtle at first, but gradually growing wider. The stars stay the same brightness regardless of their motion.

Before I can panic that each of these million stars might be a dangerous creature of its own, light — not that of the stars — reaches me. I don’t think I could be any happier to see the grey of storm-clouds than right now. Not casting more than a glance at the rotten spread of darkness above, I rocket down and away from the Titan.

Charybdis holds the island entirely out of the water — massive support pillars shattered — and readjusts it in its mouth. The massive structure groans painfully under the assault. Half of the island pierces through the Nightfall Shroud, spreading the night across the entire sky.

The Monolith Anatla glares through the window between realms. Its inscription glows brighter than ever, but it can do nothing but watch as its link to our world is chewed like a snack by the Titan.

A thunderous crack rips through the air as we continue to fly away. The thick crack the Anatla tore through the centre of the island widens, spreading across the entire length. We watch, awed, as the Island that gave us so much trouble cleaves in half under its own weight and falls away. The upper half not held up by the strength of the Titan tumbles out of the Nightfall Shroud, massive sections all along its side missing, like a thousand bite-marks. A terrifying amount of damage, considering how short it was in the Shroud.

The vivid green energy rushing through the inscription lingers for a few moments, but eventually disappears as the system fails. This is the end. The connection should be gone. Without the inscription binding the Anatla to our world, it cannot maintain its influence.

At least… that’s how it should have been.

The window remains. The Monolith remains reflected through both halves of the Island. We assumed it would lose its connection to our realm with the loss of that inscription; was that wrong? Then why did it defend the inscription so desperately?

The Anatla’s determination to cling to our world means nothing without a way to defend its link. With only half of the mass of metal to deal with, Charybdis reorients it once more and swallows it whole. I have to wonder how much of the Titan’s body remains below the surface. What it pushes above the surface alone is greater than both the Euroclydon and Cipactlteteo.

Water floods down its side, gushing from gills at the side of its head. A few rows of teeth or blades run along the outer edge of its maw, but they have nothing on the weapons inside. Countless limbs poke out through the water flooding down its back, half-way between fins and tentacles. Mostly, its form resembles a worm, but simply looking at this beast, I’m scared to make the comparison.

I prefer when it was just a whirlpool.

Still, the Titan is taking care of the Anatla for us, so I can hardly complain. As it finishes grinding its teeth through the island and swallowing it whole, it pulls back, submerging once more and moving on to eat the other half of the island.

The storm has cleared in the surroundings, likely blown away by the mighty winds Charybdis caused by flinging its body and the massive metal structure around. The ocean is nothing if not turbulent. With the sheer volume tossing it around, I’m not surprised the water undulates as much as it does.

“Eldest Ember,” Yalun breathes as I finally let her fly under her own power, her eyes glued on the reforming whirlpool below.

I nod dumbly as I reform my eagle shape. I know exactly how she feels. This is just… insane.

Plus, how could the Titan go and eat everything? I feel cheated.