Enel stood frozen, staring at the beasts with fear tightening its grip around his chest. His fists clenched instinctively as the nearest creature crept closer, its glowing eyes locked onto him. The low, guttural growl rumbling from its throat made his knees feel weak. He hated himself in that moment—not just for his fear but for his sheer helplessness. Lisa and Gerard were risking their lives, fighting battles they could lose, all for him. What had he done to deserve their protection? What could he possibly offer in return?
His mind screamed at him to run, but the beast was too fast. He wouldn't even get two steps before it pounced. He had no weapons, no aether, no plan. The sharp claws of panic gripped his chest, squeezing the air out of him. *I'm useless… No aether core… No gates… Why do they even believe I'm worth saving?*
Suddenly, the beast lunged toward him. Enel barely managed to dodge, his body twisting and landing hard on his back. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but he had no time to recover. The beast snarled and regained its stance, joined by the others. They advanced slowly, saliva dripping from their gaping maws. Backing away on his elbows, Enel felt sweat pouring down his face as his mind raced. He desperately tried to think of a plan—any plan—but his body was too weak, too slow. There was nothing he could do.
He needed a miracle. Anything. And he needed it fast.
He closed his eyes tightly, focusing on the hollow emptiness he had always felt in his chest, the nothingness where an aether core should have been. He pulled on it, hoping against hope that something would respond, praying for something—anything—to be there. Then, something happened. A miracle... but not the one he'd wanted.
The nothingness he had always felt within him began to shift. For the first time, it felt like *something*—something vast, dark, and impossibly heavy. It carried an oppressive, suffocating presence, one that reeked of malice. His surroundings blurred as the sensation intensified. Time seemed to slow down, the world growing eerily silent. The beasts, once predatory and vicious, suddenly faltered. Their snarls turned to whimpers, and their movements grew erratic. Fear radiated from them, visible in their every twitch and step.
And Enel felt it too. Death.
The pull of death was unmistakable, and it dragged him into a dark, endless void. He stood there, suspended in a black expanse where time and space ceased to exist. His senses were overwhelmed, yet he somehow *knew* he wasn't alone.
In the center of the void, a massive sphere of darkness loomed. It wasn't something he could truly *see*—it was more like he felt it, an overwhelming presence that chilled him to the core. The fear he had always sensed in the pit of his chest felt tangible now, emanating from this entity. It radiated dread, slumbering but still suffocatingly present.
The dark mass stirred. Slowly, it shifted, unfurling itself. One eye opened, glowing faintly in the void as it focused on Enel. He felt an immense pressure crash over him, crushing his very will to exist. Even breathing felt dangerous, as though the act alone might provoke it.
The darkness extended an arm—a clawed, skeletal limb that reached for him. The hand closed around his heart, its touch cold and searing at the same time. Enel couldn't move. He couldn't scream. The suffocating presence seeped deeper into him, clawing at his chest with its razor-sharp grip. It was death itself, and he realized in that moment that this thing could kill him whenever it wanted. His life was nothing to it. And yet...
The clawed hand paused. The pressure holding his heart stilled, lingering for a moment before slowly retracting. Enel felt it withdraw, cold and detached, as though losing interest. The entity shifted again, curling back into its slumber. As it did, the void seemed to collapse in on itself, and Enel was thrown violently back into reality.
He woke with a gasp, his chest heaving as he clutched at his heart. The suffocating presence was gone, but a strange emptiness lingered, more profound than anything he had ever felt before. His senses were dulled, the world around him a blur of colors and sound. He couldn't hear clearly, but a deafening bang behind him cut through the haze.
Enel turned weakly to see the remains of the aether beasts. They were all dead, their bodies shriveled into dry husks. His mind struggled to process what he was seeing. Had it been the darkness? Had it killed them? He wasn't sure, but a part of him didn't want to know.
Staggering to his feet, Enel moved forward, his legs trembling beneath him. Gerard's voice echoed faintly in his memory: *Stay at the edge of the forest. Don't go into the desert.* But his thoughts were scattered, and his body moved on instinct. He stumbled forward, blindly leaving the trees behind and stepping onto the desert's edge. The golden glow of the sun blurred in the distance, its heat washing over him in suffocating waves.
Each step became heavier than the last. His breath grew shallow, and his vision dimmed. Kicking a sand dune, he stumbled and rolled down its slope, his body tumbling helplessly. Finally, as the world around him spun into darkness, he lost consciousness, his body sinking into the shifting sands.
Enel gasped, his hands clutching at his chest as he stumbled forward. His head throbbed with pain, his thoughts scrambled into a chaotic mess. The suffocating pressure that had been crushing him earlier was gone, but its absence left behind an aching hollowness. He tried to focus, to remember, but his mind was a hazy void. Everything was slipping away, like a half-forgotten dream that dissolved the harder he tried to hold onto it.
The explosion—loud, deafening, and all-consuming—was all he could recall. It echoed in his mind, reverberating with a weight that felt heavier with each step. He couldn't shake the images of blazing light, the overwhelming roar that seemed to tear apart the jungle. His heart clenched as a singular, terrible thought cemented itself in his mind: *The village… it's gone. They're all gone.*
The weight of that realization threatened to crush him. His knees wobbled, his legs threatening to give out under the strain. Yet he didn't stop. He couldn't. The jungle was far behind him now, and ahead stretched the endless expanse of the desert. The sun's relentless heat bore down on him, sapping what little energy he had left. His white tunic clung to his frail body, sweat-streaked and dust-stained, and his bare feet, blistered and bleeding, sank into the shifting sands.
He didn't know why he was here, wandering through the desert. His thoughts were too fragmented to make sense of his decisions. All he knew was that returning to the forest wasn't an option. Whatever had caused the explosion—the monsters, the attackers, the destruction—was still there, waiting. He couldn't go back. That path only promised death.
As he trudged forward, his eyes fixed on the shimmering light in the distance. It wavered like a mirage, reflecting the sun's rays in an almost taunting glow. Was it salvation or just another cruel trick played by the desert? He didn't care. It was something to focus on, something to follow. It kept his mind from wandering back to the faces of the villagers he had lost.
Every step was agony. His legs burned, his chest ached, and the dryness in his throat felt like it was tearing him apart from the inside. The dunes seemed to rise higher with each one he crossed, the horizon stretching endlessly before him. Yet, through it all, he pressed on, clinging to a faint hope he didn't fully understand.
The light flickered brighter for a moment, and he squinted, his vision swimming. But as the heat clawed at his senses and the exhaustion threatened to consume him, his legs buckled, and he fell to his knees once again. His breath came in shallow gasps as his arms gave out, sending him collapsing face-first into the hot sand.
The explosion echoed in his mind once more, louder now, suffocating in its intensity. The weight of it crushed him as his body grew still. His world began to fade, the blinding sun above him dimming to a hazy blur.