The moment the Darkness covering her eyes receded, allowing the information-laden light to penetrate Tristessa's eyes, the first thing she saw was the terrifying, black-haired face of a Varg, with its red eyes and sharp teeth aiming directly at her.
"...huh?"
Tristessa blinked once. The Varg was still there, absolutely still and ready to bite her face off.
Another blink. Her brain began to function, to reason, to interpret, and before her instinct forced her to scream and take distance, she understood that what she was seeing was the head of the apex predator of the Sea of Trees preserved with taxidermy for exhibition, behind the glass of a display case.
One more blink. She saw in perspective, the contrast with the glass that showed her own face: wide-open grey eyes, her mouth slightly ajar, and the delicate curves of her cheeks and jaw.
It was the face of a beautiful girl in her early teens, her midnight black hair falling like silk over her shoulders and behind her back.
"Huh? W-what...?"
Another blink, before slowly lowering her gaze and seeing that she was dressed in clothes in perfect condition: a white shirt, black, masculine pants, and shoes tending to a cement gray.
"Oh!" She noticed that she was holding a brass tray with a tea set and plates full of crumbs. "H-how…? What the hell?"
Slowly, Tristessa crouched down, set the tray down on the carpet, and then turned around to look at her surroundings.
"What's going on? This is the hall of the Mercer-Archeos House. Didn't I…?"
Die?
That word that not even her mind could repeat, with that train of thought doomed to crash in the solid wall of the flood of memories that attacked her in an instant. She looked back at the Varg, already panicking and breathing raggedly; the red in its eyes catalyzing the memories of recent events.
And those came accompanied by all the nightmarish, immeasurable, fatal, destructive pain that she experienced and that her soul had engraved in itself forever.
"Akh!...kkjh...!"
Stifling screams inside her neck, Tristessa clenched her teeth tightly and brought her hands to her chest, digging her nails into the fabric of her shirt and reaching beyond, where her Baptism in Ruins beat above her own heart, with an accelerated rhythm against the aftershocks of her tormented soul.
She felt the edge of the hunting knife penetrating her torso, the lead bullet burning her insides, the broken bones of her disfigured face, her torn finger, torrents of blood wanting to escape from her body... All that incalculable amount of phantasmal pain that her soul transmitted, in conflict with her body that was completely intact, rejecting that reality that existed no more.
And the fear... Oh, the fear of Death, as real as the first time. She felt her legs tremble, her entrails twist, and the ever-present nausea coming from the bottom of her stomach.
"Enough...stop...stop, please...," she begged, in a very fragile whisper and without understanding absolutely anything of what was happening. Her vulnerable voice predicted sobs made entirely of hopelessness. "What is happening to me?"
Just when she allowed the free flow of tears that had accumulated so much in her eyes, she heard a voice beside her:
"Are you scared of Vargs, Miss?"
An impossible voice. An innocent, sweet voice, so full of life…
Tristessa was forced to close her eyes, shedding more tears, snot and making an inhuman effort to resist the unbearable anguish that had settled in her chest. The torment had no end; without a doubt she had done something worthy of the deadly sins to deserve such torture.
"Miss?"
It wasn't out of courage that the girl turned her head, but out of the bottomless guilt that had pierced her punished heart. And the sigh she let out upon seeing the adorable face of Lucahn Archeos, smiling kindly at her, came out along with a moan that ended up breaking her into uncontrollable cries. How could she not do so, being face to face with that child, after seeing the horrible way in which he had lost his life? Being in front of those small blue eyes, intact and in the right place, and that were filled with surprise upon seeing her in such a depressing state?
"M-miss, why are you crying? The Varg won't do anything to you, he's not alive!" Nervous, the boy stood next to the glass and knocked on it several times with his knuckles. "You see? Seriously, you're not going to…. Huh?!"
The boy exclaimed, more than surprised, his face furiously blushing at having been enclosed in a hug by that depressed girl, taller than him and who because of that found it easy to capture him in her arms. He had been caught so off guard that the book he was holding fell to the floor.
"Lucahn… Lucahn!" Tristessa cried, holding the boy tighter as if he were going to disappear from one second to the next, to the point of pressing his face against her chest. Her fingers tangled in his brown hair, which went down until culminating in an amalgam of curls that settled on his shoulders. He felt so real that it was scary. "It was all my fault, forgive me! I'm so sorry!"
"B-but… Miss, I can't breathe!"
Lucahn slapped her ribs several times, one hit harder than the other, causing the girl to partially release him, as her hands tightly gripped his shoulders.
"I'm sorry, I just… I… I don't understand what's going on. I don't understand anything! If this is a dream, at least let me tell you how sorry I am…"
"A dream?" As he caught his breath, the boy clasped his hands against his chest and leaned back as far as he could, as the girl's grip almost didn't allow him to move. Tristessa didn't even notice that he was uncomfortable, even scared. "Miss, c-could you please let me go?"
The initial friendly predisposition he had offered her didn't seem to hold, given the frown with which he looked at her. That made the girl think of a possibility that took the air out of her lungs.
"Lucahn, don't you recognize me?" she asked, fear in her voice.
"I don't know who you are, Miss." The boy answered simply and bluntly. "I've never seen you around here before. Are you friends with my daddy?"
It was as if the world was collapsing around Tristessa. The situation was completely beyond her understanding. It made no sense at all. How was it that Lucahn didn't remember her, after having spent hours reading that very book that was at their feet?
"Girl, how about you let go of my son, before something very bad happens to you?"
With that question posed threateningly by another familiar voice, the confusion that dominated Tristessa was transmuted into absolute terror. Chills that froze her soul in the blink of an eye. It had been a few minutes since she had last heard that voice, which was now a catalyst that brought blood, pain, and madness to the girl's mind.
The feeling of imminent danger made her let go of Lucahn, who automatically bent down to pick up his book and hug it to his protective chest. She turned around quickly, and saw Tiara Archeos standing in the doorway that connected the kitchen to the atrium, holding a long knife in her right hand.
"Well, you know how to listen. Tell me one thing, do you also know the reason why my husband…? What's wrong with you?" The woman, with a sour face, had to rephrase her question in the face of the stupefied way Tristessa looked at her. "You look like you've seen a wandering spirit."
"…Ack! Mommy, she smells horrible!" Lucahn exclaimed, standing behind the girl, taking more distance from her and covering his face with his book. "She smells like Evil Dream! She smells like Discord!"
Tristessa opened her mouth, closed it again, and opened it again, and still, no concrete word came out of her mouth. An invisible hand had compressed her throat; everything was abysmal terror, pure fear, making every inch of her skin crawl.
"Ah…ah…ah…ah…ah...!"
She wanted to scream, torn her vocal cords with pure screams and run for her life, but she had succumbed to the panic attack, paralyzing body and soul alike. She felt the knife penetrating her insides again, making its way through flesh and organs. Blood was expelled in jets, an unpleasant and metallic smell. And the laughter filled with insane malice… All of it, building up in the facade of her mind, accelerating her heart to infinity.
"…Indeed, she does. I don't remember the last time I had someone in front of me with such a smell of Evil Dream. Your dark soul blessed by Vel'Moran is more than repulsive," the woman hissed, showing that hostility that Tristessa already knew well enough. Seeing that Lucahn had moved far enough away from her, she decided to take several steps in her direction, brandishing the knife and showing a cold face. "You are a damn witch of the forest, aren't you?"
The greatest accusation, the threat with that sharp kitchen utensil, and that terrible woman, three factors combined, in direct collision with that girl whose eyes had burst into tears. Fear reached its climax when the Tiara who was going towards her was replaced in her mind by the one who had succumbed to madness, and was more than ready to gut her like a pig.
And like a dam collapsing under the pressure of an ocean of water, Tristessa's mouth released everything she was holding in:
"NOOOOO!!! DON'T KILL ME! I DON'T WANT TO DIE! I DON'T WANT TO, I DON'T WANT TO, PLEASE...!!!"
Her screams echoed throughout the house. She fell to her knees and crawled across the carpet until she reached the stunned woman's legs; to hug them and cling to them without feeling the slightest shame.
"Please don't hurt me anymore…! Ah, ahhh, I beg you, have mercy! Have mercy! I don't want to suffer anymore!" she screamed, her survival instinct guiding her to reduce herself like that. In order to survive, in order to feel no more pain, anything. "Forgive me! Forgive me for being so stupid, for being so naive, for not knowing anything! Forgive me for not remembering anything!!
"C-calm down, I just wanted to scare you a little!" Tiara shook her shoulders a little but Tristessa didn't react. She apologized again and again, begging for forgiveness for a mistake or an offense she never committed before the surprised eyes of the pregnant woman. "Seriously girl, control yourself!"
An impossible request to fulfill, with the girl's heart on the verge of failing and her mind completely lost. Broken, hopeless, and in free fall towards darkness.
"Forgive me… I'm so… such an idiot…" she sobbed against the fabric of her dress, at the height of her knees trapped by that desperate hug. "I know I don't deserve to be alive, but please Mom, don't kill me!"
She didn't get to hear Tiara's reply. Her vision quickly blurred, everything turned gray and the world pulled her down when she finally lost consciousness.