"Heh."
I narrowed my eyes at Eternity, "what do you mean, 'Heh' ?" I scowled at her.
Eternity put his hand to her mouth trying to hide her amusement. Her white hair, wet from the sweat caused by the humidity, glistened in the sun like threads of silver.
"You look like a penguin." She blurted out as her stormy gray eyes regarded my arms.
I raised my arms, or whatever was left of it. Everything from the elbow down was gone, and instead where my bicep ended, was a lump of pink and red flesh which throbbed and spasmed every few seconds as it grew a centimeter larger, the gut-churning growth courtesy of [Higher Healing Factor].
I looked back at Eternity after observing my fleshy stumps, still baffled how she could compare this gorey mess to the flippers of a penguin.
"Are the penguins you speak of hell?" I asked as I glanced over in the distance to check up on Ford and Lorelei. They were fighting a bus-sized black salamander that swiftly slipped and slid across the wet ground to try and catch the awakened it was fighting with its scythe-like claws. Considering that it looked more out of breath, the fight would be over soon.
Eternity snorted, then pulled back her head to rest it on a humongous pillow of dark fur. Dusk, Lorelei's black wolf-wyvern Echo was resting near me and Eternity, and its belly provided a great cushioning for Eternity who was still horribly injured. Lorelei was able to knit the long grass surrounding us into substitute bandages, and by applying the mud over the wounds and then bandaging it, Eternity wouldn't have to die by blood loss.
On the other hand, the rest of our wounds were healed by Eternity. Lorelei had made an obvious inquisition asking why Eternity couldn't just heal herself to which the outskirts girl answered that her own body couldn't be the target of her healing aspect.
Despite the logic presented, it was still quite dispiriting to see the healer of the group, who had the most severe injuries, be the only one who hasn't fully recovered. I still felt guilty for Eternity being hurt as she did it for my sake but I didn't let myself wallow in despair like before. We had escaped the Moonlight Surge and now were closer to a citadel where we could finally escape this nightmare.
Speaking of the Moonlight Surge, it had turned into clouds of black dust the second the first rays of light broke through the thick storm clouds. It was like watching a volcanic eruption in reverse as dark and glowing ashes started to flow backwards in a large wave flowing into an invisible point far into the distance. If it weren't for the havoc left behind by the Great Devil, it was almost as if the Moonlight surge was simply a hallucination.
A Great Devil…
As I kept on repeating the imagery of the stark-white locust-rabbit clones turning into dust and retreating into the darkness, I couldn't help but remember that I punched one of those things.
Twice. I punched a Great Devil twice--and I managed to push it away.
Looking back, the individual clones of the Moonlight Surge weren't that strong. They definitely had great durability, considering that one of them could take two punches backed by my aspect ability without any scratches, it's durability was off the charts. However the rest of its specs weren't as high, when it came to speed, strength, balance and other such qualities--it didn't stack up as high as other nightmare creatures of its type, or even lower ranked nightmare creatures.
Wait, why am I complaining about this? Who wants to let that thing and its clones get any stronger that it is now? It can already make an infinite amount of clones!
I sighed. I looked up at the blue sky which was graciously coated with a few clouds that gave some well-needed break from the scorching sun behind it.
It's actually quite nice here in the dream realm.
"Hey, come sit with me." For a second, my mind couldn't wrap around who said that. Eternity was the one who spewed out those set of words, but I had a hard time believing she actually said it to me.
I looked down at the pale blonde haired girl, raising an eyebrow to wordlessly inquire more about her intentions.
She rolled her eyes in response and rubbed her forehead with her good hand, "Look, I'm not going to try and kill you, I just want to talk about something."
Even though she promised that I wouldn't have an early grave, I still felt hesitant to get into close proximity to a girl who is usually so passive-aggressive and so on edge. Then I remembered this girl was the generous saint who gave me a set of armor to wear back when I was buck-naked.
I sat next to her and smiled, revealing white crescent of teeth. Now Eternity was the one who looked uncomfortable.
She groaned and then looked away. After a few seconds of silence she spoke slowly, "Back when we were riding the wolf, and we both talked about death and…there were tears."
Ah, so that's what this was. I didn't interrupt her, instead I leaned back onto the wolf's belly.
There was another bit of silence, this one more longer and tense as Eternity seemed to think over her words again and again. Eventually she bit her lip and started talking.
"I was 13 when I first got the nightmare spell."
My eyebrows slowly started to rise up my forehead, thirteen? Of course, I had heard of people younger than the usual age, 15, contracting the nightmare spell, but to actually meet a person like that.
"Wait." I interrupted her, already breaking my silent obligation to stay quiet. "You were 13 when you got the spell, but you came into the Awakened academy when you were 15? Why did you wait so long to come to the academy?"
Eternity smiled darkly, "I didn't wait, I went straight to academy after my nightmare was finished. My first trial lasted 2 years."
2 years…?
I started to see Eternity in a new light. Her seriousness, her calculating look, and her hostile nature. They were probably the result of Eternity spending more time in the dream realm than any normal person who was first inflicted into the spell. What especially made her case more dark was that she couldn't return to the real world like the awakened in the modern area.
"Oh." Was all I could blurt out. I could barely fathom what it must have been like in her place. Could I have survived? Probably not. My mental fortitude wasn't strong enough to stay rational in a situation like that for very long.
Eternity's gray eyes assessed my reaction, then turned to look at the black salamander Ford and Lorelei were fighting. They managed to cut off one of the salamander's legs.
"In my nightmare, I was conscripted into a group of awakened warriors whose job was to journey out and map the unexplored areas around the settlement. We'd go out early in the morning, before the rooster could even scream, and then we'd come back by dusk. We did that on loop for two whole years."
"Not everything went according to plan, sometimes we were met with situations that forced us to camp out in the wilderness for multiple nights at times. Sometimes it was heavy rain, sometimes it was a group of nightmare creatures that came across our path, and sometimes we were just lost."
Eternity repositioned herself against the wolf's belly. She chuckled.
"I was the only girl in the group. It was quite weird getting attention when all my life most strangers wouldn't even notice me back in the outskirts. Anyways, I started to learn that guys become obnoxious whenever they're around a girl who is close to them. Each one of their actions were made to try and impress me. I won't lie, it was fun watching people fight over me sometimes—most times it was annoying though. During the middle of fights they'd make these dumb proclamations about protecting me and focused more on looking cool than actually trying to kill the nightmare creatures. There were more times where I had to save them than the other way around."
The imagery that came into my mind was hysterical. Seeing Eternity and a bunch of guys trying to get her attention and then her screaming at them to focus.
" I can't blame them too much though, they came from settlements with really traditional values. Men go hunt, men go search, men go find women and marry—all that jazz. The villagers didn't like that I wasn't like the other women, and in some weird roundabout way the guys in my group liked that, I guess. They're not a bad bunch though, they kept boundaries and never went too far trying to court me. They respected me, which is better treatment than what I received most times in the outskirts."
" At some points during my trial, I thought I wouldn't mind living like this for the rest of my life."
"…" She didn't speak for a minute.
"We were ambushed by a Fallen Demon one day. I actually didn't get to distinguish its features because it was too dark, but it instantly killed the person in front of our group. His remains were splattered across the side of a cliff, and he was dead. Just like that. The nightmare creature swallowed another guy in our group right after. I don't know whether he died instantly or if he struggled in the thing's stomach before suffocating and got digested by the stomach acid. I hope it's the former."
I sucked in a breath and I felt my throat become more tight the more I heard Eternity's description of the situation. I suddenly started to reminisce about the time I was swallowed by the armored worm. The tightness, the darkness, the stench, the burning. If he was awake the entire time, it would be a painful death.
"We tried running away but another one of us was instantly killed, the damn creature was faster than any of us. At that point, we knew we had to fight or else we would be picked off one by one as we turned tail. From my tone, you can probably tell that didn't end up good either. We were losing more limbs and lives than the seconds that were passing, and by the gods, it was just the definition of a massacre."
"Then one of them told me to run. Even then, they were trying to protect me. I didn't want to, so I stayed. Then literally the next moment, the guy who told me to run away suddenly got cut in half as he pushed me away from a set of sword-sized claws. What the hell?" An audible croak came from Eternity's throat, she was shaking.
"What sort of B.S was that? When did karma work so fast? Was that my fault? Did I indirectly kill him? Why did he save me?! If he let me die, he could have survived the entire situation! It's my fault, it's my fault!" Eternity's good hand went through her hair, combing it as she repeated the thoughts that ran through her head during that moment.
I couldn't help but think her thoughts perfectly mirrored mine when she saved me.
"My vision started turning blurry, I couldn't stand up straight. My guilt was so large that it was literally weighing me down. I didn't realize it, but the Fallen Demon had died but so did the rest of my group too. I was the last one remaining, and at that point, I lost my mind."
"All I could see after that moment was hallucinations of them dying again and again in front of my eyes. I gouged my eyes out to stop seeing them after my first trial ended."
Suddenly a long high-pitched wail sounded prompting me and Eternity's eyes to shoot to where Ford and Lorelei were fighting the Salamander. The nightmare creature was dead and the two awakened looked to be trying to harvest the soul shards from its carcass.
Eternity didn't look away from where Ford and Lorelei were, but she kept talking. "After my first trial, I decided that anyone who was close to me would die and that the only way I should live going forward was away from human connection. My actions and attitude at the academy were the result of that repelling mindset, and it was evident that it was flawed."
"In reality, I'm not a loner, I easily start to yearn for connection. I still wanted to talk to people, to get to know them. I care for you—I also care for Lorelei and Ford even though I've known you three for only a few months. If I'm going to be honest, I even feel sad that Itri betrayed us and tried to kill us, I pity him."
I sighed, trying to take in the information. Eternity wasn't distant because she hated talking to people, but she felt that we would come under harm if we got close to her.
We didn't talk as we watched Lorelei and Ford walk over with a stack of freshly cut pink flesh and a handful of soul shards. As they stood over us, Ford raised an eyebrow asking, "So, what were you two gossiping about while me and Lorelei poured blood, sweat, and tears trying to defeat that amphibian?"
"Vincent was ugly crying back when we were running from the Moonlight Surge." Eternity said, making me jump up to my feet. "WHAT?"
Ford gasped dramatically, "Really?????"
"Oh, shut up!"
"No, no, no." Ford said, shaking his head in an empathetic manner. "It's ok, man. We all have that moment. How about when we go back home, I buy you a pacifier?"
"How about I send you to the E.R?!" I shouted at the tall idiot, I looked at the girl who put me in this hellish spot. She grinned mischievously, her evil-tinted eyes narrowed in twisted satisfaction. I can't even say she cried too because she just told me her depressing backstory! What sort of situation was this?!!!
This witch!