"Finch?"
Allen turned to his frozen friend, he expected to see some sort of joy, excitement even.
...But all he found was-
Clatter.
Clatter. Clatter. Clatter.
-a shivering, terrified boy.
"I-I'm f-fine-!" Syllian dropped his eyes to the floor, the darkness within them had retreated, replaced by inexplicable fear.
'Run.'
It told him to run.
Run from the Call of The Night.
It wasn't just a simple set of information, the Net of Ruin sounded urgent. It wasn't telling him to beware the Call of The Night or figure out what the Call of The Night was. Not even where it was coming from.
It said:
[Run]
Right now, at this very moment.
"You don't look fine to me, Finch."
Syllian shot his face toward Allen, and with the calmest look he could muster he replied, "I just remembered something bad."
"Finch." Grabbing Syllian's shoulder, Allen looked into his eye before saying:
"What's wrong."
Tap.
Helen, who was quiet these days, gripped Syllian's tunic as well.
"D-don't worry..."
"Sigh... Alright."
Unable to pierce past Syllian's stubbornness, Allen fell back a little, giving Syllian some breathing room.
Meanwhile, the 5 men beside them didn't notice the mini ordeal. Their eyes were locked onto the statue on the island in the distance.
"Land!"
"I made it-"
"What is that thing?"
Every one of them had varying expressions on their face.
Yes, every one of them.
Except Crude.
"Allen, Finch, go steer the ship to the island, the rest of you get back to work now." Crude reminded them of their situation by rapidly throwing them back into labour.
While everyone else returned to the innards, Danny, Crude, Syllian, Allen, and Helen remained on the deck.
All for varying reasons.
---
"We're perfectly aligned, no more adjustments needed." Allen lowered his binoculars now that he had no more use for them.
"Alright." Solemnly responding to the boy, Syllian couldn't remove the Third Trial from his head.
Apparently, Helen wasn't willing to leave his side anymore either.
Syllian didn't mind too much, he wasn't a professional at understanding the brain of a child. He had no clue why she changed so much in a few days, and wasn't able to figure it out anyway.
Especially not right now.
His mind was packed with information, most of which was clutter.
So to clear the clutter:
"Allen."
"Hm?"
Syllian tapped the wheel in front of him with a contemplative look on his face.
"If, and this is just an if..."
"Yeah?" Allen faced Syllian, catching a couple of glimpses of the downtrodden boy's face with the occasional flash of lightning.
"If you had to run away from the night, how would you do it?"
Clench-
The petite hand on his clothing tightened.
"Run away from the night? What does that mean?" Allen was understandably bewildered by the odd question, the boy placed his hand on his chin and approached Syllian's face with his own.
"Are you okay in the head?"
Backing off from Allen, Syllian awkwardly smiled and repeated the question.
"Just answer it, if you had to run from the night, how would you run?"
Pulling his face back, Allen pondered over it for a moment, allowing the rain to build up on his open palm.
"Is there a reason why I have to run?"
"...?"
"Is the night bad so I have to run from it? Or is it chasing me for a reason? Is the reason bad or is it good? If the reason is good then why would I run?"
Syllian almost forgot that this guy was just as much of an idiot as he was, he was full of the stupidest questions.
"Forget it..."
"Hey! I'm still answering."
Allen tilted his head to the side, letting the water that built up on his palm drip off.
"I'd look for the day that the night runs from."
Allen wasn't done with just that though.
"Or, I'd ask the night why it was chasing me."
Syllian was intrigued with his answer but didn't pursue it further. Understanding the reason why was irrelevant here, the Trial of Ruin outright told him to [Run]. It couldn't get more simple than that.
And if Syllian had learnt something so far it was that the Trial of Ruin was straightforward.
So, the First Trial was also probably straightforward, he just hadn't figured it out yet.
"Good answer?"
"Good enough."
Happy with himself, Allen let out a quiet singing hum.
His smile returned a little while ago.
But Syllian didn't pay much attention to it.
If he had...
-----
"We've almost made it."
Resting in the food hall, Theon sat beside Syllian with a plate of nasty food piled on top of their two trays.
"Yeah, not long left."
Unlike the bumbling, smiling idiot beside him, Syllian wasn't excited in any way shape or form for that island.
In the past 24 hours, he hadn't truly relaxed once.
Even when he tried to sleep he was reminded.
[Run]
His brain screamed at him.
[Run]
Every built-in warning system from years of living on the outskirts of that dangerous ruined city was screeching with the loudest sirens.
He missed the silence.
Ironically, he missed the streets of the ruined city.
They were a million times safer than this hell.
...Relatively so.
But there was only one way to return, complete the final two Trials.
And the end of the road was right in front of him, it was one final sprint.
All that remained was the starting shot.
"Not gonna eat?" Theon pointed at the cold food on Syllian's tray.
'I blanked again.'
"Daydreaming."
Picking up the food with his fingers, he dug in to recover his lacking energy.
"Seriously, how do you like this paste?"
Finishing off his bite, "You get used to it."
It also helped him recover from his wounds.
He was already able to move around comfortably, the initial wound on his abdomen was fully healed and the one on his thigh was mostly healed.
Basic movement was easy on him again.
If he had to fight, however, that would be a different case. His chest injury heavily hindered him.
"How so?"
"Just eat more of it, then boom, you'll end up liking it. Simple right?"
"...Yeah...Simple..."
Theon looked at his plate of food and rampantly forced the meal down his throat.
'D-delicious-!'
Being a cook who had tasted good food in the past, Theon wasn't built for these meals.
"See, delicious right?"
The most ridiculous one was this boy, he spoke with so much excitement in his voice, but his face-
"So good!"
-was still.
Like a blank canvas.
It was as if someone sat behind the reigns while controlling the human below like a marionette.
Just an exaggerated human puppet show.
'Fucking creep.'
-----
The vast, stormy waters surrounding the ship died away at some point. A calm circle of ocean surrounded the island at the centre.
It calmed in an interesting fashion, layers of waves drifted into a serene belt in a gradient manner.
Psh...
The rain had also slowed, but not ceased.
Only the lightning never ceased, it flashed ever presently, lighting up the world for them.
Straining his head, Syllian looked up to the sky.
From right below, the top of the statue was almost impossible to get a look at. And they hadn't arrived at the island yet either.
'How large is this thing.'
"Ready the anchor!" Crude looked to Danny.
"Got it!" And Danny responded in kind.
Allen and Syllian's job was over so they were relegated to moving boxes of food and planks. But there weren't that many boxes for them to carry, just 1 box of food and 2 boxes of planks.
Theon squeezed his uniform beside them with ease in his eyes, "Finally!"
Allen didn't share in his excitement this time either, he had done all of the young man's work for him while the man in question watched by the side and did nothing.
"Tch."
"Never took you for one to complain about something like this."
"And I never took you for a saint. I thought you would have sworn at him in every way imaginable by now."
"Oh? You think I didn't?"
Allen paused and looked at Syllian, "You did?"
Evily smirking, he sent shivers up Allen's spine as he said, "I even made a straw doll using his hair that I stole and stabbed it every night."
"...Yeah right..." Allen didn't believe him, but a portion of him still wondered if Finch would do something like that.
Syllian shrugged and gripped the straw in his pocket gently.
'Non-mouldy straw, how wonderful.'
Orland, whom Syllian hadn't seen much these days because of their differing work locations, tapped his shoulder:
"Want me to take care of this box?"
"Sure."
Passing it over to the stronger man, Syllian looked at Theon and gave him a smile.
"Fuck!"
Theon promptly turned around, unwilling to receive a mental scar.
Rumble...
A hefty vibration suddenly shuddered through the hull of The Adler.
The anchor had been lowered.
"We're here!"
Everyone turned their eyes toward the island, and then slowly looked up.
...And up.
...And even further up.
'Massive.'
'Is it even taller than 100 metres? Maybe?'
Looking at its feet that punctured the centre point of the raised part of the island, he mentally calculated its height.
And failed.
He couldn't comprehend the scale of the statue.
Not unless he stood beside it.
'I don't want to.'
Syllian didn't want to go anywhere near the thing, in fact, he wanted to turn this ship around and leave this oddly calm belt that for some reason no one was too worried about.
How can you not worry over a random section of the ocean where the storm was calm?
'Think about it! That tentacle thing ruled the waters! And those waters aren't willing to approach this island!'
All the red flags were there.
'They're just ignoring it!'
However, as much as Syllian complained and accused his fellow crewmates of not caring about this weird situation.
He also knew that they weren't stupid.
No one without the ability to adapt and take advantage of every situation could have survived that onslaught of Mutants.
They had to have noticed the oddities as well.
But what other choice did they have?
Syllian also had no other choice.
The Third Trial probably required this island, if he ran then he'd die of starvation in the endless waters at some point.
Or die to some attacking Mutant.
'Fuck! Shit! Stupid! Dumb Trials!'
Walking over to the bowsprit, Syllian stood beside Crude with Helen still in tow.
"How is it?"
"I don't see anything for now."
Syllian didn't believe him, so he took a look for himself.
Rumble...
Flashes of lightning cracked down a hundred meters off the shore of the island.
Using this light he saw that directly beneath him, coarse, brown dirt covered the ground of the island. Following this coarse dirt, his eyes landed on weird patches of fresh grass surrounding singular luscious trees.
This odd environment continued around the entire island; at the centre, though, a ragged path filled to the brim with dead leaves snaked up the island.
All the way up to the feet of the statue in the distance.
"Let's go." Crude dropped a ladder that hung beside the bowsprit that they had shoddily put together over the past 24 hours.
As the makeshift leader of the group, he took point and landed on the dirt beneath them carefully.
"It's safe, for now."
Syllian nodded and placed his hands and feet into the rickety planks of wood.
Swaying side to side, he lowered himself carefully.
Thud.
Until his feet finally made contact with the ground.
He had arrived.
And the end was now in sight.
...What awaited him next, Syllian did not know.
But, he dreaded it.
The bloody word returned to his mind.
[Run]
But from what?
...He was about to find out.