The world beyond the gate felt impossibly light. Arthuria's skies, a pale gold, stretched wide overhead, an endless expanse unmarred by shadow. The air carried a faint sweetness, the kind that whispered of sprawling fields and ancient forests. Sabbath inhaled deeply, the crispness filling his lungs. Ahead, in the distance he could see the city's silhouette.
Behind him, his team emerged one by one. First Angie, her face nervous but her eyes sharper than steel. Then Hayz, who adjusted the hammer on his back like it weighed nothing, he seemed to be adjusting it a lot lately. Emaila and Jon were last, their fingers intertwined, a quiet intimacy in the shared warmth of their smiles.
It wasn't much — a team stitched together by chance and necessity — but for Sabbath, it was home. The first step on a new journey.
The Gate hummed faintly behind them, its light still pulsing, when Hayz cracked another joke, something about Arthurians and them using horses instead of Spells. Jon snorted, Angie rolled her eyes, and Emaila playfully shoved Jon forward. Sabbath turned to glance at them, his own smile beaming. He almost laughed. Almost.
Then the world split open beneath them.
It started as a soundless shudder, the ground trembling as though the world had inhaled sharply and held its breath. Sabbath's gaze snapped downward. A faint glow pulsed through the cracks of the cobblestone beneath his boots, like veins carrying molten light.
"Wait—" he started.
The world answered with blinding intensity.
Light speared upward, a column of searing white that pierced the heavens. Sabbath staggered back, a half-step from the light field. The air was wrong. Too heavy. Too hot. The sweetness was gone, replaced by the sharp sting of something acrid and metallic.
The brilliance devoured everything — shadow, colour, even thought — leaving only silence.
Not the absence of sound, but a void. The kind that claws at the edges of your sanity, where even your mind feels muted and unreal.
And in that void, Sabbath's world began to unravel.
Through that emptiness, he saw her first.
Angelie stood at the edge of the light, frozen mid-step, her hand reaching for her katana, her figure outlined against the consuming light. For a moment, she seemed untouched.
Then her skin began to peel.
It started at her fingertips, curling back like paper caught in a flame. Blackened flesh flaked away, revealing raw muscle and sinew beneath. She didn't scream. Couldn't. Her mouth opened, but the void swallowed everything, even her voice.
Her eyes met Sabbath's for a fleeting second. Recognition. Fear.
He tried to move, to reach for her, but the light claimed her too quickly. Muscle gave way to bone, then to ash, until only a faint outline remained, carried upward in the light's unyielding grasp.
Hayz was next.
The Knight's aura flared, a shimmering barrier of defiance encircling him, shielding Emaila and Jon from the blast. For a moment, it seemed enough. The shimmering energy around them, rippling as it strained against the force of the light. But the light pressed harder, relentless and all-consuming.
Sabbath watched as Hayz's aura shattered, shards of energy scattering like broken glass. He stumbled, his hammer falling from his grasp. His armor melted first, the ornate metal plates glowing red-hot before liquefying and pooling where his feet should've been.
Beneath the armor, his skin bubbled and split. Sabbath could see his muscles twisting, exposed and writhing, until they too began to disintegrate. Hayz collapsed, one knee hitting the ground, his mouth moving silently as if trying to say something. His eyes were wide, with an unreadable expression. Even as his body turned to ash, he stared forward, his gaze failing to betray a sign of consciousness.
Jon and Emaila fell together.
Sabbath's gaze snapped to them just as they turned, hands still clasped, their faces frozen in expressions of horror and disbelief.
The light hit them slower, as if savoring its destruction. Emila's hair — her long, chestnut strands, were the first to ignite, curling into wisps of smoke. Her hand tightened around Jon's, their fingers entwined even as their skin burned away.
Jon tried to pull her closer, to shield her with his body, but the light offered no mercy. His robes burst into flame, the intricate runes stitched into the fabric offering no protection. Even in their final moments, their hands never parted.
Then, there was nothing.
The light receded as suddenly as it had come, leaving Sabbath standing at the edge of an abyss. The earth beneath them was gone, swallowed whole, leaving a void that stretched endlessly.
Sabbath stood there, rooted in place. His arms still outstretched, fingers trembling as if he could still reach them. His vision blurred, not from tears — his body refused him even that small mercy — but from the sheer weight of what he had seen.
This couldn't be real.
The dirt clung to his hands as he collapsed to his knees, wide-eyed and trembling. His team — his family — had been torn away. Not by Fiends, not by war, but by something cold and cruel.
And he had done nothing. Could do nothing.
"I…"
The word tried to break the silence, a whisper lost in the void. An apology? A plea? A curse?
He blinked, and in the afterimage burned into his eyes, he could still see them — the faint outline of Angie's katana, Hayz's hammer, Jon's hand clasped tightly around Emaila's. But when his eyes opened again, there was nothing.
A sound escaped him, somewhere between a gasp and a sob, but it was strangled, as if his body had forgotten how to grieve.
His fingers dug into his scalp, trying to anchor himself. It was a dream — a nightmare. Any second now, he would wake up. Angie would be shaking his shoulder, calling him a lazy prude. Jon would be tinkering with some artifact, Emaila would be laughing at one of Hayz's jokes.
But there was no laughter. No voices.
Only silence.
They were gone.
The realization hit like a physical blow. Sabbath doubled over, forehead pressed to the ground, as if seeking answers from the shattered earth. His mouth moved, but no words formed. What could he say? Who would hear him?
And for the first time in his life, he felt truly, utterly alone.
Then sound returned.
A high-pitched ringing filled his ears, followed by the faint hum of the Gate, distant and mocking. Echoes that sounded like screaming, all unimportant in the moment.
Like water pooling back to fill a depression. The air rushed back to fill the vacuum. The fallout of which sent Sabbath flying back, laced with cuts from its intensity.
Amidst the ruins, a faint glow caught his eye. A fragment of the technician's case lay cracked, leaking light into the chasm beyond. Sabbath's gaze latched onto it, desperate for answers. The dirt coated his skin, mingling with the blood and sweat he hadn't even noticed. His healing, oddly, even seemed to lag.
The truth didn't come all at once. It crept in, slow and insidious, piecing itself together in his shattered mind.
The technician. The case. The incantation. This wasn't an accident.
This was deliberate.