Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 74: Revelation (Patreon)

Fresh tosses and turns in her bed, her fists tightly clenching the blanket as she turns over in a cold sweat, midnight dew wicking down her skin as her restless dreams haunt her mind. Strange visions that she can’t remember. Bright, burning lights in the recesses of herself that scar her mind’s eye, the heat scorching her body as she kicks and throws the blankets around. Heat surges through her, as if she were suspended in a pot of slowly boiling water.

The fountain trickles behind her, around her, everywhere as her eyes rip open, as they rip open beneath the deep recesses of the black-water. The sound of rushing wet is everywhere as she spirals and spins, torn through the depths of the black-ocean, the core of her soul surrounded by a surging torrent that churns with a coursing fury.  The grand whirlpool throws her this way and that in a wild, uncontrolled spiral as she sinks. Her hand reaches up towards the surface that is so far above her, unreachably far above her, as she grasps for the single sliver of light that marks the way up. The way out.

It is something that has never been there before.

Her soul burns as she reaches for the strand of light, grasping for it as if it were a rope to pull herself up to the surface with. The beam touching the entity that is her, burns her with an unnatural fire that shoots through her entire soul in a clear, sharp, crystal pulse that aches her very being. Fresh screams as the water around her boils in disgust at the sensation, as she boils in disgust at the sensation. At the light that is so bright. At the sun shining through the surface of the black-water ocean.

She is spat out. Landing and stumbling, falling head over shoulder as the pressure of the crashing waves throwing her onto the shore. A surge of water shoots out everywhere around her, crashing down over her head and pressing her against the stones of the floor of the fountain basin, as if she were pinned under a waterfall, as if she were pinned under a hand pressing her face down into the floor.

Fresh coughs and splutters and frantically drags her way forward, her core burning as the scream reverberates around her. Fresh can’t differentiate if the scream is her own, or if it’s that of the fountain. All there is, is a constant screaming. All there is, is a constant burning. Something is wrong, something is wrong. It’s wrong.

Her fingers claw onto the rim of the fountain and she pulls herself forward, pulling herself free from the surge of water that pulls on her, dragging her back not out of malice, but like a drowning man dragging another down into the depths.

Desperation.

She flops out of the fountain, retching and heaving as she claws her way forward, like an animal pulling itself free from the brink.

The girl looks around. “Where am I?! Where am I?!”

She jumps up, clutching at her own body that is no more.

Her eyes scan the world that she finds herself in and they find nothing to focus on. It’s simply empty.

Empty.

Empty apart from one thing, from the sound of trickling water.

Fresh turns around, to look at the black-fountain sitting behind her. It’s just like that night. It’s just like that night that it had saved her. She’s not in the water. She’s here again. She’s standing next to the black-fountain that she tossed the coin into on that fateful night and it’s screaming, yet so is she. Their screams are one and the same. There is no clear separation between themselves, the lines between Fresh and the black-water having become muddy. It is her life-blood and she…

“I hate them!” screams the fountain, the water bubbling. “I hate them! I hate them! I HATE THEM!” cries the fountain and Fresh clutches where her hair should be, she hates them just the same. “They found out! They found out! I just want to sleep! I hate them!”

The girl falls to her knees, clutching her head in pain. In agony. It hurts. It’s touching her and it hurts. She just wants to sleep. It’s the middle of the night, and she just wants to sleep. Why is it so bright?! WHY IS IT SO HOT?! The fountain bubbles like a pot of boiling water.

“They’re going to come for you,” says the fountain, the water sloshing as the waves begin to churn, as if beneath a violent storm. The girl’s eyes open wide in fear. “They’re going to take it all away. Everything. Everything that you’ve built! They’re going to take it all away!” promises the fountain and her fingers claw into her scalp. “You need to stop them. You need to stop them! YOU! Or they’re going to take it all away.”

Fresh leans forward, her fingers locking onto the rim of the fountain as she bends over it and looks down into its black depths. As she looks down into her eyeless reflection looking back up at her from the surface of the water. As it speaks to her.

“They’re going to rip it out of you, like an unborn child from the womb. They’re going to rip into your gut open and claw it all out of you, like animals, everything that you’ve fostered.”

Her eyes go wide as she watches the bloodied reflections of Jubilee and Basil floating alongside her own mirror image, their mangled visages staring up at her, lost, confused, afraid. Dead.

“I don’t understand!” yells the girl in fear at this depiction. At this prophecy.

The silhouettes beneath her reflection collect. Not just Jubilee, not just Basil. Everyone. Everything. The red-wizard. The muscular dark-elf. The man from the sect. Wooden boards from her new home that she herself had placed, coins, potions, feathers, swords. Faces of customers she recognizes and faces of those she doesn’t. All of these things swirl together into a coagulation of black-water that is swallowed into depths, all of these things taken from her. Because she is too weak. Because she didn’t stop its coming.

“STOP WHAT?!” cries the girl in terror. In anguish as the light touches her skin, as it burns her very essence simply through its pure presence. As the pulsation of the light synchronizes with a sound, with a simple, clean, divine sound that fills her with a fear that she has never felt before. With a dread that she had never before understood to be possible.

Fresh flips around and falls over backwards, her back against the fountain as she lifts her hands up to shield her eyes from the light that rises on the horizon. To block out the scorching rays of the sun that touch her skin and set her alight, the rays of the dawning sun that boil the black-water and cause it to scream. The sound, the tempo of which matches that of her own heart-beat, yet overpowers it in strength. The voice of an angelic choir. The ringing. The ringing that pulsates through her eyes. That pulsates through the light of the sun.

The ringing of the crystal bell that shines out brightly, just as radiant as the dawning star on the horizon, the jubilescent light threatening to swallow her whole. To reduce her to nothing but ash. To reduce everything she has made to dust and then all of these feelings and hopes and dreams that she has felt and still yet yearns to feel will return to a darkness so deep that they will be lost for all time.

They will die, together with her if she doesn’t stop it. If she doesn’t stop them. If she doesn’t stop -

Her eyes are stretched open wide, the light of the sun so bright that it simply shines through her hands covering her face. The crystal bell rings twelve and the sun breaks over the horizon. The light of a new day engulfing her.

- If she doesn’t stop him.

Fresh screams, howling with terror and pain, both too heavy for her soul to contain.

She falls out of her bed, soaking wet from head to toe, splashing, as she flops gut-first onto the rug, clawing, pulling, wrenching herself free from the nightmare; from the revelation. A voice yells at her, but she doesn’t understand it, all she hears is the bell ringing in her ears. The bell, ringing in her heart, fills her with dread.

He’s coming. They’ve found him. They’ve chosen him.

A pair of hands clutches her shoulders and she turns around in a panic, looking with wild, feral eyes at the small, shadow figure standing over her.

Crying, flailing, screaming, Fresh grabs Jubilee who is shaking her, talking to her in clear words she isn’t able to process right now and wraps her arms around them in a fearful embrace, heaving as she kneels forward, pressing her head into their shoulder to howl. Holding them, so that they can’t be taken away. Not just yet. Not just yet. Jubilee doesn’t fight her, simply placing a single hand around her, the other hanging awkwardly at their side, as they speak comforting words that simply never reach her.

Through tearful, burning eyes, Fresh looks up at the door to her room. At the pillar of glass that has ripped the door entirely off of its hinges and holds it aloft inside of the room. She looks at the hollow eyes of the reflection of the terrified girl in the glass, at the sockets that almost seem to be shadowed out and empty.

It shatters into a thousand pieces and the broken door falls down to the ground.

Fresh squeezes tighter, crying into Jubilee’s shoulder.